Writing Inspiration

Earlier this spring I started typing up the first part of my YA novel. However, I have not been writing in it consistently. Earlier I mentioned that I wanted to write a lot in June; however, then I signed up for summer school and I am still in my busy school mode. Once summer school is over I will be focusing a lot on planning for next year, and I will have to make a point of carving out time to focus on my personal goal of writing a complete novel, regardless of whether or not it eventually gets published.

This week a summer school discussion with my students gave me more motivation to put writing my book as a priority. For summer school I am teaching units from Inside, and my students had just watched a clip from the digital library about Gary Soto. One of the analysis questions was something like: "What do you think are some of the challenges that authors face?" While we were reflecting as a group one of my students asked how long it takes to write a book. I explained how there are a lot of factors, including whether or not the writer is a full-time writer or a writer who has a full time career.

The career comment reminded one of my students about how I mentioned that Ellen Jensen Abbott wrote Watersmeet with her students in mind and how I said that I was attempting to write my first novel. He wanted to know how my novel was going, and all of the others in the group started in with a load of questions too.

Because of this discussion I thought about how balancing time between writing and planning this summer will not only help me fulfill a personal goal, but it will also have great benefits for my classroom. Changing the discussion from any book to a book that I am trying write instantly captured their attention. I can also model for them to explain how I initially got my ideas, how my ideas evolved throughout the process, how I am taking my life experiences and twisting them into fiction (including inspiration from myself around their age through my old diaries), the role of my writer's notebook, and my revision process. I can also model for them receiving constructive criticism and have them take ownership in the final product by providing input. I am excited about the teaching points working on my own YA novel will add to our classroom community.