THE SO SPEEDY READER by Penny Dolan

                                   
 

 A day or so ago, as I scrolled through book-related social media, my mind seized on a question shouting from the screen.  

“How many books do you read in a month?”

How many books can I read in a month? I thought, the question already squatting on my worry list. 

Oh help!

The night before, at my monthly book group, I was handed the single library copy of next month’s title, Lady of the English by Elizabeth Chadwick, to read pretty nippily and pass to others. I am interested in this historical novel - about Queen Matilda - but the need to speed-read 500 pages as soon as possible feels a very mixed blessing, as well the rush being slightly disrespectful of the author’s work. So, with my own worry in my head, I studied the question again.

                                        

The writer, in a particular group, was worried she might be falling behind in her reading. Surely the more books she read, the better, she seemed to feel? So, being nosy, I scrolled down through the group’s comments and could hardly believe the replies.

The number of ‘books read per month’ for some members rose into the teens, and even into the mid-twenties. Could these unknown bookworms really be reading a new novel every two or three days? Honestly, the rate seemed hardly credible.

What was it with these twelve, fifteen, eighteen, twenty-five books?

How did these particular readers even find the time?

And what was the reading culture that lay behind the pattern?

Then I realised that these enthusiastic over-readers could well be what keen teen readers become as they grow older. Some of them might even be teens still, and in school or college? How on earth did this frantic ‘more, more, more’ mood relate to children’s books and the practice of reading?

Several thoughts started going round in my old, trying-to-be-curious-and-please-not-too-judgmental mind. 

Now I confess I am a greedy reader myself; starting as an early reader, I have always sped through pages too quickly, driven to know the plot. I do wish that I could read more slowly and enjoy the moment and the text better, as well as remembering more about the book when I’d got to the end. I know, myself, that faster reading is not, of itself, a good or admirable skill, no matter what merit it once had in school.

Was the reader's anxiety about the quantity of titles read the consequence of her education? Were her habits the result of years of those school reading schemes where answering chapter-questions indicates progress and approval, and got you the next tick, star and book in your book bag? Did this quick, credit-based system, which can now be done by children online from home, mould their reading experiences? Next, next, on to the next!

Then I wondered about the kinds of books that the grown-up speedy readers chose. They often seemed to be from a single known genre (such as contemporary psychological thrillers) rather than complex or different novels. There seemed to be an enthusiasm within the group for binge-reading series written by a favourite, familiar voice, which I can totally understand, as well as praise for certain authors who seemed to produce several novels a year.  

Who? What? Where? How? Whatever? This bit of book world puzzlement is still to be solved!                                                                                           

Besides, it seemed that long and complex novels were not really their thing. Is ‘shorter and thinner’ where books are now, even for grown-up readers? I can’t remember names like Kate Atkinson or Hilary Mantel being suggested, or any older novelists. Maybe those older novels simply take too long to read and so lower the book score? Although not everyone has plenty of time, surely anyone naming twenty book titles a month might be interested in trying them out?

Gradually, I realised the group seemed to have a trans Atlantic audience, reminding me of question UK writers, for young or adult, often face: Will it sell in America? Or should that now be Is it short enough for the American market? I don’t know.

                                    

Thinking of length, I’ve noticed, on various books & education threads, that teachers often ask for class ‘read-aloud’ novels (often based on a school topic) but they mostly wanting titles that can be read within a half-term. Ah well. Maybe the WIP will need more editing than I imagined? So do watch your word count, especially if you want your book to be read for any of the children’s choice book awards.

Back to another super-reader factor: many seemed to download their titles. They were reading on screens, phones and kindles rather than through real-world books. Once a book was done, it was done and on one went to the next new title and the next new writer. This was not a market, perhaps, where a publisher’s spray-edged, special-gift-edition of a prized title would mean much. Reading, for this group, was the consumption of an experience, without any ownership of an object.

Besides, within the current housing and rental market, is there any space for filled bookshelves or a personal library, whether for the adults, or for children? Surely, this absence must make teachers demonstrating the valuing of books even more essential, culturally, along with the need for good, well-managed public libraries?

                                          

I noted, also, that while many in the group got their books from charity shops, some stated that they never paid for books, even though they rarely mentioned library or use of an e-library. 

