Our Top 6 Writing Tips

Greetings and lemonade to all our subjects!

We know you are probably wondering why we didn't do a top 10, since that is what people usually do. But see, often when that happens, several of the tips are completely useless, or really obvious. So we decided to do a top 6, since that's how many good tips we have. Well, we kind of went off topic. But now, without further talk, presenting the tips...

1: Handwriting just can't go out the door, because then later on you won't be able to read it, which kind of makes writing a story useless. This we learned the hard way because Archie handwriting when we were writing for Hoofs on the Roofs looked like Adrien or Moo-Moo had sat down at his elbow and joggled it every few seconds.

2: No one can teach you how to write, you've got to learn to do it yourself. The princeless Tiffanie tried to teach us and gave us official writing classes back in Spain, but when we started writing for yourself and didn't take her advice and rules to heart, we found our own style and what worked for us. (Obviously you can still accept advice, just don't take it so studiously. Tifanie did give Archie advice about his handwriting and if he had heeded it we wouldn't have had to re-write half of Hoofs on the Roofs.)

3: Don't pressure yourself too much, or it will be in as terrible shape as the eggs Daniel tried to cook for breakfast. (We were late for the breakfast Mama made.) And then you'll have to re-write it all. So save yourself all that extra work (and editing) and instead work when you're inspired, enjoy it, and it'll be much more likely to be a scroll you can be proud of!

4: Get a writing buddy. Then you can blame them for all the mistakes in the book, like when a character changes name in the middle of a book, and more, like the spilled ink, and then holes in the erasers. Well, we're just kinging. Actually, if they're good, tolerable, upright subjects, they'll help you out a lot, help contain the brainstorming (so that it doesn't get so wild that you have to start working on an entirely different manuscript!) and make the writing sessions really enjoyable. In our closet (in other words, writing cave\kingdom; depends whether you want to be realistic or not) we also have Ham-Ham, Ster-Ster, and the cats, which keep us company and sure, they cause trouble, but it's still fun and then we don't get lonely. They're kind of like our mascots.

5: Celebrate! Writing a book, story, or song is hard work. Whenever we finish off a project, we always make little cupcakes with royal blue icing and little crowns on it. Then we're supposed to take a long break of a week or so, but since we get so inspired after we successfully finish a project and we want to taste the satisfaction of completing something again, we usually take a break of...a few hours. Then we shake hands with all our mascots, the members of our court (the Duck of Cornmeal, Adrien, and then Kingetery, Jonah.) and get back at it.

6: Remember it's okay to throw manuscripts into the tower of London.

Some of them just don't deserve to see the diamonds on your crown. Throw them far away and don't waste your time on them. It's perfectly fine to realize they're not your style, or just plain un-kingly, and promptly end their reign as scroll in progress by pushing the delete button. Put your time and energy into a manuscript you know you won't end up throwing away anyways. (Or you can let your cat rip them into shreds, or use them to protect the floor from paint (we often forget to do that) or make paper airplanes out of them. Possibilities and endless, you don't just have to waste the paper.)

And there, you go, our top 6 writing tips! Hope you enjoyed.

Reasons to Not Destroy Your Old Stories

Today we were in our closet, digging through one of our boxes full of stories. We found some that were very embarrassing and terrible (in fact they were excruciating) but we found others that we had at the time thought were bad but now that we had seen them in a different light, found that they were quite good. After looking through all those stories, we became very inspired and made good progress on the storybook that we are currently writing in.

I've heard that some people go through their papers and throw all the ones they don't like out. But we're here to give you five reasons for why you shouldn't.

1: What we said just before. Going through your old work can give you some very useful inspiration and ideas.

2: You might also change your mind about them after a while. They might not seem as terrible or wonderful and you thought, two seconds after you put your pen down.

3: It'll be hilarious for you to look back on when you're older. The things you wrote about, or what you thought was scary or exciting will probably change and you'll probably find that amusing in a few years.

4: It's great because then you can look back on your writing journey and see how you have A) changed B) gotten better and C) you can see how characters developed and have grown since you first started writing about them.

5: It can give you motivation. Just as we just said, it helped us be more motivated and encouraged us to keep on writing, because it's never in vain. You just have to remember not to be vain.

That is all for today. Let us know how your day went!

Yours sincerely and very tiredly,