The Storyteller | Mary Vee

So, I am at the Blue Ridge Mountain Christian Writer's Conference east of Asheville, North Carolina. Like the previous years when I attended this conference, the instructors provided all and more than I needed. I have learned so much.  But the week hasn't been easy. I struggled while dragging my suitcase up the hill from my car and into my assigned room because my arm was not fully healed from the break in February. Lifting my laptop out of my bag hurt. Typing took a lot of effort. Holding the tray in the food line became a crazy balancing act. Every topic we discuss here on Let's Talk revolves around the idea: Never Give Up Stories. We all have issues that pop into our life and drag our spirit down for a time. The length of that time is always a variable. Perhaps you have an issue at this moment. Something that has taken the pizzazz out of your day. I went to an occupational therapist yesterday. Apparently, the tendons near the bone I broke aren't healing at

So many children end up spending a long time in hospitals. I was one. I spent my entire Kindergarten year in a hospital. Some of these little darlings pop in and out of hospitals over a long time. Nursing staff know them on a first name basis as they walk in the door. Sigh. I saw this wonderful new idea to help these little ones. I took a little screen shot of one photo to give you an idea. This link has the full art to help explain the idea: dad-turns-board-games-into-bed-sheets-so-sick-kids-arent-bored The product is called Playtime Edventures and it was designed and created by a dad. Kevin Gatlin came up with the idea after visiting a friend's child in the hospital. The kid was bored beyond belief. Kevin's heart and mind was stirred. Apparently the idea sparked from watching his wife play games with their children while in bed.  It took him two years to perfect the idea into the product today. His goal was to not only edtertain, but make the games educational

Photo by Mary Vee Today we are talking about accents around the world. While working with a Crow Indian people group, I noticed the children barely had the accent of their parents'. I mentioned this to a linguistics student and learned an individual's accent comes mostly from the child's school and neighboorhood friends.  T he child spends the majority of their formative time in the schoolroom and playing in the neighborhood. As they speak, he or she is corrected by their teacher and peers. The peers tend to correct during everyday play and offer the community's slang and idioms. The teacher tends to offer something closer to correct grammar with an added ingredient, his or her own accent, cultural idioms, and slang. So, when my sister came home with her family after serving as missionaries in Wales, she had taken on such phrases as "I will phone you," instead of "I will call you," etc. A few of her sentences had the sing-songy raise at th

Student created Fantasy Map Photo by Mary Vee Last week I drove 40 hours on a book tour. While on my book tour, I was invited to speak to 6 classes. Rather than lecture the students, I chose to engage them in an activity. A map making activity. Most fantasy novels have a map in the beginning pages of the book. The purpose is to acquaint the reader with the fictional land where the story takes place.  After hours of studying the fantasy mapmakers on Instagram and practicing the techniques, I had a good grasp of the concept and made the map found in the beginning pages of my new fantasy book, Fire and Thorn . Here is the how to Make a Medieval/Fantasy map in a nutshell. Photo by Mary - Fantasy Maps 1. Make a border along the four edges of your paper. Many old maps, like treasure maps, end up with torn or yellowed edges. To protect the vital parts of the map, the border is drawn. Make it about 1/2" thick. Photo by Mary Vee Students creating F