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Remember To Write For Yourself, Not For A Market And Give Yourself Time To Develop Your Own Style, Your Own Voice. It Takes A Lifetime. Enjoy It!

-Michael Morpurgo

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Remember To Write For

Michael Morpurgo

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Remember To Write For Yourself, Not For A Market And Give Yourself Time To Develop Your Own Style, Your Own Voice. It Takes A Lifetime. Enjoy It!

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More From Michael Morpurgo

Children Have To Be Motivated To Want To Learn To Read. Reading Must Not Be Taught Simply As A School Exercise.

My Albert Married His Maisie Brown As He Said He Would. But I Think She Never Took To Me, Nor I To Her For That Matter. Perhaps It Was A Feeling Of Mutual Jealousy.

I Spend Months, Sometimes Years, Doing What I Call Dreamtime, Weaving It Together Inside My Head. But When I Actually Feel That The Egg Of My Story Is Ready To Hatch, Then I Can Write It In Three Months. Then I Know The Landscape And The People Well And From The Inside, But I Don't Necessarily Know Where The Story Is Going To Take Us.

When I Write I Try As Far As Possible To Forget I'm Writing It At All. I Tell It Down Onto The Page, As If I'm Telling It To One Person Only, My Best Friend.

Read A Lot - Poems, Prose, Stories, Newspapers, Anything. Read Books And Poems That You Think You Will Like And Some That You Think Might Not Be For You. You Might Be Surprised.

Being His Real Brother I Could Feel I Live In His Shadows, But I Never Have And I Do Not Now. I Live In His Glow.

But Just As Soon As This War's Over And Finished With,i'll Get Back Home And Marry Her.i've Grown Up With Her, Joey, Known Her All My Life. S'pose I Know Her Almost As Well As I Know Myself, And I Like Her A Lot Better.

What's Really Good Is That There Are People Making Stories And Writing Them And The Vast Majority Never See The Light Of Day And It Doesn't Matter A Fig.

A Lot Of Children, Like I Did, Move Away From Words Because Of The Fear - Which Is Something You Have To Take Out Of Education: The Fear Of Worrying About What Marks You'll Get, Detention, Worrying About Letting People Down, Your Parents, Teachers.

I Got Married Young, Far Too Young, But It Is Fine. We Are Still Married 48 Years Later. I Got Married At 19.

We Have Bodies Coming Home And Coffins Covered In Flags, Not Just In The Uk But World-wide.

Any Story That Gets Us Thinking, And Particularly Young People, Thinking Why? Whether It's As A Result Of Reading The Book, Or Coming Out Of The Theatre Or The Cinema, I Think We Should Just Simply Be Asking The Question 'why'? Why Did It Happen To Those People? Was It Necessary? And Anything That Gets Us Thinking Like That Is Really Important.

Access To Books And The Encouragement Of The Habit Of Reading: These Two Things Are The First And Most Necessary Steps In Education And Librarians, Teachers And Parents All Over The Country Know It. It Is Our Children's Right And It Is Also Our Best Hope And Their Best Hope For The Future.

That's What This War Is All About, My Friend. It's About Which Of Us Is The Crazier.and Clearly You British Have An Advantage.you Were Crazy Beforehand.

We're Much Alike, Bee, You And Me," I Said. "you May Carry Your Pack Underneath You And Your Rifle May Stick Out Of Your Bottom. But You And Me, Bee, Are Much Alike.

We All Know That The Great Memories Of Our Childhood Are The Little Triumphs - It Doesn't Really Matter Whether That Was In Writing, Art, On The Hockey Field Or On The Football Field. It's Something That Makes You Feel - 'i Can Do This Stuff'.

Our Great Problem, Is That Children Now Know Whatever They Want To Know - At The Press Of A Button They Can Discover All Horrors Of The Adult World. They Know Very Early On That The World Is Sometimes A Very Dark, Difficult And Complex Place, And The Literature They Read Must Reflect That. Otherwise We're Just Entertaining Them To Pass The Time.

But I Didn’t Dare. That Has Always Been My Trouble. I’ve Never Dared Enough.

Like Most Writers, I Sit In A Room And Scribble A Story And You Don't Have A Connection With The People Who Take Your Story, Whether It Be To The Stage Or To The Screen.

