I heart Halloween!

I just love Halloween. It’s as magical and scrumptious as Crimbo as far as I’m concerned and each year, I like to do something special to celebrate from visiting Tetbury Castle for an all-night ghost vigil (read about it in this blog post) to making an impulsive and terrifying visit to Clophill Church, an abandoned church atop a hill in the mists of an old village close to my town…  categorically the scariest experience of my life (read more in this blog post).

And naturally, this year is no different. I’m gonna be chased by zombies and pushed from sheer drops during the Thorpe Park Fright Night experience tomorrow. I-can-not-wait. And to celebrate Hallo’ Eve,  I’m gonna watch either The Ring (again! Complete classic) The Last House on the Left tonight (though I SO wish Paranormal Activity was out in the UK right now, looks amazing – see trailer here).

And OMG, did you hear about the 400-year-old witch-repellent found under a UK car park (article here)? It’s what’s known as a ‘Bellarmine’ jar and was found filled with urine, nail clippings and hair *barf* to ward off evil spirits. There’s gotta be a YA novel idea in there somewhere, right Speaking of witches, I interviewed an academic this week about his research into the decline of magic in the 17th century, see the article here. Pretty interesting stuff.

And now onto writing. I am SO inspired by Halloween and am desperate to write a fabulous ghost story one day but just need to come up with THE idea. In the meantime, I was checking out some of the novels I’d started and never finished (when I come up with ideas, I like to experiment with them, write a few thousand words, see if it works for me). And I thought one of them could make a real good short story for Halloween so have been tweaking it. Here’s a little extract, provisionally entitled The laps of angels (hell yeah, I’m jumping on the angel bandwagon for this one ) It’s real rough and ready, written way before I really learnt the tools of the trade and needs some work but hey, it’s all fun, right?

THE LAPS OF ANGELS

The first person I stopped from jumping off the cliff looked just like my dead sister, Mia.

At first I didn’t notice her in the mist, just saw the usual heap of rubbish in the distance –  broken prams and discarded brollies heaped like bones in the misty moonlight, lorded over by the half smashed statue of an angel.

It was my fifth night here since my sister had died, five nights of waiting for the chance to stop someone from jumping like she had; all alone in the dark as I battled with an insane desire to jump myself, the ominous air around me pushing me towards the edge.

But then I saw the girl, standing there in the moonlight like the ghost she wanted to be with her grey clothes and hair so fair it was almost silver. Her arms were spread out against the misty black sky like she was saying to death, “Hello old pal, old friend, old luv, take me into your arms.” And there was something about the way she held herself, the tone of the skin on her outstretched fingers that made me think of my sister.

Could it be….?

I stepped forward, heart pumping. “Mia?”

She slowly turned her head, and the temperature plummeted. I stepped forward, the freezing cold air pressing against me , pushing me towards her; urging me to the edge…

That’s all for now…. xxx

(pic credit: ginnerobot)

Philip Pullman on the borderlands of reading

Philip Pullman, author of the fantastic ‘His Dark Materials’ trilogy (Lyra? Daemons? Need I say more?) gave a talk for The Open University 40th anniversary lectures on a) the nature of reading, and b) the relationship between the story and its illustration. And guess what? I attended. I’ve interviewed this fantastic writer a few times and always found him to be passionate, fiery, resolute and charming all at the same time and this was exactly how he was when I saw him talk.

The borderlands of reading

Opening his talk, he told the packed audience: “When we read, we enter a borderland – the space that opens up between the private mind of the reader and the book. Parts of the borderland belong to the book, parts are made up by the reader – of their memories of other books, of real people, what they associate with particular words, the reader’s temperament and so on. In other words, no reader will read the same way.” I found this fascinating – and spot on.

He likened it to what is known as ‘liminal states’, the ambiguous conscious state of being on the threshold between two different existential planes. He also referred to John Keats’ notion of negative capability, ‘when man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason’ (from a letter written to his brothers George and Thomas on the 21 December, 1817).

