When YA Books Tackle Heavy Stuff - David Thorpe

This month I was lucky enough to take part in the first panel discussion session to be held on climate fiction at the Hay Festival (or perhaps at any litfest?). Also on the panel were YA writer Saci Lloyd (third from left), and an expert in communication on climate change, George Marshall (right). The panel was convened by Jane Davidson (second from left), who's responsible for sustainability at one of the main Welsh universities, Trinity St. David's.

Saci is the author of The Carbon Diaries 2015 (written in 2007) and 2017 (written the following year). She discussed how she felt about writing about the year she is now living through... Which although not exactly as described in her book, is prescient in some ways.

In front of an audience of about a hundred, she related how she's been talking in schools and to other gaggles of teens for 10 years about climate change. "Compared to superheroes or music it looks to them at first as a pretty dull subject, but I've learned that the best way to get my message across is to be passionate, completely committed. Gradually they move from being apathetic to – 'What? Why didn't we know any of this!'"

We discussed why we feel the need to write about climate change in fiction for teens – basically, because it's hardly taught in schools. "If you do geography or science, then you might touch on it," said Saci. "But it's not a core subject, so it's quite possible to go through school and come out the other end not knowing anything about climate change."

There's nothing wrong with using fiction to talk about heavy subjects. Children's writers have been doing this since Charles Kingsley wrote The Water Babies about child chimney sweeps in 1862 (which I was given to read as a children's book when I was about six!). Yet when I said as much to the audience, my words got picked up by a young Daily Telegraph journalist sitting on the front row and turned into a headline in the following day's printed version of the paper: "Climate activists: 'We must infect children's minds'".

That headline was deliberately a come-on. To start with that first noun should have been singular! But the article itself is ok, although obviously a lot more was said. They quote me as saying that I like writing for teens because:

"They are asking all sorts of questions about how the world is working. Their minds haven't been tainted by ideological bias, they are still open minded about it.

"You can try to be seriously subversive and try to infect their minds with these viral ideas that they can explore on their own to make it exciting. When I was that age I loved having my mind boggled."

I stand by what I said, although I was speaking playfully – tongue-in-cheek – but naturally I also said a lot more (and so did the other three), and when talking about ideological bias I was referring to what George Marshall had said previously about the research he had done showing that adults generally only give credence to arguments put forward by others with whom they share the same ideological bias.  Usually children's minds are a lot more open and enquiring.

Perhaps the Telegraph is not used to the fact that writers for young adults often deal with heavy subjects, and we do so for a number of reasons, and not just because they are not covered adequately at school. We also write about them because children need to read about things that are bothering them, especially when nobody else is talking about it with them, because they're asking all kinds of questions about what they see around them, and because we want them to continue to enquire, to take nothing for granted, and to seek out answers of their own. At the same time hopefully we're telling a good yarn ("boggling their minds" as I put it).

With the predictable inevitability of the Internet, the deliberately sensationalistic bias of the headline was soon picked up by the nutters and climate sceptics who lurk as trolls on the 'net. The next thing I knew I was being accused on Twitter and certain websites of corruption of minors, child molestation and even, in one tweet from fundamentalist Jewish organisation, of being Hitler. All over the course of three days, which just goes to show the truth of Godwin's Law, written as long ago as 1990, which says that any Internet argument will inevitably lead to somebody being accused of being a Nazi.

It was up to the Telegraph's environment editor, Geoffrey Lean, to put things right three days later with a more balanced article, suggesting that in fact there is a lot of common ground between those who believe in climate change and think something ought to be done about it, and those who don't. This, however, does not justify the paper itself deliberately stirring things up and giving plenty of space to a certain climate sceptic well known for his deliberate misrepresentation of science. No wonder people are confused.

And no wonder we need to write stories which attempt to tackle this heavy stuff from a different angle.

David Thorpe is the author of cli-fi YA fantasy Stormteller and the YA SF Hybrids.

Feeling the Way - Heather Dyer

“I think, therefore I am,” said Descartes.

In response, Milan Kundera writes: "I feel, therefore I am, is a truth much more universally valid, and it applies to everything that's alive." But Kundera is quoted less frequently. Why? I suspect it’s because we live in a culture that values thinking over feeling - and this inhibits our creativity.

