Wednesday 31 July 2013

The Many Might-Have-Beens of Children's Books


In the last week, I’ve been asked to write some text for a book about stately homes and another one retelling Shakespeare plays for children. The publishers will use the texts I’ve written to create sample spreads, which they’ll take to book fairs to try to drum up interest from foreign publishers. I sincerely hope both will turn into books one day, but I’m not holding my breath. I know from experience that many of these ‘trial balloons’ float off into the Bologna sunset never to be seen again.

©The Salariya Book Co
Publishers selling foreign rights using sample material.
But what happens to the sample material?

Over the years I’ve probably written a couple of dozen sample spreads, and in my editing days I’ve commissioned a good deal more. A LOT of work goes into the writing, the artwork and the design. They’ve got to be representative of the proposed book, but also a bit more than that. Like a Facebook profile, the sample spread has got to show off its product in the best possible light – it’s got to be more colourful, more lively, more eye-catching than the book it’s selling could ever hope to be.

Some are quite gorgeous to look at and read. Yet their readership is tiny, and the ultimate destiny of many, if not most, will be the dusty corner of an editor’s hard drive. If I ever looked back at all the many books and series that didn’t make it past that stage, I could end up feeling quite depressed – so I try hard not to. The same cannot be said for my fiction, however…

The world of fiction has its equivalent of the sample spread: the synopsis and sample chapter. Of course it’s the author who’s usually the initiator here, and the ‘customer’ is an agent or publisher, but the same principles apply. Of the many fiction projects I’ve pitched, some were rejected and others were accepted but changed beyond recognition.

A few, luckily, ended up as published books – but, funnily enough, I find I think less about them than the ones that didn’t make it. They’re my unborn children, frozen at an early stage of development. They’re the flowers in my garden whose buds got broken off – little packages of potential that will never be anything more.

Maybe that’s why they’re interesting. As pure potential, they exist in a place unsullied by the compromises and ineptitudes that are part and parcel of the publishing business. They’re still perfect. And I’m free to wonder how the world might have taken to those characters, those stories, had they ever seen the light of day.

© Hodder & Stoughton
In Fforde's novel, 'Dark Reading Matter' is an alternative dimension
where unrealised fictional characters enjoy a kind of existence.
Is this every author's dream – or nightmare?
In his novel The Woman Who Died A Lot, Jasper Fforde introduced the concept of Dark Reading Matter, a place where all these unrealised imagined worlds congregate: characters from works long out of print co-mingle with those from as-yet-unpublished works. It’s an exotic idea. And it’s exciting to think that it exists – sort of – in the dusty corners of editors’ hard drives the world over.

Tuesday 30 July 2013

Heroines are not just for girls! Lari Don

I’m very wary of being a “girls’ writer”. I am a girl, or I used to be, and both my own children are girls. But I don’t write for girls. I write for readers. I write for readers like me who enjoy adventure, tension, riddles, magic, defeating monsters and solving problems. Some of those readers are girls, some of those readers are boys.

However, I’ve always been a bit concerned that so many kids’ books have a boy as the protagonist and a girl as the clever sidekick. So the main characters in all my novels so far have been girls (usually with a male sidekick, though not always a human male sidekick) and as far as I can tell, from emails and signing queues at book festivals, boys enjoy my novels just as much as girls.

But now I’ve done something a bit risky, for someone who doesn’t write for girls. I’ve written a book of heroine tales.

Most of my fiction is inspired by old myths and legends (that’s where my familiarity with magic and my long list of monsters who need defeated come from) and I love telling old stories too. I especially love telling Greek and Viking myths. But most of the best known monster-defeating myths are about boys and men. About heroes. And if girls appear in those stories at all, they’re not even the sidekicks. They’re usually the prizes.

“And the man who rids of us of this dragon will win half my kingdom and my daughter’s hand in marriage.”  

I don’t like giving girls away like sweeties. So one day, I changed a Viking dragon myth.

Standing up in front of a class of 10 year olds, I let the dragon eat every single one of the princes and warriors, and encouraged the princess to kill the dragon herself then refuse to marry anyone. It went down very well with the audience and I enjoyed it at the time, but I felt absolutely rotten afterwards. I felt like I’d ripped the heart out of the story.

