Over the Rainbow

A few weeks ago something happened that I had worried would never, ever happen.

I signed a publishing deal with Oxford University Press for my children’s fantasy adventure book –

 Mold and the Poison Plot.

Gosh. Even writing that seems bizarre!

I feel a bit like Dorothy when she woke up in OZ - dazed and stunned and wondering if it's all a dream. Weeks later I'm still wondering if I've had a bump on the head! 

Getting the very thing I’d been dreaming of for years is an amazing thing. But it has actually, properly, REALLY happened. During a meeting with my soon to be editor at OUP HQ in Oxford last week it finally sank in. A whole team of wonderful, talented people would be working with me to publish MY story! WOW!

Myself and my agent Kate Shaw outside OUP

I suppose you might be wondering how I got to this point so let’s Cue The Backstory and vanish back in time…

As soon as I began writing in 2010 it became clear just what a difficult and competitive industry I was trying to enter.  I did my best and followed all the advice: Writing draft after draft, joining SCBWI, setting up a crit group,  writing another book, going to events and conferences and workshops, reading books on craft and writer blogs and then writing some more.

I finished several projects, was rejected many, many times and kept on going regardless. I felt I was making progress but just not enough to break through.

I had been writing for over three years when the idea for this book popped into my head. I spent the next three months furiously writing the first draft and then, took a leap of faith and sent the first three chapters to The Golden Egg Academy.

Although I felt I had a plot and a voice and a story worth telling I also knew it wasn’t at the level it needed to be, not yet and I hoped GEA would help me get it there.

In January 2014 I met Imogen Cooper for the first time and our discussion sent sparks of inspiration flying in my head. I was lucky enough to be recommended for mentoring and my subsequent meeting with Maurice Lyon gave me such a clear path for the redraft that it almost didn’t feel like editing!

I did more work with Imogen until I finally felt it was ready to be seen by agents and in October 2014 I met and signed with the marvellous Kate Shaw from the Viney Agency.

More edits with Kate followed where I had to lose a full 10,000 words and then the hardest stage of all – submissions to publishers!

It was this part that felt the most terrifying. This was the make or break. Either someone would buy it or they wouldn’t and if they didn’t then I was looking at having to say goodbye to my much loved story and start again with something new…

Holding my nerve and staying positive through rejections was much easier with the help of my lovely supportive agent but it still tested my very sanity at times. (big thanks to my writer friends who put up with me and managed to make me laugh when I wanted to cry!)

And then the interest from publishers began and I held my breath, wondering if that interest would become something more concrete… and oh frabjous day it did! 

And so, we can return to the present day –

Summing up then, it’s taken two years since first beginning Mold and the Poison Plot to secure a book deal with OUP  that will lead to its publication in Spring 2017 – nearly FOUR YEARS after starting it and SEVEN YEARS after I began writing!

The years of scribbling away may have been long and often arduous but they have given me so much more than a publishing deal;  I’ve learned what makes me really happy (stories and writing), discovered I have more strength and grit than I ever imagined (who knew?), found supportive and wonderful friendships that I hope will be part of my life forever ( I’m not giving them any choice in the matter.) and a whole host of wonderful things to look forward to in the future from launch parties to school visits and hopefully more books!

I feel very lucky indeed and I'm going to do my best to enjoy it all, keep learning and try to remember always that the journey is just as important as the destination.                                              

Feel free to ignore the next bit everyone! It is a bit Oscar speech I’m afraid but I wanted those included to know how very much I appreciate them all. I could have waited for the book acknowledgements or my launch party speech but that is far away and life is uncertain so I just wanted to get it out there now –

I will be forever grateful to -

1)      The Golden Egg Academy, most especially Imogen and Maurice - for offering not just insightful editing advice and instruction on story but never ending support and the most wonderful writing community of which I am so happy to be a part of.

2)      My agent Kate Shaw for believing in me and my story.

3)       My crit group past and present who have been clever and funny and marvelous over the years  (Thank you - Miriam, Allison, Meira, Gail, Karen, Tania, Paula, Larisa and Michelle)

4)   Vashti and James for being the best writing chums a girl could ask for.