As we get older we learn to control and suppress our inner feelings. It's necessary that we don’t take our feelings out on those around us – but if we continue to deny our inner experiences, we become desensitized to them. This damages our creativity because creativity relies as much on feelings as it does on intellect.

The education expert Ken Robinson, in his book Out of Our Minds says that "the persistence of this apparent dichotomy between reason and emotions presents real problems for education and for the general development of creative abilities." If we want to continue to grow and to be creative, we need to stay open and responsive to what we feel.

Being responsive is hard work. "In workshops," says Eric Booth, author of an incredible book, The Everyday Work of Art: Awakening the Extraordinary in Your Daily Life, "I am always struck by how hard it is for participants, of all ages, in all fields, to notice they are indeed having experiences. They do the activities, do them well, and have fine insights, but they resist considering what happens inside them during the experience as if it were important, worth noticing. Many have an ingrained bias that dismisses those inner events as inconsequential because they are intangible."

But we can learn to notice our feelings again. "As workshop participants are prompted to start noticing their experience,” says Booth, “their awareness flashes in fragile and ephemeral glimpses. Slowly, participants get a sense that those inner events are full of important, surprising information and accomplishments."

And noticing begets more noticing. When my mother started watercolour painting she became someone who noticed cloud formations and colours in the sky - and pointed them out to the rest of us. As a result, we began noticing them, too.

My friend Dounia is a herbalist. On a walk she’ll point out tiny flowers growing in the hedgerow, or berries on a tree. The way that she touches the delicate fronds or runs her fingertips along the bough of a tree, makes me see these things with fresh eyes, and has given me a new appreciation of their complexity and beauty.

© Wester Ross

In the same way, when we become more attuned to how we feel inside we are better able to hear our intuition. We become alert to our hunches and can follow our bliss. In this way, we exercise our ability to 'feel' our way through our storylines - both in our writing and in our lives. 

© Colin Bryant

Heather Dyer - children's author and Royal Literary Fund Consultant Fellow

• For enquiries about creative writing workshops for children or adults, or editorial services, go to www.heatherdyer.co.uk
• For enquiries about academic writing workshops, go to:  http://rlfconsultants.com/consultants/heather-dyer/

STORYTELLING OF ANOTHER KIND – DIANNE HOFMEYR

‘Kungkarangkalpa’; Kunmanara Hogan, Tjaruwa Woods, Yarangka Thomas, Estelle Hogan, Ngalpingka Simms and Myrtle Pennington,; 2013; Acrylic on canvas. © The artists, courtesy Spinifex Arts Project.

Can civilisations be judged by the richness of the stories they tell? If so then the indigenous people of Australia must rank amongst the highest of civilisations. Yet when James Cook arrived on the shores of Australia in 1770 he was dismissive of the people living there despite their deep sense of history and landscape and stories they told in their art – an unbroken tradition for 40 000 years from the time of the earliest hand stencil on a rock wall.

In the darkened space of Room 35 at the British Museum I find myself in another world. The abstract images that dominate the entry space hold me mesmerised. The longer one looks the more the stories emerge. Tiny dots of colour that seem applied with a fingertip, pulse with light and create shimmering circles and the outline of fabulous creatures. It’s a 'dreaming' of a mythical past and of a landscape well known. Uta Uta Tjangala’s painting Yumari, describes a 'dreaming' of women with digging sticks and King Brown Snake and tells the story of the artist’s own biological conception. Ironic that a portion of this painting is printed as background on every Australian passport like DNA.

‘Yumari’, Uta Uta Tjangala (c. 1926–1990), Pintupi people, Papunya, Northern Territory, 1981, Acrylic on canvas. National Museum of Australia

I make a quick note of something I see written in one of the cases. 'These images were put down for us by our creator so we know how to stay alive. We should dance these images down into the ground in our 'corroborees' ceremonies. That would make us learn the stories and put new life into these images.' And I'm reminded of a wonderful children's picture book called The Dancer written by Nola Turkington, illustrated by Niki Daly and published by Frances Lincoln about a girl dancing the magical dance of the rainbull... and the thought that perhaps illustrators dance images into the minds of readers so they become part of our psyche. I hope so.

