Creativity Knows No Bounds

I’m sure someone’s said this to you before, because, I mean, it’s true!

I know you've heard about Broadway’s Hamilton. Don't lie to yourself. You have. Lin-Manuel Miranda started writing the play Hamilton when he was nineteen, and after a few years it became the Broadway Musical that everyone loves. (Everyone.)

“Only nineteen, but his mind was older.”

You are never too young or too old to create something extraordinary.

Christopher Paolini wrote the first draft of Eragon, the first book in the Inheritance Cycle, when he was fifteen years old. He later self-published it and the book found its way into the lap of author Carl Hiaasen's step son in the summer of 2002. He told his publisher, Alfred A. Knopf Books For Young Readers, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books. Michelle Frey, executive editor at Knopf, contacted Christopher and his family to ask if they might be interested in having Knopf publish Eragon. Can you imagine the excitement of a publisher reaching out to you instead of the other way around?! After another round of editing, Knopf published Eragon in August 2003. The book immediately became a New York Times Best Seller.

Emilia Ramos Samper wrote the book Crown of Scales and Wonder when she was ten years old! She self published it and I found it at a second-hand store in 2021 and I thought it was so cool! She is almost exactly my age! (A little older, but still.)

Why is this important, you wonder? Well, because this is what I mean! You don’t need to be, say, twenty five before you can accomplish great things. You can start as early or as late as you want. But…

There’s no time like the present. From ages “I can write!” and up, this is the space for you. So go! Pick up a notebook and pencil and unleash your creativity on the world.

Weekly Writing Prompt: One day in class you decide to scream in your head to catch mindreaders. (Yeah, you’re one of those people.) Your crush… flinches.

— Leah Larkspur (13)