Pullman then went on to show the audience a series of paintings, for example Gwen John’s ‘Precious Moment With Book’ which demonstrates how the world around you dissolves when reading, the only clear space left between your eyes and the book you’re holding. He also highlighted how the painting shows the unique mixture of relaxation and attentiveness that comes from reading. Another painting he looked at was Casper David Friedrich’s ‘The Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog’, comparing the way the man depicted in the painting surveys the landscape before him to the way a reader surveys their borderland.

Illustrations in children’s literature

He then went on to focus on illustrations found in children’s literature, expressing his sadness at how it has become unfashionable to illustrate children’s novels because “pictures in book are like a windowsill.” He used examples from Fritz Wegner’s work, admiring the “romantic atmosphere” he created. Pullman also illustrated the charm of more amateurish drawings, such as those by Arthur Ransome and Tove Jansson (Moomins), and recalled how the “scratchy, swift and confident” drawings of Richard Kennedy swept him into foreign lands such as the working class Parisian scenes in Paul Berna’s A Hundred million francs. Away from urban settings, Pullman highlighted how ‘BB’ Denys Watkins-Pitchford depicts the countryside in Brendon Chase who Pullman with an “honesty and passion”. He also praised Rupert the Bear illustrator Alfred Bestall, especially the end pages of each Rupert manual which depict a landscape, which Pullman described as “full of fancy, lightness, delicacy and charm.”

On the other scale, Pullman went on to focus on illustrators where there is no interest in landscape and more a focus on people. For example, the Thomas Henry illustrations in Richard Crompton’s William books, that “scruffy muddy-kneed schoolboy” as Pullman described him where the focus was very much on the people and not on the “generic middle class England.” Same goes for Walter Trier’s illustrations in Emil and the Detectives – “wonderfully fluid and expressive lines but no background.”

In Pullman’s own books, the Folio Society editions of Northern Lights gave Pullman great pleasure. With illustrations by Peter Bailey, the main character in his trilogy, Lyra, is depicted beautifully (pictured). Pullman also gave an insight into his own illustrations. Before Northern Lights, the first in ‘His Dark Materials’ trilogy came out, he illustrated the decorative devices at the top of each chapter and had to illustrate them using heavy black and whites to the size of a postage stamp.

Philip Pullman’s website

Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater

Beautiful. That’s how I’d describe this book. Beautifully written, beautiful characterization, beautiful story.

I really, really enjoyed this one and really admire Maggie Stiefvater as a writer. She’s up there with Meg Rosoff etc and if you loved Twilight but want something a little more grown up, realistic and more beautifully written, I’d strongly recommend this one.

It’s about a girl who falls in love with a werewolf. Okay, it’s about a lot more then that and I would give a more detailed review but I’m discovering lots of new and amazing YA reviewers out there on the web and from now on, am going to find my best review of a book, give my own opinion then link. So here’s the link for this book from the wonderful The Crooked Shelf blogger. I’ve been following Carla (who writes this blog) on Twitter for a while and read a lot of her excited Tweets about Shiver, all proving to be 100 % correct. So, to read her spot-on review, go to her blog.

Enjoy!

Useful links:

Maggie Stiefvater website

The Crooked Shelf blog

When am I happiest?

When am I most happy?

When the new season of X Factor starts? Yeah, pretty happy but na, not most happy

When my dog does something truly dufus, like burying his bone in my mum’s flower pot? Close but not close enough

Trying out the new 5-minute ‘most dangerous chocolate cake in the world’ recipe my hubby brought home the other day (see below)? Hmmmm… na, not quite

Writing the first draft of a new book? YEAH BABY!

Writing a book that sings to my soul makes me most happy.  I had it with Shimmer, Book 1 (finally I name it ). If you look back on past posts, I just wrote, and wrote, and wrote, and wrote till I had that first draft down in under a month. Not ‘cos I felt like it was some race but because I-had-to-write-Shimmer. I had to write about the two main characters, Tori and Cam. I just had to. Why? As Robertson Davies said (you bored of my dragging this quote out yet?): “There is absolutely no point in sitting down to write a book unless you feel you must write that book, or else go mad, or die.”

