Saturday 30 November 2013

Should writers try to change the world? Or should we just shut up and write? Lari Don

It’s Book Week Scotland this week, and like many Scottish-based authors, I’ve spent the whole week (and this weekend too) rushing around Scotland sharing stories and chatting about my books.

But I’ve done other things too. I spent one of my Book Week Scotland days travelling to the northeast of Scotland, to the town where I was brought up, to take part in the campaign to keep local libraries open. (Moray council have recently relented, very reluctantly, to keep my home town Dufftown library open, but are still planning to close four others. So I visited one of them too, a lovely wee library in Rothes, where I met 50 local school kids and we all talked about stories and how libraries help inspire us. The kids were all familiar with and passionate about their library, and were gutted at the proposed closure. Here’s the notice. It’s closing TODAY. But the campaign to save it and other libraries continues.)

So, I went up north, and I told stories to kids in libraries because that’s what I do in libraries, and I got my photo taken and was interviewed by the press. And I hope that was helpful.

And this week, I’ve also started investigating a rumour about a proposal to cut the number of secondary school librarians in the city I now live in. If it’s true, then I’ll be getting stuck into that next week…

But I’m not just political about books and libraries. I campaign for a Yes vote in the independence referendum next year. I put out leaflets and knock on doors, but I also take part in debates as “a writer”, like one on Scotland’s future at this year's Edinburgh International Book Festival.

So, should I? Should I try to change the world around me, should I get involved in politics, when I’m just a children’s writer?

Why should my opinions be any more important than anyone else’s? Why should what I think about Moray closing libraries be of any interest to anyone, given that I moved away more than 20 years ago? Why should my opinions on school librarians be any more important than those of any other local parent? Why would anyone pay any attention to my opinions on Scotland’s future, any more than any other person living here?

My job is to make things up and invent happy endings. Why should anyone trust anything I have to say about the real world?

The answer is that of course my opinions are not more important or valid than anyone else's. However it might be easier for me with my “writer” hat on, to express those opinions and get them heard.

And perhaps a deeper answer is that artists of all kinds are experienced at “what if”s and imagining outcomes and creative original thinking, so maybe on big political issues we can lift the debate out of shallow ‘what’s in it for me’ waters and give a wider vision to the debate.

But here’s another question I rarely ask myself, but I thought I’d ask you: does a writer trying to change the world annoy or offend readers?

Most people might think writers have a professional knowledge of the value of libraries, so might forgive writers for being passionate about libraries, even if they don’t agree with us. But on more contentious political issues, where readers, publishers, booksellers, teachers and parents might have their own very different views, does going public with our opinions damage us as writers? Does it undermine our books and our relationships with readers?

Should I just shut up?

Personally I think that writers can do a huge amount of good – look at the money raised last week by the amazing Authors for Philippines auction – and that if we care passionately about something and if we can help raise awareness and get a bit of media coverage to help out other people who care passionately too, then it probably is justified. But I still don’t think my opinions matter more than anyone else.

And bizarrely I’m careful not to be blatantly political in my books! I suspect the underlying feminism of my collection of heroine myths, Girls Goddesses and Giants, is fairly obvious, but despite the Scottish setting of all my adventure novels so far, I've never mentioned Scottish Independence in any of them. I wouldn’t feel right using my characters (and readers) like that, in an artificial way that wasn’t part of the story.

So what do other writers, and indeed readers, think? Should writers try to change the world, or should we stick to creating fictional worlds? And has anyone ever been put off a book by the writer’s political opinions?

I’m off now, to draft a letter about school librarians while on a bus to another Book Week Scotland event. Happy Book Week Scotland, whereever you are, and please support your local library! (See, I just can’t shut up…)

Lari Don is the award-winning author of 20 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

Friday 29 November 2013

All the World's A Stage - Anna Wilson

I have been thinking a lot recently about the importance of drama in English teaching. It was reading Polly Toynbee in the Guardian a few weeks back which sparked off this particular train of thought. The thrust of her article was about what the delightful Mr Gove plans for the future of our children's education, but about halfway in she makes specific points about the value of drama in schools.

'Gove pretends it's for schools to choose – but drama, dance, art and now literature will slip away. Confident top schools may keep these subjects, but average schools, under intense pressure to perform in core EBacc exams, will let the rest slide.'

It is easy to see how, facing such pressures, schools may be forced to relegate drama to 'club' status rather than keeping it in with the main-stream timetable. But what a shortsighted view. Drama is invaluable to a child's development - indeed, I would go so far as to say it is a natural part of a child's development and surely a step on the way to producing a confident reader.

Sit and watch a young child at play, and what is he or she doing if not acting out stories? Play is drama for the young child. It is how he or she explores the world around, tries out different scenarios, puts him or herself in another's shoes. And it is intrinsically bound up with storytelling.

