Friday 31 May 2013

Why Colin can't remember - reflections on Alan Garner's 'Boneland' by John Ward

Cave paintings, Lascaux, France
(image courtesy of Prof saxx, via Wikimedia Commons)
Boneland must be one of the strangest sequels ever written. It is not Alan Garner’s best book, but for the questions it poses, it is of great interest to all of us who write for children.

It purports to complete the trilogy begun fifty years ago with his earliest books, The Weirdstone of Brisingamen and The Moon of Gomrath. The first made a powerful impression on me, perhaps because I heard it on the wireless before I read it (and I was startled to discover, on rereading it, that it was the source of a key part of the climactic scene in my own first book, The Secret of the Alchemist - a borrowing of which I was entirely unconscious). Yet the second made so little impact that only when I took it out of the library last year, in preparation for reading Boneland, did I realise I had read it before.

The strangeness of Boneland as a sequel stems from its lack of sequence: of the two characters who feature centrally in the other books, one - Susan - is conspicuous by her absence, while the other - her brother Colin - is effectively a different character: as the result of a traumatic experience in adolescence, he has undergone a personality change, becoming an autistic polymath who is now, in adult life, a professor of astronomy.

He has also lost all memory of the events of those first two books. In other words, to all intents and purposes, he has no connection with the earlier books at all (and even things that seem like links - the fact that Colin and Susan are twins, that she addresses him as ‘Col’, that their parents are killed in an aircrash, that Susan disappears - none of these actually features in the earlier books).

At first sight this seems almost perverse, as if Boneland were less a sequel, more a repudiation of that earlier work - and in a way, it is; but the question to ask is, could it have been otherwise?

Let us suppose that Colin survives into adulthood with his memory intact: here is someone who has personally encountered wizards, witches and warlocks, elves, dwarves and goblins, sleeping Arthurian knights and house-high troll-women, all in the Cheshire countryside; at the very least, he would have become a professor of comparative folklore rather than astronomy - it is impossible to believe that such events would not have shaped the rest of his life.

But the truth of the matter is that it simply will not do: elves and goblins belong in storybooks; there is no way to reconcile Colin’s childhood encounters with the reality of his adult life that would be believable. The only thing is to have him conveniently forget it all.

So am I conceding what some critics have long asserted, that fantasy is childish stuff, of no interest to adults, and of doubtful value to children, who would be better served by books about the ‘real world’?

By no means.

Fantasy, as it happens, does succeed best with children of a certain age, but for reasons that are the opposite of those put forward by its detractors: far from being an escape from the real world, it is for them an image of it.

Consider that the child entering adolescence stands on the verge of a mysterious world that he must soon enter, a world of which he knows little, governed by powerful hidden forces, a place where anything might happen: it is a prospect both daunting and exciting, in equal measure. Mapped, that world would resemble the products of mediaeval cartographers - a tiny area (home, school) that is familiar, surrounded by huge blank spaces furnished by the imagination, where be dragons.

Tabula Rogeriana, 1154 (image from Wikimedia Commons: public domain)
In other words, fantasy literature is a metaphorical embodiment of the fears and hopes we all experience on the verge of adulthood, when, though we long for freedom and independence, we are still the responsibility of other people - our parents, or those who stand in their stead. We seek reassurance that we can enter that world alone and survive on our own resources, and the emotional experience of doing that is what fantasy adventures allow us to try out.

Garner’s problems with Boneland do not arise from the fact that the earlier books are fantasy, but from his failure to keep the worlds in them separate. Colin and Susan’s encounters take place where they live; they do not go to the monsters - the monsters come to them. And because Colin, as an adult, continues to inhabit the same landscape, the question of what happened to all those fabulous creatures becomes an awkward one.

In his later story, Elidor - a fine work that manages to evoke an epic world without being of epic length - Garner ensures that there is a portal (in the liminal space of an abandoned church in the process of being demolished) so that the children in that tale pass into another world for their magical encounters; even the magical objects they bring back with them are transformed, in the mundane world, into mundane things.

But Colin, if he could remember, would know that the Weirdstone of Brisingamen - Susan’s Tear - is just up the road a way, under Alderley Edge, in Fundindelve, where Arthur's knights and their stallions lie asleep; he would know that Angharad Golden-hand’s floating island is down that way, somewhere on Redesmere - and it is unlikely that he would be more interested in distant galaxies, with that on his doorstep.

The View from Sormy Point, Alderley Edge (image courtesy of Randomgurn via Wikimedia Commons)

However, there is a second reason for Colin’s inability to remember, which has to do with Garner himself, and how he has come to view the business of storytelling. It is interesting that he rejects the label of ‘children’s writer’ - "I certainly have never written for children," he is on record as saying, though it is hard to argue that his first two books are not primarily aimed at a young audience.

What he is, first and foremost, is a writer rooted in a particular landscape - what Orkney was to George Mackay Brown, the Cheshire countryside in the vicinity of Alderley Edge is to him. However, in those first two books the spirit of place is heavily overlaid with a rather motley heap of borrowings from Arthurian, Norse and Celtic myth.

In his later writing, he dispenses with this: increasingly, it is the landscape itself, its history and prehistory, that furnishes the element of wonder that legendary borrowings supplied before. The prehistoric bull-painting in the cavern that features in The Stone Book establishes a theme that runs through all his later work. That is the other reason why Garner has Colin forget his earlier adventures: that way of telling stories no longer works for him.

Boneland, in fact, has much more in common with Garner’s more recent works, Thursbitch and Strandloper. A key figure in all three is the Shaman, who mediates between the tribe and the forces beyond - forces that imbue the landscape, forces with which the tribe must come to terms if it is to survive, controlling (or at least harnessing) them by enmeshing them in a web of ritual and story.

