Insider Ink Splat:
June 2024
What’s Up At SYI this Month?
INK SPLAT
INKLINGS BOOK 2024 AUTHORS
Hello Inklings!
This month’s Ink Splat Author Interview features Inklings authors! These youth, ages 8-18, will be published in our upcoming book releases this September. Our Inklings Book 2024 features youth in third through eighth grade, and our Inklings Book 2024: Teen Edition features ninth-twelfth graders.
In our live interview, these inspiring authors gave our community a glimpse inside their creative process. They shared about what inspired their stories and poems, how they planned and drafted their pieces, how they tackled creative blocks, and strategies they used for revision. We’ve included highlights here for you to enjoy. Creativity is contagious, and we’re sure you’ll catch it while reading this interview!
Here’s a peek:
All the time, every single time I got stuck, I just found it best to take a break and say, “Well, you know, I’m gonna come back to this later.” For me, breaks are usually up to a week or two. And even when I came back from my break with this piece, I kept thinking: This is not going to work. This is not going to work. And I kept getting frustrated with myself. In the end, I needed to put away my writing for a while. And I when I finally came back to it, and I had cleared my mind, I said, “Let’s look at this from top to bottom and figure out what’s happening.” Lots of people tell you that when you have writer’s block, take a break. But sometimes taking a break doesn’t work. Sometimes, you’re still going to come back and be annoyed. And the best thing you can do is to be patient with yourself. You have to accept that sometimes you’re gonna get mad and that’s just all part of the writing process. And when that happens, you basically just to sit down with yourself and say, “Top to bottom. Let’s figure this out.”
~ Amaya Chugani
WRITING CHALLENGE
If an Ocean Wave Were Human …
In our Inklings Book interview, Maya Mourshed spoke about her process of anthropomorphizing numbers and discussed the fun and challenge of creating a story for untraditional characters. When you anthropomorphize, you give a non-human character traits that a human might have. You might create a character out of an animal, an object, a force of nature, a concept, or a phenomena.
Your writing challenge this month is to choose two non-human characters and bring them together in a scene. You might write this scene as a script, in scene-form, as a poem like you might in a novel-in-verse, or even as a page of panels, like you might do in a graphic novel. In your scene, be sure to choose a setting, a challenge for the two characters to face, and consider what the relationship of these two characters may be as the scene begins. Have they met before? Is this their very first encounter? Will they work together to solve a conflict, or will they struggle against one another?
Here’s a list of potential characters to spark your imagination, but feel free to choose your own characters if you prefer.
Tornado
Redwood Tree
Campfire
Clock
Lantern
Snail
Penguin
Queen Bee
Cello
Artichoke
Fountain Pen
Sandcastle
Windmill
Elevator
Doorbell
Once you’re finished with your scene, we’d love to see what you wrote! Watch your inbox next week for instructions about how to access the brand new Inkwell app, where members will be able to ask for revision feedback on a work in progress, or submit a finished piece and hear back from readers about what they loved. We can’t wait to share this very special tool we’ve been working on for you, and to see all that you create with it. More on the Inkwell very, very soon!
INKLINGS CONNECT
Summer Camps
Join us for a writing camp this summer. We can't wait to see what you create!
Keep your creativity flowing with our upcoming community events:
Advice from an Inkling:
Q: What is it like to work with a mentor on a revision?
A: “My mentor came up with ideas that I probably would have never thought of. Like building on how I was using time, and making scenes take more time to build tension. It’s really exciting is when a mentor looks at your writing and says, ‘I love what you’re doing. Snd look at what you’re doing right here!’ And they show you something and you realize, Oh yeah, I was trying to do that but now you’re showing me an even bigger vision for what I can do that’s even more in my piece. And it feels like someone’s really caring about you and your creative work.”
We want to read your work!
Don’t forget to submit your writing challenge, and you might be published on our blog!
P.S. We’re here for you! You can always email with ideas or questions: info@younginklings.org.
