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Shh! I shouldn't be writing this on the Wednesday afternoon before it's due. I'm locked away in Devon, and I should be head down, working on my novel. But as usual, life got in the way, and I didn't manage to post something wise and insightful a week in advance.
The thing is, life has got in the way quite a lot lately. I won't go into details, but there it is. I'm behind where I should be, running to keep up and not miss deadlines and not disappoint people (including myself). I knew it was going to happen, and that's why, for Christmas (and birthday and probably next Christmas as well), I asked, for once, for something I really really wanted.
Time to write with no distractions.
It's a precious thing, is time, especially writing time. I can't actually remember when I had a stretch of it unbroken by that life-getting-in-the-way thing I mentioned earlier. But now I do, and I'm appreciating every moment of its extreme preciousness. So here I am, in the tiny village of Sheepwash in Devon, at the amazing
Retreats for You, being cossetted (including nightly hot water bottles and glasses of wine brought to my room), cared for, fed delicious meals (which I'm not allowed to clear up after), and above all LEFT ALONE to do what I really want to. Write.
Yesterday I wrote over 3000 words. I haven't done that in a long time. Today I'm already up to 1500 (and that's not including this post). I'll be at 3000 again by the end of the day or bust, and I'm here for nine more whole days, leaving the family and dogs behind to take care of themselves.
I can't even begin to tell you how marvellous it is to say that. Sometimes, as writers, we just crave quiet and time and space to think, and it's not always easy to come by. As a mother and a carer and a person who wears far too many hats, I'm pretty hard on myself. Writing is supposed to be my full-time job - and yet, far too often, I find myself squeezing it in around everything else. The gift of what I really need - time to do the work I love - may not be everyone's idea of the perfect present, but it is mine, and I am grateful to my family for understanding that and for making it possible.
Long live
Retreats for You (trust me, if you're a writer you NEED to come here!), and I know you'll forgive me if I get back to my novel now. I'll see you all again on the other side!
"rippingly funny…offers food for thought on everything from absentee parenting to the mistreatment of animals (even immortal ones)."
Publishers Weekly US starred review
Coming in May 2015 from Orchard, Cleo (UKYA historical fantasy about the teenage Cleopatra VII)
Young Adult and children's books are a force to be reckoned with in the UK economy.
"Children’s represented a record 24% of the print market in 2014, and for the first time the sector’s full-year value sales eclipsed those of BookScan’s Adult Fiction category"
said The Bookseller's review of the 2014 market. This should be good news for all UK children's authors, but it's the UKYA authors in particular I want to focus on here.
"2015 will be OUR year!"
If I heard that said once, I heard it twenty times last Monday night, at #DrinkYA - a party to celebrate the shortlist for the newly fledged
YA Book Prize, sponsored and supported by The Bookseller and others including (Movellas, The Reading Agency and World Book Day, and organised by Anna James (
@acaseforbooks) along with the fab Bookseller team, the indefatigable Jim Dean (
@yayeahyeah blog) and Louie Stowell (
@louiestowell). It wasn't the authors there who were saying it, though. It was the bloggers, and in particular the bloggers passionate about UKYA, and determined that books coming out of Great Britain and Ireland should be as big as those in the currently US-dominated market.
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Jim Dean and Abi
Elphinstone at
#DrinkYA |
It is an indisputable truth that US authors currently lead the YA market. John Green, Veronica Roth, Suzanne Collins - all have had massive bestsellers, and not only due to the films that have been made out of their books. Why shouldn't UKYA authors have the same success? It's a tricky one. For a start, the UK and Ireland fit into the state of Texas not once, but twice. The US market is huge from a population point of view. They just sell a vaster quantity of books there. However, I firmly believe we can compete.
Last year we had YALC, organised by our brilliant Children's Laureate, Malorie Blackman. It was a stonking success. This year, hopefully, there will be another YALC. But first there will be the YA Book Prize.
The shortlist is out, with eleven UKYA authors on it (one of the shortlisted titles, Lobsters was jointly written by Tom Ellen and Lucy Ivison). What struck me about the list was how diverse it was in subject matter and writing style. There is modern myth (
A Song for Ella Gray), fantasy witches (
Half Bad), family dysfunction (
Salvage), ghostly horror (
Say Her Name), contemporary teen issues (
Trouble, Goose, Lobsters, Finding a Voice), dystopia (
Only Ever Yours) and thriller (
The Ghosts of Heaven).
 |
James Dawson and
Non Pratt at
#DrinkYA |
Also, although there are a couple of more well-known names on the list, there are some debuts too, and some who deserve to be better-known than they currently are. This can only be a good thing. The YA Book Prize is a bold initiative, arising from a strong feeling that it was time to celebrate the wonderful homegrown authors we have, to promote them, and to let everyone know that we can stand shoulder to shoulder with the best of the rest of the world in terms of quality, and we should all be applauding that.
 |
Book bags at
#DrinkYA |
Those bloggers who were at #DrinksYA (and many more who weren't) do an amazing job in helping to get the word out to readers. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. We need to appreciate their dedication, their passion, and the time they give to writing about (or filming) pieces about what they love and sharing it. There is a HUGE book buying community out there - we know that more than ever now - and the bloggers and vloggers are doing more than their bit to fuel its appetite. I am constantly amazed and heartened by the amount of book chat there is both on Twitter and Tumblr (just look up 'booklr' on the latter, and join in the frequent #UKYAchat, #YAie and #UKMGchat events on the former). There are forums too, and the latest -
Bookish Peeps - is a wonderful community (just created by blogger Jesse Owen of
Books 4 Teens), all enthusing about books and reading.
 |
Anna James of
The Bookseller at
#DrinkYA
|
In the end, if 2015
IS going to be our year as readers and writers of UKYA, we have to engage, be passionate, talk about the books we love (and yes, put up positive reviews on the dreaded Amazon and Goodreads), and generally support events like YALC and the YA Book Prize. 'Proselytize' and 'Evangelize' are not two of my favourite words. However, I am prepared to be both a proselytizer and an evangelist on behalf of getting UKYA the worldwide attention it deserves. How about you?
"rippingly funny…offers food for thought on everything from absentee parenting to the mistreatment of animals (even immortal ones)." Publishers Weekly US starred review
Coming in May 2015 from Orchard, Cleo (UKYA paranormal/historical novel about the teenage Cleopatra VII)
Last night I took part in the very excellent #UKMGchat on Twitter. For those of you not well-versed in the Twitness of the Universe, this is a hour every month when authors and others - bloggers, teachers, librarians, readers - take part in a scheduled chat about middle-grade books and reading. It usually has a theme, and last night's was myths and legends, curated by Sarwat Chadda, who knows a thing or two about inserting ancient gods into modern life. It was fast, furious, wide-ranging, and asked such questions as where myths end and fairytales begin as well as discussing people's favourite MG books, why Zeus had such loose morals (and why Hera put up with him).
It also made me think about the MG series I've just written - Beasts of Olympus, (illustrated by the incredible David Roberts) - and try to define just why I enjoyed writing it so much. Essentially, the premise is simple. A boy called Pandemonius (Demon for short) is plucked from his life on earth, taken up to Olympus, and given the job of stable boy to the immortal beasts who live there. Of course, it's not as easy as that. Poor Demon has to contend with vicious claws, stings and beaks - and angry goddesses who don't like their nighties smelling of poo, among other things. He also has to contend with the bloodstained results of a certain 'hero's' animal-slaying antics - and this is where the fun came in for me.
When I teach my Guardian writing course - and when I do events in schools - I tell my students that there is one question above all they must ask: WHAT IF? So I asked myself what if that well-known hero, Heracles, was actually a complete rotter? What if he was actually the baddie in the story? What if all those animals he killed down on earth were actually immortal? Who would treat their wounds and patch them up? What kind of person would he or she need to be? What qualities might they have? For me, asking those questions, deconstructing and refashioning the way I'd thought about certain mythical characters, was a refreshing change which made the whole myth canon come alive for me again.