In Boneland, the Shaman (who is also an aspect of Colin himself) is the last survivor of an extinguished  pre-human race, probably Neanderthals; in Strandloper, it is an 18th century Cheshire labourer who is transported for sedition and becomes an Aboriginal medicine man; in Thursbitch, it is a Cheshire packman, who keeps alive the ancient Mithraic bull-cult among the country folk residing in a remote valley.

The implication is that the storyteller stands in a direct line of descent from the shaman of old, and the ideas and images on which he draws are an inheritance we all share from our earliest beginnings, but which in modern times we are doing our best to deny and forget.

The world of the fantasy story resonates with child on the verge of adolescence because she recognises it as an image of her own situation, something the adult is unable to do, because the very process of ‘growing up’ and entering ‘the real world’ is actually about acquiring a whole set of elaborate constructs to protect us from reality (which, as Eliot wisely remarked, humankind cannot bear very much).

We have work, we have mortgages, we have ‘lifestyles’ (a fine pretence, that we are actually able to shape and style our lives as we please, as if the unexpected was not at any moment liable to come down on us like a giant hammer) and - in the developed world at least, and in those countries where the social fabric still holds together and order is not breaking down - we collude in the communal self-deception that we have everything under control, that it’s all sorted, pretty much.

What Garner reminds us, as writers, is that our task is to open a crack in the walls of that complacency, and let in the light of wonder.

- John Ward
see my blog at Compleat Trowzer

Thursday 30 May 2013

Why ‘the worst idea ever’ can be useful

Sometimes the worst idea you can think of, is the best way to start filling a plot hole. When I'm writing adventures, I spend a lot of time trapping my characters in impossible situations, then thinking: ‘great trap, but now how do I get them out?’
Sometimes, the perfect answer arrives immediately, so I just keep writing. But sometimes when I’ve trapped my characters in a cave or a basement or another nasty situation, I’m just as stuck and confused as they are.
So what do I do next? If an idea doesn’t arrive overnight like a present from my snoozing imagination, then I sit down the next day with a notebook and I think of the worst possible answer to the question. I write down the things I definitely won’t do. I write down the clichés, the obvious, the boring, the naff and the impossible. And that Worst Ideas list usually leads me in a roundabout way to an answer which will work.
For example, in my first novel First Aid for Fairies And Other Fabled Beasts, I trapped my heroine in a basement, with baddies about to knock down the door and the wooden stairway lying in splinters on the floor because her heavy-hooved friend had just broken it.
And I had no idea how to get her out.
So I started by writing down the worst possible answer: A ladder in the corner.
An Obvious Ladder
(Why is that a rotten answer? Because if there’s a set of stairs into the basement, why would anyone need a ladder as well? Also it’s just too convenient and obvious and boring, and I don’t like making things convenient for my characters.)
Next worst answer: Helen just happens to have a long rope wrapped round her waist. (Why is that a rotten answer? Because unless she has a very good story-shaped reason for having a rope round her waist, that’s even more unlikely than a ladder and very unflattering as well.)
I also detoured through other really naff ideas like a previously unknown fairy godmother turning up to save her, or indeed Helen waking up and it was all a dream.
Then I looked at those first two answers again and started to think about why they didn't work. If it’s not practical for her to take the right object with her, then whatever she needs to escape must already be in the basement. And if it’s not exciting enough for the object she uses to be something you would naturally climb, then let’s have her improvise and use something unlikely. Which is why Helen ends up balancing along the narrow banister of the shattered staircase to get out.
So that’s one of my tactics for getting my characters out of traps. I start by writing the worst possible solutions and use those to sneak up on a more workable solution. By acknowledging why something is obvious or naff or daft, you can sometimes identify elements of the right answer.
It’s almost a Sherlock Holmesian way of working – once you’ve eliminated all the impossible or impossibly naff solutions, whatever snuck into your head while you were sniggering at the silly ideas must be the right answer. Though maybe Sherlock Holmes didn’t snigger…

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
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Wednesday 29 May 2013

Leaving the Land of Make-Believe

The first indication I had that I was crossing the frontier from childhood into adolescence was during a game of make-believe. I remember sitting on the floor of the landing outside my bedroom, a box of Playmobil knights beside me and a gate-leg table before me, ready to act out adventure stories and create valiant knights and wicked kings and queens from the plastic figures.

The gate-leg table was the only piece of furniture in the house that ever transformed itself into a castle. Its construction made it the perfect backdrop for elaborate battles because of the carved steps and ridges on the feet and legs and the broad plank connecting the legs at the base. The table top never figured in my fantasies; it was far too flat and boring. The base, on the other hand, was perfect for laying out a battle scene. I would place some knights at various points along the ledge, perhaps balancing a princess on the highest point as though imprisoning her in a tower. Other knights would take up position to defend their fortress (and their princess) while an army of attacking knights would surge forth in a pincer movement along the conveniently grass-green carpet. The fantasies were hardly original, but nonetheless real for me.

So, there I was, happily settling down on the landing of my parents' house, putting everything in place for a long, dream-filled afternoon of play. And that's when it happened. I picked up a knight, ready to make him charge at the castle, knock down the gate and scale the walls to perform his daring deed when - suddenly there was no castle. It remained stubbornly a table. I narrowed my eyes to try and shift my focus, to will the knight in my hand to take over and make the magic happen. But precisely nothing happened: the wooden legs and decorative carvings of the table refused to mutate into battlements and crenelations, and the knight remained small and stiffly plastic in my hands, his painted-on smile mocking me.

After this, similar things would happen in the playground at school. The corner I had used to play "imaginary houses" with my best friend was now merely an empty corner of tarmac. One by one my portals into the freedom of childhood's imagination were closing.