They always got their books for free, they said, and only ever read free books. How? Were these titles promotional give-ways, delivered so the chosen reader would recommend that authors’ work? Or were they, I asked myself darkly, downloading free titles from the various pirate book sites? Harumph!

As I muttered on to myself, another point struck me. Perhaps these super-readers included ‘listening’ to books rather than reading from books with pages? The quantity suddenly suggested that this could be their form of reading. 

Now the act of reading, to me (and especially reading with children) includes the visual pattern of print on the page, but many teachers and librarians also seem to say that listening is reading. The listeners hears the story, voice and vocabulary of the book just as validly as if they read the pages in a traditional way.

However, if these readers are ear-reading rather than eye-reading, what else they are doing at the same time, other than concentrating on their novel? Were they, despite having to accept the speed of the story, actually skim-listening or skim-reading? Who knows? 

And there is that other small problem with the attention. I know that, although I have enjoyed many great ‘listens’ on audio-books, keeping your mind on the story is not always easy, especially when you are involved in another task or a busy activity. That's when I remember that turning back though pages feels a lot easier than rewinding and trying to find your place.

Besides, if you are in a comfy chair or bed, audio-voice makes it so easy to drop off to sleep . . .  As you may be by now, after listening to all my questions, queries, suppositions and suggestions. Thank you for your patience.

                        

But, honestly, reading twenty-five books in a month? That one historic tome may well be enough for me, and I am looking forward to it. 

Have a great July - and please read as much or as little as you want.

Penny Dolan

To social media or not to social media? by Holly Race

Anyone who has stepped foot in Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or TikTok will know that they can be perilous places. It's so easy to get sucked in, either arguing with someone whose mind you're never going to change, or comparing your own success (or lack of) with others who are on the same path. It's a drain: of time, of mental energy, of emotion.

But I can't pull myself away! I love being able to keep in contact with my readers and with other authors, to keep abreast of what's happening in the book world and to applaud my peers' successes.

I've been wishing for a while that I could find a better balance with my social media use: being smarter, spending more time engaging with others instead of firing off every random thought that comes to me when I've inevitably had too much coffee and too little sleep. Thus I found myself on Neema Shah's incisive and practical 'Marketing for Writers' online course. I won't share exactly what she taught me, but her guidance has led me to both realisations and a much more fun and fulfilling social media experience.

Here are a few insights I got into my own personal online experience:

• Facebook is going to remain a platform I use to connect with other writers rather than readers. My audience - mostly teenagers and people in their 20s - don't really use Facebook anymore.
• Twitter doesn't enjoy me talking directly about my books - in a month when I had a lot of events lined up, I actually lost followers! It's a much better site for getting and giving recommendations of all kinds.
• Instagram, conversely, much prefers me to post pretty pictures of my own books to anyone else's! I love sharing photos of my latest book haul so I can't see myself changing my posting habits, but it was interesting to note the difference with Twitter nonetheless.
• TikTok. Ah, TikTok. I'd avoided doing anything more than scrolling through this newest platform until recently, because it makes me feel very old and uncool. However, I dipped my toes in last week and had a surprisingly pleasant experience. I had more fun on social media than I've had in a long time. TikTok seems to love a bit of sass, and with an endless stream of prompts, it's not as creatively draining as I'd feared it might be. The Bookseller recently reported a 61% uptick in sales of YA books, largely thanks to TikTok. I don't know whether it's a coincidence or correlation, but my own book leapt up the Amazon rankings a day after I posted my first video...

I'll be interested to see what else comes out of my new, hopefully more streamlined, way of thinking about how to use social media. I never want to chase followers, but given my work is largely solitary, I'd love to be able to reach more like-minded readers and writers across the globe in a meaningful way!

---

Holly Race worked for many years as a script editor in film and television, before becoming a writer.

Her YA urban fantasies, Midnight's Twins and A Gathering Midnight, are published by Hot Key Books.

www.hollyrace.com

Finding your tribe by Vanessa Harbour

The pace of life can be so fast these days. Many writers have several jobs on top of writing. When we are writing we know that by its very nature is solitary. You can spend hours on your own:

Writing.

Deleting.

Staring at blank screens/pieces of paper.

