Domain name - tick; blog - tick; twitter - tick... (Anne Rooney)

It used to be the case that when you thought of a title for your book or series you were pleased, tried it out on a few people, and got on with writing. You might check whether someone else had used the title for anything similar. Now there is a whole post-title task-bank to work through.

Task 1: buy the appropriate domain names and put up holding pages. Tick.
Check the domain name for your title is available, or something you can plausibly use instead. If you can't use the title, is that being used for something you don't want your child readers to visit by accident? My series title is Vampire Dawn: it would be entirely plausible for a steamy temptress called Dawn to have taken this domain for her page of naughty vampire photos, in which case I would have changed the title. Luckily, no such vamp is operating. VampireDawn.com has gone (to someone respectable), but VampireDawn.co.uk is now secured and a holding page in place.

Task 2: set up twitter account @VampireDawn. Tick.
Get any useful twitter names and start using them. This might be the title, or the name of a key character. Gillian Philip has @sethmacgregor for one of her characters, for instance.

Task 3: set up blog. Tick.
Now the blog. This was trickier as the blogger name had already gone. Wordpress, then. Pick a vaguely appropriate off-the-peg theme for now and put up a post or two promising what is coming.

Task 4: set up Facebook page and start using it. Tick.
And the Facebook page. For now, this will have updates on progress and a few snippets, but it's important to get the name now in case it goes to someone else. It's better to have a few followers on it before publication day, too.

Task 5: set up YouTube account. Tick.
We'll need a trailer, eventually. Here I ran into problems, as there is an independent film in production called Vampire Dawn. That's the group that has taken vampiredawn.com and vampiredawn.blogspot. And they have the YouTube account. So I grab VampireDawn2012 quickly. No need to make any films yet, but it's a good idea to start commenting with the account occasionally.

From the publisher, I needed the logo for the series and an early cover image - nothing else. Depending on your book, you might need something else - or nothing at all. And you might think this is all too much faff and you aren't going to do it. The characters in my series will be using Facebook and an iPhone app to keep in touch, so some online traces of these make it all more real. If your story is set in the eighteenth century - or even the 1980s - that won't be necessary. Phew.

Now - time to get on with writing the books....

@VampireDawn
Vampire Dawn website
Vampire Dawn on Facebook
Vampire Dawn's blog

The Reading List by Keren David

Just a few weeks from now my son starts at secondary school. He’s got the blazer and his house tie (blue and green stripes). I’ve ironed name tapes into his new sports kit. We’ve bought a pencil case, a scientific calculator and a mouth guard for rugby. We’ve even met the kids and parents from his new class at a picnic in the park.



But the main intellectual introduction to this new educational adventure is a reading list of 25 books. Five each from the genres Fantasy/Adventure; Around the World; Real Life; Humour and Historical, they include a graphic novel (Maus by Art Spiegelman) and a novel in verse (Karen Hesse’s Out of the Dust). They have a chart to map their reading, and they can add their own choices too. They’re expected to read at least one book from each genre.

The list came with a letter from the English department. ‘We think reading is interesting, fun and the best way to improve your English,…wherever you like to read best - on the beach, on the bus, on the lawn, in your bed, in the park, in the bath - please record your reading experience. You will have opportunities to share your favourite reading experiences of the summer with other students!’

I’m not sure how long the school has used the same list, but most of the books on it seem to be about ten years old. He hadn’t read  any of them -  and I'd only read two - although he did know authors such as Michael Morpurgo (Across a Wide Wide Sea) and Gillian Cross (Dark Ground). The ‘Real Life’ and ‘Around the World’ sections weight the list towards ‘issues’ books, and as a whole the list is serious. At least three are about refugees (Benjamin Zephaniah’s Refugee Boy; Beverley Naidoo’s The Other Side of Truth and Ally Kennan’s Bedlam) and two about the Holocaust (John Boyne’s The Boy with the Striped Pyjamas and the afore-mentioned Maus).
There are books set in Afghanistan (The Breadwinner, Deborah Ellis), South Africa (Gaby Halberstamm’s Blue Sky Freedom), France (Sally Gardner’s The Red Necklace) and Israel (Crusade by Elizabeth Laird). There are ghosts (Eva Ibbotson’s Dial a Ghost), wolves (Michelle Paver’s Wolf Brother) and Mer-people (Ingo by Helen Dunmore).  It's totally shaken up his reading habits, which had recently become dominated by the Glory Gardens series about a fictional cricket team by Bob Cattell.

Michael Gove wants to introduce a reading list for schoolchildren, and in general I’d support the idea, although - as always with our Education Secretary - the devil is in the detail. It’s best if schools can pick better pick their own lists and take into account the school demographics and the availability of books. That's the biggest problem with a list like this -  how to get one's hands on them exactly when you need them.

Buying 25 new books was beyond our purse, so we’ve borrowed some, bought others second hand and will be visiting the library for others. Almost every book on these lists is available on Amazon for one penny plus postage - so even buying second hand, with nothing going to the author or publisher, to buy the whole list costs nearly £60. I feel guilty buying second hand - and worried – the 1p Amazon thing drastically shortens any book’s shelf life. In mitigation, the list has already inspired me to buy one sequel (Maus 2) and one prequel (Ice Maiden by Sally Prue, prequel to the stunning fantasy Cold Tom). It also showed me - me, champion of libraries – how normal it’s become for me to look for books by sitting at my computer and logging onto Amazon.

As for my son, he’s already read and reviewed seven books - not bad for someone who loves to be active and sees holidays as a time for cricket and swimming and football and hanging out with his mates. Real Life is his favourite category, and Bedlam and Maus his favourite books so far. Humour is the most disappointing category – ‘This book was good - it just wasn’t funny!’. Cold Tom, his only fantasy book so far confused him at first (‘What is he? Why doesn’t the author tell me?) but won him over. (And it bowled me over -  I've read it three times in the last fortnight)  And, after reading and enjoying Crusade, he’d like to tell authors everywhere that they should be careful not to make character names too similar.