I've worked with these myths for so long - retelling them in various forms - that I almost couldn't see them any more. Taking them as the basis for something completely fictional of my own creating was a (literally) novel experience, and one I've enjoyed immensely. The Greek gods and goddesses have always been the most human of deities - they quarrel, are jealous, love, and have emotions just like us. But for me they were locked into their own myths. I knew them, but I didn't 'know' them. Now I do. I've had to delve deep into their characters, had to dig out their quirks and foibles, and visualise them from the point of view of a scared eleven-year-old boy who is terrified he'll be turned into a smoking pile of ash at any moment. I've also had to think about the beasts who are the whole raison d' être of the series. I suppose this is my nod to the animal rights movement - I've given the Hydra (also known as Doris), Kevin the flying horse, and Arnie the Griffin a voice so that they can make their feelings known. And boy, do they have feelings and opinions! Sometimes I have so much beastly clamour in my head that it's hard to disentangle it!
I hope Zeus and Hera and the rest of the Olympians will forgive me for revealing all their secrets - if not, and you hear of a lightning bolt striking a house in Northamptonshire out of a clear blue winter sky, you'll know what happened to me. Meanwhile, a very happy Christmas from me when it comes, and look out for some beastly and Demonic doings in the New Year!
Coming in January 2015 from Piccadilly Press UK & Grosset and Dunlap USA: Beast Keeper and Hound of Hades (Beasts of Olympus)
"rippingly funny…offers food for thought on everything from absentee parenting to the mistreatment of animals (even immortal ones)." Publishers Weekly US starred review
This is not a post about the OUP reading scheme. No. My reading trees are more of the green and leafy variety. As I sit now, watching the last leaves of autumn fall, I remember the sinking feeling I used to get as a child at this time of year, when I realised that my reading trees - a solace and refuge - would have to be left till the following spring. Naked and bare of foliage, they were no longer places I could hide with a book.
Ingredients for the perfect reading tree:
1 climbable tree
1 cushion
1 comfortable fork with branch footstool and trunk backrest
1 unputdownable book
enough green leaves to hide under
In these less agile days of middle-age, I prefer a slung hammock, but when I was younger and bendier, climbing trees with a book was my perfect escape from weeding the strawberry beds, or lugging bales of straw and slopping buckets of water over countless fields, or any other undesirable job my parents could dream up for an idle, book-loving child.
My first climbing choice of inside the laurel clump made a springy green cave smelling of rich, rotting evergreen humus and was not terribly satisfactory as a perch, being rather unstable and drippy when it rained, as well as dark and bad for the eyes.
The Victoria plum tree was good in the spring and early autumn but not in the summer when the wasps attacked the ripening plums and anything else in reach. It was also, latterly, near the bonfire, which meant that I read with smarting, smoke-filled eyes when the wind was in the wrong direction.
The right hand of the twin chestnuts on the boundary had a wide horizontal and almost flat branch which was great for reading and also for lying and spying on the house (and on the next-door neighbours in their thatched cottage), hiding me from sight entirely. But when new neighbours moved in, less short-sighted and tolerant than old Mr and Mrs Smith, Complaints Were Made, and I was banned from climbing it on pain of dire punishment. A nosy child (I confess I did have a pair of binoculars on occasion) was not welcome, despite my protestations of innocence and the waving of books as proof.
It was the old cherry in the part of the garden where nobody went, just by the dogs' graves, which was best. That was where I stashed my rope ladder, and found a perfect snug fork just at the right angle for leaning against. It was there that I devoured R.M. Ballantyne's The Coral Island as well as Swiss Family Robinson, (the latter being especially suitable for treetop reading) among many others. The lullaby of the creaking branches, the wind, the rustle of pointed leaves, the occasional adventurous woodpigeon or little brown bird landing above my head, these were the sounds that informed my early reading life. Hammocks are good, but trees are the real thing.
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By:
Linda Strachan,
on 11/17/2014
Blog:
An Awfully Big Blog Adventure
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Every year around this time New Zealand Quizmaster the inexhaustible Wayne Mills arrives for the start of the UK heats of the Kids' Lit Quiz - and he runs an amazing 18 heats in under 4 weeks. The first heat this year was a new one in East Midlands, and today it will be the turn of the 8th UK heat at Yorkshire's King James School, Knaresborough
. |
KLQ Quizmaster Wayne Mills awarded
Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit |
KLQ is a competition for children aged 10-13 with ten rounds of questions each with a different theme and a opportunity for the teams to choose one round as their joker (double points) all the questions are book related and vary in difficulty.
Wayne writes all the questions himself, and when you consider there are 100 questions in each heat, it is quite a feat, as he never asks a question unless he has read the book!
In school teams of four and a max of two teams per school, they compete against other schools in their region. I am always amazed by what the teams can answer and having been on an author team myself many times, it can be taxing.
I think the young competitors often surprise themselves by what they know, but most of all they have a great time. I love having the chance to chat to the teams before it starts and during the break, when the competitors have a chance to buy books and come to get them signed by the authors who attend the quiz.
Wayne offers spot prizes for teams or for individual competitors, and there are also longer questions in between rounds, sometimes taken from the more difficult World Final questions of the year before.
The teams are often very close in points and it is hard to describe the level of enthusiasm for the quiz and the excitement in the room. Teams of authors, teachers and librarians often compete for the fun of it, and it can become quite competitive!
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| Winning team at KLQ NE - Hexham Middle School A |
This year I have been on two author teams, in Newcastle NE England heat which was once again organised by Trevor and Diane.
 |
| With fellow Author's team member Lucy Coats |
Lucy Coats and I seconded the very knowledgeable Steve onto our team.
Steve was running the bookshop for Seven Stories, National Centre for Children's Books.
After a very competitive quiz we were beaten by the librarians ... by half a mark!
I was also delighted to be at the East of Scotland Heat which was held at Liberton High School in Edinburgh, organised by their excellent librarian, Christine Babbs.
I am Patron of Reading for Liberton High so it was great to be there to welcome the teams for the Quiz.
Fellow authors Matt Cartney and Keith Charters were on the author team and we were surprised but delighted to discover that we had beaten the teachers' team, but as always the kids were the real stars of the day!
 |
| With matt Cartney and winners of KLQ Central Scotland - St Thomas of Aquins B |
Already these and other winning teams from this year's heats are preparing for the trip to the UK final which will be held in Kings College School, London on 4th December 2014.
But the most exciting prize on offer, and any one of the competing teams can win it, is the trip to the World Final.
The winners of the UK national final will travel to the World final to be held in Connecticut USA in the summer of 2015.
There they will be taken about on a wonderful week of experiences as well as competing with and getting to know the other national teams from schools around the world. New Zealand, South Africa, Canada, USA, China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Australia, all have teams competing for a chance to win the KLQ World Final.
If you are a teacher or librarian why not find out more about the quiz and how you and your school can get involved. Authors contact your local quiz organiser (all enthusiastic volunteers!) and come along and take part in this amazing quiz that has got hundreds of young people all over the world sharing their enthusiasm for books and reading!
You can follow the heats on Wayne's blog
http://kidslitquiz.blogspot.co.uk/ and find out all about the quiz and see sample questions on the website
http://www.kidslitquiz.com/The KLQ is a not for profit and is run by volunteers. They are always looking for sponsors so if you think you would like to support it do get in touch.
---------------------------------------------
Linda Strachan is the author of over 60 books for all ages from picture books to teenage novels and the writing handbook Writing For Children.Linda's latest YA novel is Don't Judge Me she is Patron of Reading to Liberton High School, Edinburgh.
Her best selling series Hamish McHaggis is illustrated by Sally J. Collins who also illustrated Linda's retelling of Greyfriars Bobby
website: www.lindastrachan.com
blog: Bookwords
There have been many bookshops marking all the pages of my life from childhood onwards. There was Mr Oxley's in Alresford, there was the first ever Hammicks, there were all the bookshops of Hay, there was James Thin in Edinburgh, the Libreria Aqua in Venice - each has a special place in my heart. But the one I love most is in Paris.
Shakespeare and Company sits across from the Seine, on a street slightly aslant from the Quai St Michel, and I loved it the moment I first walked into it in 1981. In those days (and probably still), you could work there for a bed in one of the book-lined upstairs rooms.
I did for a while, and it was a place of companionship, laughter, and above all, a shared love of books. It is, quite literally, a treasure trove, a mish-mash of the new, the secondhand and the simply arcane and archaic. I went back there today with my children, and they were immediately lured in and entranced by the smell of dusty paper, the feeling that the perfect book must be just around the next corner, or just out of reach up that wooden ladder.
