Writing for children: Open your magic box
Create an instant source of visual inspiration with advice from children’s author Amy Sparkes
Are you looking for new ideas for a children’s book but don’t know where to begin? Or do you need some inspiration to develop or finish a current story? It’s all too easy for the Dreaded Writer’s Block to pop up and squeeze the life out of your creativity. However, the good news is that you can fight back. One way of overcoming it is to create a box of inspiring artefacts – your very own Little Box of Magic.
How does it work?
The idea is that by considering unusual or potentially inspiring items, you can nudge your brain into stomping noisily all over the Dreaded Writer’s Block by firing up all kinds of imaginative ideas. It doesn’t matter whether any of these ideas become actual stories or not. If they do, hooray and hurrah, but the main point is just to wake up your creativity.
The actual Box
It’s useful to have a few items ready, so whenever you’re in need of a creative workout, you can go straight to your Box. Otherwise, you’ll end up running through the house in a panic, desperately looking for something interesting but instead seeing all the household chores you’ve yet to do (one point to the Dreaded Writer’s Block). The container, of course, is up to you. There is no shame in having a Little Bucket of Magic.