Sunday 30 November 2014

Teenagers aren’t scary – Lari Don

I spend a lot of time in primary schools, chatting to upper primary age children about adventures and monsters, heroines and heroes, myths and legends, and my Fabled Beast Chronicles. As a writer and storyteller I get on well with 10 year olds - we seem to enjoy the same kinds of stories.

The wonderful thing about primary age kids is their open joyful enthusiasm about their own imaginations.

So a roomful of 10 year olds, or 9 year olds, or 8 year olds (or 4 year olds, when I’m reading one of my picture books) is not scary for me. Not even if there are several hundred of them in a large school hall. That’s my natural environment, as an on-the-road author.

However, a room full of teenagers? That’s scary, isn’t it? It’s certainly not my natural environment, or not until recently.

Because I published a teen novel this year, the YA thriller Mind Blind, and this month, I took Mind Blind on tour, chatting to widely varying numbers of teenagers in secondary school libraries, English classrooms and school canteens.

And I thought this would be completely different from talking to readers in primary schools.

I really did expect teenagers in large groups to be scary. More critical perhaps, less open. Taller than me, certainly. Wearing more makeup and fancier shoes than me…

And I’ve certainly discovered that secondary school events are very different from primary events, but not for the reasons I expected.

So long as I make it clear I’m not trying to teach them anything, that I’m just there to share my passion for ‘what happens next’, and once I’ve shown that I’m not concerned about rules or exams, that I’m prepared to admit mistakes and make a bit of an idiot of myself at the front of the room, then the secondary pupils are usually very open and enthusiastic about sharing their own thoughts, ideas and questions. Just like the primary school pupils.

One striking difference from primary events is that as young writers grow, as they read and write more, they begin to develop a good working knowledge of their own writing style and opinions, which makes for fascinating discussions about different and equally valid ways of planning / not planning stories, what makes a satisfying ending, and how to treat characters and readers.

But the main difference I’ve found between primary and secondary events is the timetable! I usually spend an hour or more with primary children. I can usually see them from the start of the school day until playtime or from the end of playtime until lunchtime, or a nice long chat after lunchtime. Primary teachers can be delightfully flexible, and are usually very keen for me to have as long as possible with their pupils.

But in secondary schools the timetable is the boss. I may be told that I can see the pupils for period 3, which is 10.48 to 11.36 exactly, and that the class will have to go to their teacher to register first, so that might really be 10.54 to 11.36, and that they have to be packed and ready to leave when the bell goes, so that’s more likely to be from 10.54 to 11.32…

So I don’t get nearly as long as I’d like. I can’t just blether on, I have to be more organised, more focused, and get to the meat of what I want to do faster. But once I have got my head round the much shorter session time, then it’s fine. Because really, wherever I am, I’m just chatting to people about stories, whatever age those people are.

So now that I’ve accepted my subservience to the tyranny of the timetable, I’ve realised that teenagers aren’t that scary at all. Not even 170 of them in an echoey old school canteen. They are equally as imaginative and enthusiastic and full of adventure as primary pupils. They may just need a little extra encouragement to step out of the confines of the timetable themselves and let their imaginations fly free.

Lari Don is the award-winning author of 22 books for all ages, including a teen thriller, fantasy novels for 8 – 12s, picture books, retellings of traditional tales and novellas for reluctant readers. Lari’s website 
Lari’s own blog 
Lari on Twitter 
Lari on Facebook 
Lari on Tumblr

Saturday 29 November 2014

The Written Word as Refuge – Anna Wilson

I am writing this post in the spirit of self-examination, so I hope you will forgive me if it seems rather rambling, and please do comment.

My family is particularly preoccupied with the thorny and upsetting issue of mental health at the moment, due to a relative’s lifelong battle with anxiety and depression, which has worsened in recent years. It has led all of us concerned for the relative to examine our own lives more closely than before. It has also meant that I have sat up and paid attention whenever there has been a programme on the radio which deals with the topic, or whenever I have come across an article online or in the newspaper.

It seems to me that the news is flooded with stories about mental illness these days, many of them horrific. If one good thing can come out of these reports, it is awareness: awareness of other people’s suffering and of what we as a society can do to understand and help, but also self-awareness. What can we all do to look after our own mental health on a daily basis?

The journalist Madeleine Bunting was recently talking about the alarming rise of mental health problems in children in the western world. She used one phrase in particular which stuck with me.  She said we had lost the ideal of ‘the home as a haven in a heartless world’. She had a lot to say about how we need to rediscover a haven in our lives – a place where we can be quiet and focused and not distracted by the constant stream of information and entertainment which is available to us in our homes as a result of the internet and modern technology. We used to go to work or do the shopping or go out with friends within specified hours, then come home, put the kettle on and enjoy a bit of peace and quiet. Now the outside world is streamed into our homes 24/7 (if we allow it), so what do we do and where do we go to find our haven now?

