Wednesday 30 March 2016

The Kelpie Challenge - Lari Don

I like a challenge. I don’t see much point in being a writer, if I’m just going to write the same stories in the same ways over and over. So I challenge myself to write stories in ways that I find more difficult and more complex. But more difficult and more complex doesn’t necessarily mean longer books for older children. I’ve just written a picture book that was as much of a challenge, in entirely new ways, as any novel I’ve ever written.

The Secret Of The Kelpie is a picture book retelling of the story of the kelpie, the shape-shifting child-eating water-horse of Scottish lochs and rivers. Writing it presented me with new challenges, which was a good enough reason to write it. But there were several other excellent reasons.

One was the chance to work with Philip Longson again. Philip illustrated The Tale of Tam Linn a couple of years ago, and his pictures of magic and beauty and darkness were so perfect that I was keen to have my words illuminated by his enchanting pictures again.

Also, the kelpie is a very Scottish beast, and I’m passionate about sharing Scottish folklore with kids in Scotland and, honestly, with kids everywhere else too. Scottish stories, like every culture’s stories, deserve as wide an audience as European fairy tales or Viking myths...

But mainly, I was in it for the story-shaped challenges.

The first challenge was that there isn’t actually one kelpie story. I don’t mean there are various versions of one basic tale. There are dozens of different stories about underwater monsters changing into beautiful horses (or handsome people) to lure victims into the water to drown them and eat them. Most lochs in Scotland and lots of rivers have kelpie stories, and those stories differ widely.

So I had to gather as much kelpie lore as possible, then resist the temptation to squash all that information into one slim book. I wasn’t going to retell them all, I simply wanted to search for clues to the one new kelpie story I wanted to tell.
just a few of the books I found kelpies in

I discovered that some kelpies like to eat children, some prefer to carry off young women or married couples or fishermen. Some kelpies like home comforts (one kidnapped a stone mason to build him an underwater fireplace and chimney.) Some object to metal. Some have a problem with bridles. Some kelpies are hard workers - there are bridges and mills and churches apparently built by kelpies. And some kelpies can grow longer to fit entire families on their back before rushing towards the water.

I was surprised to discover that kelpie stories are not just from the Highlands and Islands, the Gaelic speaking parts of Scotland. There are lots of kelpie stories from the east coast too: Angus and Aberdeenshire and even my own childhood home in Speyside.

I found so many kelpie stories, from so many parts of Scotland, that my publishers have created an interactive map of the locations and snippets of the stories, so you can go kelpie hunting too.

So now I had too much research, and I needed to distil it down to one clear straight storyline.

But I had another challenge. You may have noticed it, as you’ve been reading down to here. The kelpie is a child-eating monster. None of the kelpies in the old tales ate porridge or bannocks or tattie scones. They ate people. And often, they chose to eat children.

I had chosen to write a picture book about kelpies. About a child-eating monster. So, how could I do that, without either ripping the heart out of the story, or terrifying the readers?

I wasn’t prepared to create a cute cuddly glittery friendly kelpie. And though my editor and I were clear this story was aimed at older picture book readers, we still wanted to respect our readers (and the potential sensitivity of those reading to them!)

Of course, many of our best loved fairy tales are terrifying, and many of them contain child-eating monsters. Red Riding Hood’s wolf? Hansel and Gretel’s witch? But we know these stories, we’ve known them all our lives, which blunts their darkness...

And, even in Scotland, not many children know about the kelpie from their early years. So, how could I introduce a NEW child-eating monster?

My answer to both those challenges tuned out to be the same. How to synthesise dozens of pieces of kelpie magic into one story? How to make a story about a child-eating monster child-friendly?

The answer was to start, not with the kelpie, not with the magic or the monster, but to start with the child. To start with the character.

Once I met Flora, and her big brothers and sisters, and had them play hide and seek by a loch, then find a beautiful white horse, the story started to tell itself. Flora discovered exactly the right bits of kelpie lore to keep herself safe, and to rescue her brothers and sisters. And though I admit that the story gets dark and scary in the middle, I was always aiming for a happy ending, and I was fairly confident that my heroine Flora could get us there.

So, as often happens in writing, any challenge can be overcome with just a little bit of magic, and the right heroine!

The Secret of the Kelpie is retold by Lari Don, illustrated by Philip Longson and published by Floris Books

Lari Don is the award-winning author of more than 20 books for all ages, including a teen thriller, 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 

Tuesday 29 March 2016

Tommy v Cancer - John Dougherty

I'm not going to post much today. Instead, I'm going to point you towards another blog.

As some of you will know, children's author Tommy Donbavand has recently been diagnosed with cancer. I've never met Tommy, though I have emailed him a few times. My impression from those emails - and his reputation among those I know who have met him - is that he's a lovely guy, one of the best.

And certainly, he's facing up to his current condition with an extraordinarily courageous openness. So this month, instead of reading any more from me, I'd like you to visit his Tommy v. Cancer blog, and offer him your support.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________














John's Stinkbomb & Ketchup-Face series, illustrated by David Tazzyman, is published by OUP.


