Writing Children’s Books
by Ruth Read
Pukaluka the Baby Whale by Ruth Read
My whole life I have been an avid reader. When I was in my twenties I told my husband I wanted to write children’s stories. However, I just didn’t have a clue how. I had to work and raise my two children so I told him I would be writing children’s books when I retired.
Well, I retired and he would sometimes ask me just when I was going to write those stories. I still did not have a clue how to write. Every time I tried I couldn’t get anything on paper. I did have the ideas for writing children’s books; I just didn’t know how to get them on paper.
We always took our children on a two-week vacation every year and when my son was 12 we gave him the choice of where he wanted to go. He said Hawaii. Well, none of us had ever been to Hawaii and it was his choice so we went. At 12 he really wanted to learn to Surf. He is now (as an adult) living in Hawaii and he has taught surfing there for years.
Anyway, when in Hawaii, I just had this brilliant idea about a story. But again I could not get it on paper. So I thought about it for years, and talked about it for years. Every time we went back to Hawaii I had all these ideas for stories. But this one story about a baby whale just wouldn’t get out of my head. Then I let it go.
Last year, as life would have it, I met an artist and we talked every week on the phone. This person was soon telling me that he had written a book and illustrated it. He just could not figure out how to put it together. He did not know where to put the illustration or how to finish it.
After listening to him a few times I finely said, “Why don’t you bring that book over and let me help you?” I did not have to say it twice. He showed up the next day and we put it together.
After helping him with his book I must have been inspired because I woke up a few days later and started writing. I didn’t even get out of bed! I wrote for about an hour and a half, maybe 2 hours without stopping. I couldn’t even get the words on the paper fast enough. I didn’t try to spell or correct any punctuation. I just had to write as fast as I could before I lost the story.
My husband had been walking around the room and going in and out of the room. I am sure he was talking to me but I could not hear anything. I just wrote. Poor guy, he might have needed something! I told him I started writing children’s books – and when he came home from work I had my first story printed out. Spelling and punctuation was corrected as best I could.
The flood gates opened and I could not stop writing children’s books since. I finished 6 books in the following 2 or 3 weeks. I wasn’t paying attention to time but I seemed to be on a roll.
I guess that there really is ‘a time for everything and everything has a time.’ I don’t know where that saying came from but my mother would tell me that when I was young and impatient. I now know that she was right. Now is the time for me to write these wonderful, uplifting children’s stories, and I couldn’t stop if I tried.
I do know that if I had written them when I was younger they would not have the same message they have now. I like writing children’s books that have a life lesson. Earlier, I would have not had the names of the characters that I have now. I just had to live a little and things fell into place.
To me, writing children’s books is a beautiful blessing and a life lesson in itself!
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