Dragon Eggs and Goblin Dust by Nikki Salt

What inspired you to write when you were a child? Has it changed much today? Was it a particular type of music, film or book that sparked your imagination? Or perhaps a special place; tucked behind the rhododendrons or hidden in the crook of an old oak tree? When I was a child, I'd curl up into the dog basket (with the dog) and lose myself in Noel Streatfeild, Enid Blyton, Susan Coolidge, KM Peyton, to name just a few, and pretend to be an author (and sometimes a poet) and fill exercise book after exercise book. 

As most of you know, I teach a bunch of ten-year-olds and I'm always looking for ways to encourage those small, developing brains to reach a little further into their imaginations and pull out dazzling ideas. Many in the class are competent readers and writers, falling into the magical chasms of other-worlds and other-shoes, temporarily forgetting their own lives and living another, growing their imaginations, creativeness and originality like artistic beansprouts. But, sitting among these flowering beanstalks are my little anemones that hide in the shade and are in danger of suffocating. I decided these six little plants needed a little goblin dust and some dragon eggs.

I take them out of the noisy, over-heated classroom and into the woods where we 'stumble' upon a nest of colourful eggs. The children are excited, picking them up, feeling them, marvelling at the bright colours, and seeing their own names printed on the back. These eggs become the stimulus for all sorts of tales from lonely dragons leaving the eggs behind before dying painful deaths to witches who have stolen and hidden the eggs to use for their spells. One child says her precious egg will hatch out out an enormous ladybird, another thinks hers contain fairy-twins, one boy thinks his eggs will hatch out an alien who looks like a green tomato. No account is wrong, nothing is pronounced silly, no one is rejected, everyone has their own story to tell.

We take the eggs back into the classroom and collect words. Single adjectives are listed which are turned into simple phrases, similes appear, and even the odd metaphor. With a little praise and encouragement, confidence grows and the children blossom into writers.

Don't you think it's the same with adult writers? At times, we doubt our ability, we make the mistake of comparing ourselves with others, believing our characters are inferior, our plots weak. We can be choked by pressures and stifled by responsibilities. But, just like those little anemones hidden in the shade of life, sometimes, all we need is a little goblin dust and some dragon eggs.