Ignite Your Writing Fire!

Hope you like the title of today's blog entry! That's because Ignite Your Writing Fire! is the title of the presentation I did this morning at the Montreal Children's Library, Atwater branch. 

It's a big week here in Montreal: the Blue Metropolis Literary Festival kicked off today and runs through April 29. My events at the library was one of the several writing workshops I'll be doing this week with kids at the festival.

Most of this morning's audience was made up of Grades Five and Six students from Westmount Park School. I know I shouldn't pick favourites, but well, sometimes a person can't help it! I couldn't get my camera (it's actually my husband's) to work, but two clever guys sitting at the front helped me out. Thanks, guys! Then, when I asked the question, "What do writers need to do pretty much all the time?" a student named Daham came up with a great answer: "Practice!" (I showed the kids my Journal, and explained that I got up extra early this morning to write three pages in it -- the way I do every single morning!)

We talked about doing research, revising (the students have learned all about editing, which is pretty impressive for Grades Five and Six!) and how some stories start with a bit of truth. I gave them the example of my book, Junkyard Dog. I got the idea for the book when I met a guard dog who worked at a local convenience store.

I wish there'd been even more time because I would also have read a little from my latest book, Pyro.

There were some adults who came to listen to my talk, too. One was Candace B., who volunteers at the library. Candace stayed to ask me how much research a fiction writer needs to do. I told her, "Research as needed!" I pointed out how the danger of research is that some people spend so much time researching, they never do any actual writing!!

So the word for today is WRITE. Actually, it's three words: WRITE WRITE WRITE. That's basically what you need to do if you want to write stories. Or as Daham said, "Practice!"

Hey, special thanks to my friend, librarian Elizabeth Macdonnell, for welcoming me to the Montreal Children's Library. I feel right at home in your library and with you, Elizabeth! Thanks also to the students from Westmount Park, and to their teachers. Hope you had a fun morning and learned a lot about how stories work!