So if I wasn’t prepared to alter stories quite so radically, either I had to tell all these hero myths without any balancing heroine myths, or I had find some authentic heroines. So that’s what I did. Once I started looking, I found dozens of them: Inanna the Sumerian goddess, Durga the Hindu goddess, the ballad of Li Chi, Tokoyo the pearl diver, unnamed girls in folktales from all over the world. All defeating monsters or solving problems. None of them waiting for some bloke to rescue them.

I started telling these heroine stories. And kids loved them just as much as they loved Theseus and the Minotaur, or Assiepattle and the Meester Stoorworm. Boys loved the heroine stories, just as much as girls had loved the hero ones.

To be honest, I doubt any of the kids were counting the number of boys and girls in the stories. It was probably only me who was worrying about the cumulative effect of the imbalance of heroes vs heroines.

And now comes the risky bit. I’ve just put my favourite heroine tales into a book. But it’s not a book for girls. No, it is not. It is a book for anyone who enjoys adventure and quests and magic and defeating monsters.

So I was delighted when, at my first public event with Girls, Goddesses and Giants earlier this month, several boys turned up, and they enjoyed my retelling of a goddess defeating a demon just as much as anyone else. And they bought the book. One 11 year old boy read most of it on the way home on the bus.

So boys can enjoy books about heroines too. (Whew!)

I’d be interested to know other writers’ and readers’ opinions on whether there are too few strong girls in the well-known old stories which inspire so much of our contemporary culture, whether that imbalance is a problem (for boys as well as girls), and if so, how we address it.

And in the meantime, I’ll keep looking out for more authentic heroine stories. But I still don’t write books just for girls…

nb - I’m away from my computer for a few days (scheduling posts ahead of time is a great thing!) but I'll respond to any comments as soon as I’m back online.


Lari Don is the award-winning author of more than a dozen books for all ages, including fantasy novels for 8 – 12s, picture books, retellings of traditional tales and novellas for reluctant readers. 

Lari's book of heroine stories, Girls, Goddesses and Giants, was published earlier this month by A&C Black. 
 


Monday 29 July 2013

Just Do It!


I have just been interviewed for the local press about my latest book. I was asked the old chestnut, "How do you motivate yourself to write?" and I was very tempted to answer rather grumpily (well, it is hot!), "I don't know, I just do it!" But of course I have to motivate myself, in much the same way that I have to motivate myself to get off my butt and exercise every day.

In fact, motivation comes from getting twitchy if I don’t do the two things that make me tick: writing and running. I feel just as agitated if I can’t get out for a run as I do if I can’t carve out time to sit with a pencil and notebook or my laptop.

To quote from Haruki Murakami’s memoir What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, “For me, running is both exercise and a metaphor.”



Writing and running have become intertwined in my life. Until I had read Murakami’s book, I did not know that anyone else felt the same way. I certainly do not put myself in the same category as Murakami, either as a writer or a runner – he now runs ultra-marathons as well as being a world-renowned, best-selling author – however, both activities are part of my daily routine in the same way they are with his; they are part of what keeps me sane and fit and healthy in mind, body and soul. I feel I cannot do one without the other, and I am certainly not in my right mind or my right body if I do not find the time to do either.

In his memoir, Murakami tells of how, before becoming a full-time novelist, he had an active lifestyle, running a jazz club in Tokyo. As soon as he gave that up to concentrate on writing, he realized that he was going to have to find a way of keeping fit, as a writer’s life is, of course, mainly sedentary.

This, too, was my motivation. I had worked in London as an editor and had been used to walking to work, running up and down stairs, going to the gym with friends and so on. I then had two small children after whom I ran as well, but once they were at school all day and I finally found the time to write, I realized that I was no longer moving around so much. And so I took up running.

At first then, that is all it was: a way to keep fit. And, as Murakami says, “Running has a lot of advantages. First of all, you don’t need anybody else to do it, and no need for special equipment.” A lot like writing, then!

Gradually it became apparent how much the two things had become wrapped up together: I would drop the kids off at school, go for a run and, during the run, start to churn over thoughts on writing. Knotty plot problems would often unravel during a run, conversations between characters would unfurl, ideas for settings or descriptions of the weather would come to me as I pounded the pavements in rain, wind, sleet or sun. If I did not get out for a run, I missed it: simply coming home from the school drop-off to sit at my desk felt wrong and had me pacing the house instead of concentrating.

