Encourage a Young Writer

Tomorrow, April 10, 2022, is National Encourage a Young Writer Day. To contribute to this day, I will share one of the creative inspirations from my childhood.

I am often asked, “where do your story ideas come from?” The truth is that it usually begins with one small spark of an idea and grows from there. This spark might be a world, a character, or even a character trait, and then I build it out by asking questions.

“That is a cool world idea. Who might live there?”

“I would love to have such a superpower. What might someone do with it?”

Early Storytelling

Some of my earliest stories were told with my sister as we played with our pony town growing up. Though I struggle to remember all of them now, each pony had a name, personality, job, and family. They lived in a world of our creation and interacted with each other through a make-believe daily life.

We had a royal family and a dashing fireman. Strawberry loved to bake crumpets to go with Mrs. Pots’s tea. Tic Tac Toe was the bad boy of the children, while his father, Parrot, was the smooth talker with the adult ladies. Butterfly had an attitude, often butting heads with Boat, but all the children helped out with the babies.

These are still some of my favorite memories, and I’m certain their lives have influenced my work. To all the writers out there, what is one of your childhood inspirations? For all the young writers out there, don’t be afraid to tell the story.