He’s hoping to read 24 books out of the 25 – I vetoed one, on the basis that I’ve heard bad things about the author (no, I’m not telling!). Having a list has given him powerful motivation to try new authors, subjects and forms and - even more importantly - find time in his busy life to read. I hope that the English teachers at his new school will make him feel that the effort was worthwhile. His sister had a similar list to work through before she started Year 7 at a different school. ‘We never heard anything about it again.’

Last word to the boy himself: ‘I think the list is a good idea because it encourages people to read. Most of them are good. The best one so far is Bedlam by Ally Kennan because it was very real and it had some good jokes in it.’

Research with a Notebook: Dark Angels by Katherine Langrish

I rediscovered an old notebook the other day.  There's been a recent discussion on Terri Windling's blog 'The Drawing Board' about using good old-fashioned notebooks for scribbling down ideas for books - the advantages: low tech, cheap, versatile, and can go with you anywhere.  This particular notebook of mine illustrates that point particularly well, as it went with me into the dark depths of an extremely cramped ancient mine.  No way would I have carted an expensive electronic notepad down there! 

I'd wanted an underground sequence for parts of my 12th century medieval fantasy, 'Dark Angels' - most accounts of fairyland in that period assumed it existed underground, in hidden caves - and I wanted my hero's experience to be authentic.  No magical lights or handy phosphorescence - just a candle, and - when the candle goes out - darkness.

So I went off to Ogof Llanymynech, a Shropshire cave, and crawled in on hands and knees, accompanied by my husband and a guide from a Shropshire Mining club.  Once a hundred yards or so inside, and just before the bit where you actually had to lie down and squirm, I let the others go on, switched off my helmet light and sat in the dark for a while before turning it back on and making in situ notes:

Muddy up and down crawls with sharp and extremely gritty mud.  cold and damp with dripping water - breath forms clouds.  lots of little white drops on the slanted rock ceiling - the knock and click and tumble of scattering rocks - low rumble of distant talk in another chamber -  a low throbbing - a lost fly buzzes past, startling - you could easily get lost as it has - the distant entrance only a fuzzy patch like a tuft of grey wool - another passage - a little tuck of darkness at the side of the floor

And, heading back for the entrance -

greenish light - irregular - glitter of light on stones, the flash of water dripping - the rich green of the outside.

Notes like these are casual, immediate, and work as touchstones for the memory, reviving the experience so I can tap into it when doing the 'serious' writing. On a second trip, we did some filming, and here's the result - my new book trailer which I hope will convery some of the sinister beauty of the Shropshire landscape and legends which I tried to capture in 'Dark Angels'.

The Power of Fiction by Lynda Waterhouse

Last Saturday Frugal Husband (FH for short ) and I went on one of our art forays to The Piccadilly Community Centre.
Several years ago FH invented this pastime. You gather a group of friends and spend a Saturday wandering around a variety of weird and wonderful locations in South London. You have no idea what you will find and the chances are you will be the only people at these venues which are free to enter.
I have found myself in a series of locations; former jam or biscuit factories, a defunct gin distillery, railway arches, a former workhouse, a bear garden and even people’s living rooms. All places worth a snoop around in their own right.
I have experienced an amazing range of emotions from suppressed rage as I tackled a four page manifesto to help me understand the artist’s decision to display a pair of rubber gloves, despair at the sight of yet another impenetrable video installation, extreme self consciousness at coming face to face with a man dressed as a crow in a railway arch or a woman balancing butter on her head. I have laughed like a drain as I watched someone knit jumpers for crustaceans.




I have walked into a deserted council flat to find it transformed by copper sulphate crystals.


I have been genuinely scared by being made to don a white mask and sent off alone into a scary and frightening unknown. In a darkened corridor I started with terror at the sight of a white faced stranger only to realise that it was my husband. (We all knew then that this Punchdrunk Theatre Co was something special)


Back to the Piccadilly Community Centre. What was it? Art masquerading as life or vice versa? This former Lutyens designed bank and up market art gallery had been transformed by Christoph Buchel into a shabby community centre complete with charity shop, WI run café and a bar. In one room a group of war gamers assured me that they weren’t actors that they really did this. I grinned back at them feeling like an extra in some downmarket Westworld style movie.
In another room a group of people were dancing intensely. Someone waved me inside I shied away. The prayer room was empty. I sat in there for a while. We climbed into the attic which had been transformed into a squat. Opposite was a roof complete with sleeping bags, soggy mattresses, fag ends, chicken bones and cans of Special Brew.
By the time I turned the handle of a heavy door that was marked ‘Private’ my heart was pounding. The room was an unnerving cross between a caretaker’s den and a squat. FH disappeared down a narrow cellar like corridor and I fled the room. He seemed to take ages to come back. Back upstairs to buy a book in the charity shop and to watch a Conservative Party video about the Big Society which was unsettling.
Then back to the ground floor for a snoop in an office and to stand behind the counter of the bank. Someone came in and smiled at me. I wanted to say ‘I’m not an actor’ then a reassuring cup of tea and cake.
I had experienced the power that fiction has to convey a greater truth.

The Short Story Tradition Savita Kalhan

The recent announcement by BBC Radio 4 that the short story slots were being cut was met by an outcry by writers and listeners alike. The new controller, Gwyneth Williams, intended to axe them in order to make room for more news, specifically a longer World at One programme. She felt that the programme wasn’t long enough. In her words, “Stories now develop faster and need a fresh eye by lunchtime. Parliament sits in the morning now and WATO needs to cover emerging issues." Many people disagreed with her. Yes, current affairs are important, but is fifteen minutes every other day too much for a small slice of fiction?

