To begin at the beginning, wherever that is - by Rowena House

Where to start teaching creative writing in schools and colleges? It’s a question I know many writers in the ABBA community have answered in their own professional lives, and I’d love to hear your advice.

Me, I waver between starting with character or conflict + change, although recently I’ve plumped for all three at once. Is place next or endings? Rising tension? Voice or structure? Great openings from published books?

Years ago, a trainer on an author schools’ visit programme urged us to model ‘excellence’ first, and then to work backwards from there, which was all very well except that the model he used to illustrate his point was far from excellent, according to professional writing standards.

Ever since then I’ve worried that I might do more harm than good by enthusing about turning points and climactic choices between ‘irreconcilable goods’ etc. if that’s not what schools, colleges and exam boards want students to learn.

 

 

Overcoming these doubts just became rather urgent since (I’m delighted to say) Authors Abroad have now added me to their stable of writers who offer talks and workshops to schools. Hurrah!

Fortunately, this year I’m also training to lecture on fiction prose writing at FE level, so I have the luxury of an academic framework within which to research the issues and practice teaching under expert guidance.

As a learner, I know I have a top-down bias, preferring to see the big picture first and details later. This, broadly, should fit with the ‘model first, work backwards’ approach, which, I now discover, has deep theoretical roots.

Bath Spa’s amazing MA in writing for young people also taught me the immeasurable value of mind maps as a way to avoid linear thinking at too early a stage in a story’s development, so I’m hoping to adapt and adopt non-linear teaching techniques also.

 

 

First, though, I’m honing a ‘commercial’ fiction scene in order to model structure. It’s got a lead character with a defined goal, an antagonist with a diametrically opposed goal, conflict between the two, a turning point and a resolution. All in 275 words!

It favours implicit clues rather than explicit descriptions to draw the reader through the plot, relying on our innate human desire to read between the lines and solve a puzzle.

[In the past, I’ve been impressed how quickly students of any age zoom in on the turning point of a scene, and work out which character ‘won’ and which ‘lost’ from the slenderest of clues - a skill my favourite screenplay-writing gurus would attribute to our collective understanding of story, born originally of universal oral storytelling traditions and reinforced time and again in books, TV and film.]

How far this approach is adaptable to the exigencies of an examined curriculum I don’t yet know, but I’m keen to explore opportunities to guide students through the basics of structure, rather than trying to teach them something that many will already know, albeit subconsciously.

Another thing I’d like to borrow straight out of the commercial publishing world is this definition of story, first introduced to me by author, editor and mentor extraordinaire, Beverley Birch:

            Story = a character changing through conflict.

Some writers I know bridle at the apparent over-simplification of this definition, including people who love classical literature. But for me, as a working writer, it helps scale storytelling down to size.

“Changing a character through conflict” is do-able. It’s a solid platform from which to launch a story idea, and one which I think might give confidence to student writers who are just starting out.

Embracing this definition also paved the way for my greatest writing eureka moment to date when I read that plot and character are two sides of the same coin: after the inciting incident, plot is simply what happens as a result of the decisions, actions and reactions of the protagonist.

Before that epiphany I had plotted.

And plotted.

I’d twisted and turned my poor protagonist into ever more hazardous predicaments. But always I put her there. She didn’t have agency.

Understanding that she absolutely had to have agency at every major point in the story led, logically, to telling her story from inside her head, a fresh starting point which, ultimately, got me published.

I suppose what I’m saying, or at least seem to be saying as I write this post, is that there is no single ideal starting point. It all dovetails. Somehow. Hopefully. Perhaps all I can hope to do is present the practical benefits of different approaches to writing fiction with passion and honesty.

Am I in danger of extrapolating too much from personal experience? Possibly. Is it unrealistic to expect similar epiphanies to give joy to students of whatever age? Probably. I do know that I have a great deal to learn about learning, and have increasing respect for full-time teachers. How on earth do they do it?

