This Thursday 5th March was my very first World Book Day as a published writer! I decided to dress up as Little My, who is very small, often angry, and extremely mischievous. She loves excitement, secrets and adventure and lives with the Moomins. You might have heard of the Moomins before - they are a family of white hippo-like creatures created by Tove Jansson and they live in comic strips, books, and films.
Little My says: "I only have excellent ideas!"
Tove Jansson is my very favourite writer and illustrator - I love her Moomin books and her books for grown-ups as well, so I was excited to dress up as one of her characters (I have Little My's fringe already so that helped!). But I mostly wanted to dress up as Little My because she is so outrageously confident in herself. She never, for one moment, doubts herself, and always knows exactly what she wants to do. And does it. Just like that.
This isn't much like me at all, I'm full of doubts! But when I am in the middle of messy, confused, falling-apart story drafts, I try to channel Little My's confidence, just to keep myself writing on all the way to the end. For me, the hardest bit of writing stories is finishing the first draft.
On World Book Day, I did two creative writing sessions at a school, and we created a story together by pulling characters, settings and magical powers out of secret envelopes. I've picked some at random out of the envelopes today to give you some prompts below so if you have a pen and paper nearby, you could start writing and see what you come up with... And remember, you only have EXCELLENT ideas.
Here are all the things you need to know to begin:
In your story, the main aim is to find a MISSING SHADOW. Your story is set in a CASTLE, your main character is SHY, they can PICK LOCKS, and the thing that will help them find the shadow is a THIEF. The approaching danger is a SNOWSTORM and your first line is: SHE CROUCHED BENEATH THE STONE, HOLDING HER BREATH. Add in anything you want - magical creatures, disappearing doorways, ghosts, goblins, earthworms....
Good luck! And send me your stories, I'd love to read them!