5)  Jude for knowing me forever and loving me anyway.

6)  My mum who took me to the library every week, sat and listened to me read endlessly and always believed I could do anything.

7)      My dad who told me such good stories about the pet crocodile he had as a boy in India that I believed they were true for years! Still kind of wish they were. 

8)      Steve – who supported me in every way possible, never grumbled about my new obsession and took his own joy from seeing me happy. Love you.

9)      Luke – my heart, my reason for writing, my sounding board, my harshest critic and always my baby boy. Sorry for the mushy stuff.

Forgetting is Easy

It's been a while since I posted, nearly a year in fact. (oops)

There's been plenty going on but the urge to blog has been strangely absent, perhaps because of the dangerous amount of time I spend on twitter where my thoughts can appear as I think them and without the unnecessary need to plan and focus and edit in the same way that a blog post requires.

If you have missed me on twitter (how?) or indeed if you never go near it then here is a very brief update of where I am with my writing -

I finished my MG fantasy adventure after much work (and some frenzied hair pulling) with the help of Imogen Cooper and Maurice Lyon at The Golden Egg Academy and sent it out to agents in September. In October I signed with my fabulous and amazing agent, Kate Shaw from the The Viney Agency (pause for whooping and excited dancing)

So with one book finished and out of my hands I did as had been recommended and started my second book. I was confident that after learning so much from the Golden Egg experience and going through such a rigorous editing process that my next book would be sufficiently easier to write.

Dear reader I must tell you now...

 THAT I WAS WRONG.

The first draft of my new book has driven me half mad.

• It has been MIND NUMBINGLY HARD WORK. 
• I have questioned whether I could write at all.
• I have questioned my sanity.
• I have wondered whether it might be better to try something easier? Perhaps scuba diving with great white sharks? 
• I've thought seriously about giving it up entirely and admitting that writing was just not for me.

Maybe my first book was just a weird fluke? 

But, BUT...somehow with the help and support of lovely writerly friends I slashed and hacked my way through a first draft and I now have something really quite rubbish.

And I know what you're going to say - "first drafts are supposed to be bad" and I know that's true but I had forgotten exactly how BAD they were. I'd forgotten in fact just how much work went into the early part of novel writing, of getting the meat and bones onto the page in some semblance of a story.

For nearly a year I'd been polishing and revising and editing my previous book, but I'd been working on something that did at least resemble a book. The plot, the structure, the basics were already there - I just had to refine them and polish them up. I had forgotten the bit before. Almost entirely in fact. And yet the first draft of my last book had been just as bad, possibly worse, but all I remembered was the beautifully polished version...

At this point I had an epiphany.

I realised that all those references to birthing a book were not just about the visceral love and attachment you have to your baby book but also about the strange tricks your mind plays on you after it's all over. Just as women forget the pain of childbirth, so writers forget just how terrible their first drafts were.

Selective amnesia has it's reasons of course - the continuance of the human race for one but also, and even more sneakily, to trick writers into starting another book.

And of course I'm glad for it. Perhaps if I'd remembered I never would have started at all. Now I have a first draft, however horrible it is, I can get on with the art of making it better. And no doubt when it comes to book three and book four I'll be just as innocent and forgetful as before.

But at least editing is easy right?  I'm sure I remember it as being easy...

Levelling up

I like video games.

 

I play them fairly often and I have done for years, my current favourite is the Uncharted trilogy which combines great story with well developed characters and has lots of shooty, climby type action to keep me entertained.

The thing I've noticed about all video games is that in order to complete them you have to level up. Games have different ways to help you with this, some start off with tutorial levels to show you exactly how to control and use the game, all of them tend to start off easy and gradually get harder and most will have different difficulty settings such as: Easy, medium, hard or beginner, advanced and expert.

The reason I mention all this is that there are a fair few similarities here to writing. In order to get better and have a chance of getting published you have to constantly improve or level up.