Doing research – best procrastination ever – often even now that can be online so you might not see anyone.

Yes that it is my favourite Lamy pen
awaiting inspiration and given to me by a great friend/member of my tribe

Between these moments of being caught up amid the pressure of all the jobs and the writing on your own there is a risk that you might not keep in contact with your ‘tribe’. 

I use the term ‘tribe’ loosely but mean in the sense of community who share the same ‘language’, a close-knit group who get what you are trying to do and understand the problems you might be facing.  You are probably a member of several ‘tribes. They maybe are interlinked. Everyone’s tribe could and should be different. I know in my own family ‘tribe’ if I start talking about writing they get that glazed look of someone who is listening politely but really doesn’t care. They ask me polite questions but don’t get the process and wonder why things happen the way they do in publishing. It is difficult sometimes to explain. The tribe I am talking about here are fellow writers, editors, publishers and agents. People that you come across during your journey. 

Image: https://www.trzcacak.rs/

Due to my disability and work commitments, it often means I can’t get to some of the amazing events and book launches that happen. I watch from a distance.  Relying on social media for an insight into what is going on there while offering support and congratulations. There are some people who are quick to knock social media and it does have its moments, but I have made some wonderful friends through there and keep contact with many. Social media moves fast and there are all sorts of political and ethical issues connected with some as well. I am not entering into those debates in this piece. For me, I use Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook, for the moment. When you have something to celebrate there is nothing like the social media hug you receive. People are so supportive.  I will add a caveat don’t be afraid to step back from social media at times. There are times it can be overwhelming. I regularly take a break.

Do also check out the hashtags on Twitter that @AnnalieseAvery sets up, she always has exciting things planned and is brilliant at bringing people into the tribe. I also love podcasts (@damian_barr is another one to follow - great podcasts and book info). They are wonderful things to talk about on Twitter if you are nervous about getting involved.

In the last couple of weeks though I have been reminded of how important it is to actually physically see the people in your tribe. I know I said it is not always easy for me, which makes it really special when I do.

The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) had their UK conference recently. If anything should be called a ‘big hug’ that should be. Such a supportive and enthusiastic environment. It is always full of joy. I was there to help out with my one of my close tribes: The Golden Egg Academy. Seeing them was always going to be a good start as a lot of our work is done via skype. I also got to catch up with agent friends, former students and Eggs. Writer friends were there in abundance. I saw Candy Gourlay, who I have known for a long time, mainly on social media and only occasionally IRL. Candy grabbed me and took me into the keynote in the afternoon. It was a wonderful talk by Mini Grey. Candy and I though took 15 brief minutes just to sit and catch up. It is amazing what you can cover in that time. Our children, the world and our writing. Talking to her took a great weight off my shoulders. It was a chance to be reminded of other people’s journeys. It is not always as simple as you remember.

Later in the week, I found myself in a beautiful, if wet, Sheffield, once again surrounded by awesome authors at the Sheffield Children’s Book Award. In particular, it was brilliant to meet the author Andy Sheperd IRL as we have so much in common. We spent the day catching up whenever we could. Touching base and understanding we come from the same place. We laughed so much.  

I confess for a moment when I sat in the auditorium of The Crucible Theatre, surrounded by hundreds and hundreds of school children who have read your book I felt pretty emotional. It was another great reminder of what an awesome tribe your readers can be.  I also remembered exactly why I write. For everyone in that place. Readers, librarians and teachers are fabulous. They are a great tribe to be part of too, so enthusiastic.

Both occasions were a great reminder that sometimes you just need to stop and talk with your tribe. Importantly as previously mentioned I know it is not always about the good stuff. Don’t be afraid to reach out if you are having a tough time. Your tribe will have your back. It often helps just being able to talk about things.

If in doubt, find your tribes. I know I am lucky with all mine.

Dr Vanessa Harbour

@VanessaHarbour

www.vanessaharbour.co.uk

http://chaosmos-outofchaoscomesorder.blogspot.com

Tom Ripley, Campari and how technology can ruin a good plot by Tracy Darnton

Tom Ripley and I got reacquainted on a sun lounger in Italy this summer. Patricia Highsmith’s book written and set in the 1950s describes a time when an affluent American could decamp to beautiful villas in Italy for the price of a waffle and soda back in the U.S. and swan around collecting antiques and bohemian artist friends. And, *major spoiler alert*, Tom Ripley can pass himself off as the American he murders on the basis of a slight resemblance to a grainy passport photo.

