Willamsville Young Authors
May 97
Good to be here. Chorus teacher… Mrs. Pruitt.. play… just a little girl. Now: New Salem.
Last year: Chillochothe.. Famous Author’s Day. “Probably Dead.”
Starting a speech: Bummy
I’m a writer because I write. Don’t have to be great or have a book to be a writer. All you have to do is write.
About 100 plays, lots of poetry, two television shows, lots of radio commercials, newspaper columns, musicals… But the only reason I write is because I like to write.
I want to tell you three things about writing: 1st: My fifth-grade teacher…my first story.. I wrote anyway. About things like monsters and dragons and space ships. Not good.
Then I started to write about a different kind of thing. LIke My grandpa who only had three fingers on one hand and would sing “Pop goes the Weasel” and thump me on the head 2 donkeys… one bucked aunt Lizzie into a tank full of water Grandma… cutting chickens head off… backed her into a bush Sheep dragged me through the manure
The Boy with the Firefly Eyes
To the boy with the firefly eyes we said, “Boy.. with the firefly eyes. You shore can, yes you shore can catch them fireflies whether on or off those lights would go that boy would catch them high or low to the ground don’t you know that boy was fast!” Now fire----flies… the strange little things, Don’t come out in the day But they come out at that peculiar time When the light’s just fadin’ away
And you won’t find that firefly bug in a mug or a rug or your grandpa’s jug or anywhere else it seems. And you gotta grab fast or the light won’t last and the firefly’ll get away clean.
Oh, none could match his speed, he grace, and the way he caught those things. And in the firefly catchers organization he was the absolute King. But like all boys about his age, he soon grew up it seems, and now he writes about fireflies and other silly things.
Before I knew it, I’d had a book published.. not about monsters and dragons, but about the things I knew.. I put them in an imaginary town called Coonridge, Illinois. So…. number one: write about the things you know about. Each one of you has a story in you.
2nd thing you need to do to become a writer Famous man, Tony Campello, said, “Five years from now you’ll be pretty much the same as you are now except for two things: The people you’ve met and the books you’ve read.”
I’m meeting you today. Tonight I’ll go home and write about you in my journal. I’ll write about……………….. I have a book on my desk, three by my bed, two in the bathroom, two at school, one in my car, two more ordered through a bookstore.
Read! Read! Read! 3rd thing you need to become a writer: Get an audience. Tell your teacher you want to read your stuff everywhere.. for everybody.. Read for mom and dad. Read for Grandpa and Grandma. Read for your classmates. Two roughnecks…… all they could think about was skateboarding… I teamed them up and let them write together… Every weekend they met to write. They loved to perform it. Both will be entering college this September in Jacksonville. Finally, to be a good writer, you have to lose weight. Not pounds.. but things you hang on your brain.//// To write you have to fly… in your brain… and you can’t fly with a fat brain. Here are some weights some of you carry around “Oh, it won’t be good enough..” “Oh, they’re all gonna laugh at me.” “Oh, I can’t spell.” “Oh, I don’t know where to put the commas.” “Oh, if it’s not perfect, I’ll just die!” “OH, I might win the young author’s contest and have to go listen to some big, bald guy talk.”
Don’t be so serious! Glenda. “I thought you had to be important to write a book!” ….. Stop writing like your afraid of making a mistake. Write because it’s fun and you like to do it! ……. Eat more ice cream. …….. Go barefoot more often. ……..Wear your underwear backwards for an entire day. Only you will know but you’ll giggle every time you think about it. …….. Walk up to the biggest grouch you know and say, “I just want you to know that I feel great!” ……….Next time the person at McDonnald’s says “Have a nice day!” ask them why. ………You start deciding what kind of day you’re going to have and not let other people decide for you.”
…….Be careful who you’re trying to please when you write: HINEY THE MULE.
