No – I haven’t spelled it wrong; I’m using the dialect term from my childhood. ‘Laik’ – to play – is a word of Viking origin, as many are in Yorkshire. It’s also the root of a certain famous brick: Continue reading
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Category Archives: Writing
The perfect is the enemy of the good.
There are few things I like better than dressing up. I have gilded memories of the costumes my immensely talented Nanna made for me and the Halloween theme at this year’s SCBWI Conference was a gift for me.
Perks of being a reader
Amongst all the debate about Kathleen Hale’s piece in the Guardian and the Goodreads reviewer allegedly* hit over the head with a bottle by an enraged author, I want to put my emphasis on the positive aspects of reading and reviewing.
*it is under police investigation at present
10 reasons to review – with examples
- Finding works and writers you never expected – Gail Carriger’s Etiquette & Espionage, China Mieville’s Railsea, Tom Pollock’s Skyscraper Throne Trilogy, Catherynne Valente’s The Girl Who …series
- Seeing authors grow and change over time – Frances Hardinge, Chris Priestley, Celia Rees, Jonathan Stroud
- Developing relationships within the community – readers, writers, publicists, editors. Chutzpah pays off. My experience so far has been overwhelmingly good. I love it when I tweet or comment and make someone’s day – or I get hold of a book I really wanted.
- Improving your understanding of the book market. I’ve much more idea of age-ranges, the style of different imprints and the likely readership than I had before.
- Matching the right book with the right reader. I cannot emphasise this enough. A reviewer’s purpose is to unite the people who like that-sort-of-thing with their preferred reading material. It’s not for me to judge – the thing’s been written. I know what love and care goes into the vast majority of writing for young people that I read – what earthly good could come of me slagging it off?
- Investigating good and sometimes great writing. How does it work? What can I steal? [ Please don’t take that too literally] Even with works that really aren’t my thing, I have learned a lot by thinking about why.
- Inspiring me to write. We’re all ‘just adding pebbles to the cairn’ as Maeve Binchy put it so beautifully. Not rivals – fellow creators.
- Receiving books for free – how wonderful is that? If I can bear to, I pass appropriate ones to my local library – doubly pleasing.
- Occasionally getting books well before they come out. I feel so honoured when that happens. Hint hint publishers!
- Pleasure.
Shelfie
I mostly write for Serendipity Reviews and occasionally for Fantasy Book Review. I read the whole book – or I don’t review it. Why not join me?
Coming round to the Dark Side
On Tuesday, I had the rather tremulous pleasure of visiting the British Library exhibition ‘Terror and Wonder: The Gothic Imagination‘. Indeed, there was a certain amount of trepidation involved – going up to That London – and not knowing what to expect. Would it be over in a flash and leave me at a loose end? Would it be tacky, or too full of jargon and conceit to enjoy?
I had no need to worry. I shall try to avoid ‘spoilers’ – but if you want surprises, just stop here at the end of this sentence: it’s fascinating and diverse. I wrote over twenty pages of notes – but you won’t get all of them, I promise.
There is a chronological thread; you start with The Castle of Otranto. Don’t miss the curious Czech film – and try imagining what the transparencies would look like backlit with flickering candlelight. I am a bit of a fan, so many of themes were familiar. Still, it was a treat to see exemplars of the Sublime up close, as a for-instance. As long as I can remember certain places – gorges, mountains, waterfalls, ruins, castles… have thrilled me.
Lady Blanche crosses the Ravine… by Nathaniel Grogan
That’s none too weird, you might say. But then some frissons of pleasure I had mingled with concerns about what these said about me. I felt a surge of delight when I re-encountered old friends like Count Dracula and Carmilla. I wished I hadn’t got rid of my LPs, posters and books.
Was this stuff I should enjoy?
When prompted to think about the real Terror in Revolutionary France, I faltered. My vision of Gothic is one of disturbing beauty, of hidden desires. I cheerfully admit that it had much to do with my adolescent sexuality.
But extreme violence – where did that sit in my understanding? I have to say I felt nauseous contemplating the Jack the Ripper letter. Violence against women is not a matter for my entertainment. This was an ethical challenge.