And so it was with books. Stories which had once instantly transported me into their worlds where I could be an orphan or a time-traveller or a rabbit running side by side with Hazel and Fiver were now merely words on the page.

Francis Spufford expresses this feeling of loss perfectly for me in his book The Child that Books Built. (If you have not read it, I urge you to do so.)

He says:

". . . the sensation was receding from the sentences that had once given me shocks; The Silver Chair and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader had no new news to give me, and so they were fading out of my repertoire of important books, reduced to the mild status of former favourites. I would have to find other stories to love."

Spufford explores the loss of the wonder we (well, some of us) feel when our childhood favourites no longer seem able to work their magic on us.

Reading this made me take a look at my own children, on the threshold of adolescence, and realise how lucky they are with the wealth of reading material made available to them; stories written especially for their age group, bridging the once vast gap between children's and adult fiction.

In the early 1980s, such a literary bridge was only at the early stages of construction. By the age of thirteen, I knew I had to leave Narnia and grope my way blindfold into the adult world of reading. I was not successful. People would push the Classics on me to no avail, and I was not blessed with an engaging and inspiring English teacher, as my children are today. And so I fell by the wayside: I stopped reading. I did not pick up a book to read for pleasure until I was twenty-one, by which time I met a man who was able to enthuse me by his own love of literature.

People often ask me why I write for children. Until I read Spufford's book, I do not think I had seriously considered the reason. But it is obvious, I suppose: I am still yearning to recapture that sense of wonder I felt when I sat on the floor of the landing at my parents' house, where a table was a castle and plastic knights were kings.

Monday 27 May 2013

What happens next - Lily Hyde

What happens next? is the question I've been asked most often in the last few days.

I’ve been in Crimea for the presentation of the Crimean Tatar translation of Dream Land, my novel about the return of the Crimean Tatars to their homeland in the 1990s. This entire nation of people was deported from Crimea, then part of the Soviet Union, in 1944, and fought a peaceful campaign for fifty years for the right to return.

People want to know if I’m pleased about the book translation (I’m absolutely delighted – I blogged about it previously here), why I decided to write the book in the first place (because I thought it was a fascinating, compelling and important story that begged to be told) but most of all they want to know ‘Are you going to write a sequel? What happens next to Safi?’

It’s always gratifying when readers want to know what happens to your characters outside the pages of the book. I myself find it hard to abandon characters after I’ve created them. The heroine of my first novel, Riding Icarus, so grabbed my imagination that I went on to write two more novels about her.

It’s a bit more complicated with Safi, because although she’s a fictional character, her story is closely based on real events. Dream Land ends in the summer of 1992 on a moment of hope, that Crimean Tatar families like Safi’s will be able to build houses with permission from the Ukrainian authorities and settle in to a new life in Crimea with support and acceptance from their Ukrainian and Russian neighbours. And in truth, this is by and large what has happened, although no one can pretend that prejudice and discrimination do not still exist. I never planned a sequel to Dream Land. I thought that if readers really want to know what happens to Safi, all they have to do is read a newspaper or visit Crimea.

Safi would be thirty-three now, if she really existed. Does she stay in Crimea or does she emigrate? I’ve been asked over the last few days. Does she remember the stories she heard from her grandfather in Dream Land? Does she teach her children Crimean Tatar language? What about her brother Lutfi – does he marry a Russian girl like the one in the book, or does he get involved in radical Islam?

I don’t know the answers. All these things have happened to my friends in Crimea, the ones whose lives in the 1990s inspired Dream Land. It would be nice if I could create happy and fulfilling futures for all these people I love and admire. But this is real life, not fiction.

There’s a fascinating, compelling and important story still to be told about the Crimean Tatar national movement since 1992. About political and social change, about the steady loss of the Crimean Tatar language and the continuing struggle to uncover and declare the truth of what happened in 1944.

I’m amazed and honoured and touched that so many people have asked me for a sequel. But I’m not sure I’m the person to tell this story. My friend’s daughter in Crimea has just started writing stories. She’s Crimean Tatar, and around the same age now as Safi is in Dream Land. Perhaps she will be the one to write What Happens Next.

www.lilyhyde.com
The Crimean Tatar cover of Dream Land

Sunday 26 May 2013

The Physics of Words - Andrew Strong

Don’t you love words? I love words. I love words so much I use them all the time.  My favourite words are slippage, anthracite and funicular. Although that’s only what sprung to mind when I wrote the last sentence. Dennis Potter’s Singing Detective’s favourite word was elbow from whence the band got its name.

Elbow is a good word. It seems to suggest the joint in two ways. First, of course, there is the ‘L’ – no doubt where the word came from in the first place, but there’s also the sense of second syllable going off at an angle to the first.  Or maybe you don’t see that.  Maybe it’s just me.

With so many to choose from it’s really quite ridiculous to say that any one word is your favourite, but, come on, we all have them.  When I was young my favourite word was ‘adapter’.  I have no idea why.  More recently I’ve come to fancy Blorenge, the only word I know that rhymes with orange.  (The Blorenge is a mountain in South Wales.)

I like words for their sounds, for what they suggest, as well as what they mean.  I also enjoy the hidden poetry of words.  I love the metaphor grasp – as in to grasp an idea – there are so many connotations, grasping on to a branch of a tree, a baby grasping a parent’s finger, and the hidden gasp when the grasp is released, or when the idea is grasped.

I adore words, and sentences, for their rhythms and textures, as in Manley Hopkins’ Pied Beauty:

Glory be to God for dappled things –
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chesnut falls; finches wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow and plough
And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.

But when I read Steven Pinker’s utterly wonderful book The Stuff of Thought I realised there was an element of language that revealed something of the world I had never considered.

