Tag Archives: stories

flyingstories

Why writing a kids’ book?

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I sat in my room, surrounded by white walls and all of a sudden, I found myself in a forest, in a castle, or anywhere else, really. It was long ago, and I was a kid, long before I was mature enough to start questioning myself. There wasn’t much space for anything else than fantasy in my mind.

White walls

When we reconnect with that quietness and those white walls, we allow the fantasy to come back to life. Our strange characters crawl around, and the wind starts whistling again in the forest of our imagination.


Kids stories aren’t just stories

Why writing a kids book?

Kids’ stories are canvas, blank canvas kids use to picture their ideas. When I choose the ingredients for my stories, I use my white walls technique. As an adult, I think about what I want to say, the final meaning. Then I close my eyes, and in a moment, the child inside me takes over, redesigning that adult idea into something that can be fun, too. Yes, kid’s characters must be fun. That’s a plus.

Stories

It’s time for the story to start its own life under the force of my fingertips. After a few days, I always return to the text I wrote the first time to add something, change it entirely and then reread it. When I’m writing for children, I have to do a further step. I have to think: 

“I’m leaving enough space for the child to create his/her own story?”

When writing a story for kids, we must answer this question.
It’s not about us and the plot anymore; it’s about something more profound. We’re dealing with personalities, beliefs and strong emotions. We often forget, but children aren’t mere reflections of ourselves. In fact, they are way more complicated than we think.

Nodo, the chairs’ mover


When I first wrote Nodo the chairs’ mover, I had to keep it in mind. Nodo doesn’t have to be a hero or an anti-hero. It doesn’t need to teach anything at all. He’s the impersonification of fear, and children have to laugh about it. They must laugh at the twigs’ snapper in the forest and the keys’ hider when they see their parents getting crazy, searching frantically for their precious keys.


It’s when I heard a child laughing at my story, that I understood I was going on the right path. I created the right set of blank canvas for him.

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Reedsy

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What is Reedsy

A few months ago I was surfing on the ocean of the Internet, lost somewhere between the Island of

“How to improve my writing”

and the Archipelagos of

“Writing contests”.

The discovery

Then, by chance, I entered in a blog called Reedsy.

“Nothing special”

I thought before taking a better look at it.
I started reading and after hours I didn’t finish half of the material inside this website. From daily writing courses to weekly contests, everything seemed to be everything I always dreamed about. And everything with that special human touch that lets you forget for a moment to be on a website.

A sacred place

I felt like I was in a sacred place, a safe place in which you can express yourself, study, read and ask other experts for help. I stopped surfing in the Ocean of the Internet and I started to swim lightly in this small sea. The water was warm, but not hot enough to make you feel dizzy. It was refreshing and it gave me the strength to start my writing with a renovate energy.

My first short story

Last week I sent my first short story to the website. It’s not my first story, since I have my stories published on my Flyingstories website. But if usually I decide the theme of my stories, this time I had to follow a path, and it wasn’t easy.

“Write about two strangers that keep meeting each other”

This was the prompt.

And for me, accustomed to write mostly fantastic stories, it wasn’t really an easy task.

A story about a shepherd

So I sent Reedsy a simple story about a shepherd of camels. It comes from my experience living in Dubai and the chats I had with hundreds of taxi drivers all around the city. Sometimes you forget to be in a big city, when you turn your head to the desert and meet “wild” camels around.
I decided then to write a story about a man lost in the desert, a man that doesn’t feel human anymore, but more one of the animals he’s trying to help grow. A lost man in a period of pandemic, when everyone feels lost for a reason or another.

A way out

And he finds himself a way out.
As we, every one of us, is supposed to do.
Thanks Reedsy for the opportunity of discovering a story, hidden somewhere inside myself.