The exhibition is incredibly moving and for me particularly unsettling as it connects so strongly with my own background – the way the San people in Southern Africa were dismissed by white settlers and the later years of ‘apartheid’. There are too many parallels. One painting in a more Western style of landscape with whitened gum trees is the most moving of all. Albert Namatjira, famous in the 1950s as one of Australia’s leading landscape artists was granted Australian citizenship, long before other Northern Territory Aboriginals. Then in 1957 he was imprisoned for supplying alcohol to one of his family members (alcohol was forbidden to Aboriginals) and died soon after his release. 

Equally sad are postcards sent home to the UK from Victorian visitors depicting indigenous people almost as objects – the dismissive words scrawled across one postcard – ‘I spent two days here’.

One of the most beautiful exhibits is a line of biface spearpoints. The chipping detail on these minute blades is exquisite, made even more so by being of reflective materials like glass and agate and precious stone as well as ceramic (made from insulators on telegraph poles).

For the full impact of this beautifully curated and spare exhibition, it should be seen on a quiet day when the artefacts speak for themselves without distraction. The amazing crocodile masks, one bartered for with a few paltry beads and a mirror, the bark paintings, the etched shell pendants where the shimmer of shell was seen as a connection to lightning, water and ancestral power, the message sticks, the incredible ancient knotted bags and amazing biconical baskets – surely one of the most beautiful shapes in the world, that seem to trap and hold air in a moment of stillness – and the video of a basket-maker’s story, whose regular work is at the local dump, whose fingers are large and squidgy and yet can weave the finest of biconical baskets.

Pearl shell pendant with dancing figures. Kimberley region, Western Australia, before 1926. Pearl shell, charcoal © The Trustees of the British Museum.

 Bark painting of a barramundi. Western Arnhem Land, about 1961 © The Trustees of the British Museum.

Don’t stay away. Go for all the stories that this exhibition plaits together – the sadness of the past as well as the artistry of an ancient nation, where knowledge of the past and history of landscape is reclaimed and put down in ochre on bark and in paint, and stories woven into threads of grass and reed. And look forward to the possibility of the artefacts held here in Britain, being given back to the people whose stories they tell.

(Permission to use these images was given by the British Museum and the copyright is as stated in the captions.)

www.diannehofmeyr.com

Twitter @dihofmeyr

Zeraffa Giraffa, written by Dianne Hofmeyr, illustrated by Jane Ray and published by Frances Lincoln, is on The Sunday Times List of Children's Top 100 Classics for the last 10 years.

EYES RIGHT by Penny Dolan

As my ABBA post comes at the start of each month, I’m often in the mood for a bit of personal New Resolution, a hope that in the the coming month I will do better. Right now, a birthday recently behind me, I’m fretting over what long keyboard hours are doing to my – and possibly to your - health. I have read and heard constant media warnings that sitting too much, whether for “book writing” or emails & admin (various) or blogging & Face-booking and more does bad things to the body.   

On a day like today, when several writing obligations will need much long sitting, those warnings flickering away at the back of my mind like angels.

 Fitness, first. Nicola Morgan recently blogged on ABBA about her admirable writing and “desk walking.”  No, don’t think that’s for me.  I might co-ordinate the footsteps but the words would look like QWERTY exercises done by an ape. Some authors prefer exercise indoors and speak of visits to their local gym or gym equipment ready in their spare bedroom. I’d probably forget and trip over the cross trainer while day-dreaming. (Dislocated knee? Not a nice injury.) 

Many writers like walking outdoors, thinking over their latest Work In Progress as they pace each day. I always think of Jenny Alexander and Katherine Langrish out walking wild places.

I often daydream about trying something more holistic like swimming, but I am the world’s slowest swimmer and therefore a menace to all faster swimmers in the pool. It’s an activity that’s good for authors. I’m envious when I hear about Liz Kessler surfing in Cornwall or Catherine Johnson braving the waves, or the many other writers who plunge into swimming pools each day. Sigh. Any swimming experience takes me the rest of the day to get over. Sad face etc.

Then comes the bones and the bending – or not. My “long sitting” month has stiffened my joints and stretchy activities are needed.

 Linda Newbery swears by yoga, if she swears at all, and her yoga sessions are always popular at the SAS Charney Manor week’s retreat. I've tried out the easier alternative - Pilates - nearer home which went well until I was hit by a month of school visits and trips away. When I returned, the class was much fuller.  