A campaign began to save the short story slots. A petition was started and signed by almost 6,000 people the last time I checked. To sign – No More Short Story Cuts - please follow the link below.
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/noshortstorycuts/

The campaign has already helped bring about a small U-turn. Radio 4 have said they will keep two short story slots instead of one.

Short stories suited radio, and Radio 4 championed them for many years. But why is the short story so suited to radio?

Maybe because the short story has its roots in oral tradition. Long, long ago, short stories were told before they were read aloud. They had their origins in fables and anecdotes in many cultures across the world. But the same is true of the intervening years and it’s even true of the present day. The short story has been around since before Aesop. Chaucer wrote a linked collection, The Canterbury Tales. The short story covers every genre from crime to science fiction, and every age group from toddlers to adults.

If you’re lucky to have had parents who read aloud to you as a child, you will probably have been read short stories, and before that stories told from pictures. In school you will have been taught how to write compositions for English exams. They were basically short stories. As you got older, those short stories may have become longer.

For me, listening to a short story on the radio is an oasis in the day. I won’t know where I will be taken or how far it will take me, or how much I will enjoy it, or become involved in it. But I know the voice in the story will transport me to a very different place, to a different experience, and that is something I look forward to.

I wasn’t one of the lucky ones whose parents read to them as a young child because my mother was illiterate, but, like generations before her, she retold the stories that had been handed down to her by word of mouth...

Last call for competition winners! - John Dougherty

Four of the winners of my LitFest 2011 competition haven't yet got in touch!

I think the errant four are Paul H, Denise, Kate, and Moogiesboy. If that's you, get in touch with childrenspublicity@randomhouse.co.uk at once!

Please put 'ABBA Competition' in the subject line and say a) who you'd like your copies of Zeus on the Loose and Bansi O'Hara and the Bloodline Prophecy signed for and b) where you'd like them sent.

If we haven't heard from you by the end of August, we'll have to donate your prizes to a good cause...

(The other winners were Leah A, Madwippitt, Rosalind A, Linda, Elen C  and Linda S - see here for a fuller list of LitFest comp winners.) 

 Oh - and since I'm here, Zeus's latest adventure, Zeus Sorts It Out, is in the shops tomorrow!

St Jerome and the Sleeping Cat - Joan Lennon

I'm adaptable ... ish. I can write in cafes and hotel rooms and in the quiet car on trains. I can even write with music, as long as it's classical, doesn't have lyrics and I have easy access to the off switch. I can write in a house full of people, as long as they're not, you know, in the same room. Or talking just outside the door. Or obviously having more fun than I am.

But really, for me, there's always been a perfect place to write, and this is where it's always been. A room like this, with a sleeping cat (size doesn't matter), cushions, a comfy robe, good lighting (I'm willing to use a lamp - not everybody can produce their own) windows onto a view, a bit of birdsong offstage. And solitude.

You can feel the serenity. You can practically touch the contentment - and the focus. How does Durer do that? I don't know. Art's a mystery.

I wrote recently about how writers are like flamingos, how we need each other. And I still think that's true. But this is the other thing. This room, or as close to it as we can find.

And a sleeping cat.


Joan Lennon's website
Joan Lennon's blog

Writing in the Sand - Dianne Hofmeyr

Once as I was strolling through the gardens of the People’s Culture Park just outside the Forbidden City in Beijing, I was stopped in my tracks by a man writing on the pathway. He used large sweeping movements across the stone with a brush dipped in nothing more than water. As fast as he wrote so the characters evaporated and disappeared like an invisible memory of the city. The temporality of the water writing took my breath away… it seemed as futile and at the same time as purposeful as shouting words on the wind.

There’s a similar concept in the work of Andrew van der Merwe who catches ephemeral moments, not in water but in wet sand. He uses the wide open vistas of the sea – sand, sky and rocks – to inform his work. The script appears totally at one with the landscape. The marks are as mysterious as runic or cuneiform inscriptions and seem to echo and almost emphasize the ripples left by waves and like mirror mosaics they catch glimpses of the sky in the water that collects in the hollows and grooves. The patterns and marks are precise. He has devised special tools to make them and he leaves no trace of footprints or upturned sand.

The work focuses on the fleeting moment as we wait for the wind to dry and blur the script, or waves to come and wash it away. Remember doing this with sandcastles? Rushing down to the beach the next day to see what had happened? It’s an ever-changing process –in his case, a tactile merging of words with the physical. To me the marks themselves together with the idea of being transitory – that sense of temporariness and ephemerality – seem to focus and accentuate glimpses of atmospheres, memories, sounds and movements that go unnoticed and sometimes even unseen.

So since it’s August and some of us are at our desks and not at the sea… here we are then…

Dianne Hofmeyr: www.diannehofmeyr.com

For a review of the 2011 Kate Greenaway:

http://awfullybigreviews.blogspot.com/2011/07/grahame-baker-smiths-farther-flies-off.html

For those interested in historical writing: http://the-history-girls.blogspot.com/

For more on Andrew van der Merwe: http://www.behance.net/beachscriber

First Impressions - Rosalie Warren

I've officially been a children's/YA author for four months now, since March 21st 2011, when my young teens' novel, Coping with Chloe, was published by Phoenix Yard Books. This puts me in the nursery class, of course, compared with many other writers on here. I should say that posting on the ABBA blog is yet another 'first' for me, in a year that so far has been full of adventure, minor disasters, excitement, terror and hundreds of iced cakes (see below).

I don't particularly like the term 'learning curve'. Perhaps 'learning big dipper' better captures the crazy speeds, the loss of control, the apprehension, the thrills and the vomiting (if not the actual cakes).

