First drafts suck

It’s been a busy busy past few weeks… always goes crazy like this in the lead up to Crimbo. There’s been lots of birthdays to enjoy; work to be done and exciting writing news to celebrate (more info in future posts, ha ha what a tease).

I’ve also been working on Bliss (working title of book two). I wrote that first draft in a few weeks and have been mega excited about this one. I really hope Bliss is different from what’s out there right now, a YA mystery / thriller with a fantasy element. Anyway, I left that draft for four weeks and looked at it again, and boy, first drafts really do suck! I’m still excited about it but it isn’t till you leave a draft for a few weeks then go back to it that you  see the holes; the cliches; the mistakes and the weaknesses. But I’m working on this now and even when I get this draft down, my writer / editor friends still need to read it before it goes to my agent so yikes, it never ends!

Anyway, this leads me onto the whole ‘we all have a novel inside us’ malarky. Yeah, sure, I bet a fair few of us do. But actually writing that novel is the bit many people fall down on. And even when you do write that first draft, it’s very very rare that a first draft is good enough to get you an agent / get you published so it’s a case of revising and perfecting.

In other words, writing a publishable novel is hard work. Writing a novel as a hobby is FUN!

Fellow writer Kiersten White, whose wonderful-sounding YA book Paranormalcy will be out next September (with HarperTeen), wrote a great blog post of this so I recommend you toodle along to her blog right now and have a read if you’re one of those people who thinks they have a novel inside them… I retweeted her post, saying writing’s all about bloods, guts and tears and she quite rightly tweeted back saying ‘But GOOD blood, guts, and tears, right?’ and yes, yes, yes it’s allll good ‘cos nothing makes me more happy then working on a new novel. But it’s hard work (did I say that already?)

But have a read and lemme know what you think.

In reading news, am reading the follow up to The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, Catching Fire and will report back when I can. So far, a lot slower going but the pace is picking up so imagine I’ll be rolling around in all the blood and gore and gritty action that Suzanne Collins is just so great at depicting very soon!

Right, I’m off to walk the dog and buy the Sunday papers… Auf Wiedersehen!

x

 

 

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

Spinebreakers ‘What Teens Want’ event

Hey ya’ll! Guess what? I attended the London Book Fair today. I booked a ticket in a moment of pre-Crimbo madness last year and I left after half an hour to go shopping (sorry, but it really isn’t worth it for aspiring authors unless you happen to nab a meeting with an agent or publisher. Which you probably won’t cos they’re not there to discover new talent, they’re there to discover new deals and partnerships).

BUT there is a decent programme of events and one made the train journey worth it (that and the top I bought in High Street Ken!). I went to a fabulous seminar on ‘What Teens Want’ by the Spinebreakers team at Penguin / Puffin. And when I say team, I mean actual teenagers cos it’s those dudes – the ones us YA / teen writers are aiming our stuff at – that matter, right?

The editor, Danielle Innes, did a lovely little Powerpoint presentation about Spinebreakers, which has been set up by Puffin to allow teen readers to continue their journey after they’ve read a stonking good book with a chance to review, discuss, contribute and even write their own stuff. Four teens from the Spinebreakers team also attended, all four very different – and all very interesting! They were: Conrad, Olivia, Ayesha and Malik (apologies if I get these names wrong).

Here’s some stuff I got from the event that might be useful for other teen / YA writers out there:

• Teens should work in marketing. They’d get paid a lot. And win awards and stuff. Olivia showed us some videos she’d created for her favourite books (which can all be found on Spinebreakers) and they were awesome! She also told us about a party she held based on the characters from Anna Godbersen’s Rumours. Some seriously clever marketing ideas.
• There was a nice mixture of adult and teen books listed among their favourite books with the usual suspects – Rowling, Horowitz, Pullman and Blackman coming up (yet no mention of the likes of Meyer or Marr, interestingly). There was also a nice splash of the ‘greats’ such as Orwell and Hemingway. In fact, Orwell came through strong and clear as a favourite with 1984 and Animal Farm being discussed with real vigour
• Why do certain books take off? The team weren’t so sure about this, I got the impression it’s some mysterious X factor. But one teen said that books featuring desirable objects and skills – magical wands, a subtle knife - are a real hit. So that ‘wanting something you haven’t got’ factor played a part.
• What they hated was clearer: being patronised and teenage cliches (“Love stories where boys fix all the girls’ problems” was how one put it). Teen and young adult novels seemed to be the biggest culprit when it comes to this so we need to be careful of this, fellow YA writers.
• Where do they get their recommendations? This was an interesting one when considering marketing. Parents were, surprisingly, important, not just for buying the books themselves but also recommending books. Review were also mentioned – specifically the Saturday Guardian. Word of mouth was incredibly important as well as the bookstores themselves.
• When do they read: at bedtime, mainly, to the detriment of their homework!
• How do they choose a book? Books are judged by their covers! Shiny interesting covers draw them in. And, of course, that all important first chapter. Titles were important too. What they disliked was being mislead by a title or cover. It needs to do what it says on the tin, dang it!