The easiest way in both gaming and writing is to practice.  The more you play/write the better you get. So you put in the hours and the work. You read books or internet articles on how to improve/succeed.

But that's not always enough.

It can take us a fair way, maybe move us from beginner to advanced but most of us need more help to really improve.

To advance to the next level may take outside imput. Playing against other people, judging your work against someone else's, asking for advice - the basics of a crit group, or one to one feedback from an agent or editor at a conference.

I felt as if I'd done all of these things for the last couple of years - I'd written and edited three books, I'd read books on writing, I'd had feedback from agents and publishers, I'd been to events and conferences, I'd joined a crit group...

I had levelled up a fair amount but still, when I looked at my current w.i.p I felt that there was something missing, that despite it holding together as a book with a decent plot and interesting characters it wasn't as good as it could be.

I could recognise this because of everything I'd learned but as yet I hadn't learned enough to know how to make it better. Not really better, not the better that will transform it from a decent bit of work to something damn good.

So at the end of last year I got in touch with the Golden Egg Academy  run by Imogen Cooper and I asked for help. I knew I needed an expert eye and I hoped they might be able to push me to the next level.

I saw Imogen in January of this year and left that meeting feeling like I was finally on the right track. Imogen's homework was for me to read "Into the Woods" by John Yorke and I can't thank her enough for recommending it.

It's not a book I would have picked up for myself but reading it has made such a difference to my understanding of plot and structure. What I found fascinating about it was that he uses plots from popular films to illustrate his points and there were light bulbs going off everywhere as I read!

The next bit of homework was to write my bookmap, a patented device that Imogen uses with all her writers that forces you to consider everything about your book in detail and in relation to everything else. It made me realise how little I really knew about some of my characters so I spent ages working out their history and character and this sparked off new ideas and scenarios. I finally felt as though my book was coming alive, the world, the people, it was all finally, really, there.

It felt as if I'd been pushed up several levels already. It was a heady rush of exultation, this was what I wanted, this new understanding and already I could see huge areas in my work that could do with improvement

More excitement came when I was offered the chance to be mentored by Maurice Lyon and when he read my m.s he sent me comments and we met to discuss in March.  Time sped by as we talked and discussed everything about my book in minute detail. I told him my ideas and he helped me fine tune what I needed to achieve and when he left I felt so motivated and more importantly even, I felt as if I had a clear idea of what I had to do now.

The last couple of months have involved some of the most enjoyable editing ever. Enjoyable because I knew what I needed to achieve and because all those months of preparation had given me the tools I needed. And of course I now had a mentor I could ask for advice if I got stuck, knowing that made it even easier to keep editing.

So the reason I've been so absent from this blog is because my brain has been exploding, it feels that since joining Golden Egg I've managed to move up several levels and although I may still be a fair way from the very top I think I may now have the tools to get up there one day.

First though I just need to scale a couple of walls, leap across a chasm and take out the baddie with my sniper rifle...

Philosophy for Writers

Writing isn't easy.

Getting published is even harder.
But never fear people, I am here with a whole list of ways to help

you be philosophical  about a writing life.
Pick one of these and all your troubles will be over!*

(*the author accepts no responsibility for any harm that comes to you or others through using these techniques. Nor are any actual promises made as to the success or failure of your writing or the trouble freeness of your life)

Philosophy Number One

Confidence  Arrogancius Pluribus Maximus - 

 Perfect if you think your work is stupendous and the whole world needs to read it. After every rejection you receive simply rail at their sheer stupidity, write aggressive blog posts and send furious emails. The best part of this philosophy is that you can die convinced that you've been unappreciated in your own time and that only when you've gone will your genius be discovered.

Philosophy Number Two

Goddicus Fateicus

 Take the view that nothing is in your hands or in your control. Don't worry about whether your book is any good because it doesn't matter. If it's meant to be it will happen. If it's not then it won't. You have no influence on any of it so why worry?