His new books in 2016 will include the next two Stinkbomb & Ketchup-Face titles, his first poetry collection - Dinosaurs & Dinner-Ladies, illustrated by Tom Morgan-Jones and published by Otter-Barry Books  - and several readers for schools.

Monday 28 March 2016

à plus, Louise Rennison! - Clémentine Beauvais

Keren has already written a lovely post about it, but I still wanted to add a small tribute to Louise Rennison who died last month. Being part of the 'Georgia Nicholson generation', it was moving to see what seemed like the whole of Facebook (well, at least the female half of it) shedding tears, but also sharing the funniest extracts, at the news. It's difficult to think about Louise Rennison without smiling - even at such a sad time.

I've never actually read Georgia Nicholson's diary in English. In the early 2000s, when the first book was left for me under the Christmas tree by a prescient Santa, it was in the form of Mon nez, mon chat, l'amour et moi: "My nose, my cat, love and me": a much more prudish title than the original. I read, reread and rereread the whole series in French throughout my teenage years.

Thankfully, Catherine Gibert's translation for Gallimard was exceptionally good. It takes a bit of genius to translate funny books in general, but it takes a lot of genius to translate funny books for teenagers. To keep up with Rennison, Gibert had to make up many words (not an easy exercise in French), twist and break traditional syntax (even less so); she pretty much invented a 'funny teenage voice' in French.

The neon-coloured covers were a bit of a novelty in the very ivory/cream/white aesthetic of the French literary landscape of the time (even for children):


Gallimard had hired, to illustrate them, one of the punchiest and most famous French female cartoonists, Claire Brétécher, whose legendary renditions of slightly ugly, very endearing teenagers fit perfectly with the theme. 

At the time, there were few authors in teenage literature who rang true, who were funny and modern and spoke to us. Louise Rennison was one of them, and my friends and I couldn't get enough of it. But interestingly, while everyone in the UK says that they found themselves in the books - that they identified with Georgia - for us French girls it was a very foreign world. We didn't have all-girls' schools, we didn't have uniforms, we had much less P.E. (seriously, I couldn't understand why Georgia was doing sports pretty much everyday - in France we had 2 hours a week, and spent them half-heartedly playing ping-pong). And, at least in Paris, we didn't have those residential streets with cats sitting on walls - though I was familiar with that concept from Harry Potter. And what??? teenagers drove motorbikes???

Only later (when I arrived in the UK) did I realise that Georgia Nicholson's diary also gently mocked the British suburban middle-class, with its bored yummy mummies, its numerous opportunities for gossip, its populations of slightly immodest teenage girls looking for love by rolling up their uniform skirts. All of this very British lore felt just as unreal to me as the daily routine of Narnian fawns.

Yet it was still hilarious, and I still identified, because there's no need for social reality to make immediate sense when everything about the characters and their reactions feels so true. Rennison's teenagers were entirely contextual, and absolutely universal. They could not have been anything else than British, and yet they were every teenager in the world's best friends.

Louise Rennison was a teenage-literature genius, a redeemer of sad days, an exquisite social satirist, one of the best comedy writers in this country. I'm very sad I never got to meet her and thank her in person.

_____________________________________

Clementine Beauvais writes in French and English. She blogs here about children's literature and academia.

Sunday 27 March 2016

'I'd love to write a book, but I don't have the time...' Lynn Huggins-Cooper



Well, the title says it all. I have lost count of the times I have heard this at parties and gatherings. I try to smile politely, and I hope it works. I wonder if people think my days are spent lounging on a sofa drinking tea and eating chocolates...

Like many writers, I write because I *have* to. If I don't write, I get jittery and unsettled - the world doesn't feel quite 'right.' I love writing, and have done it for as long as I can remember. That doesn't mean it always 'works' though. Sometimes I find it hard to settle, or the writing refuses to flow. When it *does* work, it is bliss.

Currently, my writing is flowing well; the characters are co-operating and the story is playing out in my mind's eye like a film. That feeling is hard to beat - and I intend to make the most of it! So why are things working? I think it is because I have carved out time every morning to write this new novel. I have been very busy lately, setting up new projects and completing existing work. So I have been setting the alarm early, to give me two hours each morning to work on this book. When it goes off, I moan - but very quickly make tea and sit at my desk. I am excited at my progress, and will be keeping up my early morning sessions. If you are struggling to find time for your writing, have a look at your schedule and think about where you can carve time out of your day. For me, that was getting up early; for you, it could be staying up late, watching less television, or fitting in short writing sprints in odd moments. Have a go - you might surprise yourself with what you can achieve!



Saturday 26 March 2016

Ben's People! - Eloise Williams


I don’t get out much.

Partly because I live here ...








 

and it’s so beautiful.

And partly because I live here...

 

 

 
and it’s such a long way from everything.