Image by James E. Nicol
As you may know I am fond of dressing up. Perhaps my Gothic side is merely superficial, put on like the Blackpin veil ? But that doesn’t explain why this weird disconnect troubles me so much. There’s deep ambivalence here – I do love and yet I fear I should not.
It is not resolved. I have found some comfort in the thought that expressing the darker side can be, perhaps, cathartic. I believe, for example that Boris Karloff was a perfect gentleman – and I know Chris Priestley (talented artist and cracking writer) is a delight to engage with.
And after all, the Gothic Imagination deals with the two biggies Love and Death – like the best opera. [Lots of similarities there, now I come to think of it.]
Il Commendatore by Anna Chromy
The best resolution I have found to this debate comes in the words of Cornelia Funke, though she is talking about fantasy in general:
If you cannot imagine another world, you won’t be capable of changing this one. The role of the writer is to ask the questions that others may not get round to asking, to fish for the unspoken truth.
full article here c/o David Almond
I really don’t have an answer – do you?
Gone – but not forgotten [quite]
Apologies if you were waiting to learn which character I chose for the SCBWI Agents’ Party. I went for Tolly.
Inside Tolly’s bedroom at Greeen Knowe
For those of who you have not had the pleasure, I refer to Toseland Oldknow in L.M.Boston’s truly enchanting ‘The Children of Green Knowe‘. He is a lonely boy – who makes friends with the ghosts of children long gone in his great grandmother’s ancient house.
I wanted so much to be like Tolly – and in some ways, I still do. Slipping in and out of time, finding companionship in strange places – that’s my world at its best.
Happily, you can visit Lucy Boston’s fascinating house and garden – and the 60th Anniversary of the first of the Green Knowe books will be on the 9th November this year. There will be a celebration at Hemingford Grey. Do go if you can.
Character Actress
I’d never make a Hollywood leading lady – but I can do character.
This evening I am braving possible thunderstorms and the rumblings of my own trepidation to attend the annual SCBWI BI Agents Party at Foyles Grand Design of a new bookshop. Choosing what to wear was tricky enough – but archfiend Nick Cook has issued us with a second badge.
We have to select one character from children’s lit we’d like to be. Crumbs. Where to start? All of them is not an acceptable answer. One close to me seems good.
Hermione? Well, I am a bit of know-it-all but she is too recent. If I included all the children’s characters I have grown to love as an adult, it would be impossible. Also I suspect Hermione will be very popular – as will delightful bookworm Matilda.
Eowyn? I think that’s cheating. OK I read LOTR when I was still a child but she’s not really a children‘s character. So how about Alan Garner’s Susan? Could be – I was utterly convinced that a bracelet of my grandmother’s with blue tear-drop stones was a magical talisman – and I’d get two books to inhabit (three if you count ‘Boneland’).
What about the other Susan – Narnian queen and healer ? Well, putting aside The Problem of Susan for another day, she does get four books to go at – but she is a bit of a bystander. I feel like that with Jane Drew in ‘The Dark is Rising’ books – I don’t really remember her that well.
That goes for many others – and I won’t pick ones I only really know from films or TV. Princess Eilonwy from The Chronicles of Prydain is too pretty, and so too is Princess Irene. Never could be doing with that. I will admit to fancying a few ‘baddies’ , though. Empress Jadis of Charn – who wouldn’t want to be remembered this way?
But she was a dem fine woman, sir, a dem fine woman.
That’s grown up me speaking, I suspect. Still, I’m far more fond of Captain Hook than Tinker Bell or Wendy – though I do have soft spot for Tiger Lily. She used bow-and-arrows in my mind – and how marvellous was that?
Of course, I can gender-swap. That gives me Kay Harker and Eustace Scrubb. Yes I know – Eustace is a complete prig – but he gets to be a dragon and learns his lesson. I’ve always loved that. I can identify with the miseries and misfits – Eeyore, Puddleglum, Bard the Bowman [though he gets a bit grand].
Well, time has run out. I have made my choice. If you’re at the Agents Party, you’ll know. If not, I will reveal all tomorrow.
