Author J.L. Campbell dedicates an entire website to helping young writers write. Ms. Campbell shares writing tips on plotting your novel, creating effective scenes, and developing characters and more. The Young Writers Suite explores the craft of writing and helps you develop your writing skills.
Join the Facebook page for the Young Writers Suite to gather young writers together for discussions on writing.
About J.L. Campbell
J.L. Campbell is a proud Jamaican and an award-winning writer, who is always on the lookout for story-making material. She writes romantic suspense, women's fiction and young adult novels. She is the author of Contraband, Christine's Odyssey, Dissolution, Distraction, Don't Get Mad...Get Even, Giving up the Dream, Kicked to the Kerb, Retribution and Hardware (written under the pen name Jayda McTyson).
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If you dream of becoming a writer or book illustrator, follow Jane Stroschin as she pursued her dream to write books. Here's an excerpt from her story in Girls Succeed! Stories Behind the Careers of Successful Women.
“To succeed you have to believe in something
with such a passion that it becomes a reality.”Anita Roddick, entrepreneur,
business executive
JANE STROSCHIN
CHILDREN’S BOOK AUTHOR AND ILLUSTRATOR
Practice, Practice, Practice
Eight-year-old Jane clutched the new drawing pad, pencils, and paints to her
chest. She treasured the precious tools
which she used to fill the paper pads with her drawings and paintings. Jane
Stroschin was enthusiastic about creating art pieces from the time she was just
a girl. She grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with her twin sister and an older
sister.
Her love of drawing helped Jane
recover from an accident she sustained when playing football with her
friends. Jane was tackled, but could not
get up. Her legs were broken. She had to endure surgeries to repair her
legs. Doctors told her she would not
walk. But through determination and hard
work, Jane proved the doctors wrong. She
learned to walk again.
During this time of recovery from
the accident, Jane worked on her drawing skills and practiced and polished her
artwork.
Jane loved sketching so much she
continued even after her legs healed. She created cartoons for her junior and
senior high newspapers. In high school,
her art teacher asked her to join the “grown-ups” painting class in her home
town of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The artists in the class were impressed with her
composition. She graduated from the University of Wisconsin with a degree in art
education. She continued to paint and
draw and to learn from respected masters of art in classes and workshops.
After graduation Jane married Mike
Stroschin and they moved to Fremont, Michigan, where she and Mike raised their
two children, Laura and Brian. Because there were no jobs for art teachers,
Jane accepted a job as the children’s librarian at the local library. It was here that she fell in love with
picture books. She appreciated the combination of art with the story.
She read lots of books so she
could be sure to select interesting ones for the library’s weekly story time.
Two of her favorites to read out loud were Tikki
Tikki Tembo by Arlene Mosel and Blair Lent and Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by
Judith Voirst and Ray Cruz. She wanted
the kids to have fun with the stories and to return each week for more.
One summer afternoon Jane and her
young children, Laura and Brian, sat on a grassy hill watching the puffy clouds
move and change as they crossed the blue sky.
The kids told their mom what the clouds looked like…a dinosaur, a kitty,
and more. These cloud pictures gave Jane
an idea for her first picture book, The
Cloudy Day.
Another idea for a book, Emma Lou and the Reindeer Flu, popped
into her head when Jane was on the road traveling to a school where she would
be teaching kids to write stories and draw pictures. It began to snow.
“The snow was beautiful. It made me want to write a Christmas story,”
she said.
As Jane continued on her journey,
the story of Emma Lou took shape in her mind. She pictured Santa stopping at
Emma Lou’s farm on Christmas Eve because all the reindeer were sick with the
flu. She had to get the words on paper,
so she stopped at a restaurant, sat down at the table, and began writing the
story on the back of the placemat.
“Would you like a menu?” asked the
waitress as she placed a glass of water on the table. She couldn’t put it on the placemat after
all.
Jane looked up from her
writing. “Um, oh no. I’ll just have the special—whatever it is,”
she said and returned to her writing.
The words for the story were
streaming onto the placemat. Jane didn’t
even notice the waitress had brought her food.
Finally the waitress stopped by the table and asked if something was
wrong with the meal. Jane kept writing
and took a bite of the food. “It’s
fine,” she said.
When she finished the story, Jane
went to the pay phone in the restaurant to call her twin sister. (This was before cell phones were
available.) She read the story over the
phone to her surprised sister. There was
silence on the other end.
“Well, what do you think?” she
asked. Still silence. She began to worry. Jane thought her sister must not like
the story and was trying to figure out how to tell her it was a rotten idea.
At last Jane heard her sister
sniffle and then reply. “I’m crying. I
love it.”
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These links will connect you so you can download a sample of the e-book or purchase it. A study guide is also available to accompany the book.
Do you know of other websites that are helpful for young writers? Can you suggest sites or magazines that welcome stories by young writers? Please let us know by leaving a comment here. Thank you. Keep writing!!
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