When I go into schools to talk about writing, I do a lot of 'acting out' of the various scenes in my life which have wound their way into stories. I could simply stand in front of a school assembly and tell them 'this happened, and then this and then this', but in acting out how my tortoise must have felt when my dad glued a length of fishing line to its shell to 'stop it escaping', I think the story has more impact than my simply telling it. It allows the audience to put themselves in the place of the poor tortoise who had no say in my dad's crazy plan. And it makes the kids laugh. And remember my talk. One teacher emailed me after an event to tell me that the children were acting out my stories in the playground later that day.

Toynbee again:

'What is "low value" about drama? […] Ability to speak out, perform and pretend is essential for most jobs, from estate agent upwards. Employers complain that young people mumble, slouch and don't look them in the eye, prizing the "soft skills" that elite schools teach through drama and debating. Emotionally, drama teaches children lacking in empathy to put themselves into others' shoes, to express fears. But ever fewer schools employ specialist drama teachers: English teachers may or may not have an aptitude. Shakespeare is on the curriculum, no longer to be examined, but dead on the page without performance to breathe life and sense into it.'

'Dead on the page'. Is this how we want future generations to think of writing? Boring, dull, immovable, immutable shapes on the page? That was my own experience as a pupil in an old-fashioned grammar school, whose teaching methods had not changed since the 1950s; a decade Gove so keenly looks back to as a model for future generations' education.

We studied Macbeth for two years in the run-up to O-level English and he and the rest of the cast remained mummified on the page for me to the point where I gave up reading and dropped English like a hot potato as soon as I could. How differently I would have felt had I had the teacher my son had four years ago - a woman who is as passionate about drama as she is about reading and writing, and who had my son dress up as one of the witches and learn the cauldron scene in Act 4, scene 1 with his friends. He was only eight years old at the time, but he understood Macbeth's motivations and emotions so much better than I did at twice his age.

So drama is a 'soft skill' is it? I would argue that Gove might do a lot better in his own line of work if he went along to a couple of plays or even took part in one. He might at least learn a bit of empathy, if nothing else. Or is that wishful thinking?

Anna Wilson
www.annawilson.co.uk

Thursday 28 November 2013

The nostalgia of books to come - Clémentine Beauvais

A while ago I read a French novel called Voyage au centre de Paris (Journey to the centre of Paris), by Alexandre Lacroix, which is full of very well-knit sentences and interesting trivia about the city, of wandering philosophers and of clever references to lots of lovely books and essays and poems.

Anyway, one phrase jumped out of the page when I was reading that novel. The narrator's talking about Rilke, and about being a young writer, and he says that when he started writing he felt a kind of 'nostalgia of books to come.'

Of course that's an oxymoron, since nostalgia, by definition and etymology, is famously the 'pain of return', homesickness. How can you be nostalgic of something that hasn't happened yet? And yet it resonates perfectly with me - and with lots of other writers, I'm sure. I also feel just like that; like I've got a clear picture in my mind of my 'books to come'. Children's books, non-fiction books, academic books, books for adults... They seem so real to me that they're almost tangible, I 'see' them there on the Bookshelf of All My Books, they already exist, I'm sure - even though I couldn't tell you what they're about. They're just waiting to be written, so I'm keeping a trustful eye out for them.

bookshelf


But the trouble, of course, is that this bookshelf of predicted books keeps getting betrayed by the real bookshelf which is slowly building itself. No book I write is judged good enough by me to be part of the real bookshelf of books to come; so I mentally pile all my actual books on a fake bookshelf, while the true bookshelf, currently empty, is waiting for the true books to come. Those are the ones I have 'nostalgia' for - those are the ones I 'ache to return to' every time the euphoria of having written a new actual book has passed... and that I identify that new baby, once again, as fake, as not-quite-there-yet.

So of course if someone is talking about my latest book I always want to say no, no, wait for the next one, it will be better, it will be a true one! . But of course the next one will be just as not-quite-that-yet and therefore a fake, a mistake, a fraud, it will join the pile on the fake bookshelf while the true empty one waits for the true books to come.

Nothing serious, I'm sure. Wouldn't life be boring without that kind of nostalgia? See you in a month. I promise the next blog post will be better. And then eventually I'll write the true blog post, I promise...
___________________________________________________________________________

Clémentine Beauvais writes books in both French and English. The former are of all kinds and shapes, and the latter, for now, a humour/adventure detective series, the Sesame Seade mysteries. She blogs here about children's literature and academia and is on Twitter @blueclementine.

Wednesday 27 November 2013

Let’s Get This Out There…Liz Kessler

Last month, two things happened to make me realise how much the world has changed. The first was that I got married.