So I thought I'd gather a few of my first impressions here. Let's start with schools. As a beginning children's author, I had no idea about going into schools. The last time I went into a school was for a prizegiving in 2003. Before that, it was a PTA meeting back in 1999. I didn't realise that many children's writers did regular school visits - or how terrifying or (in the end) rewarding and fun it would be. Thanks, Cardinal Newman School, Coventry, for your fantastic welcome, and thanks to all those experienced authors who gave me advice.

Something else I've learned recently is how many young folk are writing books and stories of their own. They are often self-motivated, dedicated and producing writing of quality and promise. No doubt some, as they grow up, will decide to put their energy into other things. But I'd love to think that a few of the young writers I've met recently will go on to achieve publication and wide readership. What I'd have given, as a child, to have a real live author (even one I'd never heard of) come into our classroom and speak with us...

Other things that stand out for me from these hectic past few months are:

• A book signing in Waterstones, during which I managed to pluck up the courage to do a short reading

• Baking and icing over 150 small cakes with As and Cs on them (you'll have to read 'Chloe' if you want to find out why)

• The kindness, generosity, friendliness, energy and warmth of *all* the children's authors I've met so far, through the Scattered Authors' Society (SAS) and elsewhere. Truly overwhelming...

• The thrill of hearing my words brought to life by young readers from King Henry VIII School, Coventry, at a recent launch event at Coventry Central Library

• The joy of having youngsters tell me they liked my book and asking when the sequel is coming out

• The excitement of writing for children and rediscovering the child/young person inside me. I'm now writing about about a robot and having the most fun since I don't know when...

I know the world of publishing is in upheaval and many writers, independent booksellers and other professionals are suffering. I know libraries are being closed, sales are down and authors are being dropped mid-series by their publishers. These are depressing and difficult times. But as a newcomer, I wanted to focus in this first post on some of the positive things I've experienced in the past few months. I'm not expecting to make a fortune, not even a small one, but I can't help feeling optimistic. With so much energy, creativity, commitment and kindness around - better times for the world of children's books must surely be ahead.

Hold tight round the next bend - wheeeee!!!


My website

An Awfully Creative Adventure - Meg Harper

I’m laughing this morning over Andrew’s 6 monthly skips! So that’s why our garage is stuffed to the gunnels! I’ve missed a trick there! I’m also taking a welcome break from the huge task of getting a house that has been ‘lived in’ (ehem) by 4 teenagers ready for the market. Anyone wanting a large family house in Warwick, step this way! It has new carpets throughout except, of course, in my study – another place stuffed to the gunnels and impossible to empty for the day. So my new study carpet is – guess where? In the garage!
Today, however, I really want to write about a school project that I’ve been engaged in intermittently all academic year. This was at Limehurst High School, a middle school in Loughborough which is definitely the pleasantest, happiest secondary school I have ever encountered and where it was a privilege to be the visiting author. There are times when I question the value of author visits. If it’s a case of the ‘author talk’ delivered to every class in the school, I wonder what lasting benefit there will be. I am far more excited by being invited in to run workshops or, as in this case, to be a partner in a long-term project.
The brief at Limehurst was to run a workshop with a small group of year 8s, teaching them the nuts and bolts of story writing so that they could teach a slightly larger group of year 7s, who would then write a story suitable to be turned into an animation for year 2s from a local primary school. Nothing too complicated then! As so often, I found myself deconstructing what I do myself (principally by instinct in my case) in order to make the vital elements clear enough for young people to absorb and cascade down to their juniors. Fortunately, I often write short stories, not simply novels, and I also have some very limited experience of writing animations – so I felt competent enough to know where to start. As so often, however, I learned as we went on. I was there as consultant when the years 8s taught the year 7s and was alongside them as they thrashed out their plots and wrote and edited their stories. I sometimes think I don’t know very much about creating story but as we worked, I appreciated that I really do know what I’m doing. I know where to cut and prune, I know what’s needed to lift a plot and to keep the pace. I know how to create the crisis and how to satisfactorily resolve. And I realised what a mammoth task the young people were facing – and yet again, how ludicrous it is that year 6s are expected to write short stories for their SATS in a mere 45 minutes. Grrrrrrr!
In the end, the year 7s had the barebones of two workable stories so we asked if they could animate both. Fortunately, the lovely Leo and Theo of Lunchbox Films were ready to give it a whirl and the school was confident they could provide funding – so the year 7s set out on the laborious task of animating their stories. A couple of weeks ago the big moment arrived. The year 2s from the local primary school arrived for the premiere – and so did I! You can see the results below. (Well - maybe not - I've tried to post the links and they're showing on the dashboard version but not on the blog - but here are none hot links if you're interested!


http://www.lunchboxfilms.co.uk/project.php?url=goldilocks_baldilocks

http://www.lunchboxfilms.co.uk/project.php?url=tanes_tremendous_trumpet)

My next task is to see if my agent’s interested in submitting the original stories to publishers. I’ve edited them in conference with the young people and have kept as much of their original wording as I can. I was thrilled by how engaged they were with that process – but then, we were doing what I wish schools could do more. A real task for a real purpose. There were lots of really memorable moments but it all felt very worthwhile when one of the participants said, ‘I used to think I was no good at English but doing this project has made me realise that I really am.

www.megharper.co.uk

Nothing Doing - Andrew Strong

I seem to spend at least a week, every summer, picking things up and putting them down again. This is in the cause of ‘tidying up’. Last year I had a shed built on a small plot of land at the end of the garden. Within a month I’d filled it with junk. I ordered a new shed. I have three new sheds now, all built this last year, and all are full up.

Not that I can’t throw anything away. At least once every six months I order a skip and leave it parked at the end of the lane. It fills with rotten furniture, saggy mattresses and deceased lawnmowers.

Every year I need more and more storage. I live in a reasonably big house, but can never find anywhere to put things.

