Retreating - by Nicola Morgan

I recently went on my first writing retreat. It was to Retreats For You, in deepest Devon, with Lucy Coats, Mary Hoffman and Anne Rooney. For some inexplicable reason, this quickly became referred to as the Naughty Retreat. *cough*

I'd put myself under pressure for this trip. I knew I had to break through some writing barriers. Or what? Or I was going to feel really bad about myself and my (fiction) writing. As you may remember, I've explained that I've been writing so much non-fiction for the last few years that my fiction brain has ossified.

This retreat was to sort that out. I didn't have a word target (though I did want at least 5000 words out of it - which isn't much but would be more made up stuff than I'd managed in the previous few months) but I wanted to "get into" the novel I had just started and get to know my fictional character. I wanted to get some kind of "flow" going in my writing. I wanted to feel like a writer again.

My agent, eternal supporter as she is, had inadvertently almost scuppered this before I started, by telling me that I should not for one moment think that only my fiction made me a writer. She told me to be proud of my non-fiction success and not beat myself up if that was "all" I was doing at the moment. Not so easy. Hearts and heads don't do the same things.

ANYway, should you ever want to give your writing brain or heart a boost with a retreat, Retreats For You is the place!

I walked for hours. And found mysterious and rural settings, objects and inspirations for my novel, which is not now going to be set in Scotland...

Once, I walked so far into the wilderness that my imagination started to get the better of me and I had to return hurriedly to human civilisation before I met the axe-murderer who was cracking those twigs over there.

I wrote, in my thatched cottage bedroom, fuelled by coffee.

I wandered in the village and loved its library telephone box. 

I found a dragonfly

AND A SNAKE!

And every evening at about 6pm, THIS was brought to my room! Yes, it is Prosecco! Which may go some way towards explaining why was this called the Naughty Retreat.  

We were delightfully cared for by Deborah and Bob, with their home-baking, their willingness to do or provide anything and their general laidbackness. And the roaring log fire every evening. Well, it was apparently July.

But, did it work? Well, I did write 5000 words and, reading them back a couple of weeks later, I like the words. My character did start speaking to me and I do love her and want to know more about her. I did spend a lot of time writing (more than the 5000 words suggest) and I did feel like a writer. 

On the negative side, I didn't achieve that "flow" I'd been wanting. I think this novel is too early, too fragile yet. And I think the ossification I mentioned is too, well, ossish. But I did get the sense that one day I could get flow back again, if only I would allow myself more time like this. 

More time like this? You mean I could go back to Retreats For You with the Naughty Retreaters? Bring it on!

Nicola Morgan writes fiction (really!) and non-fiction and still spends too much time doing speaking engagements about adolescence or the reading brain and readaxation. Information and contact at www.nicolamorgan.com

Authors giving work experience - does it work? by Nicola Morgan

(Adapted from my own blog, as it's relevant here and I'm not a little fraught.)

Writers are increasingly asked to offer work experience to school pupils and young people increasingly have to ask for it. Some of you might have wondered what you'd do. One writer-friend of mine was contacted by a young person who said, "Nicola Morgan says..." as though I know something about the whole thing. Well, as you can imagine, I have some thoughts...

For example, recently, a 13 year-old girl, Iona, came to me for a week. I nearly said no but I'm so glad I didn't. Although I'd had an excellent experience once before, I had vowed never to do it again because after that excellent one I had two instances of agreeing to offer work experience, spending a great deal of time working out what we would do during the week or fortnight and then being let down at the last minute. I also had several people contact me in extremely lacklustre ways, along the lines of "I have to get some work experience - can you give me some?" Which is not likely to work.

It's not easy for a writer to offer work experience. Most of our work is in our heads and no one else can do it. It's hard to find things that someone else can help with. And there's not much room for two in my office! But I like helping young people and I like learning from them, which was why I offered that original work experience a few years ago.

Still, for the reasons above, I'd decided not to say yes again. Until Iona came along.

It was her email that did it. She was excited, bright, had done her research, gave enthusiastic reasons for being keen to work with me. She ticked all the boxes and pressed all the buttons. So I said yes.

Then came the forms from her school. Health and safety; employer's insurance; impossible things for me to fill in. So I phoned the school and said I couldn't do it because I couldn't fill in the forms. I wasn't an employer, for a start. And I didn't have time or inclination to jump through hoops.

However, where there's a will there's a way and we agreed that it would be a private arrangement between me and Iona's mother. Luckily, Iona's mother was a model of common sense, and so was I, so we got this sorted in a sensible way.

Iona was a complete and utter delight. So easy to have around; independent; very keen to learn; said yes to everything; brilliant with You-Tube and a camera... 

What did we do?

