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Lin Oliver’s keynote speech at the Spring SCBWI conference was filled with gems. Many were things we’ve heard before. But some took me from “duh” to “aha!”
Her writing tip from Bruce Coville was one of those: Follow your weirdness.
For me, weirdness speaks to the use of humor. I never
advanced past 4th grade humor. Weird. I love most to write for
middle grade readers and throw as much weird humor their way as I can.
But weirdness is not limited to humor. An unknown world
filled with dragons, house elves and pus-filled tubor plants? Weird.
Vampires that drink animal blood instead of human blood?
Weird.
A talking donkey who can’t keep his tail pinned to his bum?
Weird.
But wonderful. And delightful to children.
Lin’s point spoke to me about fear. We are creative.
We do come up with unconventional ideas. But some of us corral our muse
and tie her to the railroad tracks. As a result, instead of peanut-popping
puffer fish, our stories end up with pink-eyed bunnies who only get mad enough
to occasionally raise the dust when they stamp their dainty foot.
Now if those bunnies’ eyes turned green and the dust was
actually smoke because of the flames shooting out of their fluffy white tails,
and spoke only in haiku, we’d have a weird, but creative and unconventional
character.
What’s the worst that could happen if you embraced your
weirdness and wrote a story that was weirder than weird? You’d have a whole
bunch of words you might not use.
Or you might have a story that would delight children.
PRAYER: Heavenly
Father, thank you for making us just the way we are. Thank you for the
creativity you have gifted us with. Please show us ways today to celebrate and
use our creativity to glorify you. Amen.
WHAT ABOUT YOU?
How do you celebrate your weirdness?
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This article recently ran in the Northern California regional newsletter for the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI).
10 comments:
lol... ok, we're on the same wavelength here Carol. Mine strange humor seems to come and go... right at the moment I'm spot on though working on a bingy one for tomorrow :-)
Celebrate creativity... and weirdness... we're all a little off in our own way :-)
LOL Loved your celebrate weirdness! Weird always reminds me of my mother. I once wrote about this. My sister and her son lived with my mother for several years after my dad died. My nephew would always say, "Nonnie, you're weird!" He meant it lovingly. Her response? I'm not weird; I'm just peculiar!" I'll have to develop my weirdness, er, let it show! Thanks for another great post, Carol!
@ Chris and Lynn - I love the "idiosyncrasies" of people...usually. Imagine if God made us all the same. Boring!
Fun post.
I think you are on to something. Weirdness is definitely a useful tool in writing stories for children.
Thanks Adam. Personally, I think weirdness benefits all forms of writing to some extent. It's about thinking outside the box. Cheers!
Hi Carol, I enjoyed this post. It truly made me smile, because I can be incredibly weird. LOL I never thought about celebrating that fact. Due to incredible pressure to conform, weirdness is something I have enjoyed (mostly) in the privacy of my own mind. My family knows. When they see a certain goofy smile on my face, or a look in my eye, they say, "Uh, Oh!" Thanks for this encouragement. Now if I can harness this "gift" so I don't go run wild ... :)
Uh, so I don't let it run wild.
@ Sandi - LOL - so glad to hear you're weird, too. But I caution you: don't try to harness the gift. You might get tangled in the reins...
I haven't celebrated my weirdness before, but after reading this, methinks I shall. Maybe that's why the younger crowd likes my writing. I never looked at it that way before.
@ Deborah - we're all a little weird so we might as well celebrate the fact!
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