Encouraging Budding Authors

Many authors published their first books before they could vote. Encourage your child to write, you may have a tow headed Jean Little  tucked into those bedclothes upstairs!

4 Stumbling Blocks & Solutions


Long time- Little Reward It is very important to see the fruits of your labour. It’s very discouraging to only have a big hole in your paper after 15 minutes of trying to spell “Once”, In addition. getting your work in front of a real audience is all important.Read the following problems and solutions to bring the joy of writing into your household.

Problem: Painstakingly printing is a stumbling block for many young authors. The ideas flow faster than the pen and are lost before they make it to the page.
Solved-Use a recording device like professional authors tell rehearse their stories using a recording device, such as a tape recorder. Buy and sell shops carry used tape recorders that would be handy for this task. Another alternative is to use a speech recognition software application, such as Dragon Naturally Speaking.
Speech recognition software takes what your young author says into the microphone and converts it into typed words. Some programs need more training than others (like teaching a parrot to talk) We’ve found it both entertaining and frustrating listening to the read back of what the computer “thought it heard” (like talking with my father.) On the most part, I highly recommend it.
Problem: Being bogged down by mechanics Nothing like being excited about your work, then finding out “it’s all wrong”. ito destroy motivation. Grammar, spelling, punctuation etc. are very important. However, putting the cart before the horse can seriously impede a writer.
Solved: Think brainstorming and composing; not editing nor proofreading.  Substitute a pen, marker or crayon for the pencil, and write on every third or fourth line. An advantage of not erasing booboos is having a record of all your ideas.Use others' writing, especially at first, to practice mechanics.. Do revisions using physical cut and paste.  Speech recognition software also helps take the pain out of re-writes and prevents huge gaping holes in the paper, where that excellent idea once lay.
Problem: Great Idea-Gone! I’m sure there are many wonderful plotlines and poems  rubbed out by erasers or lost to power failures out there
Solution: Become an Idea Hoarder Authors swear by keeping even a shoe box of clippings that are personally interesting.. Save all drafts. The hit song “The night the Lights Went out in Georgia” was headed for the garbage, when it was retrieved by the author’s Ex. Writing online? Save a copy of all your drafts (use “Save as” and change the title to include a,b,c etc.) I once had a 10 page paper disappear into thin air when using “Save” during a power glitch.
Problem: Lots of Pain No Gain Writing reams is good practice, but most people are more motivated by public recognition.
Solved: Provide Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation Encourage your student to keep a chart of how many words, lines, or pages they wrote each day.  Help your young author get published. Be their editor and proof reader, and let them be yours. My eight year-old once pointed out an essential part of a plotline was missing from one of my prize-winning stories.  Get their work out into the wide world! There’s nothing like seeing your words in print, whether it’s a family newsletter, a blog comment,  a letter to the editor, or contest entry.
Ready for the big time? How about submitting to a book publisher?
Helpful Blogs:
Writer Pressed (my new blog listing publishers & writing tips)
Writing Kids (my new blog just set up for kids submitted writing)