 But once in a while we get into our jalopy amidst pickled onion Monster Munch, a plethora of games I’ve made up since our radio broke - most of which involve singing and a grimacing husband – and generally some unidentified pungent foodstuffs rotting in the glovebox from the last road trip and we drive along the old M bore.

And this time it was worth it. SO worth it!

We’d been invited to two book launches. TWO!!!

 

 

Forgive the excitement but not many books get launched round this ‘ere parts.

(I’m not sure what accent that’s supposed to be. It certainly isn’t Welsh my lovely).

((Neither is that)).

 
Firstly, and only-just-made-it-because-of-Friday-traffic-ly, was the launch of Stefan Mohamed’s acer than ace, ‘Ace of Spiders’ the sequel to his outstanding ‘Bitter Sixteen’.  This was held in a really cool shop called Forbidden Planet which neither me or my husband had heard of because we are so far the wrong side of cool we can’t even see cool on the horizon.

 


‘Stanly is frustrated. Having set himself up as London's protector, he's finding that the everyday practicalities of superheroism are challenging at best, and downright tedious at worst. So it's almost a relief when an attempt is made on his life and Stanly finds himself rushing headlong into a twisted adventure, with enemies new and old coming out of the woodwork. However, even with his friends and his ever-increasing power behind him, he may have bitten off more than he can chew this time. The monsters are coming ...and nothing will ever be the same!’

 Bitter Sixteen was a compulsive read with superhero style reviews:


CHILDREN'S BOOK OF THE WEEK, TIMES, SAT 25TH APRIL 2015
"Highly original... clever and funny... I didn't think the superheroes genre had anywhere left to go. Mohamed convinces otherwise. Daryl and Stanly have one of the greatest buddy relationships I can recall - the rapid fire dialogue between them enviable in its witty ease."
Alex O'Connell
, Times

And the ‘Ace of Spiders’ certainly looks spectacular balanced at the top of my teetering TBR pile and enticing me into its web. I loved the first thereby proving that even though it is written with wit, intelligence and youth it also appeals to the slightly less young, less witty, less aware of interesting shops type reader. Stef is absolutely, mind-blowingly talented and I can’t wait to get stuck into it.

 

Just removed from the top of my teetering TBR pile for reading purposes (and with great fear of crushing small dog in the process) is Anna McKerrow’s ‘Red Witch’ the second launch we were invited to. And what a launch!

I’m talking Glastonbury, I’m talking a blessing from a real live witch, I’m talking the White Spring under the Tor, connecting with my own spirituality (and believe me I am a hardened cynic), barefoot wandering through spring water in candlelight to the sound of sweet singing and drumming, the works.
Anna McKerrow is a beauty in writing, spirit and appearance. She had us all completely ensorcelled as she explained to us the importance of the White Spring in her book and I felt completely privileged to be a part of the occasion.

 

‘Red Witch’ is the sequel to ‘Crow Moon’, a book I devoured last year as if it was a piece of chocolate cake, covered in extra chocolate, with a side order of chocolate, and it is absolutely divine.

Seventeen, heartbroken, powerful; Melz has run away from home, run away from the safety of the Greenworld. In the cities of the Redworld, Melz discovers she's special, desired. And not just for her magical talents.

When Melz meets the young but influential Bran, their attraction is instant and electric. In the Redworld, with Bran by her side, unrestrained by the customs of her former life, Melz knows she can reach her true potential.

​But the world Bran wants to give Melz is ravaged by war and violence. Oil is running out, and people will do anything to gain control of the remaining resources. Melz may be more powerful than ever, but even great power can be a curse when used against you.
If you like witches, magic, fear,

"Deadly, sexy, and utterly spellbinding" Melinda Salisbury

"If you want to know how real witches work, summon your own goddess and read Red Witch!" CJ Daugherty

"Clever, gripping, but above all a terrifying cautionary tale for our times." Louise O'Neill

 
You are probably wondering how a totally uncool Welsh person who has never heard of Forbidden Planet managed to get invited to two of the grooviest launches going right?

Well I am lucky enough to be one of (what I call) Ben’s People!

 

We don’t look quite like this… well only on a night out in Swansea… but we are all part of the same Agency.
 

There are lots of us out there doing good work and writing AMAZING stories.

Lu Hersey, writer of one of the best books ever and winner of the Mslexia Children’s Novel Writing award was there too… this is me, name-dropping… I slept on the same bed as her cat, who incidentally has the loudest and most superbly satisfying purr you could ever imagine.

 

Eugene Lambert was there… his debut novel ‘The Sign of One’ is coming out imminently and will be launched at this cool little place I’ve been to called Forbidden Planet. Ahem....

