Ask the Author: Jared Reck
Answered Questions (4)
Jared Reck
Thank you, Pamela! Your tears bring me so much joy! (And, sorry.)
I do have a second book in the works—I'm revising now and hoping to have it turned in very soon. It deals with death as well, but in a different way. If I'm ever lucky enough for you to read it, I hope you love it!
I do have a second book in the works—I'm revising now and hoping to have it turned in very soon. It deals with death as well, but in a different way. If I'm ever lucky enough for you to read it, I hope you love it!
Jared Reck
Again, going into teacher-mode, I share my all-time favorite writing quote with my students on the first day of school every year--a line from Stephen King's ON WRITING:
"If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There's no way around these two things that I'm aware of, no shortcut."
The simple fact is, I wouldn't even be a writer if I hadn't first been a teacher. It was with my students that I first started reading--and absolutely loving--YA lit. Chris Crutcher, Laurie Halse Anderson, John Green, A.S. King--these were the writers that just leveled me in my first few years of teaching. And it was with my students in Writing Workshop that I first started studying and writing in different genres--memoir and poetry and short fiction.
So. Back to the original question. Read a lot. Write a lot. Figure out what you love.
"If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There's no way around these two things that I'm aware of, no shortcut."
The simple fact is, I wouldn't even be a writer if I hadn't first been a teacher. It was with my students that I first started reading--and absolutely loving--YA lit. Chris Crutcher, Laurie Halse Anderson, John Green, A.S. King--these were the writers that just leveled me in my first few years of teaching. And it was with my students in Writing Workshop that I first started studying and writing in different genres--memoir and poetry and short fiction.
So. Back to the original question. Read a lot. Write a lot. Figure out what you love.
Jared Reck
(this answer written about nine months before release of debut...)
I can't get over the thought of making someone laugh--or better yet, cry--over something I wrote. I loved the feeling as a kid; I think I'm going to love it even more now.
I can't get over the thought of making someone laugh--or better yet, cry--over something I wrote. I loved the feeling as a kid; I think I'm going to love it even more now.
Jared Reck
I have two methods that work well for me:
The first is a writing activity I do regularly with my students, called a QuickWrite (shout out to Writing Workshop guru, Linda Rief). It's a quick, five-minute burst of writing where you try to keep your pen moving the entire time. Sometimes I give a sentence-starter, sometimes we use lines from awesome YA novels, sometimes I pick out a painting I love. Then we go. When I force myself to sit down and write these with my students, I almost always love the results. (I don't know why I don't just make myself do this every day on my own.)
The second method is to use a character questionnaire. Usually I'm stuck because I just don't know enough about my character. So I'll stop, make up a random interview question (What's on your camera roll right now? What would we find taped to the inside of your locker?), and see what my character says. Once I get the character talking, I end up using most of it in my story.
The first is a writing activity I do regularly with my students, called a QuickWrite (shout out to Writing Workshop guru, Linda Rief). It's a quick, five-minute burst of writing where you try to keep your pen moving the entire time. Sometimes I give a sentence-starter, sometimes we use lines from awesome YA novels, sometimes I pick out a painting I love. Then we go. When I force myself to sit down and write these with my students, I almost always love the results. (I don't know why I don't just make myself do this every day on my own.)
The second method is to use a character questionnaire. Usually I'm stuck because I just don't know enough about my character. So I'll stop, make up a random interview question (What's on your camera roll right now? What would we find taped to the inside of your locker?), and see what my character says. Once I get the character talking, I end up using most of it in my story.
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