The Ink Splat is our monthly activity letter filled with inspiration sparking challenges and resources guaranteed to inspire your creativity. In this Ink Splat, the book and author spotlighted is Magic Marks the Spot By Caroline Carlson along with an author interview! Submit a response to a challenge and you may have a chance to be published online! What are you waiting for?
The Challenge: Standing Tall
We all face adversity in our lives, and how we respond to it is part of what makes us, us! Write a story about a time when you were faced with a problem that you had to figure out how to solve, or create a story about a character battling adversity.
Do a little digging:
Stories like Caroline’s, where you’re writing about something fun and different, sometimes require a bit of research! Writing about pirates means you should know a thing or two about them. Try picking a writing topic that forces you to learn a bit about it before you can begin your story. This way, you get some fun new knowledge and a story out of it!
Submit your response HERE!
Magic Marks the Spot By Caroline Carlson
Hilary Westfield has always dreamed of being a pirate. She can tread water for thirty-seven minutes. She can tie a knot faster than a fleet of sailors, and she already owns a rather pointy sword. There’s only one problem: The Very Nearly Honorable League of Pirates refuses to let any girl join their ranks of scourges and scallywags.
But Hilary is not the kind of girl to take no for answer. To escape a life of petticoats and politeness at her stuffy finishing school, Hilary sets out in search of her own seaworthy adventure, where she gets swept up in a madcap quest involving a map without an X, a magical treasure that likely doesn’t exist, a talking gargoyle, a crew of misfit scallywags, and the most treacherous—and unexpected—villain on the High Seas!
Interview with Caroline Carlson:
Q: Where did the idea for your story come from?
A: I get most of my ideas when the things I’m interested in collide in my brain and combine in new, strange or funny ways. I’ve always loved stories about pirates, stories about magic, stories that make me laugh, and stories filled with “documents” like letters and newspaper clippings. When I decided to see what would happen if I tried to put all of these different things I love in a book together, Magic Marks the Spot was the happy result.
Q: What is your basic process for creating a character?
A: I think my process is different for each character. Some characters, like the gargoyle in Magic Marks the Spot, pop into my head as though they’ve been there all along. Other characters take me weeks, months, or even years to get to know well. When I start writing the very first draft of a story, I like to decide what each character’s goals, dreams, and challenges are, because that helps me understand how that character might react in a particular situation. If I put all my characters in a room with a spider, for example, I need to know which of them would squash the spider, which would be afraid of it, which would ignore it, and which would eat it.
Q: What is the hardest part about writing for you?
A: Sometimes—okay, most of the time—looking at a blank page and knowing that you have to fill it with brilliant, clever words can be terrifying. What if you’re not smart enough? What if you can’t think of anything interesting to write about? What if you make a mistake? I have to face all these fears almost every day when I start to write. As soon as I’ve written a few sentences, though, I start to remember that writing is sometimes scary, but it’s also a lot of fun.
Q: How important was revising to your final product?
A: Really important! I used to hate revising. I’m the sort of person who likes to get everything exactly right the first time around, and I don’t like thinking about all the mistakes I’ve made. But I’ve learned that when you write a book, you are never going to get everything exactly right the first time around, and that’s absolutely fine. Revision makes a story stronger and more interesting. I ended up rewriting the last 100 pages of MAGIC MARKS THE SPOT from scratch for my editor, and I used that round of revision to turn a very minor character (Hilary’s friend Charlie) into a much more important character. It was hard work, but I’m so glad I made that change! Charlie has become a fun, complicated character, and now I can’t imagine the book without him. I ended up revising the whole book at least four times in all—probably even more than that, but I lost count along the way.
A Bit About Caroline Carlson:
“Unlike Hilary, I actually enjoy dancing and wearing fancy dresses. But both Hilary and I know what we want to do with our lives—she wants to be a fearsome scallywag, I want to be an author–and we wont let anyone else tell us we can’t do those things. We’re also both really good at treading water.” — Caroline Carlson
Caroline Carlson is the author of The Very Nearly Honorable League of Pirates, a series of funny and magical adventure stories for young readers. She lives with her husband in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, amidst many stacks of books. You can visit her online at carolinecarlsonbooks.com or find her on Facebook or Twitter. Her 
advice for young authors is, “If you know you want to be a writer, you’re probably already reading a lot and writing for school and maybe even for fun. But it’s also really important to pay attention to the other things you’re interested in, like sports, science, nature, art, current events, and even movies and TV shows. Go on adventures, explore the world around you, and learn as much as you can about whatever you think is cool, even if it doesn’t have anything to do with writing. All those things you learn will start mixing together in your imagination, and one day they’ll turn into a great idea for your next book.”
Caroline just finished a draft of the final book in The Very Nearly Honorable League of Pirates trilogy, and is beginning work on a story about a boy who works at his uncle’s detective agency. So be on the lookout for more wonderful stories!
MAGIC MARKS THE SPOT is the first installment in the Very Nearly Honorable League of Pirates trilogy. The second book, THE TERROR OF THE SOUTHLANDS, is forthcoming from HarperCollins in September 2014, with a third book to follow in 2015.
Thanks Caroline Carlson!!
Magic Marks the Spot is available at Amazon!