Of riffs, tweets and bees
Twitter can be a source of unabashed delight, I want to tell all the non-Tweeters out there. I spotted a lovely picture of a white bee posted by Kate Long – and alerted Joanne Harris to it. Those who follow her will know she starts every #storytime with
There is a story the bees used to tell, which makes it hard to disbelieve..
It seemed likely she’d enjoy it as much as I did. And then one bit of sharing led to a happy little exchange of riffs on the white bee theme. Joyous.
From that exchange, a little story has emerged in a flurry of wings and pale fur. I hope you enjoy ‘A Tale of White Bees‘.
The child in her eyes
With apologies to Kate Bush
On Sunday 6th July, I had the pleasure of boating along the Avon with many members of the Golden Egg Academy. It was a lovely day, sprinkled with vintage frocks and floral china. There were ducklings and VERY low bridges to be negotiated too. Unsurprisingly there was lots of chat – but also talks from Barry-The-Hat-Cunningham, Ben-Kill-the-Granny-and-we’ll-talk-Illis, Imogen-Beaded-Bag-Cooper and Kirsty-aka-Stormboy- McLachlan. Fun was had as can be seen by the monikers, – but I would like to take a more serious theme from Literary Agent Kirsty’s question-and-answer session.
Indeed, this theme came up in our impassioned discussions atop the barge. We debated The Bunker Diary, The Carnegie and what it is we are trying to do. everything came back to focus on our readership. Barry Cunningham picked up on this in his address, speaking with the same wonder and optimism and joy in young people as David Almond.
Lovely inspiring stuff.
But what gave me pause for thought, plonked into my mind like a drip from a stalactite and spread ripples from then till now, was something Kirsty said:
Write for one reader – one reader who is not you, not even you as a child, but one contemporary child.
[I believe I have quoted her accurately – please correct me if you know better.]
The first suggestion is clearly wise advice. It’s no good trying to please hypothetical swathes of readers – there are far too many tribes out there. You might as well try writing for a focus group or draw a Venn diagram of sub-cultures and aim for the intersection.
Secondly, we need to have that reader in our sights with every revision – and so it just can’t be to please ourselves. That way lies self-indulgence. We’re not the audience – we have to be the director, set designer, lighting technician and all the rest. It’s the last idea that causes me to consider deeply.
…not even you as a child…
Now I absolutely see the dangers of nostalgia. The lure of painting a Hovis ad of the past and photoshopping your characters in there. Some of my earlier work has had the taint of that, I admit. My world as a child is not their world now – fairly obviously.
I can’t help being older.
BUT I have thought hard about this . There are two points I want to make in response.
First of all, I have to sink down inside myself to write. I have to become the child-I-was to create honestly. When it all goes well, I revisit all those emotions and passions. Thank goodness there is no webcam in The Garret. No-one needs to see me weeping or giggling or cavorting as I enact part of the story. I create through the child-I-was – and I write to console and delight that odd, lonely child.
At least that way, I please one reader.
Jessie Willcox Smith ‘Picture-Books in Winter’ (1905) from “A Child’s Garden of Verses”
Secondly – and this may seal my fate – I cannot write as if I were a child-of-now. This is a skill some of my friends who write realistic fiction have. I admire it enormously. From me, it would be patronising fakery. There are few things more embarrassing than an adult straining to be ‘down with the kids.’
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
Kahlil Gibran The Prophet
What I can do is share interests and enthusiasms and passions – the same as I would with any other human being. I don’t talk down about sharks and ghosts and gargoyles: I swap notes and chat and engage. [I hope] When adult-me reads and reviews contemporary children’s books, watches films and TV, or visits intriguing places, I also respond with my child-like self. What would thrill the child-I-was now?
Where I live, I often see children on the beach jumping the waves and squealing. They construct major sandworks, fall out of boats deliberately and throw things for dogs. The way they talk is different but what I see at West Wittering would not look so out-of-place on Scarborough North Beach forty years ago. Just change the clothes.
Is my readership so very estranged from the child-I-was? I have to believe it is not.
