Tuesday 30 April 2013

“I never knew that everyone is a writer” - Lari Don

I’ve just opened an envelope of letters from a class I visited before Easter to chat about my new novel Maze Running, and the very top letter on the pile contained this line:

I never knew that everyone is a writer and that you don’t have to be an author to make great stories.

I was absolutely delighted, because that’s exactly what I hope kids will take from my author visits.

I do lots of school visits, and I hope I never walk in like the big fancy author (I’m usually in scruffy jeans and unpolished boots, so I’m not often mistaken for fancy) and I hope I never pontificate about being a writer as if I was the only writer in the room. I hope I always talk to kids, whether it’s half a dozen kids in a workshop or 400 in a theatre, as if we were all writers.

Because we are all writers.

When I visit a school as an author, we all share our passion for stories, we all play together with ideas and what ifs and monsters in dark corners. Sometimes the teachers even join in too! And because we make stories together, we are all writers.

I try to give children confidence in their imaginations and their stories, which is a sneaky way of giving them confidence in themselves.

So that can be the value of authors visiting schools. Kids who discover that they are writers too. That everyone is a writer.

And the value to me of school visits? I get a lot of inspiration. (Not from the kids’ own ideas, which I’d rather they wrote, but their enthusiasm and feedback always inspire me.) Also I get paperclips. Yes, paperclips. There are very few material perks to being a kids’ writer, but when I receive thank you letters and stories inspired by my visits, they often arrive held together with splendid paperclips. In this case, a nice big black and white stripy paperclip.

So, a child who heard what I was trying to say, and a cool paperclip. Not a bad day’s work…

I wonder what message, if any, other authors hope to leave behind when they visit schools?

(This is my first ever Awfully Big Blog Adventure post, and it’s been a bit of an adventure getting it up here. I hope you can all read it and I also hope you enjoyed it! See you again next month…)

Lari Don is the award-winning author of more than a dozen books for all ages, including fantasy novels for 8 – 12s, picture books, retellings of traditional tales and novellas for reluctant readers.
Lari’s website
Lari’s own blog
Lari on Twitter
Lari on Facebook

Monday 29 April 2013

Making Inky Shapes on the Paper - Anna Wilson

"When did you decide you wanted to become a writer?"

I am sure most authors can guarantee this question will come up every time they visit a school, library or do a bookshop event. Or indeed any time a new acquaintance discovers what they do for a living: adults and children alike are interested to know the answer. And I suppose it is an obvious question to ask. 

But the truth is, I personally don't know the answer. Or at least, I don't have the answer people think they are looking for. One thing I do know is that I didn't "decide". I have been writing ever since I could hold a pencil. And so I have always been a writer, just not always of the published variety.

My first stories were scrawled in old A4 desk diaries which my grandfather gave me to keep me quiet on the days he and my grandmother babysat. He had used the diaries for work, but there were still many blank pages that cried out to be filled. And fill them I did, with stories that were initially told in picture form.



However, as soon as I was able, I moved on to stringing words together and discovered that I preferred playing with words rather than images. I say "words": at first they were not words that would have been comprehensible to anyone but me. But it wasn't important. What mattered to me was that I was making a mark on the page; I was forming letters and putting them in an order that I had chosen. As Mark Haddon says in his essay, "The Right Words in the Right Order", I was making "inky shapes on the paper". And the real thrill came later when I found that I could tell a story that other people could read and understand simply by my "selecting and rearranging words you could hear at the bus stop".



Another question people ask is, "How do you become a writer?" as though there is a magical formula, or a particular academic path that must be followed. And so I tell them, "Just pick up a pen and start making inky shapes." I tell them to scribble their ideas in notebooks and to never throw anything away. I tell them to start writing in the middle of a story if that is where the big idea begins - you can always go back and write the beginning later. I tell them to write without thinking about what it looks like. I tell them that the important thing is to make their mark and to keep going until they have written everything down; that the main thing is to get it all out.

I was once criticised by a teacher for advocating this approach to writing. She said that she spent hours of her time instilling in the children the importance of planning and punctuating and that I had swept that all aside in the advice I had given. I sympathised, as I know teachers feel incredibly constricted by what they are "meant" to teach. So I have modified my advice now: I still encourage young writers to splurge on the page, but I also talk about the importance of editing and revising, honing and making their writing better, whilst always holding on to the belief that if they are writing, then they are writers. End of story.

A couple of years ago my grandmother died. We went to clear out her sparsely furnished, neat and tidy house. "There will be no surprises - she never held on to clutter," my mother warned me. "Threw all our letters away, didn't believe in keeping things for sentimental reasons."

And yet, in the attic, in a small pile of papers, there were the old desk diaries my grandfather had given me to scribble in when I was restless and eager to make my inky shapes. It was as though my grandmother understood that this was me "becoming" or "deciding to be" a writer.

I now take these diaries into schools when I give my talks. I show them to the children to explain that the answer to the question, "When did you decide you wanted to be a writer?" is simply: "I didn't. I just am."

Note: Mark Haddon's excellent essay on reading and writing can be found in the book, Stop What You Are Doing and Read This, published by Vintage.

Anna Wilson
www.annawilson.co.uk

Sunday 28 April 2013

The Death Cafe, by Maxine Linnell



There seem to be loads of books about death around. Or is it me? It wouldn’t be surprising if there were. At one end of the scale there’s all the death and destruction on the news and in games and films. At the other we’ve tried to eliminate death with all our risk assessments and insurances. 

It’s not that I want people to die, except perhaps at the right time for them. But death is a part of life. We can’t get away from it. We can’t hide it in neat boxes. We can't control it. And however powerful we get, whatever our technologies and medicines and targets, it’s not going anywhere. Death is just hanging out waiting for us. 

I’m involved in running a Death Cafe in Leicester in May. Death Cafes are taking off, in Europe and America. We’ve found a place where we can have cake and tea, and talk openly about the biggest taboo, death. There’s no easy answers, no selling anything, no profit-making. 