“The Dirty, Rotten Kid” Kid:: I’M A DIRTY ROTTEN KID, THERE AIN’T NOTHIN’ I AIN’T DID. I DID IT ALL AND I’M DERNED PROUD TO BE A DIRTY, ROTTEN KID. I’VE DONE MORE STUFF THAN ALL OF YOU THERE’S NOTHIN’ I AIN’T TRIED TO DO. THERE’S REALLY NOTHIN’ I AIN’T DID. I’M JUST A DIRTY, ROTTEN KID. GROUP I: HIS MAMA SAYS, AUDREY: “HE’S RIGHT, THAT’S TRUE. THERE’S NOTHING THAT THAT BOY WON’T DO. HE PICKS HIS NOSE, HE ALWAYS BURPS, HE MAKES WEIRD NOISES WHEN IN CHURCH. HE SCRATCHES THINGS THAT SHOULDN’T BE AND MAKES A NERVOUS WRECK OF ME!” GROUP II: HIS DADDY SAYS, ERIC: “HE DRIVES ME NUTS! I’D LIKE TO REALLY KICK HIS BUTT! HE FLUNKS HIS CLASSES ALL YEAR LONG, HE PLAYS THOSE LOUD DISGUSTING SONGS. WHY CAN’T HE BE LIKE ME WHEN I WAS SUCH A SWEET, YOUNG LOVING GUY?” GROUP I & II: HIS TEACHER SAYS, ERIN: “I’D LIKE TO RIP HIS LITTLE HEAD PLUMB OFF HIS NECK! HE’S ALWAYS ACTING LIKE A PEST AND NEVER PASSES SPELLING TESTS! HE CROWDS IN LINE, HE STACKS THE LOCKERS! THE KID JUST DRIVES ME NEARLY BONKERS!”
KID: OH GOSH IT’S FUN, OH GEE IT’S GREAT TO BE A ROTTEN KID! JUST LOOK AT ME! MY FRIENDS ALL LOVE TO STOP SAY, SARAH: “I’D LIKE TO SEE HIM GO AWAY.” ALEX: “I WISH HE’D JUST LEAVE ME ALONE.” BRANDI: “WHY CAN’T THE ROTTEN KID STAY HOME AND GIVE US ALL A LITTLE BREAK? GO SUCK ON TOADS? GO EAT A SNAKE?” GROUP I: BUT LATE AT NIGHT WHEN NO ONE KNOWS, HE’D SNIFF AND CRY AND BLOW HIS NOSE AND WISH THAT PEOPLE LIKED HIM BETTER KID:‘STEAD OF TREATIN’ ME LIKE AN OLD BED WETTER GROUP II: AND SO HE’D CRY AND WISHING SO THAT MAYBE SOMEDAY ALL THE WORLD WILL BE HIS FRIENDS WITH LOVE AND HOPE! WOULD IT BE WORTH IT? (a beat, a smile) KID:: NOPE!
Remember: Write about the things you know about. Read, read, read, and get to know people. Get an audience Finally::::: HAVE FUN! An Encounter with the Razzlesnorts
My room is filled with razzlesnorts, They’re morping on the floor. They’ve eaten all my mugglelamps and now they’re back for more. They came last Tues or Wednesday, a mincing through my fence They came for just a moment but have been here ever since. Who knows what brought them, serping, searching, through my fence for mugglelamps? Who knows what guides a razzlesnort, those dirty little scamps?
Then Saturday, those razzlesnorts, those beasts which I abhore De-mugglelamped my flower bed and scerched up to my door. “Your huff-puff won’t do any good! By the hair of my…” You guessed it. Slowly then, without a blurb, I seeped up to my door, And peeked outside to see if I could hear their fiendish roar. And there, my yard once springish, with all that winter lacks, Lay dorp and freshly sperkled with razzlesnortish tracks. “Oh blasted razzle-dazzle snorts with perked eyes and hairy chins… You’ve dorked and sperkled up my yard, but you’ve not come within! Then just as I began to close my door, chuckly thinly… I heard a faintish snortish noise, a-razzling down my chimney. I dashed into my chimney room, running fate it’s race But I had failed .. for razzlesnorts were in my fireplace! First nine, then six, then twenty-seven Creeping, crawling razzlesnorts. Drippling down in droves and drizzles, Tasping every inch of floor. They sat on knick-knacks, spoons and saucers Overhauls and under covers, They sat on brick-brack, brooms and bedsprings! They covered my grandmother! Well, here they are, and I suppose that here they’ll stay I guess I’d might as well just now accept this razzlesnortish mess. My mugglelamps have all departed for that great mugglelamp heaven. And I am left with razzlesnorts…. nine million, thirty-seven.