This past weekend I was fortunate enough to attend a Free Writing Workshop, The Seven Deadly Sins of Writing led by Author Amy Goldman Koss and hosted by SCBWI (have I mentioned how much I love them?)
Ms. Koss was very candid, funny, and realistic in her discussion with us. I will be adding her list of seven deadly writing sins to my “post-its” from now on whenever I write. (I have been guilty of at least three!)
Ms. Koss also led us in several writing exercises, one of which was to think about the age group you are writing for, write to yourself when you were that age and tell yourself where you read when you were that age. I wanted to share a bit of what I wrote below:
When I was five my family my moved all the time. I had very little books of my own. Most of my reading I did at school or daycare. I remember reading and memorizing my first poem, “The Swing” at my preschool in Hawaii just before moving to San Francisco. I would recite that poem over and over in the car — from the airport, to the car, to our new naval housing tract. I loved that poem and I loved reading. It was still be a few more years before I read consistently at home with my own books… that happened when I was seven.
Isn’t it amazing the things we recall about ourselves during free-writing?