Why would that make me think the world has changed? Well, because I married a woman.

OK, officially, I got Civil Partnered. What I actually did was stand up in front of a room full of my beloved friends and family and make a legally binding commitment to my partner of six years. So, yeah, I married a woman.



Twenty two years ago, I went to my brother’s wedding. It was a beautiful and emotional day. I remember looking round at everyone in the room and feeling overwhelmed by the love and support for my brother and his new wife, and I remember being so happy for them. And then I remember having a fleeting feeling of sadness as I realised that I would never have that. It never occurred to me that one day it might be possible. And last month, I proved my younger self wrong as I found myself at the centre of a room of my favourite people and felt wrapped up in love and happiness as two families became one.



The second thing that happened last month that made me realise how much the world has changed was that my publisher offered me a new contract. A very special new contract, and one that is close to my heart – especially this year. It is for a book that I wrote over ten years ago and which has waited patiently for its time to come. The novel is about a teenage girl learning about love and life – and coming out as gay. Ten years ago, none of us could really see how we could publish this book. It felt like a risk in all sorts of ways and my publisher, my agent and I were all happy to put it to one side and get on with writing and publishing all the other books that I’ve worked on since then.

But in the last couple of years, all sorts of things have made me start thinking again about this book. Incidents of gay youngsters committing suicide after unbearable bullying hit the news in the states. Violence against gay people increased in Russia after anti-gay laws were passed.

Amongst the campaigning against homophobic bullying, a wonderful song was released last year by a group called the L Project which I played over and over again. It’s called It Does Get Better and ever since I heard the song, I knew that I wanted to be part of a movement that was telling young people that it didn’t matter who or what they were. They were OK and they would get through it.

So I looked at my book again. I dusted it down, polished it up and sent it back to my agent. This time, when she sent it on to my publisher, the answer came back very quickly. ‘Times have changed, and we are ready to move with them,’ was the reply. My publisher not only wanted the book but the whole team was ready to support it, celebrate it and get it out into the world with enthusiasm.

Read Me Like A Book will be published in the spring of 2015 – and I can’t wait. It’s been a long time coming and, in many ways, it is the most important book I’ve written. But I’m also quite nervous of what this might mean for me, personally as well as professionally and commercially. I write books that are mostly read by girls aged between eight and fourteen. I like to think that my books have strong underlying messages about family and friendship and love and loyalty. These things are close to my heart and judging by some of the letters and emails I get, they are close to the hearts of many of my readers and their parents, too. But people sometimes have different ideas about what they mean by these values, and publishing such a different book could possibly create difficulties for me. Maybe it won’t – I have no way of knowing.

But in the year that my partner had very serious major surgery that made both of us think about the fragility of life, and the year that I took a legally binding vow to love, cherish, honour, respect and be faithful to her, I think that it’s time for me to stop letting fear dictate what I am prepared to do publicly. And it’s time for me to tell anyone who needs to hear it, for whatever reason, that it is OK to love whoever you love.

After all, if Ashleigh, the seventeen-year-old main character of my new book can do it, then it’s about time I did, too.



Follow Liz on Twitter
Check out Liz's Website

Find out more about the L Project and their work here
Watch the video of It Does Get Better
All photographs by Mark Noall. Check out his website here


Tuesday 26 November 2013

No Eye for Detail - Andrew Strong

I have always been very long sighted.  I like to think I inherited the genes not of the prehistoric hunter, but of the hunter’s lookout, squinting into the horizon for a lone mammoth or a woolly rhino.  Ever since school I’ve been a lookout.  I looked out of the window in history and in physics, I looked out of the window in maths.  I loved staring out beyond the rugby fields to the trees on the hillside, or the clouds steaming across the sky.  When I walk in the mountains, I find I want to look into the blue remembered distance and leave all that banal map reading stuff to the people with proper kit, state of the art compasses and good eyes. 

I’ve noticed that I like music for its texture rather than a melody, and have often wondered whether this is somehow connected to my long sight.  I think in big pictures, huge vistas, I’m not a great one for detail. 

It makes me wonder whether my physiology has affected the books I prefer to read.  I tend to go for atmosphere, mood, emotion rather than plot.  Maybe it’s because I’m long sighted, or very right brained.  Perhaps I was dropped on my head when I was a baby. 

I can’t tell you much about the plot of Crime and Punishment, but I recall damp stairwells, gloomy tenements.  A decade ago I read several John Banville novels, one after another. If you were to ask me what they were about, I’d shrug and pull a face.  But their mood is still with me, a part of me still dwells in them. 

