TOP TWELVE TIPS for NEW WRITERS – Dianne Hofmeyr

In the 80’s when hair was permed and big and shoulders broad, I was a potter working towards my first ceramics exhibition. Then in 1987 my first novel was published. Thirty years later I’m still writing.

Last week, a question asked by a young man from HMS Census Dept: Does being a writer require any qualification? sparked my immediate reaction:  'Anyone can be a writer.' But after he left, I felt I had too easily dismissed the years and years of 'qualification.'

So in no special order, I’ve made a list of things that might smooth the process for a first-time published writer.

1. Celebrate being a debut author. The world loves a debut. It puts possibility in sight for anyone with aspiration. Even if the publisher doesn’t offer, have your own party. There’ll never be another debut book for you. So party on...

Illustration by Piet Grobler from my story Fiddle Dee Dee to be published soon by Otterbarry Books

Illustration by my friend Niki Day, from his book Welcome to Zanzibar Road. 

Illustration by my friend Fiona Moodie from her book Noko's Surprise Party published by Frances Lincoln

2. Plan in advance for how you think your book could be marketed or what events it might fit with. Don’t wait for the day it’s published. Publishers don't necessarily know everything.

Carol Thompson's marvellous tiger from her workshop for our book, My Daddy is a Silly Monkey, Otterbarry Books. 

3. Say thank you… thank you to everyone along the way – your editor, your agent, the bookshop, the librarian, the teacher, your foreign rights person. Grace generates grace.

4. Writing is a lonely business. Get out there. Do things… photography, fabric design, learn a new instrument, do high-wire trapeze… anything that involves other people.

Illustration by Piet Grobler from my book Fiddle Dee Dee to be published soon by Otterbarry Books

5. Join the SOA (Society of Authors). They are your Trade Union and lifeline for helping with Contracts, Questions on Tax, Copyright, Agents etc etc. and they’re a jolly nice crowd. Join Here. IBBY (International Board of Books for Young Children) is also worth joining. Also a jolly nice crowd! Join Here.

6. Don’t compare yourself to others. It's a bad habit. Your voice is unique.

7. If, like me, you are hopeless at paperwork, use an accountant. Look out for tax deductions. Have I said it before...? Join the SOA.

8. Only use social media if you’re comfortable with it. Choose what suits you best. If you write picture books, Instagram might work for you.

9. Write a good bio (high-wire trapeze? be sure to mention it) and insist on being introduced at events. It sends a much more positive message to an audience, than standing there saying… hi, I’m an author.

10. Even though you may already have signed 100 books, make eye contact with the person in front of you. It might be the first book that child or adult, will ever have signed.

Jane Ray signing at The Illustration Cupboard for her book Feather Girl pub by Frances Lincoln

Polly Dunbar signing at Daunts Bookshop, Marylbone High Street.

11. Be generous. Build a book community. Photograph friends’ books in bookshops and fairs. Send the message out there. Books are great!

12. Lastly – writers empower people. Why else have so many writers been imprisoned or banned over the centuries? Ovid was banned from Rome to Constanta in Romania in 8 AD for his writing, Beverley Naidoo’s Journey to Jo’burg, a children’s novel, was banned in the apartheid years of South Africa.

Beverley Naidoo reading When I Coloured in the World by Ahmadreza Ahmedi, illustr by Ehsan Abdollahi, Tiny Owl

So get out there. Empower people with your writing. Break boundaries. Break down barriers. Dream adventures. Explore down the rabbit hole. Open trapdoors to other worlds. Take courage and write! And most of all, have fun doing it. And feel free to add some more tips in your comments.

PS this blog is full of links to publishers and writers if you want to find out more.

www.diannehofmeyr.com
Instagram: diannehofmeyr

Dianne Hofmeyr's next picture book TIGER WALK will be out in October this year and is illustrated by the very talented Jesse Hodgson and published by Otter-barry Books.

ILLUSTRATORS – you just have to love them – DIANNE HOFMEYR

Bologna is a true celebration of illustrators... exhibitions everywhere of exciting work bursting with life, movement and expression, both from well-known illustrators and new emerging ones... and long queues everywhere of art students clutching massive portfolios, all waiting to see the art directors.

Ten days before Bologna, Roger Mello, 2014 Hans Christian Andersen winner from Brazil, and Piet Grobler of the International Centre for the Picture Book in Society fame, and their partners came to stay and for a few hours I saw the world through illustrators’ eyes. We sat above the sea on the Robberg Peninsula with icy wine in our glasses at sunset until it was dark. And the next morning what a pleasure to wake up and find Piet Grobler already working in the early African sunlight on my deck.

What undiluted energy! They were like boys let out of school. I was charmed by the quickness of ideas and the exuberance of their thinking as they brought the world alive. It struck me that this is exactly what illustrators do – they blow energy into the clay of a writer's story and make it come vibrantly to life.

Roger says he works from tins of wall paint... a first for me... because the colours are more immediate and vibrant. And vibrancy is what his work is about as these images from Maria Teresa show... an epic story steeped in fantasy, fiction and reality about the memories of a traditional carved figurehead, mounted on the prow of a vessel that ploughs the waters of the São Francisco river, and brings good luck to mariners while she collects the stories and dramatic fantasies of the river. Pity we don't see more of his work here in the UK. 

  

Piet Grobler works fast. In fact he's the fastest illustrator I've ever worked with. Without any emails going back and forth, his work suddenly appears in my Inbox utterly complete in 12 Spreads, blowing vitality and energy into my lifeless clay characters. Here are a few for our next book, Fiddle Dee Dee.