Oh dear.  Friends, there’s a difference between hiding discreetly at the back (which I had been) and being the person bumping into other people (which I now was). Yes, I lost courage.

Then there's that other small difficulty: the Author Diet!  
When you’re working from home, extra nibbling and munching is so easy, and little by little the numbers on the scales creep up. If you are deep into writing - and therefore too busy to go through all the faff of cooking - your meals/snacks may well be a bit carb heavy.  

We tried, home here. We've done bursts of 5:2. (Thank you, Kate Harrison.) However, surrounded by the gloom of winter on many a “2” day, by 4pm we’d decide  that it was really a “5” day - and our schedule fell apart.

Besides, am I the only one with problems about all the Facebook friends who continually cheer and reward stressed friends with virtual chocolate and wine?  Ha, ha, hollow ha! Some of us stressed writers swiftly convert that reward into the real world, especially the comforting chocolate.

Yet one good health-type thing has happened. I’ve been having trouble with my eyes – no, that’s not the good thing! – but battling with font sizes and views and changing the height of the screen (posture and eyes!) and similar stuff did not seem to help. 

I usually work on a PC, facing a window so I can look out. (I’m sure that other writer’s talk about looking out of the window?) Late last month, as the daylight level outside grew brighter, I was shutting my blinds more and more. I hardly ever saw straight daylight, and was eye-sore by the end of the afternoon. Then I suddenly saw what a fool I’d been.  

Of course, of course, you cry! Didn’t you think of that before?

 

I brought a small table into the room, set it 45% to the window working top and moved the PC screen around. Now the screen is backed by a set of bookshelves and my eyes have stopped hurting. Although this big shift a) messes up the space in the room slightly annoyingly and b) means I now have wires trailing across a gap and c) blocks the occasional-use tv screen, I can now work for longer without really sore eyes and that feels like a blessing.

 

Along with body and bones and good things to eat, do look after your eyes, people. Take good care of them, as it won’t be easy to write if your sight starts going. If you are sitting there, squinting up your itchy eyes, maybe it’s time to stop accommodating all the deficiencies in your workspace set-up and consider quite where and how to place your screen while you’re at your work. Just a suggestion.

Meanwhile, despite my comments above, I'd really like to know how you keep healthy and un-creaky when you’re in the middle of long writing or too many projects? And how do you fit it that into you (and possibly your family's) life-style?.

Penny Dolan

Ps. One birthday present was a simple daily Yoga DVD. A hint, I think. I’ll let you know.

The fragility of the imagination – by Lari Don

I sometimes feel unreasonable when I say that I can’t write in my lovely bright study, unless the house is quiet and I know I won’t be interrupted. (I know it’s really annoying for my family, and fairly contradictory, since I can write in noisy cafes, libraries, bus stations, train carriages and staff rooms…) But I know that in order to put my whole self into the world I’m creating, I need to feel confident that I won’t be distracted. And I’m discovering that sometimes there’s just too much life and stress and STUFF going on, for me to be able to create stories.

I’ve been thinking recently about how easily the creative process is derailed, and about the fragility of a writer’s imagination.

Last week, Nicola Morgan, a writer I greatly admire, for the books she writes and for the wisdom she shares about writing and publishing, wrote a powerful post about how she’s struggling (temporarily, I hope) to write fiction, rather than non-fiction. Her post made me think about my own writing.

As well as novels, I write retellings of old myths, legends and folktales. Fewer facts and more magic than most non-fiction, but even so, I find this process, the craft of retelling something that already exists, fairly robust, much less likely to be disrupted by someone asking what’s for tea, or by more fundamental disturbances in my life.

However, I find the process of writing fiction, creating the new world of a novel, much more fragile.

One of my novels crashed and burned a year or so ago. An idea I was entirely committed to, characters I loved, a world I was fascinated by, questions I desperately wanted to answer… And it died. I spent months researching it. I wrote 21 chapters. Then it just died.

I couldn’t see where the story was going. So I abandoned it. Put all the books and research notes into a cardboard box.

And then I put that box with all the other boxes. The packing boxes.

Because that book crashed and burned in a year when I moved house twice. A year in which I sold a house, failed to buy another house, moved out of the first house anyway, lived in a (wholly unsuitable) rented house, finally bought another house, and moved house again.

