We’re All in This Together: What’s So LOVELY About Writing for Children?

It’s a month of love. February: when we’re supposed to celebrate the ones we love and buy them expensive flowers and chocolates. Some of us would rather have books (at least Sue and I would). I asked our WAITT group the following question in honor of Valentine’s Day.

What is your favorite part about being a children’s writer? We are a mix of published and unpublished writers, but I know it’s not about being rich and famous. What is it about writing that keeps you writing? What do you LOVE about writing for children? 

 

Carol Munro

www.carolmunrojustwritewords.com

Freelance writer since 1996

When I first began writing picture books, it was when I was immersed in reading them to one of my sons. I loved them as works of art that combined the literary with the visual. I loved the stories they told. I loved that writing picture books was so challenging.

For me, it was all about learning the craft. Until recently. Something shifted, and now I feel I’m more focused on what story to tell rather than telling a story well. Craft is still important, and while I always had the audience in mind, now it’s more in the forefront of my conscious as I come up with ideas and decide which to write.

So what do I love about writing for children? The children.

Sue Heavenrich

Blogging about science and nature at Archimedes Notebook

http://archimedesnotebook.blogspot.com/

My favorite thing about being a children’s writer – it gives me a great excuse to read kid’s books! Don’t bother with the sampler box of chocolates this Valentine’s Day – just give me a gift card to the nearest bookstore. Oh … you mean the reason I love to write! That would be to get kids off the couch and out the door to build a catapult for snowballs or blow soap bubbles in below-freezing weather. It’s science!

Robyn Campbell

Writer of giggilicious books

RobynCampbell.com

I write for the children. I want to make sure they have wholesome, giggilicious books to read. There are so many kids who don’t want to read and that’s a sorrowful thing to me. I figure if I can write stories that will make them love reading, then I’ve definitely done my job. Boys need books. They don’t read stories with girl main characters as much as girls are willing to read stories with boy main characters. So, I want to write some funny stories with boy leads to give these children something to cherish. I write for girls too though! Ha. It all comes down to a love for children mixed with a love to tell stories. Shake those things together and you’ve recipe for a really good read!

Amie Rose Rotruck

www.amieroserotruck.com

I’ve always loved putting things together.  Jigsaw puzzles, Legos, Ikea bookshelves, stained glass.  I’m fond of reorganizing and am never happier when I have a new purse in which to put things.  Something about finding just the right place for things gives me a sense of accomplishment, peace and excitement.

I’ve found over the years that nothing pleases me more than then what I call the “Ahah!” moment in writing.  Usually it doesn’t happen when I’m actually writing, but just thinking about a project.  For example, when I was coming up with a plot summary for “Bronze Dragon Codex,” I first needed a character.  Upon the recommendation of my future editor, I read the latest Dragonlance novels to look for a minor character that I could use as a main character in my book.  I read 7 books and none of the characters jumped out at me.  Finally, in book 8, I found my character: Tatelyn, whose brother was killed by a zombie dragon animated by an evil sorceress.

Tatelyn leaped off the page at me.  What I found so interesting about her was the fact that her brother was killed by the animated corpse of a GOOD dragon, not an evil one.  I wondered how that would affect her impressions of all dragons. Then I wondered about a good dragon who had reason to hate humans … and Simle was born.

Here is why I love working in worlds that I know well.  Because I knew the original Dragonlance stories so well, I was able to bring elements of those books into my own.  I won’t go into detail so people won’t be spoiled for the book, but it was like finding pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.  The more I planed the story, the more pieces fell into place.  I find that I enjoy fitting the “existing” pieces into my work than creating new ones.  It’s a fun game that shows up a lot in work-for-hire, but I also encounter it when working on my own work.

These days I’m particularity fond of writing historical fantasy (sometimes steampunk, sometimes not).  I get the same thrill from finding some piece of history: a legend, a map, an event, an anecdote that just simply BELONGS in my story.  The best moment I ever had was driving do a writer’s retreat and all of a sudden a folktale sprung to mind that just fit perfectly in the sequel for “Thread.”  I just started laughing, it was just too perfect.  It was magic.  And that magic is why I keep writing.