As a writer, I hope - and deep down believe - that the tradecraft of writing fiction for mainstream publication will prove helpful in deciding what to teach in schools and colleges - if not how to do it!

What do you reckon, people? All and any tips gratefully received.

Twitter @houserowena

Website: https://rowenahouse.com/

Authors Abroad webpage: https://www.authorsabroad.com/author/rowenahouse/

 

Why Authors Enjoy Visiting Schools by Jo Franklin

The weeks surrounding World Book Day are very busy for children's authors. Many will be fully booked with school visits for three weeks, followed by three weeks recovery time as they catch every cold, flu and vomiting virus that have been incubating and mutating in schools all year.

Schools are keen to get an author in on the actual day - 1st March in 2018 - in the hope of ...

Hmm ... what do schools want from an author visit? And why do authors want to visit schools?

Jo Franklin

I've never been a teacher or a school librarian so I can't really answer for what schools want. I hope they want some or all of the following things :

• Their children to be inspired to read a book that they may have never heard of before because they are able to put a face to the author's name on the cover
• To meet a role model of someone who has carved out a career in the arts. Many children's authors are female, but by no means all. A woman or man with a successful career in the arts - I hope that is an important message for both girls and boys to hear.
• The life blood of the author - books, writing and reading - is so strong that it spreads through the school like a wild fire.
• That children realise that reading and writing are important, special, fantastic and more fun than You Tube videos.

These are certainly the things I want to leave behind when I visit a school. I love meeting my readers and talking about books.

Children's authors spend a lot of time in their writing caves with their own thoughts and fountain pens. The rest of the time they seek out other writers to talk about how their writing is going (or not going) - word count, frustrations with publishers, crazy requests from schools!

Talking to children about books is particularly special though. We write because we love it and we want readers to love our writing. Children's authors have a passion for words, sentences and stories. Most of us don't have much time for grammar with long meaningful names (fronted adverbial, no thanks). We love libraries and our homes are stuffed with books. We live, breathe and eat words every day.

Authors Love Books!

So schools, if you invite an author into your school (whether around World Book Day or another time) allow them to inspire your children. 

• Make a display on your noticeboard. 
• Tell the children they are meeting a celebrity.  
• Buy the author's books for your library. 
• Beg the author to hang around at the end of the day to sign books the children have bought. 
• Please don't treat us a nuisance, a supply teacher or a money grabbing drain on your scarce financial resources. We don't visit schools to make money. We need to be paid because we are skilled professionals. We visit schools to share the love of words. 

This year on World Book Day 1st March 2018 I am visiting Harris Primary Merton to talk about Help I'm a Genius and what it is like to be a full time writer. I can't wait!

Jo Franklin

www.jofranklinauthor.co.uk

TITLES AND TECHNOLOGIES by Penny Dolan

This week, for a mix of reasons, I’m culling my picture book collection. All the favourites, the books that visiting children return to again and again are safely tucked in a couple of boxes, while others are in the pile awaiting a new home or shop counter..

However, I  was also looking through a set that I call my “talk books”. These are books I’ve used for occasional talks to writer’s groups, when I’ve tried to suggest the vast range of picture books available. As I went through my pile, I was struck by how often developments in technology have affected children’s books over the years. Here are a few of my examples:

 TITCH by Pat Hutchins.

 

A whole generation of picture books had black lines around the different sections of the drawings, as in this example. Back then, these lines acted as guidelines for the artists as they created the three different layers needed for the colour printing process of the time.

The same black outline lines occur, too, in Pat’s ROSIE’S WALK, but the advances in printing made this task obsolete and the heavy lines disappeared. .

 

WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE by Maurice Sendakometimes new writers still think in terms of text on one page, illustration on the other, as used for the Ladybird books. This book is a wonderful example of the use of both pages and spreads. It starts with a small, single ”picture in a box on a page” image of Max, but the area increases until the artwork becomes the entire  edge-to-edge full-spread of Max processing across the pages as the glorious King of all the Wild Things. The drama of the “dream” story line is powerfully increased by the growth of the pictures.

