I think I know why I had children- to make me keep living my dream. Today my daughter said the coolest thing- she said “Mummy has the coolest job.” I stopped what I was doing thinking- I wonder where this is going?- I’m sure she’s not talking about me being a nurse manager but then she went on saying, “Mummy is a writer and she gets to write about cool stuff..” or something along those lines. She’ll probably correct me but all I heard is mummy has the coolest job, she gets to write.
When your children believe in you, it has to be one of the most defining moments in your life. Suddenly it all falls into place and you realise that if they believe in you then you can make them believe in themselves and that’s what it’s all about. But I digress. T’heniel (my daughter) then asked me what makes a story. She has to write a story for English and I had to explain what elements a story had to have.
First I talked about themes and plots so we spoke about whether her story would be a Cinderella theme which is a rags to riches theme or a ‘fish out of water story’. As an example we spoke about the Princess Protection Programme(because she is a teen). We spoke about a Princess who had to live among ‘normal people and blend in so she was safe.
Then we spoke about the protagonist(heroine/hero) and the antagonist- which I have to admit was a little hard to explain to a fourteen year old but when I told her that you have to have villains in the story or there won’t be an interesting story she understood.
Conflict, conflict, conflict- it is the essence of every story. If there is no conflict on every page then there is no reason to to turn the page.
I loved sharing my writing with my daughter. It felt special and cool.
Happy writing folks
Don’t forget to live your dreams
Kamy
Kamy Chetty 