For all that it is much more of a tourist destination nowadays, the old magic is still there. It has that indefinable Narnia feel which makes you believe that somewhere in there is a door or doors to another world. There are, of course, because that's what books are - but surely somewhere there's a tiny key, or a bookspine to rub which will take you somewhere else entirely.
Every writer who visits Paris has been there - and it is a great honour to be asked to read in the little upstairs room with the sofas and the book nook with a tiny desk and endless fluttering pieces of paper, covered in scribbled dreams. Some of those writers are even featured on the wallpaper...
There is a wonderful children's and YA section, where I was happy to see many of my lovely author friends featured (though sadly not me), and an invitingly padded alcove just perfect for a child to curl up on and read one of the pile of picture books which leans against the wall.
If you go to Paris, do try to make time to go there - and may you be as transported with delight as I have always been...(and take note of my favourite quote above)!
"If you’re going to select only one revolting, repulsive pirate book, this is arrrr-guably the best." Kirkus
It is hard to know what to write today - because I am writing this in the past. Today's landscape may be very different from yesterday's. Are we a nation irrevocably divided or a nation still hanging together by a thread? You, reading this, will know if Scotland is still with us. I do not yet.
It is a rare thing to realise, in advance, that a day of history is happening. Normally we can only look back and see with hindsight that it was so. Sometimes it's a small thing - a pebble which rolls a little way, almost unnoticed, and then sets off an avalanche of global proportions. Sometimes it's something so epic, so inconceivable, that it is itself the avalanche.
As writers and readers, I think we have a responsibility to mark days of history, even if only for ourselves. So I ask this of all of you reading this, writers or not: will you write today, please? Whichever side of the debate you have been on, - yes, no, or none - will you write down your experience of it so that future generations can know how you felt today? Whether you choose fiction or fact doesn't matter, whether you publish or keep it private doesn't matter. What matters is that it's there, a body of evidence for future generations if they want to read it. I will come back later today and write down my own reactions below. It will probably be a very emotional addendum, whatever the result. I am a Scot, after all.
"If you’re going to select only one revolting, repulsive pirate book, this is arrrr-guably the best." Kirkus
"What right-minded child could resist his allure?" Books for Keeps
"A rollicking story and a quite gloriously disgusting book that children (especially boys) will adore!" Parents In Touch magazine
"A splendid reminder of the wonder of the oldest of stories…should be in every home and classroom" The Bookseller
The sad suicide of Robin Williams last week has sparked another 'conversation' in the press and on social media about mental illness - and more particularly about the link between creativity and depression.
I think this 'conversation' - and the dispelling of ignorance and myths about these conditions by those of us who are sufferers speaking out honestly - is very important indeed. It is, if you like, the inner and unseen darkness we need to make visible, which is why I have written before, both here and elsewhere, about my own battles with the Beast of chronic depression and how, in some of those darker moments, I turn to writing poetry as a way to battle the demons. Externalising them on paper is, for me at least, a way of dispersing some of their power over me.
Sometimes, though, when the despair becomes a deep physical paralysis, even the act of writing a single word seems impossible, and it at those times that the 'world would be better off without me' thoughts creep in. To the 'well brain' this is inexplicable - but the 'well brain' of a depressive is not always in charge. That is what the people who accuse Williams of 'selfishness' need to understand. Suicide, where mental illness is concerned, is not a choice. It is the last, most desperate act of a despairing brain which just wants the demons to stop eating it.
When I was first officially diagnosed with depression, I had a deep need to find a way to understand it which avoided medical jargon (to which I am deeply allergic). Being a writer, I turned to other writers to see what their experiences were - and how they had coped. The first name which came up was William Styron, whose book, 'Darkness Visible', about his own journey through depression became my manual. The title comes from
Milton's
'Paradise Lost'. 'No light, but rather darkness visible served only to discover sights of woe'
Writing is, for the most part, a solitary profession. In my case, I mostly sit in a room, on my own, making stuff up and setting the visions that churn around in my head down on a screen. It is hardly surprising that, living as I do in a daily creative world where evil Egyptian crocodile deities demand human sacrifices, immortal beasts battle horrid heroes and skeleton dragons with flaming red eyes menace innocent children, my own mind should sometimes rise up against me.
Every writer, whether with depression or without, will know that little nagging head voice which tells us that what we do is unutterably useless and pointless. Styron describes his thought processes 'being engulfed by a toxic and unnameable tide that obliterated any enjoyable response to the living world.' Reading those words was, for me, a recognition akin to a light being turned on in a dark room. When I first read Styron's book I did what I never do (being a respecter of the sanctity of the printed page). I underlined and made comments and wrote 'YES!!' in large capitals in many places. I have scribbled a lot more on it since. I felt as if, finally, I had found a fellow wanderer in an empty desert who could describe not only what and how I was feeling, but also do it in words simple and direct enough that others--those 'healthy people' on the outside of this condition--might be able to understand too. When Styron speaks of the 'weather of depression', I understand precisely what he means. For him its light is a 'brownout', for me a greyish fog impossible to see anything in except blurred shapes and outlines.
It's hard for me to describe how strengthening and comforting it felt to read something which made sense of my own experience, and which reminded me gently of how many other writers have been in the depths of the pit too. Shakespeare certainly understood it - how else would he have written Hamlet? Emily Dickinson, John Donne, Camus, Manley Hopkins, Beethoven, Van Gogh - these and so many more were troubled by the Beast, so I am in hallowed company when I travel through Dante's 'dark wood'.
For now, I am in a stable place, where it is possible to 'riveder le stelle' - to 'behold the stars once more.'. But when the Beast visits again (as it inevitably will, because that is its nature) I will try to remind myself that I am not alone.
"What right-minded child could resist his allure?" Books for Keeps
Last Saturday I found myself in the company of Wookies, Jedi, sundry Game of Thrones characters, Spidermen, ogres (male and female) and a raft of other bedecked and be-axed cosplayers. I also had the pleasure of meeting some of the many wonderful YA bloggers I chat to and follow online. Yes, this was the mad and crazy glory that was the UK's first ever Young Adult Literature Convention (mixed with lashings of ComicCon).
The Daily Telegraph deemed it a hit - and barring a few gripes about the nightmare queues, the heat, the lack of seating, the audio-fails and the heaving walls of bodies blocking the way to the book lecture stage (all dying to have their photo taken with Marvelmeister Stan Lee), I loved every minute. The whole thing was dreamed up by Booktrust and our very own Children's Laureate, Malorie Blackman, and I think we should all stand up and cheer her to the steel rafters that only just kept the roof on Earls Court (the noise was ear-tingling). Much has been written about the brilliant panels and workshops elsewhere, but I want to focus on something else. Yes, those book bloggers.
With much of the newspaper industry (the Guardian being an honourable exception) giving less and less review coverage to children's and YA books, the book bloggers are our enthusiastic champions, and we need to recognise the HUGE amounts of unpaid time and energy they put into reading and then writing about our neck of the literary woods. They tweet, they discuss, they get the word out there, and I think we owe them all a great debt of gratitude - including our very own Awfully Big Review team, of course!
The post-conference 'For the Fringe' party (organised by the indomitable Sophia Bennett) was a marvellous mix of authors and bloggers -
@YaYeahYeah, @Serendipity_Viv, @JessHeartsBooks, @Splendibird, @RachReviewsAll, @carlybennett, @lynseynewton...er, in fact far too many to name-check them all here - and the level of knowledgeable bookish chat was off the scale. To meet so many enthusiastic readers was a shot in the arm for all the authors who were there, I think - and I was kept busy scribbling down new blogsites and book recommendations as well as chatting till I thought my tongue would drop off.
Another thing I discovered at YALC was
The Siobhan Dowd Trust in action. Actually, I discovered it before I even got there, while I was still on the tube. Overhearing a group of teenagers enthusing excitedly about their favourite authors (quite a lot of screaming) was another shot in the arm - and I later discovered from their librarian that they were from a Manchester school, and that their trip had been funded by the SDT. They weren't the only ones either. I found more while listening to one of the panels. They were the ones at the front, grabbing the microphone to ask intelligent and insightful questions of the panel members. This is the wonderful thing about the SDT - they give bookish kids opportunities they might not otherwise have had.
