Poetica Magazine

Like many authors, I get e-mails through my website from aspiring writers requesting advice on how to get published. The question, “What advice would you give aspiring children’s writers?” is also frequently asked in media interviews. What is my answer? In the past, I have offered the following responses. Read! Read! Read! A strong knowledge of literature and the market is important. Find a critique group. Revise! Revise! Revise! Don’t give up! Persistence is key.

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But recently, I read a book that I would like to add to my list of advice to aspiring authors. It is How I Came To Be a Writer, an autobiography by the Newbery award-winning author Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. I read this book because it is part of the gifted curriculum at the elementary school where I teach. But the entire time I read it, I kept saying to myself, “This book should be recommended to all writers.” Naylor is the author of over 80 books for young people. While she did have enviable success from an early age at her efforts to publish, she also devoted the hours necessary to earn her success. In How I Came to be a Writer, Naylor explains that she wrote as a young child--not just the occasional story or poem most children produce, but hundreds of stories. She says she enjoyed rainy or snowy nights as a teenager because she knew she could write undisturbed.

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Last August, I posted a Poetica guest blog about another book I would recommend to writers--Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell. Outliers provides a convincing argument for the “ten thousand hour rule,” saying it takes about ten thousand hours of practice to excel at something. In How I Came to Be a Writer, Phyllis Reynolds Naylor clearly explains how she followed the “ten thousand hour rule.” She didn’t (and still doesn’t) write just when inspiration hits. She writes everyday for a considerable number of hours. Naylor discusses how she struggled with plot and character development in many of her books. She even admits she had to re-write one of her books EIGHTEEN times. A particularly helpful chapter discusses why an author must be able to look at his or her work through the eyes of an editor. Naylor gives many examples of what she learned from editors and how this knowledge helped her grow as a writer. But most important, How I Came to Be a Writer describes how much work and dedication it takes to become a prolific author. One needs to be willing to spend hour upon hour learning the craft, marketing work, and revising with an editor. The next e-mail I answer with “Request for Advice” subject heading will contain a book recommendation: How I Came to Be a Writer by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor.

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Thank you for reading JWorld Café, the Poetica Magazine Blog

Jacqueline Jules, Guest Blogger

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Jacqueline Jules is the author of fifteen children's books including Sarah Laughs, a 2009 Sydney Taylor Honor Award book and Unite or Die: How Thirteen States Became a Nation, a New York Public Library Recommended Reading List book. Please visit her at www.jacquelinejules.com/