I got to thinking over a Campari and a bowl of olives about how this could be made to work in the present day. Answer – it couldn’t. A five second look at Facebook and Instagram would have shown the Italian police exactly what Dickie Greenleaf looked like. His bank card would reveal what he’d spent and where. And mobile telephones would ruin the way Tom evades Greenleaf’s friends and family.

I should add that one of my sons kindly provided some impromptu research on how Ripley could exist in modern Italy by managing to break his phone, not remember our mobile numbers, have his wallet and bank card pickpocketed in Rome and still blag his way to the North of Italy with seven Euros and a half-remembered B&B name for our rendezvous. But somehow it didn’t seem very realistic. Too far-fetched to put in a book.

I’m currently editing my next novel – a contemporary psychological YA thriller – and, like my last one, I have to grapple with the omnipresence of tech and social media in the world in which my young characters live.

Thriller writers are already battling the annoying realities of forensics and police investigations. As a YA writer, I want my 17-year-old main character to have agency so must also side-line any pesky adults in positions of authority. The list of things to tackle and exclude is long and growing.

Short of setting everything back in the day of a temperamental telephone with a cord that could be cut, or in the middle of the ocean, I’m forced to tread a fine line between reality and plot to make the latter believable and current. All this needs to be achieved in a subtle and original way as we’ve all read books where we can too easily spot the moment that the author gets rid of the mobile phone to keep the plot going. 

As I gazed out of many train windows in Northern Italy visiting places like Trento and Bolzano half-hoping for a glimpse of Tom Ripley, I pondered another classic: Murder on the Orient Express. Poirot would be able to use the train Wi-Fi to check up on his carriage full of suspects and spot the link between them all. Since batteries have a longer life or a portable power bank to keep them running even longer, a mobile phone out of charge now seems hopelessly unrealistic, especially as even the train has charging points.

It’s not just the curse of the smart phone, all those plots involving actual letters would have to go as no one writes letters anymore. Like Tess of the D’Urbervilles where Tess’s letter to Angel gets caught under the doormat with disastrous consequences.  

Or the use of traffic cameras in The Great Gatsby would have shown exactly who was driving the car that killed Myrtle.

Books where characters get lost would be ruined by Google Maps,  and ditto for plots where people go missing and could be easily found by a track my phone App.  

Any dodgy hotels would be ruled out by a quick flick through TripAdvisor. Marion would never stay at the Bates Motel in Psycho. No one would move to 112 Ocean Avenue after a brief look at Zoopla’s neighbourhood guide and thus avoid The Amityville Horror.

But, surrounded by kids on trains watching cartoons or adults taking endless selfies of themselves, I was struck more than previous years about the need for all of us to unplug from our phones for a while. And when I read a book – the ultimate unplugging experience – I want to get away from all that. I don’t want Google or Facebook or Apps intruding on the story. I need a plot given time to evolve and breathe. 

I still hope for random meetings of strangers, letters written in ink, puzzles to work out for myself – and teenage kids to find their parents come what may. 

And I want characters like Tom Ripley to be reading newspapers and sipping cocktails in the sunshine, unplugged.

Tracy Darnton is the author of The Truth About Lies, shortlisted for the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize 2019. She has an MA in Writing for Young People.

You can follow Tracy on Twitter @TracyDarnton and on Instagram tracydarnton

Time to Write by Vanessa Harbour

L to R Gordon Smith, Antoinette Moses,
Melvin Burgess and me
Photo courtesy of Gordon Smith

Recently I had the pleasure of appearing at the Fly Festival of Literature for Young People. Before our event, Antoinette Moses, the brilliant organiser, author and lecturer, Gordon Smith, author and patron of the festival, and I were sat together having a wonderful natter about writerly things, as you do. The subject of finding time to write came up and it made think… a lot. Antoinette was very strict; she always writes a thousand words every day. Gordon admitted he used to write for many hours every day, but since having children it wasn’t quite so easy. This I could empathise with. I have periods of time when I can, like Gordon, write for hours on end, but then there are other times when I find it almost impossible to squeeze in even ten minutes, let alone finding time to write Antoinette’s thousand words.