 

 

 
I was there…

*pauses to attempt being somewhere near cool for a moment*
*fails*

There are other lots of other BIA beauties around too. A couple I am VERY excited about are Liz Flanagan's 'Eden Summer' which is out in July, eek! And Sophie Plowden's 'Jack Dash and The Summer Blizzard' which comes out in June, eek again!  
I’m currently working on a few novels and hoping, praying, chanting, casting spells and howling at the moon (that last bit is a lie, thankfully) that I will get a publishing deal soon.
And so a sincere bit without any weak jokes or tries at being cool.
I am so thankful to Ben for taking a chance on an unknown Welsh person with a short Welsh face and to Ben’s People for making me feel so much a part of a writing family. They all ROCK massively and you should go out and read all of their books. ALL of them. NOW!

 
*bewitches you with strange howling at the moon to buy all their books*
*stops howling when neighbour looks out of window*
*bewitches you with threats of further moon type howling ritual thingy* 
*is satisfied that you will buy all their books so goes back to reading. I'm alright noooowwwwwoooo!*
 
 
 
  

 

 

 

 

Friday 25 March 2016

Happy Easter! - Sue Purkiss

Easter 878.

In the marshes near Athelney, something was stirring. 

It was hope

Alfred, the King of Wessex, had been driven out of his capital on Twelfth Night by Guthrum and his Viking army. He had spent the winter holed up on a tiny island in the Somerset marshes, close to despair: with only a handful of men at his side, how could he possibly carry on?

But with the promise of spring, and the advent of Easter, he had come back to life. He'd sent messages out to the men of the west, and the new forge rang with the sound of weapons being forged. He was determined to stop these ravagers of monasteries, these marauders and murderers; he was determined to bring his people to safety and to a new beginning.

And he did.

Christianity was important to Alfred. Did he see the parallel, between his come-back and that of Christ? Was he a cunning manipulator of his own legend - a very early spin-doctor? Who knows. If the timing was a coincidence, it was a very happy one!

Does anyone know of other books in which Easter is important? If so, do please share in the comments. But in the meantime, I wish you a very happy Easter, with lots of chocolate and merry gambolling!


Happy Easter!


(And if you'd like to read more about Alfred, it's all in my book, Warrior King, which has recently been republished.)

http://suepurkiss.blogspot.co.uk/

Thursday 24 March 2016

Torn between two loves: a question and a confession - Liz Kessler

WARNING: this blog contains gratuitous use of my photographs, scattered throughout the text for no reason other than to share my passion. Their relationship with the words is at best tenuous, but the photos are keen to be seen and have pushed their way onto the blog, despite my best efforts to hold them back. 

I’m at that stage again. The very, very beginning of writing a new book. So early on that it’s not even really the beginning. The pre-beginning, let’s call it. The part where the winter of planting seeds and trusting that growth is taking place underground is beginning to give way to the spring of possibilities; where colour is creeping out and tiny shoots are beginning to show. It’s rather like the change of season in the outside world. In my garden, daffodils and crocuses are coming up. In my creative life, I’m reaching for my notebook to jot down random scattered ideas that pop up when I least expect it. Tiny ideas creeping over the horizon like the hint of a new day.


As well as being a time of possibility and hope, of fresh beginnings and new paths to explore, I also find this quite a scary time. The new growth is so delicate and so vulnerable, I’m not sure it will survive. This is the part of the process where I have to keep the faith, and the part where I am most likely to ask myself on a daily basis if I really will be able to write another book.

And this time, I have a new problem. I have a new question. And a confession.

My question is: where does creativity come from, and can it run out? Is creativity like money, and we need to use it with care, investing it wisely, spending it carefully, always conscious of the possibility of losing the lot? Or is it like love, where the more open we become to it, the greater our capacity for a never-ending flow? 


And this is where my confession comes in. You see, I think I might have started being unfaithful. I have a new creative love, and I’m worried that my writing might see it as a threat and decide to leave me.

The new love is photography. It’s kind of crept up on me. (We tried to stop it, honest – but it just happened, you know how it is.)

In the old days, my writing was the thing that kept me sane. It still is – I don’t think that will ever change. Writing is part of who I am and is the thing that helps me make sense of the world. It is a bit like meditation or religion – it is magical and if it was taken away from me forever, that would honestly feel like taking away air or water or, I don’t know, chocolate or something.

But yes, I admit it. My eyes have begun to wander. I have started to feel that way about photography too. I look at my camera and I feel a kind of longing for us to do wonderful things together. I wake up early and want to go out and photograph the sunrise; I go away for a weekend’s photography course (will this get it out of my system or just make me want it more?) and spend the whole of the following week desperate to upload my photos and share them with friends. I have recently had my first photograph commissioned for a magazine. I have even started to think about the possibility of putting on an exhibition, maybe making actual money from it. This isn’t a fling – there are real feelings involved.


And yes, all of this scares me. Me and writing are a marriage of nearly two decades. (Four decades if you count my early poems, but I’m talking about full time commitment.) It’s perhaps understandable that others come along and catch your eye after that long together. But can I love them both? Can I share my commitment between two passions like this?