I thought about this long after the programme was over and reflected on what I do to ‘create a haven’ in my own busy life: read and write. Ever since I can remember, I have committed thoughts, fears, highs and lows to paper – not for anyone else to read, not even for me to re-read, but simply to get them out of my head. It calms me to scribble it all down. And if I can’t do that, or if I feel the need to get right away from my own head and lose myself somewhere, then I read. When I was a child, often the only way to feel better about life was to shut myself in my room and lose myself in a book; to live the lives of the characters I was reading about for a while, instead of living my own; to find a character who felt and thought and spoke like me, making me feel less alone in the world. Even now I can shut out most things by diving into a story.

I do not mean to simplify a huge problem here. I know only too well that mental illness is a complex, shapeshifting beast, terrifying and nigh-on impossible to control without serious professional help. It is an illness, not simply a state of mind. Indeed, things have got so bad for my relative now, that she says she cannot read any more, as she cannot concentrate. She has been advised by her therapist to write down how she feels, but is paralysed with fear and cannot do it. The very thought of being alienated in this way from the two things I love and rely on so much makes me very sad.

When I was thinking about writing this post, I asked a friend of mine who has also suffered from severe depression for many years whether my relative’s therapist was right to suggest writing as part of a ‘cure’ and whether I was justified in thinking that my approach to writing and reading was literally ‘keeping me sane’. She told me that both things are key to her keeping a hold on life when the hideous black clouds of clinical depression begin to descend, ‘But I have to recognize that the clouds are coming and jump to action before they have a chance to engulf me,’ she said. ‘Once they have got me in their power, I can’t do anything at all.’ She did say, though, that both reading and writing have become a life-line to her in the past year, as with the help of like-minded friends, she has set up a poetry reading group and a writing group. ‘It’s definitely my therapy,’ she told me. ‘My way back to the real me.’ Since committing to the group, she gets up at the same (very early!) time every day and writes for an hour before doing anything else. ‘The sense of release is amazing,’ she said. ‘As though I have had verbal constipation for years, and have finally found a cure!’

As the discussion on the radio with Madeline Bunting moved on to talk about how we can teach our children to tackle stress, and hopefully combat future mental illness, the contributors talked about how all of us would benefit from a calmer and more ‘mindful’ approach to life – one where we stop, take in the moment and focus on the here and now, rather than try to do ten things at once. This brought me back to thinking about writing and reading: both activities have always grounded me in the moment, as well as providing a space in which I can be quiet and still.

I thought about my own children’s lives in comparison with my childhood. At any given moment, my teenage son might be watching TV, texting a friend and looking something up on his laptop simultaneously. His older sister will be writing an essay, listening to music, downloading a film, Snapchatting a friend and browsing her Instagram account.

What was I doing at their age if left to my own devices? Reading. Writing. One thing at a time. (OK, sometimes I was listening to music, too . . .)

As I listened to the rest of the programme I thought about the importance of instilling in children, as early as possible, the benefits to sitting quietly; of getting away from a screen, away from other people, away from the noise and distraction from a world which clamours at us to be better, more beautiful, more successful, richer, more powerful. Surely a great way to do this is to immerse yourself in a good story? In other words, to create a space for yourself where you learn to focus, empathise, lose yourself in your imagination, ruminate on the bigger picture.

You have to be mindful to read. You cannot take in what you are reading if you are on Instagram and texting and checking out YouTube at the same time. You cannot write coherently if you are thinking about anything else other than the words on the page and how to express yourself. Books – whether writing them or reading them – expect nothing of us other than to engage our imaginations, and once we do that, we are free, soaring away from our monkey-brains, buzzing with unnecessary and unwanted thoughts.

I try to encourage my own children to read for fifteen minutes before going to sleep rather than remaining glued to laptops or mobile phones right up until lights out. I have no idea what life has in store for them, of course, and of course I know I cannot prevent the demons of mental illness from sticking their claws into my kids simply by encouraging them to read. But I hope that in learning to enjoy reading, my children will at least have found a place in their lives which is calm, quiet and a place they can be mindfully themselves. There are certainly times when it is all that will work for me.

www.annawilson.co.uk
@acwilsonwriter

Friday 28 November 2014

A Tale of Two Activities - Clémentine Beauvais

If you're reading this post in the morning of the day it's come out, send me a positive brain wave and cross your fingers for me: I'm currently shaking fretting panicking calmly getting ready for a job interview in a university somewhere in the UK...

