I became a children's author by accident.
From Jerry Spinelli
I've been writing since I was sixteen. At first, I wrote mostly short stories and poetry. The first thing I ever had published was a poem about a football game. It was printed in my local newspaper.
My first four books were not published because nobody wanted them. They were adult books, not kids' books.
I don't really write for adults or kids - I don't write for kids, I write about them. I think you need to do that; otherwise, you end up preaching down. You need to listen not so much to the audience but to the story itself.
I pointedly avoid doing sequels, since for the most part I find that a sequel rarely stands up to the original.
Actually, between books is precisely when I do give myself vacations.
Just because so many conforming kids wake up every morning asking, 'What is everybody else going to wear today?' doesn't mean that they don't wish it were different. Peer pressure is just that: pressure.
Sometimes I'm asked if I do research for my stories. The answer is yes and no. No, in the sense that I seldom plow through books at the library to gather material. Yes, in the sense that the first fifteen years of my life turned out to be one big research project.
I never became a cowboy or baseball player, and now I'm beginning to wonder if I ever really became a writer. I find that I hesitate to put that label on myself, to define myself by what I do for a living.
In 'Hokey Pokey,' bikes are kind of more than bikes alone. They become mustangs; they become creatures that rip up the dust as they gallop across the Great Plains.
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