 

Much later, giant and quadruple last pages became popular,  bringing endings where the illustration unfolds to show an image even larger than the area of the book. 

ERNEST by Catherine Rayner is a book about a very, very large moose!.

  

PEEPO by Janet and Allan Ahlberg. The technique of cutting holes through book pages might have been popularised through THE VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR by Eric Carle, but it was also used to great effect in this lovely, cosy book.

The reader - young or old - can peep through the single hole on one page and glimpse moments from working-class babyhood in the forties and fifties on the page ahead. The round hole gives a kind of baby’s eye view, a visual version of that favourite baby game.

I’ve heard PEEPO is used as a history book now, based as it was on the authors childhoods.

There's also THE RAINBOW FISH by Marcus Pfister. The picture book I have comes from that surge of shiny, laminated paper/printing suddenly used both on and inside the covers. 

For a while, every infant classroom – as they were called then – seemed to have its own Rainbow Fish topic, sparkling away in the corner,,

Additionally, writers for older children grew irrationally overjoyed at any morsel of sparkliness or shine appearing on their new book's covers.

Meanwhile, THE VERY QUIET CRICKET, another by Eric Carle is an example of the use of sound technology. All the insects in the forest greet the cricket, who can’t respond in sound until – for the final spread –our “he” meets a “she”, and he starts to chirp. A tiny device is activated by the fully opened spread.

By the bye, I recall the final moment an award ceremony where a prestigious children’s writer’s important & serious novel was beaten by the novelty of a picture book about a noisily “farting” teddy bear. Sounds were very popular in books for a time but now seem confined to birthday cards.

I have selected these titles from books I own and use as part of talks. I'm sure there are other and earlier examples of some of these technologies so if you can think of any other examples, or anything to add, please do comment.

A big thing now seems to be the revival of colour decoration on the edges of a closed children’s novel, as if the solid block of colour makes the “3D” existence of the book more emphatic and important than the kindle version. 

Additionally, springing out of picture books, there's the rise of illustrations set creatively within the pages of text. In one way, these black and white pages can seem quite old-fashioned, but in another, surely it’s the sheer flexibility of the modern print layout that makes such delight possible, and makes the gap between picture book and junior fiction a more open journey? 

Probably  the new Children's Laureate Chris Riddell and his GOTH GIRL would think so!.

And of course there are picture book apps now, but not within my boxes of books. Back to find my Book-Sorting Hat.

Penny Dolan

The wonderful magic of author visits - C.J. Busby

Whenever I'm lucky enough to be invited to schools to give talks or run creative writing workshops, I always enjoy the visits, and get a fantastic boost from them. But it can sometimes be difficult for a lone author to gauge the usefulness or value of what they do on a school visit - after all, you rarely get the chance to hear what the children really thought of you. Are they just being polite when they say it was great? Are the teachers rolling their eyes behind your back? When they tell you about the last author visit they had, and how inspired the children were, are they drawing unfavourable comparisons? Are you really doing it right? So when I got the chance to volunteer as a steward at the Appledore Festival Schools Programme, near where I live, I jumped at it. I could get to sit at the back, and watch another author do their stuff! I could learn how it looks from the other side of the room, see some examples of what works, check out what other people do.

I'm so glad I did. Because what I discovered is that author visits are magical, wonderful and amazing, and there are probably almost as many ways of being magical, wonderful and amazing as there are authors. Both the authors I shepherded around north Devon were fantastic, and they connected brilliantly with their audiences - but they both did it in almost opposite ways.

John Dougherty is an old hand - he does a lot of author visits, and he's written a lot of books. His latest series - about brother and sister Stinkbomb and Ketchup Face and their adventures foiling the dastardly plans of a group of no-good scheming badgers - is pure silliness in the best tradition of Roald Dahl and Mr Gum.

