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.

THE SILENCE OF ELEPHANTS AND BUTTERFLIES – Dianne Hofmeyr

For three weeks I’ve been travelling around Botswana without WiFi, texts, emails, Instagram, Facebook or Twitter. I notice something else very specific that's missing... something I’ve grown so accustomed to that the lack of it, almost makes me dizzy – no rush of cars, no throb of taxis, no bleeping of lorries reversing, no jackhammers ripping up tar, no police or ambulance sirens, no throb of music coming from cars, no buzz of Deliveroo motorbikes, no hum of air conditioners, no ping of texts. In fact not even another human within miles and miles… just our group of ten alone under two enormous baobab trees at the edge of the Nxai Pan. (pronounced nigh with a click at the beginning).

(all this written on paper a day ago when I was still in that miraculous place under a full moon)

A few weeks back, at Savute, the blue-black sky was filled with so many stars it seemed a million sparklers were alight. Over the weeks we've watched the moon change from the tiniest sliver in the west with Venus up close, to this great ball of light it is now, coming up full in the east, flooding the grasses and salt-pans… so bright, our shadows stand out dark.

At Baines Baobab campsite 2, in the early evening a hum comes off the salt-pan. Perhaps it’s the crust of broken salt making flutes for the faintly wafting air? Then as the sun slips away, the deep silence, broken intermittently by the yowl of hyenas, the yip yip of jackals and the prrr of a Scops owl. Lion paw prints when we wake in our Ihaha campsite on the Chobe river a few days ago, and the crocodile-severed body of an extremely large python floating in the reeds of the river, bare witness to quiet night-savagery.

The days are hot… 31 degrees… filled with the silent tread of elephant that emerge unexpectantly through the grass at the side of the track, and silent clouds of white and yellow butterflies that settle in the mud of the Chobe river. 

The horizons are wide. The sky immense. A photograph can never do justice to this landscape nor to the reflection of cloud and reed in the waters of Xakanaxa and sunsets across the water of Chobe.

My diaphragm loosens and my lungs expand. I’ve crossed a wide threshold to be here. Last year I was extremely ill. But here I am, doing this 3 500 km round trip in a hired camper-van through the Okavango Swamps to Savute, Linyanti and Chobe. Deeper and deeper into the heart of Botswana we go, staying in campsites with names like Xakanaxa, Khwai and Ihaha. I’m travelling with friends from varsity days. Five 4x4 vehicles. We sleep in our tent up on top of our vehicles. Some of my braver friends sleep in tents on the ground.

We get stuck in the sand and in the mud and are towed or winched out in turn by one another. It needs stamina.  Some tourists travelling alone get stuck in the mud for 6 hours and are eventually found in the dark by an army truck. 

I’m not a camper. The last time I camped was when I was twelve… alongside the Victoria Falls. Showering in ablution blocks under cold water is not my scene. At the most remote campsite near Baines Baobabs, where I’m writing this, we have had to bring in all our own water and firewood… not even a tap… just a pit toilet and an empty bucket with a showerhead. No one walks out to them at night, even under a full moon.

I think back to Thomas Baines, the British artist and explorer, who painted the clump of eight baobabs in May 1862. Little has changed. They were already thousands of years old then. In the painting they look exactly as they do now. In place of the ox wagons and horse drawn carts, are 4x4s, with tread on their tyres and a desire to explore some of the most historically significant and inspiring areas of remote Botswana. Baines’ two year trip from Namibia to the Victoria Falls was a death-defying journey, riddled with risk and danger. Many members of his group died en route, falling ill, and dying of starvation or dehydration.

We have forged our way here in six hours from the nearest small town along a sandy track that slews us around. And of course the trees are in leaf as they were in May 1862 after the rains and not the stark silhouettes we normally imagine of a baobab. We have fridges powered by a solar panel on out tent roof and ice tinkles in our cold wine. How good it is to laugh with old friends. How good life is in the silence of the African bush. Remote and removed.

This is me… is all I can think. I am here standing next to this tree. Present and now.

www.diannehofmeyr

Dianne Hofmeyr’s latest picture book set in Africa, Fiddle Dee Dee, illustrated by Piet Grobler, will be out in 2019 published by Otterbarry 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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INSPIRATIONS – Dianne Hofmeyr

Piet Grobler's exuberant illustration for our new book FIDDLE DEE DEE

Hopefully your celebration of the New Year was similarly robust. 

What’s not to like about the year 2018? Such a splendidly round number – plump and ripe and if you believe Chinese numerology, also very lucky with its 8, and the 2 for double or twice lucky, the 0 for limitless and the 1 for a beginning. New beginnings, limitless energy and twice lucky.  Sounds like a good year for writing.

What motivates or inspires us to write?

For me, so much seems to come from tiny, bright sparks of childhood experiences, a scene embedded way back in the brain, a sentence, a word, a room, a face. Slim, ethereal snippets that are somewhere in the subconscious. My cork-board, is not strewn with yellow ‘post-it’ notes of plots… but with pictures. Visual reminders of something I can’t quite place.

I’m like someone about to embark on building a house. I collect designs and ideas from magazines and photographs and put them in a folder. My end-product – not being as clear-cut as building a house – means I'm swamped. Some pictures go back more than 30 years.

Girl dancing with crocodile by Niki Daly on a note he once sent me more than 20 years ago. 

A metal sculpture, with in tiny print below November 1984

When I’m about to start working on a new picture book, the cork-board becomes my memory palace. The one below of an ice cave... probably stemming from a childhood visit to a cave in Africa not with ice but the same idea of darkness and light... went up for my next book, TIGER WALK.

On the board is a girl dancing with a polar bear juxtaposed with a picture of a watching tiger. 

The pictures are there for me to draw on. But when finally the story (without my pictures) is handed over to the illustrator, she or he will have their own memory palaces of ideas that are different to mine. And so the two meld and if the meld is strong, a wonderful book emerges that belongs neither to the writer or the illustrator but to something that is quite ephemeral.

A cave spread by Jesse Hodgson for our new book TIGER WALK

And in the making of the book, just as in the pottery studio where an accidental fingerprint on an otherwise perfect pot, adds its own dimension, so stories acquire shaping through the personal touch of both the illustrator and the writer.

In 2018, dream more, look harder, don’t judge yourself or others, do things that make you laugh and hopefully new beginnings, limitless energy and twice lucky will fall into place. 

www.diannehofmeyr.com

Twitter: @dihofmeyr