I just don’t know if I’m allowed. You see, if I’m honest, the thing that bothers me is that these early stages with my new book are proving to be a bit stubborn. I have pages and pages of scribbled ideas in my notebook, hundreds of random thoughts – but they all seem to trail away into dark, unfathomable chasms or dead ends. And I’m wondering if I’m blocking up the path with my camera.


Which brings me back to my question. Where does creativity come from, and can it run out? (And yes, I do realise that, actually, this is two questions. I’m taking liberties to make a point. I’m a writer; we do that.) And if you’ll allow me to mix my metaphors a bit (we do that, too) let’s add a well to the dark chasms. So how does it work? Do you go up to the well and get your allocation of creativity handed out to you to use as you like, and if so am I spilling it all out on my sunsets and rocks? 


Or when you fetch your pail, if you use it carefully, with love and passion and commitment, are you actually pouring water back into the well, thus refilling it more and more with every act?


When I sit on a cliff top as the day ends, my camera poised as the sun slowly edges down from the sky, does the peace and joy that I feel enhance the creativity within me, giving me more to offer to my books, or does it elbow my writing out of the way, telling it that I no longer have the same need and desire for it that I once had?

I don’t know the answers to any of these questions. I know that I don’t want a divorce. I want to figure it out. I think that the three of us can work together, possibly creating something even more beautiful than I can do with just one of them alone. But we have to tread carefully. If I want my new book to open up to me, then I have to show it that I have not left it. I have to sit on a cliff top as the sun sets with my notebook, not just my camera. I have to write about what I’m seeing and hearing and feeling, not just want to photograph it. I have to be willing to explore the chasms further, to enter the darkness with my words, not just turn round and photograph the light. 

If I do these things, I have a feeling the well will soon be overflowing.



All photos taken (by me) on a Photography Workshop with Carla Regler. 
Check out Carla's website Here
Follow Liz on Twitter
Check out Liz's Website

Wednesday 23 March 2016

The First Rule Of Death Club by Steve Gladwin



There are many different entrances to the land of the dead.

Death is not a thing we joke about, but perhaps we should do it more. A few years ago, through a project called Are You Having A Laugh, I tried a fresh approach with year 6 children in Powys. I spent a morning entertaining them with daft stories and clown routines, before, in the afternoon, telling them three stories, each of which contained a loss of some sort. All I did after I’d told the last story, was to ask the class why the stories I'd told in the morning, and those they’d just heard - were different. This led to the simplest of discussion, after which they composed stories and drawings of the Green Children, (from Kevin Crossley Holland's adaptation) and the sad giants, (An African myth of the Mensi people) they’d heard about. The schools all said how much they appreciated the gentle approach and how easy it would be to take it further in their own work.



Some may be more daunting than others!

Miss Bertram copyright Rose Foran - The Raven's Call 2016
Just recently I have come rather late to a particular party. Now too often such things will follow a familiar and frustrating pattern. You know the sort of thing - you arrive to find only lemonade and a giant bottle of lager so cheap that the bottle could double as a weapon, the buffet has long been picked over and, utterly starving, you reach out for the last piece of raspberry pavlova, (insert personal preference!), only to find that some big bloke with tattoos has first dibs on it. Well yes, I have been to parties like that, but the party I’ve joined has thankfully none of those features because this particular party is ‘reading children’s books’ You, of course, have all been there from the start feasting, on a regular series of tit bits, with a full range of wine and spirits to call on as well as the cheap lager.






As I said in my last blog, I read an awful lot when I was a child and have done so intermittently since. In recent years of course I’ve Rowlinged and Pullmaned, and on several joyful occasions, Almonded, (but more about that in a while). Only in the last year however, have I made a serious return to those towering shelves of childhood with their sometimes dog-eared books. Apart from the usual sources I have been considerably aided by the wonderful Charney and Folly Farm invention of book swaps in which, in return for foisting my gaily coloured flimsy on unsuspecting fellow authors, In return I have come away with a huge bag of swag. Recent adventures have taken me across trackless siberian wastes,  or had me listening to the whispering of grass. I have gone through seven hells of care home and trod the shining sands of Pembrokeshire. To everyone involved, much thanks, but at the same time I have chased books recommended by fellow authors and ones I’ve just happened to come across.




 - while others may seem far more familiar.

There are those which may appear to be well trodden, familiar walkways -
So many of those books - whether given, borrowed or swapped- deal with the theme of loss, - just as my own book The Seven does - and each one deals with it in a different way. Sometimes the land or the ruler is so cruel that it might be a pleasure to die and escape both. Or a character you cannot imagine being dead suddenly and shockingly is. Even in the books where death doesn't lie raw and bleeding, there may be the shadow of the lost sibling or parent.


Death is of course ever present from the moment we are born to grow (hopefully gently) rather than suddenly towards it. However what being a reawakened lover of children’s books, (yes I know - where have I been?), has made me realise, is just how many wonderful and sensitive books there are out there dealing with it. 