And I will never know whether the story collapsed because of fundamental problems with the idea, or because of the disruptive circumstances under which I was trying to write it.

I will never know, because I just can’t face opening that box and re-entering that story, even though I suspect the essence of the story is fine, and it was just too hard to create that world inside my head, when the world outside my head was so unstable. So that book is probably dead.

But a book which is NOT dead is the one I’m currently writing. I’ve had an unsettled couple of months, when it’s been hard to get the peaceful focus I’m beginning to realise is essential for me to write fiction. And I had a minor crisis last week, when I was on the verge of wondering whether my current novel was falling apart.

But then I realised I’ve been trying to sort out the central plot problem during a General Election (always a busy time in our household) and while one of my children has been on exam leave (giving me no daytime hours to write in a quiet house.)

So, rather than packing this book in a box, I’ve reminded myself about the fragility of my creative process, and I’ve decided not to make any big decisions about the plot until I have time to think in peace and quiet and calmness. (Next Monday, I hope!) I’ll give myself time to get back into this world in the way that works for me, rather than panicking and abandoning it, and souring my relationship with this story and these characters for ever.

What writers do is very strange. Perhaps we don’t admit that often enough. Writing fiction, for whatever age, is essentially quite odd. We invent worlds, and live inside them. We do it convincingly enough to invite others to join us in those worlds. We invent people. We have close and emotional relationships with entirely imaginary people. We give our characters lives, make those lives dramatic and exciting and painful, then sometimes we take those lives away.

That’s a very weird thing to do. It’s precious, it’s delicate, it’s fragile. It needs nurtured, not forced. And it can never be taken for granted. Writers have to be allowed to admit that, to ourselves first of all.

 PS – I’d really like to thank Nicola for her honesty last week. It helped me think about my own creativity and its flawed fragility...

  

Lari Don is the award-winning author of 22 books for all ages, including a teen thriller, fantasy novels for 8 – 12s, picture books, retellings of traditional tales and novellas for reluctant readers. 

Lari’s website 

Lari’s own blog

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My friend Anthony - John Dougherty

When I first met Anthony, he was - well, to say he was a struggling author would be a stretch. Truth to tell, he was probably one of the more successful authors I came to know in my new home-town during that early settling-in period. Some years back, he'd co-written a play which, as he put it, paid his mortgage and enabled him to go on writing.

Still, his career wasn't thriving. Despite a number of books, plays and films to his name, he was having trouble keeping a UK publisher. His books were good - I mean, really good - but they weren't selling in the sorts of numbers that made publishers desperate to publish them.

Something that impressed me enormously about Anthony, though - even apart from his readiness to break out the barbecue and a bottle of cava if I dropped round after his writing day was done - was his unwillingness to let the vagaries of the writing life get to him. Once, for instance, he reacted to being dropped by a UK publisher by knuckling down immediately and writing a new novel. It was called Death of a Superhero. It was published in the UK and, some time later, turned into a film starring Andy Serkis.

His work began taking him away from here more and more - book tours in Germany, working on films not only as a writer but as a director and producer. Still, we tried to meet up from time to time for a beer when he was in town.

On one such occasion, about a year and a half ago, he told me that he was working on a film about the life of Stephen Hawking. He'd written the screenplay, and was co-producing. It sounded interesting, though not necessarily the sort of thing to set box offices alight.

And then, a year later, I noticed that one of the big posters that frequently adorn our local cinema  ahead of a big release bore a picture that looked like... well, like Stephen Hawking. I wonder if that's Anthony's film, I thought.

It was. And you probably know the rest: The Theory of Everything was one of the big must-see films of last year, as it well deserved to be; it's a great film. When I saw it in the local cinema, the audience broke into spontaneous applause as the closing credits rolled.

I haven't seen much of Anthony since The Theory of Everything was released, but we managed to catch up in London a couple of weeks ago. He was looking very well, and feeling very lucky; the success of Theory has opened doors to him that he couldn't have imagined a couple of years back. At present he's juggling seven projects at one stage of development or another, including one with George Clooney. We chatted about work over a cup of tea, and he let me hold one of his BAFTAs for a selfie. It was lovely. Seeing Anthony, I mean; not holding the BAFTA. Although that was nice too.


