The most important thing I tell children when I visit schools is this: writing is sharing. I explain to them that an author isn’t someone special. An author is just someone who wants to share something, and decides to write about it. “If you become interested in something,” I tell students, “you should write about it.” I like old, traditional stories—especially those from the American Southwest. When I run across a tale that excites my imagination, I start re-imagining it and developing a version that I think will entertain children and suit my style of storytelling.Guest Blogger: Joe Hayes
The most important thing I tell children when I visit schools is this: writing is sharing. I explain to them that an author isn’t someone special. An author is just someone who wants to share something, and decides to write about it. “If you become interested in something,” I tell students, “you should write about it.” I like old, traditional stories—especially those from the American Southwest. When I run across a tale that excites my imagination, I start re-imagining it and developing a version that I think will entertain children and suit my style of storytelling.
The Rule of Three is the first of a trilogy that will run just over 1,200 pages. If a journey of a thousand miles starts with a step, then a trilogy that length begins with an inkling of an idea.
When I start a book I know what it’s going to be about, but I almost never know the best way to tell the story. With Jet Plane: How It Works (David Macaulay Studio, 2012), I started with elephants. I was thinking about how remarkable it is that heavy things can fly.?
Working with Nic Bishop on a “Scientists in the Field” book always entails thrilling moments. Together, with the men and women whose work we chronicle, we’ve handled wild tarantulas in French Guiana, walked among 18,000 slithering snakes in Canada, and traveled on Bactrian camels in Mongolia in search of snow leopards.?
Daydreaming becomes a strong muscle if you exercise it often enough. By the time I was ten, I could lasso a daydream and ride the wind. Who wouldn’t want to do that?
I like to say that I began writing before I knew how to write. By that I mean that I made up stories, acting them out with my dolls and stuffed animals, turning them into plays to perform with my neighborhood friends, or dictating them to my father, who would then type them out on the manual typewriter his father gave him when he was a young man. Writing, in my head and on paper, was my way of making sense of the world and my place in it.