Hereditary Writing Bug



In the past I have written about passing on your love of reading but is it possible to pass on your love of writing? 


Hereditary writing bug

"You have to read to be a good writer." That's what most writers say.


If you read my post Reading - Pass It On you'll know that Big Prince isn't a big reader. He hasn't found a series of books that he's enjoyed reading (yet) enough to work his way through the whole series. We've tried to encourage him, tried making him read, but it doesn't work. My latest ploy is to find 'boy' books. 

Even though Big Prince doesn't like to read he sat in front of his computer last Friday and started his own story.

He spent the whole weekend working on this story and on Wednesday morning, before school, he asked me to print it so that he could take it to school. He was so proud of his story that he wanted to share it with his friends and his new teacher. 

I read through his story while he was at school. Although the punctuation and spelling could've been  better the story itself was good. He'd managed to get in some action, come up with fictional creatures with abilities and created a whole world for them. As I read I imagined the world he was trying to paint for me. I was so proud.

He started another story a couple of days ago and that made me wonder if he's got the writing bug. Mine bit when I walked into the world of novel writing and it's here to stay. I'll be watching Big Prince over the next few weeks. He gives up on things when they become too hard but I'm hoping he continues with this.

If writing is what Big Prince loves to do I will support him every step of the way. And maybe one day I'll see my son's book on shelves at Tesco.

What do you think, is the writing bug hereditary or do you "catch" it?