In April, I asked 15 writers from across the genres to share some of the best and worst writing advice they’d received.\u00a0 The result was “Turning Loose the Tiger”<\/a> and a few other posts.\u00a0 Last month, John DeNardo and the kind folks at SFSignal conducted a Mind Meld in which they asked speculative fiction authors to share the best writing advice they’d received<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Both of these projects were intended to benefit younger writers in general and the students at Shared Worlds 2010<\/a> in particular, but each contains material that experienced writers could benefit from, too.<\/p>\n

This week, my daughter Molly turned seven.\u00a0 She is my inspiration and my co-conspirator in many artistic adventures.\u00a0 Each day, she models the creative life with bouts of extreme pretend, lavishly colored paintings, and character-driven stories so complex that they require a compendium.<\/p>\n

Molly also loves to give me advice \u2013 lots and lots of advice.\u00a0 Her advice is often practical, such as \u201cDaddy, stories should be interesting!\u201d\u00a0 And sometimes her wisdom is downright surreal.\u00a0 For instance, yesterday I was editing at the kitchen table and Molly said, \u201cYou may want to paint that fork.\u201d There were no forks on the table or in the article I was revising. Molly nodded her head sagely.\u00a0 I\u2019m still trying to figure out what she meant.<\/p>\n

So, I\u2019m asking that readers answer the following question:<\/p>\n

What writing advice have you received from a child?\u00a0 And how did you use the advice in your writing?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Use the comment section below.\u00a0 Answer as briefly or extensively as you like.\u00a0 Be as serious or as playful as you like.\u00a0 And be sure to let us know a little something about you and the child giving you the advice, too.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

Jeremy L. C. Jones <\/em>is a freelance writer, editor, and teacher.\u00a0 Jones is a frequent contributor to <\/em>Clarkesworld Magazine<\/em>.\u00a0 He teaches at <\/em>Wofford College<\/em><\/a> and <\/em>Montessori Academy<\/em><\/a> in Spartanburg, SC.\u00a0 He is also the director of <\/em>Shared Worlds<\/em>, a creative writing and world-building camp for teenagers that he and <\/em>Jeff VanderMeer <\/em>designed in 2006.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In April, I asked 15 writers from across the genres to share some of the best and worst writing advice they’d received.\u00a0 The result was “Turning Loose the Tiger” and a few other posts.\u00a0 Last month, John DeNardo and the kind folks at SFSignal conducted a Mind Meld in which they asked speculative fiction authors to share the best writing advice they’d received. Both of these projects were intended to benefit younger writers in general and the students at Shared Worlds 2010 in particular, but each contains material that experienced writers could benefit from, too. This week, my daughter Molly turned seven.\u00a0 She is my inspiration and my co-conspirator in many artistic adventures.\u00a0 Each day, she models the creative life with bouts of extreme pretend, lavishly colored paintings, and character-driven stories so complex that they require a compendium. Molly also loves to give me advice \u2013 lots and lots of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/877"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=877"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/877\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":879,"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/877\/revisions\/879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}