I’ve had interesting reactions about the Death Cafe, from horror to relief and delight. And the numbers are taking off. So if adults are finding ways of thinking and talking about death, it’s not surprising that younger people want to know what’s going on too. Untimely death has been relatively rare in this generation. When it comes it’s a huge shock, and often we look for someone to blame, or something to block the black hole that let it happen. Death is hard to accept. And it's hard to make sense of now fewer people have religious certainties to lean on. 

There’s nothing morbid about talking about death, or there doesn’t have to be. There’s even a Dying Awareness week, in the middle of May, and this year its logo is 'Be ready for it.' Knowing about death keeps us aware, helps us to treasure our time alive, to follow our dreams while we can. Perhaps it might help us to get over misunderstandings and disagreements, apologise, make up, say what needs to be said. 

You might want to have that conversation with the people you love - the one that starts ‘you know, if something happens to me...’, and ends with you agreeing whether you’d like your organs donated, what kind of funeral you’d like, whether it should be a burial or a cremation. Your family and friends could feel more secure if something should happen, and they’ll know what to do. You won’t end up with unfinished business. And you might all end up laughing together and having a good time, appreciating each other and your own lives. 

It’s never too early to include the whole family, either. The biggest questions begin when we’re young. And I think I need to be sure I'm writing about it too, when it's right.

When was the first death in your family? How did everyone deal with it? How was it for you?








Saturday 27 April 2013

Cloud watching - Lily Hyde

Cloud watching is a classic waste of time. But what if you’re a writer, and the clouds are made of words?

Word clouds are a nice waste of time for writers. There are a number of free programmes, like wordle, that allow you to break your texts up into different coloured and sized words and shape them into, for example, a map of the world. How pretty!

But it’s also pretty interesting and revealing to find out via these programmes, which highlight frequency of words, what words you over-use.

I’m a great lover of words in general, and long words in particular, and always expect an over-indulgence in my novels of ‘profligate’ or ‘disingenuous’. In fact, some of the words I use most often are ‘slightly’, ‘quite’, ‘little’ and ‘suddenly’.

These are such boring, half-assed words! I love to use lots of long descriptive words, and defend them vociferously against those of the Hemingway school of writing. But in fact, I clearly don’t have the courage of my convictions, because in my writing I am constantly qualifying them. ‘Quite disingenuous’. ‘Slightly profligate’ (Is it even possible to be slightly profligate? I think qualifying that word just renders it void).

Going back through my text and considering each over-used word allows me to really think about if I mean what I write, or if I’m just using words because I like the sound or the rhythm. In a lot of places, I find I can delete ‘slightly’ and ‘quite’. In other cases, I realise I have to tone down the adjective or adverb they are coupled with, because in fact it is not *quite* (there I go again!) what I mean.

 I will never write ‘slightly profligate’ again, and I will be less profligate with ‘slightly’. As for ‘suddenly’, I now loathe this word and delete it every single time.

Here’s the word cloud for this blog post, courtesy of ABCya. Hmmm, slightly (nooooooo!!) over-using the word 'words', methinks...

Who else enjoys word cloud watching?

www.lilyhyde.com

Friday 26 April 2013

Kirk's Theory - Andrew Strong


It was Kirk Douglas on the Michael Parkinson show, I was barely in my teens.  My mother was watching too, and she had good reason to be interested, as she’d met Kirk on a train when she was in her early twenties.  That is another story, and I won’t tell it here. To cut a very long story short: she turned him down.  But as I said, I can’t say more. For one thing, my father still doesn’t know. Please don’t tell him.

However, she was eager to watch Kirk on Parkinson, and just before the programme started had told me of their meeting, so I was keen to sit with her. I knew of Kirk as a Viking, and Van Gogh, and assumed he portrayed any character as long as his name began with V.  At the time he met my mother Kirk was appearing in a play by Chekov, (probably as Vanya, or maybe Vershinin) and my mother was travelling from South Wales to Nottingham, where she was at college.

Fabulously famous Kirk came and sat with her in an otherwise empty carriage. My mother didn’t have a clue who he was. The train pulled into the station, where a huge crowd had gathered. She said “is there someone famous on the train?” and he said, “yes, it’s me.” This, I promise you, is true.

Despite my mum’s pleasure in telling me the story, I was not particularly taken by Kirk’s appearance on Parky. He seemed to be a bit dim.  I don’t think that now, but I did then.  And here’s why.

Do you know the Monty Python sketch in which Mrs Anne Elk, played by John Cleese, explains her theory about the brontosaurus?  Mrs Elk takes what feels like hours to get to her theory, which, in the end, is no more than something like ‘they are thin at one end, fat in the middle and thin at the other.’  Kirk had a theory that was a bit like that. ‘My theory, Michael,’ he said, leaning forward as if he were about to share an insight worthy of the world’s attention, ‘my theory,’ he said, ‘is that people are different.’  Like Mrs Elk, he seemed to take a long, long time to get to his point.  And in the end his point was so commonplace as to be wholly undeserving of such a big build up.

You can imagine my disdain.  I felt almost ashamed that he could make such a trite observation and be someone of any significance whatsoever.

But here we go.  Decades later, I consider why some people like some things, and not others. Why is it we behave in different ways when confronted by the same uncertainties, or the same pleasures?  Why don’t I like cricket or golf or gardening? Why do I love beetroot? Why does my brother enjoy the tediously idiotic waste of carbon that is Formula 1?  Why are some people so sure of their beliefs, and others, like me, always full of doubt?  How can ANYONE like Wotsits?

The reason, of course, is that people are different, and the reasons for those differences are impossible to comprehend.  Yet my understanding of how people are different is far deeper and richer and meaningful today than when I was just a tiny wee lad sitting next to my mum on the sofa watching the Great Dimpled One. Now Kirk’s words seem positively wise.  Indeed, if there is one thing I’d like to tell all governmental policy makers, it’s this: ‘people are different’.

All those years ago Kirk’s words were no more than empty sounds, but now they are of huge significance.  When we’re young we tend to imagine others think in similar ways to us; it’s a form of narcissism.  As we age, we learn how different others are.