Why do we talk about things being underwater when they are in water?  Or underground when they are in the ground? Do we describe ourselves as being ‘under the air’?  The words refer to surfaces, of course, not substances.  Ultimately, Pinker suggests, the way we use words has something to do with physics.

Why can we say he poured water into the jug but not the jug was poured with water?  We can say he daubed paint on the wall and the wall was daubed with paint. So why is the daubed sentence interchangeable, but not poured

Physics, says Pinker. It’s physics.  Verbs that describe something coming into contact with something else (e.g. daub) are more flexible than verbs that involve the work of gravity (pour). Because gravity goes only one way.  Pinker suggests that words and syntax have a logic of which most of us are unaware. 
  
When we read our brains are subject to a huge variety of conscious and unconscious messages and patterns.  Pinker has shown that syntax can describe the world in he same way that Freud revealed how words can betray our thoughts.  Words can contain everything from the fizz and spill of our synapses to the music of the spheres, and we, as writers, or our readers, may not be aware of a fraction of what is going on.  It’s all pretty miraculous, don’t you think?


Saturday 25 May 2013

To Plot or Not To Plot - Tamsyn Murray

I'm at that most exciting of writing moments - the start of a new book. I have the usual mix of anticipation and nervousness which accompanies a blank page and a zero word count but this time, I have something else - dread. A deep-seated worry that the book I've had nagging at me for more than nine months is too complex, too demanding and utterly beyond my skills as a writer. Now, I know what you're thinking - we all get that. But this time, the feeling that I can't do the story justice is so strong that I can't dismiss it with Haribo and hard work. So I'm doing the only thing I can: plotting it so much that I know every scene inside and out.

Bad Reviews Ahead...
There are obvious advantages to this approach - I should have the writing equivalent of SatNav to ensure I don't get lost en route to The End and there will be no detours down pretty country lanes lined with flowers and interesting churches. The downside of plotting to the nth degree is that there are no surprises, which takes half the fun out of writing.

My usual approach is to plot a bit but let the story meander occasionally too. It generally works out, although I find I need to know exactly where the middle is going or I lose heart and writing becomes like wading between the Pyramid Stage and the Other Stage at a particularly soggy Glastonbury. So this time, it'll be a bit of a departure.

It got me wondering - how do other writers do it? Are you plotters or pantsers? And do any of you want to write my next book?

Friday 24 May 2013

On the Off Chance that One of You Might Hear Me - Liz Kessler



Yesterday morning, I read a blog entitled So you’re a racist. Let’s talk about that. As I was reading, I thought no – no, you’re wrong. Racists should never be given a platform. I don’t want to read their words and they shouldn't be allowed any avenues for expressing them. They don’t listen. They don’t want to change their views. All that ever seems to happen when I engage with them is that I get upset, frustrated and ultimately disillusioned about the human race. And I’m not going to do it.

Then someone I know wrote, ‘If you’re not English, f*** off,’ on their Facebook status. My first reaction, when I’d picked myself up from the shock, was that I no longer wanted this person anywhere near me or my life in any way, ever again. And then I thought about the blog, and I found myself wondering if perhaps I could try it.

Well, this is my attempt to do that. So yeah, ‘M’ – this is for you. But it’s also for the many, many other people who, like you, jump on the handiest scapegoat and the easiest target to prop up their beliefs, and in doing so, only spread the hatred even further. The hatred that has upset you so much in the first place.

I think it would be safe to say that the majority of the UK – and probably the entire world – feels incredibly angry and outraged and upset about the horrific attack on the soldier Lee Rigby. Many people have jumped onto the bandwagon that is being recklessly driven by extremists and racists all over the internet. The one where you get to blame Muslims, or non-UK people, or black people – or basically anyone outside the tiny, safe circle of your precious, selfish life. By doing this, you think you are standing up for what is just and right. But you are in fact doing the opposite. You are throwing petrol on a fire that is already raging and in danger of burning out of control.

Don’t you see that?

Responding to this horrific attack with racist and xenophobic abuse only spreads more hatred and anger, and ultimately more violence. It doesn’t solve anything. The men who did this have committed a despicable, vile and utterly horrific crime. But their race has nothing to do with it. The country they were born in has nothing to do with it. Their religion, their colour. Those things are not the enemy – they are smokescreens being used to hide the reality of what they have done - which is an act that is as low a thing as a person can do. If we use their actions to fuel racism and xenophobic hatred, we are playing directly into their hands. We are perpetuating a war that they are proud to fight in.

We must do everything we can to deny them that achievement. Their horrific actions should not be used to stir up hatred and fear of the enormous numbers of law-abiding and good-hearted people who might share the same colour, birthplace or even religion.

If there is any way to fight against atrocities like this, it is in taking the opposite approach to the one that so many people seem to have jumped to. It is to spread more tolerance, more understanding, more generosity of heart and spirit. Not more hatred, more violence and more extreme views.

The people who we should look to are those like the woman who went over to the dying soldier in the midst of the atrocities and prayed for him. The Muslims who turned to twitter to tell the world that this act was not done in their name. The ones who have posted and reposted words such as Mahatma Gandhi’s, "An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind."

So M – if you’re reading this, and if others like you are reading it, I hope that there might be one tiny thing in it that has made you stop and think about your views, just for one moment. I know that it devastates you to think that there is a two-year-old boy who one day will be told why he has grown up without a father. You are a good person who feels things deeply. Use that to make this world a better place for him, not a worse one.

Thursday 23 May 2013

Twister Not Just A Kids Game - Lynne Garner

For the last few years I've been teaching creative writing to adults. In one of the sessions we discuss point of view and as part of that session I set a task. This task is to take a fairytale or nursery rhyme and attempt to tell it using the flash fiction form known as a  Twister. If you've never heard of the term basically it's a story or part of a story told in 140 characters or less. It originated on the social media site Twitter.
  
