Ask the Author: Chris Platt
Answered Questions (10)
Chris Platt
Hi Kathryn,
What an awesome idea! Of course you are welcome to read the book to your students. I'm honored that you would do that! This has been a great week for hearing from my fans who are now grown up. I did a book signing at a 4-H tack sale fundraiser and several women who had children walked by and said, "Oh, my gosh! I read your books growing up, and I loved them?" One gal said she'd read Willow King 40 times." Then she burst into tears. Boy, what a humbling experience for me. Writing is kind of a solitary endeavor where you lock yourself in a room and write. It's always heartwarming to hear how you have an influence on someone's life. Thank you, Kathryn, I'm honored to have you read my book. Chris :-)
What an awesome idea! Of course you are welcome to read the book to your students. I'm honored that you would do that! This has been a great week for hearing from my fans who are now grown up. I did a book signing at a 4-H tack sale fundraiser and several women who had children walked by and said, "Oh, my gosh! I read your books growing up, and I loved them?" One gal said she'd read Willow King 40 times." Then she burst into tears. Boy, what a humbling experience for me. Writing is kind of a solitary endeavor where you lock yourself in a room and write. It's always heartwarming to hear how you have an influence on someone's life. Thank you, Kathryn, I'm honored to have you read my book. Chris :-)
Chris Platt
Wow, I can't believe I'm 46 days behind in answering this question. I'm sorry, Kaitlin. Ok, now for the question/answer... I see Celah, Star, and Callie, as the foster mother for Moon Shadow. Callie has to do a lot of care-taking on the orphaned foal, and the older mares take the new baby in and watch over her. I've got a new paint colt that was born March 31st. He's bugging my poor mares to death because he wants to play. I'm always amazed that they tolerate his behavior. They could kick him, but they don't. They just turn their butts and give him a warning. It's been a long time since I wrote this book, but I think I had Justin as being 13 or 14. He's actually patterned off of my real nephew, whose name is Justin. I used his older brother, Jason, in Willow King, so I wanted to give Justin a place in a book, too.
Chris Platt
I only have one non-series book that I wrote a sequel for. That was my first book, Willow King. I never thought about doing a sequel to Moon Shadow. There were so many other stories ideas waiting to be written, that I just never considered it. But, now that you've planted the idea in my head, I suppose that someday that could be possible. I took several years off from writing, but I'm back to writing again, and the book I'm working on is another wild mustang book about a girl who gets lost in the desert and ends up following the wild herd in order to be able to survive until she can find her way out. It's also a Nevada book, so, who knows, the mustangs in this book could very well be related to Moon Shadow's herd. Thanks for the question Kaitlin!!
Chris Platt
Hi Tori,
I grew up on a farm in the Midwest. I had a good childhood in a small town, living close to all my relatives. Back then, you could go away on vacation and not even lock your doors. lol. I moved out west when I was 9. That's about the time I started writing--just poems and short stories at first, then when I grew up and decided to go to college, I was either going to go to veterinarian school or be a journalist. They didn't have a vet school where I lived, so I would have had to sell all my horses and move to a place that had a vet school. I chose print Journalism because I didn't want to have to lose my pets. I started writing books along with newpaper and magazine articles in college, and one day I got lucky and met some fantastic editors who liked my books.
I grew up on a farm in the Midwest. I had a good childhood in a small town, living close to all my relatives. Back then, you could go away on vacation and not even lock your doors. lol. I moved out west when I was 9. That's about the time I started writing--just poems and short stories at first, then when I grew up and decided to go to college, I was either going to go to veterinarian school or be a journalist. They didn't have a vet school where I lived, so I would have had to sell all my horses and move to a place that had a vet school. I chose print Journalism because I didn't want to have to lose my pets. I started writing books along with newpaper and magazine articles in college, and one day I got lucky and met some fantastic editors who liked my books.
