Saturday, January 21, 2006

Encouraging Kids

My mother, finally recognizing that I'm a writer, sent me some kid's manuscript.

At nine years old, the kid tackled these themes: interracial marriage, abuse of immigrants, discrimination against foreigners and women, and then topped it off with broad themes of romance, death, and the issues that lead to a need to embrace self-determination. Damn, if the kid was only five years older, I'd be encouraging her to write for the Press. (She's eleven now.) She wrote a sweet story, and I read the whole short thing through looking for her conclusion.

Jessica was a helluva better writer at nine than I was at thirteen. I've written her a letter that I hope she keeps, about how important all our stories are, even when we write them as kids. My first novel, Dreamer, was populated by characters from my internal stories from when I was twelve or so (although they grew as I grew).

I hope Jessica keeps on. Poor kid, she has to wade through the teen years.

1 comment:

Elyssium Earth said...

Which will only reinforce her artistic potential/brilliance......