So I'm taking this blog post as an opportunity to reflect on the difficulties and joys of having another job in addition to writing, one that you really don't want to give up on. Most people tend to assume that I'm secretly dreaming of being a full-time writer. I often hear, 'Are you keeping up the academic side just for the money?'

That's easily answered in MS Paint:

To most people, if you have an 'artistic' side, anything else you do must surely be 'paying' for your artistic activity. If you're not giving up the 'day job', it probably means the artistic one doesn't earn you anything, or not enough. 

Even my academic colleagues have somehow internalised the notion that I would 'prefer' to write children's books as a full-time job; that it's what I really want to do. We were talking at lunch about what we'd do if we won the lottery (yes, students: that's the kind of thing your lecturers and tutors talk about at lunch), and several colleagues said that they'd quit their job immediately. I said I certainly wouldn't stop working - I like my research and teaching, and I'd get bored. The immediate response was, 'But you could spend all the time you want on writing your children's books!'

Frankly, if I really wanted to spend all my time writing children's books... well, I would take the jump and do it. And if I needed a job to subsidise this activity, I probably wouldn't opt for one that requires hours of teaching, reading, essay-marking, meeting-going, networking, jargon-deciphering, revise-and-resubmitting, email-sending at two in the morning, in a crazy incertain job market, with no weekends to speak of, holidays that are in fact conferences, and the absolute impossibility to stick to regular hours.

Well then, are you keeping up the academic job as a safety net, 'just in case the writing doesn't work out?'

(The notion of academia as a 'safety net' is just... I mean, I wish, but...)

If the writing didn't 'work out', it would probably be in part because of the other job. Writing success isn't some esoteric thing that does or doesn't work out according to the unpredictable movements of the stars - the more you work on it, the more likely it is to 'work out'. You might never be J.K. Rowling, but you can get very respectable sales by being strategic, working hard, meeting children and promoting your books. This is more difficult when you've got another job.

So of course, having another job isn't ideal for your publishers, agents and publicists. There is definitely faint pressure to 'quit the day job' and be a full-time author. School visits and festivals often happen during the week. Even if you can make some of it, you can't be one of these writers who do school visits all the time. Therefore your books might not sell as well, and you might not get as high an advance next time, or even asked for another book.

Gone are the days when it was acceptable to write your books in your 'free time', and to decide that this year, you'll only publish one, or none. It doesn't work like that in the UK (to a degree, it still does in France). The publish or perish rule applies here like it does in academia; being a part-time writer will always put you at a disadvantage.

Implicitly, there is pressure also from other authors and illustrators who are full time. There's a very legitimate worry that writers like me contribute to making our activity appear unprofessional, amateurish, dilettantish, something you do 'when you've got the time', or if a partner is subsidising your indulgent bohemian bourgeois lifestyle. I entirely understand this concern, and it does bother me that I contribute to this vision. Authors and illustrators should absolutely be in a position to live - and to live well - thanks to their work. Saying that your writing brings you 'pocket money' or is 'a fun thing on the side' is quite insulting to the rest of the community.

But choosing not to choose is perhaps the only authentic option when you have the luxury of having two activities that bring you different rewards, different challenges and different joys. And many people, I'm sure, secretly want to do not just one thing, but several. Recently a student asked me for career advice (I know, terrifying). She said she was split, because she wanted to be a film maker, but 'not just': she was also considering being a researcher in psychology, or perhaps a teacher, or even a consultant. Why can't we do several things at the same time, when we have so many interests?

I agreed of course, but said the reasonable thing: doing several jobs, especially an artistic one and another 'official' one, is difficult. She said 'Well, you manage it!' I told her 'managing' was a strong word - she doesn't see the moments when I'm marking essays all evening before updating my PowerPoint for a school visit the next day, or playing Google-Calendar-Tetris with deadlines on fiction-writing and article submissions and conference abstracts and book edits.

Since I was making it sound like my life was only slightly less sinister than that of the Baudelaire orphans, she blurted out: 'But you're happy, aren't you?'. I had to admit that I am...

_____________________________________

Clementine Beauvais writes children's books in French and English. She blogs here about children's literature and academia and is on Twitter @blueclementine.

Thursday 27 November 2014

Why art matters - Lily Hyde


They can’t put on plays in the evening in Donetsk, because of the curfew. They have had to hang a sign on the theatre entrance saying ‘Please don’t bring weapons with you’ – but not everyone obeys. The stage is not just their calling anymore; it is literally home. The actors are living in the playhouse, because their houses have been destroyed by shelling or are on the frontline. 