In a previous blog, I discussed the idea of an author’s intent - when he or she chooses to adapt a myth or traditional tale - and how it might differ from say a storyteller, who might find the audience who feel that they own that story, sitting unsmiling with folded arms in front of them as they perform. I suggested the idea that as long as the original intent is in some way ‘honourable’, the story can take any amount of ‘mucking about with’. There was an interesting discussion following my blog and I’ve thought about it a lot since. Among the thoughts I’ve had, is of course that it also depends on whether we have anything new to say. When it comes to the theme of death I’ve come to the conclusion surprisingly, that there may be multiple new things to say and ways to express them.

The book I’ve just finished is David Almond's A Song For Ella Grey. Yes as usual I’ve come late to the party, but this time - and perhaps even more gladly - I have come late to the wake.

How do you go about putting fresh clothes on a myth so old that it is part of the land it was born in, as much as the language? Perhaps one way of doing it is to give the story a new birth in a new land.




How do you write something new about love when so many words have already flowed? And how can there be a new way of capturing that particular combination of joy and pain? Perhaps you literally put a new mask on it, so that - as Brecht would have it - both the character and you the reader, peer out not through unfamiliar eyes.

- while there are those which may take an entire lifetime.


And how on earth do you write something new about death when all the grief and tears have been swallowed, washed and wrung out? Just maybe, like David Almond, and so many more of you, you create a world or a feeling so moving and believable, that for the short blessed time you inhabit it, you come to no longer fear it, and when at last you come away from it, and time returns once more to it’s natural state, you are forever changed, and despite all the loss and grief, you would not have it any other way.



The first rule of Death Club is that we talk about it far more than we think and the authors of children’s books do it better than anyone.  



'You cannot travel the path until you have become the path itself

Buddha









Tuesday 22 March 2016

Keep learning and carry on - by Wendy Constance

( Many thanks to Wendy, who stepped in at short notice to write her first post for ABBA. Nicola Morgan will be back next month.)

If there was a handbook for debut authors when Brave was published in April 2014, I
didn’t know about it. I naively expected my Publication Day to receive some form of recognition. Instead, in the words of the recently departed Paul Daniels - ‘Not a Lot’ happened.


Two years later I’m learning about the workings of the publishing industry as I go along, with help from friends I make along the way. It’s daunting for a writer - who spends much of the time alone, dog and laptop her main companions - to plunge into marketing. But unless you’re already well-known it’s likely your book will receive little publicity.

I’m lucky to have 3 independent bookshops plus Waterstones within ½ hour drive. One organised several school author visits during the 1st 6 months after publication, for which I prepared a PowerPoint presentation plus papier-mache spear points and sabre-tooth fangs (Brave is set in the Stone Age 13,000 years ago).



What next?

Late November 2014 I read about the new director of the Essex Book Festival in the local paper. I contacted her and she was extremely helpful. I was too late for the 2015 Festival (it’s in March, most events are booked 6 months before), but she advised me which events to go to. She also advised me to join Twitter, which I did. I introduced myself to the local arts reporter at one of the events, who was happy to write an article about me. I was learning.

I organised three school author visits in 2015, using an improved version of the PowerPoint, and I contacted the Essex Book Festival director in plenty of time to be offered two 45 minute taster Imagination workshops (1 for adults, 1 for children) on Sunday 20th March 2016.

I was determined that the participants would have fun and leave the workshops with at least one idea they wanted to nurture, so developed various writing exercises including some drawing; my ‘Tap into your Imagination’; and a bag of random objects to ignite imaginations – shades of Mary Poppins. I thought they might remember me either as Tap Woman or Bag Woman.


They liked it. One of the women from the adult group dashed off at the end of the session eager to start a story she’d been inspired to write.

After much concentration five of the eight children enthusiastically read out at least one of their efforts. Afterwards the parents thanked me, saying how proud they were of their children’s work.

Success.

I’ve learnt in future workshops to set a time limit for each exercise - instead of leaving it open and waiting for all pens to stop. I’ve also learnt that workshops work better for me than PowerPoint. Enthusing others to write is a joy.

I’ve learnt to befriend local Festival Directors and contact them at least 6 months before their event. I’m now booked for the June Felixstowe Festival.

I’ve learnt to join whichever social media suits you, and I’ve learnt that a lot of writers on Twitter are friendly and supportive.

I learnt a lot about the editing process after winning the competition which led to Brave’s publication, an opportunity I’m grateful for. It was a one book deal, so I’m still working part-time, but that leaves me time to...

...carry on writing.

And keep learning.

www.wendyconstance.com

Monday 21 March 2016

Deadlines and slumps, and doing my job.


