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What Every Writer Needs

Whenever I'm asked what advice I have for those interested in writing for children, I always answer that I've never met a writer I admire who wasn't also a reader.  But beyond reading widely and having an insatiable curiosity about life and words, I try to acknowledge that writers also need three things that they sometimes learn in unexpected ways:

1. 1.As a parent dealing with my bonny children, or when I found that my daughter's 18-pound Genghis Khan rabbit had chewed his way through the vacuum cleaner cord, I learned about patience.
   

2. 2.As a teacher faced with twenty-five kindergartners who didn't have correct change for milk money, and later, as an English professor with endless papers to grade, I quickly learned about discipline.
   

3. 3.And as a poet, still entranced with a craft for which there is (happily) no end of learning, I learned that good writing required one's absolute commitment.
   

4. Patience, discipline, commitment—these are the things you need.
   

5. Good luck with your work, and do let me know when you meet with success.

Before I begin writing a story, I'm like a magpie, always collecting things.  Generally, a phrase or image rattles around in my head until a story forms around it.  (I like to think of it as a grain of sand in an oyster, but it often feels more like a barnacle stuck to the bottom of a ship.)  But after a story is finished, what every writer needs is basic, nuts and bolts, practical information.  The For Writers pages contain the things that I wish someone had told me before I published my very first book.

            Where Can I Find Information?

            Frequently Asked Questions

            Interactive Mail—About Writing

Nuts and Bolts for Writers

Illustration©Lynn Munsinger