So this year I decided to excavate the spare room, a place where guests fear to tread. It’s in a wing of the house that was once the maid’s quarters. She must have died in there and left a jug of milk to go off at the same time, because I haven’t been able to get rid of a very weird smell.

That weird smell, or the ghost of the gone off milk, or both, has meant that the guest room door is rarely opened.

I had to take the bull by the horns, however, and grasp the nettle that was knotted around the bull’s horns (I wore protective gloves). I was going to venture into the spare room.

It was worth it. Stacked in a huge, damp cardboard box I found my ancient diaries, or journals as I prefer to call them. Calling them journals makes me sound more like Edmond de Goncourt and less like one of the Waltons.

At this point, I’d like you to imagine a clichéd cinematic dissolve. From the middle aged man cut to the fourteen year boy sitting cross-legged on his bedroom floor, listening to Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto. I say imagine, because in reality I would have been listening to T.Rex.

I’m thinking what to write in my diary. So I put: ‘I am sitting on the floor listening to Mozart’. (I lied a lot in those days).

Three or four years on, I vowed to write a page a day, roughly five hundred words. I kept that up for thirty years. On days when nothing happened, I would still have to write it all down. And those details of days when nothing happened are what interest me most. The descriptions of travels, or even my participation in events that made national news (the Poll Tax Riots, IRA bombings) don’t absorb me as much as where I went to buy my bread and milk, or attempt to describe the state the teapot was in. I glued in plenty of ephemera: cinema tickets, receipts from shops now long gone, and even food. On October 2^nd 1982, under some grimy yellow sellotape, there’s what I think is a Trebor Mint.

So, if you’re looking for a moral in all this it’s that the things that mean the least to us when we are young can mean the most thirty years later. I still like T. Rex though.

Carnegie Shadowing - Elen Caldecott

One of the troubles with sharing a blog with so many other lovely people is that you have to wait in line for your turn. There's no pushing in. So, a few weeks late, I'm going to tell you about my experience of the Carnegie Medal this year.

For those who don't know, the Carnegie is probably the most prestigious award given to a UK children's writer annually. The longlist is very long, but the shortlist is usually whittled down to about 6 or 8 books by a team of dedicated children's librarians.

This year I was invited to visit a school in Swansea to spend a few hours with their Carnegie Shadowing students - a group of book-mad Years 7-9 with lots of energy, enthusiasm and some very honest opinions!
In advance of the visit, I had a lot of reading to do. The shortlist this year was:

• Prisoner of the Inquisition by Theresa Breslin
• The Death Defying Pepper Roux by Geraldine McCaughrean
• Monsters of Men by Patrick Ness
• The Bride’s Farewell by Meg Rosoff
• White Crow by Marcus Sedgwick
• Out of Shadows by Jason Wallace

I also promised the students that I would ask a few question of the authors on their behalf, more on that in a moment.

First we decided on our criteria for what made a good book. We had a huge list of everything from 'makes me laugh' and 'great cover' to 'inspiring characters' and 'feels like I'm there' (none of us could spell verisimilitude...).

Each student judged the books by choosing the three criteria that mattered most to them.
Then, the discussion began...

It became clear quite quickly that despite saying that they didn't judge a book by it's cover, they all had. Very few of them had read all six books, and the cover had had a huge influence on what they'd selected to read. None of the boys had read Prisoner of the Inquisition (I told them what idiots they were being, as this was in my own personal top three). The size of the book mattered too. Hardly any had read Monsters of Men; some of the smaller Year 7s could hardly lift it.

Hearing from the authors influenced their opinions too. After hearing that Geraldine McCaughrean's favourite bit of her book was a transvestite sailor, the students snatched copies of the book from one another searching for La Duchesse. The favourite answer of all though was Marcus Sedgwick's laconic response to a question about the title: 'read the book.' It became our catchphrase for the day.

While we had a great time, it was clear that the challenging nature of almost all of the books had intimidated the students. I'm not sure there is a solution to that. The award is intended to reward excellence and excellence is challenging. A shorter shortlist, perhaps?

Finally we had to declare a winner. After the votes were counted, we found we didn't agree with the official result (sorry, Patrick). Our winner was Marcus Sedgwick with White Crow. Possibly because of that very sage piece of advice 'read the book'.

Elen's latest book Operation Eiffel Tower is out now, published by Bloomsbury.

www.elencaldecott.com
Elen's Facebook Page

If I could find the camera... Celia Rees

I'd take a photo of the chaotic mess that is my study. I know it's in here somewhere, I just can't remember which pile it is under. As a writer, I'm as prone to rituals as the Lords of Groan and one of patterns that has emerged over the years is the Big Clear Out after a book is finished, a physical and mental de-clutter before the next project gets truly underway. That is one way of spinning it, the other is I just can't find anything: letters, tax forms, notes and print-outs, books, cameras, staplers, rulers, anything I actually need has disappeared.

The problem is twofold. I am naturally messy and find it difficult to throw things away. I have, for example, a great many books - not just on the two walls of shelves, but in piles on the floor, table, futon, chair, any flat surface, and I find it hard to part with them. This is not just sentimental. I never know when I might want them and I can guarantee the next time I think, 'I know I've got a book about that somewhere', that will be the book that's gone to Oxfam. I need more space (move house? Rent storage?) to put them and I need some kind of coherent cataloguing system (alphabetical? By subject? Dewey Decimal?) but I can never quite decide how to organise them (too many decisions) so that does not get done.

Then there are the foreign editions of my own books that publishers have kindly sent to me. It is wonderful to have foreign editions, but they do mount up. If I could find a good home for them, then I could use the storage space for other stuff. If anyone has any ideas for safe disposal, please let me know.

And then there are the notebooks. Like many writers, I love stationery and find it hard to resist the lure of The New Notebook. Consequently, I have many: big ones, small ones, hard back, soft back, posh, expensive, cheap spiral pads. Most of them have something written in them, so should they be retained, part of my 'archive'? Should I even have an archive, or is that just another excuse not to throw things away? More dilemmas...