John had the children rolling on the floor (literally) with his special brand of humour, guitar playing, singing and interactive mayhem. His talks were high octane fun, but he had some very important things to say as well - things like: you are all authors, all of you, because you've all written or made up stories, and that's what being an author is. Things like: there are no right or wrong books to read - read what you like, see if you enjoy it, try something else if you don't. Don't worry about people saying it's 'too old' or 'too young' or 'for boys' or 'for girls'. As he pointed out, no one shouts at a 70 year old reading a magazine saying, 'You're too old to read that! You're seventy! It's too easy for you! You should be reading Aristotle. In the original Greek!'

Lucy Jones is much nearer the beginning of her writing career - she's published two books, and she's currently working on a new one.  She doesn't play the guitar, or sing, and she didn't have the children rolling on the floor. But she did have them equally spell-bound.

Lucy talked about her early writing - and even read out a short story she'd written when she was seven, with her original illustrations projected on a powerpoint. She talked about the books she'd loved as a young reader herself, and the trials and hurdles of becoming a published author. And she read some extracts from her books - spooky, spine-chilling extracts which had the kids open-mouthed, wanting to hear the next bit...

She talked to them about how to write, how to build up ideas and believable characters, and she gave them a challenge - to come up with their own character, based on a picture. The twist was, that the character they were inventing was dead - they had to decide how he had died, and what sort of ghost teacher he would make, in the ghost school where her new story was set.

What struck me, sitting at the back, was just how excited the children were by the presence of an actual author - someone who'd written a real book! And how intrigued they were to hear just simple things, like how books are made, how the covers are designed, how long it takes an author to write a book, where do authors get their ideas from?! It was immediately obvious, as one of the audience, how valuable it was for children to be told, by someone who really writes books - you can do this too! In fact, you do it - every day! We get our work corrected by editors just like you get your stories marked by your teacher. It's more words, it takes longer, but it's not different in kind from what you do. And although very few of those children are going to grow up to be published authors, it gives them a new sense of the value of what they can do, what they are capable of, what they could aim for if they decided to. It reinforced the value and importance of stories and creativity of all sorts, whether it's their writing or their made-up playground games or their engagement with stories in books, magazines, TV, or computer games or films.

Traipsing round with my two authors, and watching the magic being kindled again and again in their sessions, I realised that I needn't have worried about my own sessions. Children's authors write for children, so they have a pretty good idea of what engages their interest, and how to talk to them. They are creative, clever people, with inventive minds and a way with words. When they tell a child, "That's a fabulous idea!" or "You see? You're an author too!" they give that child a warm glow that you can see from fifty yards away - a gift that will stay with that child for the rest of their life.

So if you're an author, and you do school visits - take a bow, you are making a difference! However unsure you may feel abut your sessions, you are touching the children you talk to in ways you probably don't realise. And if you're a teacher or parent or librarian - beg, borrow or steal the money from the school budget (or PTA jumble sale?) for a local author to visit your children. Or even better, have a look to see if there's someone available to be your Patron of Reading. That one visit will kindle a magic that will inspire those children for the whole school year and beyond.


C.J. Busby writes fantasy for ages 7-12. Her most recent book is Dragon Amber, published by Templar. The first book in the series, Deep Amber, was published in March 2012.

"A rift-hopping romp with great charm, wit and pace" Frances Hardinge.


www.cjbusby.co.uk

@ceciliabusby

Writer's Guilt…. Or Have I Done Enough? by Megan Rix / Ruth Symes

What I love most about writing, and thought I would love most even before I was published, is the freedom it gives you. Freedom to write when you want and where you want, about what you want and how you want to.