Alan Garner’s The Owl Service I recollect for a sense of the uncanny, of stark landscape, the dark mystery of the woods.  I love Holes, not for its convoluted and slightly unlikely plot, but for the heat and endless desert. 

But more than any other children’s novel, it’s the Gormenghast trilogy, dense and sometimes a bit of a trudge, almost unreadable in parts, which still haunts me years after I first read it.  The incidents have long gone, what remains is like a dream.  Just as I prefer not to experience too much detail, so I can rarely remember any. 

And yet I know that the universe each of these books creates is just because of a writer’s attention to the detail I say I resist.  A writer who crafts a book with enough care will ensure word builds upon word, layer upon layer, building a universe from the soil to the stars, magically transforming word into image, and image into memory.


Monday 25 November 2013

Vine? What's Vine? by Tamsyn Murray



Remember when YouTube was born? Anyone? Anyone?

OK, let me refresh your memory; back in 2006, it was pretty much wall-to-wall grainy home videos and bad Gnarls Barkley covers. Thankfully, we’ve come a long way since then; with over a billion unique users, YouTube has evolved into a monster, with something for pretty much everyone. It’s also home to an awful lot of book trailers –  publishers often have their own channels and post everything from reviews to author interviews. Some of us have put up clips of themselves reading extracts from their latest book. But if YouTube is the daddy of all content vehicles, then Vine (Twitter’s mobile video-sharing app) is its illegitimate baby. And it’s growing up fast.

At first glance, Vine looks a lot like YouTube only shorter; it’s a six second video clip in a never-ending loop designed to melt your brain. But get past those twerking tutorials (note for those unfamiliar with this term: imagine a jerky Haka being done by people in teeny-tiny hotpants to Crazy in Love by Beyoncé and you’ve got the picture) and there’s some inspired creative content. Vine has over thirteen million users and they’re a hungry bunch – like tech-savvy locusts, they consume fast and move onto the next thing. If you’re creative and clever, that next thing could be you.

Alright, so one six-second video isn’t going to make your book a bestseller, but it does offer you something new and different to offer your readers, especially when you take into account that a whopping 55% of today’s web traffic is video. At the very least it might generate some elusive word-of-mouth buzz. Although it helps if you are a fabulous illustrator – see this lovely vine by Benji Davies for his picture book, The Storm Whale – all you actually need is a camera phone, the Vine app and a bit of imagination. I plan to create a series of Vines to promote my Cassidy Bond series next year and I’m using what’s already out there as inspiration. Check out Meaghan Cignoli, a NYC photographer who is now a full-time professional Vine-ographer, for ideas.

Thankfully, it appears the twerking is entirely optional.

Sunday 24 November 2013

Looking the part - Lily Hyde


“I looked you up on your website; I see you’re a children’s author,” said an architect I barely know the other day.

I’m always a bit freaked out by almost or complete strangers knowing who I am; I mean, obviously, I have a website, I want people to know who I am, but really - ! The only reason Mr Architect even knew my surname was because I’d been copied on to some e-mails about paint colours.

“Oh, er, yeah..” is my eloquent reply, waiting for the dreaded "but you’re not JK Rowling are you…" 

“A Children’s Author - wonderful!” he says. “How marvellous, how exciting!”

Not often I get that degree of enthusiasm. I begin to warm to him despite the fact he’s been stalking me on the Internet.

“And I must say,” he goes on enthusiastically, “you do look the part.”

That’s where he loses me. I have absolutely no idea what he means. Do I appear child-friendly? Have I got a passing resemblance to JK Rowling? Am I wearing a witch’s hat, a green hungry caterpillar costume, a Peter Pan smock? What does a Children’s Author look like – tortured genius? Head-in-the-clouds? Away-with-the-fairies? Rich (ha ha)? I wasn’t even holding a pen at the time.

It only later occurred to me that I can’t in fact look the part that much, or he would never have had to look me up on the Internet to find out who I am. But by then our conversation had long since faltered and ground to a halt, so I never did find out what he thought a Children’s Author should look like.

Perhaps someone out there can enlighten me?

(Apologies to Mr Architect, who I must say did not particularly look the part, he should perhaps have been carrying a small building like one of those medieval saints with churches tucked under their arms…)


www.lilyhyde.com 

Saturday 23 November 2013

Selling Seasonal Picture Book Stories - Lynne Garner

A few of years ago I wrote two picture book stories 'Where It's Always Winter' and 'The Perfect Christmas Tree.' As the titles suggest they both have a festive or seasonal link. Once I'd completed them I sent to various publishers who I believed (because I'd researched their previously published titles) might be interested in them. Again and again they were rejected, which is something you sort of get used to as a professional writer. However a couple of the publishers didn't send me the standard rejection letter. They told me they'd enjoyed the stories but were withdrawing from seasonal books so weren't in a position to take.


