I've been asked to give a talk about writing to 11 and 12-year-old members of a local school's book club. I'm honoured and terrified. What can I possibly say that will interest them? It's a long time since I was that age–perhaps they'll be interested in what I was reading then, and I still have some of my 'deathless prose' from that period which might not be too embarrassing to show them.
In trying to trace what it was that set me writing initially, I realised that it was reading. I had an Enid Blyton book featuring Josie, Click and Bun (one of them was a mouse, but I can't remember which). There were pictures with the text beneath them, rather like the Rupert Bear strip. I couldn't read all the text, so I made up the story to match the pictures. I've been making up stories ever since, and I've been reading ever since. What a great gift that book was! I've learned so much from reading, and my imagination has allowed me to be whatever I wished. I can order the world however I want in my daydreams and fiction, no matter how limited my actual abilities. Writing lets me justify playing 'let's pretend' and calling it work.
There was something else I had when I was 11 that today's children don't have in abundance, and probably don't even realise that they're missing, and that's silence. I'll probably suggest that they try a few minutes' quiet now and then to let their minds wander and ask 'what if...?' Whatever they decide to do in future, it will stand them in good stead.

P. S. I've just realised that the talk's booked for 13th December–Friday 13th. Of course, imagination can have its drawbacks.