For a few years I probably averaged a 1,000 published words a year (this was when I used to spend 6 months in the UK and 6 months travelling round the world). Now my average is more like 1,000 words a day. (I try not to work weekends unless I’m really behind on a deadline or so desperate to tell a story that it just can’t wait. I’m writing this on Saturday though - so I probably write more often at weekends than not.) If I've written a 1,000 words in a day I stick a sticker on my annual wall chart. I like seeing the stickers build up only... only there never seems to be enough. Not every day’s got a sticker and I want to write more. I always think I could do more, if I was more focused more, more disciplined yaddah yaddah yaddah.

I call it writer's guilt but really an average of a 1,000 words a day is good.... isn't it? I’ve won two children’s books of the year this year (Stockton and Shrewsbury) and will have had 3 novels out this year in 10 days time.

'The Hero Pup' is written under my Megan Rix pseudonym and being published by Puffin. It follows an assistance dog puppy from his birth until his graduation as a fully-fledged Helper Dog. Anyone who knows me knows how close this book is to my heart and I'm very much looking forward to working with guide dogs, medical alert dogs and PAT dogs on the book tour.

But not only do I have ‘The Hero Pup’ coming out under my Megan Rix pseudonym on the 1st of October I also have the first in a new series of books about the Secret Animal Society coming out under my Ruth Symes name. 'Cornflake the Dragon' is being published by Piccadilly. It’s about a school lizard that turns into a dragon when it’s taken home for the holidays.

How many words do other writers write each day? I don't know. They probably all do much more or maybe they do less but every word they write is pure gold.

And what about the thinking time? You've got to have thinking time, or I have. I like to mull over the story for a month or so these days. Not forcing it to come. Just researching and thinking about characters until I know, absolutely KNOW it's the story I want to tell. I don’t get a sticker for thinking but it’s just as valuable.

Then it comes to the talks at schools and festivals – meeting your target audience. In the past year I've spoken at 16 schools and 5 festivals - an average of little over one a mouth. Is it enough? It feels like the right amount for me but I know of other writers who do lots more. Should I be doing lots more? I don’t know.

And that's what comes with having a career where you choose so much for yourself. There's so many choices that it's hard to know if you've made the right one. But better to make the mistake yourself than be living someone else’s mistake. Maybe there shouldn't be writer's guilt or writer's goals maybe we should just have the aim of improving every day.

Chris Rock (excuse the swearing) has a very funny sketch about the difference between a job or a career His main point, and I agree with him, is if it's a career there's never enough time for all you want to do to advance it but if it’s a job there is always far too much time and you can’t wait for it to be over. Writing is definitely a career and I wouldn't have it any other way :)


My website's are: www.meganrix.com and www.ruthsymes.com.

What the Small Boy said to the Author - Joan Lennon

The author was packing up after a boisterous session with 5 classes of 8-9 year-olds in a large, echoy gym.  She became aware that someone was quietly trying to get her attention.

It was a small boy.

The boy was bespectacled, goopy-looking, earnest. A boy who did not now, nor probably ever would, find the world his oyster. The author looked at him. It was like looking at a small boy version of her own small self.

The boy looked at the author, as the noise of the dispersing classes swirled around them.  "I keep your books in a box under my bed," he said.  "And when I can't sleep in the night I take one out and read it." 

The author babbled.  She thanked the small boy for saying such a lovely thing and that he couldn't have said anything nicer to her.  Ever. 

"That's all right," said the small boy, and walked away.

The author knows that she cannot go round schools and libraries and festivals saying, "Hello!  I'm an author and I'd like to live under your bed."  But in her heart, she thinks it would be the nicest thing.  Ever.


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

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.

WHO ARE YOU TODAY? by Penny Dolan

Who are you? Or as a writer, when are you, you?

Yesterday, on Desert Island Discs, I heard Lee Mack say that he hated performing when people he knew well, and who knew him well, were at his show. As long as his family and/or friends sat at the very back of the venue, preferably out of sight, he could pretend they weren’t there. He could carry on being “Comedian Lee Mack.”

