Writing and Illustrating for Young Adult Readers 13th Annual Conference

There's something very, very exciting going on that I wanted to bring to your attention. The 13th Annual Writing and Illustrating for Young Adult Readers Conference in Sandy, Utah, June 18-22. Spots are already starting to fill up, so if this is something you are interested in, I highly encourage you to check out their website for more information and sign up.

One of the workshop teachers is the wonderful Tim Wynne-Jones, and we're lucky enough to have him answer a few questions for us today:

What is your usual writing process?

The trick is in that word "usual." Every book seems to require a slightly different way of handling it. Sort of like your kids. They've all got the same genetic make-up but boy can they be different! Ideally, I launch into a novel when I have a really strong opening scene I can't wait to write. Whether it actually ends up being the opening scene isn't important but it's my way of getting started. And if the idea is involving enough it will lead me on to the next scene. I never start with an outline. It just seems boring to follow a predetermined course, although I know all sorts of great authors who do use outlines. Sometimes in the middle of a book, especially if there are several voices telling the story, I will need to write out a careful outline of the next few chapters, let's say, so that I get the sequence of events just so. But generally I want to write to surprise myself! Ideally, I write a first draft as quickly as possible -- get the whole thing out there on the table so I can sort through it and find the good bits. That's the second draft and that's when it's really fun to be a writer.

What genre of books do you most enjoy reading?

Mysteries.

Do the plots from your stories come from things you have seen in your life?

Inevitably, at least to some degree. Plots come from asking yourself what if... You see something only slightly odd and make it odder. You see something broken and wonder how it got to be that way. You see, for instance, a street kid staring at a fancy hotel and wonder if he knows that there is food in there on trays outside people's rooms and how would he go about getting it? That's what happened with Blink & Caution. Or you see some weird little article on page three of the newspaper and rather than following up on it to get more facts you let your imagination have a go at it. You introduce some random event to an otherwise ordinary moment and imagine the event that ensues. As a writer you're like a detective always looking for clues to something that never happened!

What do you consider your greatest accomplishment?

Raising three pretty fabulous kids. Being published in fifteen countries and in a dozen languages. Being made an officer to the Order of Canada. Being nominated for the Hans Christian Andersen Award.And somehow managing to make a life as a writer for the last thirty years or so.

Hope this is enjoyably helpful, and hope all of you YA writers can find your way to Utah in June. Have you ever been to a writers conference, and what did you learn there? 

Sarah Allen