You may be able to guess what's coming next. Yep, I'm throwing down the gauntlet and hoping some of you want to give writing a twister or two a go. Don't forget to use first point of view. What follows is my attempt at The Three Billy Goats Gruff from the point of view of the troll:

Woken this morning by small goat trying to cross bridge without paying toll. What is the world coming to? #crossmybridge.com

Discovered second goat trying to sneak across bridge without paying toll. Just cannot believe how rude goats can be. #crossmybridge.com

This morning a third goat attempted to cross bridge without paying toll. How do they expect me to stay in business? #crossmybridge.com

For sale: one bridge in good state of repair, high daily foot fall and permission to charge toll. #businessforsale  

My students have written some fab versions of well known stories. So it's with fingers crossed some of the ABBA readers/followers give it a go and are willing to share. 

Lynne Garner

A little blatant self promotion:
I have three short distance learning courses commencing on the 6th July via Women On Writing:

Wednesday 22 May 2013

My Special Neuro-Scientific Theory Pertaining to the Causes of the Untidy Teenage Bedroom - Nicola Morgan

This post has nothing to do with children's books. And nothing to do with being a writer. But children's writers have lives and thoughts and moments when they don't do children's booky things. And this is one.

It is time to tell you about my Special Neuro-Scientific Theory Pertaining to the Causes of the Untidy Teenage Bedroom. I touched on it in the new edition of Blame My Brain but I was not able to show you the photos especially commissioned from Photowitch, for a talk I did last year.

Actually, the whole Theory came about because of being a children's writer. I'd been asked to go on the Simon Mayo Drive-time programme. "We're talking about untidy teenage bedrooms. Can you give us any scientific reasons to explain them?" Well, you can't go on a programme which asks if you have any scientific reasons and say you haven't got any, so, in the 30 minutes I had to prepare, I came up with my SNTPCUTB.

I used to think (and said so in the original Blame My Brain, back in 2005) that teenage bedrooms were irrelevant, boring, trivial. Wrong. Teenage bedrooms (some of which are not at all untidy, by the way) are both a mirror and metaphor for their brains and also a beautiful (yes, really) illustration of one of the most interesting things about how their brains work.

Let's look at those photos by Photowitch.

Here is a teenage bedroom when it's just been tidied and the teenager isn't in it.
A great deal of stuff will have to happen in this room. The owner has to work, print things out, eat, relax, sleep, change, socialise (virtually if not physically), organise herself and keep all her possessions.

Now see the same room half an hour after the teenager has come back from school:

You can see many things going on - eating, working (an open physics book, anyway), socialising (the emails and the phone), beautifying (the nail varnish - dangerously close to that laptop, as is the drink, says my fretting adult brain which is looking ahead to catastrophe...). Note, also, clothing removed and not put away. I'll come to that in a minute, because it's central.

Now, see the same room later that evening:

*tears hair out* *weeps a little at the stirred memory*

*Calms down and remembers the Special Neuro-Scientific Theory Pertaining to the Causes of the Untidy Teenage Bedroom*

Here's the thing, and it's the thing about all untidy rooms: an untidy room happens because of a large number of small acts and in every case the act is the same - not putting something away, but dropping or leaving it where it falls. It's an act and choice which kowtows to the desire of the moment and does not look ahead to future consequences. The desire of the moment in each case is to do something more fun than putting something away (eat something, email someone, sit on your bed, paint your nails, check facebook) and the future consequence in each case is, "Eventually, my room will look horrendous and my mum/dad will come in and frown and there will be a big and annoying argument and either I will have to put it away or else, if I'm lucky, my mum/dad will, especially if I make the place so bad that they take pity on me or give up and in fact I could even play the verge-of-a-nervous-breakdown card, which I've played before to great effect."

Except that, in fact, the teenager isn't even thinking all that stuff because it's way too boring, as it is the future and is overshadowed by the much more interesting pull of the present.

And that is one of the core psychologies of adolescence. People talk (rightly) about the fact that the teenage prefrontal cortex isn't fully developed and say (rightly) that we need that pfc in order to make good decisions and judgments about the future, but what people often don't realise is that, also,  teenagers have been shown to be more strongly drawn by the emotional pull of the present. They know very well what the sensible thing to do is but it's harder for them to choose to do it. They can easily brush away the future in a fatalist kind of way.

So the untidy teenage bedroom becomes a lovely (well, OK, not lovely) illustration of this psychology.

There are some simpler reasons for the untidy bedrooms, and all the reasons probably apply:
  • The fact that teenagers have to do everything in a small space.
  • It's a safe way to rebel. And, dear parents, if your teenagers are going to annoy you and rebel, wouldn't you rather they did it like this, than in a whole load of other much scarier ways? Rebellion is an important aspect of becoming independent and some teenagers do it or need to do it more than others.
  • They know that, in the grand scheme of the other stressful things in their life, it really doesn't matter. 
Before I came up with my Special Neuro-Scientific Theory Pertaining to the Causes of the Untidy Teenage Bedroom, I did wonder if it was simply a case of chaotic brain =  chaotic room, but I have far too much respect for the teenage brain to go down that disrespectful route. But they can still blame their brains...
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The new updated edition of Blame My Brain is out this month, with an ebook version. There's a competition going on on my blog - I've had masses (hundreds!) of entries from individual children, teenagers and adults, but would love more school entries. 

Do you have a teenager? I'm conducting an anonymous survey for 13-18s and I'd love as many responses as possible. It's for a book I'm writing on teenage stress. The survey takes 3-4 minutes and adults are welcome to check the questions first. 

I'm also looking for adults to fill in an anonymous survey about cyber-bullying, for the same book. Please pass these links on!