Philosophy Number Three

Superstitious Extremus

You control everything. Your lucky knickers and special bendy pen can make the difference between success or failure. As long as you follow your special routine of writing on a Wednesday between three and four in the morning while wearing your wellies and singing "Paperback Writer" by the Beatles then your work is guaranteed to be lauded by all. 
Then all you have to do is send it off on the 3rd Tuesday when the moon is rising in Pluto, to any agents whose names begin with the letter P and are born in September while chanting Celtic nursery rhymes and you're bound to be snatched off the slush pile.
If not then it must have be the fault of that black cat that crossed your path or the ladder you walked under. 

Philosophy Number Four

Superious Stalkerific

  Basically if you have stalker tendencies this is the one for you. It's based on the idea that what you write isn't as important as who you know. What you must do is use the internet and social networks to find every agent and publisher you can. Then ignore their submission guidelines.
 Instead find out where they are, hang around outside their offices, gatecrash parties, linger around the loos and whenever possible force your manuscript into their hands. That way they're bound to read it and hey presto you'll be published before you know it.
 Your other option in case they all take out a restraining order on you (and they probably will) is to try meeting other writers and telling them how brilliant your work is in comparison to theirs. They're bound to realise (after you harass them for long enough) that their real purpose in life is not to write their own books but to help you get published by passing your manuscript on to their agents and publishers.

Philosophy Number Five

Optimism Overloadus


Of course you'll be published! Your mum and dad said so. And you got a gold star for your story in year five so that proves how good you are. You don't need to read any books or go to any courses. And you don't need feedback from others because you know you're destined to be a writer. All you need to do is keep writing. You've already made it to number seven in your twenty three part series. When you've finished them all you're sure someone will be desperate to publish them.

  That's all I'm covering this week but I hope you find something there that catches your eye. Remember, the right philosophy can make all the difference to your writing life!

Mastering Middle Grade

 Yesterday I attended my very first SCBWI masterclass and lucky me, it was run by the wonderful Sara O Connor from Hot Key Books.

 Twenty eager scooby people turned up at the Theodore Bullfrog Pub in Charing Cross hoping for a practical workshop on writing the best middlegrade fiction and that's exactly what we got!

 For those of you who couldn't join us Sara has very kindly allowed me to blog about the day, so here we go, Halfway to the Middle by Sara O Connor.

We started off by looking at the basics -

 How do you define Middle Grade?

1. Age of the main character (between 10 and 13 usually)

2. Level of violence (do what you want to monsters etc but not so much with people) and romance (not beyond hand holding)

3. Length (around 40 000 words)

4. Contains innocence and optimism and isn't cynical

5. Earnest with a sense of justice.

 We then moved onto talking about character and Sara encouraged us to find our inner ten year old. Most importantly;

Do Not Condescend or Underestimate 

Make sure there is Authentic Depth to your character - 

Know what they Want, Think and Need  

Ensure there is True Motivation.

Writing Exercise One -
Read your first two pages - what do you learn about character? Underline everything you learn about them.
(Remember - Physical description isn't character - we need to find out what they believe, see authentic motivation for the plot as early as possible.)
If we don't find out enough, why not? Is backstory or secondary characters getting in the way?

Remember the Less is More adage. Everything you tell your reader must be worth it!
Imagine that your reader has to carry a backpack from page one to the end of the story. The backpack holds everything you tell your reader so make sure they NEED to carry it.
If they don't need it - CUT IT OUT and remember small details often matter most.

Writing Exercise Two

To make space for the essential details go through your first page and CUT twenty unnecessary words.
(Yes, 20 words!)
Now Cut twenty more. (Yes I know, it's hard. We moaned as well but No Pain No Gain!)

Main Character Essentials

We have to love them in order to want to spend the next however many pages with them. 
They need Conviction - we have to believe in them and what they want and need.
Their Motivation must be in sync with the plot.
They must be in the drivers seat, make decisions and drive the plot forward.

For more help with this Sara suggested we check out the Carnegie Shadowing site and specifically Roddy Doyle talking about Greyhound Girl.