So all-in-all, interesting especially for publishers but also offered some nuggets of interest for us teen / YA writers. The ‘don’t patronise us’ message was LOUD AND CLEAR which can be scary for YA writers as many people suffer from this irritating disease when they get over the age of 18 which automatically makes anything splurting forth from their mouths patronising. Hopefully I don’t do that with my book.

I also attended the ‘How to Get Published Masterclass’ on Saturday which went over stuff I know already really and has been blogged about elsewhere (click here) stressed the need for patience when you’re a writer, which is so true.

So will I go to the LBF next year? Unless I have a deal in the works, possibly not. But I will keep an eye on the seminar programme and maybe combine it with meeting some London friends.

So, watch this space.

Right, I’m off to check out www.spinebreakers.co.uk…

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

I just finished this raw lump of a book and believe the hype, it’s a real page-turner. Action-packed, gritty, violent – I’ve walked away from it feeling like I need a good old clean (any streams around so I can scrape the blood and dirt off me; wipe the horrid images from my mind?)

As always, I’m not gonna go into detail, google is your friend.

Now, what I really loved about this book was the idea itself. 12 kids thrown into a battle against each other, a modern Running Man… just awesome and damn it, why didn’t I think of it first? The main character, Katniss, is great, Kickass. Real strong. An inspiration. The little details Collins brings in of a future world – the creatures she invents, the dystopian nuances – work very well. The little ideas and surprises, and twists and turns here and there – awesome. It will make a fabulous film.

BUT (isn’t there always a ‘but’?) the use of present tense was a bit jarring. I actually like present tense but it got a bit ‘listy’. And you know how us writers are always told to ’show, don’t tell’, Collins does a helluva LOT of telling when showing a scene with actions and dialogue would’ve worked so much better. And though Katniss is strong, she turns into a pathetic doe-eyed thing when it comes to ‘acting out’ the love stuff. She’s also dispassionate too and it takes a while to warm to her. The start is very very slow – a lot of people would be turned off by the first few pages where, literally, hardly anything happens. There were moments of great writing (as in, beautiful to read) but these were sparse. The writing was as gritty and tough as the subject-matter.

But really enjoyed this book and a definite must-read for aspiring YA writers purely because of the massive hype around it.

The Grammar Police

There’s a debate raging on the website I edit . You know the old debate: should we be slaves to grammar? People are moaning about ‘kids nowadays’ and their ‘ridiculous text speak’.

I personally believe in informal situations, such as forums, chat rooms and text etc, people shouldn’t feel like they need to adhere to strict grammatical rules. As long as the msg is understood, ryt? Ha ha. But you see what I mean. That’s the whole point of it being informal! Just because someone uses ‘gr8′ instead of ‘great’ in a message doesn’t make them illiterate. Kids are very bilingual – get them to write an essay or article and those who are naturally gifted writers will do a fab job, despite the fact that they may have just messaged their friend a moment earlier with ‘C u l8r’. Those who don’t do a fab job usually have skills elsewhere (art, design etc). They are incredibly astute – they know how to adapt their language for certain situations and to me, that’s a gift.

Many of our greatest writers (Joyce, Beckett etc) talked about the fact that language is a tower that needs to be knocked down to expose its true beauty. If writers stuck to grammatical conventions, some of the most beautiful work out there wouldn’t have been created. As my fave poet Tony Harrison said:

How you became a poet’s a mystery!
Wherever did you get your talent from?
I say: I had two uncles, Joe and Harry-
one was a stammerer, the other dumb.

However, saying all this, when it comes to the novel I’ve just finished working on, I have kept to pretty conventional language cos the main objective is to tell a story. It’s all about plot and characters; about driving the story one. But don’t worry, one day, I will write that literary masterpiece and get all Beckett on your ass!

Cheeky cow!