Tuesday 21 May 2013

On The Road - The Victory Dogs Book Tour... Megan Rix

Before the Tour:

My days are usually spent walking my dogs and then writing while my dogs sleep on the bed, or the office floor, before reminding me they need to be played with or fed. So when Puffin asked if I'd like to do a book tour, for my book The Victory Dogs, something I'd never done before, I was surprised and delighted, and immediately said yes without really understanding what it would entail.

Once I knew I'd be talking at 11 schools in 5 days I started to worry - mostly about my voice holding up and what if I got sick, authors who do lots of school visits always seem to be catching colds. What if I was in a large hall and the children at the back couldn't hear me? What if my carefully prepared powerpoint presentation didn't play on the schools' computers?

Hannah from Puffin was on hand to reassure me - they'd ask for a microphone and we'd send my powerpoint to the schools beforehand so they'd have it all set up when we arrived. But I'd also bring my own laptop with it on, just in case.

I wondered if a costume would be a good idea? She thought it would. Shopping for the tour was lots of fun as I bought WW2 overalls, two different WW2 helmets; a warden's one and a rusty Zuckerman, ARP whistle, authentic looking evacuees suitcase and items children would have had in them. CDs of Glenn Miller and air-raid siren sound effects.

I knew I was more prepared than I'd ever been for school visits before but I still worried that the children might be bored or the staff not friendly.

On the Friday Hannah emailed to say one of the schools on the first day had phoned to ask if I'd bring Traffy with me, following on from a piece in the local press about her being a reading therapy dog. She'd told them she wasn't sure if I'd think it was a good idea. I say I think it's a great idea. I'd love having Traffy with me and it would make my day to have her there.

Monday

Traffy and Bella, are confused about why they're not going for their usual early morning walk. I feel guilty for leaving them but at least my husband's working from home this week so he'll be with them.


When I arrive at the first school, 5 or so miles away, the staff are all smiles as they look behind me and ask where Traffy is? The Headmaster loves dogs and they've brought lots of treats for her.

'We put that we wanted her to come too on the form we filled in.'

I knew the second school had asked but didn't know about this one wanting her as well. I don't want to disappoint them and I'd love to have Traffy with me, so I phone my husband and Traffy is brought to the school, where she is greeted like a film star. She likes the treats they've brought for her very much but I'm a bit worried that it could be overwhelming for her. My first talk goes well - although not exactly as planned.

Once I've finished signing books I nip back home with Traffy and take her and Bella for a long walk by the river before heading off to the second school of the day. This time Traffy knows what's going on and is much calmer. I keep her with me while I'm giving my talk and she falls asleep on the floor in front of me and wakes up at the end so all the children can pet her.

Everyone comments on how well-behaved she is and I have to agree. I am very proud of her. She's such a good girl.

My husband picks Traffy up and we swap cars so I can drive to Bury St Edmunds, roof down as it's such a gorgeous day, with Hannah from Puffin.

A member of the night's hotel staff takes our bags to our rooms and parks the car for us.

Tuesday

3 schools to visit in Suffolk today. My World war 2 overalls are lasting well although my WW2 warden's hat now has a chip in the paintwork - which gives it a more authentic look.

The children are full of enthusiasm and ask lots of good questions - including one about whether I have a book showing the War from different sides. I tell them my next book 'The Bomber Dog' is attempting to do just that.


I'm starting to get in the swing of the talks and really enjoying them.

Wednesday

Off to St Albans on the train today to visit 2 super schools and chat to 2 lots of press. There's also an email from the local radio station to ask if I'll come in and have a chat soon.

Thursday

The weather has turned incredible. More like the middle of summer than May. I can't wear my hot boots a moment longer and opt for flip-flops instead.

I love all the oohs and aahs at the slides of my own dogs as puppies - before I go on to talk about the two puppies in The Victory Dogs.

Taxi to my next school, near Market Harborough, only to find they're in the middle of an OFSTED inspection. They still want the talk to go on and other schools have been invited and are arriving - so on I go - explaining to the children that the overalls I'm wearing were very practical in WW2 but no one should ever wear flip-flops to do search and rescue work if they can help it. I've already explained how modern day search and rescue dogs wear protective boots so they don't injure their paws.


Friday

Glenn  Miller music plays as the children arrive and I make my entrance in warden's hat and overalls to the real life air-raid siren that we've kindly been lent for the day.

Signing books afterwards I'm surprised when a girl comes up with some of my books written as Ruth Symes.

'Your witchling books are almost never in the library because they're always on loan,' the school librarian smiles. 'They couldn't believe it when I told them you wrote those books too.'

I happily sign away ending each signature with a paw print stamp. And before I know it the last book has been stamped and the last school has been visited and we're saying goodbye.

After the Tour

I'm feeling a bit sad that my Victory Dogs tour is over. I'm going to miss visiting all the schools. I haven't lost my voice or caught a cold, Hannah, Anthea and Julia from Puffin, who came with me on different days were brilliant, everyone we met in fact has been kind and lovely and the technical side of the presentation and Hannah's travel arrangements went without a hitch.

Hope I have another book tour one day but for now I've got two dogs who've been promised some very long walks once I come home, and are giving me meaningful looks to remind me.





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


Monday 20 May 2013

Stand and Stare - Joan Lennon

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

That's the cliche.  That's the bit everybody can quote.  Lots of you may also know the rest of the poem, but for me, it came as a surprise.  Here it is, in full - "Leisure" by William Henry Davies (1871-1940):

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.
No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

We are, all of us, busy people.  And William Henry Davies was not Shakespeare.  But he was absolutely, unarguably, ineluctably right.  So that's why I'm not here to respond to any comments you may leave (though I look forward to reading them on my return!)  Instead, I'm over on the west coast of Scotland.  Standing and staring.  Like the man said.


