Young Writers! Archives - Page 2 of 3

Five More Writing Prompts for the Holidays

Hoping for some writing time over the next few weeks? Here’s some more prompts to get you started… A gift is delivered incorrectly to your home. It’s an intriguing shape. What do you (or your characters) do? Choose your genre.. is the gift magical? Sinister? Suggestive of an imminent crime? Do you open it – or is this a human story about what happens as you seek the rightful owner? Write for ten minutes without stopping, beginning with the following prompt: I packed a suitcase, the scent of winter in the air. Attempt a picture book for the holiday season. Your main character is a child who has never seen snow. Write about one of the first holiday seasons you can remember. How old were [...]

juliehartley2015-12-17T18:03:15-04:00December 17, 2015|Home Page, On Writing, The Finding Place, Young Writers!|

Writing Prompts for the Holidays!

Have some free time on your hands in the next few weeks, and want to get creative? Here are five prompts that might just help! 1. Write about a character alone and away from family for the first time ever during the holidays. Are they are alone by choice, or out of necessity? Where are they? What has happened? How do they spend their day? If you have time to write for a longer period of time, ensure your character undergoes some form of transformation in the course of your writing. Their perspective and emotional state is quite different, by the end. 2. Ever had the feeling, during a snow storm, that the snow is never, ever going to stop? Write about a time when [...]

juliehartley2015-12-10T19:17:54-04:00December 10, 2015|Home Page, On Writing, The Finding Place, Young Writers!|

Five Editing Tips for Young Writers

So you love to write, you’ve finished your first draft of a short story (or maybe something longer) – but how do you make your work as good as it can be? A circle of writing friends to nurture and critique your work is fairly important, because we all reach a point where we think our work is as good as it can be, and we can’t see potential weaknesses ay more. But there are a few things you can do for yourself as you start to edit your first draft: The ‘was’ edit! Do a search for the word ‘was’ and replace, where possible, with more direct and active verbs. Consider the difference between: “The girl was standing by the door, waiting for him [...]

juliehartley2015-11-11T19:39:42-04:00November 11, 2015|On Writing, The Finding Place, Young Writers!|

Why I Love to Write for Children

When my daughter was about six or so, we were walking in a forest. It was mid morning. She paused, looked up through the trees and saw the faint outline of a moon in the sky. She turned to me, wary and suspicious. “That should not be there,” she said. I was reminded of a similar feeling I had had at about the same age. I was walking home from school on my own, because that was still something six year olds could do, back then. Cutting across a park, I saw what was probably a carpet of mist and dew caused by English fog. I was certain, however, that it was an endless network of spider-like webs, suffocating the world. I ran home as [...]

juliehartley2015-11-04T16:28:25-04:00November 4, 2015|Home Page, On Writing, Parenting, The Finding Place, Young Writers!|

Writing Beyond the First Draft

When I was a teenager, I didn’t know anyone else who wanted to write. I felt lonely and different, sitting in my bedroom, tapping out novels on my manual typewriter, while other teenage girls I knew spent their weekends hanging out in each other’s houses, talking about music and boys. I grew up in the North of England in a working class steel town where most kids saw me as fairly bizarre. The experience was profound, because without it, I wouldn’t have worked so hard to create communities for artistic kids. I wouldn’t have known how important it was that such places existed. But there is danger in thinking you are the only one. I didn’t know anyone else who wanted to be writers, so [...]

juliehartley2015-10-26T15:21:22-04:00October 26, 2015|Home Page, On Writing, Parenting, The Finding Place, Young Writers!|

To Self-Publish… or Not

This week, I was invited to give a talk at the Muskoka Author’s Association in Bracebridge. The audience comprised writers and people of all ages who hoped to publish work in the future. They asked me to tell the story of writing and publishing The Finding Place. When I told them how many years I’d been writing before having anything accepted for publication, one of the participants asked: why didn’t you ever think of self publishing? I thought I’d address that question here. Self-publishing is a far more respected and viable avenue for a writer than it ever was before, and a route chosen by a vast number of authors. In my view, though, it’s only a viable option if you have (or can develop) [...]

juliehartley2015-10-19T15:48:34-04:00October 19, 2015|On Writing, The Finding Place, Young Writers!|

Signing Books at Word on the Street, Toronto!

The wonderful thing about book signings, I’m discovering, is that you have the opportunity to meet all sorts of interesting readers! This weekend, signing at Word on the Street (the biggest literary festival in Canada) I met everyone from the grandfather of an international adoptee who bought the book to read himself before giving it to his grandson, to an 8 year old gifted student who told me she’d finish my book in an evening, to a librarian looking to add books to her school’s underfunded library. Readers of all ages from 8 to somewhere in their 90s! It was about so much more than signing a book – it was a chance to connect. I really hope some of those people will connect with [...]

juliehartley2015-09-29T01:35:34-04:00September 29, 2015|On Writing, The Finding Place, Young Writers!|

Why Do Some Young People NEED to Write?

Sometimes, parents of our campers tell us they are at a loss to understand their child. Brothers, sisters and cousins play hockey and soccer. They go to the same camps their parents went to as children. Then, there’s the young arts enthusiast. The child who wants to play music, act, make films, paint… or write. For some parents, this son or daughter may be tougher to understand. What drives them? Why do they need to do what they do? For these kids – the ones who stand out as being different in a family – going to an arts camp or taking creative workshops in the evenings after school can be life changing. It’s not only a way to develop their interests and talents. It’s [...]

juliehartley2015-09-17T13:33:52-04:00September 17, 2015|On Writing, Parenting, Young Writers!|

The Finding Place: Released Today!

Yes, it has finally arrived… the official release date for The Finding Place is today! My book is for sale in stores. It’s online at amazon.ca and on Indigo/Chapters. The Book Launch is planned for Sunday (come join us for a reading, and a celebration!). I’ve already received several emailed and online reviews. And now the official launch date is here! Rather than blog today, I’m posting a Synopsis below. If you read my novel, please do let me know what you think! And please contact me if you are interested in bringing me in to your school, community, library or book club. You can email me directly at: julie (‘at’ sign here) centauriartscamp (dot)com The big adventure starts today! Synopsis: The Finding Place Found as a baby [...]

juliehartley2015-09-15T17:36:33-04:00September 15, 2015|Home Page, On Writing, The Finding Place, Young Writers!|

Four Days to Go… and some photographs
Four Days to Go… and some photographs

Home Page, On Writing, The Finding Place, Young Writers!

Four Days to Go… and some photographs

Just four days to go now until the official release date for The Finding Place! I received an email today from a 9 year old who may well be one of the first children to read the book. She told me she had to read it secretly in class when her teacher wasn’t watching because she couldn’t put it down. That’s the sort of email all writers must love receiving. I try to imagine how I would have felt as the teacher… and I know that if I ‘caught’ a student sneak-reading in class I don’t think I would have been angry at all. It’s hardly the same thing as making paper aeroplanes. Anyway, here are some more photos I have to share of magical [...]

juliehartley2015-09-11T14:39:01-04:00September 11, 2015|Home Page, On Writing, The Finding Place, Young Writers!|