Loft Writing Minute: Inspiration From Your Inner Child
As I’m wrapping up the final days of my internship with the Loft, I’ve been looking a lot at what’s next, but as I think about where I’m going, I’ve found myself turning back to where I started. I don’t just mean a few months ago when I first walked through the doors of the Loft. I mean almost a decade ago, when I was in third grade and first beginning to write.
Growing up, I was such a nerdy little girl. I was the kid who always had a book in her backpack, another one on her nightstand and a third tucked underneath her pillow. I loved reading so much that books were my best friends; I carried them everywhere and reread my favorites until I had them memorized from cover to cover.
There was Mr. Men and Little Miss. The Mysterious Benedict Society and Magic Tree House. Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library, Frog and Toad, Henry and Mudge, Who Was?, Nancy Drew, Emmy and the Incredible Shrinking Rat, The Secret Series, Pigeon, Rainbow Magic, The Girl Who Drank the Moon, Percy Jackson and, of course, Matilda. My bookshelf was a little chaotic, but, then again, so was my imagination.
My love of writing began with my love of reading. In third grade, I started keeping diaries, in fourth I started writing short stories, and by fifth, I had written my first manuscript. The first chapter was twelve pages long, and when I tried to print it at school, I accidentally printed six copies (seventy-two pages) and ended up in the principal’s office receiving an unexpected lecture on my school’s printing guidelines. It wasn’t exactly the glamorous beginning to my writing career I had imagined, but I kept writing.
Return to What Made Your Curious
Writers brainstorm plots, collect writing prompts, save interesting articles and wait for that mystical, magical moment when inspiration strikes, but sometimes, the best material is already inside us. Pure, childlike feelings can be powerful creative fuel. Maybe you were obsessed with dinosaurs, and now you find yourself, coincidentally, writing all about ideas others thought were extinct. Perhaps you spent all your childhood building elaborate forts, so now you write about a world with mind-bending kingdoms. You might have loved ghost stories because you liked being scared, or fairytales since you wanted to believe impossible things could be possible.
What did you love before you knew what love really meant? The answer might surprise you, and it might shock you even more that that love has influenced your current writing, so lean into it.
We worry so much about what is serious enough to write about and whether an idea is worth pursuing, but the child who spent an entire afternoon reading about detectives or building imaginary worlds wasn’t asking those questions. That child would just write, and returning to that level of curiosity is exactly what our writing needs.
Your Turn
Make a list (like mine above) of at least five things or books you were completely obsessed with as a kid. Games, hobbies, places, objects, space, superheroes, bugs, then choose one and ask yourself how it made you feel. Write for ten minutes about that feeling. Let your younger self be your muse, and see where your curiosity takes you.
Just Keep Reading, Just Keep Reading
Reconnect with the stories that first made us curious about the world on September 19th with Helena Ku Rhee Author Talk: A Reading & Conversation with the 2026 McKnight Judge in Children’s Literature. Rhee, an acclaimed picture book author and the 2026 McKnight Judge in Children’s Literature, will share a live reading before sitting down with Loft Partnerships Program Manager Cristeta Boarini to discuss writing for children, finding inspiration in everyday moments and creating books that help young readers see themselves and the world around them. As a writer, remember what first made you want to write in the first place.