Sunday 11 November 2018

Secrets of the Green Room - Kelly McCaughrain


Actually, today I appear to have replaced memes with bullet points (mostly) in order to bring you...

Things I learned at panel events this year!

First, the general stuff -
  • The publisher pays for your hotel and travel to go to these things (score!).
  • Sometimes the panel moderator will tell you the questions in advance, sometimes they won’t.
  • Waiting to go on is worse than being on.
  • Your editor will be completely sympathetic about your nerves. She’s probably a shy, bookish type herself.
  • Every writer has a publicist/press officer following them around and looking after them at events, like a dæmon in His Dark Materials. It’s so cool. I had one too, but she was there to look after way more important Walker writers than me.
  • The green room is full of snacks but you will be too nervous to eat them.
  • Don’t even think about going to a YA event if you don’t know what Hogwarts House you’re in. Just do the test.

Hufflepuff rules! (In an unobtrusive way)

This year I was thrilled (and when I say thrilled, I mean bricking it) to be on panels at both YALC in London and DeptCon4 in Ireland. DeptCon is organised by Easons’ Department 51 and is a two-day event. This year had 10 panels (plus a DnD sesh) featuring about 35 writers.

My panel, with Katherine Webber

Signing with Simon James Green and Sebastien de Castell! 



Being one of the few complete newbies in the group, I was a little awestruck. You could tell I was the newbie because:
  • I went to all the panels (except the DnD because it was either eat or faint at that point)
  • I took notes
  • I brought all my books and asked people to sign them in the green room
  • I was shamelessly fangirling all over the place


If you think I’m exaggerating about the fangirling, here’s a brief resume of my lifelong history of embarrassing myself in front of writers I admire:
  • Marilynne Robinson had to tell me to stop asking questions so someone else could ask one.
  • George Saunders had to introduce himself to me because I couldn’t speak.
  • Roddy Doyle agreed to read my book (possibly to get rid of me).
  • Susin Nielsen probably thinks I’m a crazy stalker after I ran up to her on the street in the dark yelling, ‘Oh wow, you’re Susin Nielsen!!!’ Which she probably already knew.


Me and Susin. I think I genuinely frightened the poor woman.

I am very shy, and I deal with this by either gushing at jet-lagged writers in a hyper manner or running away to eat crisps in the hotel instead of hanging out in the green room with the cool people. But I did make it to the pub at DeptCon and managed to chat to a few of my heroes.

And it turns out, the interesting things writers say on their panels aren’t half as interesting as the things they say in the pub afterwards.


I love talking to writers who’ve been publishing longer than me (and that was all of them) because there’s always something to learn. I found myself mainly chatting about the dreaded Second Book Syndrome. I went to the conference feeling like a bit of a fraud because I’m finding my second book so hard, and I expected to come away feeling even worse, having been surrounded by ‘proper’ writers for two days. In fact, I came away feeling hugely reassured, because EVERYONE has been there. And they’re perfectly willing to tell you about it.

I was so inspired I scribbled notes on what they said (when I got back to the hotel, I’m not a complete loser. And I didn’t have a pen).