I was in Tesco at lunch (god I love that place) and was standing behind this strange lady in the queue – she was HAPPY! I mean, like, really happy and zippy and smiley and ‘o, isn’t life wonderful’. I thought ‘Christ, this is odd – it’s January, it’s raining, there’s another 11 months till Christmas – why’s she so happy?’.

But then something occurred to me. Yeh, it IS January – maybe it was one of her resolutions, to be realllllly happy – and that in turn made me think, maybe she’s usually a grumpy, aggressive, rude bitch.

So I shoved my organic sweet potatoes on the belt thing (2008 = try out organic stuff) and gave her a filthy look … cheeky cow!

Bud Buds has a plan

Happy 2008 ya’ll! So sorry for my absence but I’ve been sledging around Lapland, cramming chocolate into my cakehole and pouring Bucks Fizz down my neck! But now I am back, all depressed and grumpy, perfect for the wonderful month that is January.

 I’m a big fan of New Year Resolutions. I like the way they play hard to get, running away from you after only a few weeks! Anyways, one of my resolutions was to chill like Gautamu Buddha, the Enlightened One. But Christ on a bike, I am being TESTED! I bought myself this darn beautiful and sparkling new laptop for Christmas so I can really get to grips with writing my novel (and yes, I admit it, the ability to check out perezhilton.com while watching America’s Next Top Model was also an alluring reason for purchasing said laptop). 

 So, I have my lovely laptop and yesterday, I purchased a lovely wireless router for half the usual price from someone at work. So off I toddle to set it all up.But for-the-love-of-God, will the damn ROUTER WORK?! Can I disentangle myself from these cyber wires and become wireless? NO, of COURSE not. I have tried everything but it will not accept my BT password.

Having trawled the net, I discover that one of the reasons for this is that BT likes to play Bad Cop with routers that aren’t their’s. I could erupt into full blown fury; call BT and scream filth down the phone. But no, let’s stop for a moment – what would old Bud Buds do (OK, he’d throw away the laptop and proclaim that I must break myself free from the snares of materialism but f*** dat!!). I’m thinking he would see a plan in this. That this is not the time to write my novel … that I must wait as fate dictates my writing direction.

Alternatively, I could pay £40 for someone to come set me up. Which would mean, officially, I would’ve spent double on my Xmas present to myself than what I spent on my nearest and dearest.

O well, charity begin with ME and all that …. x

Driving to Guantanamo for Christmas …

I hear that in Guantanamo Bay, they torture ‘terrorists’ by blaring out Christina Aguilera on loud speakers (I would’ve thought Chaz n Dave or something would’ve been worse but who am I to judge?).

 Forget that, Sonny Jims! If you really wanna torture them, just subject them to the dreaded pre-Crimbo work countdown. Stick them in front of a desk with a computer and monitor, and make them wait till 3pm Friday before they can escape. I mean, let’s not kid ourselves right? There’s hardly any work to be done (OK there is but what can’t wait till the New Year?!) and yet they MAKE us sit here and PRETEND to work.

 Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, I’d rather be listening to Christina in Guantanamo!

 Happy Christmas, ya’llllllll!

Why?

Mr Mr Hola Mr Mitsubishi L200 who lives in my estate. I was just wondering, is your car magic? Is it a special modified one that offers the particularly fabulous ability to manoeuvre around the several hundred roundabouts in the city we live in? Are there streams and rivers and dense countryside within our immediate vicinity that I don’t know about? Are the small roads on the estate I live on an optical illusion, like the Tardis, hiding what are actually really huge American-style roads, ideal for your huge monstrosity of a car?

 And, most important of all, do you realise you look like a dick? Or maybe that’s the whole point …

Biology classes for adults

I was chatting to a friend the other day who’s trying for get sperminated (have a baby that is!). And something she said struck me as being funny and true and silly. Basically, we learn all about reproduction at school, right? But by the time most of us wanna have a baby (bar those 14 year olds who get themselves up the duff after a few too many Diamond Whites), we clean plain FORGET what happens.  

 OK, before you think I’m one sandwich short of a picnic, of course we remember the basics but I mean the actual nitty gritty of the whole sperminating journey from the very moment you do the naughty deed that leads to the production of an alien within you. For example, did you know you’re not actually ‘pregnant’ from the moment the first deed is done? O, you did? OK, lemme think of more examples. Well, I can’t but basically, I really haven’t got a clue what happens.

So that’s my thought of today. How interesting …