Alayne Kay Christian

Author of  “Butterfly Kisses for Grandma and Grandpa”

http://www.alaynekaychristian.wordpress.com

Represented by Erzsi Deak, Hen&ink Literary Studio

I have a variety of things that motivate me to write, but they all add up to my loving devotion to the craft.

1. The stories come to me. I believe they come to me for a reason. Given that belief, I have no choice but to write them.
2. I love watching my characters come alive and seeing them solve their problem or reach their desired goal. This is great motivation to write. It is like seeing a movie in your head and wanting to know how it ends.
3. More motivation comes from the dream that my characters and their stories will live on in a book for children and sometimes adults to enjoy. I’m also driven by the dream that in the process of enjoying my books, people’s lives might be touched in some way.

MY STRONGEST MOTIVATOR. . . .

I often relate manuscript submissions to fishing. One of the reasons I do this is because writing and striving to get my manuscript accepted gives me the same drive that I have when I fish. I have a t-shirt that might help demonstrate what writing means to me.

When it comes to writing, I have this internal drive that I truly can’t explain. If I were a better artist, I would have created a new version of my t-shirt by putting the skeleton behind a computer. And the caption would have been “One More Story” or “One More Submission.”

Maybe it’s my stubborn, type-A personality that drives me to “prove” I can do it. Maybe it’s the desire to re-experience what I did with my first picture book’s success that keeps me going. Maybe it’s the peace that I receive from losing myself in the writing that makes me love it so. Or it could be my internal knowing that this is my destiny. One thing I’m certain of is that just like I don’t give up fishing when I catch a fish, I will never stop writing no matter how many manuscripts I sell. And just as I don’t give up fishing when I spend a peaceful day on the lake without one fish to show, I will never stop writing because of rejections. I guess that could be called true love.

Donna L Sadd

VARIED POSTS FROM A GAL WHO WANTS TO BE A WRITER WHEN SHE GROWS UP!

http://donnalsadd.wordpress.com/blog

That’s an easy one…I LOVE writing for children because I can be a kid everyday!

 

EW Clark

YA & MG novelist

ewclark.net

 

I think this is a hard question — by that I mean I don’t think my answer is very good!  I love writing for middle grade and young adult readers because I think it’s such an interesting time — so many things are established or resolved (or unresolved!) at those ages, that determine a lot of what happens to people in adult-adulthood, determines a lot of what kind of people they become.  But it’s also, of course, just where my voice is … just where I’m most at home.

Vivian Kirkfield

Writer for children – Reader forever
http://www.viviankirkfield.com

With young children, everything is new again. What fun it is to see the world through their unjaded and innocent eyes. I love writing for kids because they are so appreciative of something that is funny or beautiful or sad or silly.With a little encouragement, five-year olds will invent amazingly creative stories…but what most love best is to sit for hours, listening to you read one book after another. They are like sponges, soaking up the words and images. And that’s why I love to write for them. Oh, and I get to wear jammies every day.:)

Marcie Flinchum Atkins

Children’s and YA Writer

www.marcieatkins.com

I want to write the stories that kids will remember for a long time. There are  books that I read as a kid that I still remember so vividly: ANNE OF GREEN GABLES, CHARLOTTE’S WEB, Shel Silverstein’s poetry. They comforted me when I went through an illness that kept me out of school for a month. They kept me company when it was too dark to play outside (and we didn’t have TV). They kept me busy on vacations where there was nothing to do but sit on  the beach and read. I  remember reading through our elementary library as a kid in Thailand. I remember Paula Danziger and Judy Blume and Beverly Cleary and so many more.

Now I see my own kids falling in love with books so much that they’re becoming part of our everyday language. We call our preschooler a “naked mole rat” when he goes to take a bath because we love NAKED MOLE RAT GETS DRESSED by Mo Willems. My son has been making up new verses for IF IT’S SNOWY AND YOU KNOW IT, CLAP YOUR PAWS by Kim Norman. They sing TRUCKERY RHYMES by Jon Scieszka.

I write for children because I want to write the book that a kid wants to hear again and again. I want to write the book that keeps a kid up past her bedtime because she’s reading with a flashlight.

That means, I must spend some more time writing. I have much to do.