Altogether, YALC was a real eye-opener. The power of books and reading to inspire was demonstrated on a grand scale there - and while some may have felt that ComicCon was not quite the right place to have it, personally, I thought it gave the whole thing added 'buzz'. I really do hope it happens again in 2015 - I'm already planning an Egyptian costume. Be very afraid!
Children's books have spawned an excess of silliness in the media lately. First of all there was Ruth Graham's article on Slate, which told its readers, in no uncertain terms that:
"Adults should be ashamed of reading literature written for children".
Oh dear. That's me with my knuckles rapped, then.
The same day, the perennially anti-escapism Richard Dawkins weighed in with his opinions on fantasy and fairytales, saying
"I think it's rather pernicious to inculcate into a child a view of the world which includes supernaturalism".
Now I took issue with Professor Dawkins (aka 'The Frog') on this very subject back in 2008, with a piece called 'Long Live the Fairytale', and I still stand by the words I wrote.
To be honest, I'm just a bit fed up with having to get up and shout against this sort of thing, so I'm not going to go into a long and involved rant here. Luckily for me, there are many other people who can do that far better and more articulately -
Non Pratt (on reading YA) last week, and
Philip Pullman (on Fairytales) back in 2011 - to name just two.
From a personal point of view, I am what might be called an omnivorous reader. Last week it was Jennifer Worth's accounts of midwifery in 1950's London, before that Jung Chang's fascinating biography of the Dowager Empress Cixi, as well as some excellent UKYA by Tanya Landman and Claire McFall - one a historical novel about the American Civil War and the other an almost literally heart-stopping thriller. I read letters, I read diaries (because I'm damned nosy). I read literary novels, I read crap detective stories. I read erotica and travel, politics, the classics and deep, dusty tomes on mythology, ancient religions and shamanism, picture books, chapter books and middle-grade fiction. Even the backs of cereal packets if I'm really desperate (I recommend Rude Health ones).
I write all sorts of different stuff too - from very young picture books about grubby pirates and tree-snipping bears through retellings of old myth and folklore to novels about fairy folk, dragons and ancient queens.
The point I'm trying to make here is that I'm not ashamed of any of it. Not the reading, not the writing - and why the hell would anyone think they have the right to tell me I should be? I LIKE reading YA. It gives me a different sort of reading pleasure to, say, Austen or Tolstoy or Zadie Smith or Donna Tartt or Malcolm Gladwell - but I happen to think that's ok.
Same goes for the writing. I LIKE making weird and fantastical stories up for kids of all ages (including ones about fairies and gods). From the fan-mail I get, and the interactions I have with kids in the schools I visit, I think my readers appreciate it too. In my opinion, fairytales and fantasy feed the mind, they don't corrupt it, and I still don't think Mr Dawkins gives children enough credit for intelligence. What I said back in 2008 is as relevant to me today as it was then, so I'll leave you with this thought:
"A child’s mind is absolutely capable of containing many ‘once upon a times’ and evidential scientific formulae all at the same time—and what’s more, distinguishing entirely successfully between the two without any harmful effects whatsoever."
Stick that where the sun don't shine, Professor. Thanks all the same, but I'd rather listen to Einstein.
"A rollicking story and a quite gloriously disgusting book that children (especially boys) will adore!" Parents In Touch magazine
"A splendidly riotous romp…Miss the Captain’s party at your peril." Jill Bennett
"An early candidate for piratey book of the year!" ReadItDaddy blog
"A star of a book." Child-Led Chaos blog
"A splendid reminder of the wonder of the oldest of stories…should be in every home and classroom" The Bookseller
Lucy's brand-new and sparkly
Website
I'm in the space between novels at the moment - in the eye of the creative storm, so to speak. It's a necessary space for me, a place where I give myself the time to do ordinary things, let my mind wander - and feed my creativity by doing something completely different in the writing line. Sometimes I'll work on a picture book, but I'm more likely to write poetry - most of which goes into the big box marked 'never show this to anyone'. Usually I challenge myself to master a new form of verse - I attempted triolets last time - but quite often I'll go back to an old friend. I love the discipline of iambic pentameter, or I might dip into a sonnet, a ballad, or even a limerick.
One of my favourite forms of poetry to write is haiku. To condense so much feeling and atmosphere into so few words is an art--and a difficult one. I have never managed to write one to my own complete satisfaction (and certainly not one I'd be happy to show in public), but I'll always keep trying. It is an art worth working at.
As a student I remember marvelling over Ezra Pound's In a Station of the Metro from "Contemporania," Poetry: A Magazine of Verse, 2.1 (April 1913), which I make no apology for repeating here in case there are those who do not know it:
The apparition of these faces in the crowd:
Petals on a wet, black bough.
With a boyfriend in Paris at that time, I spent a lot of hours riding the Metro and mouthing the station names of Denfert-Rochereau, Chatelet-Les Halles, Pyramides, Arts et Metiers, Sevres-Babylone (a poem in themselves, and so much more romantic than Marylebone, Ealing, Euston or Lewisham). I understood Pound's words exactly from my own experience, and even now they conjure up the frantic, crowded platform jostling, the harsh braying note of the closing doors and the slightly sweet smell of sewers and smoke from a million damp Gauloise cigarette butts which would say 'Paris' to my senses even if I were blindfolded.
Years after Paris, I made a trip to Japan, the true home of haiku. Riding the Tokyo Metro was a different experience entirely, and yet just as evocative in its way. Coming in from Narita airport I remember eating sea-fresh sushi from my first bento box and marvelling at brown-grey jagged hills covered in pine trees and moss, exactly like a Hokusai print--and that was before I'd even seen Mount Fuji.
In Japan I felt tall for the first time--but also alien, standing out like a sore thumb above the massed commuters on the platform, trying to read signs in a language I had no hope of understanding. Somehow, though, I trusted myself to one of the seemingly familiar coloured lines on the map and arrived where I was meant to be--a place where a friend had told me I would find a taste of the 'real' Tokyo, far from the blazing multi-coloured neon signs of Shibuya and the clicking cameras whirring outside the Imperial Palace. In Shinjuku I got lost deliberately--the best way to discover unexpected wonders.
There was the tiny shop with a window full of wooden shoes, which I entered down three rickety steps to find a tiny grey-haired woman bowing to me. I bowed back politely, and suddenly the lack of language was no longer a barrier. With mime and hand gesture and more bowing, we communicated perfectly, and I left with three exquisite pairs of shoes, destined for the (then) small feet of Lovely Daughter, her brother and my god-daughter, all wrapped in patterned paper with a little string to carry them by. I wandered deserted shrines with small offerings of food and flowers before them, and then found myself in a busy market where I was, once again, alien--the alien window shopper amongst a sea of hurrying, haggling housewives buying live chickens, leafy vegetable, roots large and small and rice from great hoppers as tall as the eaves.
There were many more metro trips along the coloured lines of Chiyoda, Marounouchi, Yurakucho, Asakusa and Oedo, but the final one took me to the peaceful woods of the Emperor Meiji's garden--tribute to his beloved Empress wife. Here's what I wrote about it. Not a haiku, but I like to think it has some of the idiophones which characterise other Japanese poetry.
In Emperor Meiji's garden
black bright carp
dance
their slow drumbeat
on waterlily ripples.
The Empress Shoken sleeps
and nesting crows
sound
requiems of flight
above the weeping trees.
copyright © Lucy Coats 1998
For me, it's a word picture which conjures up how I felt in that particular time and place, better than any photograph could. That's why I'll keep on writing poetry in the in-between times - whether I show it to anyone or not.
"A rollicking story and a quite gloriously disgusting book that children (especially boys) will adore!" Parents In Touch magazine
"A splendidly riotous romp…Miss the Captain’s party at your peril." Jill Bennett
"An early candidate for piratey book of the year!" ReadItDaddy blog
"A star of a book." Child-Led Chaos blog
Lucy is represented by Sophie Hicks at Ed Victor Ltd
By:
Lucy Coats,
on 4/18/2014
Blog:
An Awfully Big Blog Adventure
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If you haven't already heard about it, I'd like to introduce you to
Project UKYA, set up in September 2013 by
Lucy Powrie, a teenage Force for Good, and a manic bibliophile. Essentially, Lucy has come up with the brilliant idea of blowing the trumpet loudly and publicly for UK Young Adult authors and their books, with a different 'project' happening each month. Right now there's a marvellously wide-ranging series of chats going on on Twitter under the hashtag
#ukyachat. People are sharing books they love, and talking about different aspects of UKYA. Next month
a new longterm project launches - a monthly (to begin with) 'livechat' on YouTube, talking about the latest UKYA releases, discussing UKYA books and much more, including special guests and author Q and As.