Later, he said he worried when people who think they “know” him from his appearance on TV and Quiz Shows turn up at his comedy gigs. The “Would I Lie to You Version” of Lee Mack, with all the swearing edited out, wasn’t the person they’d meet in his Live Show tour next year.

Most writers, especially children’s writers who “perform” in schools, can understand what Lee Mack meant. The "Showtime Author" you is not the real you, or at least not the “author you” that does the work.

 There may be people who are completely one and the same in real life and show life. Sarah MacIntyre may sit at home, drawing in her sketchbook or or ipad, wearing a vast oceanic wig and dreaming up more SeaWig stories.

Philip Ardagh may constantly speak in surreal, combative twitticisms while strolling through the lost Victorian streets and poorly lit alleyways, sharing strings of world weary observations with his hero Eddie Dickens.

Historical fiction author Caroline Lawrence may talk to herself in Latin as she wraps herself in her Pompeian toga or, more recently, practice quick-gunning on handily empty hooch bottles.

But I don’t think so.  

 The Showtime Author is -  usually - a kind of creation, a personality developed and angled to attract the spotlight, not the whole self. Furthermore, pushed to the highest volume, Showtime Author can also be a danger, a diversion from what life as a “real life author” is like. 

Publisher’s publicity teams, the media, schools, teachers as well as children and parents love those writers who are larger than life and who can entertain, maybe, hundreds of children. But that Author is a simplification, a writer that's not quite real, a distortion of the role. 

Because super smiling Showtime Author isn’t the one who does the writing, or draws the drawing. The Working Author - imo and all that - tends to be a solitary, slightly tetchy creature, mooching around, thinking writing thoughts, mulling over words or plots, rehearsing lines or scenes or testing out characters in their head.

Working Author is the one who sits at the book, who persists when they could be doing other things. Most of the time, they are not really that bothered about interacting with ANYONE other than the shadows in their heads.  It may even be best if they don’t appear anywhere, not without some tidying up or refocusing their attention.

Yet – and I wish some people in education would realise it – Working Author is the one who writes, drafts, rewrites and edits, the one who uses up long hours of life on making the stuff, on the art and the craft. They do the work. They put down the words.

Not the "Hey, I'm an Amazing Fun Guy", although the work has its own fun. Not the hugely social Showtime Author, entertaining vast assemblies, although there’s few things as satisfying as a brilliant break-through-the-log-jam idea. The Working Author who writes is, usually, a different kind of personality altogether. In fact, I'd almost say that the two rarely appear at the same time.

The hall is full. I can imagine Working Author - her, or him - sitting there in the shadows, away at the back of the audience, giving a knowing glance over the heads of all those gathered together that says “And that’s not even the half of it . . .”

Penny Dolan 

Illustration by Peter Bailey from my book "A Boy Called MOUSE" (Bloomsbury)

PS. There is, of course, that other version - “Author as Ordinary Person” - the alert and often practical soul who deals with relatives and kids, shopping, poorly cats or dogs, visiting workmen, broken computers, post-holiday blues and more, while still yearning secretly – or not! - for a bit of Working Writer time.

My favourite ever ABBA blog post

Writing for children is a weird job, and it often feels like the only people who completely understand that and can give truly relevant advice are other children’s writers.
That’s why I love An Awfully Big Blog Adventure.
My favourite ever ABBA blog post was written by Liz Kessler at the start of 2012, and it’s an equation. It’s an equation, and the explanation of an equation, about when to say ‘yes’ and when to say ‘no’ to author visits.
Here’s the equation:

(S¹º + P⁵ + W³) ≥ T ¹º + C³ – E³ - G³ 

Benefit...................must be greater than or equal to......................Effort
Where: S = Sales; P = Payment; W = Word of Mouth; T = Time; C = Cost; E = Enjoyment & G = Good causes

And here’s the equation on my study wall, where it has lived for more than a year, reminding me when it’s ok to say ‘no’, and therefore allowing me to thoroughly enjoy saying ‘YES’ for all the right reasons.

