Damn kids

[ostarella]

More and more I'm thinking that writing forums need to have a minimum age requirement - or at least make people state up front if they're still in high school.

I just got through giving a lengthy and (what I hoped was) helpful response to a writer who was getting burned out and having trouble writing every day. So what happens? In a response to another writer, he said he was just finishing his last year of high school and one of the reasons he didn't write was because the new TV season was starting.

So, okay, I have nothing against teenagers wanting to write, and I'm quite sure there are some out there who actually have the writing skills to put together a good book. But frankly, most of them haven't a clue about a) writing or b) real life and the accompanying experiences. And a lot of those who are so enthralled with being authors now will have left it behind within a couple years.

I wouldn't mind helping out some kid who I know is committed to being a writer. I just don't like having them dumped in my lap without warning.

Comments

[billy-shriner.livejournal.com]

Admittedly, if you look at the average age of writers, they're all 30s, 40s, and 50s + because as you say, you've got a lifetime of experience under your belt to write about.

Some have known that they want to write from the day they were born... others, like me, stumble across it at, say, 33 :-P

[beckyblack]

Aargh! Kids! :D

It's tricky for me, because I wish I had kept on writing from when I was a teenager. Life might have been very different. On the other hand, I don't think they can or should follow the same kind of routine as someone older when it comes to writing. They probably can't write every day and maybe even shouldn't! Aside from a journal or diary maybe. They should be doing schoolwork and reading and living as well as writing. They should write about whatever they want to with no thought for "is this publishable?" It's almost certainly not in terms of quality, content entirely aside!

But that doesn't matter, because now is the time they should be learning and trying out stuff and figuring out who they are and what type of writer they might be one day. Experimenting basically. Of course, now there's the internet that means we all get to see the results of these experiments. :D Scary!

So I want to encourage them, but I want to tell them to have patience too and kids find the concept of waiting tough!