Good morning, friends! I hope last week’s adventures in world building were fun and productive for you, whether or not you choose to return to any of those settings for future writing. This is our last week of summer camp, so I want to send you off with some activities and tips to carry you through the school year (and bonus! You’ll be able to share these with your kids who need a little creative boost, too!)
I visit schools and libraries all over the world to talk about books and writing with kids, and the most common question I get – hands down – is “Where do you get your ideas?”
The answer, of course, is “Everywhere!” But that’s not super helpful to a kid staring at a blank piece of paper, so this week, we’re going to play around with a favorite brainstorming strategy. Here are your assignments for this week:
1. Make yourself a three-column brainstorming chart!
If you’ve participated in Teachers Write in the past, you might be familiar with it, and that’s okay. It’s great, in fact – because this is one of those activities that gets better and more productive the more often you try it. It’s one of dozens of writing prompts featured in my book for educators, 59 REASONS TO WRITE. 
2. On another day, spend a little more time adding ideas to your three-column brainstorming chart. Then step back and take a look at your options. What would happen if you took that character from column 1 and dropped them into an unexpected setting from column two? Or what would happen if you imagined exploring that big idea from column three in a setting that doesn’t, at first glance, seem to fit? Play around with this until you’ve come up with three ideas that seem like fun to explore. Then let all that writing rest for a day or two.
3. When you come back to your chart and scribbled ideas, we’re going to pull a trick from the Laura Ruby playbook. Laura is the author of many books for young readers, from YA novels like 13 DOORWAYS: WOLVES BEHIND THEM ALL to her charming new picture book ME AND MS. TOO, which came about because of the strategy Laura’s sharing this week.
Laura says: If you’re struggling with a short story or a novel, write it as a picture book instead. This will help you figure out your main story arc and the emotional journey of your main character.
So even if you’re thinking your idea might be a novel, try drafting it as a quick picture book right now. (Don’t worry – it can be terrible! That’s part of the fun of drafts.) If you’re thinking of it as a picture book, do a little writing about what it might look like fleshed out as a novel. Or what if you made it a graphic novel? Playing around with unexpected formats is another way to stretch as a writer and find the perfect fit for an idea.
Whatever else you choose to work on this summer and beyond, here’s one more revision tip – it’s an especially great one to share with student writers as well, and it comes to us from Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich, the author of OPERATION SISTERHOOD. 
Olugbemisola says: Talk it Out: tell your story to someone else. Don’t let them read any of it, don’t read it yourself, no notes, nothing.
See what elements they react to. Make note of what they get excited about, what resonates, what confuses them, what bores them, what they have more questions about.
What parts do you get excited about? What feels fuzzy? Why is it there?
Then make a list of your observations from this conversation and bring that back to the next read of your story. (When I was working on OPERATION SISTERHOOD, this strategy helped me move the story to Bo’s point of view!)
We have one last chance to connect with fellow campers on Jen’s blog this Friday if you’d like to check in.
Otherwise, that’s a wrap for this summer – other than to say that I’m so, so glad you chose to join us for this season of exploration and play. We were all due for some fun, weren’t we? I know that many of you worked through the summer, and those who didn’t will be heading back to school soon. Please know that as you fight for your kids, providing them with the stories that will sustain them through this school year and beyond, I’ll be cheering for you. I’m so, so grateful that you’ve chosen this essential work.
We’ll be back next summer with another season of Teachers Write. Until then, please feel free to reach out if you ever have questions about my books or author visits. And if you’d like signed copies of any of my books, personalized to you and your readers, you can always order them through my local bookseller here.
Thanks again for joining us – and especially for sharing stories with your kids.
All best,
Kate