Often It's The Latest Novel That I've Written That Is My Favourite. I'd Been Dreaming It For So Long, Living And Breathing Its Story So That When It Finally Arrives As A Newly Published Book, Smelling Wonderful And Fresh Out Of The Box, There Is Nothing Like It.

There's A Mouse In Here With Me. He's Sitting There In The Light Of The Lamp, Looking Up At Me. He Seems As Surprised To See Me As I Am To See Him. There He Goes. I Can Hear Him Still, Scurrying About Somewhere Under The Hayrick. I Think He's Gone Now. I Hope He Comes Back. I Miss Him Already.

Somewhere Under

Characters Are The Key To A Good Book. It Took Me Several Novels To Comprehend That.

There Is The Myth That Writing Books For Children Is Easier Than Writing Books For Grownups, Whereas We Know That Truly Great Books For Children Are Works Of Genius, Whether It's 'alice In Wonderland' Or The 'gruffalo' Or 'northern Lights.' When It's A Great Book, It's A Great Book, Whether It's For Children Or Not.

Books That Kids Read Should Be About What Is Going On In The World.

Remember To Write For Yourself, Not For A Market And Give Yourself Time To Develop Your Own Style, Your Own Voice. It Takes A Lifetime. Enjoy It!

I Fill Up The Well Of Stories In My Head - Without Ever Knowing I'm Doing It.

I'm Still Not Sure I Want To Be A Writer. I Think Of Myself As A Storyteller More.

I Think People Are More In Contact Now With The Consequences Of War Than They've Been For A Very Long Time. And That's What Amazes Me When Sometimes Politicians Seem To Forget Their History. They Don't Look And Re-learn About What Has Happened Before. Maybe They Haven't Got The Memory, Maybe They're Already Too Young, But You Can See How We Become Puffed Up, And How We As A Nation Rise So Quickly If We're Not Careful.

I Don't Want To Be Separate From Something That's Important To Me.

Unless You Can Be In A Place Yourself And Go Through The Subject Of Your Story Yourself, The Next Best Thing Is Not To Read A Book About It, Or See A Movie About It, It's To Talk To The People Who've Been There.

I Tell You, My Friends,’ He Said One Day. ‘i Tell You That I Am The Only Sane Man In The Regiment. It’s The Others That Are Mad, But They Don’t Know It. They Fight A War And They Don’t Know What For. Isn’t That Crazy? How Can One Man Kill Another And Not Really Know The Reason Why He Does It, Except That The Other Man Wears A Different Colour Uniform And Speaks A Different Language? And It’s Me They Call Mad!

Wars Become History All Too Soon And Are Forgotten All Too Soon As Well, Before The Lessons Can Be Learned.

I Think There's Something About Studying A Book Which Will Kill It If You're Not Careful.

I Was Never A Great Reader, But There Were Two Stories I Loved Best: Kipling's The Elephant's Child And The Jungle Book. Deep Down, I've Always Wanted To Write A Book About A Wild Child And An Elephant.

He Never Reckoned Much To Schooling And That. He Said You Could Learn Most What Was Worth Knowing From Keeping Your Eyes And Ears Peeled. Best Way Of Learning, He Always Said, Was Doing.

I Write Fiction. I Make Things Up, It's What I Do.

Genuinely Good People Are Like That. The Sun Shines Out Of Them. They Warm You Right Through.

I Don't Consciously Try To Take My Readers On A Journey As I Don't Really Think About My Readers When I'm Writing. I Just Try To Write What I Feel Passionately About, To Tell A Story Down Onto The Page.

I Don't Know, But I Do Think That Everyone Has A Story To Tell. The Question Is, Can They Find The Voice And The Confidence To Tell It? We Lack The Encouragement As Young People To Believe This; We Very Often Think That Writing Is For Clever People, Which It Isn't.

I Could Believe Only In The Hell I Was Living In, A Hell On Earth, And It Was Man-made, Not God-made.

Everyone Is Interested In War, In That People Don't Want It To Happen. I'm Much More Interested In Peace Than In War But It's Important To Understand Why We Fight.

I Was Brought Up, As A Lot Of Kids Are, On 'aesop's Fables,' 'brothers Grimm,' 'la Fontaine,' All Those Sorts Of Things. Hans Christian Andersen Is A Hero Of Mine.

I Can Hate You More, But I'll Never Love You Less.