This is where my journey into becoming a publisher started. MadMoment Media Ltd was set up and with a very limited budget we had these two picture stories (plus a few others I'd received good feedback on) into apps for the iPhone and iPad. This meant a steep learning curve and a fair few hours spent in a recording studio, as yours truly narrated them.  By the end of 2010 they were ready and uploaded onto the iTunes store. A few months later we converted all of the stories into picture eBooks and uploaded onto Amazon (Amazon UKAmazon US). Our non-seasonal stories sell a few copies all year round. However although 'Where It's Always Winter' and 'The Perfect Christmas Tree' are seasonal we sell as many if not more of them than our non-seasonal titles.

Now you may be wondering why I'm sharing this with you. Well I wanted to demonstrate that just because a large publishing house doesn't see the point of selling seasonal picture books it doesn't mean there isn't a market for them. So if you have a book that's received good feedback but isn't marketable all year round why not give it a go yourself. It's worked for me it could work for you.

Lynne Garner 

I also write for:
The Picture Book Den - all things to do with picture books
Authors Electric - covers digital self-publishing 
The Hedgehog Shed - concerned with hedgehog rescue
Fuelled By Hot Chocolate - my own ramblings
The Craft Ark - craft how-to blog

My online classes with WOW starting January 2014:

Friday 22 November 2013

When the story just takes over - by Nicola Morgan

Have you ever had the experience of something "just happening" in the book you're writing, something that you just have to find a way to deal with? This used to happen a lot to me and it felt rather wonderful, as though something was there, helping me write the story, something that was going to guide or drag me, something I needed to handle with a long rein. Sadly, this doesn't happen so much nowadays, as I think I've busified myself too much. But one day I'll get it back.

The most memorable time when it happened was when I was writing The Passionflower Massacre, which I confess remains my favourite of my books. There's a big chunk of me in that book. It's from the heart.

ANYway, quite early in the book, I found myself writing these sentences:
Before lunch, a message came for Matt to go back to the hostel. He didn’t come back to the raspberry fields. 
Matilda never saw Matt alive again.
What?? The gorgeous guy just vanishes? The one who was going to save Matilda? Just like that? What, as in dead?????? Nooooo! But he was gorgeous! Where's he gone? Why? Who did it? Is he dead? But I knew he was. But how and why and who and what would be the results? I had no idea.

Of course, I could have deleted it. But I didn't want to. It had been given to me. It sounded exciting. Twisty. Dark. Right.

So I went with it and followed the story and discovered what happened to gorgeous, doomed Matt. And why. And what it did to Matilda. I discovered that it had a part to play in the bursting, roasting strawberries and the ripening tomatoes and the deadly, rare, gorgeous passionflowers. He had to die.

Has this abolition of control happened to you? And isn't it a scary wonderful feeling when it does? I'll get that back, I hope.
_________________________
The Passionflower Massacre and Sleepwalking are to be republished in one pretty ebook on December 2nd! If you liked Wasted, I think you'll like these. Please give them a shot! Super-cheap as an intro offer. Free extracts of the PFM on my blog now. 

Thursday 21 November 2013

Happy World Hello Day!


Did you know that the 21st of November is World Hello Day and has been for the past 41 years? It began in response to the conflict between Israel and Egypt in 1973 and is now observed by people in over 180 countries.

Anyone can participate in it by greeting ten people. This week I feel like I've greeted about 10,000 people. It started with a talk for 1500 children at Folkestone Literary Festival (divided into 2 sessions) not to mention the grown-ups! Then a visit to Brackenbury School to celebrate their new library with talks to 2 Year 6 groups. To be followed by an exciting afternoon today watching 25 teams compete in the Central England's Kids Lit Quiz heat at Kimbolton school.


Not only is the 21st November World Hello Day it's also the anniversary of the precursor to the Internet, the ARPANET's, first permanent link between UCLA and Stanford Research Institute in 1969. I don't know about you but the Internet's revolutionised my writing career and given me masses more opportunities than before.

The Internet's of course invaluable for getting 'the word' out fast - as was needed to collect money for the Philippines and other emergencies - both in big and small ways. It shows over and over, with a few not so nice exceptions, how people want to and try to help other people and animals. As soon as I heard of the Authors for Philippines auction I, like many others signed up and have been bidding and doing my best to help promote it ever since, even accepting an extra side bid from a cheeky Granny to give a talk at her Granddaughter's school. Luckily this week I've been out and about because usually my main companions are 2 dogs. The Internet made donating, giving and spreading the information easier and so much faster than pre-Internet days.