Quite apart from all that, there are the box files of documents, notes, correspondence (archive again) - should I just throw the lot out, would I even notice? Going through everything is a big job, one I keep putting off because I've got better things to do (like writing books) but I can hardly move at the moment and I actually don't have a book to write, so I guess I've run out of excuses, except I've got a blog to write - now, where is that camera?

www.celiarees.com
Fan Page: www.facebook.com/theofficialceliareesfanpage

What's in it for me? By Lynne Garner

This is not a question I normally ask myself. Well, unless a family member or a close friend asks for a favour and I ask tongue in cheek. However it was a question I asked myself recently when I did my first in-store book signing.

A few days before I was asked "how much are they paying you?" The look of surprise was amusing when I replied, "Oh, I don't get paid anything!" I was then asked, "so what percentage of sales are you getting?" Again the look of surprise when I replied, "none!" made me smile. "So what's in it for you."

I was going to give the following reasons:

• Getting my name known
• Meeting my target audience
• Increasing sales

However I realised perhaps there was very little in it for me. I already had a way of achieving these goals. I can get my name known locally, meet my target audience and increase sales by doing presentations to local groups. I started to break down the benefits of doing these presentations rather than doing a book signing. They broke down as follows:

The plus of doing a presentation to a group of children (e.g. Rainbows, Brownies, Cubs):

• The children are excited to meet an author who is there to see 'them.'
• They are not being pulled from one shop to another by a rushed parent who does not have time and did not plan to stop to talk to an author.
• I meet the target audience for my picture books.
• I am able to spend quality time with them talking about my books and my work in a relaxed atmosphere.

The plus of giving a presentation to a group of adults (OPA Groups, WI's etc.):

• I meet those who purchase my picture books and often have to read them.
• They are also the target audience for my adult non-fiction books.
• This is 'their' time and they are there to enjoy themselves.
• They do not have to fit me in with the 101 other things they have to do whilst out shopping.

The plus of giving a presentation to any group:

• I go to them as a group and do not have to keep fingers crossed they come to me; they are a captive audience.
• Any books I sell I keep any profit.
• I charge a fee to cover my time and expenses; again the money goes directly into my pocket.
• I don't have to compete with the noise and jostle that takes place in a shop.
• If they enjoy my presentation they become my sales force and pass on my contact details to other groups.

Having looked at the above I've now decided that perhaps doing a book signing in a shop is not right for me. I can get far more from giving a presentation and my audience hopefully gains more from me.

So let me put it out there. What's in a book signing for you?

Lynne Garner

www.lynnegarner.com

www.madmomentmedia.com

Competition Winners

So, we had a wealth of competitions over our Festival weekend which have now been won!

If the competition asked entrants to email the author directly, then the winners will also be contacted directly.

If the competition asked you to enter via the comments, then there is an almost full list of winners below. Any that are missing, the author who set the competition will make an announcement as soon as they've judged.

Adele Geras' competiton: Brigita won Dido, Sue E won A Magic Birthday, Sarah A won Lolly and Adele won Stagestruck.

Liz Kessler's competition was won by Leah Auty, Zoe Crook, Hannah Powell and Bronte. Liz has all but one of these winner's email addresses. If you are the missing winner, please visit her Facebook page to make contact.

John Dougherty's competition had ten winners. They are Leah A with Jupiter and His New Computer and Minerva and the Loyal Server; Madwippitt with Vulcan Gets Hammered and Psyche Babbles; Rosalind A with Pray to the Backwards Dog; Linda with Thor's Thilly Idea; Elen C with Bend it Like Sobek-ham; Linda S with Loki's Looking for Love; Paul H with Poseidon's Misadventure; Denise with Aphrodite and the Yellow Nightie; Kate with It's Thor I Adore and finally, Moogiesboy with In Hidin' With Poseiden.
All of these winners should email childrenspublicity@randomhouse.co.uk with 'ABBA Competition' in the subject line with a) who they'd like it signed for and b) where they'd like it sent. Delivery in 4 weeks.

The Literary Gift Company's competition has been won by Hoopie, with the advise 'take a notebook everywhere'. To claim your prize, please email karenball@fastmail.fm

Nicola Morgan's competition was won by Rebecca Clare Smith.

Lucy Coats's competition to win 18 children's and YA books from Orion was won by Sarah of Whispering Words.  Lucy will be contacting Sarah via email.

Harry Potter and the Celluloid of Terror: Gillian Philip

I took my ten-year-olds to see Harry Potter the other day. There were three of us in that front row, trying to make sense of the slightly distorted soundtrack, and only one of us had read the book.

To the ten-year-olds, it didn't matter that for a good deal of the running time, they couldn't quite follow what was going on. It was, as Girl Child announced within five seconds of the credits rolling, the best movie they had ever seen. And with mother giving whispered side-of-the-mouth explanations of the tricky bits, the plot was perfectly comprehensible.

The cinema - an old-fashioned, sticky-floored, numb-bum relic of the golden age, and one of my favourite places in the world - was teeming with three- to ten-year olds who hadn't read the books, along with a lot of teenagers and young adults who had clearly grown up with them. I had high hopes that my two would ask to read all seven books afterwards, and when they didn't volunteer, I offered.

No takers. It's the films they've grown up with, and the Xbox games. Boy Child has spent the summer-holiday days since then watching and rewatching the earlier movies, and begging for the Xbox game. Girl Child has preferred more and more and different movies (and books) involving death, sacrifice, love, hate, good and evil.

I'm not sure they'll ever read the books, now. And I have wildly mixed feelings about that.

My strongest reaction is that these are my kids, dammit. MY KIDS, for whom the purchase of books by readers is the wellspring of the finance that buys them DVDs and Xbox games. What are they THINKING?