People are different and interpret things differently.  Age and experience make us understand things that once seemed transparently obvious in more subtle and complex ways. Words that meant so little to us when we were young can mean so much as we get older.  Books that we read as teenagers have lost all their power, whereas other writers who we may once have thought dreary, in our mature years become vessels of sagacity. 

So, Kirk, I’m sorry, you were right.  You could have expressed yourself a little better, but nevertheless, I think you had an understanding of human nature that I didn’t, and therefore I was unable to understand you.  And it’s interesting that your son got to marry a girl from South Wales, even if you didn’t. 

But I’m glad my mum told you to bugger off.  My dad is much funnier. And he tells a better story.

Thursday 25 April 2013

Festivalitis - Tamsyn Murray

My name is Tamsyn and I have an affliction. It's one you might identify with, especially if you've spent much time at literary festivals in your professional capacity as a writer. At the time of writing, there's no known cure. I'm talking, of course, about Festivalitis and I have it bad.

It starts gradually, the symptoms so slight that you don't notice them. You might have had to travel to get to your festival - maybe someone gave you a travel itinery to follow. They probably booked your train tickets for you. You could be met at the station by a nice PR person from your publisher, who plies you with tea and cake and ensures you get to where you need to be.

A typical Green Room view - in the case,
Chipping Norton Lit Fest getting it just right.
At the festival, you might be staying overnight, or even for a few days. You'll stay somewhere nice and be provided with food and drink. Your friendly PR person will make sure you are fed and watered at all times and will strive to ensure you have everything you need at your fingertips - you want buttered unicorn eyeballs? No problem! And the green room will be full of other writers, some of whom know you, all of whom understand you. There will be some mutual preening and a lot of laughter.

Photographers and journalists are fascinated by you. If you're lucky, lots of fans will attend your event and there will be a long signing queue afterwards. Your PR pal will tell you how marvellous you were. And they'll supply you with more tea/wine/cake, then ensure you get on the right train home.

That's when Festivalitis really kicks in. It's been wrapping you in its sticky web without you even realising it and now you're ensnared. The first inkling you'll have is when you look around for a cup of tea and realise you're going to have to get it yourself.

Oh, the horror! It gets worse when you arrive home - your family don't know that you're suffering and can look askance at your request for a glass of something chilled and the menu. For me, I knew I was infected when I got off the train after a few days at Hay, approached the car and stared in confusion at the door handle, wondering why my husband hadn't jumped out to open it for me. I had to put my own suitcase in the boot too, which was another shock. And then it dawned on me that I'd contracted Festivalitis, an affliction which strips away your ability to function properly in the real world. It might go into remission once you've spent a bit of time in the real world but a relapse is only ever an invitation away.

My name is Tamsyn and I have Festivalitis. It has been four days since my last lit fest. I really miss the cake.

Wednesday 24 April 2013

Losing My Religion - Liz Kessler


…Which is quite an ironic title, really, as I’m not religious and haven’t been for the whole of my adult life. I have been known to describe myself as a Jewish agnostic with Buddhist leanings. I haven’t found another title that sums up my religious status as accurately as this.

The closest I ever come to feeling religious is through nature or through writing. There have been times when I’ve seen a beautiful rainbow emerge over the sea, or a fan of sunlight creep out through the gaps in a cloud, and I’ve had feelings that I guess you could possibly describe as religious. They make me feel that there is something ‘else’ at work, other than what we can explain rationally, put it that way.

Same with writing. When I’m on book three of a series and I’m working on the plot, and then I remember something that happened way back in book one that I thought of randomly and didn’t have all that much importance in that book, but totally lays the groundwork for the plot idea I have just thought of – I think there is something going on out there beyond my own understanding. Something a little bit magical. And perhaps a little bit spiritual, too.

Writing has been in my life for as long as I can remember. At the age of eight, I wrote a book of poems for my beloved grandma, Mama, and was convinced I was going to be a poet. In my teens, I poured every thought and every emotion I had into pages and pages of diaries.  In my twenties, I worked as a journalist and in my thirties as a teacher of English and Media Studies. Writing isn’t a religion for me. It’s at the heart of everything I do. It’s part of what makes me who I am.

So what happens when it’s gone?

What happens when the thought of the book that you are meant to be writing (the one that you have a contract for) makes you want to run away and hide? When even the books that you’ve been thinking about behind the scenes for years (the ones you don’t have a contract for) leave you cold? When you look at your desk and see plot notes and half-finished manuscripts and magazines you bought for research, and you don’t want to go near any of it? When you start working out how much it would cost you to pay back your advances and you find yourself looking online for cafés for sale…

What then?

I’ve probably felt a measure of all of these things at some point along the way with every book I’ve written. Those close to me know that it’s part of the process. ‘Ah, you’re up to the bit where you start working out how much it would cost to pay back the advance?’ say partner and agent. ‘Yeah, that’s shortly followed by the bit where it all falls into place, remember?’

Except this time, the next bit doesn’t seem to be happening. If you read my post last month (or if you know me personally) you’ll know that the last few months have been a bit tough. Going through difficult times often has the effect of changing your perspective on things. It makes you question what’s important, makes you consider how you live your life, and evaluate the way you do everything. That’s certainly what’s happened for me over the last few months. Last month I wrote about finding my way back to working with love. But the problem is that the love just isn’t there and the writing ain’t happening.

Perhaps this post is simply part two of last month’s blog. I’m still in the process of figuring out how to get the love back. And actually, I do believe that I’ll get it back. If I’m honest though (and lovely editor and publisher, if you’re reading this, please look away now) I’m not a hundred per cent sure that I’ll get the love back for the current book. The one I’m contracted to write. The one that was due in March and has been on hold for two months. 

This could yet be a blip – a slightly deeper groove but the same thing that happens with every book. I don’t know. There might actually be some tricky conversations and some difficult decisions to be made – or I might wake up one morning soon and all of this uncertainty will have evaporated and I’ll get back to work. At this point, there’s no way of knowing which way it will go, and I can’t help feeling the weight of that question mark quite heavily, as if it were hanging over me, casting a shadow on everything I do.

