Carrying on from the previous post about “The trouble with having more than one notebook, and writing a story in bits and pieces over time”.

I read the story, as rough as it is, to my 2 girls, aged 9 and 11, and explained that it may be the start of a good story, and wanted to know what they thought. Especially their thoughts on whether I should spend the time to re-work it into a finished rhyming children’s book.

They both did say it sounded “good”, and then, instead of giving more feedback on the story, or any other encouraging words in regards to the quality of my work, or the awesomeness of my writing talent, they started to rhyme their own story about wanting to fly.

Here is what they ended up with:

I want to fly you see I said.
I want to fly with my friend Fred.
Instead of fly, we fell instead.
Crashed to the ground and then we bled.
A passing doctor stopped and said,
Clean up this mess and get to bed.

There you go, a nice compact little story. It has a beginning, a middle and an ending…. all in just 6 lines. I especially like the Tim Burton-ish feel the story conveys.

Now there’s awesome writing talent for you. I just wish they didn’t make it look so easy.

Steve