(This isn't me, or the west coast of Scotland, but I took the photo.)

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

Sunday 19 May 2013

Plotting With Pinterest - Lucy Coats

Last time I was here I gave you my 5 Top Tips for Staying in the Writing Zone. The good news is that I'm still there, writing away. The other good news is that I have a new plotting and planning tool to share with you - and a brand new way of envisioning characters.

Let's go to the plotting and planning first.... I've been on Pinterest for a while, but was really just messing around with it and wasting time before now, and not really seeing the point of it as far as writing is concerned. However, yesterday the light dawned.

I'm writing a new novel, and needed to pull together some images for it - some to inspire, others to inform - in other words, I needed a plot setting mood board. Now, I could have done that by laboriously printing, cutting and pasting images onto a big sheet of paper. I've tried that before. But my colour printer is playing up, and, frankly, the thought filled me with a sense of extreme lassitude. Then I remembered Pinterest.  It took me about half an hour to call up the images I needed, make a new Pinterest board and pull everything together.  Now all the pictures I want are on one big webpage, and I have a visual feast to help me step into the time and place I need. I can add to it any time, and I've also plugged it into my 'research' slot on the Scrivener document for this novel. I can therefore split my page and see both writing and pictures at one time, and I feel like a dog with two tails.

Now to the envisioning of characters.  That sort of came out of the Pinterest thing too. After a little searching, I found an image of a modern day young man which fitted my idea of what my hero looks like.  But I needed to take him back to another time and make him a bit different to fit what I had in mind.  How to do that?  I have an iPad app called InspirePro (it's the one David Hockney uses) which has, quite literally, inspired me to try my hand at painting again. It's amazing and fun, and has rekindled my love of messing about with colour and technique experimentation.  I thought I'd give remodelling the photo a go with that.

Here's the image I found (I wish I knew where it came from originally - apparently he's a male model, but unfortunately I can find no photo credit to acknowledge).


Here's what I did with him.


I still need to do some work, but he's pretty much how I imagine my character to look, barring the nose (which needs to be bigger) and the hair, (which needs to be shinier). Still, it's a start, and I'm going to do the same with my other main characters when I find images which suit them, as this small expenditure of effort has already helped me to connect with who my hero is.

Do any other writers do stuff like this?  I'd love to know.


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
Follow Lucy on Twitter
Lucy is represented by Sophie Hicks at Ed Victor Ltd

Saturday 18 May 2013

Observation and a Splash of Imagination - Linda Strachan

 People are fascinating, aren't they?  I think so and if like me you are an avid people-watcher, you probably do, too.


Waiting around for a bus or a train or in a queue for a show, or even in the supermarket there are lives being lived, secrets kept, tears held back as people maintain an acceptable public face.
 
Perhaps you are the person who is standing in the queue tapping their foot or making little sighing noises of irritation because of the time you are wasting?  It can be boring or irritating but it doesn't need to be.

The other people in the queue or sitting in a waiting room beside you are a fund of information and interesting stories if you care to look at them with a little imagination.


It's all about how they sit, or stand, the way they wear their clothes and how they inhabit their own bodies - with confidence or apology, exhaustion or discomfort.

Travelling on the underground can be fascinating. It's not something I do very often so perhaps I approach it with fresh eyes. I noticed that people don't look at each other, they tend to maintain their own private space and avoid eye contact, but even looking down at the floor can be informative.
Creating a back-story about the people around you can start with their feet because shoes tell a whole story of their own.
Are they smart and shiny, but uncomfortable, showing evidence of where they are rubbing at the heel or are they casual, scruffy or scraped?
The shoes a person wears could be telling about you how much care they give their appearance - whether it is that they don't care and place no importance on the state of their shoes, or simply have no time to think about it. Or are the shoes pristine and cared for, evidence of someone who takes great care with their appearance?  Are they in bright, garish colours or making a statement about wealth or fashion?

If you are invited to a wedding or celebration, a meeting or any event where you are seated with people you have never met before, take a few moments to check out the people around you.  What is their story?

Can you tell the heartache, the selfishness, the heroism or the fear that lurks behind the façade we all adopt in front of strangers?


People are fascinating, diverse and complicated. Everyone has a story, whether they care to share it or not and with a little careful observation and a splash of imagination you never know what you will discover.

Are you a people watcher?  What do you think reveals the most about the strangers around you?


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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 YA novel is Don't Judge Me  published by Strident 2012 