Writing Exercise  Three
Ask yourself these questions;
What is the first thing your character does that will make the reader care about them? (how early or late does it happen?)
Why should the reader want to be your main character? (reading is aspirational)
What is memorable about your main character in the first chapter?
What is the worst thing that could ever happen to them?
What is the one thing they will do anything to avoid admitting to themselves or others?

Sara used examples from published books and participants submissions to highlight her points and the whole group was buzzing over lunch as Sara's ideas inspired us all to think differently about our work.

Plot Basics

Plot should be inseparable from character.
Plot should be because of character.
Ask big questions to develop the plot.
Ask questions again and again - how far will your character go to get what they want?
Each answer should complicate your plot and test your character.
Don't force it! You can't make people do what you want and you can't overlay plot onto character.
Create the situation bring in your character and see how they react.

Before the workshop Sara asked us to write a two line chapter summary that gave the most important points. It was a really useful way to get the whole picture of your novel and check whether the following points all work.

Each chapter should be able to lead on to the next with the word because not and then.
Each chapter should move the story on in terms of plot or character. If it doesn't - Cut It!
With each chapter get in late and leave early.
Remember your backpack and make sure only the essentials are going in.

Writing Exercise Four
Write a two line summary chapter summary for your book.
Now cut out three chapters.
(Don't shout at me, Sara made me do it!)
 

 Our last instruction came in terms of making our story meaningful in some way. 
We talked about the Obligatory Scene which should almost have been set up in the early chapters. It is what readers have been expecting from the beginning and therefore it MUST happen!

Writing Exercise Five
 Do you have your obligatory scene?
Does your protagonist meet the antagonist?
How does the scene change both characters?
Is it the biggest, best scene in the book?
Where does it occur? Would a different setting make it more dramatic?
If the scene isn't as good as it could be look at the buildup before.

And here's what Sara thinks makes great middle grade -

Brilliant idea
Vivid characters
Don't condescend.
Make it meaningful.
Embrace revision.
Have fun! 

I want to thank Sara for giving such a great masterclass. Everything in it was useful and can be applied to my w.i.p so I'm very glad I came along and as always I had a brilliant day with my fellow scoobies and the very lovely Sara!

If you found Sara's ideas useful and would like the chance to work more closely with Sara and three other great editors do check out her new venture Book Bound.

The Cliffs of Insanity

 Those of you who've read William Goldman's "The Princess Bride" ( or seen the very excellent film) will understand what I mean by my title. To those of you who haven't, why not? It is  AMAZING! Anyway, the cliffs of insanity are, to be brief, enormously high, almost impossible to scale cliffs and sometimes that's how writing feels to me.
 Not every day of course. Some days are positively glorious.  Some days words flow from my brain to the paper in an effortless stream and I stay up half the night writing chapter after chapter. Some days I feel as if my characters live and breathe, my plot sings and my prose shines. On those days I believe with every fiber of my being that I am a writer and that one day I will be published.
 But then there are days like today. Days when each word I write seems a chore. Days when I stare at the screen with no idea of where to start. Days when I read through months of work and decide it's all rubbish and I've no chance of ever being published. Days when I imagine agents would laugh at my delusions.
 They are not good days. Obviously. They are hard and horrible and enough to make me want to give up entirely. They test my beliefs and my commitment to the core.
 But it's always useful to use some perspective at this point. A bad day writing is still in comparison to most other occupations a wonderful way to spend my time. And let's not forget that in some jobs a bad day could mean something truly awful happens.
 So, with that in mind it seems churlish to complain about the anguish and pain that comes with creation. It is, I suppose, a part of the process and something we must all learn to cope with but it's certainly not something I was prepared for when I began this journey.
 The problem is that when you read a book it's impossible to tell how many months or years of work have gone in to it and now that I know a bit more I am amazed at the time and effort that is necessary. Amazed and terrified it must be said. Can I really do it? Do I have the perseverance to keep going, draft after draft, rejection after rejection? It seems to me that it's that very ability that in some ways counts even more then talent and skill.

