I would like to thank the students of Melony Kempf’s classes for being so engaged and interested in my talk this morning at Pflugerville Middle School. I had fun and hope you all did too.
I talked about how I started writing when I was a little kid and wrote lots when I was in middle school and high school. I brought one of my typewritten short stories from when I was 15 years old, and told the kids they probably had never seen anything typewritten before. I also brought a selection of magazines with my short stories and of course copies of Red Gold Bridge and Gordath Wood.
I gave my writing “rules:” write every day. Commit, don’t give up. Keep everything. Get to the end. You have a writing brain and an editing brain. Don’t try to edit as you go, because you will only hurt your feelings.
I told them that all the entertainment that they enjoy — video games, books, and music — all start with the written word.
We talked about rejections, and they were suitably impressed by the 45-50 rejections I got for Gordath Wood.
And we talked about favorite books. They like Twilight, the Hunger Games, a new book called Unwind, which sounds absolutely fascinating and I must pick it up, so thanks to the kids who recommended it, and Uglies. One young lady is a fan of John Grisham. There were also the Alex Rider series, James Patterson, and Lightning Thief.
People say kids don’t read. Pshaw.
Thanks again, everyone, and read on!
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