Writer’s Boot Camp

Or should that be Writer’s Book Camp?

Students from Veritas school in Newberg arranged for me to speak one afternoon of their week-long writing intensive. What a fun group of kids. I believe all of them were going into 8th or 9th grade, and belong to a critique group together at one time or another. As I expected, most focus on writing speculative or fantasy.

I gave them a short version of my “journey to publishing success.” Then we broke for a healthy snack of some kind of luscious cake with marshmallows, honey grahams, and chocolate smothering it. They had me at “cake.” 😉

We spent the next two hours discussing the most common problems I see in my editing business and how to fix those issues. I also recommended my favorite five writing books.

For a writing exercise, I asked them to pick something or someone in the room, write a scene from that Point of View (POV), include a disaster (natural or otherwise), and to portray an emotion without labeling it.

What resulted was a hilarious series of stories told from other students POVs, or from a ceramic figurine, or even the couch pillow as tsunamis, earthquakes, and werewolves wreak havoc. And in almost every story, a student named AJ ended up screaming like a little girl.

Great kids, great food … I have a great job!