 So I can't guarantee that I'll be here five years from now. But I very much hope so, I hope I can keep the faith despite everything. For now though I will carry on climbing my personal cliff and cling to the fact that everything worth having is worth fighting for.

How do you cope with bad days? How do you keep going? Leave a comment and let me know!

Things to do while you wait...

A big part of a writers life revolves around waiting. It seems that every single stage on the road to publication involves a waiting period and we never know quite now how long the wait will be, anything from a few days to a few months seems possible.

 And I can understand why, agents and publishers are very busy people, I'm often amazed that they bother reading all the submissions that come to them at all. Beause let's face it they're not being paid for that are they?

 So I don't blame the lovely people in publishing for my angst, it was my choice to submit and my decision to wait for a response after all.  But unfortunately, knowing that doesn't make the waiting any easier!

 

And the length of time you wait has no bearing on whether the news is good or bad as far as I can tell. 

I've sent out a submission email on a monday and had a form rejection the next day.

 I've also sent out a submission email and had a request for a full the same day.

   

So what can we do? The advice from the experts seems to be that while we wait we simply get on with churning out the next book.

 Oh, if only it were so easy!

But if I've just been working on a huge rewrite ready to send out to agents then I need some time to clear my head before I can start any thing new which means I need something else to fill my time while waiting to hear back such as...

1. Checking my email. I can do this hundreds of times a day. Just in case.

2. Cleaning the house. Boring but let's face it I'm not cleaning it when I'm writing and I'd like to avoid an appearance on "How filthy is my house? Really flipping filthy obviously but I'm happy to be humiliated on t.v if you just clean it all for me."

3. Read. Read books by published authors and consider all the ways that my book is better then theirs and the obvious unfairness of publishing and life in general.

4. Spend time with my family. Also known as whinging on about how stressful it is to be a writer and asking them repeatedly if they think agent xyz will love my work? If I'm lucky I can then provoke an argument based on either a yes or no answer and this will distract me even further.

5. Eat chocolate. Or biscuits. Or cake. Or ice cream. Or all of them together. This can make me feel better briefly and when I discover how much weight I've put on I can panic about dieting instead of worrying about rejection. Result!

6. Shopping. Buy books. Or clothes. Or Cake. Or anything really as long as it distracts me however briefly from the fact I still haven't heard anything!

7. Surf the internet. Read blogs by agents and authors and publishers or buy lot's of lovely things from amazon. This is two distractions in one and of course allows me to do number one also.

8. Erm....once I've tried all of the above and I still haven't heard anything now may be the time to contemplate the deepest recesses of my soul and consider what twisted part of my psyche persuaded me to become a writer at all??? I could have started a nice hobby instead like knitting or watercolour painting or making models out of matchsticks. I could have spent my time sticking pins into my eyes and repeatedly banging my head with a hammer instead of becoming involved in the sheer hell that is trying to get published!!!

Pause for deep breathing and happy thoughts...

9. Remember how much I love writing. Remember that I am not alone. Remember that getting published is a huge dream and that it's worth a bit of waiting because one day that wait may lead to something marvellous.

 One day...

The loneliness of a wannabe author.

