Other Make a Difference Day celebs:
Writer Anchee Min on the value of education
Wally Lamb brings the expressiveness of writing to prison inmates
Bestselling author Matthew Klam is enriched by a handicapped child
Robert Putnam, writer of Bowling Alone, is optimistic toward youth
Mitch Albom, author of Tuesdays With Morrie, finds his late teacher's words live on.
Arthur author Marc Brown believes where kids read, kids help others
Christopher Paul Curtis, author of Bud, Not Buddy, hails a hero he overlooked -- his dad.
Marc Parent, Turning Stones author, makes a difference to a dying woman's cat.
Ana Castillo, poet and author, tells how a gathering replenishes women who make a difference.
Justin Timberlake makes a difference through music
Patricia Cornwell, writer of The Last Precinct recalls what a world-renowned evangelist did for a scared little girl

The little workshop of dreams

David Baldacci, author of the new Wish You Well, learns a lesson from young writers.

never take for granted that young people will love reading and writing as much as I do. In fact, in our world of instant gratification over everything else, I am fearful they will forgo entirely the wondrous pleasures of getting into a book or spending time laboring over a special story of their own. That's how I found myself in a classroom of young writers last year.

As part of a high school scholarship award my wife and I established, I promised teachers from the county school system I attended some 25 years before to conduct a writing workshop. I gave the students the setup of a short story, and they created their own stories based on that premise. Their teachers picked 10 of these works, and I chose three for discussion.

I walked in ready to impart wisdom and hope among the youthful. That feeling didn't last long.

It was about 10 in the morning, and the kids didn't look all that happy to be there. Some slouched in their chairs. Others appeared to be dozing off. Still others sat erect and looked at their feet. The blue pen in my hand suddenly seemed to weigh tons. The overhead projector I was prepared to use looked like a quaint relic more suited to a museum than as a tool to entice New Millennium kids.

To break the ice, I started joking with them. Unfortunately, the only reaction came from a sympathetic teacher in the back who offered up gracious chuckles of support.

So I started discussing my years of writing in isolation. Of the frustrations and constant self-doubt about whether I was any good, whether I was getting any better. About the countless sessions of editing and rewriting, the time spent away from family, the feeble attempts at selling my scribbles that almost always resulted in crushing rejection. I looked around the room, and while I heard no overt sounds of snoring, it still didn't look promising. I glanced at the wall clock: Only one hour and 59 minutes to go. No sweat.

Then a young man raised his hand and my spirits soared. I stood ready to answer his question, however abstruse or naïve. He asked what motivated me to write because I had made writing sound, he said, like not a lot of fun.

His question hit me hard: I was there to get them excited about writing, not to terrify them. If I weren't writing, I replied, all I would be thinking about was why wasn't I. It's not an occupation, it's a way of life. It is hard as hell. It is frustrating as the devil. And yet I would be absolutely miserable if I were not spinning tales, because there is no greater feeling than nailing a sentence to near perfection or giving life to a memorable character, or creating an entire world from nothing other than daydreams. And if you think writing is just tedious work that cannot excite a single one of you, I added, let me show you something.

I took up my pen and clicked on my antiquated overhead. I put up the first story and directed the teens' attention to three specific sentences I had marked. They were clause-heavy, muddled in content and structure, all the typical hallmarks of a beginning writer. With the pen I made the three sentences one, cut 50 words to 10, and said everything the writer was attempting to say with far greater effect. A stiletto-sharp statement rose from lifeless clutter. Magic.

Now, I could feel a little energy ease into the room. I put up another paper. This story struck me as being very Stephen Kingish, I said by way of encouragement. I took Stephen King Jr.'s second paragraph and made it his opening one, and a beginning that had held mere possibilities now bristled with suspense, without me changing a single word. Words are the greatest creative tool we have, I said. You can do anything with them. No books, magazines, newspapers, films, musical lyrics, plays or poems can exist without them. They not only can change the world, they have changed the world.

Now, even the silent snorers started perking up. The work went on, the slicing and dicing of sentences, the reasoning behind a particular plot line, filling in a character's fictional soul, the tasks I labor with every day. And the questions started coming with greater frequency, too. A dialogue had not merely opened up between me and them, but between them and them. For an hour and fifty-nine minutes everything else in life was forgotten, and I walked out of that room feeling 10 feet tall because these kids were jazzed about writing.

For this year's workshop, I've given the students a chapter from my new novel Wish You Well to critique. (It's a very personal story, drawn from my mother's life in a small Virginia town; a departure from thrillers.)

I'm excited, I'm nervous, I feel like a kid again. Pretty cool. You know, when you reach out to others, it's funny how your own pockets end up fuller than when you started.