Right now, I haven't got a reply to that question mark. It’s all a journey and I don’t know where this one’s going just yet. But someone once said to me, ‘Trust the process,’ and I think that’s the thing to do. It will work itself out.

And I guess my belief that this will happen is, at this point, the nearest thing I feel to faith.


Tuesday 23 April 2013

Marrying Words With Images - Lynne Garner


I've had three picture books traditionally published and with fingers crossed a new one will be published in the next year or so. With each of these projects I've never worked with the illustrator. I've had a chance to comment, highlight things that are missing or point out the odd element that doesn't correspond to my text but that's all. So when my niece asked if I could be her sounding board for her final major project (a picture book) at University I jumped at the chance.

Rather than simply illustrate a well known story my niece decided to write and illustrate her picture book. So our first step was for me to read her manuscript. I made a few suggestions for editing and tweaking. Note: never send a manuscript to a creative writing teacher if you don't want them to grab the red pen!

Her main character Tumo the baby elephant 

We then set aside an afternoon to meet up and she arrived with several large sketchbooks. She had so many ideas we knew some hard decisions had to be made, what to keep and what to 'kill.' It was decided the best course of action was to start to pick the ideas that worked and stitch these together. Basically she started with page one and worked a page at a time. 

When spreads 11 and 12 were reached that light bulb moment happened. She had come up with such a lovely image for spread 11 that it cried out to become the final spread. So with a tweak in the wording version one was complete with its new ending. Another version was also needed so the process was repeated.

Just one of my nieces quick sketches

The story is still a work in progress, so I haven't seen the completed story yet. But I know the deadline is extremely close (I know that feeling) and I'm eagerly waiting to see the end result. I have to admit I really enjoyed the experience of seeing words marry images and hope sometime I'll get the opportunity to do so again. And next time perhaps those words will be mine! 

Lynne Garner

P.S. Editors: If you're looking for a new voice with some great ideas please contact me at lynne@lynnegarner.com and I'll put you in contact with my niece. It would be lovely to have another writer in the family!      

Monday 22 April 2013

Wrestling snakes - by Nicola Morgan

That's what it feels like when a novel just won't do what it's told. And that is what I've been grappling with for the last eighteen months. Big time. Anaconda big time. Crying in the night and thinking my career must be over if I'm this rubbish time. A high concept idea which elicited interest whenever my agent or I mentioned it, but which began wriggling from my grasp pretty much from Chapter Three. And they are short chapters...

I finished the first draft. Didn't like it. Good beginning, good ending, tangled boring mess in the middle. And by "middle" I mean all but the first three and last three chapters. Yes, short chapters.

Left it for a few months.

Attacked the snakepit again. The snakes seemed to have multiplied in my absence, revealing a whole load more flaws that I hadn't seen before.

More crying in the night. More wrestling. More wondering why it was so hard. Other writers were finishing novels left right and centre. What was wrong with me?

Eventually finished the second draft. Didn't like it any better. More crying.

Left it for a few months.

Attacked the pit for the third time, in a spirit of "I will do this if it kills me because I will despise myself if I don't." Put other work on hold - including a book that has a contract and a deadline, which this one doesn't.

Tried a storyboard technique. It didn't work.

Tried mind-mapping. It didn't work. But it had pretty colours.

Tried my patent mathematical drama-versus-time graph technique (which I'd invented to solve a previous book's problem, successfully.) It didn't work this time, though it did show me something - that the snake was bigger than I'd thought. And there were more of them.

Tried a new technique which I haven't got a name for but which has the effect of identifying each snake's position, firing a tranquilliser dart at it and, while it's semi-conscious, manoeuvring it into place and then sticking pins in it so it can't move until I say so.

At the same time I was revealing my desperation to anyone who would listen on Twitter. I described it as wrestling an anaconda-sized plot problem.

These were the well-meaning responses I received:

  • Take a break from it. (I'd done that twice already.)
  • Go for a walk. (Works well for worms, but not anacondas. Also, it would be a hell of a long walk.)
  • You can do it. (Not necessarily.)
  • Eat chocolate. (Good idea.)
  • How come you have this sort of problem when you've written so many books? (Good question.)
  • You write my book and I'll write yours. (Since that was Joanne Harris, that was a GREAT idea. Actually, I think I'm confusing two conversations, but still.) 
  • Awww, poor you. [[[hugs]]] (Thanks.)
  • Introduce zombies. (Not helpful.)
  • Or penguins. (*glares*)
  • Or zombie penguins. (You're not taking this seriously.)
Now, (*whispers*,) thanks to my tranquilliser dart technique, the signs are currently positive but I'm not going to tempt fate with anything approaching hubris. What I want to say is something which most writers know and which non-writers might be interested in knowing:
  • It's horrible, lonely and emotionally draining when a book behaves like this.
  • No one can really help. Although talking things through with friends can sometimes reveal the key, essentially the answer comes through our own hard work, no one else's.
  • Although it's painful at the time, the satisfaction of success is huge - and probably true that the greater the pain, the greater the satisfaction.
  • We don't necessarily get better at it. Each book is a new book, a new start and a new challenge. Some books just come out more easily and some are harder. Success is not guaranteed, and practice does not seem to make perfect.
  • Determination is necessary.
So, tomorrow it's back to the snakepit and I'm telling you: it's me or that pesky snake.


Sunday 21 April 2013

Researching Victory by Megan Rix

While I was researching the lack of military trained British dogs at the start of World War 2; and the setting up of the War Dog School, for my latest book 'The Victory Dogs', I came upon the interesting fact that 200 fully trained French and Belgian messenger dogs had been sent over from Dunkirk and had apparently arrived safely in Dover and were never heard about again.

'When the British and French forces were pushed back to the Channel, by the Germans in their drive to the coast, Mark was one of the two hundred Belgian and French dogs, that were evacuated and taken safely back to England at Dunkirk (May 1940). http://community-2.webtv.net/Hahn-50thAP-K9/K9History15/

I'd already been commissioned by Puffin to write my third book about dogs set during World War 2 and immediately wanted to write about one of these dogs but that's when my research hit a blank wall. 

