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
Instagram: diannehofmeyr

SMOKE AND MIRRORS – Dianne Hofmeyr

I grew up in a small seaside village and spent my time after school wandering on my own on the beach and walking the harbour quay daring myself to be washed off in a Spring Equinox tide, drawn by the glitter and gleam of the sea. I was alone... but not lonely… sort of wrapped in a permanent state of melancholic wandering.

So when I first came across an illustration in 1981, from Beauty and the Beast by Fiona Moodie, of Beauty lying next to a stream idly dabbling her fingers in the water while she moped, I recognised her mood.

At school I was fascinated by Velázquez’s Infanta Margarita Teresa in Las Meninas. She looks back at her parents who we don't actually see, but stand where we the viewer stand, with a certain hesitancy as if she is exploring who she really is. The inclusion of the mirror reflecting her parents seems to draw us in and questions reality and illusion. Is it reflecting the actual parents or reflecting what Velázquez is painting?

Years later when I came to live in London, I visited Venice for the first time. Then in 1998 I saw an exhibition at the National Gallery called Mirror Image with the byline... there is more to looking at reflections than meets the eye. Somehow odd threads were working their way into a story of a melancholy girl and Venice and mirrors. I’m not exactly sure when I realised that mirror-glass was the key to the story, but water was also part of it. Reflection. Inward reflection and outward reflection. What you see and what you don’t see.

These are all huge themes for a picture book. How to condense them? I found my imaginary girl in Daniela, a glassmaker’s daughter and without any prompting from me, Jane Ray drew her in a very similar attitude to Beauty in that picture book of 1981, idly dabbling her fingers in the canal water.

While I was working I was often at the V&A making quick notes on glassmaking and began a hefty file but once the story started coming together I collected the notes in a book I made, using semi opaque paper and envelopes and gilded paper to give the illusion of the secrecy that was part of early glassmaking. The date on these notes from the V&A, is 1998. Nineteen years later The Glassmaker's Daughter is finally published. 

 Jane Ray has an amazing ability to add small details to her illustrations that resonate and play with our subconscious. Subtle, even esoteric references, are made that can be enjoyed by the more astute, attentive child, but that don’t diminish the story if they aren’t picked up. In The Glassmaker’s Daughter, she paints one side of Daniela’s cap stormy with clouds and the other side sunny.  With the opening page she gives us Venice in all her moods by day and by night… something I had to edit out of the original text. The translucency of the glassware, is achieved with white outlines. In the scene where the lion-tamer falls into the canal, the lion is patched and rouged, as if for some burlesque show. 

So when people ask how long it takes to write a picture book, I never know how to answer, except to say that most are laid down layer upon layer, sometimes so deep, they can be traced not just to 19 years ago, but right back to childhood wanderings. And then the illustrator takes up the story and lays down her own memories. And hopefully the book meshes by a process of smoke and mirrors. 

The Glassmaker's Daughter is published by Frances Lincoln and out now.

Jane Ray has been nominated by IBBY UK fro the Hans Christian Anderson Award.

Zeraffa Giraffa, the play with a script by Sabrina Mahfouz, based on Dianne Hofmeyr and Jane Ray's previous picture book, is on at The Little Angel Theatre Islington and will move to the Omnibus Theatre in Clapham on 25th Nov.

www.diannehofmeyr@btinternet.com

twitter: @dihofmeyr

PAGE TO STAGE, Zeraffa Giraffa – Dianne Hofmeyr

André Refig helps Zeraffa onto a felucca in Khartoum – photo Ellie Kurttz

It’s been a long journey… that frisson of excitement when a theatre contacts you and says – there’s a story in this picture book perfect for adaptation… that smile that can’t be knocked off your face for days to come!

Then the first discussion in the lovely front of house bar café that is part of Omnibus Theatre that smells of good coffee with plush old sofas and a cat that twines its way between your legs and then falls asleep between some props. It seems perfect that my story has found a home in this beautiful old building that still has the letters Clapham Library in stone across its portals.