I'm hoping we can get together for one of our increasingly infrequent pints before long; but I'm not likely to forget about him in the meantime. I keep bumping into display stands full of his DVDs everywhere from Primark to Waitrose.

Is there a point to this story? Probably. Perhaps it's about perseverance; battling on even when your career isn't going brilliantly. Perhaps it's about talent. Perhaps it's a callback to my last blogpost, the one about copyright - after all, without the continued royalties from his early play, maybe Anthony would never have been able to write the film that has well and truly made his name. But for me, more than anything it's about celebrating a friend who has encouraged me as a writer, and who deserves to enjoy every minute of the success he's worked so hard for.

_____________________________________________________________________________

John's latest book is the extremely silly Stinkbomb & Ketchup-Face and the Evilness of Pizza, illustrated by David Tazzyman and published by OUP.

France's Zoella - Clementine Beauvais

France has its very own Zoe Sugg: she's called Marie Lopez but goes by the name of Enjoy Phoenix, and she's a beauty, make-up and life vlogger. Like Zoe Sugg, she's written a book, which was published a few days ago and is called #EnjoyMarie (the title sounds only slightly less weird in French). I wasn't the only 'old person' to discover her works on that occasion, but she's been fabulously popular online for a while.

Hardly had #EnjoyMarie been published that the press started mocking the book, with the trendy magazine Les Inrocks devoting an article to 'The 27 sentences that will make you think Enjoy Phoenix is the new Flaubert'. Each sentence is escorted by a sarcastic comment:

3. "We are a generation of words created by an ever-sharper technology and, without noticing, we're living under the attractive power of the webs of the Internet." EnjoyPhoenix > Edward Snowden.

17. "I shudder as I imagine drinking my first glass of alcohol... I hope there will be some." Spoiler alert: there was.

Etc. It's funny in some ways, but it's also a bit facile to mock a 19-year-old who started a blog five years ago as a means of dealing with school bullying, and who picked the phoenix as her animal of choice to express her desire to be born again and different. But then French adults are always cruel to teenagers, as I well remember.

Lopez's book is in many ways a bizarre phenomenon in a country which is far from having a literary landscape as cluttered by author 'brands' and celebrity books as the Anglo-Saxon market, even in children's and teenage literature. As the title of the Inrocks article indicates through the direct and snarky comparison with Flaubert, there is something distinctly disasteful, for the French mindset, about a book so obviously commercial.

It's worth saying here that Les Inrocks is in many ways culturally snobbish, but as regards edgy pop culture - they're not at all protective of highbrow culture; you would never find an article on Flaubert in there, so the reference sounds a little bit out of place. But even they, faced with walls of fuschia pink #EnjoyMarie books in each Fnac (the French franchise of cultural supermarkets), felt defensive enough to remind their readers of our literary canon, which in France would be packaged between white or cream covers. (Judging a book by its colour is very much a thing in my country.)

L'Express, meanwhile, has decided to compare the sales of #EnjoyMarie to those of the other best-selling non-fiction books of the moment, which are: a sociological study of the Charlie Hebdo demonstrators by an academic; a political study of Germany by a politician; an apology of blasphemy post-Charlie-Hebdo-massacre by a feminist intellectual; and a book on health and nutrition by some doctor. 'Enjoy Phoenix sells more books than all those people!!!!!' L'Express marvels.

And provides a diagram to prove this astonishing fact:

INCREDIBEUL! ZE POLITICAL ESSAYS ZEY ARE NOT AS MUCH SELL AS ZE BOOK ABOUT ZE MAKE-UP!


My French writer and illustrator friends are watching all of this with some amusement and not much anxiety. But some are mildly incredulous too, in part because of the unashamed money-making dimension of the enterprise. As I've written about before, the French market is much less commercially-oriented and there's much less money to be made; books cannot be discounted, and they are generally quite expensive (my latest YA novel retails at 15,99€).  

In a publishing world where advances for teenage novels are generally between 500 and 2000 euros, and there are never any announcements along the lines of 'NEW AUTHOR GETS FIVE BOOK DEAL FOR AN UNDISCLOSED SIX FIGURE SUM', #EnjoyMarie feels like an odd import from Britain or the US - it's no coincidence that the name sounds English. Interviewers and journalists spend a lot of time telling their readers about Marie Lopez's supposed salary.