Why does this matter? It matters because YA from the US has held the balance of power in the public perception of YA for far too long. While the likes of
Twilight, The Hunger Games and
The Mortal Instruments have all sold millions of copies and had films made in a relatively short time after publication, UK YA authors have been lagging behind in terms both of sales and of international recognition. We need to try and change that, because the pool of UK writing talent is immense, and yes, I'm going to say it, just as good if not better than anything coming out of America. All of us who care about books and reading need to work together to get the word out there to YA readers about just how good British books are at the moment.
This is absolutely not to denigrate US writers - I'm very excited currently about Laini Taylor and Sarah J Maas's forthcoming titles, among others. It's just that I'm equally excited - or more so - about Clare Furniss's
Year of the Rat, Keren David's
Salvage, Teri Terry's
Shattered, Claire McFall's
Bombmaker, Ruth Warburton's
Witchfinder, Gillian Philip's
Icefall, Ellen Renner's
Tribute, James Dawson's
Cruel Summer, Candy Gourlay's
Shine and the new film of Anthony McGowan's
The Knife that Killed Me. And that's just touching the surface of what's out there right now. I could spend the rest of this post just making a list of great UKYA books and writers (don't worry, I won't).
So, really what I'm asking you to do here is to support Project UKYA. Follow it on
Twitter and take part in the chat, join its
Facebook page, read and comment on the
blog - but above all, spread the word about its existence to everyone you know who loves good books. UKYA books and authors deserve to be known and celebrated all over the world - let's be the pebbles which start the avalanche.
Last month I horrified historians by Messing About with Ancient History. This month, I hope I shall redeem myself slightly by talking about the importance of 'feet on the ground' research.
When you're chasing a historical character, trying to pin them down in a particular place, there's nothing quite like visiting sites they would have known and recognised. With most of history, that's not so easy, because a good deal of it will have disappeared in the interim. However, in Rome, history is so close to the surface that you trip over it. In my case, literally.
I was in the Forum last week, and (with my usual weather luck) it was raining. The Roman cobbles are very large, very uneven, and I caught my toe and fell over. I don't suppose I'm the only idiot ever to have done it, and now I have the makings of a ready-made scene for the new book. This sort of authentic detail is invaluable, once the bruises have faded, and would have been impossible to garner in any other way than by empirical experience. The colour of the sky, the way the river Tiber winds, the height of the seven hills, the pinoli trees - all these things are in my mind's eye now, along with the exact colour of a particular column, the way a belt hangs round a sacrificial swine's belly... and much more.
Yes, I could have looked these things up in a book, or read someone else's account of their travels, but I think the next installment of my Cleo's adventures will be all the richer for my visit - and I don't at all begrudge her my sore feet and banged knees. I even managed to find an exact copy of an Alexandrian Priestess of Isis in the Borghese Palace - just what I needed to see what robes she would have worn.
Now, if only Egypt wasn't so damned dangerous at the moment...
"A rollicking story and a quite gloriously disgusting book that children (especially boys) will adore!" Parents In Touch magazine
"A splendidly riotous romp…Miss the Captain’s party at your peril." Jill Bennett
"An early candidate for piratey book of the year!" ReadItDaddy blog
"A star of a book." Child-Led Chaos blog
Lucy is represented by Sophie Hicks at Ed Victor Ltd
I've had a book birthday this week -
Bear's Best Friend is born and out in the world now, and garnering some nice reviews and media attention, (which is a thing that always makes authors happy). The ever-wonderful
Armadillo Magazine have done an interview with me, which you can read
HERE - there's a signed copy of the book to win there too, so it's well worth having a look!
Of course, a book birthday also means that the Publicity Event Train sets out on its journey round the country. Normally, I talk to schools and festivals about Greek myths. I've been giving my
Journey Into Greek Myth talk for many years. I know my stuff, and it's a well-honed, well-oiled machine by now. But
Bear's Best Friend is a picture book. I've been out of the picture book loop for a long time, so as well as giving birth to a book, I've also had to give birth to a brand new event to go with it. Luckily this time, I don't have to do it alone. For the first time ever I'm part of a double act, since my wonderful illustrator,
Sarah Dyer is an integral part of this new creation.
As a writer, working with an illustrator is, for me, a bit like magic. There are my words, spilled out of my head and onto paper in black and white rows, and then there they are, magically translated into pictures through the amazing lens of an artist’s imagination. It's a process that never ceases to amaze me. But doing a joint gig? How was that going to work? Who would go first? How would we structure the event? It was a step into the unknown for both of us.
We talked a lot on the phone. We emailed each other ideas. What emerged was an interactive event based around our Bear's (slightly strange) hobby of topiary, with parts for both of us to play, including props of bear ears/hats, leaves, a foolproof way to draw a teddy, and, of course, many many bears. But would it work in practice?
On Saturday, we set off to find out, and I'm glad to report that the answer is - it did, brilliantly! Sarah and I have just finished our first ever joint session at the fabulous
Seven Stories in Newcastle (
which I wrote about here a couple of months ago). Public events can be tricky to handle, but not only did we manage to get through storytelling, animal noises and chatting about best friends (my bit), but also an incredible amount of top-notch creative stuff (Sarah's bit). By the end, the whole place was a sea of Beary pictures, some of which were pretty impressive, given that the average age of the artists was 3
1/2. (I'm sorry I can't show them to you here due to a slight technical hitch on the photography front).
Now that we've cracked the whole joint event thing, I'm looking forward to doing a lot more with Sarah. We'll be at the
Tales on Moon Lane Bookshop on Tuesday 28th May and at the
Discover Story Centre on 1st June, so do come and see us in action if you're nearby and have small kids. I can't speak for Sarah, but personally I can't wait to put on my fluffy bear ears again!
Lucy and Sarah's new picture book, Bear's Best Friend, is published by Bloomsbury "A charming story about the magic of friendship which may bring a tear to your eye" Parents in Touch "The language is a joy…thoughtful and enjoyable" Armadillo Magazine. Her latest series for 7-9s, Greek Beasts and Heroes is out now from Orion Children's Books.
This is what I read in The Bookseller this morning:
"Authors have admitted they welcome the “huge boost” in sales when their e-books are sold at rock-bottom prices, despite concern over the long-term impact.It is believed individual authors have earned in the hundreds of thousands from books included in the long-running 20p promotion on Sony and Amazon."
I should say immediately that I have no books out on Amazon's Kindle or Sony's e-reader, so I have no personal experience of this phenomenon to draw on, but that's quite a statement, isn't it? Admit it - what did you focus on first? The 'long-term impact' or the 'hundreds of thousands'? Did a small part of you wonder for a moment how much you could earn if YOU had a book chosen for the 20p programme? I certainly did. But then I began to think about those long term consequences if you are lucky enough to be, as I am currently, traditionally published.
In the same article, Terence Blacker, whose latest book was included in the Amazon 99p Daily Deal promotion, says that while his book sold thousands and went to the top of the fantasy chart, '
at that price people are paying 20p for every year I worked on the book."
Peter James, crime writer extraordinaire, worries about the effect on the indy (and chain) booksellers in the high street, who are already beleagured and battered by the Amazon juggernaut. He says "
Booksellers on our high streets are already an endangered species and losing their bread and butter bestsellers sales to an online campaign they cannot compete with... makes life very much harder." They're both absolutely right - but it seems to be an insoluble conundrum.
If you are an indie author, perhaps you could take the ethical approach, like Dan Holloway, who has removed all his e-books from Amazon and
written about why on the Authors Electric blog. But that's not going to work for the traditionally published writer like me, who has no control over whether their books - either print or electronic - are featured on Amazon or not. The Amazon Kindle juggernaut is here to stay, it's ubiquitous, it's seductive to the average book buyer, and although there are other e-platforms like Sony, Kobo and Nook, we're going to have to live with the fact that most publishers do use the Amazon Kindle programme - because more readers have Kindles than any other form of e-book.