One recent Sunday afternoon they performed Chekhov. The sound of shelling roared from the suburbs, but inside the theatre a string quartet played Bach to the pre-performance crowd. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me down to lie in green pastures A frock-coated actor shepherded his flock into the darkened auditorium, leaving behind all the troubles and dread for two brief hours, two magical hours made of lighting and costume and make-believe – and words, words, Chekhov’s wry, witty, warmly humane war of words. That, to set against the real war outside.

Afterwards in the dressing rooms, where actors live now with their children in a world of mirrors and make-up, where jars of home-made gherkins jostle with tubes of facepaint, we drank to peace. And to art, to theatre and literature and music, all those hopelessly fragile, endlessly enduring things. 

         
 www.lilyhyde.com

 

Wednesday 26 November 2014

Writing non-human characters - by Cavan Scott

Last month, I attended the world's friendliest convention, AKA Bristolcon. It's one of my favourite events of the year, full of good-natured, liked-minded people all coming together because they like stories. What could be better?

This year, I took part in a fascinating panel entitled 'Writing Non-Human Characters', which is always an interesting subject and linked to most things I write. 

To prepare, I jotted down my top five hints and tips, which I thought I'd share with you in case you ever have the need to write a believable, and hopefully, relatable monster / alien / cybernetic dolphin. 

1. Think about their values.
The first point is a simple one - get world-building.

Think about your non-humans' life and existence. What are their intrinsic values? How do they view the big things in life? And yes, I am talking stuff as basic as sex and death. 

For example, if you have a mayfly-like alien race made up of beings who only live for one day. How will that affect their relationships or the way their society works? How would they approach tasks? In fact, how developed would they even be as a race? Could a race of mayfly aliens develop space-flight for instance? How would they do it? Would they be more concerned with reproducing than developing a faster-than-light drive? Or have they developed a science that handles reproduction for them so they can focus on other things for the good of their race? And what about knowledge? How would it be passed from one 'generation' to another?

Other values would surely be different as well. If an individual lives only for one day, then funerals would probably not be a big thing. And how would the mayfly characters relate to those whose lifespan stretches into years rather than hours?

A little world-building will bring all manner of story ideas, as well as giving you interesting non-human characters.  

2. Make them individuals.
I've just written for the Daleks. This makes me happy. But, of course, you know what you're going to get with Daleks. Most of the time they are completely identical to each other; each infernal pepper pot a scheming ball of hate. There are, of course, exceptions, but usually its because they've been affected by some exterior influence - see the recent Inside the Dalek for a good example. That's nothing against the Daleks. Being nasty is literally in their DNA. And that's why we love them. Well, it's why I love them anyway. 

However, it's not the norm. Let's face it, not all humans are the same. There are kind humans, there are cruel humans; there are funny humans, there are humourless humans. There are humans who mention cybernetic dolphins far too much. 

Non-human characters should be the same (except for maybe the dolphin thing). A race of non-humans should never have the same characteristics, unless perhaps if they are a true hive mind. Similar traits maybe, but there should be individuality there. Look at the Klingons, to mix my science fiction franchises. They became far more interesting when we started to see bump-heads of all moral types and motivations. 

3. Give the reader a Han Solo.
Good old Chewbacca. He's a giant walking rug who makes great noises. And most Star Wars fans love him. Why? Largely because Han loves him. Han is our window to Chewie. The old rogue understands everyone's favourite wookie and literally translates him for us. Without Han is it doubtful that Chewie, wonderful though he is, would have been such a sympathetic character.

And the same can go the other way. Want to make your non-human characters completely and utterly uncanny? Then, give us a viewpoint character who can vocalise the differences and react to their absolute alienness. 

4. Remember human doesn't always mean better.
Poor old Spock. He spends most of the time being berated by Bones for being a green-blooded, cold hearted son of a... 

Well, you get the idea. 

However, it's all to easy to play all non-human characters as inferior in some or all ways to humans. They are somehow limited or stilted and don't quite understand the way the universe, just because they're not human, the poor things. 

What about a non-human character who is a more rounded-person than your humans, who is wiser or shows more compassion? 

Basically, don't be a Bones. Human doesn't always mean better.

5. Cheat.
No-one wants to read a truly non-human character. That's a bold statement, but it's true. Why would you? A reader needs something to relate to, so they can invest in the character. So make sure, no-matter how alien your non-human there are some recognisable traits in there, something that chimes with us all, whether they're fae, extra-terrestrial or cybernetic dolphin.

Have any tips of your own? Then share them below, especially if you are a cybernetic dolphin. 

(Can you tell I've been writing about cybernetic dolphins recently?)



_________________

Cavan Scott is the author of over 70 books and audio dramas including the Sunday Times Bestseller, Who-ology: The Official Doctor Who Miscellany, co-written with Mark Wright.