When I first started running I could not run for more than a maximum of twenty minutes without being in pain. I had to make myself go out every day and try to go just that little bit further. I run along a towpath by a canal, so I would use trees or benches or narrowboats as markers to see if I could push myself to go further.

And so it has been with my writing: when I first started writing, I could not write for long periods of time either, and I could not write long pieces. I had to push myself just that little bit further over time.

Murakami has it right, I think, when he says, “What’s crucial is whether your writing attains the standards you’ve set for yourself […] writing novels and running full marathons are very much alike. Basically a writer has a quiet, inner motivation.”

He also says that he likes to run, “the point being to let the exhilaration I feel at the end of each run carry over to the next day. This is the same sort of tack I find necessary when writing a novel. I stop every day right at the point where I feel I can write more. Do that, and the next day’s work goes surprisingly smoothly.”

This is the pace I have tried to set myself too, both in running and writing.

I finally wrote my first long piece of fiction for children after a year of motivating myself to write every day. And I ran my first marathon two years after pushing myself to run further and faster by following a daily training plan.

I am constantly aiming to improve my writing and push myself to explore new ways of writing. Currently I am trying out writing for an older age group. I am also trying to improve my running and to keep it up, no matter what excuses present themselves! At the moment it is so hot that I have to find the right time of day to go out. And writing is always tricky in the summer as I have the children at home, wanting to be ferried to and fro.

But if I go the whole summer without writing or running, my head and body will both suffer. And so, each day, I suppose I do tell myself (to quote Nike, this time!) “Just do it!”, and I always feel better when I do.

www.annawilson.co.uk

Saturday 27 July 2013

Reading can save your life - Lily Hyde


My little niece poisoned herself last week. Many panicked questions (and a trip to the hospital) later, we found out she had been eating green arum (or lords-and-ladies) berries from the hedgerow. She thought they were peas. 

While everyone else started discussing forest school and the yawning distance between today’s children and their natural environment, my only question was “Why hasn’t anyone given her the Flower Fairy books?”

It seems to me now that I grew up doing nothing but read books, and usually ones that featured princesses, fairies and pretty dresses. I was hopelessly girly and bookish. But I bet I never ate arum berries by mistake, because Cicely Mary Barker’s Flower Fairy books, as well as being as full of pretty dresses as any little girl could wish, are also botanically accurate and contain many useful footnotes on the names, properties and uses of plants.
The Lords-and-Ladies fairy (from Flower Fairies of the Autumn, By Cicely Mary Barker) 
Here is Barker on another poisonous plant, woody nightshade, which grows all around where my niece lives:

“Why should you think my berries poisoned things?
You fairies may look scared and fly away –
The children will believe me when I say
My fruit is food for kings!”
But all good fairies cry in anxious haste,
“O children, do not taste!”
 
Footnote: You must believe the good fairies…

 After Barker’s fairies Alison Uttley, Laura Ingalls Wilder, BB and T H White are other children’s authors from whom I learned about the natural world. I was a hopelessly bookish child, but I think I know more about the countryside than many people who never read books. I’m looking forward to sharing these books with my niece when she’s a bit older.

The Flower Fairy books are already in the post to her. And if she starts to believe for a while that tansy flowers are buttons for fairy jackets, I think that’s a small price to pay for her avoiding such hazards as nightshade and yew berries, and learning the good uses of blackberries, rowan, elderflowers, sloes…

Her grandmother also showed her some real peas growing in their pods after the arum berry incident. My niece’s first question was “Grandma, when will your peas be frozen?” Maybe now she’ll start thinking the fairies do the freezing.






  
  

Friday 26 July 2013

Summer of Love - Andrew Strong

I’m tired. Too tired to play with you. Entertain yourself. I’m too tired to think, let alone write. Life is exhausting. Life is killing me. Dream up your own blog, yours will surely be better than this desperate jumble of vaguely writing related rants.

Listen, don’t read my blog. Look at the hedgerows and the trees. See the sun sparkle on the sea. Listen to a blackbird, or a thrush, or whatever little brown bird it is making all that noise. Smell the newly mown grass, the honeysuckle, the coffee, the roads melting.

