An analogue author in a digital world - Tracy Darnton

Technology has conspired against me this month so, with apologies to all for the lack of a long blog of interest, I have smuggled this alternative message past my laptop.

I am an analogue person.
I like books, notebooks, fountain pens.
I have inky fingers.
I choose to sharpen my pencils and flick the shavings in the wastepaper basket.
I have a selection of fine pencil cases.

I write appointments in a tiny diary.
I like sending postcards. Even notelets.

My clocks have faces and hands and tick reassuringly.
I have beautiful hourglasses to time my writing.

Baking involves painstaking weighing of ingredients in balance scales and the juggling of tiny weights. Like a doll's grocers.

My car has wind-up windows.
I have a dog-eared roadmap and no SatNav.

I am happier as an analogue person.

I don't know the lingo - I may have completely misunderstood the nature of my opening line.

I don't like my laptop.
There, I said it.
I don't like my constantly crashing laptop which daily has some new horror:
display not loading,
Word not responding,
Google not responding.

All against the backdrop of holding my unbacked-up work ransom.
It knows there is no room left on my OneDrive - a concept which I only vaguely understand.

And it's switched to American spelling again.
It likes me to hunt for the @ key.

My laptop has taken offence at the large monitor I prefer to its tiny screen. It refuses to send any signal however much I change the HDMI cable and ask it nicely. I am reduced again to peering at one paragraph at a time.

I should have been a writer in times gone by - preferably a rich one, with a secretary in tweed in the corner. I could dictate my novel or hand over notebooks of scribbles and crossings-out.

Or maybe my little typewriter could be pressed into action.
If it weren't for the lack of a delete button.
If it weren't for the fact I'd be zonked out with Tippex fumes before the day was over. (Is Tippex still a thing?)

I shall have to bribe my IT department (teenager) to help again with a packet of Twirl bites.
My IT department takes a dim view of my whispering that the laptop is doing it deliberately.
But I know it is.

I shall of course apologise to the laptop and see if it is in the mood to forgive me.

I am an analogue author in a scary, digital world.
I just want to write.

Normal service shall be resumed next month.

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. It is a minor miracle that she manages to publish this blog online.

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

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

The New Laptop by Keren David

I have -  oh, joy! -  a new laptop. 

Not before time, the old one's case was broken, and in order to start it I had to apply huge pressure to the power button then pull the power cable in and out and start it again.

The day my son wore a suit and tie to kindergarten

The battery was completely fried, and so I could only use it if I had access to a power point. Sometimes I would sit in cafes forlornly waiting to be able to start work when the inconsiderate person hogging the only electricity supply had finished their cappuccino. 

But I  persisted in using it. I did not rush to buy a new one.

Maybe it was because I had written two whole books on it, and two unfinished ones, plus an unfinished musical. Maybe I felt that those unfinished projects would never be finished if I moved them to a new arena. Maybe it's because I am permanently wishing that my writing career would generate enough money to be able to buy laptops and other things without wincing.

When I wrote my first book -  just seven years ago -  we only had one laptop. My husband and I were both unemployed. We shared the computer. I used to book in time every day -  usually between two and four when he'd go for a walk on Hampstead Heath. I spent the morning thinking about what I would write, then wrote like crazy for every minute of my allotted two hours. If he dared to walk into the room before time, I'd snap at him. 

I wrote a first draft in four months. 

That was before I joined Facebook.

Now my husband has his own consultancy. His laptop broke last week, and he needed one to work on while it was mended. So he bought a new one and now it is mine. And it is quick and light, its battery works for six hours at least, and it has Windows Ten which I am sure will be a wondrous thing once I work out how to use it.

I spent all Sunday afternoon loading it with data. Music. Photographs. Documents. I sorted them, as though I was tidying my house. Here were those photographs of my son's first football team. Here was my daughter, dressed as Red Riding Hood for World Book Day. Events I'd forgotten - why did J wear a suit and tie to kindergarten? Did P's class really cycle all the way to the forest? 

 Let's make a file of mugshots of me, and all my book covers. And another for books finished and published,. And yet another labelled, excitingly, Active Projects.  I'll feel so much more organised. I'll work so efficiently once I can find everything I need.

I found my diary in one folder, written at a time when I was much less happy than I am today. I found my CV from before I started out on this new career. Setting up my laptop felt a little like editing a book or creating an exhibition, a curator's job, sifting what is needed and necessary from the past and making it useful for the future. 