Carol Thompson is another fast worker. In her hands stories seemed to be teased out effortlessly into a coherent whole. With humour and the lightest of touch and quick sure line, suddenly a character springs from the page. Here's a glimpse into her studio and one with the artwork of My Daddy is a Silly Monkey lined up. Perhaps a penchant for turquiose if the dog, Coco's necktie (below) from a rough from our next book together is anything to go by?

Jane Ray is a master of colour and lay-out. Here's Jane in her studio and also a glimpse of her table while she was working on a Venetian illustration for The Glassmaker's Daughter. When I asked how she was going to manage a glass palace... her reply: we shall see when the time comes. The result is the glassiest of all glass palaces, blown into life by the delicate touch of Jane Ray. 

  

Jesse Hodgson too is a colourist of note... layering her pencil crayon strokes in such fine detail that I want to pick up a magnifying glass to see how she does it. A perfect creature emerges through the forest with all the tigeriness of a real tiger. I feel the sinuous energy, feel the tigery heat and smell the tigery breath in her work for Tiger Walk. 

At Bologna this year the honour of the Hans Christian Andersen Award for Illustration given by IBBY, went to Russian illustrator Igor Oleynikov, who has illustrated a broad spectrum of stories including those of Russian masters Pushkin, Gogol, and Trotsky.

Just for whimsy and imagination, these two images below would be enough to make him a winner. I wish I'd been at Bologna to see his work in real life. 

Now Bologna is behind us and it’s time to stop dreaming and get back to work... but let's not forget all the great illustrators who give meaning to our words! And yes, we DO love you!

www.diannehofmeyr.com
Twitter: @dihofmeyr
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WILD AT HEART – Dianne Hofmeyr

Last week, the Kings Road in Chelsea was abloom with wildness. Around every corner crocodiles crouched, cheetahs stalked, lions snarled and giraffes towered... all made from flowers, leaves and pampas grass. 

Last week too, the list of UK illustrators for the Biennial of Illustration Bratislava (BIB) for 2017 was announced at the IBBY AGM. Fifteen names in all. Congratulations all... with Laura Carlin's win in 2015, its great to see UK illustration making inroads.

Noticeably in many of the books – the natural world came through in total abundance. This connection to 'the wild' in picture books, is refreshing when more and more children are stuck in front of screens. I’ve chosen a few from the list – some for their sheer joy and others for the art teacher in me on the look-out for line, texture, form and colour. Here are some of my personal best ‘wild at heart’ ones in alphabetical order.

CHRISTOPHER CORR Deep in the Woods (Frances Lincoln, 2015)

WILLIAM GRILL The Wolves of Currampaw (Flying Eye, 2016)

EMILY HUGHES The Little Gardener (Flying Eye, 2015)

NEIL LAYTON The tree (Walker, 2016)

 JACKIE MORRIS One cheetah, one cherry (Otter-barry Books, 2016)

JACKIE MORRIS The quiet music of gently falling snow (Graffeg 2016)

JANE RAY The Little Mermaid (Boxer Books, 2014)

YUVAL ZOMMER The Big Book of Bugs (Thames and Hudson 2016)

YUVAL ZOMMER The Big Book of Beasts (Thames and Hudson 2017)

PS Thinking ‘Wild at Heart’? Anyone wanting to ‘monkey’ about on Father’s Day? Please join Carol Thompson and me at the Omnibus Theatre, Old Town Clapham with My Daddy is a Silly Monkey on Sunday 18 June, at 10.30 for some snarling tigers and gnashing crocodiles. Entrance is free and fathers are invited to join in and be celebrated! Suitable for children from 3 years upward.  If you can't make Clapham, a similar workshop is also on at The Alligator's Mouth in Richmond on Sat 10th at 11.30. 

The last word comes from a monkey seen in the Kings Road with a tummy of pincushion proteas. Join us for some 'wild at heart' fun on Father's Day.

www.diannehofmeyr.com

twitter: @dihofmeyr

OFF TO THE FAIRS

 

It’s not often a picture book text is effortlessly written. Usually one plucks and pulls and dithers beween using this word or that. But when an idea comes so thoroughly from the heart as my last story did… what a pleasure to write.

My Daddy is a Silly Monkey is off to both the London Book Fair and Bologna in hardback under the Otter-Barry Books imprint and has sold foreign rights in Spain, Denmark and South Africa. Forgive the indulgence of a bit of self promotion but new books need to be celebrated!

It’s great to be in Janetta’s stable and to benefit from her innate instinct on what is right for a text for younger children. With a totally hands-on approach, she encouraged Carol Thompson, my amazing illustrator, and me to be very free and collaborative with ideas. I think it shows in both the fresh illustration and the free-wheeling text with a font to match. The energy is all there – not trapped between the covers but extending beyond the cover with it’s image of a girl swinging out on a monkey’s tail.

For the first time ever I based a text loosely on a family member. It’s about a little girl trying to manage her chaotic but highly inventive father. Divorce is never easy and I wanted the story to convey the fun and playfulness when an ill-equipped father tries to cope in a single parent situation. Carol’s illustration is spot on. The love shines through.

As a parent I was forever curtailing what I saw as dangerous – don’t swing on that branch – don’t climb so high – don’t bounce so wildly. But here is a daddy who encourages a little wild behaviour, told from the girl’s point of view with scepticism as well as trust in what he attempts to do.

In the end, it’s essentially a story about love – and that love will survive whatever the chaos. I hope My Daddy is a Silly Monkey will fly high at both Fairs and that daddies the world over will continue to be silly monkeys with their children.

The 'Daddy's Cheeky Monkey' T-shirt that inspired the title. 

Matching hairbands

At the end of the day...

diannehofmeyr@btinternet.com

Twitter: @dihofmeyr