“It’s like writing a term paper”: Monmouth alumna visits Warren County Library
Dawsyn Wilson - Copy Editor
“When writing is in your blood, it comes to you easy. You want to share it with the world,” said Chrissy Curry, a Monmouth College graduate who visited Warren County Library.
Curry studied elementary education at Monmouth but ultimately chose to pursue her love for writing. “It's just been a dream of mine, you know,” she said. College students, local children, and their families made up the crowd as Curry read through a selection from her children’s book collection.
With the illustrations in “Daisy Doodle is Not Tucked in at Night” and “Wonders of the Sea,” Curry collaborated with her daughter. While many of her books are recent releases, Curry has been writing for years.
“I wrote a book called “Lunch on the Moon” back in 1996, and that was my dial-up Internet story. But I never knew what to do with it,” said Curry. “I've been writing for years. I just never took the shovel and dug into a deep yet, and now it's the time,” she said.
Her writing process for writing her stories is the same as she wrote her academic papers.
“It's like writing a term paper. It's exactly the same. Like, when I was a freshman at Monmouth, I had to write a term paper for my introduction to business class,” Curry said. “And you have to map it out. You have to outline it and map it out. And I remember writing that it was like a 25-page paper.”
Like the wrap-around whiteboards many students use to study, Curry uses one to organize her stories.
“I have chapters one through 20 written out, a timeline in the middle because you have to remember. You have to remember what this character looked like, what this character did for a living, you know, and you have to remember interactions, and it's very confusing,” said Curry. “So the whiteboard helps me a lot, but I begin with an outline, and I beef up my outline, and then I go back through it probably 25 times.”
Curry’s website, www.chrissycurrykids.com, for her children’s books. For those interested in an adult’s dark romance, check out her recent novel “OPEN FIRE: The Flames of Betrayal” at www.chrissycurry.com.