He's written for Doctor WhoSkylandersJudge Dredd, Angry Birds, Adventure Time and Warhammer 40,000 among others. He also writes Roger the Dodger and Bananaman for The Beano as well as books for reluctant readers of all ages.

Cavan's website
Cavan's facebook fanpage
Cavan's twitterings

Tuesday 25 November 2014

Introverts R Us - Tamsyn Murray

My name is Tamsyn and I am an introvert.

It took me a long time to realise this, mostly because I am also (for want of a better phrase) a bit of a show-off. I used to put my hand up when I knew the answer at school. I do am-dram, which involves singing and dancing and acting, sometimes in lead roles, in front of hundreds of people. Since I became a writer, the performer in me has been even busier, because what are school visits if not extended performances? I can do interviews for TV, and smile and chat to people I've only just met in social situations, make small talk without any apparent paroxysms of terror. How can I do all of that and not be an extrovert?

It took one of those lists you see popping up on Facebook every now and then to teach me the truth about my nature. Things You Should Know About Introverts*, it said. And I thought that as a writer, I knew plenty of introverted people so maybe it was worth a read.

Point 1 made me pause: We need to recharge alone. I do, I thought. In fact, there's nothing I cherish more than a bit of alone time (although alone time = working time for me because alone time is a rare commodity) and I constantly feel I don't have enough of it. And certainly after an event of some kind, what I yearn for most is to be on my own. Hmmm.

Point 2: We don’t hate being around people, but we probably hate crowds. I thought about this for a while because I wouldn't say I hate crowds but I don't love them either. Unless it's a festival crowd, in which case I love them all. But I do quite often feel overwhelmed by crowds - the urge to go and find a quiet place to sit is strong (or sometimes even to go home) and I get around this by starting random conversations with people. This is a trick I have learned and I almost always enjoy the conversation.

Number 3: We don’t mind silence.This one depends on the silence. I had a boss once who used to come and sit in my office and say nothing. Those were not good silences and I would say anything to fill them (which resulted in more silences because I had said something stupid.) But there's nothing wrong with a companionable silence.

And point 4: Just because we are introverted doesn’t mean we are shy. Very few people would describe me as shy. But by the time I read this one I was starting to realise that there was a good possibility I was an introvert.

Number 5: We can turn on an extroverted personality when necessary, but it is especially draining. This was a clincher for me - I know I do this. When I'm in a crowd and I want to talk to people because I feel uncomfortable (point 2) I switch on. Or for a performance. Actually, being extroverted is a lot like acting, except that I'm just being a much brighter version of myself instead of playing another character. And afterwards I am invariably exhausted.

Point 6 was: We aren’t judging you. And again, this depends on the situation. If you are supporting UKIP then I am judging you pretty hard.


7 made me cringe in shame because I know I do this: We secretly love it when you cancel plans. It doesn't mean I don't like you, it just means I don't have to be switched on.

Number 8: We can get very wrapped up in our own thoughts. AKA Daydreaming. Thinking time. Plotting. So I'm not ignoring you, honestly. I might just have forgotten you are there.

At number 9 we had: We can be pretty bad at connecting. And I wondered about this because I think I am good at connecting. Then I realised it's because I am good at listening - I like hearing other people's stories. And as luck would have it, listening means I have to talk less.

In at number 10 was: We don’t like to hang around. I decided this one depended on the situation. If I'm comfortable somewhere then it can be hard to get rid of me. But in a crowd situation when I've been switched on for a while, an unguarded exit can be too difficult to resist.

The last point was: We have strong opinions. And I decided this wasn't an introvert or an extrovert thing, because almost everyone I know has strong opinions about some things. Writers in particular have strong opinions - why else would we write?

So on balance, I decided that I'm an introvert. And it's nice to know finally that it's OK to want to be alone, to enjoy being on my own. Many of my writer friends are great to be around because they know how that feels, because they are introverts too. But ultimately, I'm not sure it really matters what you are, except that it feels good to know even when I'm alone, I'm not really.


*Things You Should Know About Introverts taken from http://playfullytacky.com/

Monday 24 November 2014

Bring Me The Teenagers - Liz Kessler


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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


Thank you! :)


Follow Liz on Twitter
Join Liz's Facebook page

Sunday 23 November 2014

Verne in Vigo - Maeve Friel


I love coming across literary sculptures, whether they are the slew of Paddington Bears which recently appeared in London, a dapper James Joyce leaning on his cane on Earl Street in Dublin or Don Quijote and Sancho Panza trotting through the Plaza España in Madrid.

This curious monument of a man sitting amid the tentacles of a giant octopus is also a literary monument. It is in Vigo, in Galicia in North-Western Spain - but what is it?