I didn't believe that the physical book was on the way out. Now I'm not so sure. I still hear people say that they love the feel and smell of print books. I believe them. I do too. But we are in a bad recession. Money matters. The price of things matters to the average consumer.
Just think about this for a moment. There's a paperback book Mr Average particularly wants to read. Maybe he's seen a review, maybe it's an author he likes, maybe someone has recommended it. Let's say he passes his local indy bookseller on the way home from work. Inside, Mr Average is offered the physical paperback at the full price of, say, £9.99. He can take it home there and then. But before he buys it, he has a little check on his smartphone. Oh! It's discounted to £4.95 on Amazon. But wait. It'll have to be delivered. He doesn't have Amazon Prime, so he'll have to wait at least 2 or 3 days AND pay postage. Damn! He wanted to read it on the train home. Then he looks at the Kindle or Sony price. Whoopee! It's in the Daily Deal Slot - he can download it now for 20p. Cheap price, immediate gratification. Job done.
What does that mean for the author, though? Well, for a bookshop sale, you get full royalty of (probably) between 5 and 10% of the cover price. For an Amazon print sale, that drops to squigpence ha'penny per copy. And for the Daily Deal? The current state of e-royalties is the subject of much debate and argument - but even if you do sell thousands of e-copies, it's still not very much on 20p, despite that claim above of 'hundreds of thousands' of pounds.
For me, writing is a job. It is, agreed, a job I love and feel privileged to do every day (despite occasion rants about books not doing what I want them to and other authory gripes). BUT, if I am lucky enough to have a book published, I do want to be fairly rewarded for my efforts, and that includes readers paying a reasonable price for my work.
So the thing I worry about most is what is currently happening to the perception of the value of a book. If e-books continue to be devalued like this, I think our Mr Average book buyer will begin to expect bargain prices across the board, and that means physical print books too. That can't be good for authors in general, nor for publishers - and if it carries on, it's going to become unsustainable to produce a print book because no one will want to pay for what it costs to produce. I hope I'm wrong, I really do. Even though more e-book 'units' will be sold (and if that means people are reading more, then that's the one bit of good), from this (currently) tax-paying author's point of view, it looks as if there's going to be only one major winner. They don't (currently) pay taxes in the UK, despite making huge profits here, and I think that's wrong (but that's a whole other can of bookworms).
I wish I knew how to fight against the book becoming just another unit of fodder for the bargain basement, but I don't. Do you?
Twitter Fiction Festival? To some of you, this may seem like a contradiction in terms. How is it possible to tell a story in 140 characters? Yes, that's CHARACTERS not words.... Seems like a tall order, doesn't it?
Many writers I've spoken to wonder about the value of Twitter. I'm not going to go into all the ins and outs or hows and whys here - Nicola Morgan has already covered all the bases
in her excellent TweetRight guide - but I had a Twitter experience recently which encapsulates why I think this is a good place for authors to hang out.
It all started with a tweet at the beginning of October. Just one. It ended last week with me filling a slot on Radio 4's
World at One and global coverage of my part in the festival in newspapers from
The Guardian to the
LA Times. So, how did it happen?
That one tweet alerted me that the newly-created Twitter Fiction Festival were looking for entries.
"I'll have a go," I thought. After all, what had I got to lose? So I sent off my little pitch - 100 Greek myths in 100 tweets - and promptly forgot about it until I got an email saying that the Twitter people were interested in hearing more. At that point I had to think somewhat more carefully. I wrote a longer pitch, panicking slightly now that I seemed to be in the running. Then, on 19th November, I heard that I had been picked from thousands of entries worldwide to be part of the official Twitter Fiction Festival showcase.
What did that mean exactly? Well, first and foremost it meant I had to deliver the writing part! I'd decided to present those 100 myths as tabloid headlines - the nature of the Greek gods with their adulterous/incestuous natures and propensity for shenanigans are a Sun headline writer's dream - so I put my head down and started condensing the essence of the stories into 140 characters. It was an intellectual challenge to tackle this totally new way of writing. I wanted to present the ancient myths I've studied and written about for years in a totally fresh and original way, which would reach out to a new audience - and from some of the very nice coverage in blogs and reviews since, I hope I've succeeded. I also had fun doing it.
Secondly, it meant that the behemoth which is Twitter was giving me a huge global platform to stand on, and actively promoting me, as an author, along with my 28 fellow twitfic writers. The power of that as a publicity tool cannot be underestimated, and I've been fascinated to see how many publishing industry 'movers and shakers' are now following and chatting to me on Twitter as a direct result.
"But what about book sales?" I hear you mutter. I did look on Amazon over the weekend, and there was a big spike in my rankings (top 5000) for
Atticus the Storyteller's 100 Greek Myths - the book I based the tweet idea on - which has now tailed off. It's possible that's people buying for Christmas, but I don't think it was coincidental.
So, what have I got out of it? Quite simply, free worldwide coverage I could never have got otherwise in a million years. Whether that has any continuing knock-on effect on book sales remains to be seen, but many thousands more people have read my writing than before and I'm continuing to add hundreds of new followers who are interested in books to my Twitter account, so from that point of view it was a success. And all from me noticing and engaging with one random bookish tweet link. That, lovely readers, is why it's worth authors being on Twitter.
You can read all of Lucy's #twitterfiction festival myths (plus brief explanations) HERE
Trolls. They only exist in fairytales, don't they? Trip trap trip trap go the three Billy Goats Gruff over the Troll's bridge. The youngest goat is allowed to pass by saying that his middle brother is bigger and more tasty. The middle brother is allowed to pass by saying that his older brother is biggest and yummiest. And what does the older brother do? Why he tosses the Troll over the side of the bridge with his great big horns and watches him smash on the rocks below, making the bridge safe forever.
If only it were as easy to get rid of trolls on the internet. In case you don't know what an internet troll is, here's a basic definition:
"In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts inflammatory or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking other users into a desired emotional response."
Internet trolls are clever. Sometimes they use what seem like reasonable arguments to draw people in. Often they act 'hurt and wounded'. Always they have an agenda, whether it be garnering publicity, provoking other people into online fights, or just plain old nastiness. What they love best is to be fed more material (ie comments) for them to get their sharp, cruel teeth into. They are vindictive, destructive, and a part of internet life I absolutely abhor.
I have been 'trolled' on this very blog. I won't say where or when, but it was one of the most upsetting experiences I've ever had - and the worst bit was feeling so totally helpless when it all kicked off. Luckily we managed to shut it down quite quickly, but not before some damage had been done and feelings badly hurt. My mistake was to 'feed the troll' by trying to be reasonable, polite and patient with his comments for far too long. This was a mistake. I've learned from it.
So why am I writing this post now? Because in the last month two authors have spoken out about their own experiences of being trolled and cyberbullied. One is Cassandra Clare, and you can read her account of what happened to her
HERE. If you don't know what cyberbullying is, here's another basic definition:
Cyberbullying is "the use of the Internet and related technologies to harm other people, in a deliberate, repeated, and hostile manner." Cyberbullying methods include "communications that seek to intimidate, control, manipulate, put down, falsely discredit, or humiliate the recipient. The actions are deliberate, repeated, and hostile behavior intended to harm another." I would include "passive-aggressive behaviour" along with "hostile".
The other person who has been trolled and cyberbullied very recently is Debi Gliori. Her piece about the campaign against her and her newest picture-book,
The Tobermory Cat is
HERE.
To be honest, both these stories make me angry, mostly because I hate any sort of bullying with a passion. I'm glad Cassandra and Debi were brave enough to come out and expose their tormentors, though, because too many people are scared to come forward and say something.
This is what bullying does. It isolates, makes you feel alone and frightened, is a small, insidious whisper in the brain, telling you that no one is on your side, that everyone hates you, and if you tell, everyone will hate you more. Cyberbullying is trolling whipped up into a campaign. It's much easier to hide behind a keyboard than to physically bully someone. You can even do it across borders, across continents.
No author should have to suffer it. No child should have to suffer it (though too many do, and die because of it, as in the
recent case of Amanda Todd's suicide). Not one single human being deserves to be bullied or cyberbullied. Ever. Full stop.
Although I maintain that 'feeding the trolls' is not a good idea (and by 'feeding' I mean engaging with them on a longterm basis), I also believe that we should stand up in public and support, reasonably, politely and firmly, those who have been trolled or cyberbullied. Many of us have done so in Debi's case. Nicola Morgan has written an excellent piece on the ins and outs of intellectual property law
HERE, and now the
Guardian has also picked the story up.