I got in touch with the usual sources: Imperial War Museum, Ministry of Defence Dog Training Centre as well as looking through the newspapers, both national and regional, of the time. There was lots of information about Dover being over-run with stray dogs brought back by soldiers from Dunkirk - but nothing about these fully trained dogs. My search widened. 

One very useful source of help was the animal activist and academic Dr Hilda Kean who had also been wondering what had happened to these dogs. I knew there were strict rules that dogs that weren't registered were put down because of the fear of rabies. It's the starting point for my first book in the series 'The Great Escape' and as I continued researching I was dreading finding out that these dogs had been put down. But Hilda assured me that the animal activists of the time would never have let that pass without reporting it. I thought maybe the boat/ship they were on had been sunk but apparently not. It was really a mystery and one that I intend to keep on looking into but have had to put to one side for the moment. If anyone knows I would love to know...

History I'm finally finding out, when I'm almost historical myself, has lots of interesting facts and once you dig a little you're soon digging a lot - and it's exciting! So much more so than I ever knew. At school I can only really remember writing down facts the teacher read out about The Tudors and we learnt about Kings and Queens when I'd much have preferred to learn about what 'real' people did and how they lived - people like me.

Photo by Bedford Times & Citizen
I love watching the pathe news-clips from the 1940's of the people of Dover being interviewed. Yes, Mr Hitler had been doing quite a lot of damage to their town but they couldn't stand around talking about it all day as their  dinner was waiting for them in the oven! Those are the sorts of quietly brave, and funny, people I like to read about.

My research led me to finding out more about the jobs women did in WW2. I knew there were land-girls and women worked in 'munitions' factories but I hadn't known they were also fire crew and search and rescue team members and countless other jobs. I somehow imagined the people were much more polite and refined (which they probably were) and thought the women would be wearing skirts to do their jobs until I started finding more and more pictures of women in overalls and thought of course they would be wearing them - much more practical and if you weren't issued with some you'd borrow someone else's.

I was delighted to find that I'm a size 2 in WW2 overalls and I was able to buy a pair of originals on e-bay for my school talks, because obviously no adult would imagine they were a size 2, unless they read the small print on the overalls label while they were doing their research (the size system seemed to have gone by height rather than girth.)

As well as overalls there's a plethora of helmets to be found, my one in the picture's restored and sandblasted but I was very interested, although I should have expected it, to find you could buy your own hat-like Zuckerman helmet with it's higher top for 5 shillings and 6d at the time.


I also now know far more about the ventilation systems of tube trains, how people sheltered on the platforms during The Blitz, and what's behind Wood Green station, as well as being an expert on pigbins and how to make lemonade from carrots.

Researching is like being a detective - there's so much interesting stuff out there. I love it.

What research have you been doing recently?





Reviews of 'The Victory Dogs' published by Puffin April 2013:

‘A moving tale told with warmth, kindliness and lashings of good sense that lovers of Dick King-Smith will especially appreciate.’ The Times

‘If you love Michael Morpurgo, you will enjoy this.’ Sunday Express

'The Great Escape' is currently shortlisted for the East Sussex and Young Quills book awards.

Megan supports Make it Possible


Saturday 20 April 2013

Dire Doings at Stringhalt Hall - Joan Lennon

The Setting: A dark and stormy night batters about the towers of Stringhalt Hall. Down in the stables a lone light flickers briefly. Then, there is a sudden kerfuffle, and a stable boy is sent scurrying for the master. 

The Crime: Lord Stringhalt's prize racehorse, Run Fast, by Any Route, out of Harm's Way, is found to be suffering from ... something.  Something caused by someone staying at the Hall.  But who? 

The Suspects/House Guests: 1. The Right Reverend Fistulous Withers, who strongly disapproves of horse racing and associated gambling. 
2. Lord Algernon Bastard-Strangles (of the Suffolk Bastard-Strangles). He is rumoured to be head over hocks in debt. 
3. The Honourable Pollyanna (known to her friends as Poll) Evil, Lord Stringhalt's fiancee, of whom it has been said that "she is no better than she should be." 
4. Messieurs Mallenders and Sallenders, solicitors from a long-established legal firm, down from London, but for pleasure? Or business? 

The Sleuth:  Detective Superintendent Petunia Heaves happens, fortuitously, to also be a guest.

The Big Accusation Scene:  Everyone is gathered in the stable, looking shifty.  The sleuth examines Run Fast for clues and then ...

Who Done It?:  ... without a word, Detective Superintendent Heaves goes to the tack room, returns, and hands Lord Stringhalt a small pot of something pungent.  An ointment made of pig oil and sulphur.  

Lord Stinghalt takes a sniff and gasps, "Does this mean Run Fast will be able to run fast after all?  And does this also mean that ... "  He turns and points a horrified finger at the gathered guests.

Heaves nods.  "That's right," she says. "The lawyers done it."

How did she know?

(A Clue: The suspects' - indeed, everyone's - names in this story have a connection ...)

(The Point:  Started as a post on naming characters and got, er, away from me a little.)

Joan Lennon's website.
Joan Lennon's blog.

With grateful acknowledgement to Karen Bush.

Friday 19 April 2013

The Writing Zone: 5 Top Tips For Staying There - Lucy Coats

The Writing Zone - hard to describe, but every writer knows when they get there.  For me it's as if the left side of my brain is an empty pool, because all the good stuff is compacted in the right half.  Like rich moist compost. I'm in this place right now, at the very start of a new novel, and it's as if I also have a kind of excited spring of fizzy idea-champagne bubbling up inside me. In my own adaptation of Emilie Sandé's song:
"I wanna write, I wanna spout, I wanna type till the words dry out." 
So, once you're in it, how do you stay there, with all the demands of everyday life pressing on you? This is how I do it - you may be different, and I'd love to hear other writers' top tips in the comments section below.