There’s much excitement as Artistic Director, Marie McCarthy, and Senior Producer, Felicity Paterson, explain how they see it… how shadow and puppets will evoke Africa, how they will introduce humour but at the same time plumb what the story has essentially to offer – strangers finding a home in a strange land.

It all sounds great. My head swims with visuals. But there’s a tiny loophole. For the green light, finance is needed. Actors, scriptwriters, directors, puppet designers, composers of soundtracks, lighting experts, set and costume designers and sound engineers all need to be paid. Nothing can proceed until there are funds.

Omnibus Theatre is an independent London theatre, with no source of guaranteed funding. Their audience spreads out from Clapham to include Balham, Battersea, Brixton, Putney, Streatham, Wandsworth and way beyond... but funds are dependent on box office sales and hires.

I wait for news. A year passes. Then a phone-call. An anonymous donor concerned by the plight of refugees has given support for the underlying message of the play. The reach is extended by the Little Angel Theatre in Islington coming on board and stepping up to co-produce. Doors open. The Arts Council England gives some funding. The play Zeraffa Giraffa becomes a reality – the giraffe starts another journey, a true North South crossing of London. Hooray!!!

Sabrina Mahfouz is asked to write the script ­– a perfect choice, born in Egypt and living in London, with an understanding of issues relating to the immigrant experience, she taps into the authentic voice and brings Arabic and French into the story. And Elgiva Field with her huge energy levels and vast knowledge of planning theatrical events in abandoned mansions and festivals like Latitude, comes in as Director. Then maestro designer and director of puppets in the shape of Matthew Hutchinson is called in. So meticulous is he that he studies the giraffe's anatomy and the affect different tendons have on its walking pattern. Then the talented set designer Ingrid Hu works her magic into the story and Candida Caldicott creates a soundtrack. And so the play is born.

My first view is in a rehearsal room. There’s so much to take in – the dynamics, the movement, the strong voices, the device of scale to portray such a vast journey. Rehearsals go on then a break for summer. A change of cast. Will this play ever happen? Then a date is ringed. It's my first proper viewing at the Little Angel. I step into the dark theatre to the sharp sound of cicadas. I’m totally submerged in Africa. I even smell the dust. Suddenly I’m very emotional. In a bright circle of light in the centre of a dark empty stage stands a small gathering of three giraffes. The baby one is there too.

There’s nothing more to say. Except that I'm totally transported. It's no longer my story but one that's brought to life by three people – Ashton Owen, Nadia Shash and André Refig, who for just under an hour hold an audience of children and parents in the cups of their hands. There is a fourth actor too that steps onto the stage with all the hesitancy and curiosity that I've seen in any baby giraffe on the wild plains of the African savannah. Totally and utterly convincing.

It’s easy to understand why the people of France fell in love with this creature.

Ashton Owen with the little giraffe

Nadia Shash & Ashton Owen with adult Zeraffa in Paris – photo Ellie Kurttz 

Zeraffa Giraffa based on the book by Dianne Hofmeyr and Jane Ray, published by Frances Lincoln, is presently on at the Little Angel Theatre in Islington for until 5th Nov and then moves to the Omnibus Theatre in Clapham on 25th Nov until 17th December. It’s suitable for 4 -10 year olds and perfect for school visits.

https://littleangeltheatre.com/whats-on/september-whats-on/zeraffa-giraffa/
http://omnibus-clapham.org/event/zeraffa-giraffa/2017-11-25/

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Jane Ray backstage with Matthew Hutchinson 

Dianne Hofmeyr's latest picture book The Glassmaker's Daughter, illustrated by Jane Ray and published by Frances Lincoln, is out now.  Jane Ray has recently been nominated for the IBBY Hans Christian Andersen Award. 

Twitter: @dihofmeyr

www.diannehofmeyr.com