A subsidiary, guilty feeling, is that I'm probably even more of a movie addict than I am a book addict, and that's saying something. I'm not sure I'll read The Lord of the Rings again, however many times I've read it in the past, because the movies distilled the best of the books, while holding onto respect for them, and the pictures I made in my head weren't ever quite as good as the pictures made since 2001 by Peter Jackson.

At school talks, I torment myself and the audience with the question 'Books or Movies?' And while we all tear at our scalps shouting 'BOTH', I always advocate BOOKS with the argument that however many girls in the room love Edward Cullen, only around half think he truly looks like Robert Pattinson. For the others, he'll always be the perfect sparkly beauty they formed in their own heads, and R-Pattz will be no more than - well, not an impostor: just someone who once played the part.

I feel quite sad that my kids are unlikely to read Harry Potter as he was originally wrote - or not for a few years, anyway. They won't grow up, as so many young adults did, with a boy who grew up, slowly, on the page, along with them.

But the movies have created another part of the myth, and one of their own. My kids have grown up with Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter, and when I really think about it, that's fine. There are so many other books now - in great part thanks to the Potter phenomenon - that they can film for themselves, inside their heads, just like I do with my own characters while I'm writing. For them, Harry can be a movie.

Films make their own mythology. The story of the Lions of Tsavo is a true one, while the film version - The Ghost & The Darkness - follows to a great extent the template of Jaws. I honestly don't think that destroys its validity as a story. I remember being terribly upset and angry when I first saw James Cameron's Titanic, because why would anyone want to add fiction to a truth that had its own perfect tragic narrative and human pathos? Since then I've watched it often, and always cry - because I never believe in Jack and Rose, but they symbolise the real people dying in fractions of screen moments in the background.

Maybe it's distance that lends both enchantment and forgiveness - recent lies and distortions are less forgiveable; but is Troy, if it ever existed, diminished by being relegated to myth and a bloody good story? A seriously bad movie certainly didn't hurt that immortal myth.

We're humans, and we love a narrative arc. The best of them will survive in any form, and many. They start, and end, in our heads.

www.gillianphilip.com

www.facebook.com/gillianphilipauthor

Do You Remember The First Time? - Karen Ball

Signs you are getting old:

• It’s not as easy to put on a pair of tights as it once was.
• People ask you for advice and listen carefully, as if you actually know what you’re talking about.
• When a younger author friend opens her box of advance copies for the first time in her career you think, Aw, bless! I remember that.

Yesterday, my lovely colleague, Lil Chase, took receipt of the advance copies of her debut novel, Boys For Beginners. There was much excitement, let me tell you! This event only happens once in a lifetime and I’m glad we caught the moment for posterity.

Lil’s book is being published in August by Quercus Publishing. There’s a lovely story behind this novel, as it’s based on a story Lil first wrote when she was eleven years old. She still has the original copy of her ‘book’! Like many of us, I suspect, Lil knew she wanted to be an author from a young age.

When I opened a box of my first ever advance copies, I was all alone in my little flat, with no one to show them to. I think I pushed the box under the piano and went to work. If I had my time again, I’d run out into the street, waving the books above my head and accosting strangers. I’d also have asked my publisher how I could help to promote the books and I may even have invested in some of the button badges Joanna Kenrick has been championing. But hindsight is a wonderful thing, especially when it comes to a writing career.

Do you remember the first time you opened a box of advance copies? What was it like? Is there anything you’d have done differently around that time? Or are you still waiting for this moment in your life - what would you do around your fantasy opening of a very special box?

One last thought for us all to share: NOTHING beats the sight of a grown man reading a book embellished with foil lettering, aimed at 8-12 year-old girls.

The world would be a better place if everyone stopped what they were doing to read a book like Lil’s.

Visit my blog at www.karen-ball.com.

ROCK OF AGENTS - by Nicola Morgan

I read this post from Kristine Rusch. Be warned: it's not a pretty picture. It paints a very gloomy portrait of the situation for writers at the moment, and I have to say much rings true. Last year, on Help! I Need a Publisher!, I also wrote a few negative posts about the situation for writers, though always with a degree of optimism because I do tend to find the positive in any situation, crabbit old bat though I may be.

But, I want to respond to something that Kristine says about agents.

"What’s worse is that the people we once thought were our advocates - our agents and our editors—can’t help us any more.  ... Agents - who are savvy about business - have realized that they can no longer make money in traditional ways, so many of them are looking for other ways to make money.  And often, those ways hurt the writer. See what agent Peter Cox says about this, about the way he’s fighting to keep some semblance of decency in his profession. "

Although it's true that there are some potential conflicts and true that rules need to be set (which is why the Association of Authors Agents is looking at it so carefully), I want to scotch the idea that this is what agents in general would do. Agents are too often portrayed as sharks and though they may sometimes be so it's not a fair generalisation.

But forget any generalisations for the moment. I want to get specific and talk about my agent.

My agent has been my rock. She has fought for me and stayed with me despite the fact that most of my income does not currently go through her - she doesn't take a percentage of my speaking/consulting income; and she only acts for my children's titles; I've not written a new children's book recently; and my royalties are pathetic. (And yes, Kristine is right that publishers blame authors for poor sales, quite unfairly in most cases, or at least they drop us when it happens, often without apology or any obvious feeling of regret or understanding. Most of you will know someone who has suffered like that.)

My agent has kept me strong in the face of adversity that almost stopped me writing altogether. She has never stopped believing in me or working for me. She has never told me to write any particular thing or not to write any particular thing. She could have done, if money was her object. She never pushed or hassled or nagged. She was just there, calm for me, to keep me calm when I couldn't write fiction.