1: First Clear The Desk Decks. All that Feng Shui stuff about clean desks and uncluttered space works well for me.  I've just finished a 4-book series for the States, and I had a ritual clearing of the desk decks this week, putting away all the old research books, and replacing them with new and relevant ones. It's like preparing a seedbed for new plants - it helps me to get into the Zone faster, and when I'm there to feel that I'm in my own specially created New Book Space.

2: Cut Out The Inessentials. So what if my sheets don't get ironed? Dusty house? Don't care. Anything that can wait, should. This makes more time for writing, and at this stage, every moment is precious. I'm lucky - at this point in my life my kids have flown the nest, and I have a supportive husband, so this is easier for me to do than for many women. In earlier days, I wrote when I could and did what I had to to keep the family fed and clothed. What is inessential now was essential then.

3: Cultivate The Art Of Saying NO. This also includes saying no to yourself.  So, I put on the excellent AntiSocial and block off all social media, email and everything else distracting. This week I was supposed to be at the London Book Fair all three days. Because I was in the Zone, I said no, and cancelled. While I love LBF, getting on with writing the book was simply more important to me, so I went for one (very worthwhile) meeting, and sat and scribbled for the rest of the time.

4: Be Gentle With Yourself. Sometimes, when you're in the Zone, you need to make time for dreaming. This is the hardest part for others to understand. If I need to have half an hour's nap to work through a tricky plot point, then I do, and I don't feel guilty about it. I personally also feel quite fragile emotionally when I'm at the beginning of a book - all my love is with this entrancing new challenge, so I don't want to be around a lot of people and noise. That's another reason I didn't go to LBF this time. Too much mental overload - and I didn't want to clutter my brain with anything other than MY book.

5: The Notebook and Scrivener. For every new book I write, I have a new notebook. This one's royal purple leather from Castelli, and suits my subject perfectly (I'd show it to you here, but once again Blogger is being aggravating about loading photos). I don't usually decorate them, but I did this time. It made the book feel grown up and real and alive. I write my notes in pencil - there's something about that which makes the creative juices flow for me. Can't explain why! I also have a new Zone ritual, which involves setting up a new Scrivener file for the book. Scrivener is a recent discovery, and I find it amazing and useful and the best writing tool in the world.

Do let me know what your tips are for staying in the Zone - and also how it feels for you to be there. I'll look forward to hearing from you all!


Lucy's new picture book, Bear's Best Friend, is published by Bloomsbury 
"A charming story about the magic of friendship which may bring a tear to your eye" Parents in Touch 
"The language is a joy…thoughtful and enjoyable" Armadillo Magazine. 
"Coats's ebullient, sympathetic story is perfectly matched by Sarah Dyer's warm and witty illustrations." The Times   
Her latest series for 7-9s, Greek Beasts and Heroes is out now from Orion Children's Books. 
Lucy's Website
Lucy's Tumblr
Lucy's Scribble City Central Blog (A UK Top 10 Children's Literature Blog)
Join Lucy's Facebook Fanpage
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Lucy is represented by Sophie Hicks at Ed Victor Ltd



Thursday 18 April 2013

When I want to be writing... Linda Strachan


When I want to be writing...  I find myself doing all sorts of other things.

The story is singing in my head and I want to go and write it. The ideas are flooding in, so why am I not writing?

Why? Because life gets in the way.

It happens all the time and it appears that it has been happening for years because recently I came across my diary from a couple of years ago and I was interested to discover that things were no different then

when instead of writing......



 I had agreed to look after daughter’s cat and had to to keep going round to her house to feed it, pet it, let it in, and let it out, and then in again....  





Popping in to North Berwick High School where some teenagers were organising the launch of my new book (Dead Boy Talking - 2010) and trying not to panic because the launch was just few days away.  To watch them rehearse a short sketch they had written and were going to perform at the launch.



 Visiting our local radio station East Coast FM for a chat.


Cutting up my wedding dress for my little granddaughter, because I had turned the house upside down looking for the family christening dress but we have moved three times since it was last seen, so had agreed to make new one from my wedding dress (let’s face it I was never going to use it again - even if I could have fitted into it, and it looked so sweet on her!)  







Meeting of readers from two different schools who were getting together to discuss the new book at a local library.





I often like to write late in the evening but the last thing I had written in the diary that week was that I was cooking meringues and salmon mousse and lasagne and all sorts of other things in the middle of the night, because although I had started early, one of the kids called to have a chat - so it was now late.. 

 All this was some time ago but although the details change and despite all the other things that make up the tapestry of life, the ideas still sing in my head and somehow they get written.

But perhaps it is all the other things that provide the lyrics and music for the story song in my head. So when I want to be writing it is sometimes just that the words have not quite reached the paper.
 

..............................................



Linda Strachan is the author of over 60 books for all ages from picture books to teenage novels and a writing handbook Writing For Children 

Her latest novel is Don't Judge Me  published by Strident 2012 


website  www.lindastrachan.com
Blog http://writingthebookwords.blogspot.co.uk/


 

Wednesday 17 April 2013

To e or not to e! - the dilemma of self publishing ebooks - Saviour Pirotta

A Year 6 boy asked me if any of my books were available for ipad the other day.  I was doing an author visit in West London, in a rather posh school where every kid seemed to have got an ipad for Christmas.

'You can download some of my picture books from the google play store,' I answered. Which was a daft thing to say. A Year 6 kid isn't going to want a picture book.

'What about your horror stories?' he asked. He was referring to four books I'd written for a series called Tremors, first published by Macdonald in the late 1990s.  Macdonald and its sister company, Wayland, were bought out by Hodder, in 2000 if I remember right.  They discontinued Tremors but relaunched some of the titles with new covers under the Wayland imprint, aiming them at the school market.  Two of my books came back into print but two didn't.

And here's my dilemma!  If I wanted to, I could relaunch the two titles as ebooks. I use one of them in schools a lot and I know that kids purchase remaindered copies online. But how would my ebooks affect the sales of the paper editions still in print? Both of them still do quite well and I don't want the sales to plummet simply because children or teachers can get hold of the digital titles quicker.