And now I have it with Book 2, Bliss (working title). It all started 5-6 weeks ago. I had a dream (yeah, sorry, am getting a bit Steph Meyer on ya’ll!) I’m walking up a hill with a girl with long blonde hair. There’s a party or something, candle lights flickering in the dark. Then she yanks my hair back, screams at me. I run, desperate to find someone called ‘Chase’. I get to his house, his roommates let me in, bemused. I wait for him in his room, flick through his music then hear the door click open. I turn, and he’s there, standing in the gloom, skin like sand…

The dream wouldn’t leave me. Chase wouldn’t leave me, the blonde girl wouldn’t leave me and Rose, the girl whose eyes I was seeing the world through, wouldn’t leave me. And then, in the shower (ha ha), the hook for a new YA book just fell into place. So, the past few weeks, I’ve been writing and writing and writing until finally, this week, I got that first draft down.

I love Bliss. It needs a LOT of work, this is just the first draft after all. But I love it. I love how it makes me feel when I write it and read it back. So much angst and emotion. My writing buddy Bertie (check out post below) read the first 3 chapters and was seriously excited about it. And when I read passages, I see how much I’ve grown up as a writer; how much my agent has helped me see things in a different way and make the characters and the story come to life, like they have in Shimmer’s final draft (I hope). Bliss was much most emotionally draining to write, dealing with some intense subjects.

Who knows, it might suck? My agent might hate it, it may never get published. But even if it never sees the light of day, I had to write it…

So what now? I’m re-reading it, adding some new scenes then I’ll give it to Bertie to read. I’ll have some space from it then read it again through fresh eyes, tweak and send to my agent…

Now for that recipe for the most dangerous cake in the world:

Ingredients

* 1 – Coffee Mug
* 4 – tablespoons flour……(that’s plain flour, not self-rising)
* 4 – tablespoons sugar
* 2 – tablespoons baking cocoa
* 1 – egg
* 3 – tablespoons milk
* 3 – tablespoons oil
* 3 -4 – tablespoons chocolate chips
* Small splash of vanilla extract

Directions

1. Add dry ingredients to mug, and mix well . Add the egg and mix thoroughly.
2. Pour in the milk and oil and mix well.
3. Add the chocolate chips (if using) and vanilla, and mix again.
4. Put your mug in the microwave and cook for 2 -3 minutes at 1000 watts. try 2 minutes first so its not so dry ok………
5. The cake will rise over the top of the mug, but don’t be alarmed!
6. Allow to cool a little, and tip out onto a plate if desired.
7. EAT! (this can serve 2 if you want to share!) but who wants too !!hahaha
8. And why is this the most dangerous cake recipe in the world? Because now we are all only 5 minutes away from chocolate cake at any time of the day or night! …………yikes!!!!!!!!

Find a writer buddy

I think every writer needs a writer buddy. Seriously. Someone who’s opinion you trust above all but your agent (and editor, if you’re lucky enough to get both! And readers if ever you’re lucky enough to get more then 5 of them too!).

I have a writer buddy. I call her Bertie (see our shadows above while on our literary retreat with two other pals this summer). We met several years ago at a company that kept us in a dungeon-like office, toiling away over magazines with ridiculous deadlines and not enough staff. The first thing I said to her? ‘OMG, do you love Tom Welling too?’ after seeing her Smallville screensaver. I think that’s what did it for us – that little spark of connection; an acknowledgment we were both still 14-years-olds living in late-20s bodies

Anyway, when she’d had enough of that dungeon and left, we stayed in touch, our mutual love of writing and desire to GET PUBLISHED drawing us together. We used to meet in The Harvester and walk about our dreams and our ideas and our frustrations.

It wasn’t until she started talking about her own YA book that I started to think, ‘ya know, young adult might be an option for me too’. I think, without her, I might not have seriously considered it at that stage in my life – and Book 1 may never have been written.

