A Word with Doug Wilhelm

When my YA novel The Revealers first began to catch on, I got a few requests to visit schools where kids were reading the book. I thought this was interesting — and surprising. I mentioned it to a more experienced author friend, who said, “Doug, schools like to bring in authors! For a lot of children’s writers, school visits become a big part of their livelihood.” I had no idea.

Well, now I do. Visiting schools, mostly middle schools, around the country has become quite a big part of both my livelihood and my creative life. My new year of visits starts this week, with a Friday visit to Rivendell Academy (don’t you love that name?) in Orford, N.H. So this is a good week to set down the five top reasons why I like (I could even say love) to visit schools:

5. I meet kids who could be characters — because they are. “I write for you,” I often tell middle schoolers — “so tell me something about yourself.” One sixth-grade girl in Ohio told me, “I like to catch snakes and bring them home.” I said, “How does your mother feel about this?” She said, “Oh, she doesn’t like it very much!” And I remember the boy who sat way in back, dressed all in military camouflage, at a Massachusetts school. “I like to bake things,” he told me. “I like to bake cakes.” In my current novel-in-progress I have a boy character who dresses all in camouflage. Did that idea come from that kid? Who knows?

4. I get told what to read. Many middle schoolers are vacuum-cleaner readers — they read constantly. I’m often asked what books to recommend, but it’s much more fun to ask them what they’ve liked lately. Years ago, volunteering at the book fair when my son Brad was in middle school, I noticed that kids kept coming in eager for new three books I hadn’t heard of: Tangerine,  Holes, and something called Harry Potter. (If you haven’t read Tangerine, try it!)

3. I can share and “air” what’s in my notebook. Writing is mostly a quiet, private process, which is fine; but when students or teachers ask what I’m working on, or how I work, I enjoy pulling out my little notebook. Like every writer I’ve ever talked with about this, I keep a notebook; it’s where notes, noticings and ideas first go, and where they may start to grow into something. I’ll pull out my plain, black, Moleskine pocket book, show that it has no lines (I don’t like lines in notebooks), and maybe read a page. The notebook I filled over the summer begins with this, which I heard somebody say: “All it takes is a little more attention.”

2. I may get asked a question I’ve never been asked before. I often tell kids I really appreciate it when this happens — and when it does, I always say, with a big (probably goofy) grin, “I’ve never been asked that before!” You may ask, “Well, what were some of those questions?” And the truth is, in that moment, before an audience, I’ve never pulled out the notebook and written those questions down — so I don’t remember. See, that’s what happens when you don’t write things down. My project this year: Write these favorite questions down.

1. I get ideas — and I test ideas. As I said up top, school visits aren’t just part of my livelihood, they’ve become a huge part of my creative process. Last year, when I wanted characters to do a lunchroom prank, I asked middle schoolers in Pasco, Florida what that prank should be. I’ve asked kids to write down for me the nastiest text messages they’ve ever received. I’ve noticed their shoes, their hair, the slogans on their t-shirts (my favorite: two seventh grade girls in St. Petersburg, Florida walking side by side with shirts that said, Unique), and more. Sometimes I know what I’m looking for; sometimes it’ll just be there. And I’ll write it down.

Will this become part of a story, a scene, a character? Again, who knows? It’s a process. And that’s something — the flowing, evolving, surprising nature of creative work — that I never get tired of talking about with young people who have open ears, and vacuum-cleaner minds.

Like the guy said: All it takes is a little more attention.

Check out Doug’s new book, his first YA nonfiction: Alexander the Great: A Wicked History