I'm also not sure if it's ethical to produce something that competes directly with something else my publisher is trying to sell.  I know we all have gripes about our publishers but I really like mine and get on well with them.  I'm aware that when they go with one of my projects they are investing a considerable amount of money in me and the editors are putting their reputation on the line. Is it fair for me to come up with direct competition?  Or am I just being a luvvy?

I suspect the solution is to relaunch titles that would not hamper sales of paper books. I don't have any adventure stories in print at the moment, so I could self-publish a pirate novel I wrote for Pan/Macmillan long before Jack Sparrow made buccaneers cool again.  I'd be dipping my toe in the digital market and still be able to turn off the lights at night with a clean conscience.  What do you all think?

Tuesday 16 April 2013

Engaging With the Text - John Dougherty

I don’t know if you’ve read Daniel Pennac’s marvellous The Rights of the Reader? If not, take a look at the list of rights on the back cover:



Terrific, aren’t they? I’m tempted to add them to my son’s face in indelible marker, just for those moments when I start to do that Dad Thing of assuming I know better than he does about what, when or how he should be reading.

I’ve been thinking lately that I might add an eleventh right, too:

11. The right to engage with the text however the reader jolly well pleases.

And - with a sychronicitous nod to Miriam Halahmy’s post of yesterday - I’ve been thinking about this because of Oliver Twist.

This is where I add in a photo of my son dressed as The Artful Dodger. His school put on a production of Lionel Bart’s Oliver! a few weeks ago, and I’m being as objective as it’s possible for a proud dad to be when I say that he was an absolute star. I’m guessing one of the reasons he was so good was that he was completely absorbed by the part from the moment he decided to try out - I even caught him singing his audition piece in his sleep. We watched the 1968 film as our Friday night family movie, went to see the Cameron Mackintosh production at the Bristol Hippodrome with Neil Morrissey as Fagin and Samantha Barks as Nancy, and talked about it endlessly - not just the rehearsals, but the script, the songs, the teachers’ possible reasons for casting decisions, the props, the costumes, the characters…

...and when it was all over, it wasn’t over. Not for us. A few days after the triumphant closing night and the end of term, we drove to Germany for a week with friends. And what was my son’s choice of audio-book for the trip? Oliver Twist, of course. Which is interesting, because previous attempts at listening to Dickens on long journeys haven’t been entirely successful. Now, though, as soon as one disc ended, he wanted the next one on. More than that, he brought our copy of the book with him and, as the audio-book played, dipped into it from time to time, comparing the spoken story with what was written and spotting abridgements. Then, as the story progressed, came the detail and plot-lines left out of the musical - the original story is much longer, and more complex - and the realisation that some lines belonging to one character in the book are given to another on the stage.

Would I have liked him to just sit down and read the original Dickens? Well, yes, I would. But I can’t escape the feeling that he’s got so much more out of the story doing it his way.

Monday 15 April 2013

Was Bill Sykes an abused child? by Miriam Halahmy




I am often absorbed by obsessions.  I believe that our obsessions help to drive and direct our writing so I give them free rein to see where they will take me. For example, I have precision timing and so am often obsessed with time and hate being late. I currently have a character with a similar characteristic and have had great fun playing around with it.

A few years ago I was on an Arvon course with Melvyn Burgess and Malorie Blackman - a great week. Melvyn had brought out Nicholas Dane, an extraordinary story of child abuse with a character called Jonesy, who mirrored Bill Sykes in Oliver Twist. When I spoke to Melvyn about his book he said, “ Was Bill Sykes an abused child?” I must admit that sent my mind whirling.



The killing of Nancy by Sykes has haunted me from childhood. I was terrified of Bill Sykes both when I read the Oliver Twist as a child and when I saw the striking, black and white, David Lean film version. For me, it has always been one of the most horrific murders in literature.  When Dickens read out that passage, grown men would faint.

 But I realised, after reading Nicholas Dane and talking to Melvyn, that the real horror in that murder for me is the fact that Sykes (and Melvyn does the same with Jonesy) covers his face in the final blows which kill Nancy. Does this show he is unable to totally separate himself from his innate humanity, cannot look upon his dreadful deed?
If Sykes was an abused child then that could explain his terrifying and bullying nature, while demonstrating childhood abuse had not killed every tiny bit of humanity in him. For me, this intensifies the horror of the deed.

When I went back to the original text I realised that after killing Nancy, Sykes walked a long way out of London. Like a man in shock he ‘turned down to Highgate Hill, unsteady of purpose, uncertain where to go..... then wandering up and down in fields, and lying on ditches’ brinks to rest, starting up to make for some other spot, and do the same, and ramble on again.’ He carries on, unable to stop anywhere to eat and drink, until finally he settles in the tap-room of some village pub where,  ‘...he sat down in the farthest corner and ate and drank alone...’

My fascination turned into a poem in the voice of Sykes in shock and so the phrasing is deliberately awkward and intense.

‘Foulest and most cruel’
The killing of Nancy : ‘ Oliver Twist’  Dickens


Unspeakable, oh shut the dog!

Take the sun and block it out
But not the gun, a blasted sound

If she cries out, if they hear,
So beat down hard and hide your eyes

Beat down hard, club the head
Smash and grab and hide your face

Too dreadful, God, to look upon
The coward way, the bloodied bone

The pitted skull, the crumpled eye
Oh shut the dog, its scrabbled paws

This not her face beneath the rug.


© Miriam Halahmy


Sunday 14 April 2013

The Wisdom of Coach Taylor by Tony Bradman


(I'm about to start teaching another course on children's writing for Curtis Brown Creative, and I wrote a blog post for them with some thoughts about the teaching of writing. It had to be edited down, so I'm taking this opportunity to give you the whole thing...)

