Trust Me

I'm a writer and I'm on your side.

There comes a time when every good reader decides they want to write a book, so I'm writing this book just for you. You have chosen to read this book because you want to be a brilliant writer, and I chose to write this book because I want you to be the best brilliant writer. I want you to take advantage of your every writerly thought, every clever observation, and every powerful emotion to create unforgettable stories that come from the very center of your life and that will live forever in a reader's mind. And you can do it.

Even if you don't think of yourself as a great reader, you know how to read yourself. The words you use to describe the world around you and the world within you are a form of reading. Take the expression "I can read you like a book." Well, you are a book on the inside. Writing just turns you inside out, and all your thoughts become words on a page. Think of the word reading this way and do not doubt yourself. Everyone has talent, and my aim in this book is to help you develop yours.

In this book I will focus on the greatest tool in every writer's life: the writer's journal — a book that puts you first in your writing life and activates your Writing Radar to help you spot and capture the stories you want to tell.

The journal is a basic tool that all writers use. A slender notebook is easy to carry around in your pocket. Plus, it is a tool you can use very quietly, which is why it is so effective for when you are sneaking and snooping around the world you live in and capturing uniquely clever story ideas.

I started keeping a journal in fifth grade, and once I got it properly set up and put myself at the center of my writing life, I discovered that stories were taking shape around me all day long. My job in this book is to show you how to set up your own journal to capture, organize, and polish the great stories that are taking shape around you all day long.

Once you get your journal going and see how brilliant you are, then you'll want to keep it going. There is no greater motivation than the taste of self-made success.

Just so you know I'm not some big talker about writing books, let me give you a little background about me. After keeping journals and dreaming about becoming a professional writer all through school, I went to college for creative writing. While there, I published my first book, Rotten Ralph, in 1976. It is a picture book illustrated by my friend Nicole Rubel and based on a menacing pet we shared. Rotten Ralph is still in print, and I have published more than fifty books since then. A good number are picture books, but I also have five volumes of short stories that I took from my early kid journals about a boy named Jack Henry. (I changed the name of the character in the stories from Jack Gantos to Jack Henry to keep from embarrassing my motherwell, to keep from embarrassing my entire family.) I've also written five novels about a funny, bighearted, but wired kid named Joey Pigza; a couple of wild autobiographical novels set in my hometown of Norvelt in western Pennsylvania; and two books about some trouble I got into during and after high school.

In short, I have written everything from picture books, to upper-elementary and middle school novels and collections of short stories, to high school books — and they all began in my journals.

Aside from publishing my own books, I was a college creative writing professor for twenty years, during which I directed a children's book writing and publishing program that launched the careers of other writers. Plus, I have also visited over a thousand schools, where I have worked directly with tens of thousands of young writers like you on setting up their journals and creative writing projects.

Everything I know about writing stories is in this book. I want to be the best creative writing teacher you ever had, and I'll show you how your basic pen and journal (which may be collecting dust on your desk) will become the essential everyday tools you carry in your pocket in order to capture your true writing voice — a strong voice that will enable you to define both the vastly detailed world that surrounds you and the richly unique world within you.

In this book I will tell you a lot of stories that are full of truths, mayhem, emotion, and personal insights into myself and others. Along the way I'll share my best how-to writing tips so you can see how a story is built, step by step, and then polished to perfection.

Getting Started

Without lifting a pencil (or chewing on one), you began your journey to become a writer a long time ago. It actually began before you could read, when you were sitting in someone's lap. They read you a storybook — and you liked it! The words and pictures captured your imagination, and you wanted more. You reached out and held the book. Then you hugged the book. You may even have chewed on the book, but certainly you wanted it read to you over and over so you could memorize every word and feel the story living inside you like a virus — a friendly book virus.

Well, most of the world's greatest writers started the same way. Someone read them a storybook when they were young, and they, too, were captured by it and wanted more. Then, when they learned to read, they became nonstop readers, and I suspect you are a nonstop reader, too. It's probably impossible for you to count up how many books you have read since you were very young, but I bet you can still remember some of the classics that got you started: Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? ... The Very Hungry Caterpillar ... Harold and the Purple Crayon ... The Snowy Day ... Where the Wild Things Are ... Miss Nelson Is Missing! ... Sylvester and the Magic Pebble ... The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales ... Frog and Toad Are Friends ... Arnie the Doughnut ...

And then as you got older, along came James and the Giant Peach ... The Borrowers ... The Cricket in Times Square ... Half-Magic ... Charlotte's Web ... Island of the Blue Dolphins ... From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler ... Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone ... One Crazy Summer ... Stella by Starlight ... Hatchet ... Under the Blood-Red Sun ... Baseball in April ... Tuck Everlasting ... The Goats ... The Chocolate War ... The Outsiders ... The Wednesday Wars ... Brown Girl Dreaming ......