Since then, she’s always been the first one to read my stuff; she was the first one I forwarded my first request for a full from an agent to and I think she was even the first one I called when I got The Call from my agent (sorry mum! Sorry hubby!).

Why? Because being a writer – and when I say writer, I mean someone who puts writing in their top 5 of important things in life – has its peculiar joys and it’s very peculiar pains. Only another writer can truly understand the obsession, the yearning, the drama and the tears. Sure, I know other people who write but Bertie’s the real deal, the one who really gets it. Who really understands why I’m still tapping away at midnight at the weekend or why everything else, sometimes, diminishes in the big fat spark of a new book I’m working on.

Of course, people understand and put up with it. My mum, my hubby. But only another writer with the same intense hunger can just get it.

So yeah, we bounce off each other. But also, I really value what she thinks about my stuff. She’s an editor / journalist by trade (award-winning, might I add!); an amazing writer (though she doesn’t believe that yet but I think one day she will and I’ll say ‘told ya so!’) and an amazing reader. She finds stuff others don’t but most importantly, she tells me what her gut says.

So when I send her something, I have that same excitement and anticipation I get when sending it to my agent. And a glowing report from her is honestly enough to make me write like the devil and restore my faith in my writing.

So what I’m saying is – find a writer buddy. They’re more valuable than you can imagine.

I’m also saying thank you Bertie. It will happen. x

‘Thirteen Reasons Why’ by Jay Asher

I just finished reading Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher and I am just kinda speechless.So before writing about how I feel about it, I’ll give you some background.

The first time I really heard about this book was when I attended a talk by Sarah Davies of the Greenhouse Literary Agency. She used it as an example of a book with an amazing hook. And I think the reason is that you can sum it up in one paragraph and that one paragraph makes you wanna read it. Like, now.

Clay finds a bunch of tapes leaning against his front door. Excited, he tears them open and pops them in his dad’s old stereo. But when he listens to them, he discovers they’ve been recorded by Hannah, a girl who committed suicide a few weeks before and each tape represents 13 reasons – and 13 people – why she chose to take her own life.

Do you want to read it now?

Then I read about Jay Asher, the author. In fact, I read a post by him in the SCBWI forums from three years back with the title ‘Ready to quit’. That says it all, right? He’d been writing for years, getting rejections for years and they’ve preserved that post just to show talented writers out there that you can’t give up.

And this kinda ties into Thirteen Reasons Why because Hannah simply gives up. She gives up on life and for the reader, this is heart-breaking and Clay’s frustration and anger at her for just-giving-up is one of the factors that makes you feel so much when reading this book.

There are many reasons why I love this book. Here’s Thirteen Reasons Why (sorry, it has to be done)…

1. The teenage experiences – the ones that snowball to create one big ball of fury and fear and hurt? The ones that, in this book, drove Hannah to suicide – felt very real for me. I’d been through a few of those, for sure! Jay Asher says he asked his wife and female friends about experiences that had an impact on their lives and you can tell. This kinda stuff happens.

2. Which leads me onto the way Jay Asher manages to delve inside a girl’s head, despite being a boy! Really works.

3. I like the way Hannah’s story is interweaved with the few hours Clay spends listening to it. I think, without Clay’s ‘present life’ interjecting, it could be too much, too emotional. It gives the reader a break, like Clay sometimes needs to take a break.

4. As you follow Clay around, you really feel like you’re on a journey with him – and her.

5. Hannah’s voice is strong. It’s bitter and it’s sad and it’s fun and it’s cute.

6. The setting is vivid. You can really picture the areas Clay visits.

7. The characters Hannah describes match the kind of characters we mould ourselves into when we’re teens

8. The writing style. It’s subtle, beautiful, moving.

9.The depiction of Jay’s mum is good. She’s not controlling, she seems to understand what he’s going through without him having to tell her.