Driving back to Winchester from Norwich I contemplated the idea of time even more. Time is so precious and time to write even more so. There is so much pressure on us that eats away at this precious writing time. It is almost impossible to be ‘just a writer’ these days. In 2018 ALCS produced a report which highlighted how an author’s income solely from actual writing had dropped to £10,437. With the best will in the world, this is not a salary anyone can realistically live on. (The government’s national living wage equates to £15,269) Consequently, the majority of authors are having to supplement their income through having another job, doing events, if children’s writers they might be doing school visits – though we all know due to funding cuts those are getting few and far between too, writing articles, anything that might bring in additional funds. These all require time and effort that take writers away from writing.

Personally, I have two jobs as well as being an author. I am a senior lecturer in creative writing at the University of Winchester and Head of Academic and Business

Preparing to do a Skype
event

Relations/Mentor and Workshop Leader at the Golden Egg Academy. I love these jobs as it means I get to work with people who love to write. However, it also means my head is often full of other people's works. During a recent marking period, I looked at nearly 300k words worth of work belonging to others, including my external examining work. That is not including my Golden Egg work. It is in these moments that it can be particularly hard to find the time to write. I have had to develop strategies in order to deal with all the words belonging to others floating around my head. I have written about it here. Basically, it is all about emptying those words out of my through freewriting before writing, literally vomiting on the page. Or refocusing by reading a different format, for example reading poetry before I write prose.  

Add into this mix the fact that being an author itself is time hungry. Gone are the days of writing your novel, handing it over and disappearing back into your ivory tower to write your next one. Now there is all the social media activity, maintaining your website as well as the events. Don’t get me wrong I do enjoy these, but they take time, a time when you could potentially be writing. I do have to be strict with myself over Twitter, for example, or I would be on there forever as there are some wonderful people on there. Fabulous teachers and librarians, other authors and aspiring writers, who are all fascinating to talk to. But conversing with them doesn’t give you time to write.  It is about prioritising. I allocate certain times of day for social media and use scheduling tools such as Tweetdeck to help me manage my time better and so that it doesn’t become overwhelming. However, I still feel I am not doing enough and not making enough connections. It is such a difficult thing to balance.

Also, when considering actual writing time, it is not just about time for putting words on a page. It is allowing time for pre-writing, latent processing where you are mulling ideas and plot issues over, doing research, world building and creating three-dimensional characters. There is so much more to writing than putting words on a page.

Time for latent processing

Going back to the wonderful Antoinette and her determined thousand words a day. This is something I am going to give a go at. I am very conscious that when I don’t write my mental health suffers, so I think I might also be helping myself by trying it. I have always been a bit wary of being determined to write every day because of that sense of failure if you don’t achieve it. However, listening to Antoinette talk about it, I realised that it didn’t matter what words were written, it was the fact you were writing that was the most important thing. This really inspired me as it felt less pressurised. It would mean that it didn’t matter how tired I was, or how full of other people’s words, something would come out of it. I already carry a notebook always to jot down moments of inspiration as they come, and I am going to make more use of that. I am going to take snatched moments to write as well that can feed into the focused thousand words. As Antoinette said, ‘It’s all about habit.’ I am going to create this habit as I think this will help me timewise in the long run. I’ll keep you posted, and we’ll see how I get on. I am looking forward to it. I also hope you all find time to write, feel inspired and a little less pressurised. 

Vanessa Harbour

Author/Lecturer/Mentor

Flight - Firefly 2018

   

The Fine Art of Not Housekeeping by Steve Gladwin

There must be something happening in the abba blogisphere. People have been writing a great deal about the way they work, about the highs and lows of social media, about avoiding distraction and even about their state of mind.

I’m about to add to this – mostly - serious thread, and I hope you won’t consider it too frivolous. I thought of the idea almost three weeks ago before anyone had posted any of the above topics. Rather than back away and think of something else, I was determined to go through with it. Posts often have tended towards the serious and I’ve been as responsible for that as anyone. We all need a break into the slight and chucklesome, but there is also a point at the heart of this. So here for your delectation is a blog about how to use writing to avoid housework.