It is a homage to the French novelist Jules Verne, often described as the inventor of the genre of science fiction, and to the Galician references in his much-loved adventure Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. 

First of all, the sculpture reminds us of the terrifying chapter in which Captain Nemo and the crew of the submarine Nautilus are attacked by giant squid, as in the English translation, or more correctly by giant octopus (les poulpes, in French). Galicia, renowned for spectacular seafood, is particularly in thrall to the octopus and Pulpo a feira, octopus in the style of the fair,  is its signature dish - boiled in huge cauldrons by the pulpeiras, specialist octopus cooks, the tentacles snipped up with massive scissors and sprinkled with olive oil and pimentĂłn.

But there is another chapter of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea which takes place right in the RĂ­a de Vigo, the Bay of Vigo. This was the real life location of a major naval disaster in 1702 when English ships burnt and scuttled the French and Spanish fleets which were returning from the Caribbean laden with treasure from the New World. In the novel, Captain Nemo comes to Vigo to loot the ships´treasure.

Around the Nautilus for a half-mile radius, the waters seemed saturated with electric light. The sandy bottom was clear and bright. Dressed in diving suits, crewmen were busy clearing away half-rotted barrels and disemboweled trunks in the midst of the dingy hulks of ships. Out of these trunks and kegs spilled ingots of gold and silver, cascades of jewels, pieces of eight. The sand was heaped with them. Then, laden with these valuable spoils, the men returned to the Nautilus, dropped off their burdens inside, and went to resume this inexhaustible fishing for silver and gold.
I understood. This was the setting of that battle on October 22, 1702. Here, in this very place, those galleons carrying treasure to the Spanish government had gone to the bottom. Here, whenever he needed, Captain Nemo came to withdraw these millions to ballast his Nautilus. It was for him, for him alone, that America had yielded up its precious metals. He was the direct, sole heir to these treasures wrested from the Incas and those peoples conquered by Hernando Cortez!

Don´t miss the monument to M. Verne if you are visiting this less well known corner of Spain, a place redolent with stories of shipwrecks, smugglers, fishermen´s tales and foot-weary pilgrims, the furious music of bagpipes and an all-pervading smell of octopus and sizzling sardines.  And of course, I recommend that you read the book too!

www.maevefriel.com


Saturday 22 November 2014

FINDING MY VOICE by Adèle Geras

(This post appeared first on a blog called The Great British Bookshop. I'm very grateful to them for permission to publish it here again. Adele Geras)


It's been nearly eight years since I published a novel for adults. This is not because I've been lying around on sofas, eating peeled grapes, but because things have got in the way of my writing. These are both personal (moving from Manchester to Cambridge after living in the former for 46 years, my husband's last illness and death and so forth) and professional.
I haven't been idle.  Children's books have appeared during this time, but since A Hidden Life, I haven't published a novel for adults. And that's mainly because this particular novel, Cover your Eyes, has given me more trouble in the writing than any other of my books.  On the face of it, there's no obvious reason for this. I had the germ of the story right from the beginning, but in the first and second drafts and the subsequent fiddlings and fossickings that went on once the novel had actually been written, there were many different things to get right.
The first was that I needed to create convincing voices and stories for each of my heroines.  I like having more than one heroine in my books, and I enjoy going from one point of view to the other. Perhaps this is to stop myself from becoming tired of the single vision throughout, but it's also I think, (and hope!) a way of appealing to readers of different ages. The first thing you have to get right is the language. I made the decision early on to have Megan's sections in the first person, and that meant that the words had to be ones that were suitable for a young woman of 29. Eva's part of the story is in the third person, (a sort of modified form, which is really her point of view).
Also, I enjoy writing about the past. I blog on a site called The History Girls, which is for writers of historical fiction, and I count myself as one of those.  I like going back in time and to this end, I have always put a character who is about 75 or 80 years old in my novels to provide a view of the past. In my first adult novel, Facing the Light, (now only available as an e book from Quercus) the whole action of the novel takes place during the 75th birthday celebrations of my heroine, Leonora. Her memories of childhood, and of being young and middle-aged were layered into the narrative, and I wrote all seven of these 'past' bits first, before writing the rest of the book. I then slotted them into their appropriate positions at the end.
In Cover your Eyes, my elderly heroine is Eva, and she came to England in 1938 on the Kindertransport.  She has a secret that she has revealed to no one, and she is haunted, quite literally, by a ghost about whom she has never said a word.  She used to be a famous dress designer and she meets the other heroine of the novel, who's a journalist, when the latter (Megan), comes to interview her for a fashion magazine.  Eva's narrative is intercut with memories of times from her past, in the manner that I used in Facing the Light, but in this novel, I wrote the sections in the past as I went along.  Megan is recovering from being dumped by her married lover. Eva is sad because her beautiful home, Salix House, is going to be sold.  Stuff happens, and Megan ends up living in Eva's house, where she becomes aware of a certain strangeness - she sees and hears things that she can't explain.
I won't say more; I don't like spoiling the plot, but I hope that everyone who reads the book enjoys it. It went through several incarnations because it's very hard to weave a supernatural element into a typical 'women's fiction' story. I hope that there are things in this book which resonate with lovers of historical fiction* too. Even though only small sections of the actual story take place in the past, I like to think that what happened to Eva when she was four and came to England for the first time, tinges the book and gives it its flavour, rather like the Angostura in a drink of gin and bitters.
 * I have also written a children's book about the Kindertransport, called A Candle in the Dark, published by A&C Black, which is suitable for readers of seven and upwards.