 Let's face it, writing is a solo sport. You need to spend days and weeks and months of time on your own to turn out a book and most of us, luckily, are quite happy in our own heads. We make friends with our characters, we live and breathe them and gain great satisfaction from their creation.
 But, the problem with the life of solitude comes when you're not writing. It comes when you're trying to work out if your book is any good or when you're starting to submit your work to agents and publishers because that endeavour requires help and support.
 Yes, you can read books about it, or search the internet and you can find huge amounts of information. But it's not the same as having real life people to talk to, people who understand what you're trying to do and why.
 So, are your friends and family the right people to help you? Perhaps.  Certainly at least it's beneficial if they support your love of writing and your quest to get published but whether they can give you decent feedback or truly understand how crushed you are at each rejection is another thing.
 My family and friends have been wonderful and I'm very grateful but in my opinion other writers are the only ones who can really understand how it feels. So, if you could find a whole group of writers, all of them willing to work and learn and pass on their own knowledge to others, how marvellous would that be?
 Very marvellous in my opinion. I joined the society for childrens book writers and illustrators eighteen months ago and SCBWI has been a fabulous resource for me . Not only was I able to find an online crit group but they also hold many events and classes where you can meet not only other writers, published and unpublished but also (shock, horror, gasp) real live industry professionals like agents and editors who are actually wonderfully nice people and very happy to talk to us.
 There is also an online community who will answer questions and share the highs and lows of the writers life. I have met some very lovely friends through scbwi as well as meeting agents who have gone on to read my work. I may still be unpublished but I'm much further on then I would have been without SCBWI so my recommendation to all of you is to join as well!
 It really  is the only place I've found that's not full of negativity about the chances of getting published but in fact often has stories from members who have found an agent or received a publishing deal. Stories like that make you believe in the possibilities and that is what we all need if we are ever to find our own slice of success.

Up the Garden Path

Okay so this was going to be a post on The Hunger Games film but I've been distracted by another topic. Deep into revision it occured to me how easy it is to simply take the wrong path while writing.
I admit I'm not a planner, I begin my writing with a kernel of an idea and set off on the journey with no real idea of where I'm going. So therefore it's easy for me to wander off in the wrong direction. That's not a problem as such if, and I say if, you figure out when you've gone wrong.
Unfortunately it's harder than it sounds! Because let's face it, if you have no plan how do you even know when you've gone wrong?
Of course you should be able to figure out when something doesn't sound right but it's often hard to pinpoint exactly where the problem is. It's easy to spend ages fiddling with what you've done and never see the deeper issues.
So what do you do? Can you avoid the brambles on the path? Should you even want to? What if you find some blackberries among the brambles? What if your wrong path leads somewhere amazing?
A detailed plan could save you wandering too far but it may also prevent those moments of startling revelation that occasionally surprise us all so what do we do?
Well, in my case I used a literary consultant and she very kindly kicked me in the right direction. You don't have to pay for this service of course, you could use a crit group or a writing buddy to help you see where you may have taken a wrong turn. The perspective gained from others can't be underestimated in my opinion - as long as they have some understanding of writing of course - opinions from your mum, your friend or your child can't entirely be trusted, trust me!
So, don't be afraid of wrong turnings, they may not even be wrong, just different from what you expected and if you do find yourself up a cul de sac withot a paddle get another opinion, fresh eyes can make all the difference.

Authors as performers.

As you may have noticed I've recently seen three children's authors at the Imagine festival, Francesca Simon, Cressida Cowell and Andy Stanton.
Although it's common now for writers to speak at schools, back in my day (the land of long ago yore) we never saw a real life author ( they were allowed to stay tucked away writing funnily enough,) so this was my first experience of seeing authors live.

I have to say that they were all brilliant but very different in the way they interacted with the audience and the aspects they chose to talk about and it gave me some hope that one day if (and I know it's a big if) I was ever expected to go to an event like that I'd be able to find a way to do it.

Francesca Simon - author of Horrid Henry and The Sleeping Army - was very calm and assured. She chose to spend much of her time talking about how she writes, where she gets her ideas from and discussed her research into her new book in detail.

Cressida Cowell - author and illustrator of How To Train Your Dragon - was a bundle of enthusiasm and her presentation was themed very much at the children in the sudience. She shared amusing slides and stories of her childhood with us and was hugely popular with her audience.

Andy Stanton - author of Mr Gum - jumped around the stage, danced and played the harmonica in a marvellous performance aimed most definitely at the kids. He ran up and down the aisles, told jokes, messed about and generally made his audience roll about laughing.

I'm not entirely sure where I'd fit in among these - much would depend on the genre and age group you write for I imagine and of course on what you'd personally be comfortable doing on stage (my harmonica playing isn't up to much for a start!). What I did take away was that the fans, the children in the audiences were enraptured at the opportunity to see their favourite authors, very keen to ask questions and no doubt inspired by the whole affair.

