I don't think too much about the audience when I'm writing... I'm aware that 'Holes' was read by kids as young as 8, up to adults.

Louis Sachar

Categorized in : Think Writing Young Too Much

The media tends to portray the teenage world as one where drinking and sex is taken for granted. In fact, I think most teenagers don't drink, are unsure of themselves, and feel awkward around members of the opposite sex.

teenage drinking sex

I don't listen to music when I write. I need silence. by Louis Sachar

I don't listen to music when I write. I need silence.

listen need music silence

When I wrote 'Sideways Stories from Wayside School' I never expected it to be published. It was kind of a hobby. Now, it's a job, but it's a job I like very much.

hobby never job school

Every time I start a new novel, it seems like an impossible undertaking. If I tried to do too much too quickly, I would get lost and feel overwhelmed. I have to go slow, and give things a chance to take form and grow.

grow feel chance time

I think what makes good children's books is putting the same care and effort into it as if I was writing for adults. I don't write anything - put anything in my books - that I'd be embarrassed to put in an adult book.

good effort care children

I actually started an adult book, worked on it for about two years, and then decided it just wasn't coming together for me, and thought I'll go back to children's books, and almost immediately I started 'Holes,' and it just seemed to take off on me.

me together book children

I'm an avid bridge player. I usually go to the local bridge club three or four times a week. I've always been a game-player, and I think bridge is one of the greatest games ever invented. It's too bad that not many young people play it any more.

bridge bad think people

With 'Holes' I was troubled that there weren't very many female characters. I tried to put them in where I could. But the setting didn't lend itself to girls.

them tried very where

'The Cardturner,' while it has bridge in it, you certainly don't need to know how to play bridge to read it. It's basically a book about relationships - between Alton and his great-uncle, and Alton and his friends, and how it changes his life.

you friends life book