While visiting my brother he showed me some photos I can’t ever remember seeing. These photos were originally on slides but John had converted them to digital images and could show them to me on his television. Many of the photos were of John’s pride and joy: his tractors. He thinks he has a photo of every tractor he ever owned – except one.

While this was interesting, what really grabbed my attention was that several of the shots showed me aged between eight and fourteen. It triggered in my mind a desire to focus a little more on writing about my childhood days. Here is a largely untapped resource of experiences that I can use in my writing. It is a deep well of interesting and colourful incidents that can only enhance my writing.

A word of caution is needed. Approaching a topic like this in a dry, journalistic way would be of interest to no-one. Except perhaps immediate family. A more creative method is required if you are interest a broader readership. This is not a problem if you are only recording your experiences as part of your family heritage.

If you do desire a wider audience for these stories, why not try rewriting your life experiences as a child (or an adult for that matter) as fiction? Take that incident with the bull when you raided a neighbour’s paddock while picking mushrooms and turn it into an exciting escapade, complete with other characters who may or may not have been a part of the original story. Turning fact into fiction can release those creative juices and you will never know where the story will end up. It will surely be a more interesting read than a dry narrative account of the facts.

You never know: one or more of these stories might end up being the text for a children’s picture book, or included in a magazine or anthology.

Good writing.

I prefer to set some firm goals instead, especially in relation to my writing. I find this far more practical and achievable than some nebulous resolution. I shy away from airy-fairy resolutions like “I am going to be a better writer in 2011.” What does that mean? How do I achieve it? How can I measure how successful I’ve been?

My firm goals are often numerically based – so that they can be measured. For example, here are some of my writing goals for this coming year:

1. I plan to average 500 words per day. That’s over 180,000 words for the year – quite a significant figure.
2. I plan to average 3 hours of focussed writing per day. That’s well over 1000 hours for the year – another large number.
3. I plan to write and submit at least 20 short stories to magazines.
4. I plan to write and submit  at least 50 poems to magazines.
5. I plan to edit and submit 5 picture books to publishers.
6. I plan to edit and submit 3 novels to publishers.
7. I plan to write and post 200 articles on each of my 3 blogs.

That’s the plan at the moment. It may have to be adapted with changing circumstances but they give me something to aim at. I keep detailed records on each of the elements of my plans so it’s easy to see how I am going.

A special note about items #5 and #6 – the texts of these books have already been written. They just need editing, some rewriting and then submission. If I was to allow myself to have one resolution for 2011 it could be: “The year 2011 will be my year of getting published.” And knowing the way publishers work with their long lead times, this resolution may have to stretch into 2012 as well!

Further reading on this topic:

• Writing goals for 2009
• Archived articles about goal setting


Good writing – and may you achieve your goals too.

During the last month I have been busy finishing off my course work for my Master of Arts in Creative Writing . It has distracted me from blogging for quite a few weeks. Then I had a few days in hospital – kidney stones are no fun. This was followed almost immediately by a stay in hospital by my wife. She had a blood clot in her leg which also was far from fun. You could say we were helping to keep the local medical staff gainfully employed. We are both on the mend now.

During my enforced stay in bed I managed to do quite a few hours of reading – all the in line of background research for my thesis novel. The reading was accomplished despite the fog created by the morphine to quell the waves of pain.  Okay – I’ll come clean. I actually had to put the book down quite a few times and take frequent naps.

As I was reading, something triggered an interesting response in my foggy brain. I suddenly had an idea for the text of a picture book based on an experience our family had with a Koala many years ago. The story came to me in a flash – start to finish. That is quite amazing as the ideas I have often take many days – and sometimes weeks or even years – to find that satisfying ending.

Fortunately I had asked my wife to bring me my writing notebook to the hospital. Over the next few hours I jotted down the text of the picture book. Mind you, this is only a very rough first draft. It will probably need to go through many more drafts and rewriting before it is ready to send off to a publisher. Coming up with a unique idea is sometimes the hardest part of writing picture books. This was easy. The hard part will be in refining the text to a publishable standard.

Good writing.

]]> http://www.trevorhampel.com/writing-while-in-hospital/feed/ 1 http://www.trevorhampel.com/book-launch-the-wish-giver/ http://www.trevorhampel.com/book-launch-the-wish-giver/#comments Sat, 18 Oct 2008 10:37:49 +0000 Trevor http://www.trevorhampel.com/book-launch-the-wish-giver/ Yesterday I had the wonderful privilege of attending a book launch. Rosanne Hawke, one of my lecturers in my Master of Arts Creative Writing Course, is a writer of children’s books.  This new book is her 15th book to be published, and her third picture book.

The Wish Giver

Written by Rosanne Hawke and her daughter Lenore Penner.

Illustrated by Michelle Mackintosh.

Published by Windy Hollow Books.

The Wish Giver  is a delightful book for young children. The Wish Giver lives on “the biggest and brightest star.” His job is to make children’s wishes come true. Unfortunately he falls off the star and lands in Layla’s garden.

Layla has a problem. She has no friends and no-one will play with her at school. She wished she had some friends to play with. She helps the Wish Giver return to his star, and he in turn helps her to find some new friends to play with.

One of the privileges we had being in Rosanne’s class was getting a view of the printer’s proofs many weeks before publication. The book was launched by well known South Australian author Phil Cummings. One of the interesting aspects of this book was that Rosanne’s daughter Lenore was also credited as the joint author. The original story of the Wish Giver was written by Lenore as a high school assignment. It was this story that initially got Rosanne into writing. It was also very much a family event, with Rosanne’s grandchildren also present.

After leaving the launch my wife told me she had been taking notes on how to run a book launch. Rosanne, when signing our copy of the book, added: “It’ll be your turn next.”