Thursday 20 November 2014

Wilde Wisdom - Joan Lennon

I admit it - until now, I'd never read The Picture of Dorian Gray.  Oh, I knew, more or less, the plot.  But when I needed to read Oscar Wilde's horror story for a novel I'm just starting to write, there wasn't a handy copy in the house, so I got it (for free) as part of a kindle Penny Dreadful multi-pack - including The Horrors of Zindorf Castle AND Jack Harkaway and His Son's Adventures in Australia, which, co-incidentally, I also didn't own.

But did you know The Picture of Dorian Gray was first published in this magazine in 1890?  


In full.  Plus a Preface.  Plus a whole bunch of other fiction and articles and biography and - I'd love to read this bit - 8 pages With the Wits (illustrated by leading artists).  How's that for 25 cents?  

But here's what I want to post about.  What Oscar Wilde said, in his Preface, about critics and criticism, because it is both a witticism and a balm.  He said:

"... the lowest form of criticism is a mode of autobiography.  Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming.  This is a fault."

Is it merely an elegant way of saying, "Aw, poop, they're just jealous"?  I don't care.  Next bad review any of us gets, I recommend this as our mantra.  All together now ...

This is a fault.  

Joan Lennon's website.
Joan Lennon's blog.

Wednesday 19 November 2014

Reading Trees - Lucy Coats

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. 

Tuesday 18 November 2014

FUN with books and reading - it's the Kids' Lit Quiz - Linda Strachan



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!
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 





Monday 17 November 2014

Books For Bags: Celebrating Local Bookshops! by Emma Barnes


Recently on ABBA I posted about Book Festivals  - and how they are going from strength to strength.  It's not been so easy for bookshops.  Discounting in supermarkets, the decline of the high street, and the growth of online retailing have all made it much, much harder for bookshops to compete.




Last month, a national celebration of bookshops - Books Are My Bag - brought authors and bookshops together to try and do something about this.  Across the country, there were all kinds of festivities to help make the public more aware of the importance of local bookshops.

Here in Leeds, my fellow children's author Alison Brown (the author/illustrator of picture books Mighty Mo and Eddie and Dog) had the idea we should be part of this, and so on Saturday 11 November I was chuffed to be part of <i>Books for Bags</i> at Radish, the fantastic bookshop close to us in the high street in Chapel Allerton.

Me, Alison and Lisa at Radish

Radish is a great shop and the atmosphere, the selection of books, and the recommendations by knowledgeable staff provide something you cannot find online.


Bookshops are vital - part of the infrastructure of a reading culture.  Bookshop staff read the books they sell, can make recommendations, and know the kind of things their customers enjoy.

Many books have taken off not because of a mass marketing campaign by publishers, but because of grassroots recommendations and a slow spreading of word of mouth...often originating with the independent bookshops. 

We need to support them.  It really is a matter of Use Them - or Lose Them.

I just wish I'd had more time to browse the fantastic children's selection on the day.  Never mind.  The joy of local bookshop is you can pop in any time.



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Emma's new series for 8+, Wild Thing, is about the naughtiest little sister ever.  Out now from Scholastic. 
"Hilarious and heart-warming" The Scotsman

 Wolfie is published by Strident.   Sometimes a Girl’s Best Friend is…a Wolf. 
"A real cracker of a book" Armadillo 
"Funny, clever and satisfying...thoroughly recommended" Books for Keeps


Emma's Website
Emma’s Facebook Fanpage
Emma on Twitter - @EmmaBarnesWrite

Sunday 16 November 2014

Don’t Get It Right, Get It Written! - Tess Berry-Hart

“So how’s the writing going?” my well-meaning friend asks me cheerily over an all-too-rare cup of coffee. “Are you still working on your book? And how’s that play doing?”