So I’m going to give you a recap of the helpful advice they gave me. I’m not going to ascribe names, (because I didn’t ask anyone if I could quote them and also I wouldn’t be quoting word for word, these are just my summaries) but they came from the likes of Susin Nielsen, Deidre Sullivan, Tina Callaghan, Sebastien de Castell, Juno Dawson, Simon James Green, Brian Conaghan, Louise O’Neill, Tom Pollock and Patrick Ness, as well as some publicists whose names I didn’t get. Some of them came from conversations in the pub, and some were things people said in panels.
Enjoy!
  • The book I’m publishing next was started 6 years ago. Never throw anything out.
  • Read This is the Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett.
  • Be kind to yourself, ignore the mean voice in your head.
  • You must have a conflict engine in each act. Something that generates conflict after conflict.
  • The first time I wrote a book under contract was book 5 and it was the first one I found hugely difficult and I swore I’d never do it again. But it’s hard to say no to security.
  • Don’t read books on craft. They paralyse you.
  • Read Big Magic.
  • Don’t give up today because tomorrow could be the day it happens.
  • I’ve told my agent that I want to write the next one without a contract. I’d rather write it first and then try to sell it even if there’s a risk it won’t sell. 
  • If you wouldn’t bother finishing it if you knew it would never get published, you shouldn’t be writing it at all.
  • I’ve never written 2 books in the same way.
  • Sometimes you have to abandon things but never throw them out, you can come back to them later.
  • Even when you’re published you totally fangirl over meeting other writers.
  • It gets harder with every book.
  • Read Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott.
  • I hate prizes, even when I win. It’s best to ignore everything that’s written about you.
  • Your book should have things in it that you didn’t know were there, that come out as if by magic when you’re done, because the whole is more than the sum of its parts. But if you plan it all to death and try to fit it to a formula, you won’t get those bits. You’ll probably delete them before you’re done because they don’t fit the plan.
  • Writing a sequel can be a good way to avoid second book syndrome because you don’t have to fall in love with new characters. But then your third book will be your second book.
  • Get feedback on your work before you send it out. Learn to ask for help.
  • Be resilient. Do something else that’s creative when you’re stuck, don’t force it.
  • You write your first book not knowing how to write a book. Then you think, ‘I’m a proper writer now, I should start learning about writing,’ so you read up on craft and story theory and you try to make book two fit a formula and it doesn’t work.
  • Don’t let them cast 31 year olds to play the 16 year olds in the film of your book.
  • It’s not fair that American books dominate the market.
  • The work is the antidote for everything.
  • Anyone can start a book. Writers finish them. If you’re obsessively going back over the first three chapters, stop. Finish the book.
  • Talent is almost irrelevant. It’s more important to enjoy it enough to do the work to make it good.
  • I panicked after my first book was published, and the next one I wrote was rejected by the publisher.
  • The publisher will want you to produce something similar to your first book and not take any risks.
  • Perfectionism is the enemy of creativity.
  • If your book is out of stock at Waterstones etc, tell your publicist. They can give them a nudge.
  • If you believe the good stuff that’s said about you, you have to believe the bad so it’s best to ignore it all.
  • For the publisher, if you don’t publish something within a year of your first book, then it doesn’t really matter when the second one comes out, it can wait.
  • I felt like, if I hadn’t already been with them, my publisher wouldn’t have accepted my second book, so I took it elsewhere.
  • Write a story, not a sermon. The things you care about will come out in the story. If they don’t, you’re writing the wrong story.
  • I had 217 rejections in 10 years before my first book was published.
  • If your shoe has a hole in it, and it’s raining, wear the hotel shower cap over your sock.
I thought it was very interesting that at least three different writers told me they hate writing under contract/refuse to write under contract ever again. And someone told me about a publisher who only gives one-book contracts for that reason. Is this the future? And is it a good thing? Is it a move towards a sort of zero-hours contract situation for writers, or is it a move towards flexi-time and a healthier working environment? Security or freedom?




Kelly McCaughrain is the author of the YA novel Flying Tips for Flightless Birds

She blogs about Writing, Gardening and VW Campervanning at weewideworld.blogspot.co.uk 

@KMcCaughrain 





4 comments:

Sue Purkiss said...

Really interesting, and some of it feels particularly useful at the moment!

Rowena House said...

I like that one about a sequel. I've been kind of sidling up to that idea but then shying away again as it seemed a cop out. But if it's good advice... Thanks, Kelly. And well done on getting these gigs, and sharing these tips. Onward!

Unknown said...

Your list is quite comprehensive. How did you store all this and not write it down until you got back to the hotel? It's obvious you have a passion for writing, I'm happy for you. To have a passion for anything is a real gift!

Sue Bursztynski said...

Hogwarts House: currently Ravenclaw. I used to be Hufflepuff, but the Pottermore site was updated and I had to be sorted all over again. Patronus: wildcat. I preferred Hufflepuff, but there you are.

Publicists do tend to be for everyone, unless your name is J.K Rowling or some such. I remember chatting one time with a fairly up-herself author who spoke of “my publicist” until I asked, “Oh, do you have your own publicist?”, prepared to be impressed, and she admitted it was the lady who looked after all the authors for that publisher.

I have done the fangirl thing in the green room too, with the likes of Charlie Stross and Shaun Tan. 😂 I never ask for autographs there, though, because you go to the green room for a break between panels, not to sign books. I wait in the queue with everyone else. I did once ask Shaun Tan for a photo, to make my fellow teacher librarians jealous!