Over the last few months I’ve been watching Friday Night Lights, a US series about a Texas high school football team and a range of characters associated with it. Like all the best contemporary US TV drama, it has high production values, great storylines and acting, and the kind of cliffhangers that make you want to watch the next episode as soon as possible. As someone who has now lived through The Sopranos in its glorious entirety four times, and who was a big fan of The Wire, I was born to love Friday Night Lights. That said, I realised a while ago there’s a parallel between this show and the thing I’ve been doing in recent years – teaching people who want to write for children.

Friday Night Lights is full of storylines about relationships between husbands and wives, parents and children, and people who work together. It’s about the ordinary things of life and just how important they are. But (and this is where it differs from almost any other long-form drama I’ve seen) it’s also about a sports team, and the questions in the minds of all those affected by its success or failure. In those episodes where the storyline turns on a young player’s feelings or behaviour, the question is direct – is this player any good? Does he stand up to pressure or buckle when things go wrong? Most of all, does he have any talent and is he using it to the best of his ability? There’s lots more in the show, of course, but the importance of talent is at its heart.

A key figure in this is Coach Eric Taylor. He’s the guy who has to take young boys and mould them into football players. He has to discover what they can bring to the team and help them develop their talents, whatever those talents might be. Some of the boys have limited abilities, and then it’s a case of getting the best out of them, or perhaps even lowering their expectations. Others have extravagant, amazing talents, but find it hard to exploit them – perhaps because they lack self confidence or have personal problems to deal with.

You can probably see where I’m going with this. OK, I’ll admit that using sport as some kind of metaphor is a cliché – we all know that scene in a Hollywood movie where a father and son bond during a one-on-one game of basketball. But even a cliché can reveal a human truth, and sport – like writing – is an area of human activity that’s based on the idea of talent. Anyone can play football, but very few people have the kind of talent for the game of players such as George Best, David Beckham or Ronaldo. The extreme specialisation in Coach Taylor’s chosen sport of American football makes this even more clear. Anyone can throw a football, but very few people indeed can throw the kind of passes a quarterback has to in every game, even at high school level. You need some kind of natural ability to start with. Coach Taylor knows that – but he also knows how to spot that talent in a boy and how to help him develop it.

Creative writing courses have proliferated in recent years at every level, and understandably there has been a bit of a backlash. Some commentators have even called into question the whole idea of teaching such a hard-to-pin-down skill as writing. I’d be the first person to agree that just as you can’t turn an un-athletic klutz into an NFL quarterback, it really is impossible to teach someone to write well unless they have some talent in the first place. But if you do have talent, then it sometimes really helps to work with people who can help you identify exactly what that talent is and teach you ways of enhancing it.

At a very basic level, this could simply save you a lot of time. Take someone like me, for example. As a teenager I read a lot of poetry, and for a long time I was convinced I could become the next Dylan Thomas or Ted Hughes. I didn’t have anyone I could show my work to, and produced lots of awful poetry that I sent off to small magazines with very little success. It wasn’t until I became a parent and started to read children’s books to my own kids that I began to realise my future as a writer might lie elsewhere. I did write poetry for children, but it was only when I started writing young fiction that I was successful enough to make a career as a writer. I’ve earned my living from my writing ever since, but I sometimes wish I had been able to work with someone who could have seen that future trajectory in me. It might have saved me more than a few years of trying to find my way in the wilderness.

Traditionally it was editors who were supposed to do this, but most of them don’t have the time to be talent spotters and work with writers who might have a long way to go before they can produce publishable work, even if they clearly have some kind of talent. Publishing is a business and times are hard, so it’s no surprise that in the Darwinian struggle to survive publishers are less inclined to be patient and think of the long-term. That’s why it’s also no surprise that there are so many writing courses these days – it’s almost as if publishers have out-sourced the whole process of developing talent.

So what can a course do for you? As with anything in life, I’m pretty sure courses vary enormously, so I can only talk about the way I approach it. To begin with I tell students that writing well is never easy – as Thomas Mann said, ‘a writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people’. I tell them to put out of their minds any ideas of big advances and film rights and earning vast sums from your work. The important thing is to study the craft – and I do think it’s possible to teach people with talent a lot about the mechanics of writing, about character and plot and how to grip readers. It really is the same as sports coach working with a talented player. Like any good coach, I study the students and try to help them improve on what they’re doing already. Sometimes it’s about making them see they need to work on a particular area – story structure is often something people find it hard to understand, at least to begin with. Sometimes it’s about helping students look into their hearts and ask themselves what kind of stories they want to tell – or whether they do truly want to write, and have something interesting to say.

I believe that a good course should be pragmatic, and taught by someone with real experience on the field of play (to slip back into a sporting metaphor). I’ve got plenty of editing experience – I’ve edited lots of anthologies of short stories and quite a few novels, so I know that even published writers need some coaching sometimes. But I’ve made my living as a writer for many years, so – as Coach Taylor might say – I can walk the walk as well as talk the talk. In the end it’s all about being pragmatic, about getting the students to see what works and how to improve it, or occasionally persuading someone to stop crashing into a particular wall. There’s an emotional side to writing as well. Good writers are sometimes hamstrung by a loss of confidence or a refusal –based on the insecurity we all feel when we write – to take honest, objective criticism and act on it. I like to think that any student who finishes one of my courses knows what it means to be professional.

Part of the appeal for me is also in the idea that I might find someone who is a fantastic talent, a Pelé among writers. There’s a thrill in finding a new voice, in reading something and knowing it’s unique and original, and also that you might be able to help that writer become even better. Coach Taylor’s team has a motto, one he quotes to them before every game – ‘Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose.’ I’m thinking of saying that before every lesson I teach.


There are several books I’ve found enormously useful both as a writer and a teacher of writing. They tackle very practical matters, but they’re also excellent on the whole area of motive – why you want to be a writer in the first place – and how to deal with the emotional side of the writing life. They are:

Body of Work – 40 Years of Creative Writing at UEA (edited by Giles Foden)

The Creative Writing Coursebook (edited by Julia Bell andPaul Magrs)

An Editor’s Advice to Writers – The Forest for the Trees (by Betsy Lerner
 
You can also find details of the Curtis Brown Creative Writing School on their website: http://curtisbrowncreative.co.uk/writing-school/