It’s no secret that Princess So Fabulous happens to be the greatest niece ever. It’s no secret that I love, love, love that little girl either. Sometimes I look at her and ask how it’s possible to love a child that much, a child that isn’t yours by birth. And how is it possible that a child who isn’t mine is soooo much like me? Scary,huh? Whateva.

A couple of months ago, we were at her house talking about books and writing. The Princess wanted to read part of one of my novels-in-progress so I found a suitable passage for her. How come that little chick was EDITING my work?? Seriously.

“Aunt Jackie, is she actually SAYING this part or is she just THINKING it? Well, if it’s just her THOUGHTS, should it be in italics? Is it supposed to be in quotation marks? Aunt Jackie, is this supposed to be a sound? Is that really what it sounds like? Aunt Jackie, I think you spelled his name two different ways in this chapter. Aunt Jackie….”

Cute huh? Ya’ll know she asked how much people earned for editing stories.

Anywho, the Princess is a very creative, artsy fartsy soul in her own right. She’s quite the artist. Her original artwork can be found covering refrigerators all along the East Coast and as far west as Missouri. She has quite the portfolio – from her own original abstract designs to capturing landscapes, Sponge Bob, and a variety of other images. She writes poetry also - I read one of her original compositions at my book release party last year. She also dabbles in writing short stories and “social commentary” as evidenced by her award-winning essay entitled, “If I were President for a Day” which included a mandatory parent-child hour every day.

So, my laptop and I were at her house this past weekend. Princess So Fabulous got a laptop for Christmas so there we were, two writers pounding out our stories while the rest of the world slept. Me on one end of the futon typing furiously, her on the other end mulling over what happens next. Now, when I’m at home, I tend to flit from one thing to the other…multitasking. Seriously. I’m working on a poem or writing a scene for a novel, checking email, flipping through a magazine, chatting with someone on google talk, etc.

Imagine my surprise when Princess So Fabulous did the same things. She was in the middle of writing a scene when she grabbed her “planner” (yep – a dayplanner) and jotted down her cousin’s phone number. She then grabbed a book and read a few pages, called her dad (he was out of town), drew a sketch of a dress, and then went right back to writing her book.

The Princess has started stories (books) in the past but she tends to leave whatever she’s working on wherever it is that she happens to be working on it. My sister-in-law is a cleaning fanatic so needless to say, many stories, poems, and art work/supplies have been tossed. When the Princess told me she was starting another book, we had “the talk” about being sure that she put her work away, that she always put it in the same place in her room so she could find it. It’s not a problem now that she has the laptop since she’s capturing it all in MS Word.

So the Princess calls me yesterday. She’s quite the avid reader (Chica was reading on a 8th grade level in 4th grade. I was beyond impressed) so she’d been back to the library for more books. Do you know what she checked out? Three books on writing:

- “So You Want to be a Writer: how to Write, Get Published and Maybe Even Make it Big”
- “The Market Guide for Young Writers: Where & How to Sell What You Write”
- “Young Author’s Guide to Publishers”

Wow. She has truly stepped it up. She was excited because these books were about how a kid could become a writer. She took a quiz from the first book, “What’s Your Genre?” and it says she has talent for observing her world and writing fiction and short stories. She says that’s her “primary genre” and that if I took the quiz, my “primary genre” would probably be “poetry”. She’s probably right.

I gave her a book for Christmas called “Little Divas”. I picked it primarily because one of the characters has the same name and it’s spelled the same way which is unusual. She finished reading the book and was telling me how the author did such a good job of describing things – what the characters looked like, what they were wearing, what they were doing. She says she’s going back into her book and do more of that.

One of the books talks about a place kids can send their story for review so she’s anxious to finish this story and send it in. We talked about what to do if she got ideas for another story or book while she’s trying to finish this first one. So she’s going to create a story portfolio for her ideas and a document to track possible character names she wants to use.. One of her reference books talked about the importance of “developing a writing routine” so she’s going to start writing early in the morning before her cousins wake up and maybe late at night…at least 15 minutes She says she’s going to get up early this morning, get a bottle of water, a bowl of fruit, open her curtains and spend 15 minutes writing. Where am I? Sitting on my sofa, curtains open, a bottle of water to my left, munching on pineapples and a bagel while blogging and adding more words to my first novel. Told ya’ll that was my girl.

Oh, one other thing we have in common – she’s got that “I know how the book starts and how I want it to end” thing like me too. It’s just the stuff in the middle that trips us up.