The room was packed, which was nice to see.
Themes:
James writes four themes in his books:
1. Family Drama
2. Mystery
3. Action/Adventure
4. Humor
* He writes about Family because of his own story.
Writing Advice:
1. Write something small and work up to a
book - it's like training for a marathon, you don't go out and decide to
run a marathon in one day. You have to build up to it. It's the same thing with
writing.
2. Read your world aloud. You will catch
more mistakes that way - of even strangely worded scenes.
On Coming up with the concept for The
Sherlock Society
There’s a lake
near his house. There are nine benches around the lake. One day, he decided to
walk about the lake to plot his book. At each bench, he would stop and ask a
question. Each question would be harder than the last and he couldn’t leave the
bench until he solved the answer to the question.
Example: The new
book would be a mystery.
The kids would
get around Florida thanks to their Grandfather.
Why would he
be taking them around to solve mysteries? He had a vested interested as a
former investigative journalist.
After two laps around the lake, he had the book figured out.
Book three: Art Attack comes out in September and I'm so looking forward to it!
Why Europa is Dedicated to Suzanne:
When James was coming up with the idea for
the Shakespeare Code, he remembered a conversation with former co-worker
Suzanne Collins. He wrote her a quick note about it. She immediately called him
up. They had the same conversation again and then spent time figuring out the
code for this book.
Our newest pictures:
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