Someone directed me to this on youtube: A trailer for Life on the Refrigerator Door

It made me think how great it would be if you wrote a trailer for your favourite book.  Imagine how to turn your favourite book into a movie.  Think about which bits of the book you need to keep, and which bits you’d have to cut.  Then try and write a few lines to capture the essence of your movie – you could even match it up with photos like in the trailer for my book.

Now, all we need is a real movie deal!

I’d like you to open your ears this weekend. You’d be amazed at what people say around you – and how inspirational it can be. So, have a listen to what people are talking about. Notice if someone says something extraordinary or weird or funny or strange or delightful or scary or fantastic over the next couple of days.

Listen to the people who are talking to you, but also to the people who are talking around you. There are words filling the air and your job as a writer is to get a hold of those words and wrestle them onto the page. Once you’ve heard something great, get it down on paper. It might be a sentence or maybe two. Once I heard a guy say to his friend in the park, “Have you any idea what it was like to be in jail for eighteen years? It was great.” Really, honestly, that’s what he said.

When you’ve got your sentence down, see where it leads. Is there a story there? A poem? A prose poem?

Get listening.

Publishers have magical rooms that are filled with books and if you ask really nicely, sometimes they gift you one or two. I was lucky enough to be in New York this week and I wandered in to visit the marvelous folk at HarperCollins who gave me Tangled by Carolyn Mackler and Gorgeous by Rachel Vail Both are fun and feisty and fabulous. And completely inspiring for those of us who write.

So, to do some fun, feisty and fabulous writing tonight, I want you to imagine the incredible. What if you could fly? Or if a dog ruled the world? Or if you could change into anything you wanted to be? Or if babies could tell you what they thought? Or if you were in love with a photograph? Imagine the fabulous and then write twenty sentences. Don’t stop until you’ve got twenty down. If you can’t imagine something of your own, use one of my ideas above. Ideas are supposed to be inspiring and are often made much better if they’re shared.

Have fun.