Chapter 1- Part two

In the second part of this chapter Levine suggests 7 rules for writing.

1. The best way to write better is to write more.
2. The best way to write better is to write more.
3. The best way to write better is to write more.
4. The best way to write more is to write whenever you have five minutes.
5. Read! The payoff for this pleasure is that reading books shows you how to write them.
6. Reread! There's nothing wrong with reading a book you love over and over. When you do, the words get inside you, become part of you, in a way that words in a book you've read only once can't.
7. Save everything you write, even if you don't like it, even if you hate it. Save it for a minimum of fifteen years.

She then explains the last rule commenting that she used to think that she would remember what it felt like to be a child, but she can't. She says, "When you become a teenager, you step onto a bridge...the opposite shore is adulthood. Childhood lies behind. The bridge is made of wood. As you cross, it burns behind you."

As I read the 7th rule, I remembered a story I wrote in 4th or 5th grade. We were supposed to write a story about an animal (probably after reading a book like Summer of the Monkeys). I wrote about a wolf cub. I remember that the story wasn't very good because I had a hard time getting into the character.
I didn't understand at the time, that because I have terrible allergies and can't be around animals, I didn't have enough positive experiences to write about loving or rescuing animals and have it come out sounding the way I wanted it to. The narrator of my story loved animals and was rescuing an abandoned wolf cub. But, I didn't love animals, in fact I resented them and all the people that could be around them. I don't have a copy of that story because I didn't think it was very good and didn't want to keep it. Although it would have been irregular for a 5th grader, my story would have been much better if I had taken a different route and put my real feelings into it. In that case, the story would have ended badly for the animal.