Writers, where do you get story ideas? Here's a simple method.

This is the presentation I'll be delivering at the book launch for Why My Love Life Sucks at the Highland Park, New Jersey library this Thursday. Kids will learn how to break a story down to its parts and use those parts to write new stories.

This presentation will be followed by a fun, story-generating craft, book-launch party favors, love-and-vampire themed sweets, and a book signing. It should be great!

I hope you can come; but if you can't, I hope you enjoy this presentation. If the event goes well, I might do the same thing at author visits at libraries and schools in the area.

What do you think? Could this method work for you? 

Please feel free to share it with your kids, teens, students, friends, and fellow writers. 

Thanks, and I look forward to reading your comments!

Shevi Arnold

Your Bully Doesn't Know You. Only You Can Define How You See Yourself.

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When a viewer sent her an email calling her a poor role model because of her weight, TV news anchor Jennifer Livingston at first wanted to ignore it. After discussing it with her husband, however, she decided to go on the air to explain why the man who sent that email was wrong, and why this kind of behavior is never okay. 

She did it because she realized it was this man who was being a bad role model. What if a kid overheard him making fun of the "fat news lady" and then went to school and told the kids there that they weren't worthy because of their weight? How would it make those kids feel? 

Kids need to know that it's wrong to judge people based on physical appearance. Each person is so much more than he or she appears on the outside. And more importantly, we can't let the opinions of bullies--who don't really know us--determine how we feel about ourselves. 

This is the same message I hope to get across to kids with Dan Quixote: Boy of Nuevo Jersey, particularly with the lesson plan for that book. Kids need to understand that bullies don't really know who they are and can't define how they see themselves. Every person is special. We each have unique talents, and the world is a better place when we're free to express those talents and be ourselves. Bullies try to take that away from other kids, and it makes the world a sadder place. It's wrong, and we have to let kids know that it's wrong.

Bravo to Jennifer Livingston! For the record, I think you're smart, talented, beautiful and very brave for taking a stand. 

An Author Visit Program to Help Promote Self-Esteem and Combat Bullying

I need feedback on a possible author visit program that addresses bullying, and I hope you'll help. 

I'm going to be sending out flyers for my funny, middle-grade novel, Dan Quixote: Boy of Nuevo Jersey to schools, and at the bottom of the flyer, I want to offer an option of Skype or local in-person classroom visits. Dan Quixote deals with the power of friendship and self-esteem to overcome peer pressure and bullying, so I want to offer a program focused on that. 

This is the idea I have for the class. Each student will be given two pieces of paper. 

I will start by talking about being a geek and what it means to me. I think geeks are people who are passionate about something to the point where they don't care what other people think. I'm a geek about books, Doctor Who, The Princess Bride, technology, Eureka, Mythbusters, and lots of other things. I just love them all so much. I love books so much that I have a huge library in my apartment with probably around a thousand books. I love The Princess Bride so much that I can quote about half the movie. Some people are geeks about the TV show Glee, which makes them Gleeks. Some people are geeks about Star Trek, which makes them Trekkers. There are also theater geeks, band geeks, rock-climbing geeks, and people who are geeky about pretty much anything you can imagine. 

At the top of the first piece of paper, each student should write down something they're geeky about. I would point out that I think being a geek is a good thing, and I feel sorry for anyone who either hasn't found something they love that much or is too afraid to admit what they're geeky about. When they're done writing, I would explain that, in the book, the class queen bee bullies Dan for being a geek. On the same piece of paper, I want them to write three things a bully like the class queen bee might say to make you feel bad about the one thing you're most passionate about. 

Illustration from Dan Quixote: Boy of Nuevo Jersey--
Sandy discovers Dan's beloved notebook after queen bee Jade trashes it

When the kids are done with that, all of those pieces of paper will be folded and put into a box. The students would then randomly pick out one of those pieces of paper. 

I'll then say, "In my novel, Dan realizes that being a geek is a good thing, and Sandy steps in to show her support. She stands up for him. On the second piece of paper, I want you to pretend you're either Dan or Sandy, and I want you to write five things in response to the bully, focusing only on why it's good to be geeky about that one thing, not about the bully or the bullying. Just keep it positive. Pretend you're standing up for something you or your friend loves."  

I would then ask each of the students to read out their five responses. 

In the end, I would ask students how it feels to read the things they wrote and how it feels to hear these things. I would ask them to carry that feeling with them. Each one of them can be Dan or Sandy. They just have to believe in their own passions and support their friends' right to love the things they're passionate about. We're all geeks in some way, and that's a great thing, because passionate people make a difference in the world. 

So what do you think? Does it sound like a good author visit and could it help combat bullying by building self-esteem?