Writing Tips for Children and Parents

From teacher Donna Sacco

· Give yourself the gift of time to write. Writing can feed your soul.

· Throw out all the rules and conventions of writing. Feel free to write as if no one will read it.

· Enjoy observing the world around you. Allow yourself to be amused or intrigued by it.

· Don't take yourself too seriously. Sometimes looking at yourself can be hilarious.

· Each day, enjoy quiet, mindful meditation. It works magic.

· Enjoy the process.

From "Paper Cranes" by Mike Brock

My mother would fold paper cranes when she had a quiet moment, having a cup of coffee and a cigarette.

I would watch her pre-arthritic hands move over and around the paper, pushing, sliding and bending, a dance of hand and paper. Then a small crane, a paper gem embodying all the grace, beauty, and life of the bird itself.

Me wanting to have one for myself and begging her to make me one, such a wondrous thing from a flat sheet of wood pulp. I not knowing the value of the thing is in what it conveys, the ideal it represents, the memories it evokes.

When I was older my mother, through a desire to share or a fatigue from all the years of folding, taught me how to fold. I was being given the sacred knowledge of creating grace and beauty from flat and lifeless paper. Now from my hands, fat and sausage-like, comes beauty.