Still with me? Oh, fair enough. Here goes then.

I finished the first draft of my next novel back in March, I put it away knowing I was close to getting it right, but too overwhelmed by work and life to sort it out. I put it away and forgot about it. It was nice, the feeling that it was there, simmering, my new book, so I could get on with real life, and specifically my day job.

My day job squeezes every cell of creativity. I’m a headteacher. I spend more and more of my working day fulfilling daft bureaucratic obligations, ticking boxes, writing policies no one will ever read. On those days when I feel completely strangled by the idiocy of ministerial initiatives, when nothing makes any sense, when I have to meet with parents whose children are struggling to read and I have explain that progress might be slow and it won’t be easy, and I have to be careful with each and every word, and, at the same time, thinking of the mountain of irrelevant stuff that I’ll have to sift through before I can go home, then the thought that my book is sitting at home, the world I’ve created, waiting for me to rediscover it, this, more than anything else, keeps me going. When the summer holiday comes, I say, then I shall rediscover my book, then I shall find my book.

And so it’s the summer. Here I am ready to open the file, start work again. Except I’m still too tired, too angry, too twisted up. The residue of the day job lingers like the smell of dead fish. I need the day job, I need the money, I can’t quit. And I have children on the verge of leaving home, they’re ready to go but can’t quite make the leap. I want them to go, I need them to go, they should go, but they won’t. They eat everything, they use up all the electricity and bandwidth, all my patience, they fill the house with their noise, their quirky slang and their discarded snack food packaging. I love my children, I will miss them, but I want to get on, I want to write my book.

Yes, it’s the summer, so I can write! No. You’re wrong. It’s the summer and we must enjoy ourselves. We must be seen to be enjoying ourselves. When I remonstrate that we don’t need to do these things, that all I want to do is curl up with a good book – my book – the children tell me I’m miserable or boring or some such other lazy adjective.

So we zoom to a cottage by the sea. We swim, surf, paddle, kayak, eat outside, visit a dismal local attraction, see a film, laugh at panting dogs, run up and down cliff paths, get sunburnt, make seaweed wigs, spot a celebrity, guzzle Cornettos and finally, when we’ve had our fill, and there is no more work, or fun, to be done, and the children are sated and silent, and the house sleeps, then, perhaps then, I will tiptoe downstairs and be where I want to be, writing my book.

Thursday 25 July 2013

No Conferring - Tamsyn Murray

Picture the scene: a lone figure hunches over a keyboard, tapping furiously at the keys. Occasionally, they might look up and gaze into the middle-distance (or at the ceiling), then type some more. Their expression may be one of pure joy or desperate misery or, quite often, the gentle frown of someone who can't quite recall when they last ate or drank. They cannot sleep, cannot rest, until they have finished their story and must have silence in order to do so. Writer, thy name is solitude.

That's the traditional view, and it's certainly the one some publishing professionals still seem to hold. I've heard several tales from fellow writers recently which suggest that some editors\agents\big cheeses actively discourage their authors from talking to other writers about anything. A conspiracy theorist might suggest that some of them* don't want us talking to each other, in case we compare notes and say, 'Hang on a minute...'

But actually, this post isn't about what editors and agents think about writers communicating with each other and getting out and about - it's about what you and I think of it. Anyone who follows me on Twitter will know that I go to the Romantic Novelists' Association conference each year, in spite of the fact that I don't necessarily consider myself a writer of romance. But that doesn't matter; what I go for is the platinum advice and writing tips being shared (which apply no matter what it is you write) and to catch up with friends. And if a certain amount of note-sharing goes on about our experiences, that's fine too. What I do know is that I never fail to come away feeling inspired and re-energised.

