Katie's Pencil

I am often asked how I get ideas for my stories. The answer is that I can make almost anything into a story. And then I explain as to how. Katie's pencil was just one such example. Katie's pencil was actually written originally on a train whilst I was travelling from Chicago to Portland OREGON, for an American girl of about 10, whose name happened to be Katie. On the train I met and ended up talking to her and her family and Katie asked me how I got ideas for stories.“I could write a story about almost anything” I said “you just have to use your imagination."

I fished in my handbag [purse to the Americans] and pulled out the first thing that my hand felt. It happened to be a pencil. As the journey from Chicago to Portland by train takes two days and two nights, I decided that I would in fact go back to my coach seat and write a story for Katie. This I did, and presented her with the finished story the following morning.

So somewhere in the middle of America, there is a girl who has the original version of this story. It has been used as an example many times since, and although it has grown just a little it is still essentially exactly the same story as it started off.

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