My daughter, Cookie, knows that I've written a book. She asked me today if I was going to make another book. I told her, yes, but that I also need to fix the books I already have. This astounded her.
However, it apparently also seemed to inspire her.
She started making her own books. This is not a new thing. She made a picture book about a year ago about a Princess, and she "read" me the story by describing the action on each page. It was cute and sweet all at once.
Well, now she's moved on to chapter books. She spent most of the day drawing and coloring the covers for her books, which is, naturally, the most important part. She has a whole series--I believe nine in all--of books, revolving around fairies and horses. Throw in basketball and Nancy Drew, and you've got a few of her favorite things.
This evening, after she took her shower, she spent a good 30 - 45 minutes wrestling with MS Word trying to get her story just perfect. The major problem was, she didn't have titles for her chapters, so she worked on those, all the while mastering the art of changing the colors of the fonts as well as the sizes. For good measure, she's also now familiar with centering text. Being the good father that I am *stifles laughter*, I tried to be as supportive and helpful as possible. At times, she was getting very frustrated with the program as she was trying to type. Me saying "Welcome to the world of computers, kiddo" didn't help the situation much. In fact, it seemed to worsen it. Fancy that. I also broke it to her that most authors have a notebook where they write down important things, like the names of their chapter titles. So, now there's a spiral bound notebook with two of her chapter titles jotted in them. I should follow Cookie's lead here...
So yes, now I have some competition in the family. It's not just me writing (the buxom and comely Boudicca will also, from time to time, work on a book as well), but it's also Cookie. For reference, I didn't start seriously writing books and stories until the third grade (where I started adapting and expanding upon Greek mythological stories...I remember Orion and Perseus figuring heavily into my tales). Cookie is about to finish the first grade. Nothing like getting a jump on prodigy, eh?
1 day ago
3 comments:
Microsoft Word is the devil.
I need to write a post soon about just how much I hate that stupid paper clip that always pops up whenever I make a mistake. No other computer animated entity has ever caused me as much mental anguish as "clippy."
There is no doubt, Microsoft Word was written by and for Satan. I wrote my dissertation using Word and I probably spent about 40% (no exaggeration) of my time during the last month just trying to get Word to format things the way I wanted them.
I hate Word for anything other that writing text.
You're actually willing to raise a writer? My heart and soul reach out to you. Be prepared for the awkward years of trouble and angst when she reaches her teens.
Speaking of writing, how goes the editing process for you? I find that editing takes more out of me than writing itself does.
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