You want to write a book for children. Your head is filled with an interesting character, or you've thought up a gripping plot. Perhaps you've been inspired by a place or situation. But transferring your thoughts from your imagination to paper seems a huge and impossible task. How exactly do you start?
Sit down and Do It
Learning to write is like learning to ride a bicycle. You can read up on technique, but the learning only really begins once you're actually sitting on that bicycle seat. And getting it right means trying, falling off, climbing back on, getting a puncture, fixing it and trying again. And one day it all seems easy and you wondered why you ever thought it was hard. Writing is much the same. The more you do, the easier it becomes, and the stronger your own individual voice grows.
Write Every Day
If you want to write, make a commitment to practicing every day. Set yourself a goal of one thousand words a day. If time is short and you know you can’t manage a thousand words, commit to 800 or even 600 words. The important thing is that you do it every day.
All Writing is Practice
Sometimes you may have to write a thousand words every day for ten days before suddenly, on day eleven, the characters come alive, and you know this is a story that is going somewhere. But those first days have not been wasted. They are your mind sorting out what it wants to say.
Think of it like warming up before a sporting event. It’s never wasted, and will improve your performance once the event begins.
To Plan or Not to Plan
Some writers plan each chapter and do a detailed study of each character before they start to write a single word. Other writers simply sit down and start writing, without planning or thinking too much about it, and let their subconscious tell them the story.
Find Your Ideal Way
Both ways work. You have to find which one suits you and your style of writing. For a commissioned book, or if you are entering a competition with strict length and theme guidelines its best to do some planning upfront, to make sure your story fits within the brief given by the publisher.
Don't be Too Critical of Yourself
Those first words you put to paper may seem weak when you read them again. You may feel like throwing them away and starting another story. But resist the temptation. This is just a first draft. It's not meant to be polished or perfect. It's the beginning sketch, not the final oil painting. What is important is that you get the whole story down on paper in first draft form. You can revise it later.
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