To the Crazy Kids of Cambridge School . . .
Okay, so I’m really really sorry I haven’t written anything yet! But I’ve been working very hard on a project for a very important client, and yesterday I was in the office for eleven hours straight! That’s why I wasn’t able to come to see The Christmas Carol — I probably got home later than you did! I wish I could have been there, but I hope you’ll forgive me and invite me to your next play.
You guys were a blast! I had so much fun meeting each and every one of you — and Mrs. Jiggle-Piggle too! Okay, so my “Love, Learn, and Live” exercise needs some work, but the writing game with the dice was a lot of fun, wasn’t it? (And wasn’t that a cool dice?)
Hope the rest of Literature Fest was fun. Please say hi to Ms. Thober and thank her and the other teachers who put the event together. They’re doing a great job of teaching you with wisdom and compassion. You’re very lucky kids to have such great people to take care of you!
Keep you chin up, always!
Paul
December 8th, 2006 at 4:10 pm
Hi Mr.Pual,
Its Christa from Cambridge!!! I had so much fun when you came! I love to write, I have tried to write before but I either get to busy or don’t now what to say next. I am looking forward to going to the book store and buying your book and reading it!! Well I had sooooooooooooooo much fun when you came.
Christa *
December 10th, 2006 at 9:03 am
Hi, Christa! Thanks for your note. I’m glad you had fun too. Being at Cambridge all day with budding writers, artists, musicians, dancers was a real treat!
The two biggest challenges every writer faces are getting busy doing other things, and getting stuck for words. You’re in good company! Everyone including Stephen King and John Grisham get stuck every now and then, or take a break to go play with the cat. My advice is to make a bargain with yourself: say that you will sit down and write for fifteen minutes, no matter what comes out, even if it’s just “I don’t have anything to write” twenty times. Then at the end, see if you can bargain for fifteen more minutes. Then just fifteen more.
Do that for a week. The next week, take the chunks up to a half an hour at a time. The week after that, an hour. Don’t make chunks over an hour, otherwise you won’t have time do do your homework and chores! If it’s hard to do an hour, take it back to a half hour. If half hours are hard, do fifteen minutes. No matter how much or how little time, the trick is to block out time that you can concentrate. No matter how long. Your writing — and you — deserve the attention!
I hope you like my book. As a fellow-writer, I’m interested to hear what you think about it, so please feel free to leave a comment and tell me!
Good luck with your writing…
Paul
December 14th, 2006 at 8:37 pm
Hi Mr.Paul,
Thanks for the advice, I am going to start to write a book but i am having trouble thinking of what to write about. But I do love to play sports so I think i will write about sports.And I love to hang out with friends. So i am going to write about. Have any ideas?????? Well I have to go do homework (darn!!).
Christa-One of the Crazy Kids from Cambridge
December 15th, 2006 at 10:02 am
Hi, Christa! Sounds like you have a good theme for the story: sports and friends. Now here’s what you can do next to get started:
1) Pick your main characters. Just two or three of the most important characters at first. Write a page on each of them so that you get to know them — what they look like, their habits, how they dress, things they like to do. That helps them become “real” in your mind.
2) Now think about how you want each of them to change by the end of the story. Do you want your hero to learn an important lesson about life? To save the team from defeat in the last moments of the game? To *lose* the game after everyone was expecting her to be the MVP? Or to discover that she was a better player than everyone thought?
3) Now think about how she gets from “point A” to “point B.” You need to invent the means by which your hero goes from being the basic person you made up in step 1) to the changed person in step 2). This process of change — drumroll please — is called the plot.
Number 3) can be the hardest part, but sometimes it can surprise you how easy it is. If you create your characters well, they’ll act out the whole plot by themselves — all you have to do is watch and write it down “live!” That’s what happened to me in “Seeing Through Clouds.”
The trick is to get to know your characters as well as you know the hero in your favorite TV show or your favorite book. They become so believable that you immediately know how they’ll react or behave if you put them in a situation. If you’ve ever said, “Oh, he’d never say that!” when watching a show or reading a book, then you know how to create a character.
Because once you know the character well, you can put them in any made-up situation and then sit back and watch them act as if your imagination was a TV or movie.
How about starting with a short scene — two or three pages, nothing huge — using the three steps above. 1) Make up two characters who are soccer players on the school team (or pick your favorite sport). 2) This is where they have to end up: they learn what it means to be good losers. 3) Here’s the plot: they’re about to play a team that they always beat because they’re not very good, and everyone in the school teases and taunts the other team because of it.
Think about the complexities for a little bit and then start with step 1) and see where your imagination leads you!
Happy writing!
Paul