Now it’s up to me to get some of my manuscripts off to publishers.

Good writing.

.

There are other benefits too. Writers are readers, first and foremost. If you are not a reader you will struggle to be an effective writer. Period. The picture book genre is a particularly demanding one. A very restricted word count means that every word is important. There has to be balance between the text and the illustrations. Some publishers require a strictly limited vocabulary while others have restricted themes or topics. It is a very competitive field and one that is hard to break into.

Half way through the first semester I had to write and submit the text of a 700 word picture book to the lecturer. The title changed several times during the editing period but it eventually became “Brave Alice,” the story of a little lamb who pretended not to be afraid. The idea came from seeing a flock of lambs frolicking in a paddock in the mid-north of our state (South Australia) about four years ago. The concept simmered away happily until crunch time came; I had to submit a text as an assignment. Would it be good enough? The lecturer – and my fellow students – were a part of the development process, all giving valuable feedback as I developed the text.

The final day came and I submitted the manuscript to the lecturer. A few weeks later I received it back: Distinction. I should not have worried. While that result was very satisfying for all the work put into the text, it counts for very little. The big test is to submit it to a publisher. The frightening prospect of the manuscript being returned still awaits me.

Perhaps I should be like Alice in my story: Be Brave!

One of the things that Rosanne impressed upon us from the very beginning was the importance of reading picture books – as many as we can get our hands on. I’ve always read plenty of picture books, first when I was a teacher librarian, and then as a classroom teacher.

When I retired from teaching four years ago I drifted away from reading picture books as regularly as I used to do. Rosanne has given me the impetus and reason for getting back into this exciting and enjoyable area of books. So once again I’ve reactivated the use of my library card and I am borrowing ten or fifteen a week to read. And I’m thoroughly enjoying the activity.

There is another incentive: we need to keep a reading log of what we are reading, as well as write some short reviews of the books we read. This is a required, assessable component of the course. It is a very enjoyable part of the course I might add.

Good writing.

Good reading.

We have a two week mid-semester break from lectures. It might be just enough time to catch my breath – and to catch up on a little reading, not to mention starting on that essential planning for assignments due at the end of the semester. Whoever called it holiday has to be kidding.

Several weeks ago I presented my first tutorial paper. I was a little apprehensive about whether I had addressed the question adequately. I need not have worried. A Distinction was a little higher than I had expected. It is very encouraging and gives me the courage to keep on studying hard. This week I handed up two more major assignments.

The first was a major work in poetry. Normally I write little more than 15 to 30 lines for most of my poems; many are shorter than that. This poem had to be between 50 and 100 lines, the longest poem I had ever attempted. I even managed to write it in iambic pentameter. I also wrote it in blank verse; I didn’t have the mental capacity to make it all rhyme. I was very happy with the result.

The second assignment handed up this week was the text of a picture book for children. At about 700 words it may seem easy. Wrong. It went through six intensive drafts over quite a period of time. Every word has to count. It is a very delicate and demanding art. Again, I was quite pleased with the result.

“There is no money in poetry, but then there’s no poetry in money, either.” Robert Graves.

I have heard that there are some countries where poets are highly regarded and appreciated, even revered and some even make a living from writing poetry. Australia is not one of those countries. Probably only two or three poets in Australia actually make any decent income from their works.

Publication of poetry is having something of a resurgence in recent years here. More magazines are publishing poetry and individual poets are getting their works into book form. Sadly, most of these books can only be published with government grants and most volumes are bought either by other poets or a few libraries.

I am generally an optimist. One thing I am hopeful about is that one day I will make some money from some of my poems. I have a number of poems written for children. I believe that they would make excellent picture books for young children. This is going to be tough. My lecturer at college advises not to write picture book texts in verse because very few ever get published.

That is just a challenge to me to prove everyone wrong.

Good writing.

“Easy reading is damn hard writing.” Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Writing that is easy to read is certainly hard to write.

Many misinformed people think they will start their writing career by writing picture book texts for children “because they are so simple they must be easy.” This assumption is totally wrong.

Have you ever tried to write a very simple text for four and five year olds with the following criteria?

• Have a limited vocabulary
• Write within a strict word count
• Tell an interesting story
• Be relevant to the needs and interests of children
• Be age relevant
• Be sparkling text
• Be socially inclusive, non-sexist, non-racist and non-everything
• Be innovative.

If you have, and been successful, then you don’t need to be reading this post.

In the early 1990s I wrote a series of texts for a publisher. These were for three to five year olds, and I know how difficult, challenging, exhausting and demanding it can be. Throw a publisher’s deadline into the mix and you will appreciate how hard it really can be.

With much practice in the art of writing you can make your writing appear easy.

It may appear easy, but the process is very hard.

Mem Fox is passionate about promoting children’s books and reading in particular. She is a strong advocate of the importance of parents reading to children from an early age.

She said if parents did not invest early in childhood reading their child would struggle in school. “I’m just getting crosser and crosser at those who are blaming teachers for their children not being able to read,” she said. “My main message is that parents should be reading to their children from the first weeks of their life. It only needs to be for 10 minutes [a day].”

I whole-heartedly agree with her. For 35 years I was a teacher of children mainly in the 6 to 9 age range. For eight of those years I was a teacher-librarian, a role where I could influence the classroom practices of teachers. But I was generally talking to the converted as most teachers know the benefits of parents reading to their children. Convincing the parents was a more difficult task.

Reading to and with children, especially pre-schoolers, is THE one very positive activity parents can do to ensure the future educational outcomes for their children.

It is not just important; it is crucial.

What do you think? Leave your comments about children and reading in the comments below.

Related articles:

• The importance of books
• The importance of books – more comments.
  
• The Queen tells children to read books