And my agent is not going to publish my backlist as ebooks and give me a cut - no: I'm going to publish them and give her a cut! Hooray! I owe it to her and it's the least I can do. After all, without her, those books would never have been published in the first place. She hasn't earned as much from me as she should have done, especially in the last year or two, and I really hope I can put that right.

So, this is just a shout-out for my great agent. Good agents are not sharks - they work for us and usually they work damned hard. I owe mine everything. I owe her the very fact that I'm a published author. And I intend to be able to give something back.

Thank you, Elizabeth Roy.

 __________________________

I'll let you know (if I may) when we republish Mondays are Red and Sleepwalking. Those books did well and I still get many emails from people who want them - a school just this week was trying to buy a class set of Mondays are Red and so that school is going to work with me around the re-publication. I will also be publishing a brand new non-fiction list, starting with Tweet Right - the sensible person's guide to Twitter. Publication for that is planned for September. All you reluctant tweeters - one for you!

GREEN IS FOR . . .by Penny Dolan

I am off to buy a green t-shirt today.

This is not because I am involved with the Tour de France, or am a member of the Sherwood Forest Appreciation Society or am given to hiding myself behind hedges.

It is because I have devised a strategy for dealing with that unspoken Writers Problem. Raging Jealousy!

I was with a group of writers recently and suddenly heard one of the mildest, sweetest people ever admit that she had occasional twinges of jealousy. She? She occasionally felt jealous too? Someone like that? Then I was not alone!

Dear Reader, I broke out into a loud rant about things that make me feel bitter and twisted and angry and jealous and cross with myself, and there are plenty.

For example, I get angry about the writer who suddenly turns out to be related, involved or working for someone Famous, Rich and Influential.

I get angry about supposed “children’s authors” who don’t write their “bookwords” nor even read their books - probably because they are already Famous, Rich and Influential.

I get angry about the rise of the non-existent “children’s author”, the brand names emblazoned across a host of gender-biased series, even though I know there are many real writers happy to be paid for this quiet anonymous work.

It is the lie behind the branding that makes me uncomfortable: “Now, children, who is your favourite author?” Does that “author” even exist?

Please note that I do not rant or get angry about the good writers, the people who write so well that I am in awe of them. I never feel jealous of them or the praise they receive.I feel inspired and encouraged by their words, no matter for what genre or “age.”

It is the unfair, unjustified fame that fills me with jealousy and turns me crabbit and cross at my desk. I have at last, before it shrinks me down into a wizened hob-goblin,worked out how to deal with this rage. Remember that green t-shirt?

I have resolved that, every so often, I will put on my significant green garment and give myself permission to rant and rage and let all the angry stuff out of my soul. I will howl at the moon, away from you all, in private, alone.

Then when the raging is done, I shall hide my jealous green t-shirt in safe secure place and be calmness and sweetness and light and probably write about fluffy kittens too.

Do you ever get the raging jealousies too?


A BOY CALLED M.O.U.S.E, now out in paperback.
Shortlisted for the Historical Association's Young Quills Award.
www.pennydolan.com

Battles, kings and elephants. Cindy Jefferies

One thing you can depend on for a writer is that if you ask them what they're thinking , whatever they reply you can be pretty certain that at least a part of their mind is thinking about a story. It might be no more than a slight itch at the back of the mind, but it'll be there.

So, being a writer, it is hardly surprising that when I was in Paris in the Spring stories were taking up a corner of my mind. After all, even a desert can be fertile ground for a story, which makes ideas for fiction seep out at every turn in Paris.

Fortunately, the friend I was staying with understood, and on the last day of my trip came up with something for me to take home. It was a quote in the frontispiece of a novel by Mathias Enard called Parle-leur de batailles, de rois et d'elephants.

Puisque ce sont des enfants, parle-leur de batailles et de rois, de chevaux, de diables, d'elephants et d'anges, mais n'omets pas de leur parler d'amour et de choses semblables.

Here's a translation:- Because they are children, tell them about battles and kings, horses, devils, elephants and angels, but don't neglect to tell them about love and things like that.

Not being able to find an attribution I assumed the author must be Mathias Enard, but I wished that I knew for sure.

I loved the quote. It seemed to sum up exactly what I thought was important. Yes, of course a fast moving plot is paramount, especially in the sort of fiction for the 8-12's that I usually write. But, and I think this is particularly important for boys; love, and things like that is also vital. Girls tend to be better at talking about feelings, while some boys, I think, can find it harder. Of course, both boys and girls can feel pretty lonely at times, when what they're feeling is muddled and difficult. I believe that one of the best ways of understanding that you're not alone in your feelings is through a good story. So the quote resonated with me, whoever had written it. But the story doesn't end here.

Some while later, a review from an American newspaper fell into my inbox. It was a glowing review of a new novel that had been in the final selection for the Prix Goncourt in France. It was being translated, and would soon be available in America. To my delight the book was the very one that had contained my favourite quote, and at last I found out what I wanted to know.

The reviewer wrote that the quote came from one of my own countrymen, Rudyard Kipling, in a collection of stories published in 1915 called Life's Handicaps. It's a little known collection, but I tracked it down, and found those wise words in the preface of that book, which takes the form of a discussion between two storytellers, one an elderly Indian who speaks his stories, and the other an Englishman, who, like Kipling writes with pen and ink. The discussion is about the art of storytelling, and the wise words come from Gobind, the holy, one eyed Indian.

And so, the quest for an author led me on a long journey, from England to Paris and back again, and across the Atlantic, with a nod to India, only to find that in true and pleasing storybook form, the answer lay in my own land.

I'd love to hear about your favourite quotes, and why they are special to you. I have mine pinned up by my desk, and my eyes are drawn to it often, as I ponder the twists and turns of the story I am conjuring from behind my eyes. And I will try never to forget to include at least something about love, and things like that.

Cindy Jefferies

Cindy Jefferies

Girls heart books