Advice for young writers
by Dave Ross

Here is a sample chapter from a recent project: Getting it Write.
This motivational book will be for young writers in grades 3-5. It features many tips and hints I have developed during my twenty five years as an author. There are fifteen chapters that cover everything from brainstorming to inventing characters. It shows young writers a new way of thinking about choosing words and building sentences. Getting it Write is also intended to help teachers and parents prepare their elementary school students for the new higher writing standards many states are now implementing.

Chapter Three: Ideas

	Ideas are born in that useful lump of spongy grey matter between your ears: your brain! It does lots of very helpful things for you. Without your brain, you could not feel, see, smell, hear, or taste. While all of those senses make your life interesting, they are not your brain's only job. Your brain's main job is to keep you alive, and it does most of it's job automatically.
In other words, you don't have to think about making your heart beat or taking a breath. Your brain just does it for you.Thinking is another important brain job. When most people talk about the part of their brain that thinks, they call it their mind. Your mind helps to make sense of all those things you feel, see, hear, and taste. One of your mind's most amazing feats is that it remembers. Just about everything you have ever experienced is somewhere in your memory. When your mind recalls a memory, it may come to you as a mental picture or a silent voice. Think about your mother's face or how to spell your last name. These memories pop into your head instantly. Your mind can also put together bits of memories to form an idea. You might think
that your mind does most of its work while you are awake. But you may do a lot of creative thinking while you are asleep. There is a part of your mind that keeps working while you sleep. It is a very good creator of ideas. We call these sleeping thoughts "dreams." This very deep thinking part of your mind probably helps with your most creative ideas when you are awake, too.
	Some people find it easy to think up new ideas. Other people struggle to be creative. Creativity and all other kinds of thinking come from your brain making or using connections. Scientists tell us that every time we learn something, a new set of microscopic
connections is created. In a sense, what we know is wired into our brain with these connections.Every time we use a bit of knowledge, the connections become more numerous and stronger. In a sense, you are "growing" your brain with every spelling word you memorize, with every math problem you solve, and with every picture you draw. There are billions of such connections in your head right now. Just reading these words is causing all kind of activity in your brain. New ideas, which you are learning with this book, are being filed away in your memory. Old connections, which were made when you learned how to read and write, are connecting to new ones that are just forming. Later, when you try one of my activities, some of these connections will get stronger and will be easier to use. The ideas and activities in this book will help exercise and develop the creative parts of your brain. While you are awake, ideas and memories can be sharp and clear, like what your favorite food tastes like.
Or they can be fuzzy and hard to grasp, like what your Kindergarten teacher said a couple of years ago on the second day of school. It all depends on how many connections your brain can use to come up with the idea. Some ideas are put together from lots of memories.

For example, think of an apple. You probably have a very clear picture of a apple in your head. Chances are you are not picturing one special apple from your memory, but kind of a combination of all the apples you have known. You can cut this imaginary apple open and see the insides. You know how it would smell. Because you know apples, you could even describe how it might taste. Your mind is an amazing tool!

Let's try another idea experiment. Here is an imaginary cat... It doesn't look very happy. It is thinking about an imaginary dog. Use a page in your journal to create this imaginary dog. At the bottom of the page draw a bowl for your dog. Let's give the dog a name. Write it down on the bowl. Decide what your dog will look like. What color? Is it big or small? Friendly or fierce? What does it look like?

Imagine all the details that you need to make your dog as real as possible. Add them to the picture in your mind. See how easy it is to think up ideas? The dog you described is different than everybody else's dog. This is because your imagination begins with your memories. And your memories are different from everyone else's memories. That makes your dog original. In describing your dog, you are only limited by your vocabulary. The more words you know, the better able you are to share your ideas. This is why vocabulary is important. It is your imagination that enables you to think creatively. It is the words you use that makes you a creative writer.