I found photographs of my great-grandfather's naturalisation papers, containing the names of his parents, Lewis and Jessie Socolsky from Chernigow, which is now in the Ukraine.  My great-grandfather describes himself in the papers as a metal-worker. I have a pair of candlesticks from the metalworks which he ran. This summer my 15-year-old son visited the Ukraine, working on a children's summer camp. In no way was it his home, and yet here was our  connection.

Recently, my parents gave me  my great-grandfather's desk -  carved, dark wood, red tooled leather. I wonder if he wrote out his naturalisation papers on its top.

My new laptop has a clean, uncluttered desktop. Its memory is  empty. I wonder what I will write on it. I wonder what I will create. 

Turn on, tune in...? - John Dougherty

I forgot my phone the other day.

I hadn't gone far when I realised I'd left it in the kitchen, still plugged in to the charger; and I almost turned back to the house to get it. But then I thought, Well, I'm only going to be gone for a short while. It's not very likely that anyone's going to need to get in touch with me before I get back.

So I carried on into town. And although I wasn't without my phone for long, I noticed a couple of interesting things.

The first was how many times I found myself about to reach for it. It's become habitual for me - as I suspect for many of us - when I have a spare moment, to check my emails or my Twitter feed; to see if anyone's been trying to contact me. And even though my phone wasn't in my pocket, still something kept triggering that little internal prompt - I'll just look at my phone.

The second thing I noticed was how, as that prompt to check the screen was immediately followed each time by the realisation that I couldn't, the pattern of my thoughts began to change - and change in a way that felt oddly familiar. Without the constant interruption of the internet, my thoughts began to flow again.

The thing is, the ability to muse idly is pretty important for a writer, and it was disturbing to realise how little of it I've been doing lately. But the ability to just pause for a second and check my electronic communications had become a constant interruption to that stream of daydreaming, the little river of ideas that should run constantly in the background and into which we should be able to dip whenever our creativity becomes thirsty.

I'm making an effort now to diminish that habit - to remember that just because I can check the internet, doesn't mean I must. It'll still be there later. And as a result, I'm finding myself making contact with a way of being that I'd almost forgotten about.

The writer Jonathan Stroud has recently launched a campaign aimed at giving children Freedom to Think. Take a look; it's a very simple yet hugely important idea, and I'm entirely in favour of it. But the freedom to think - and the time and space in which to do it - is something that adults need, too. We need to allow ourselves to be bored.

____________________________________________________________________________

John's Stinkbomb & Ketchup-Face series, illustrated by David Tazzyman, is published by OUP.

WANTED: ONE TECHNICAL GEEK by Penny Dolan

It’s the start of the new academic year. 

It's a time for change. 

September is the month when lots of teenagers in the UK move on, leaving home for college or gap years or other adventures.

The growing-up may have felt, at times, like very long years, so rejoice now that change has arrived at last

 

Rejoice, for a moment, in what you’re losing.   All those late arrivals and sudden slam-door exits, the too-much too-loud music or grunts-plus-earphones; the washing machine full of dirty clothes; the presence of unknown bodies sleeping on living room floors and sofas; the big screens and small screens constantly flickering with fascinating stuff, and more.

Aha! Soon you’ll be nostalgic for bathrooms stacked with more grooming products than can be daubed on one person in a lifetime, Even so, it will also feel very good to reclaim some of the space that you knew was once there. 

However, before it’s too late, be aware of what you will be losing too. Especially  if you’re a freelance loner working from home. The person who is probably your most valuable technical resource is leaving. Not only will all that precious and vital energy disappear - and no, I'm not joking! - but so will all their random knowledge, skills and fluency with all things technical. 

From the moment that door closes, you will be relying on your own knowledge - and how does that stand up right now, all by itself? 

I have no precious teen tech around right now. I have no handy geek or wizard who can help me with the latest social media trends, no person who can explain how to do the things I want to do, or the thing I don't know I should know about.

I don’t sit there bleating (even if this post may seem so.)

I ask, I enquire, I go to the on-line videos and follow the simple steps. I google for answers, try things out and solve problems.  


But, but, but . . . so often I find a gap where an essential bit of information should be.

Yes, the screen can show me “this” but what about the “that” that goes with it? The missing link that takes such hours to discover, the reason behind x or y? I 'd really like to borrow a socialised techno-wise human being for a week or three, please. Aaagh!

Maybe you are lucky? Maybe you are young yourself or you work outside home and have easy access, not only to training but to the casual wisdom of facts being passed on and gadgets explained.

If not, be warned.

If you work at your writing at home, alone, from now on you’ll be battling with new media and new work at the same time, and there's not many hours to go round.  

Be nice to your nerds while you’ve got them. Today is the first of September. You’ve got about two weeks to download all they know.

Penny Dolan