10. It made me angry. I wanted to shake Hannah and scream in her face and tell her to snap out of it. Not just Hannah, the fools who led her to commit suicide.

11. Clay’s anger matches the reader’s anger – shown through small actions like him clenching a fence near the end of the book. Clever.

12. It made me cry. This is always a good thing. Before I Die had the same affect on me and that book has stayed with me for a long time after I read it. I know this one will too.

13. It made me want to write on a weekend when I have major writer’s block!

So go read it. Because this one’s special. And if you’re a writer, be inspired – Jay Asher didn’t give up. You shouldn’t too…

Buy Thirteen Reasons Why

Jay Asher’s Blog

Writing a Brand New Book

If this writing business teaches you one thing, it’s the art of zen. Of waiting. Of patience! Things can take time and for a gal who wrote 90k words in 3 weeks last September, this can be a difficult thing to swallow.  

How to deal? If you check out writers forums and agent blogs, people are always advocating starting on a Brand New Novel (not number 2 in the series, a BRAND NEW book).

This is easier said than done. I’ve had a whole load of ideas and even written a good 20k of some of them but the Holy Grail of finding something that would obsess me like the book that got me my fab agent is interesting… Novel 1 is still spinning in my mind, its characters still whispering in my ears. They WANT a sequel. But I know I need to bury those voices down and get on with a Brand New Book. Which I will. And when I will, I’ll do it quickly.

But at the moment, am really enjoying that experimental stage, testing out some new ideas, writing a few thousand (20!) words of each. As I do this, the process is so different from Novel 1. I know so much more about writing; about revising to perfection, that it’s difficult to get back to that ‘just write, damn it’ state of mind. I’m getting back there but what I’m saying is, it doesn’t happen overnight. Once you get an agent, your writing gets that initial stamp of approval, and you change. You lose a little innocence. I’m sure it’ll make me write better but that wild, crazy, obsessive writing fever I got last September has calmed a little. I think this is a good thing.

What are your experiences of writing The Brand New Book?

Till next time… x

Tithe by Holly Black

Yep, another book involving an uber hot fairy prince. Doncha just love these fairy princes?! They’re up there with the vamps as far as I’m concerned.

I’m a tad embarrassed cos it’s taken so long to get around to reading Tithe. I mean, it’s one of the first (maybe the first?) urban fantasy YA novel that gets all messed up fairytale on our butts! But hey, I finally got around to it and I realllllllly enjoyed it.

It’s about 16-year-old Kaye who returns to her childhood town after trailing around after her mum’s rock band for a few years. Here, she re-acquaints with her old fairy friends and saves a hot fairy prince (

What I LOVED about this book was the strong female lead, the tight clear plot and the dark, crumbling setting – the rotting seaside town where her grandma lives. The whole setting really rams home the ’fairies gone bad’ thing .

At first, I found her writing style a bit awkward but as the novel moved on, I started to really appreciate it, especially her use of similes (eg. her description of the sunset looking like it’s ’slit its wrists and is bleeding orange all over the ocean’ is an oft-quoted example).

The male characters are hot, including Kenny, the (mortal) boyf of her best friend, who I found strangely alluring. And Roiben, the fairy knight, is typical of this genre’s ‘heroes’ – wicked, violent but alluring. The plot was intricately mapped out, you could tell that with the writing. Every scene had a purpose and the endgame was well in sight from the start.

My only issues were that I wasn’t convinced by Kaye and Roiben’s ‘connection’. I felt this was a classic case of ‘I fancy you cos you’re hot’. I didn’t understand why else there was this connection between them? The love element wasn’t delved into as much as I’d like though I’m a romantic at heart and have often found fault with novels cos of this so maybe I’m asking too much? I also felt the end kinda whispered instead of screamed, which is fine for some but I like a little more oomph in that last scene.

The book also declared itself as being a ‘modern faerie tale’ and you certainly get this feel – a quick, clever, witty read. Maybe I’d liked a bit more depth though?