The Authors for Philippines auction officially ended at 8pm last night and raised over 55 thousand pounds. An amazing amount!!! Keren, Keris, Candy, Diane and Suzie, who set up the auction, are still hard at work organising the donation giving. On the British Red Cross website it states that £2 can buy a blanket to keep someone warm and £10 can buy a tarpaulin to make a temporary home.

Hope you have a great day and get to say hello in person or online to 10 people - old friends or new.



Megan's website is www.meganrix.com and Ruth's website is www.ruthsymes.com.

Wednesday 20 November 2013

"This is not the site you're looking for ..." by Joan Lennon

No, my dears.  You may think you'd like to spend some time on An Awfully Big Blog Adventure this fine/squally/dull/dazzling (choose as appropriate) 20th of November, but you really don't.  THIS is where you want to spend some time ...


Spend some time, spend some money.  Go NOW.  Because this is the very last day of the Authors for the Philippines on-line auction to raise funds for the Red Cross Typhoon Haiyan Appeal.  You have until 8:00 pm GMT - and then it's all over.

Go here for the Home Page.  Go here for the exceptionally useful Index (after all, there are several hundred delectable things on offer - easy to get lost!)  But, please, just go.

Tuesday 19 November 2013

How to Build A World - Lucy Coats

Before I talk about world-building, I'd like to remind you all about the AUTHORS FOR THE PHILIPPINES auction, which is in full swing at the moment, raising much-needed funds for the Red Cross to aid the people of the Philippines after Typhoon Haiyan. There are some truly amazing 'money can't usually buy' lots to bid on, so please don't miss out!  The bidding ends at 8pm on Weds 20th November, so you haven't got long.  I've got signed, doodled and dedicated books, and also a school visit on offer, but those are just two of 468 fantastic lots, including books signed by Philip Pullman and Neil Gaiman, and the chance of being a character in Patrick Ness's next book, or having a dedication in the 25th Anniversary Edition of Amazing Grace, or in the next Young James Bond novel. The list goes on, and there really is something for everyone - DO go and browse (just click on the links in red!). 

Now, onto that world-building I promised you....


World-building is a key skill for any writer. Whatever genre you write in, giving your readers a vibrant sense of place - creating the feeling that they can step into the pages of your books and find somewhere which actually works as a three-dimensional landscape - is as necessary as writing strong and believable characters.  Our own world is a useful template to use, because we all know how it works, but how does a fantasy writer go about creating a brand-new world with its own history, culture and politics?

A week or so ago, I was at the World Fantasy Convention in Brighton, and was privileged to hear a panel of bestselling fantasy authors talk about this, sharing tips and tricks as to how they do it.  What surprised me was how differently they all approached the matter of world-building.

Patrick Rothfuss expends a great deal of time and effort on getting the world of his Kingkiller Chronicle absolutely right. He maintains that a large helping of geekery is important for this - and he suggests going to an enthusiast for information, not a professional, because those are the people who have a true passion for their subject.  Patrick's own geekery concerns trade systems and how they work - as well as currencies, about which he knows at least 98% more than he ever puts in his books. He considers successful world-builders to be obsessive train-set designers who "plunge into the deep rabbit hole of madness" and get every detail right, rather than set-designers, who merely paint a flat wooden surface to create an illusion rather than a 3D object.

He also says that there is a danger to be found in assuming that all readers will know and have an implicit understanding of the culture the writer comes from.  For instance, if an alien read certain books from the past (and even from the present day), and focussed its attention what on swearing and curse words actually highlight, it might assume that "women are dirty, sex is bad".  He maintains that how people curse shows what people see as taboo - it is a window into the cultural assumptions and beliefs which most of us simply don't examine too closely.  Therefore, making up a credible 'cursing vocabulary', for your world can ground it and give it a feeling of reality, as well as being a shortcut to that world's cultural beliefs and taboos.

Robin Hobb has a different take. She spends a lot of time with her characters within her 'writing unconscious', and finds that as the person shows who they are (who their family is, the places where they live and work), everything else seems to fall into place, because then she starts asking them: "Who's your government, what's your religion." Once those questions are answered, she knows what sort of world they fit into.  She admits to being a biology geek who asks questions such as: "what happens when a red rose and a white grow side by side?" and extrapolates from that exchanges of DNA and biologically-based magic.  She says that what is important is not what you don't know, but what you don't know you don't know.  Just because you've seen something 100 times on TV - a version of history, an Arthurian story or whatever - it doesn't mean it's actually true.  Always go back to original sources.

Adrian Tchaikovsky keeps it simple. For setting and place, he asks: "What if there was..." Everything in his world grows organically from that, and then, once he has that, he says: "This is the world - now who lives in it?" He feels there is "no reason we have to be chained to history or to our perception of history."