It’s like this. I hate housework, and I love writing. One I find sometimes alarmingly easy (and I realise this may be tempting fate so I’m touching wood as I write), whereas the other I somehow manage to either get out of, set up a whole load of avoidance tactics for, or do a token amount of and that grudgingly. I know I have the excuse of being a bloke, but it’s not really good enough, is it?

I have my reasons of course. I lived with someone for five years who had cleaning and ironing OCD and wasn’t afraid to impose it. I have a bit of a housework phobia in the same way as I have a kettle and washing machine phobia – because they were on all the time and I couldn’t escape them. I am also dyspraxic which means I get easily side-tracked, (that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it!) Now I live with someone who once worked as a chambermaid and hates housework about as much as I do. Yet somehow our house stays clean enough not to disgrace us, and I actually quite enjoy cleaning the kitchen now. OK, I admit it, Rosie does most of it!

But if I do want to steer clear of the housework I have a simple strategy. I write! It’s alarming how easy it is to find inspiration when  the household tasks are piling up, or it’s my turn to do whatever. And you should try it sometime, you writers who want to avoid the housework. Hours and even half days can go by before you need to worry about it again, and in the meantime you might have had a brand new creative idea, or made a deadline earlier than you expected, or created a winning story entry. And where’s the harm if the pots pile up, or the hoover stays in a corner or your clothes are slightly creased?

When can I get back to the writing?

So if anyone’s interested in this strategy, here are my top ten (fairly) fool-proof suggestions.

.

*Begin writing as early as you can - say after you’ve had breakfast and /or a shower and got dressed. Better still begin when you get up because it’s amazing how many chores you can avoid if you make an early start.

*Play music while you write, either loudly, so you can't hear the sound of undone housework, or better still plug yourself in. Being lost in two worlds at once is a great way of ensuring that the horrible world doesn’t intrude and ruin it.

*Set impossible deadlines for your day that you simply have to complete, and that means there’s just no time for anything else, sorry. And should your deadline/schedule be so impossible for that day you have the perfect excuse for moving the rest to the next day, and the day after that etc.

*Have a list of tasks or target list, (mainly to do with writing – you’re a writer after all!) on a piece of paper. You can include things like a walk, doing yoga, eating biscuits, but the important thing is not to put housework on there, or you’ll suffer a pang of conscience and we can’t have that!

*Try the putting off until tomorrow approach. Most writers try this one on with challenging chapter re-writes or tedious close edits of their MS, or worst of all working through an editor’s pedantic notes, but at least if your housework doesn’t get done because of it, you can feel smug about your writing.

*Encourage long winded phone or skype calls with fellow writers and creative collaborators - especially those who you can guarantee will talk a lot - which take up the valuable time you might have been side-tracked hoovering or ironing. This may have the added bonus of leading to new work or ideas, or even both, and so what if you end up sneezing because of all the unhoovered dust, and looking like a dog's breakfast because of your scrunched up clothes, you’re a writer, right? You're supposed to look bohemian, You probably should live in a garret!

*Pretend you’re some kind of foreigner and scratch your head in amazed confusion when your partner tries to instruct you in the use of the washing machine. Alternatively find the actual instructions, but somehow miss the tiny bits written in English and instead struggle over the Swedish or Russian with a suitable frown. Now exhausted by all that effort, you can return to the snug safety of your writing where foreign instructions will never hurt you.

Confused of Powys

*Boast to all of your writer friends on social media about the huge amount of housework you’re doing. This may be an outright lie but at least it’s writing!

*Better still set up an online writing support group with a few like-minded friends. Make sure you all time your conference calls just when the household tasks are piling up. Feel better about your ignored burden by helping your fellows writers with theirs.

*Take the ‘walking always leads to wonderful creative ideas’ approach, (it always does for me!). Make sure you set out early and come back late with no time for housework in between, and too exhausted to think about it when you get back.

There, I hope this has been useful. And let me know if anyone wants to set up that group! Now I've exhausted myself thinking about it all. Time to lie down. The housework can wait until tomorrow.

