Writing again

Happy Christmas!

Do you ever take yourself by surprise? I did yesterday evening when I had the need to write a story. It was a short story and was for adults not children so couldn't be further from what I normally do. There had been an idea simmering in the back of my mind for years all relating to a little black dress but nothing had come of it. Then some recent snippets of conversations and people watching that had been logged away meant that  the story suddenly presented itself. The little black dress is in it but not the main character I always thought it would be. It was something that had to be written. I had no choice. 


People, who are not writers, always think you are mad when you say things like that but all writers understand that sometimes a 'craziness' does take hold when you just have to write and nothing will stop you. A story or a poem just needs to find its way out of your mind and onto the page. A lot of this story kept coming to me during the night luckily for the moment my laptop is still on my bed so I could keep writing. It is not quite fully formed but it is getting there.


As you may know I recently wrote a post on getting the words flowing and I seem to have found another way as what writing this short story did do for me was to release the block that I have had on other projects. One in particular whose main character I have been very worried about as potentially she could be risky but then I was reading a book recommended by a very good friend and I read this:


You can only take the risk and know two things: 1) that you are doing it for the right reasons (not for the sensation, the gimmicks, or the chance to preach or show off) and 2) that you have brought every bit of your talent, literary skill and energy to bear upon the task.


 Thank you Alison Macleod for writing this in Vanessa Gebbie's edited collection entitled Short Circuit. This wonderful collection may also have been a trigger for the need to write a short story along with the Alice Munro's New Selected Stories I am reading. Nothing ever happens for no reason even if it does take you by surprise. Combine these two incidents and I find myself writing freely again.


I realised I know this character really well. I can take a risk with her because I trust her. I need to focus on writing the story and not worry about anything else. 


Guess what I will be doing this Christmas between the marking and planning that is!


There is very definitely hope in my heart as we head towards 2012. So many plans and ideas.  I may be a grandmother and on crutches but there will definitely be no time to be a 'little old lady' no matter what anyone suggests  LOL ;-)


Just love this (you may have to watch it via YouTube)

Review of the Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson

A book to fall into

The Sky is Everywhere is Jandy Nelson's debut novel and came out 2010 and is published by Walker Books. It is a beautifully written book that deals with the desperation of grief intertwined with the intensity of first love without a vampire or black cover in sight.

The main character is Lennie, a 17 year old who plays the clarinet and is in the school band. She writes poetry and has read Wuthering Heights 23 times - some would say a geek. Instead you find a fully rounded character who no longer knows who she is. You meet Lennie as she is dealing with the sudden death of her 19 year old sister, Bailey. Lennie sees herself as the pony companion to her race horse sister so is left floundering by her absence. If you then add to this boys, which until this point she had had no interest in, you suddenly have a tumultuous story. The blurb on the back says: 'What's wrong with me? What kind of a girl wants to kiss every boy at a funeral, wants to maul a guy in a tree after making out with her (dead) sister's boyfriend the previous night?' Lennie is confused and torn. She deals with her emotions by writing poems on the nearest surface available and leaving them all over the place. The reader joins her on her journey where she finds that the sky is everywhere. Lennie lives with her grandmother, Gram and uncle, Big, as her mother left to explore the world when the girls were very small. They are larger than life characters and at times the grief of all three of them is almost palpable. As a reader you feel like you could be intruding. But don't get me wrong it is not a sad book, it is one of raw emotion.

Toby (Bailey's boyfriend) and Joe (the new boy in school who just happens to be gorgeous!) are the male interests and could potentially be perceived as being rather predictable characters but the writing lifts them way beyond any predictability. The writing  is poignant, crazy, challenging and powerful. The narrative is littered with references to Simone De Beauvoir, Hélène Cixous, Jean-Paul Satre, Mozart, Bach, clarinets, mandolins and guitairs. But there is nothing geeky about this book. It is just full of some wonderful phrases and ideas as you move through Lennie's grief and her first experiences of love - that Heathcliff and Cathy/Lady Chatterley and Oliver Mellors/Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy moment. Well worth a read.


Like with grief sometimes it is just too hard to let go of many things.

Where can words come from?

I am a writer, a wordsmith. I take a collection of letters and make them into words which I then paint a picture with. But where can these words come from? I find they can come from anywhere in the same way inspiration takes you by surprise. It might be a song, a poem or a conversation. It can be a piece of art, a beautiful sky or a perfumed flower. All these and a myriad of other things can be the trigger for those words to start forming that picture which becomes a narrative and then a complete story or poem.

There are times though when you need those words to start working and they just won't. Some might say 'walk away, they will come eventually.' But that isn't always an option. Here are a few ways of kick starting the process:

1. Stop thinking you can't do it.

2. Go away and read some poetry or a favourite book. It is amazing how other people's beautifully crafted words can trigger your own.

3. Do some free writing - just writing continuously without thinking about what you are writing. Don't stop (and I mean don't stop) just keep going for a couple of minutes. When you read it back you may find something there that jumps out at you and starts the flow of words. The added advantage of this exercise is that you will have emptied your brain of all the 'stuff' that was clogging it up.