But overall, a great read. Holly Black is no doubt a really accomplished writer and is totally in touch with her dark side. I still prefer Melissa Marr (specifically Wicked Lovely), mainly cos it has more ‘depth’ but definitely one I’d recommend.

And writing-wise, when I started reading the de-fairy-lightful Tithe, I wondered if I’d read it before in some fairydust-induced haze. Not cos it was dull, oh no, but mainly because it was doing  just what I wanted to do to ‘grit up’ my writing. The kooky, funky, messed up main character; the derelict settings; the dark, violent scenes, the kind I saw in my mind’s eye a few months back when I was thinking about how to make my writing a bit more ‘real’. But I have never read it, not in this mortal world anyway

Useful links:

Holly Black website

Buy Tithe

Pullman: not a happy chappy

I interviewed children’s author Philip Pullman today. I adored his Northern Lights trilogy; wrapped myself up in it during a fab New Year break in Lapland (entirely appropriate for the books!) and have interviewed him before. In both interviews, it’s very clear this is a man who is incredibly passionate about particular subjects, especially religion, writing (of course) and The State. I disagree with some of the stuff he says but I really admire this guy. He’s passionate, outspoken, really doesn’t seem to give a damn what people think and is an amazing writer. I honestly think his work will be looked back on in decades as true art in the area of children’s literature.

Today I called him to get his views on new laws that are coming into place requiring authors to be vetted before visiting schools (click here to read a BBC article about this)

He told me he thought it was ”ridiculous that we have to pay £64 to get a moral certificate from the Government. The implication that someone like the author Shirley Hughes – there’s no-one more kinder; more sweeter – can’t be trusted to be with children is ludicrous!”

He also feels the new law is a manifestation of Britain’s surveillance culture: “The default is that you shouldn’t trust people. But all of us – politicians, writers, artists – should work towards a society where the default is that a person can be trusted; that someone’s word of honour means something. But this simply isn’t happening. Society is just moving in the opposite direction.”

What’s so sad about this is that authors like Pullman have suggested they might not visit schools as a result. Part of me agrees with them. But the other part wonders whether standing up for their principles is really worth depriving children of their valuable visits? When I suggested this to Pullman, he was quick to point out the Government had done this to children, not the authors themselves. It made me wonder, if I were a published children’s author, what would I do? Truely, I think I would make a few grumbles about it but it wouldn’t stop me visiting schools.

Anyway, let’s see how this pans out. Kinda interesting though, huh?

x

Writer’s retreat hupla!

It’s been a while since I last blogged, main reason being that I recently attended my little bro’s wedding in Mauritius. Bloody amazing! It’s a strange kind of wonderful watching the boy who once burnt my doll’s head off in a fire get married. He did me proud and it was the most beautiful, most unique wedding I’ve ever attended.

But the reason I’m blogging is that the weekend before I flew out, I went on a literary retreat to the Cotswolds with three good friends who also happen to be writers too. I guess us writer types gravitate towards one another and as a lot of my mates work in media, it makes sense a lot of them are aspiring novelists too, I guess that comes with the territory.

Anyway, it was fabulous and I’d really recommend it! Sure, there are loads of professional literary retreats you can attend but they cost a bomb. We simply hired a lovely little cottage for about £30 a night per person, cheap as chips and freedom to set you own agenda.

We had a lovely pub lunch beforehand, critiquing each other’s work (I put the new book I’m working on forward and it got a fab response). Once again, I was surprised at how other people can notice things in your writing that never even occurred to you. It was great reading their work too, all their different talents and dreams and passions all wrapped up in ink and paper. Then we simply wrote… and wrote… and wrote. While also drinking and breaking for food. The weather was stunning and the location gorgeous, horses galloping past on the road outside, realms of green fields unfolding ahead of us, owls diving for prey in the middle of the night as we sat in the garden, chatting. 

So… if you have some writer friends, go book yourself a cottage for the weekend and get writing!

x

PS. Reading Marked by mother and daughter duo, PC and Kristin Cast, really enjoying so far, will be back soon with a review.