Chris Platt
I run. I think of all kinds of things while I'm running. I play the "what if" game... "what if a girl went to an auction and bought a horse without her parents' permission...?" Actually, I really did that when I was a kid. ha, ha! I got into a lot of trouble for that one. :-)
Use your imagination and throw all kind of ideas against the wall. Eventually something will stick, and you'll say, "Hey, maybe there's something to that?" and an idea for a book, or story will start to form. When I'm writing, I play scenes in my head like I'm watching a movie. Then I write down what I see and hear. I'm not sure how others work, but that is what works for me. The main thing is to sit down and start writing. Even if it's total junk, the act of writing will eventually inspire good things to come. But, give the "what if" game a try. The combinations are endless... What if a kid wanted to become a champion hot dog eater, or an Olympic athlete, or a doctor, or break the record for trips to the principal's office? Play the game, write the book!!
Use your imagination and throw all kind of ideas against the wall. Eventually something will stick, and you'll say, "Hey, maybe there's something to that?" and an idea for a book, or story will start to form. When I'm writing, I play scenes in my head like I'm watching a movie. Then I write down what I see and hear. I'm not sure how others work, but that is what works for me. The main thing is to sit down and start writing. Even if it's total junk, the act of writing will eventually inspire good things to come. But, give the "what if" game a try. The combinations are endless... What if a kid wanted to become a champion hot dog eater, or an Olympic athlete, or a doctor, or break the record for trips to the principal's office? Play the game, write the book!!
Chris Platt
The fans. The people who read the books and love them. It's really cool to be able to connect with readers. To take them on a journey. I grew up reading horse stories and loving them. Marguerite Henry, Walter Farley, and Wesley Dennis were my favs. It's also really nice to be able to create a world and characters that can make readers smile, cry, dream... I'm very blessed to be able to write. I'm trying hard to get better at it. There's so much to learn about writing. I feel like I"m still in the beginning stages of it.
Chris Platt
Don't ever give up!! If you truly want to get published, you have to hang in there and keep trying. Grow a thick skin. Writer's seem to be very touchy about their writing and don't like to hear criticism. It hurts when someone criticizes your work. But that's what it takes to figure out what you're doing wrong so you can fix your book and get to the stage where you are publishable. Put your book in the hands of people you trust to tell you the honest truth about your work. That's the only way you will grow as a writer and eventually get published. Join a good writer's group, take classes, read others who are successful authors. Remember, almost every published author has a book under their bed gathering dust bunnies. Something they wrote in the beginning, that wasn't very good, but it was the stepping stone to getting published. Never give up. Remember, some of the biggest authors out there were turned down many, many times, before they got published, and now they're on the best sellers list.
Chris Platt
Currently, I'm working on cleaning my horse corrals and weeding my place. lol. (But don't tell my editor that. :-) As far as books... I'm working on a story of a girl that gets lost in the desert and follows the wild horses while she's trying to stay alive and find her way out of the desert. I've actually got about 6 books that have anywhere from 1-6 chapters written. All are very different from each other. I'm super busy right now with my regular job so I'm taking a bit of a break from writing. I need to take my own advice and park my butt in the chair and write! ha, ha! I'll get the weeding done in next two days and get back to writing.
Chris Platt
I'm a journalism major and my professors pounded it into my head that as a writer you can't "wait to be inspired." You park your butt in the chair and you write. That's your job. That works for both fiction and non-fiction. Writers always have something floating around in their imagination. That's why we're writers. That doesn't mean that we always have the right combination of ideas, or that everything we write is perfect. But I find that if I sit down and just start tapping things out, pretty soon, I'm on the right track. Remember, you can always toss what you write and start over. Or you can see the good parts in what you've done and keep those and re-write it into something you love. Just park your behind in the writer's chair and write!
Chris Platt
I get a lot of my ideas when I'm running. I also use a lot of my own life experiences. I've had horses since I was two years old. Almost every bite, kick, buck and stomp that is in my book is something I've lived through. A few years ago, there was a case of an old lady unable to take care of her horses. It was really sad. That has always stayed in the back of my mind. Then, recently, a friend of mine came home from Afghanistan with a bad case of PTSD (that he didn't think he had.) The book came out of those two situations.
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