As A Young Child My Attention Span Was, As I Remember It, Rather Short.

But Try As I Might, I Never Got To Eat Any Of Her Pastries, And Do You Know, She Never Even Offered Me One.

Any Story You Write About War, Or Film You Make About War, Is Bound To Be Political Whether You Like It Or Not.

Perhaps It Is Partly That We Need To Love Books Ourselves As Parents, Grandparents And Teachers In Order To Pass On That Passion For Stories To Our Children. It's Not About Testing And Reading Schemes, But About Loving Stories And Passing On That Passion To Our Children.

A Notion For A Story Is For Me A Confluence Of Real Events, Historical Perhaps, Or From My Own Memory To Create An Exciting Fusion.

Stories Make You Think And Dream; Books Make You Want To Ask Questions.

Theatre Can Transform A Child's Life, Just As An Early Cultural Experience Whether With Opera, Ballet, Music Or Art Is A Wonderful Thing Because It Opens The Door To A Life-long Experience, A Life-long Enjoyment.

That's What Sailing Is, A Dance, And Your Partner Is The Sea. And With The Sea You Never Take Liberties. You Ask Her, You Don't Tell Her. You Have To Remember Always That She's The Leader, Not You. You And Your Boat Are Dancing To Her Tune.

Animals Are Sentient, Intelligent, Perceptive, Funny And Entertaining. We Owe Them A Duty Of Care As We Do To Children.

Always Write Your Ideas Down However Silly Or Trivial They Might Seem. Keep A Notebook With You At All Times.

This One Isn’t Just Any Old Horse. There’s A Nobility In His Eye, A Regal Serenity About Him. Does He Not Personify All That Men Try To Be And Never Can Be? I Tell You, My Friend, There’s Divinity In A Horse, And Specially In A Horse Like This. God Got It Right The Day He Created Them. And To Find A Horse Like This In The Middle Of This Filthy Abomination Of A War, Is For Me Like Finding A Butterfly On A Dung Heap. We Don’t Belong In The Same Universe As A Creature Like This.

By The Time I Sit Down And Face The Blank Page I Am Raring To Go. I Tell It As If I'm Talking To My Best Friend Or One Of My Grandchildren.

Cause When There's Life There's Still Hope

Wherever My Story Takes Me, However Dark And Difficult The Theme, There Is Always Some Hope And Redemption, Not Because Readers Like Happy Endings, But Because I Am An Optimist At Heart.

Admitting Failure Is Quite Cleansing, But Never - Pleasurable.

There's A Nobility In His Eye, A Regal Serenity About Him. Does He Not Personify All That Men Try To Be And Never Can Be?

There's Room For All Sorts Of Magic And Miracles In This World - That's What I Think.

Any Problem Can Be Solved Between People If Only They Can Trust Each Other

Encouraging Young People To Believe In Themselves And Find Their Own Voice Whether It's Through Writing, Drama Or Art Is So Important In Giving Young People A Sense Of Self-worth.

Live An Interesting Life. Meet People. Read A Lot And Widely, Learn From The Great Writers

Interesting Life

One Of The Great Failings Of Our Education System Is That We Tend To Focus On Those Who Are Succeeding In Exams, And There Are Plenty Of Them. But What We Should Also Be Looking At, And A Lot More Urgently, Is Those Who Fail.

Anything That Gets Children Reading Is Fine.

Wherever My Story Takes Me, However Dark And Difficult The Theme, There Is Always Some Hope And Redemption, Not Because Readers Like Happy Endings, But Because I Am An Optimist At Heart. I Know The Sun Will Rise In The Morning, That There Is A Light At The End Of Every Tunnel.

Elephants Are My Favourite Creatures And Have Been Since I Was A Boy And My Mother Read Kipling's The Elephant's Child To Me. It Was Loving Elephants So Much That Made We Want To Write My Own Story With An Elephant At The Centre And Its Bond With A Child.

For Me,the Greater Part Of Writing Is Daydreaming, Dreaming The Dream Of My Story Until It Hatches Out-the Writing Down Of It I Always Find Hard.but I Love Finishing It,then Holding The Book In My Hand And Sharing My Dream With My Readers.

Don't Worry About Writing A Book Or Getting Famous Or Making Money. Just Lead An Interesting Life.

It's The Teacher That Makes The Difference, Not The Classroom.

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