Hal Duncan is the definition of a true 'pantser. Together with finding a voice and a perspective, creating a setting is, for him, an ongoing process of discovery. He doesn't care if it's right "as long as it sounds good."

Ellen Kushner, who moderated the panel, maintains that she doesn't know anything about her world except what her character sees or knows - she finds writing an immersive and integral experience, and considers it "all smoke and mirrors".  She says that her job is to make her readers believe, and let them create a lot of the landscape in their own heads.

I'd be very interested to hear what other writers think of all this.  Does one of these 'methods' strike a chord with you?  Is there something here you hadn't thought of, but would like to try out?  Personally, I'm going to look out for an enthusiast on trading in Ancient Egypt, because that's what I need at the moment, and think about the uses of swearing. I'm also going to confess to being a mythology geek.  How about you?

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. 
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Lucy is represented by Sophie Hicks at Ed Victor Ltd

Sunday 17 November 2013

AUCTION ALERT! AUTHORS FOR THE PHILIPPINES!

Heard of this great idea?  Well, you have now . .


What is "AUTHORS FOR THE PHILIPPINES?"


It is an online auction to raise money for the Red Cross’s Typhoon Haiyan Appeal.
Typhoon Haiyan slammed into the Philippines on Friday (8 November), causing catastrophic damage. It is the strongest storm ever to make landfall, hitting an area where thousands of people are already homeless after an earthquake in mid-October.
The 300-mile wide typhoon – locally known as Yolanda – has left a trail of destruction with thousands feared dead. The full extent of the damage will become clearer in the next few days as rescue teams reach the more remote areas.
Philippine Red Cross volunteers have been on the ground since before the storm hit, helping with evacuation plans and warning communities. Now, they are getting aid to the people who are most in need and preparing to help thousands more.
The auction is now live and you can bid on the items via the comments on the individual posts.

Once the auction has ended (Wednesday 20th November), we will contact the winning bidder and ask them to donate the funds directly to the Red Cross and send the confirmation of payment to us.

When we’ve received the confirmation, we’ll ask the relevant author to contact the winning bidder. (In other words, we are not dealing directly with any donations. All donations are to be made directly to the Red Cross appeal.)

If you’re interested in bidding on an item, please have a look at Browsing & Bidding page on this link: 

http://authorsforphilippines.wordpress.com/about/


If you’re an author who would like to offer an item for auction, please email authorsforphilippines@gmail.com

Thanks for reading - and do think about bidding! SOON! There are lots of great offers there, and the moeny raised will bring help to those caught in this most terrible disaster.

Penny Dolan

Saturday 16 November 2013

We warned you this would happen - John Dougherty

I make no apologies for being angry.

If you haven’t already read or watched the excellent second annual lecture to the Reading Agency, delivered last month by the equally excellent Neil Gaiman, please do. You’ll find much to think about and much to agree with, and perhaps you’ll learn something new, too.



I learned something new. I learned this:

According to a recent study by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, England is the "only country where the oldest age group has higher proficiency in both literacy and numeracy than the youngest group, after other factors, such as gender, socio-economic backgrounds and type of occupations are taken into account".

The youngest age-group in question is 16-24, and I’m fairly sure I know why they’ve done so badly. You see, it was 16 years ago - when the youngest in that group were babies, and the eldest were only 8 - that the government began to micro-manage our children’s literacy learning.

Oh, there’d been political interference before then, and increasingly so; but it was with David Blunkett’s appointment as Education Secretary that Her Majesty’s Government became so arrogant as to think that some bloke in Whitehall whose sole experience of education was having gone to school was better placed to decide exactly how children should be taught than were trained, qualified, experienced teachers who actually had those children in front of them.

Blunkett introduced something called the Literacy Hour. Teachers protested: it would inhibit creativity; it would bore children; it would dampen enthusiasm for reading. Tough, said Blunkett, you’re doing it. It’ll raise standards.

Well, Mr Blunkett, it would appear you were wrong about that.

I was a supply teacher in those days, and I remember groans from the children when I announced it was time for Literacy Hour. I remember seeing the light in children’s eyes go out as I cut them short, wanting to hear what they had to say but knowing that I had no choice but to keep to the government-imposed clock. I remember coming home to my wife and saying, “When we have children, I don’t want anybody doing to them what I had to do to those children today.”

But however much teachers complained, the response from government was always, “We know best.”

They didn’t. They really didn’t.

