Interview with Summer Edward - Part Three: 'I practice silence'

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From the course by Commonwealth Education Trust

Writing for Young Readers: Opening the Treasure Chest

832 ratings

Commonwealth Education Trust

Writing for Young Readers: Opening the Treasure Chest

832 ratings

This course is for curious students and aspiring authors with a passion for writing for young readers. Participate in a dynamic online community of writers as you experiment with your own writing and develop your voice. This course will guide you with a combination of video lectures, online readings, peer reviews, and guest appearances from world-renowned children’s authors. As you work through the writing exercises, you will give and receive feedback from your peers and gain tools and techniques for improving your writing. During this course you will identify stories that matter to you, explore cultural significance and boundaries, and shape your identity as a writer; become familiar with standard elements of narrative (character, setting, plot, theme, language, dialogue, point of view); reflect on your own work and practice essential self-editing skills; see the different ways in which words and art interact, and the possibilities of longer narrative forms; come away with practical insights into publishing options; and create a plan for pursuing your enthusiasm for writing. By the end of the course, you will have ten to twelve extracts of writing that you can develop into a portfolio. Join a dynamic community of many voices from around the world. Find inspiration in your own voice, heart, and place so that you can tell the stories for young readers you’ve always wanted to tell.

From the lesson

Editing and Proofreading

In this module you will learn how to transform your draft work into something that flows well, is free of errors, and is ready to be published. We’ll start by looking at structural editing, where you look at your work’s plot, structure, and themes. Then we’ll move on to the copyediting and proofreading stage, where you focus on perfecting grammar and spelling. We have provided resources and checklists that will help you to practice applying our editing tips to your own work.

Interview with Summer Edward - Part One: 'The story keeps telling itself in my mind'5:07

Interview with Summer Edward - Part Two: 'don't be afraid to cut'5:04

Interview with Summer Edward - Part Three: 'I practice silence'5:06

Meet the Instructors

David Hill
Author
Maria Gill
Author
Alex Alexandrou
Dr

You've completed a master's degree.

How's this helped your writing?

>> Well, my master's is a Masters of Education.

So, it's really Child's Literacy.

But it's helped tremendously in terms of writing for children, which is what,

I write for adults, but I also write for children.

And so, when I was in my master's program,

I got a lot strong grounding in children's literature.

Because my adviser was actually a children's literature scholar.

And so I read a lot of children's books.

I sort of got my introduction to children's literature theory

and literary criticism of children's literature.

And that really has informed a lot of how I approach writing children's books.

It helps to have that sort of academic, sort of training and background.

It definitely helps.

>> It would look really good on your resume as well, wouldn't it.

Having something like that.

[LAUGH] >> I hope so.

>> Finally if you've got some words of wisdom for our learners?

>> Well, one thing, trust your gut as a writer.

You're going to get a lot of advice.

You're going to read a lot of tutorials.

We all do it.

But, in the end, you really have to trust your gut.

A lot of people that have, really made an impact on or he does,

are the ones with writers have sort of done their own thing.

They've broken rules.

And it's good to know craft, and it's good to

know what other editors who have gone before you have done.

But there is something about sort of being really grounded in your own point of view.

And writing from a place that's really authentic.

And it's not easy.

But with practice and with commitment, I think it produces your best writing.

>> That's for sure.

And we'll look forward to seeing more of your writing,

because you've got a wonderful website.

And you've put some of your poems up on there, haven't you?

>> Yes I do.

I have a page on my website where I have linked my poetry.

The ones that are available on the web.

So you can certainly feel free to check out my poetry.

[SOUND] I find that it's always interesting to hear

feedback from people who have read my poetry.

Because they often have interpretations of like that,

sort of, always give me fresh perspective on my work.

I think that's really value and sharing your work.

>> And what are you working on as a children's book for

yourself at the moment?

>> Yes.

I'm currently writing a children's novel.

It's a realistic fiction novel.

It's set in Trinidad, right here.

And it's set in the 1990s during the coup,

which was an attempted rebellion by a group

of local Muslim extremists against the government.

And so I'm writing a book sort of based in that setting and

that time period and around that event but the story is really about a young girl and

her relationship with her sister and her school friends.

With all of the history, sort of drawn in as a map.

>> Yes.

That sounds really interesting.

I'd love to read it in the future.

Well what do you do if you get writers block?

Have you ever had that experience?

>> Well writer's block.

Yes. I actually had writers block for

like a whole year at once.

[LAUGH] It can get that bad.

And you know what?

It was a really valuable lesson for me what I learned

from it was that sometimes you just have to let writer's block happen.

Because there's a reason it's happening.

It's not that your a bad writer, it's not that you are doing something wrong.

It's not that you should give up,it sometimes what happens is that

there is something that you want to say that needs to, needs time to ripen and

your voice needs time to grow and that happens a lot in silence.

And so I practice silence a lot as a writer because in that silence there's

a build up of words that eventually comes out as writing on the page.

>> So do you put your work away and have a bit of a party for a while?

>> Well [LAUGH] I've been planning to have a party.

>> [LAUGH] >> In the beginning,

I thought to have a party when you feel like you should be writing.

>> True.

[LAUGH] Well thanks for that.

You've given our learners lots of interesting tips which I'm sure they'll

find very helpful.

And thank you for sharing your wisdom with our learners.

Thanks very much, Summer.

>> Thank you.

It was a pleasure talking with you.

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