Middle Grade and The Doctor Who Connection

I’d like to think that every post I write can link back to Doctor Who in some small way. Like seven degrees of Keven Bacon except with a Tardis.

And David Tennant.

Okay, let’s give it a try. The Doctor travels all of space and time, right? 

Well, MG writers travel too. But not just through time and space...and here’s where, I believe, we have one up on the good Doctor—cybermost apologies #10.

So, what could be better than traveling through all of time and space?

Traveling through memories.

MG writers travel deeper than any TARDIS (as fab as she is) can go.

Memories through taste, touch, sound, and even scents (sorry, Big T, not even you can do that).

Cafeteria pizza.

Warm eraser crumbs after you’ve deleted a whole line of words on a test.

A fresh pack of loose leaf paper.

The broken seal of a brand new box of crayons (the big one with the sharpener in the back).

We get into all kid-senses. Into their hearts and minds with associated connections from our own memories.

Sure, the Doctor can go back and forth to the future or the past, but we know that the future is the past.

Our pasts.

Writers travel through memories, imaginations, experiences, newly discovered abilities, and personality traits still waiting to be cultivated.

We navigate new friendships, go back inside ourselves to when we first sort of meet and say, “Hey, who are you?” or “Who do you wanna be?”

And maybe, during our travels, we write stories that tweak a few things we wished were done differently the first time around—either to ourselves or to others, giving kids alternate routes through words. We use our experiences and creativity to fuel our inner Tardis.

  

Maybe there'll be a Tardis upgrade one day. In the meantime, keep traveling, MG writers. Because just like the Doctor:

The future depends on us!