Alan Cook's Blog - Posts Tagged "descendants"
Writing for Your Descendants
I have published one children’s book—"Dancing with Bulls"—but I have written a dozen stories for my grandsons, Matthew and Mason. Thirteen if you count the one I’m working on now. Actually, the new one is more of a young adult or YA story. After all, they’ve become teenagers. Children do that, I’ve discovered. They are the heroes in these stories.
They save the stories and hopefully will still have them to read to their children. I’m not seeking immortality, but I do believe this is a good way to connect with them. I also write poems for them. I suggest that all of you who are writers and would-be writers can do the same. What better legacy can you leave your descendants than something you’ve written.
Many of my stories are available to read free at http://authorsden.com/alancook.
To help get your creative juices flowing, I’ll tell you a bit about some of them. The first story I wrote for them was called “The Case of the Missing Presidents.” Mason, the younger boy, hears some older boys talking about trading presidents in the school cafeteria. He thinks they’re talking about trading cards, but when he tells Matthew about what he heard they figure out that the other boys are really talking about money—bills of different denominations with the pictures of presidents on them. They help to bust those boys who are stealing from the cafeteria.
In the second story, called “Homerun,” Matthew catches a homerun ball at a baseball game and returns it to Tank because it was a record-setting ball for him. When Tank believes the ball has been stolen, Matthew and Mason help recover it for him. In another story, Matthew helps save a boy who has fallen partway down a cliff, and then becomes a detective to find out who pushed him.
One of my personal favorites is called “The Secret of Nim.” I like it because I’m a sucker for games. It starts out like this: “Mason couldn’t believe his eyes when Sue Ellen disappeared from the school playground. One second she was there, walking across the balance beam; the next second she was gone.” This is the first story in which the boys are transported into another time, or, in this case another world. Matthew and Mason have to figure out how to get to this world in order to rescue Sue Ellen, and they have to solve a number of games of Nim, a mathematical game. One of the characters in the story speaks only in rhyme.
Another story is based on a real experience I had. The boys find a box full of money. (No, I didn’t get to keep it.) I also wrote a story based on the Greek myth of Echo and Narcissus and one about my great grandfather who was in the Civil War. Matthew and Mason have to save his division from ambush at Antietam.
Many of my stories have a cute girl in them, but the one I’m working on at the moment has a genuine romance. As I said, the boys are teenagers now. I can’t wait to see what happens next.
They save the stories and hopefully will still have them to read to their children. I’m not seeking immortality, but I do believe this is a good way to connect with them. I also write poems for them. I suggest that all of you who are writers and would-be writers can do the same. What better legacy can you leave your descendants than something you’ve written.
Many of my stories are available to read free at http://authorsden.com/alancook.
To help get your creative juices flowing, I’ll tell you a bit about some of them. The first story I wrote for them was called “The Case of the Missing Presidents.” Mason, the younger boy, hears some older boys talking about trading presidents in the school cafeteria. He thinks they’re talking about trading cards, but when he tells Matthew about what he heard they figure out that the other boys are really talking about money—bills of different denominations with the pictures of presidents on them. They help to bust those boys who are stealing from the cafeteria.
In the second story, called “Homerun,” Matthew catches a homerun ball at a baseball game and returns it to Tank because it was a record-setting ball for him. When Tank believes the ball has been stolen, Matthew and Mason help recover it for him. In another story, Matthew helps save a boy who has fallen partway down a cliff, and then becomes a detective to find out who pushed him.
One of my personal favorites is called “The Secret of Nim.” I like it because I’m a sucker for games. It starts out like this: “Mason couldn’t believe his eyes when Sue Ellen disappeared from the school playground. One second she was there, walking across the balance beam; the next second she was gone.” This is the first story in which the boys are transported into another time, or, in this case another world. Matthew and Mason have to figure out how to get to this world in order to rescue Sue Ellen, and they have to solve a number of games of Nim, a mathematical game. One of the characters in the story speaks only in rhyme.
Another story is based on a real experience I had. The boys find a box full of money. (No, I didn’t get to keep it.) I also wrote a story based on the Greek myth of Echo and Narcissus and one about my great grandfather who was in the Civil War. Matthew and Mason have to save his division from ambush at Antietam.
Many of my stories have a cute girl in them, but the one I’m working on at the moment has a genuine romance. As I said, the boys are teenagers now. I can’t wait to see what happens next.