4. Go through your notebook - you are a writer you should always have a notebook in which you take notes of snippets of interesting conversations, descriptions of places, people you've seen, experiences. Something in there will remind you of a moment you wish to bring to life.

5. Try something different - write in a different way. Maybe take your free writing and cut it up then reorder it. See what comes out of that and then fly with it.

Most importantly believe that those words are there, they may be shy but they will come forward if you give them a chance. Enjoy your writing.

The idea of cut ups is, apparently, an aleatory literary technique and is most often associated with the likes of William S Burroughs and David Bowie. Below is a song written in a similar way but am not sure that it relies as much on chance as the term aleatory suggests but it is hugely successful and poignant for many of us. It is a song sung by the Military Wives Choir with Gareth Malone but importantly it is written by Paul Mealor. He took the letters of these wives and their husbands then using phrases from them he created this song. A song truly from the heart and I wish them luck with all their fundraising and really hope they get to be Christmas number one.

Which books have influenced your desire to write?

 I was listening to a TED talk by Sarah Kay entitled 'How many lives can you live?' She mentioned in the talk how when she was a child and asked what she was going to be when she grew up her answer would be 'Princess/Ballerina/Astronaut (all said as one word.). Also, as seen in a previous post,  in Keith Gray's podcast he mentioned two books and a film that had influenced and inspired him to become a writer. Both of these very separate incidents seemed to combined together and I started thinking about what my answers would be. Firstly when I was growing up I wanted to be a show jumper/doctor/actress/writer. Two out of four isn't bad.  But then what about the books that influenced and encouraged me when I was a child and fueled this desire to write, below is my very brief list. It could have gone on for an eternity but I thought instead I would just give you a sample:

1. Teddy Robinson Tales  by Joan G Robinson, Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne and Paddington Bear by Michael Bond. Spot a theme? These were all books that were read to me by my mother, and yes, she did have a thing about Teddy Bears. For me they represent that intimate moment between parent and child when sharing a book. A moment that you should be able to bottle.

2..K.M.Peyton's Fly-by-Night. This was a book I read over and over again as a young girl desperate to own a pony and become a show jumping champion. A few weeks ago I had the chance to go and meet K.M.Peyton but unfortunately I couldn't get there due to ill health. However, I started to re-read Fly-by-Night and it immediately took me back to those impassioned moments when I believed and lived every moment. I was Ruth Hollis. It is the time when I truly understood the power of the book and the chance to escape.

3. As a teenager I read vociferously some of which were real rubbish but one book that does stick out in my mind for all the wrong reasons is D.H. Lawrence's Three Novellas. We were studying it for A level and we had a very new, very young, very good looking male English teacher with the most piercing blue eyes ever and  to whom I would now like to apologise! I loved the stories and it introduced me to the power of the short story and many other things.

All of the above books have influenced and inspired my desire to write. How about you? What did you want to be? And what books to you remember from childhood?


Now a beautiful piece of music and thank you Rachel Rooney for this, I love its gentleness.

Keith Gray's Pod Casts on Writing

I have just found five little gems. If you are interested in writing check this series of mini pod casts produced by Keith Gray and organised by the Scottish Book Trust (http://youtu.be/nLY_uXod8FQ). Keith Gray has written some truly awesome books including: MARLAKEY and OSTRICH BOYS. Below I will give a very brief summary but I would really recommend you take the time to listen to them.

1. Inspiration and ideas: Keith talks about how he works at his desk for several hours a day.  But before he sits at his desk he has to know what he is going to write. He looks for inspiration in books, people watch as he sits in a cafe, on walks or watching tv for example. He says his ideas can come from his real life experiences, from wishful thinking or real life events.

2. Characters: The main characters should have: a talent, an ambition, a deep dark secret, a best friend and a worst enemy. Keith also suggests you 'know what's in their pockets' which is something I was taught on my MA at Winchester so I use it frequently for all my characters. It helps you get right inside the character's heads. He also reminded me that actions can show what characters are like.

3. Plot: A story is about conflict, someone with a problem. As a writer you need to create the problem or the dilemma that should be followed by some confrontation as you try to solve it before you end the story with a resolution.

4. Setting:  Keith pointed out how people used to write reams of description which describe the setting. Now you tend to give bits of description. He also pointed out how setting can be the cause of conflict, it can also be the source of atmosphere. Setting can even add to a character's description -  sometimes when you think of someone you automatically put them in a certain place.

5. Redrafting; When redrafting he has suggested you look for clarity, colour and construction. On this basis I would also suggest reading your work out loud.

As I said just a brief synopsis of these excellent podcasts. I hope you enjoy the real thing.

For just one of those days when you wish you had walked away.

Final part of the SCBWIs Conference - The Edge

This is the very final post on the SCBWIs conference I promise but the topic is very relevant to my own writing and is my research area. On the Sunday I attended The Edge Panel comprising of authors who write for The Edge Blog including: Miriam Halahmy, Dave Cousins,Bryony Pearce, Sara Grant and Paula Rawsthorne. They are all authors of 'edgy' books. As someone who has done a whole PhD on the ideas behind 'edgy' books I found myself very relieved when I was agreeing with everything they were saying. Maybe my research wasn't too far off the mark!