So I have suddenly realised that it is the 20th March, which means that I have to have a blog post for the 21st. It is 10.30 on Sunday night and I am very tired and, to be honest I can't think of what to write. I want to write a brilliant blog post - one which will inspire or inform or enthral my fellow writers, but I'm trying to herd four teenagers off to bed, sort out laundry, stack the dishwasher, and get the school uniform I put in the tumble drier when we got back from Sunday mass tumble- dried for tomorrow whilst trying not to feel guilty about the environment. My husband is trying to sort out family finances on the computer, one of my daughters is doing last minute home work (AAAGH!) my big dog is asleep in his basket and my little spaniel has padded over and is lying beside my chair in solidarity as I frantically type.

So - this coming week. What have I got to do?

I have a deadline for the first draft of a novel for 9-12 year olds and I need to finish it by the first week of April. This novel has been a long time coming and researching and it has suddenly hit a brick wall. I've been ill, and couldn't write it, and then I had so much information and research I couldn't write it, and then I started to write it but lost all confidence. Luckily I have a lovely, lovely agent, who rang me and asked me how I was last Friday. When I paused before answering my usual 'fine' she said 'and tell me the truth,' and I did.

I told her I had got completely caught up with so many things, some necessary, others less so. Sorting out things out for my 88 year old dad who keeps changing his mind about what he wants, trying to get better of a horrible virus, trying to save the world (and probably, to be honest, avoid how rubbish and hopeless I felt about my book) via Twitter and Facebook, grocery shopping, keeping on top of family laundry, claiming back refunds for tickets for a research trip to Lindisfarne I had had to cancel because I was ill, chasing money from some teaching I had done, worrying about family finances, worrying about my writing, writing to my MP about the way the disabled are being treated, reading other people's children's books, (LOTS of other people's children's books) doing yet more research, feeling a bit down and tired and.. finally I admitted...I wasn't very far on with my own book and I wasn't even sure what date it was set in any more. It was all hopeless.

And Anne listened to me at length in my muddled angst about the world and was really nice. And then FINALLY I got round to talking to her about my work, and I read her out a little of my book, the one I was so far behind schedule with and which I felt so despairing about.

And she liked it. I read her four pivotal paragraphs, and she really liked them. I admitted the woeful number of words I had actually written, and she said 'that's not too bad'. She told me she was really excited to read my book when it was finished. And suddenly, everything changed.

Yesterday, Saturday, I stayed in bed until after 1. My lovely husband brought me up breakfast in bed. I did not write to MPs. I did not try to save the world.  I didn't do any family laundry.  I didn't even go to my village's bring and buy sale. I wrote another chapter. This morning I stayed in bed until 1pm again and my husband brought me up breakfast in bed, and made lunch for us all, and I wrote another chapter.

Tomorrow I will have to get up and sort out school lunches etc. I know that I have things to do for my dad this week, and admin. things to chase and emails to answer. I know that there are injustices in the world and people suffering and this is truly horrible. I can't pretend I don't know about this or not try a little to do something.

But I know that feeling responsible for the world is not helping the world or me. I don't know why I don't remember this - every time I get tired and worried about my writing I add on the pressure by rushing around trying to do more things except the thing I am supposed to do. I am a writer, not a politician.

And I also know that if I don't get this deadline then it will be letting down people, and letting down myself, and the story itself, which I actually really love. And it is definitely worth signing petitions and writing letters to MPs, but not as a replacement for doing my job and writing my book.

And the lovely thing was that Anne didn't get cross with me AT ALL about all my distractions and prevarications. She just listened and told me the bit I read her gave her a shiver down her spine (I know that's me sneakily showing off - but believe me, I need to do a bit of showing off to trick myself into believing I can write the rest!) And that bit of encouragement and belief in me has made all the difference.

I have a brilliant and very wise agent. And a very kind husband and family.

So, it is 11.25 now. I am tired. The house is quiet. My husband and three of my teenagers (including the last minute home-worker) have gone to bed. One teenager, home from university today, is still up, playing the piano with headphones on, but I can hear the clicking of the piano keys and faint notes. The clock is ticking and my little dog is snorting a little in his sleep. I will stop the tumble drier and extract the school uniform for tomorrow and drape it over the radiator, wondering why we ALWAYS leave it to Sunday nights. I will replace the loo roll. I will go to bed.

It is 12.05 a.m. I can't remember how to schedule this post and I am really tired. So, as it is the 21st I will publish it now and RT it again in the morning (carefully NOT getting distracted by twitter)  whilst breakfast is happening.

So my blog post deadline is met! Hooray!

And tomorrow,(or rather, later today) I will kiss my husband good bye as he goes off to teach. I will hand the school- goers their sandwiches and wave them off  to school. I will feed the dogs. I will let them out into the garden, give them a dental stick each and promise to walk them in the afternoon. And then I will go back to bed with my laptop. I will leave the answerphone on and will not answer the phone except for emergencies. In the morning I will not worry about laundry, or emails, or even jobs for my dad, or signing petitions or saving the world and I will not come down and do anything else until I have written another chapter.  And I will do this until April. And I will meet my deadline. And I will feel much, much better.

And I wish my fellow- writers all the best with their deadlines too!