It's not all writing, writing, writing - what more could you want to take away from a writing conference than your very own Film-Star-Onna-Wine-Glass? (see Nicola Morgan's post on diversification)

I'm probably preaching to the converted here but it's been something of a light bulb moment for me to realise that writing doesn't always have to be a solitary craft. OK, so the actual business of getting the words down probably works best when you're not in a room full of interesting and funny people with fascinating anecdotes to share but I've come to see getting together with other authors is both inspirational and educational. In fact, it's critical. You don't have to go a conference, it could be a tweet up or a launch or any number of things involving drink. I found going to a session on writing for television at Chipping Norton Litfest to be hugely useful earlier this year, because it made me look at how I can make my dialogue work harder and say more with fewer words. And a reading I did at Barnet Waterstones a few months ago led me to have coffee afterwards with the lovely Abi Longstaff and we had a fab chat about what we were doing writing-wise that reassured me enormously.

I guess what I am trying to say is that we shouldn't get caught up in the idea that writers are solitary beings and that writing is a lonely business. It can be, of course, especially if you don't shower for several days and your family refuse to approach you downwind. But if you make the effort to get out there, you'll be rewarded. Just remember to change out of your dressing gown first.

*Can I just say here that my editor and agent are not like this at all and are both completely lovely? Of course I don't mean them. Thank you.

Wednesday 24 July 2013

The Silly Season - Liz Kessler

OK, so some of my recent posts have been a bit on the deep and meaningful side, often talking about dealing with tricky times. So I thought that I'd redress the balance this month with some light relief - especially as it's summer and the sun is shining (or at least it was when I wrote this).

Firstly though, a warning for any ABBA police out there. I confess, this post has very little (OK, nothing) to do with writing. It's basically about having a smile and a giggle and I would have a hard job pretending it was anything more or less than that. So I won't even try.

So, get yourself a cuppa, take half an hour out, and enjoy some of my favourite funny videos that I've seen online over the last year or so...

This is probably my favourite ever video. Remember the incredibly dodgy, odd music videos they used to produce in the 80s? Well, here's one of the best - only with new lyrics to match what is actually going on in the video.



While we're on music videos, here's another one. I've gotta say, I like this version better than the original. (And if you enjoy this one, there are many more 'goat versions' out there. Look up 'Titanium', 'Baby' and 'I Will Always Love You' goat versions on YouTube.)

One last music video. I only just saw this a few days ago, and it's gone straight into my top ten list of funny vids.

OK, so this one is for all those who fear the dentist. Or who have every had anaesthetic and felt a bit odd afterwards. Bet you never felt quite this odd!

This one is pure genius. And a wonderful response to homophobia and bigoted people who don't believe in equal rights.

I couldn't compile a list like this without a few animal videos. So here are three of my favourites...

And finally, this one isn't a comedy video, but there's something about it that I find so infectious and happy-making, so I thought I'd include it.

Stop Press! One final video has just sneaked onto the list. Slight warning - this one contains adult content and a bit of nudity. But it's VERY funny!

Amanda Palmer sings a letter to the Daily Mail

Hope you enjoyed some of these as much as I did. Now, get back to work!

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Tuesday 23 July 2013

Tips for finding a publisher - Lynne Garner


Recently I did a talk for a local group and at the end of the evening a lady came up to me and asked how I managed to get published. I told her I researched for a suitable publisher and contacted them. "How do you know which publisher?" was her next question. Now this isn't the first time I've been asked this so to all those hopeful authors here are the five tips I gave her:

One:
Purchase or borrow a copy of writers' and artists' yearbook. This is filled with both useful articles and page upon page of publisher's details (set out based on genre). 

Two:
Pop along to your local bookshop. Pull out books similar to your book and note the publisher details. I've found the best method is to take a photograph using my phone.

Three:
Search the Internet using terms associated with your book. This will hopefully highlight publishers tip one and two haven't.

Four:
Check your own bookshelves and those of family and friends. Again look for books similar to yours and take the publishers contact details.

Five:
If you read or know of a magazine that also covers the same subject as your book scour the pages for new books. Often the publisher's details are also supplied and again simply take a note of them.

Once you have a list of possible publishers your next step is to research if they:
  • Still publisher 'your' type of book
  • Accept un-solicited manuscripts
  • Deal with un-agented authors
  • Are looking for new books at present or only accept book ideas at certain times of the year
Once you've researched fully you'll have a list of publishers who could be just right for your book. Your next step is to follow their submission guidelines, submit your book idea and wait. 


If the above tips spur you into action please pop back and let me know how you get on.


Lynne Garner


P.S.

I have three new distance learning courses commencing in September via Women On Writing: