A new reality

Am I grown up now?

Over the summer I have submitted two books for publication. One, an academic book on writing young adult fiction, and the other, a middle-grade historical adventure novel, FLIGHT, to Firefly, which hopefully will be published next summer. Suddenly I have found my world has shifted slightly on its axis. Does this mean I am an author? Have I become a grown up now?

I am thinking about different things. Firstly I had to fill in a hugely detailed media form for Firefly which was very useful and certainly made me think. In part, it was completing this form that started this current journey. The one where you become a twenty-first-century author. Gone are the days where an author used to write a book, present it to the publisher and disappear while they wrote the next one. Oh, no thanks to Robert E Kahn and Vin Cerf who invented the Internet and Tim Berners-Lee who invented the World Wide Web, which we all think of as the Internet. Then, of course, there was the first recognizable social media site which was in 1997 and was called Six Degrees. All of which have had an impact on the modern day author and how they behave.

On the day it was announced that Firefirely had acquired FLIGHT I spent the whole day dealing with social media. It was amazing. The brilliant author Jennifer Killick had warned me but I had no idea it would as frantic as it was. The support across Facebook and Twitter was truly incredible. I then did the simple things like ensuring in my social media profiles that it says that FLIGHT is being published next summer. I have been busy on Twitter making contact with other people, book bloggers, teachers, librarians, booksellers, anyone who might be interested in FLIGHT in the future. I have tried to ensure that I have been giving them something so they don't feel like I am using them.

I have created a Facebook author page. I am careful what I post on here and ensure it relates either to writing or to FLIGHT. You have to watch how much time you spend on social media though, it can suck time.

I am beginning to plan my website. Following advice from James Nicol, Jennifer Killick and Vashti Hardy I started off by looking at other people's to see what they had done. Working out what I liked and what I didn't. I made notes on all the sites I visited. I am not going to start my site until I know what my cover is likely to be so I can use some of the colours from it. I have been thinking about school resources that I can include. Talking to teachers so that I make sure the resources are the most useful they can be.

In the meantime, I have been talking to Vashti again about author photographs. She very kindly shared a Pinterest board she had created and shared some very valuable advice. As I was very worried about it all because the photo that went out with the press release was a bit of a rush job taken by my son in law - thank you, Greg for doing it. Vashti and I have had several long conversations about this. I have decided to have some professional photographs taken because then I will have a bank of photos I can use for the media, for the back of my book maybe and for the website. I know it is an expense but I am doing this because I hate having my photo taken and the photographer I have chosen is a friend of my son that I have known for years, I love his photos, therefore I know I will trust him and will then be relaxed. Watch this space for the results.

And then there will be the book launch...no I can't think about that at the moment. See it all becomes suddenly very real. I know these are all very wonderful things to be worrying about and I know I should be grateful, I have dreamt about being at this stage for a very long time but it is very scary! And I am not even thinking about the academic book ;-)

And now for all those phenomenal women I know listen to Laura  Mvula's 'Phenomenal Women'

The art of procrastination...

I think this post will be one that many of you will be able to empathise with. The art of procrastination. If there was a degree in it I am pretty certain I could get another PhD. I am really, really good at it and certainly at the moment I am. I have two books to write, one novel which is written and I am editing it and another academic book which I am in the process of researching and writing.

I am also supposed to be writing this blog. I haven't posted for over a month. Bad Vanessa! A blog is not much use unless you do it regularly and I used to be so good posting on a weekly basis but then a good friend started doing a daily blog. Another friend and I have discussed this at length because it has had a very strange impact on our own blogs. We have found it very difficult to write them and we have no idea why.Weird or what?

Anyway I have had a couple of ideas. I was going to write about the incredible YALC but then we did a #GEAQA on all things YA and there was a great #YAUKChat on Wednesday and someone did mention that they were slightly fed up of YA stuff so maybe time not to write about that. Plus I had written about it fairly recently. Then there was all the brouhaha about Kevin Brooks winning the Carnegie prize and doom laden books. I mentioned it briefly in a conference paper I did and was going to write a blog but at Golden Egg we have just invited someone to write a post on the same subject and I feel they will bring something new to it and I will only be bringing out the same old arguments that I bring out when I argue about having sex and drugs in YAF. As in, if its right for the story great, books are a good place for them to have the vicarious experience where they can ask questions of the text and themselves. Anyway enough said, see more procrastination, I am not writing those posts.