Sunday 20 March 2016

TED - What's Your Favourite? - Joan Lennon

One of the things the internet does really well is/are TED talks.  It's such an inspiring, challenging, delightful and, let's be honest, addictive resource.  Wandering from one talk to another is browsing at its serendipitous best.  In TED's mission statement they put it like this:

"we're building a clearinghouse of free knowledge from the world's most inspired thinkers - and a community of curious souls to engage with ideas and each other"

How can you help but cheer?

So I thought I'd write about TED, partly as a tribute, and partly to find out your favourites, the wonderful things you've stumbled across in your own browsing.

Last month I posted Ursus Wehrli's talk about Tidying Art and this month, I thought I'd restrict myself to "words" and "education."  First up is Erin McKean's short talk on Making Up New Words:




(She gives a wonderful longer talk on lexicography here - just as delightful.)

And for "education" - it's got to be Ken Robinson, and it's difficult to choose just one.  I've gone for the 2013 talk How to Escape Education's Death Valley for no better reason than I like his hair that colour ...  




(But really, I'd listen to him read the phone book.)

I know I don't know the half of TED treasure - point me towards the ones you like, and we'll be curious souls together!




Joan Lennon's website.
Joan Lennon's blog.
Silver Skin.


Saturday 19 March 2016

What makes an interesting character in fiction? - by Pauline Francis

A thousand thanks to Pauline Francis who has heroically stepped in at very short notice, after unavoidable circumstances created a sudden gap in the schedule.

There’s so much easily accessible material written about this subject - but I’m letting you have a peep at my efforts to create interesting characters.

I think that it’s easier with the first novel to get the character right. Most of us have a character – or know the sort of character – we’d like to write about. In my case it was Lady Jane Grey (the nine day queen).  I knew that she was badly used by the powerful men around her and this somehow chimed with my experience of an overbearing father in my teens... but I didn’t want to write about a real person. I wanted to create my own character. Isn’t that what writers do?

But I couldn’t give up the idea. Jane had all the attributes of an interesting character: a strong woman up against powerful men, having to fight for what she wanted, cruelly treated and with plenty of enemies. I still stood on the brink. Would a real character be a constraint? History tends to set its characters in stone. We only have the bare bones (or the real bones!). How could I create a character that was as fully rounded as one created from scratch?

Then it struck me.

Jane may have lived in the sixteenth century, but could she really be any different from a teenager today, except in speech and dress? How would I feel if somebody looked back at me in a few hundred years’ time and said I couldn’t be interesting because I’d lived so long ago? Once I’d got rid of that stumbling block, it was easy. I forgot that Jane was real. She was a young girl with hope, dreams and fears. I like to think that Jane is the best of my real characters. If I’m honest, I just wish I’d given her a memorable or funny habit, perhaps one that she only revealed to somebody close to her. I did invent another narrator for this novel (Raven Queen) – Ned –and I had huge fun with his creation. I was going to follow the rules here. He was going to be Jane’s opposite -  extrovert and witty. He is, in fact, gentle and conscientious. Yet all readers love him. So perhaps it’s good to go with the creative flow rather than the rules.

One last word about historical characters. Why not turn a situation on its head?

We all know from history that Kings had mistresses, who bore sons who sometimes claimed the throne. But what was it like to be a pretender? Don’t we automatically assume that he’s part of a diabolical plot to win power? I decided to make the fictional Francis (in Traitor’s Kiss) a good person. He doesn’t actually stake his claim as Henry the V111’s son – but he could have. So he’s still a threat – and clever Princess Elizabeth knows this. Francis becomes one of her victims – she leaves him in a madhouse called Bedlam, just in case he decides to make trouble for her – and this strengthens the harsh side of her character.

I’m going to be honest here. In my second novel, A World Away, I created my central character, Nadie, a Native American girl captured by English colonists. She doesn’t really know her path in life (except to find the English boy she loves) and I think this weakens her voice. I’d love to go back and change her because it’s an interesting novel in all other ways. The other central character, Tom, is well-liked by readers, especially because he has to fight against his stammer as well as his enemies.
How can you bring out greater strength in already good characters?

Condense time: In Revolver by Marcus Sedgwick, the story of murder and revenge is made gripping because the action takes place in a small log cabin over a few days. Or use another character as the ‘elephant in the room’ as Marcus does – in this case, the body of the narrator’s father on the kitchen table. It is that dead father who sends a chill down our spine. He is the interesting character. If the story had been narrated by his son in the future, away from that log cabin, it would have lessened the tension. 

Or use a slight twist that nobody expects: one of my characters goes to France during the revolution wanting to be an anatomist – perfect for a time rich in beheadings. Create a strong side-kick: watch a box-set of the BBC series Merlin if you want a master class in how to do this (Merlin is the servant side-kick to Prince Arthur, using modern vocabulary... wonderful!),

This is an endless subject and I know I’ve only touched on one or two areas and that there are hundreds of you out there who have created wonderful characters - too many to mention...