I would be genuinely interested in comments on this topic. Should I be more up-to-date with mainstream culture? I wasn’t then, and it seems bogus to start now. Or is that an absolute given for a children’s writer – even for one of the fantastical persuasion?
Honesty is the best policy?
I don’t like the word ‘policy’ in there. It reeks of stratagems and pre-consideration and artifice. Any reader who knows me in 3D will probably acknowledge that’s not very me. I am on some spectrum somewhere that means I haven’t got the intelligence to lie much. The only-opens-mouth-to-change-feet sliding scale seems particularly appropriate.
However I do have enough nous – or possibly self-deception to think that anyone notices – to reckon that being anything other than relentlessly cheery in the children’s book is likely to get a smudge by your name. You know the sort – where you try to erase it but the mistake only becomes ingrained, dark and tinged with pink rubber.
Still. I want to say how I feel at the moment – and perhaps someone else might feel a little cheered to know they are not alone. So here we go:
I can’t be doing with praise.
I know – what an odd statement. But the truth is, receiving approval about my work recently from people who know what they are talking about has floored me. I don’t know how to deal with it. I find it difficult to write creatively or even edit right now.
Both alarm and you-can’t-mean-my-stuff slosh round inside me like storm-driven breakers in a fjord. I’m rationalising if I say it’s disbelief or even fishing for compliments – the panicky sensation is far too incoherent. I wanted this feedback so much – and now I’ve got a taste, it’s all grit and bitter herbs in my sandwiches.
Now it may be my miserablist Unlucky Alf northern genes, but I won’t be doing any chicken-counting. I seem to have been here before with ‘Selkies’ – and I cannot allow myself to tempt Fate. Fine words butter no parsnips and all that.
On the other hand, it may even be fear of success. What if I did have a book to promote and another to write, and also deal with contracts and tax returns and sundry other forms of jollity? Could I cope?
[Calm down dear – it’s only your imagination.]
Finally, the only thing that matters is whether I understand what I am doing better. That I grasp those tiny spangles of improvement and stash them in my storytelling chest. I have to pick through any feedback like my Nana at a jumble sale, and find the silks and satins I can adapt.
Then shut the door of The Garret – and carry on writing.
Seven days, seven feelings
Tracking some of this week’s emotions and their causes.
FRIDAY- OUTRAGE
I cannot grasp the callous disregard for the girls abducted in Nigeria. What mentality sees educated girls as a threat – sees books as harmful – and why so little effort to rescue them.
SATURDAY- DELIGHT –
Chika Unigwe posted a picture on Twitter of dolls which are glamorous and not scary. I have often, like so many people, found many dolls disquieting. Not these beauties.
SUNDAY – PLEASURE –
Surprised and pleased by how much my guests enjoyed their breakfast. [One Joanne Harris – pictured -and one Margaret Atwood Special – pancakes with maple syrup and blueberries]
MONDAY- IRRITATION –
Still not quite sure why the baguette on The Angel of the North annoyed me so much. Interesting debate with Philip Reeve about it. For me, it was a symbol that I loved being spoiled by something I loathe.
TUESDAY- AMUSEMENT
This was tinged with a little bafflement and pride that we now have proper gay heraldry. I agree with Frances Hardinge in enjoying ‘new law being woven properly into the nation’s archaic fabric’ . I love living traditions.
WEDNESDAY – HOPE –
I’ve sent the first rewritten section of Stonespeaker to Nicki Marshall at The Golden Egg Academy. Optimism – and some trepidation- about what she will think of it.
THURSDAY – SMUGNESS –
I got to show-and-tell about yWriter5 – a free piece of writing software I find very useful – to my Chi-SCBWI friends. They loved it. [Do contact me through the comments box if you want a cheat sheet]
FRIDAY – ANTICIPATION –
I’m supposed to be packing for the SCBWI Retreat as I write. Iam looking forward to seeing my writing pals – including some MA bods. There is still the business of being an old lag and having to say,’ No, no agent yet nor any publishers,’ but once I’ve got over myself, it’ll be grand.
Must dash – may add more images later.