Instead I am writing about how I am not writing. I am checking on youtube for songs for my playlist to write to - always important. Checking for important little details which will make all the difference to my story that no one else will ever notice but I will. For example do daisies grow on mountainsides in April in Austria? How many different colour grey horses can you get? And that isn't even thinking about the academic book... Don't even mention the pictures I collect (some of you I know use Pinterest) I don't  but I have a file of photos which reflect the book I am writing and I like to look for and collect - more procrastination.

Then of course you do have to check Twitter and Facebook just to make sure you are not missing anything important that is happening in the world and to support any friends that are A) having a really good time or B) having a really tough time. Both of whom need you to be there for them.

Of course I sneak in a fair bit of reading, a great form of procrastination. All in the name of research. Wonderful and something you should all be doing lots of if you are a writer. No excuse.

The best form of procrastination is: I can only write properly if my room is tidy - yeah right! (stop laughing those who know me well) Consequently I have a skip being delivered today. Now that is a serious form of tidying and oh it so cathartic.

Off I go for a glass of water and tidy the washing away, pick up the grandson maybe, check the daughter is ok, talk to my sons and do general real life things before I come back to it and stare at the screen. Any words written? No...but is it wasted time? No it is not actually because despite not writing I have been thinking. Some may call it pre writing. I have been contemplating plot issues, characters, settings etc. Often my best ideas and solutions come while I am procrastinating so don't get angry with yourself for doing this. It is a fine art and cultivate it because you are doing it for a reason. It gives your brain space and time to find the answers you need for your writing.

Write [sic] off to to find some words while I put some detritus from my world into a bin bag.

Happy days crafting your art of procrastination and be a day dream believer

How I create my characters

On the SCBWI Facebook page there was recently a post asking about books on creating believable characters. It made me think about my characters and how I create them and I thought I would share some of the processes I go through.

I often start off by finding a photo of someone who looks vaguely like my potential character. For example there was a photo of a young girl with amazing eyes which was the inspiration behind my character Saba. I will stick these pictures into a notebook and then start asking questions of the character. Initially these might focus on further physical details about what they look like: height, weight, distinguishing features etc. Then I ask questions about their parents, do they have siblings, what sort of place do they live in and where, their schooling, what are their favourite subjects, what do they hate, what food do they love? What is their biggest secret? Do they have any irritating habits? What would you find in their pocket/school bag etc? This gives me a long list of bits of information that help me to form a picture.

The next thing I will do is get them to write a letter to me telling me all about themselves. It is a bit like free writing but it is not coming from your perspective, instead it is your character's. This gives me a chance to get into their head. If I have several character's who potentially could have similar voices I look for things that could distinguish them. It could be certain words they use frequently or maybe a physical habit they have such as always brushing their hair off their face. Just tiny details that can bring them to life.

The other important thing for me is to decide upon a name. This can be surprisingly difficult and often I find my character's have name changes whilst writing as their original name just doesn't fit with who they become. I have mentioned in a previous post the meanings behind names can be very important to me too so I do tend to use the Internet in order to find names. One tip, try and avoid having several characters with names that that start with the same initial. It can become very distracting for the reader.

Currently I am going through these processes again for my existing novel as I am changing one  of my characters, not his name, but his attitude so I really need to get back into his head and work out he would react in certain situations. This is why I do all this character building so that whatever situation my character might find themselves in I will know exactly how they will react. This way I don't have to stop writing and think instead I can just immerse myself in the story and keep writing.

This is how I create my characters, it may not work for you, but it does for. I was delighted to hear from an agent recently who described my characters as fresh and honest whilst being likeable and readable. How do you create your characters?

Here are the Dawes with a pertinent title: 'If I wanted Someone'