I would hope that the authors took some fond feelings away with them and perhaps felt inspired to keep working and pleasing their fans who show such love for their stories.

It did strike me that these three authors were at the top of their game, they've written many books, sold all over the world and have a huge amount of fans and yet they're still expected to put in the hours promoting their work and still find time to write, edit and everything else a normal person has to do.

These are the things we must accept now and embrace, being an author now is not just about writing, editing etc you have to put work in to promote your book, have a presence on the internet and keep your fans and your publishers happy. It's a tall order and yet most aspiring authors would chew off their left arm just to have the opportunity. Besides I'm sure I could learn to type one handed??

Remember the Journey...

There is a saying that the destination isn't important, it's the journey that counts and it came to me recently that I've been so focused on my attempts to get published I've forgotten to enjoy the process of getting there.


Okay so I don't have an agent, I don't have a publishing deal and it may be many years before I eventually get there but this whole year has been amazing. If I think back to where I was last year at this time then I can hardly believe how much has changed-
You see I spent most of 2010 in agony from the prolapsed disc in my spine, I could hardly move off the sofa for much of it and the constant pain made me miserable, grumpy and depressed. Last Christmas I had such a bad episode I couldn't move off the sofa, at all, for five days...


Then in January I had surgery on my spine and while recovering I started writing and this is my journey...

In April I went to my first writing event, then a workshop, then a SCBWI event- something I wouldn't have been able to do at all a few months earlier.
I finished my first book and started my second.
I submitted and got rejected.
Alot.
I got requested.
Got rejected.
I rewrote my first book.
I finished my second book.
Then I submitted again, got rejected, got requested.
Twice.
Got rejected.
Twice.

But that's only part of my journey, I've also;

1. spent this year going out, meeting other writers and agents and publishers.
2. read masses of childrens books and loads of books about writing.
3. spent hours on the internet looking at agents and blogs and joined an online SCBWI crit group.
4. discovered that I love writing, I particuarly love writing fantasy for children.
5. found out that I can complete a project, I can edit and rewrite and I can work to a deadline.
6. And most importantly, my biggest achievement, the one thing that I was desperate to know when I started is that....YES, I CAN WRITE!

I can write. I wasn't sure I could when I started but I can do it.
And I can write well enough to interest agents, okay, not quite enough to sign me but interest nonetheless ;)
So my resolution for next year is that while I try and hone the craft that is writing I will also try to enjoy the journey, to remember where I started and how far I've come.
I've got my eye on the destination, that's true and it may well take me years to get there but the journey is going pretty well.
Here's wishing you well on your journey.
Bon voyage fellow writers!

Superstitious moi?

I don't usually consider myself a superstitious person but recently found myself behaving quite oddly while waiting to hear back from agents. I started to imagine that somehow my behaviour could influence their decisions somehow, as if the cosmos was watching me and if I did/ didn't do a particular thing that would affect my luck and my chances of getting an agent.

Examples of my madness included;

Ten minutes of fantasising about what I would say when an agent rang to offer me a deal led to hours of trauma that by indulging in my little fantasy I had forever ruined any chance of it ever coming true.
I also spent some time trying to prepare myself for the worst - but then worried that my lack of confidence and belief would in fact be responsible for my rejection.


I had a small crisis about not having anything suitable to wear if I was ever invited to meet an agent. This would of course result in my wearing something unsuitable to the meeting whereby the agent will change her mind about representing me due to my horrendous wardrobe choices.
So then I found the perfect outfit. Only I refused to buy it in case such an act of reckless confidence would somehow be jinxing my chances...

There are more along the same lines but to be frank they're too embarassing to recount. The truth is, I was trying to pretend that I had some influence over the decisions of others but let's face it once it's out there, once your work is submitted, you have no control. Decisions will be made, regardless of anything I do or don't do.
The only control we have is making sure that whatever we send out is as good as possible, that we're sending it to the right people and then the rest is up to fate, the cosmos and of course the good luck fairy who lives at the bottom of my garden...