January 2006: Choosing Topics (cont.)

I write many different kinds of books. I write for kids of all ages, toddlers through teens. And I write about many different subjects. But when I’m going to start a new book, I always start with something that interests me, even though I’m not a kid. For instance, I live in the upper Midwest where weather changes constantly and I love weather, every kind of weather. Weather makes my days interesting. So when I decided I wanted to write some nonfiction books for early readers, I chose weather as my topic. I knew I would want to learn about what makes rain or why the wind blows as much as I would want to teach young readers. And being interested in my topic myself, made the books easy to write.

Make a list of the topics that interest you, ones you want to learn more about, topics it would be fun to write about. Then choose one idea from your list and write an essay about it or an article for a newspaper. Or perhaps you would like to make up a story about it. I hope you will enjoy writing about one of your favorite topics as much as you like the topic itself.

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