If all of us stand together and keep saying no to each cyberbully and troll as we come across them, then maybe we, like the eldest Billy Goat Gruff, can use our horns to throw them down onto the rocks under the internet bridge and defeat them one by one. Unfortunately trolls and their cyberbully cousins are very resilient. I fear it'll be a long job, but I, for one, will keep on trying. I couldn't live with myself otherwise.
Lucy's latest series
Greek Beasts and Heroes is out now from Orion Children's Books and her new picture books,
Bear's Best Friend, will be published by Bloomsbury in March 2013
Lucy's
WebsiteLucy's
Scribble City Central Blog (A UK Top 10 Children's Literature Blog)
Join Lucy's
Facebook FanpageFollow Lucy on
Twitter
Two years ago I gave a talk called "How To Sell Your Book on the Internet". It was, needless to say, about the "Author Platform" we writers are supposed to be standing on top of, dominating the world of books, and gave handy hints and tips about how to use things like Facebook, Twitter and blogging for the uninitiated writer. I wasn't the only one talking about the subject. Our very own Nicola Morgan has, until very recently, been giving brilliant advice about it on her Help I Need a Publisher blog (much better advice than mine, I can tell you!).
Last week I read a thought-provoking piece by Candy Gourlay on Notes from the Slushpile. She asked this question:
If everyone's now got a platform, how are you going to stand out?
I hope Candy will forgive me for using her excellent pictures to illustrate this point (on the 'picture is worth a thousand words' principle).
How it was....
How it is now....The question I want to ask is:
How do you feel about those two pictures?
I can tell you how I feel. Kind of relieved actually. What Candy said in her piece chimed with my own feelings. It meant that the misgivings I'd had recently about all this jockeying and jostling were not so stupid after all. Don't get me wrong. I love blogging here (and reading about the myriad facets of writing life from my fellow bloggers). I love running the
current series on mythological beasts and beings on my own
Scribble City Central blog. I love chatting to people on Twitter, though I'm not so keen on Facebook these days. But, quite honestly, all that stuff does crunch chunks out of my writing day if I let it, however much I protest to the contrary, and that's before I've even started trying to get through the mass of links and intriguing industry bits and bobs provided by others.
The sad fact is that we live in a time poor world where there just aren't enough hours in the day to process all the information flooding over us, however interesting it might be. I'd like to read all the interesting blogs out there - but if I did that, I wouldn't have time for my own writing. In the final analysis that writing IS the most important thing for me. It's what puts the food on my plate, and clothes my family. So, I've taken another look at that Author Platform of mine, and am now only doing what I have to to keep it alive and kicking, and concentrating on what I know works. The energy and hours I've saved are already paying dividends in productive writing output.
Je ne regrette rien - building my Author Platform has taught me a great deal. But I'm no longer its faithful skivvy, slaving away at it for fear of being left behind. I've stopped running to catch up with myself. That, ladies and gentlemen of the ABBA community, is my New World Order - and it feels good!
Lucy's latest series
Greek Beasts and Heroes is out now from Orion Children's Books
Lucy's
WebsiteLucy's
Scribble City Central Blog (A UK Top 10 Children's Literature Blog)
Join Lucy's
Facebook FanpageFollow Lucy on
Twitter
Our second most-viewed post is also the one which attracted the most media attention, and also attracted what I suspect is a record-breaking 66 comments on the site.
Martin Amis's throwaway remark to the effect that he'd have to suffer brain damage before he'd consider writing a children's book may have drawn Lucy's ire, but it also drew forth a provocative and intelligent response from her, and a sparkling debate from our readership:
And for those of you who just can't wait to find out what our most-viewed post of all time so far is... I'm afraid you'll have to. But only for an hour. See you back here at 6.00pm!
Sir Terry Pratchett has just won the 13th
Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction. This is excellent. He is, undoubtedly, a very funny writer, and deserves it. The prize includes having a Gloucester Old Spot pig named in his honour - and doesn't every author secretly aspire to that?
Many people (including some whose judgement I respect greatly) dismiss Terry's writing as mass-market schlock, saying that his humour is infantile and his plots verge on the ridiculous. They find the covers (of the paperbacks) hideously overfull of bosomy blondes, chunky swords, ugly assorted mythical creatures and posturing musclebound heroes. Others admit to reading him, but undercover (oh, the bliss of the e-reader for allowing one to peruse a whole host of 'unsuitable' books in public!). Personally, I am an out-and-proud Pratchett fan and happy to tell anyone what they are missing out on (serious subjects and ideas such as the the power of journalism, astronomy, the Gulf War, feminism, high finance and racism are just a few he covers).
However, it's neither the fact that he's won a prize, nor the merits of his work that I want to write about today. At this year's Hay Festival, Terry described writing as
"running down a hill with wings on your back and taking flight, although sometimes you have to run up and down a few hills." Absolutely true - at least that's how it feels to me too. There are many such gems of writing wisdom out there (from a myriad authors), for those who wish to look for them, as well as reams of advice on everything from punctuation to publication. But I do wonder if there's too much. I wonder if those starting out on this writing journey are now faced with so much material telling them how to write, that they lose sight of the main objective - which is to apply bum to seat and just do it. In other words, the physical practice of setting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) is worth a million 'self-help' books.
Asked about the best way to write fantasy, Terry advised looking at how the best do it and told his listeners:
“do not sit around listening to me, you should be at home typing.” Absolutely. When I am asked for advice by children, I tell them I have only two essential pieces of writing wisdom to impart.
1: Read voraciously.
2: Write something every day.
For all the blogs, books, rules and tips out there, in the end, I believe that is the only writing wisdom anyone who truly has the passion to start on this mad creative rush down the hill really needs, (perhaps in conjunction with Terry's other exhortation to find your own writing voice). So I'll add in his immortal words:
3. "For Heaven's sake, don't try
"Why on earth would an author go to Bologna?"
"What's the point?"
"YOU'RE PAYING FOR YOURSELF?" (in horrified tones)
Those were just some of the comments about my trip to the Bologna Children's Book Fair last week.
So why DID I go?
The short answer is that I've been wanting to go for nearly thirty years, ever since I was a lowly junior editor at Heineman, watching all the bosses swan off there, leaving me behind with a casual "one day". So when the opportunity arose to go with Fair expert Mary Hoffman, I jumped at it. I've never been good at unsatisfied curiosity. It was a perfect year for me to go too, since my agent had a novel and a new series to sell, and two new books were going to be on publishers' stands.
Was it worth it?
That's the million dollar question everyone wants the answer to. For me, the answer is a huge yes. But I learned that the fair might not be the right place for every author to visit. You have to know how to work it, and you can't be the shy and retiring type.
First of all, you have to be prepared to get organised early. Flights and the cheaper hotels sell out quickly. It's good if you can make a few appointments too. That means telling your publisher you are going. They'll be happy to see you if they know before the last minute! Your agent will need to know as well - mine was brilliant at getting me in to all the nice parties that go on every night (Bologna is nothing if not social) - and we went to see the publishers together too, which gave me a buzz when I was told some hot-off-the-press rights news! Who do you know on the social networks who's going? I met up with children's booksellers, an Irish kid lit journalist, a film scout and many more who I knew via Twitter and Facebook. SCBWI have a huge presence - a stand with many events (where I met and chatted to the US publisher of Harry Potter and the lovely Babette Cole) and they also throw a massive bookshop party with wild dancing. Do you have foreign publishers? Why not set up meetings with them too? It'll probably be your only chance to do that. Do your homework, be prepared, and carpe diem.
The thing which struck me as most useful when actually there, though, was the serendipitous encounters. Where else are you going to be together with thousands of people who are all interested in just one thing - children's books? I had a real 'this is my tribe' moment. The value of the conversations you have with chance met people is unquantifiable in terms of hard cash spent on the trip, so to speak. However, I can say that I'm currently discussing at least three very interesting new opportunities as a result of some of those encounters. I wouldn't have had any of them if I'd stayed at home.
If you'd like a little flavour of the fair as I saw it, then here's a short film for you to enjoy. All I can tell you is that I'll definitely be going again next year. Viva Bologna!
