No news is good news

I've been flat out recently, and one of the things I'd like to talk about is a school visit I did to the Bunbury Primary School. They invited me down to talk to the kids about writing and publishing as part of National Literacy Week.

When I've visited schools in the past I've mostly talked about my background and how I came to write the books. This time I thought I'd do something more useful so I designed a story planning worksheet and printed enough for all the kids - around 300 all told.

I blanked out all the terms on these worksheets except for the first letter (e.g. C for Character) and let the kids guess them. It kept them interested and some got them right straight away. Then I got them to write down their own data next to each term - for example, the character's name.

I'm not a teacher by any means, but they all seemed interested and I understand some of them were motivated enough to make a start on the stories they'd planned.

I spoke to years 3 to 7, seven classes in a row, and as the ages went up I made sure to include more info. For example, I included info about literary agents, editors and submitting to publishers.

By the way, on a similar note (but involving a somewhat older age group) I'll be doing readings from Hal Spacejock books 1-3 at Edith Cowan Uni this Friday for their regular Lunchlines event.

And what about the title of this blog post? I can't say yet, but you can speculate all you like in the comments trail. (It is writing related news.)

Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)