• Iona helped with ideas for a novel I was stuck on. 
• We had a meeting with my publicist and discussed various upcoming projects, including marketing for Brain Sticks.
• We both had some writing tuition from Lucy Coats - that was fun!
• Iona contributed to an article on author events which Duncan Wright, school librarian, and I were writing for the School Librarian Journal. She had to give her viewpoint as an audience member and she made some excellent points, one of which I've already used in my own events.
• She interviewed me and filmed me, putting together a video; she also took some other footage which we're going to use in the future. I regret to say that she laughed at my appalling acting skills, but I'll forgive her for that because it was hard not to laugh.
• She helped me get to grips with iMovie...
• We assessed a picture book manuscript that a Pen2Publication client had sent me (with the client's permission)
• We talked about and worked on all the editing processes of a book's journey
• She had to assess a revision website I'd been asked to give an opinion on - our opinion was not very positive!
• She wrote a stunning email to a company for me.
• I gave her some advice on a piece she was writing for school; and her revised version was SO good. But, more importantly, when she wrote that email for me, it was a brilliant email because she'd taken on board everything I'd taught her. As Lucy said, "she soaks up information like a sponge."
• She spent a day with literary agent Lindsey Fraser.

Iona was so excellent and so nice (nice is very important when you're working one-to-one) that I've offered her paid work in the holidays. She's coming with me to the Aberdour festival, where she will help me with my events and do more filming. She's also coming to the Edinburgh Book Festival with me, to two of these events. And then she's going to put together a new film for me: A Day in the Life Of an Author. I can't wait! Because, although she taught me how to use iMovie, she's still a million times better and faster than me.

Iona should be very proud indeed. She will go far!

Tips for young people who are thinking of asking for work experience with an author:

• Research the author and show that you know what they do and why you want to work for them.
• Be very enthusiastic and polite. Even use a dollop of flattery... *cough*
• Show that you understand that work experience with an author is unusual and difficult; show that you want to help as well as learn.
• If the author says a polite no, write a polite reply. They might have something for you in the future.

But the big question is WHY? Young people, ask yourself why you want to do this? What do you hope to learn and what do you think would be interesting. And for authors, why would you want to do this? For me, it's simple: I like giving opportunities for talented and eager teenagers to push themselves. I get a buzz from that.

Good luck to both parties! It can work really well.

Do take a look at Iona's short video interview here and you'll see why I say she's good:

I will be at the Edinburgh Book Festival often between Aug 15th and 31st - do let me know if you'd like to meet up. How about coming to the event I'm doing with Cathy Rentzenbrink (author of the heart-wrenching The Final Act of Love and also director of the Quick Reads charity) and Charles Fernyhough, psychologist and expert in the neuroscience of reading. Our event is about the science of reading and I'll be talking about the science behind Readaxation and the power of reading for pleasure and wellbeing. Email me: n@nicolamorgan.co.uk

Readaxation - by Nicola Morgan

"Reading for pleasure" is something I think and talk about a lot, as I know many of us on ABBA do. I believe there are major benefits to individuals and to society in people spending time reading for pleasure - by which I mean "reading intending to enjoy it".

It's important for at least two reasons:

• The logical one: young children need to spend vast numbers of hours practising reading if they are to become expert or even functionally literate, and young children especially just won't put in those hours if they don't enjoy it. So, it's got to be pleasurable for them to do it enough.
• The evidence-based one: research (for example the 2009 PISA report into the levels of and trends for reading for pleasure in 64 OECD countries) suggests that young people who read every day for pleasure do better at school. (On its own, this doesn't prove causation but the study alos considered socio/economic effects.)

There's another reason, though, and I was thinking about this the other day because I'm working on a book about teenage stress: reading for pleasure feels like a very good way to reduce stress. 

I did a bit of digging and found this report on a study by Dr. David Lewis, cognitive neuropsychologist at the Uni of Sussex, showing that reading (even for a few minutes) had a greater effect on reducing heart-rate than the other methods tested, with a reduction of 68%. Dr. Lewis suggests an explanation: "By losing yourself in a thoroughly engrossing book, you can escape from the worries and stresses of the everyday world, and spend a while exploring the domain of the author's imagination." 

I never believe a newspaper's interpretation of research so I went hunting for the actual paper. I couldn't find it, just eleventy-million press reports! But I did find this interesting critique, which alerted me to the fact that it was a very small study, on only 16 participants, so probably not really enough to get too excited about. 

However, since I'm not a scientist and since anyone who is stressed doesn't have time to wait for scientists to prove properly that reading can relieve stress, I'm going to continue to believe that it does. Because I feel that it does and I bet lots of people agree. Frankly, that's quite enough for me. I don't need scientists to prove that reading is relaxing - though I'd eagerly read their research if I could find it.

Anyway, I've decided that the idea of Reading to Relax - Readaxation! - is going to be part of my work as Patron of Reading at Larbert High School. Here's what I plan to do:

• Commit myself to spending at least twenty minutes a day reading to relax. How can I ask pupils to do it if I don't?
• Aim to create a state of mind called narrative transportation during that reading time - in other words, not just skim-read but make sure I read something I'm enjoying so much that I become engrossed. I suspect this is important for the stress-relieving aspect.
• Ensure pupils understand the benefits to them of daily readaxation.
• Motivate keen readers to set aside that time and to value the pleasure, not just treat it as a treat.
• Motivate and help reluctant readers to find something they will genuinely enjoy reading. I'll use keen readers to help here, by recommending exciting reads. I have a fun plan for this - I will report back to you if it works!
• Show all pupils how to notice and record their feelings of stress before and after their daily pleasure-reading dose.

I'd love to know any other insights you might have into the idea of readaxation?