My daughter started school today. She's in her last year of college (middle school in France) and next year she'll be starting in the lycee (highschool).She was looking forward to her new year. She likes school, pretty much, and has a lot of friends there. Being a sociable girl, she gets along with everyone.
Her favorite class is math and then physics, then science. Her least favorite is French, because she's dyslexic and her grades are low from bad spelling, mostly. She reads a lot, but she continues to spell eratically using phonetics, and so horrible is often spelled 'oribel'.
She's writing her first novel and is on chapter five already. It's a fantasy book, with dragons, witches, and a unicorn in it. The unicorn is old and skinny, the dragon tells riddles, and the heroine has to learn how to use a magic necklace she got at birth. She has a talking cat with her, and they are trying to outwit the evil fairies...It's actually a hoot to read, (if you can get past the spelling, lol.) She is a natural with dialogue - I'm quite impressed. She has a tendancy to over describe things (beginners often do) and she's put everything but the kitchen sink into the story, so it's getting a little complicated. (Simplify, simplify!). I told her not to bug my friends to read the story, and that I'd be her editor and beta-reader.
She's already written lots of short stories. Her first story was just pictures she drew when she was about 2 and a half, and she asked me to write the words. It's about our dog Fudge, a ghost, and an ice-skater. I still have it somewhere. Her next book was an illustrated story about a girl and her horse, and the girl's daughter. (a family saga?) They turn into mermaids and go live in the ocean when the horse dies, and then when the parents die, the girl returns to land to live. (After shouting "I'm free!" - I wondered about that when I read it.)
Anyway, it's fascinating to see a novelist grow and develop. I have no doubt she'll be a writer someday. She deals well with criticsm, learns from her mistakes, has an incredible imagination, and sticks with her projects until they're done. I can't wait to read her first novel!
3 comments:
Like mother like daughter eh? I have to say, if her writing is anywhere as good as yours she is on the road to a fabulous career.
I was interested to see that "college" is middle school in France. I had no idea. With that being said, what do they call what we know as College? and what about elemetary school? does that have a different name as well?
Hi Daisy!
Let's see - elementary school is called 'primaire' and kindergarten (all three years of it, starting at age three!) is called 'le maternel'. College is the 'université'.
:-)
Well look at what wonderful, talented role model she has!
Post a Comment