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












Friday 17 May 2013

If You Go to the Bluebell Woods Today, by Saviour Pirotta

last year's bluebells
I'd planned to give you all an update on how my first ebook is progressing but I had a little mishap at the gym yesterday, which took up all of my time to sort out.  So instead, here's a post from my own blog  which, I hope, will do just as well. 
I live close to  Hirst Wood where you can normally do a bluebell walk at this time of year. The bluebells are late this Spring, in Yorkshire at least so there's nothing for it but to seek the flowers in books and  stories. 
Bluebells have always figured large in European folklore and fairy tales.  Known by various names, including the fanciful witch’s thimble, one of their scientific moniker is Endymion non-scriptus.  In Greek Mythology, Endymion was a handsome shepherd or, in some versions of the myth, a hunter. Selene, the moon goddess fell hopelessly in love with him and begged Zeus to keep him young and asleep forever, so that she could admire him from the sky.  Zeus granted her wish, and Endymion fell into a deep sleep from which he never awoke.  In the past, bluebells were believed to be so intoxicating, their perfume made anyone who walked into a field of them fall asleep. Hence the connotation in the Latin name.
Endymion and Selene, by Victorian artist J. A. Grimshaw
The idea of bluebells sending people to sleep also pervades Native American folklore. In a popular fable, a hummingbird and a crane race each other, much like the hare and the tortoise in the renowned fable by Aesop. Hummingbird, being small and light on her wings, assumes she will win – so she stops for a rest in a patch of bluebells.  With unfortunate results!
Woods have always been considered enchanted places in the collective imagination. They are dark, mysterious realms which teem with unseen forces and magic beings. As bluebells grow mostly in the woods, they have been associated with fairies, and woodland creatures. In The Fairy Caravan, Beatrix Potter’s only chapter book, which is inspired by Celtic folktales, the author describes wild dwarfs called oakmen living in a forest full of bluebells.  In other European tales,  unwary travellers wander into clearings full of bluebells, often encountering fairies, or incurring their wrath.  Popular legend had it that blundering into a patch of bluebells broke the fairy spells hung on them to dry.  
The Bluebell Fairy – C. M. Barker
Fairies were believed to be summoned for midnight revelries by the pealing of bluebells.  But beware the hapless mortal who hears the sound. He will die by morning.  Unless, of course, the fairies had rung the bluebells to summon him. Which does happen a few times in fairytales.
In a German folktale, a goldsmith and a tailor travelling along a country road are lured into the woods by the enchanted sound of bluebells ringing in the breeze.  The music leads them to a group of dancing fairies, who ply them with treasure teach as well as teaching them the importance of not being greedy.
Some country folk considered growing bluebells in your own garden, or bringing a bunch of them indoors, incurred the ire of the fae folk. They would be dogged by bad luck.  Others thought clumps of bluebells outside the front door brought good luck, and tinkled to warn when unwanted visitors approached the front door.  Wearing a bracelet of fresh bluebells around your ankle, especially on the eve of Beltane, summoned the good fairies to protect you.
Such beliefs, of course, died a long time ago.  But the association between bluebells and fairies remains in folktales and literature.  Here is a sweet poem that I learnt as a child, and has endured the test of times:





THE BLUEBELL
BY Emily Bronte
The blue bell is the sweetest flower
That waves in summer air;
Its blossoms have the mightiest power
To soothe my spirit’s care.
ceramic tile by Victorian artist Walter Crane

Thursday 16 May 2013

There's No One Quite Like Grammar - John Dougherty


What "were" they "thinking"?
I’m not quite a grammar geek, but I’m certainly a bit of a pedant. It matters to me that my subjects and verbs agree, that my tenses are correct, that my possessives are properly punctuated. Misplaced apostrophes irritate and amuse me in equal measure. I’m angered more than is reasonable by the fact that even in broadsheets people write “lead” when they mean “led”. As for signs like this one (see photo), the less said the better.

I do think these things matter, and certainly they matter in my own writing, because it’s important to me that people understand what I write. When I write about somebody doing something to somebody else, the reader should be able to tell who did what to whom without having to read the sentence three times. 

What differentiates me from the likes of Toby Young is that I don’t think there is always only one correct grammar for every sentence; I don’t think being grammatically correct confers any kind of moral superiority; and I don’t think being able to spot a grammatical error, real or imagined, in someone else’s expression of an argument means that you can ignore its content.

Toby Young, in case you don’t know, is the poster-boy for Michael Gove’s free schools scheme, and last week he wrote an article for the Daily Telegraph’s blog entitled Are all Michael Gove’s critics illiterate?

Clearly, the answer to that question is “no”, although Young would have us believe otherwise. He rests his case on two points: firstly, that the one hundred academics who wrote an open letter criticising Gove’s new National Curriculum are such thickos that they won the inaugural Bad Grammar award, an award which seems to have been made up by Toby Young and some like-minded chums specifically so they could give it to some critics of Michael Gove; and secondly, that Michael Rosen, in responding to Gove’s blatant misrepresentation of his position on the teaching of grammar, at one point missed out a comma and wrote “is” instead of “are”.


I think it’s telling that Young’s article conflates “not always following the rules of grammar as I understand and venerate them” - and perhaps even “making the odd mistake” - with “being illiterate”. This is the damaging corollary of this sort of mindless pedantry, and it makes having a proper and sensible discussion about the teaching of grammar practically impossible. If the response to “Actually I don’t think that teaching grammar at this level to such young children is appropriate” is “Look! Look! You missed out a comma! That means you’re stupid and I don’t have to listen to you! Yah boo sucks!” then debate is futile.

Grammar is not a set of rules, but a set of descriptions. Language did not arrive with a manual of instructions; rather, at some point in history somebody - or a number of somebodies - decided to work out and set down the rules which had evolved as the language developed. And if those rules had evolved up until that point, it makes no sense to say that they have now stopped evolving - or that their role is now not to describe how language works, but to police it.

This is why it makes no sense, for instance, to say - as one of Young’s fellow judges did - that the sentence “Much of [Gove’s curriculum] demands too much too young” is “simply not English”. It is. It is perfectly comprehensible, and it is a nonsense to say otherwise.


Just to reiterate: I think grammar is important, and I think that it is important to teach good grammar. But I believe that the best way to teach good grammar is to expose children to as much well-written and well-spoken English as possible, for as long as possible, so that when you finally come to describe to them what grammar is, their heads are already full of it. It is not to cram their heads full of concepts like “adverbial clause” and then test them on those concepts.

Of course, Toby Young and his friends may feel differently; and they may even have good reasons for doing so. But as long as their response to criticism is to point and jeer, we will never know what those reasons may be.


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John's website is at www.visitingauthor.com.
He's on twitter as @JohnDougherty8 

His most recent books include:








Finn MacCool and the Giant's Causeway - a retelling for the Oxford Reading Tree 
Bansi O'Hara and the Edges of Hallowe'en
Zeus Sorts It Out - "A sizzling comedy... a blast for 7+" , and one of The Times' Children's Books of 2011, as chosen by Amanda Craig