And they still don’t. You see, this is not a party-political complaint. Things are no better now that New Labour is but an old memory. Now we have the coalition. We have Michael Gove ordering a one-size-fits-all phonics regime. We have the top-down imposition of a phonics test that is not fit for purpose. We have teachers pressured into the sort of behaviour recently observed by Marilyn Brocklehurst of Norfolk Children’s Book Centre:


We have so much evidence to tell us that if our children are going to achieve in literacy - and in school, and in life - they need to learn to read for pleasure. To read for fun. And we have a growing body of evidence to tell us that for this to happen, politicians must not be allowed to micro-manage any aspect of their learning.

But what can we do? Nothing. The Secretary of State for Education has assumed the powers of a dictator - literally; there’s no way of holding him, and it usually is a him, to account. Experts who challenge him are dismissed as, well, whatever is the political insult du jour - at the moment, it’s Marxist - whilst their views are misrepresented way past the point of parody.

I began this piece with the wild-haired Neil Gaiman. By the end, I’ve come to the wild-haired Russell Brand (language warning).



Maybe he’s right. Maybe the whole system is no longer fit for purpose, if it ever was.

______________________________________________________________________

John's next book:  

 Stinkbomb & Ketchup-Face and the Badness of Badgers, illustrated by David Tazzyman & published by OUP in January 2014

Have your name shouted by a badger and get a signed book by bidding online in the Authors for Philippines charity auction. 
Well over 200 other items, including many from Awfully Big Blog Adventure contributors.

Friday 15 November 2013

Message in a Bottle


"Hello everybody!! How are you? We are writing from Kerch, Crimea and we want to tell you about some adventure. Its about some road to China on a byke to listen to Rolling Stonne on the Great Chinese Wall. If you want to go with us, please write us. We waiting for your letters. Love Alesha, Nastya, Sasha and Pasha."
On a recent visit to the Crimea I offered to run a creative writing workshop ( In Russian and English!) with the young people of the tiny emerging Jewish community in Kerch, the Crimea. Our synagogue is Twinned with this community and we make an annual visit as well as fund-raising for them. This was my second visit and my second workshop.
I began by throwing a plastic bottle on the floor with a piece of paper inside. Then I said,  "What if this was a message in a bottle to the young people in our community in London. You throw the bottle in the Black Sea and it flows all the way to the Thames in London and our teens pick it up. What would you say to them?"
I had a translator - I only have a few Russian words picked up from the Rough Guide but I do know how to say cool - kruta.
They liked the idea but because of the language barriers I decided it was best to put the teens in groups and tell them to pool ideas. Alesha's group had diverse interests - to visit China and to go to a Stones concert. Other groups wanted our teens to come and visit so that they could go to the beach. Kerch although quite isolated on the far eastern top of the Crimea, is a lovely little town with a great beach.

One girl with excellent English thought they should set up a Facebook page and share photos. However, I think the Ukraine has its own ( state controlled ) version of Facebook but we are going to look into it.
Once there was a buzz in the room and ideas flying around, we got out the paper and pens and everyone started writing and some even added drawings.
Everyone wrote something, in either Russian or English and I asked them to leave a space under each line for translation. Lera wrote, "I am sixteen and like listening to music, drawing and painting. I like extraordinary and weird people! I think we will have a lot of fun if we get together. I am a cheerful and positive thinking person."
All of the teens wanted to meet the young people from our community and this was their first chance to actually write a message to our teens and try to establish a link. We are hoping to take a group of Y13s from our synagogue to meet the Kerch Youth next year and I will be doing a return exercise, sending back our messages in a bottle, with the London teens in a couple of weeks.
The Jewish community of Kerch goes back to ancient Greek times and the town has a very interesting history, with many ancient remains still being excavated. But the WW2 story is very dark. 40,000 Jews were shot by the Nazis in the Crimea over the winter of 1941-42, in anti-tank ditches and dry wells. 7,000 Jews were killed from the little town of Kerch. The Nazis came twice to Kerch and tens of thousands of people died defending the town. As a result little Kerch was designated one of the thirteen hero cities of the Soviet Union by Stalin, along with Kiev, Moscow and Stalingrad.  The community have only recently put up their own memorial at Bagerov Ravine where the Kerch Jews were deported and shot.
Under the Soviet Union all religion was suppressed. The Kerch Jewish community re-emerged in 1997 after the fall of the Soviet Union along with many other communities across the Ukraine and there are many twinnings like ours.
The achievement of our Twin community to revive Hebrew and Jewish culture after it had been totally suppressed is an awesome achievement. To work with these young people and to share their hopes, interests and desire to meet our youth was very inspiring.
We will be sending our Message in a Bottle back to Kerch very soon and I hope it is the beginning of many more messages flowing between the Thames and the Black Sea.
Shabbat morning just before this group do Bar/BatMitzvah
Lighting Friday night candles with a Kerch family
Leading a Hebrew study session on Shabbat afternoon in the synagogue
The Bar/Batmitzvah group in front of the Ark.