Yesterday you had John Dougherty's sobering post on a Gloucestershire Councillor's overt 'fibs' about the High Court's judgement on libraries. Today's post will be no less politically-minded, I'm afraid, and what's more I don't have any beautiful pictures of India to console you with. Instead, I'm going to give you a headline:
Shocking, isn't it? That's apparently 1 in 3 children. Yes, that's right. Your eyes are not deceiving you.
ONE IN THREE
It makes my heart break to read this statistic, let alone to write it down in big, bold letters, and when you add it to another recent statistic, that 24% of adults in the UK have the numeracy skills of a child of nine, or younger, then we are looking at a literacy/numeracy disaster which will affect coming generations in ways which are nearly too dreadful to contemplate. Except that we must contemplate it.
I've banged on often about the importance of saving our libraries here and elsewhere, along with many others on this blog. If all these children do not own a book, for a variety of reasons, many of which are to do with socio-economic factors, where are they most likely to be helped to appreciate that books and reading are important? School? Of course. But many school librarians have now felt the sharp sting of the axe edge. So, the local library - if there is one left. This is why I beg all of you to put a date in your diaries,
Saturday 4th February, 2012, which has been designated
National Libraries Day. Much will be happening, and your support will be vital. You can keep an eye on what's going on by joining the
Campaign for the Book's Official Facebook page, where you will find regular updates on this and other library news from Alan Gibbons. We must all make our voices heard, and loudly, to preserve what we already have for those millions of children and adults who need access to libraries and books so badly. Damn those who say libraries are not important, and an extravagance in this time of recession and cuts. Our libraries are an essential cornerstone of literacy. They are essential, full stop.
But back to those one in three children who do not own a book.&
Last week it was announced that there would be a change of name for the role of children's book champion--the new incumbent (to be announced in June) will now be known as the Waterstone's Children's Laureate. I'm not really sure how I feel about this. We do live in a world of sponsored literary prizes--the Costa Book Awards spring to mind, as does the Man Booker. But doesn't putting a commercial logo on a post such as that of a laureate diminish its effectiveness and raise doubts as to its future impartiality?
The children's laureate should be, above all, an ambassador for children's books. Each of the six holders of the post so far has highlighted different areas of concern--the latest, Anthony Browne, has concentrated his two years on showing the vital part illustrators and picture books in general play in the education of children. But is a chain-bookstore branded ambassador going to be welcomed by, forinstance, independent booksellers? Kate Agnew, (of the indie Children's Bookshop in Muswell Hill) has warned that the laureateship might be marginalised by such a move. "It could be seen as a trade thing rather than as an ambassadorial role," she said to
The Bookseller last week. That, I feel, would be very a very unfortunate outcome indeed.
But we do live in a world of financial cuts. The current government grant for the laureateship has been halved and compromises have had to be made. Waterstone's have been major supporters of the laureateship ever since its inception, and the new branding is 'payback' for their loyalty in a time when every penny spent by a company has to show a result. They themselves say that they will be 'upweighting' (a word I have never seen used before, but still...) their activities around the role, and will promote heavily. Indies will get a 'non-Waterstone's logo to use. In principle it could all work out just fine.
I do think though, that the new Children's Laureate (sorry, I mean WCL), will have to be very strong-minded--and be prepared to fight their corner and not be pushed around. More than ever now, we need someone highly visible and vocal to stand up and speak for children's books, for libraries and school libraries, for reading in general--and against the cultural policies of the Government of the day if necessary. I hope the Children's Laureate Steering Group will bear this in mind when they are making their choice--and I trust that Waterstone's will give our new champion--whoever he or she is--all the support they need and deserve, free of any strings or caveats.
Today is a day of shamrocks and Guinness, leprechauns and rejoicing for Irish communities everywhere. It is the day of St Patrick, Ireland's patron saint. So let's take a little trip through the mists of Irish myth and legend.
Who was St Patrick? There are a few 'facts' which are accepted as true by historians, since they come from two letters Patrick almost certainly wrote himself. He was captured as a teenager and sent as a slave to Ireland, where he lived as a shepherd for six years before escaping and returning to his family. He was related to St Martin of Tours on his mother's side, and his parents were high-ranking Romans from either Gaul or Britain. Patrick returned to Ireland later in his life as an ordained bishop, and was given permission by the Ard-Righ (High King) to preach Christianity in the north and west of the island. Scholars think (but don't know absolutely) that he lived and worked sometime in the second half of the 5th century.
So what has a Christian bishop to do with myth? Of course, the most famous 'myth' about Patrick himself was that he banished the snakes from Ireland (possibly a reference to the serpent symbolism of his druid 'rivals', because there were no snakes in Ireland). I'm pretty sure he would have spoken the Celtic language of his captors (and later on, his flock). He must also have heard all the great stories of the druidic Irish religion told around the fire when he was a young man in captivity--and probably in the Ard-Righ's great hall too. Bards were honoured folk then, and those were the stories they told--Cuchulain, Finn MacCool, Maeve and the
Tain Bo Cuailnge and so on. I would speculate that those mythical tales--and more importantly, the way in which they were told or sung, had an effect on Patrick the priest.
Look at his famous prayer
'St Patrick's Breastplate' forinstance. It has the lines:
'I bind to myself today
the power of Heaven,
the light of the sun,
the brightness
In the last week, two blog posts that I've commented on have found themselves in The Guardian. One was Lucy Coats' trenchant post on ABBA about A Certain Person and his unpleasant brain injury comment. The other was independent bookseller Vanessa Robertson's equally trenchant piece about World Book Night. I’m interested in what happened to them and the appended comments and in what this means for all of us.
After Vanessa's WBN post, I'd left a comment, among many comments from other people, and mine was picked up by a journalist and quoted (well, half of it) in her subsequent Guardian piece. No other comment was quoted by name. In the Guardian, my quote was prefaced by the statement, "Author Nicola Morgan was among those happy to air objections..." This implied that I'd been asked by the journalist. Actually, she had tried to contact me but my phone was off while I was doing school talks and by the time I got her message it was too late: her deadline had passed. One might think that because I’d commented, I was de facto “happy”. Well, yes: I was happy to comment amongst all the other commenters but the small but important difference now was that my comment had appeared on another forum, in print, with another headline, and taken out of its original discussion. It had been, in effect, re-contextualised by someone else. I am not annoyed, because I utterly stand by what I said, and the journalist's piece was good. But it got me thinking.
In Lucy's post, one commenter's remark was also taken and used in the Guardian piece on that subject, and later, on ABBA, that commenter expressed a similar surprise to mine. I’m not criticising journalists, by the way. There may be an issue of asking permission but I’m not interested in that just now. Ditto any copyright issues to do with quoting from blogs.
So what am I saying? I am saying that the internet has changed something about conversation. Blogs, unless actually private and hidden, are public, and when we comment, although it might feel like a discussion where we're all in the room, we are putting our views out there in a very public way. We cannot then control where our comments will appear. And it's permanent. The internet doesn’t forget. The internet has blurred the once clear divide between the spoken word and the printed word. It's more permanent than either and possibly more powerful.
In a good old offline conversation, you know who is there, who is listening - unless you are being bugged - and you know it is unlikely your words will find themselves discussed in public elsewhere. You can make mistakes, change your mind, clarify what you mean if someone doesn't understand. No one can take your words out of context because all those in the discussion know the context. The discussion is also moderated by those in it. It is controlled and yet can be wild and free ranging. There is little at stake other than the opinions of those present.
In an online conversation, the new conversation, all that is different. There is much more at stake, much more that can go wrong, much less control. You don't know who's listening and you don't know what will happen to your words, except for one thing: they will remain.
We also need to realise that Facebook and Twitter conversations are now watched by journalists. You make comments on Facebook and those comments can be quoted or passed on to people outside your FB circle. I have heard of people having to "defriend" others because they are worried that those people, not being actual friends, may use their comments against them. And I worry about the unguarded comments that some people make on Facebook, because FB sometimes feels like a party, with a
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This sounds great, Lucy!
Great post and never considered doing a joint event. Brilliant idea - hope all future ones go well.
Sounds great! and congratulations on your bearthday!
Sounds wonderful, Lucy! Huge congratulations and luck. Sorry i'm a bit late to the party. Hope everything goes wonderfully for your lovely book.xx