Although I started my writing career as a journalist, when I began writing books, they were for children and young adults.  I imagined that would be a lot easier than writing for adults, but that is far from the truth.

There are a lot of myths out there about writing for children. First, you do not need to be a parent or teacher to write books that kids will love.  What you do need is an understanding of what appeals to them. Find ways to broaden your experience and that will feed into your creativity.

If you don’t know any children with whom to interact, spend time watching children’s programmes or reading recently published children’s  books.  This will give you an idea of what is popular  and the appropriate language.

A lot of writers worry that they are not illustrators, so they can’t do picture books. Most of these are written by an author-illustrator team.  It doesn’t matter if you can’t draw.  Some are able to do their own pictures, but often the publishers provide one.  So you can send a text without pictures if you’ve come up with a great idea.

Although it sounds easier to write picture books or books for young children because of the low word count,   it is a challenge to write a truly captivating story in a few words, with a coherent beginning, middle and end.  Adult books may in fact be easier  – even though they are more complicated, you have thousands more words to play with.

Never let anyone belittle you for writing children’s books or make it seem like you have an easy job.   It’s never easy to create any idea, develop it into a fully-fleshed story and then write it.  So if you have done this, congratulate yourself.

My latest novel  “Searching for Sarah” is now available on Amazon, from the publisher Chaim Mazo, Jerusalem or direct from me at dwaysman@gmail.com

I am always happy to help with any writing problems, and look forward to your comments.   Stay in touch.