  

Thunderbirds are go! Zzz

  

        

   

WEIGHING THINGS UP by Penny Dolan

To my mind, February always ends suddenly, as if it decided to take a couple of days off without telling anybody. Two-headed January bumbles past but then - today! -  March is here and already and it's looking scarily busy. Not only do I have a couple of big family events, some World Book Day Week/Fortnight school visits to do - but I really, really need to get on with some writing.  

A little tense? Moi?

However, Eric Maisel, a creativity "guru", mentioned recently by Heather Dyer, offers an interesting concept. He believes artists have to face two kinds of anxieties.

On one hand, there are all the anxieties you suffer when you aren’t able to work for a variety of reasons. You’ll be anxious because you have no time to think, no time to turn the thoughts into words. You’ll feel the frustration of being caught by other demands, the sense of being suspended from what you should be doing, uncomfortable at a deep, gut level, even when you try to still the emotion. Recognise that feeling?

On the other hand, he says, are all the anxieties that come when you are working: all the self-doubt, the tangles in the working process, the crises of confidence, the feeling that the work is not going as it should, that it is no good, blah blah blah. Working is often uncomfortable too.

Eric Maisel suggests that the artist -  in this case, the writer -  is better off learning to accept that both states of anxiety constantly exist, rather than wasting energy over the conflict between the two states of mind. 

Maybe that's why the use of an outside device, such as the famous timer, acts as release from that transfixed "blank page" state?

In addition, I also heard – while busy with my tax returns - someone on the radio explaining that each time we spy an email, go to Facebook, play a quick game, tweet and so on, we get a buzz, a small dopamine reward. 

She said that the danger of those small social media "rewards" is that they help you procrastinate, and deter you from the harder and longer work where the rewards aren’t so quick. Oh bother!

Hmm. On one hand, some things to think about . . .

On the other hand, stop wasting time looking for "rewarding" answers.

Memo to self more than to others: GO DO THE WORDS!

Have a great World Book Day!

Penny Dolan

Bring Me The Teenagers - Liz Kessler

Last month, I wrote about how overly attached we can get to our phones and to the desire to share everything we experience – instead ofjust experiencing it. (How did you get on, by the way? Did you cut down at all? I…um…well, I tried!)

I guess this blog might be continuing that theme in a way. It’s about social networking. Only, this time, I want to pick your brains.

Next May, I make my YA debut with my novel Read Me Like A Book (which, incidentally, I just received the bound proofs for, and I am completely IN LOVE with this cover, designed and painted by my very talented artist friend Joe Greenaway.

This book is HUGELY important to me and I want to do everything I can to give it a good send off into the world. Because this is a brand new tack for me, I’ll be doing a lot of things differently. I’m already fairly active on Twitter and Facebook – and I do my monthly blog here – but there are all sorts on online hangouts that I know almost nothing about – and I think it’s time to get educated.

Currently, I use my author page on Facebook to write about my books, post lots of photos of sunrises and my dog and the sea, and have lovely chitchat about mermaids and faires and time travel, mainly with my readers, their parents, a few librarians and a bunch of supportive friends. On Twitter, it feels much more about chatting with my writing peers – other writers, bloggers, bookshop people etc. Think publishing party, only without getting drunk on free champagne and making a fool of yourself in front of the MD.

So that’s all well and good, and I enjoy it. But I want to spread my writerly wings. In particular, I want to talk to teenagers – and I don’t know where to find them!

So this is a question aimed mainly at teenagers, parents of teenagers, writers of books for teenagers who interact online…

Where are you? Where do you hang out? Which are your favourite online haunts? And what do look for or expect from in the different places you frequent?

I take a LOT of photos, and should probably be on Instagram. (In fact, I kind of am but I don’t really use it.) I have been told I should get onto Tumblr – and would love to go for it, but every time I glance at it, I feel overwhelmed and bewildered. I’m also kind of half-heartedly on Pinterest, but only so I can look for desks for my new office. And I have got a few videos on Youtube.

The thing is, though, when we try to keep up to date with ALL the places, there’s no time left to, well, you know, write the books. Which I kind of need to keep doing. So I don’t want to join them all. But I’d like to pick the best one (or at most, two) new social networking sites and give them a good go.

So, help me out here. What should I pick? What do you use? Where are my potential new teenage audience most likely to look for me? Any and all opinions on these questions will be gratefully received.

Thank you! :)

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