 Firstly what is 'edgy' fiction? They suggested it would be issue driven and contentious, though they did point out that issues can differ from person to person. They also highlighted how if you were too passionate about trying to get a message about issues across you could lose sight of your story. This was a message that hit home for me. HAM AND JAM was the second novel for my PhD. The first had to be abandoned for exactly that reason. I was so busy trying to get sex, drugs and alcohol into the narrative I lost sight of any potential story. It was like walking through treacle. The story felt forced and contrived so was placed in a very deep bottom drawer after my Upgrade. Luckily, and eventually, the idea for HAM AND JAM appeared which was totally story driven.

The panel also suggested you have to be comfortable with what you are writing whilst also being willing to stand by what you have said if you are dealing with contentious issues. The team came up with some excellent tips for writing for YAs including needing lots for the reader to connect with. It was also suggested that you should have a post it note near where you write just saying: 'Entertaining! Gripping! Thought Provoking! Engaging!' You need to ask yourself does my writing meet these requirements throughout. A good reminder. It was also suggested that you should treat each chapter as a scene with the idea you should 'jump into the middle of the scene and hit the ground running.' In other words, 'late in and early out'. Really good advice.

 As someone who already has an elderly character, Finley McGinley, in my novel I was very pleased to here the panel say that YAs might drive the story but there is nothing stopping you having other adults in there. Phew! Another good tip was to be careful with slang, technology, films and music - what is contemporary and cutting edge now may have disappeared off the scene by the time your book is published. Go generic or make it up was the suggestion.

 All in all it was a great panel and I now have a pile of books to read as at the time of the conference I had only read Miriam's excellent book HIDDEN but am now the proud owner of THE TRUTH ABOUT CELIA FROST, ANGEL'S FURY and DARK PARTIES with FIFTEEN DAYS WITHOUT A HEAD now on pre-order. I know what I will be reading over Christmas.

 Now an aside, today I was taken totally by surprise, a very good friend presented me with a signed copy of his book which I have watched evolve with great delight over the past year and have had many discussions about. And yes, I confess, I am thrilled by it because it was so unexpected.Thank you AM

 And now a bit of Norah Jones because it is Friday at the end of week 10 and I am very tired so the thought of going away somewhere sounds very appealing instead I have a weekend of marking planned.

SCBWIs Conference # 2

Australian Aborigines say that the big stories — the stories worth telling and retelling, the ones in which you may find the meaning of your life — are forever stalking the right teller, sniffing and tracking like predators hunting their prey in the bush.(Robert Moss, Dreamgates) This was one of the quotes used in Frank Cottrell Boyce's keynote speech, which was both amusing and inspiring. Like everyone there I will never think of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in the same away again! He talked about reading raising expectations, which is so true. As writers we can provide the 'tools [for readers] to read this world carefully and critically' ('Learning to Read', Children's Literature Assocation Quarterly, 1997 Vol 22 No 3). It is a chance for us, as writers, to provide readers with a vicarious experience allowing them to make decisions on how they might react in certain situations - for more information on this idea see my PhD and Andrew Melrose's new book Here Comes the Bogeyman. Cottrell Boyce also pointed out that children's books lead you towards adulthood. But, as he said, reading is about so much more, it is about wanting to share something wonderful and passing it on. It is about having a story that they want to read in the first place. It is about having a narrative that makes them want to turn the page and finish the book. It is about great books. Frank continued by saying: 'A tale isn't beautiful until it has been added to!' (Very pertinent to someone who teaches textual intervention)

 In which case, may all of you potential writers that attended the SCBWI Conference (or couldn't make it this year) find that big story that is stalking you and make it into a beautiful tale that has been added to. For more information on Anthony McGowan's sessions on plotting and controversy check out Laura Atkins' brilliant blog http://www.lauraatkins.com/newblog/blog7.php/scbwi-bi-conference-anthony-mcgowan-1 and http://www.lauraatkins.com/newblog/blog7.php/scbwi-bi-conference-anthony-mcgowan These were both fantastic sessions but I really couldn't add any more to these excellent posts.

 The SCBWI conference was a great place to remember why you write stories for children. For a start, it was a great leveler as you were surrounded by aspiring authors, multi-award winning authors, illustrators, publishers, editors and agents, but you couldn't always tell who was who as everyone is too busy chatting to worry about who someone might be. Though I did wonder if Anthony McGowan thought I might be stalking him as I attended both his sessions - it was pure interest honest! It was also a great place for Facebook Blind Date - or rather a chance to meet 'for real' all those people you have been talking to for months via fb. Also, if you need a reminder as to how welcoming and apparently buoyant children's publishing is make sure you become a member of SCBWI and then attend next year's conference. Part three on The Edge Panel to follow shortly!

 Here is another Ed Sheeran song because it is very relevant to my PhD. And I hope one day soon both parts of which will be books ;-)