I feel my stomach plummet. “Um, yeah!” I grope for words. “The writing’s going well. Yes, really well. And ... uh ... how about you?”

The truth is, I haven’t written a word in days. I can go weeks, months – though admittedly not quite years – without writing a single sentence.

My astute friend sees the panic in my eyes. ““Ah, but you’re probably busy with the little ones, aren’t you?”

She’s throwing me a lifeline here. I could grab it and agree the obvious; with two young children under three, I have no time; what mother does? My day is segmented into bottles, breakfasts and nappies, nursery pick-ups and drop offs, the intricate calculations of naps and lunches.

And yet it’s amazing how I do make time to do non-essential rubbish. I manage to fill up the chinks of precious me-space with the garbage of social media discussions or watching YouTube videos. I make time to send indignant tweets on Twitter, text my friends or run out for yet another coffee.

This morning both my children were at nursery for a couple of hours, and instead of catching up on some much-needed research or throwing a couple of experimental paragraphs onto a blank computer screen, I spent the valuable time pottering. I washed up a bit and portioned up some food in the freezer! I did the stuff I HATE ... but didn’t prioritise what I wanted: write.

Why?

Because I didn’t have the “perfect setting.” A setting in which I would be simultaneously invigorated yet calm, in a tidy house with no chores to do, having bathed, dressed, eaten and washedup, with a strong latte and an unbroken length of time stretching before me.

AIN’T NEVER GONNA HAPPEN!

All the while, writing seems like a huge mountain, looming reproachfully over me, a vast task too complicated to be attempted.

And yet –time spent writing makes me feel refreshed in a way that the Internet never can. It makes me feel like me again, not a lumbering food-stained, milk-encrusted mammoth, veering from domestic crisis to domestic crisis.

So why do I avoid it so much?

There’s lots of reasons why we procrastinate and these differ from person to person: lack of confidence, interest or motivation; rebellion or resistance against expectations; fear of failure or equally fear of success. But the kicker for me – and absolutely the most devastating – is that I fear that it won’t be good enough, so often I sabotage myself. In the words of David Burns, cognitive therapist and writer of “Feeling Good”:

The payoff for procrastinating is protecting ourselves from the possibility of perceived "real" failure ... You may often fill your schedule with busy-work so that you have a "legitimate" reason for not getting around to more important tasks.

Well that’s Tess to a T!

I’m not a perfectionist in the way some people might understand the term. I don’t colour-code my wardrobe or alphabetise my DVDs. Yet I am a perfectionist in terms of writing, which is hilarious because no single piece of writing can ever be deemed “perfect.” Quite simply, I fear I will never live up to my own standards.

This lovely article on Why Being A Perfectionist May Not Be So Perfect outlines my particular dilemma;

Our desire to “perfect” everything makes us overcomplicate a project. What’s actually a simple task may get blown out of proportion, to the extent it becomes subconsciously intimidating. This makes us procrastinate on it, waiting for the ever “perfect” moment before we get to it. This “perfect” moment never strikes until it is too late.

OK doctor, diagnosis delivered.

But what do I do about it? The most valuable piece of advice I ever had was from a tutor on my playwriting course at the Royal Court Theatre, who used James Thurber’s quote: “Don’t get it right, get it written” as a constant mantra. We were encouraged just to turn in the first draft. It didn’t MATTER if it was absolute rubbish. It didn’t MATTER if it veered off topic or was inconsistent or had typos or was badly formatted. The point was that we faced our fears and DID it and once it had been done, we could work on it. And very often, it wasn’t too bad at all.

But as fellow sufferers will attest; procrastination is a constant; you might beat it once, but it will always be there at your elbow. So this week I’m using a number of strategies to overcome it.

By far the most effective to get me started is the 5 minute rule. No matter HOW uninspired I am, if I sit down and work on my book or play for five minutes, very often I find that five minutes stretching into ten, and the ten into fifteen. Life coaches use this strategy to inspire people into a habit of exercise. Flexing that muscle builds muscle memory, and the good habit of plunging right in.

The second most effective is NOT CHECKING EMAIL before I’ve done my writing for the morning. Or Twitter, or Faceb

Thirdly, setting a time limit. Parkinson’s Law tells us that work expands to fit the time available. I can do some really good stuff in half an hour, and making it three hours won’t necessarily increase its quality.

Lastly, breaking down the task into small steps – useful if it’s something like planning and doing the publicity for a show or a book launch. All perfectionists enjoy the feeling of ticking something off a list. You just have to make it the right list.

So by employing a mix of the above strategies, this blog post is now finally finished and I’m off to reward myself with a coffee and five minutes on Twitter!

But how about all you other procrastinators and perfectionists out there? What strategies do you use to get things done?