Creative Writing

As a tween I wrote a four page outline for a fantasy novel. It opened with Pirates, and centered around strong female characters, one a spy from the evil Pirate country who kidnapped three princesses. The princesses escape through an extensive cave system and are rescued after a dramatic fire onboard a ship.

It was exactly the kind of book I liked to read at the time- my favorite books were The Chronicles of Narnia - so when I’d finished the story and knew what happened, it was as though I’d finished reading the book and so it was never “written.” However, I still have hand-drawn maps of the countries, the clothing each character wore, cultural references (‘facts’ like Isailand ships had tapestry sails to show the name of the boat).

Writing is FUN. Inventing things, making things up, telling a story, making a whole world filled with charaters I’d like to be (I will never be a pirate king…) is a fantastic ride.

But us adults, oh, we’re so practical. We stop ourselves from experiencing the joy of creation because we don’t have a RESULT we’re aiming for. We don’t have a goal. But here is a blog that tells you what to do with your book once you’ve done with it.

Now, picture yourself with your finished book and creative thing. Open it. Mine is a hardcover, 12×12, filled with drawings. Some are black and white line drawings, some are coloured watercolours, others are collages, and they are pictures of people, elaborate costumes, random objects puzzled together, and it is called Trap Door. It’s a graphic novel and a coffee table book and there’s so many little details in the drawings you’ll always come back to find more. So far it actually has about 10 pages.

And then go to Guide to Literary Agents and get yourself an agent and then publish it. Do I need to mention that the learning here could also be applied to artist agents as well?