Reality Show: KidLit Writer Types Mentor Text

Yep. Here in my corner of the KidLit world, I’m typing. (But of course, I’m not typing on this ancient typewriter but on my laptop, instead. But I do remember the day!)

What am I typing? you may ask.

My mentor text. Little poems and ditties in the Babybug magazines I borrowed and then photocopied.

But why am I typing these if I already photocopied these?

So glad you asked!

You see, I always like to schedule in some important time to type portions of my mentor text. When I’m working on writing a new picture book, I always like to have a mentor picture book or two…and I type these out word for word.

Sometimes I’m working on a chapter book or an easy reader. I type portions of these, too, on my laptop. Sometimes a whole chapter or two.

Why? Oh why do I go to all that trouble?

For a variety of reasons!

The number one reason is to train my brain. You see, when we want to learn how to ride a bike, we get on and ride. And our brain is trained on how to do it. Likewise when we want to learn how to WRITE a certain genre, if we type out portions of our mentor text, it trains our brain to work along the same paths.

Another reason I like to type these out is to see visually what an actual submission will look like on a typed manuscript page.

For example, there is a poem in Babybug that covers 4 pages of beautiful and fun artwork.

But when I type it out, it only covers two lines of text.

This teaches me what to expect with what I’m actually going to produce to submit.

Another reason I like to type things out is that then I can print out individual sections of my mentor text and glue these into my journal as I’m creating the first draft. These are handy point of references as I’m working on creating.

And another reason I like to type out my mentor text is because now I have this on my laptop. So if I’m working on my manuscript and my journal isn’t nearby and my photocopies aren’t nearby, I can just click on these files and presto! What I need is at my fingertips.

How about you? Do you type out your mentor texts? And if so, what are some of the benefits you’ve found?