This is my favourite post because it’s about maths as well as stories (and I love maths too!), because it could only have been written by another children’s writer, and because it contains advice which helps me do this very weird job a little bit better.
Thanks Liz, and thanks ABBA!
Happy Birthday!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Because we are all writers.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lari Don is the award-winning author of more than a dozen books for all ages, including fantasy novels for 8 – 12s, picture books, retellings of traditional tales and novellas for reluctant readers.
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Fizzle and Pop (Author Talks)

By Ruth Symes / Megan Rix

Some authors love giving talks about their books and have a natural talent for it. Others find the whole thing terrifying. I think I’m in the middle, usually when I accept the invitation I like the idea, on the morning of the day I wonder why on earth I ever said yes, love doing the actual talk once I’ve started it, and am happy once it’s done.

There's thousands of horror stories of poor author's travelling for hours, through torrential rain and snow storms, only to find no one's coming to their event, or worse the event organiser has forgotten they were even coming. This did actually happen to me (minus the weather). I was invited back for a second visit to a bookstore at a shopping centre after the first had gone really well – you'd think you’d be safe on a second visit!!! But when I got there I was told sorry we don’t have you down as visiting us and the staff member who arranged it is not here today… Grrr… The only good thing was that when I went to buy a coffee in Debenhams to console myself I was served by the mother of a little boy who’d been very quiet at the previous event. She told me how once they’d got home (he was three) he went tearing round the house with his new book and proceeded to sing the song we’d sang and remembered all the dance moves and wanted to make a Harriet Dancing butterfly which he’d been too shy to do during the actual event.

Sorry sidetrack thought – but what is it with parents of toddlers being so competitive about who can do the best colouring-in and make the best craft flower and then say their child did it????

I've given talks for all different ages from 6 months old to 86 years young. Usually I love doing talks and events around my picture books – but then who wouldn’t like stamping about and growling with a Little Rex puppet at Narberth Festival or butterfly dancing with Dancing Harriet at Wytchwood and Bath Festivals?

This year I took part in ‘Scarefest’ organized by Formby Books to promote my Bella Donna stories and came on stage as an incompetent witch, complete with a broomstick full of fairy lights, who needed the children's help. I was also hobbling about as I’d sprained my ankle the day before.

There must be something in this
cauldron

 My alter ego, Megan Rix, has had more invitations to talk about The Great Escape than I can accept (have to get some writing done after all!) and so Puffin are kindly organizing a promotional tour for my second book in the series ‘Victory Dogs’ from the 29-April - 3 May 2013 with a book signing at my favourite Bedford Watersones on the 4^th, hopefully. They’re my favourite because they always welcome my golden retriever, Traffy, along too and make a big fuss of her. If I can take my dog along to an event I’m happy – she’s a Pets As Therapy dog who’s just about to start doing the Read2Dogs school scheme; a total softy who loves being fussed.  

The biggest and best difference between talks given by myself as Megan Rix and myself as Ruth Symes, from my POV, is that as Megan Rix I have Hannah from Puffin to organize things. With Hannah on board Megan Rix’s talks now come with power-point presentations and lovely photos of some of the amazing search and rescue dogs in WW2 that saved hundreds of lives.

Best of all I like having Hannah there (if I can’t have Traffy) because it means I have someone to laugh with when/if something goes wrong.

Talks by Megan can be arranged via  Hannah.McMillan@uk.penguingroup.com 

Megan's website is www.meganrix.com. Her latest book is The Great Escape

Ruth’s website is www.ruthsymes.com. Ruth’s latest book is Cat Magic reviewed by Ed's Reading Room as 'another magical tale by this fantastic writer.'

My other dog Bella wearing her Halloween wings