Word Savvy: Speaking of Writing

Thursday, November 17, 2016

Speaking of Writing

I'm not the only one in the household producing lots of text this month. Mac is also hard at it, especially now that, after about 45 minutes of frustration, I've managed to set up our home printer. I think we can agree, there's nothing like seeing your work in actual print.

This week, Mac wrote a story about two kids who met at Super School. "This is really creative," I said. "I love the dialogue."

"Well," Mac said, "thank you, but I kind of copied the idea from another book at school."

"Hmm," I said. "Well, that can be good practice."

Here's a sample of that fine possibly-plagiarized piece:

"Oh, my, god, !!!!!!"
"What happens if we mess up when stopping a speeding bullet." I said with a worried voice.
"Well... you will die."
WHAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

As you can see, it's got a lot of adventure.

Mac's other project is writing magazines called Nature News. He and some of his pals produce these at school, and the librarian keeps them in a little periodical holder near a reading nook. Bless her heart.

So anyway, a couple of nights ago Mac wrote what he thought was to be Nature News, Volume 8. When I picked him up yesterday, though, be broke the bad news that all of his work was for naught.

"Someone else was already doing Volume 8," he told me.

"Oh, well," I said. "Hey, why don't you just go on your document and make yours Volume 12? Or a higher number?"

This solution hadn't occurred to him, and I was pleased that he found it to be favorable. Sure enough, I'm looking at Volume 12 right now. Here's a tidbit: "If you think that snakes are mammals than you are wrong, snakes are reptiles!!!!!"

Good to know.