Another interesting thing is that, as far as I can tell - I might be wrong! - Marie Lopez probably wrote her own book mostly on her own; unlike, as everyone here remembers, Zoe Sugg. Keren David wrote a great blog post on the matter a while back. Keren was annoyed "that no one from Zoella’s management team or publishers -  let alone Zoella herself -  wanted to give the ghostwriter a co-writing credit, or admit up front that Zoella needed a hand to get her ideas down in print." Like Keren, I think it would be far healthier if the world was actually told that writing is a proper job, which not everyone famous is always necessarily qualified to do.

It's time to confess that I haven't actually read Zoella's book (sorry), but it sounds to me like it was well-received by her fans. By contrast, Lopez's book is getting mixed reviews, including from its target audience. I think this is the first time a French publishing company has given a book deal to a teenage celebrity in this way, and I wonder if they underestimated the need to hire professional help to bulk up the content of the book.

Is this the beginning in the French publishing world of a more Anglo-Saxon way of doing things? Well, you can tell from the way in which people are reacting that it isn't something they're close to getting used to. But after all, ex-First Girlfriend Valérie Trierweiler's memoir on François Hollande sold hundreds of thousands of copies earlier this year. Maybe France is slowly edging towards this brave new world after all.
 ____________________________________________________________________

Clémentine Beauvais writes children's books in French and in English. She blogs here about children's literature, academia and other things.

Hybrids by Lynn Huggins-Cooper

I am a hybrid. Not a strange hedgehog/human cross (although I like the idea apart from the whole munching bugs thing); not an alien life form - but that strange creature, a hybrid author. Nope; that still sounds strange. It sounds as though I am part author, part...other. Maybe penguin.

Anyway - what the term 'hybrid author' seems to mean to some people is that an author is traditionally published, by big publishing houses as well as self published - by themselves, presumably. This is not what I mean, however. By 'hybrid author,' I mean I am historically traditionally published, and have been for over eighteen years. In addition to that, I have started a small press. I know; that sounds crazy as publishers are going under or being eaten by giants. Not literally, you understand. That would be messy.

The Forest House Press began as the result of being left some money by my mum when she died. Now, my parents were extremely supportive of my writing, and had to have a copy of everything I published in what they called their 'archive' - unbearably sweet to remember that. So starting the press was something they would be proud of, and approve of. I  am not competing with any large (or even medium...or even small!) publishers out there; I know my niches and intend to publish in those. I have written craft, educational and self help books for years; we'll be publishing those. We are currently working on a range of patterns for kits and a book for Faerierealms. We are approaching non-traditional markets such as craft sellers, knitting shops and gift shops as well as book shops - we know where our customers live, as it were.

                                 Half author; half cupcake. The perfect hybrid for elevenses!

We are on a steep learning curve. I have a good team behind me, including two fabulous interns this summer. So watch this space - the hybrid author will be the bleary-eyed one in the corner.

Hedgehogs, are they the new tigers? by Julie Sykes

The first book I ever wrote was a picture book about kittens. I sent it to a publisher who liked it very much; only they couldn't publish it because they already had enough books about cats on their list. The editor asked if I could write about something else. So I did. I wrote a book called Hedgehog's Apple. It was the story of a hedgehog, trying to find an apple for his tea. 

The editor liked that story too; only there was a problem. Picture books are expensive to publish and rely on co-editions, foreign editions of the book. This particular company worked closely with a publisher in America who wasn't interested in books on hedgehogs, as they weren't a native species. 

I immediately sacked hedgehog and threw away his apple. Then I hired a squirrel. The book (about Rufus going out to find some acorns for tea) became An Acorn for Tea. It published in America as Sara Squirrel and the Lost Acorns. 

I like hedgehogs. I was sad about getting rid of Rufus but not tragically so. Recently however, I was shocked to learn that hedgehog numbers are in sharp decline. The BBC's Michaela Strachan, co-presenter of Springwatch, wrote in this week's Radio Times, that 'Hedgehogs are declining at the same rate as tigers,' and 'they are in critical danger, particularly in London.' She goes on to say that if we don't do anything about it then hedgehogs will be gone in ten years. 

Hedgehogs need a huge amount of space to forage in - an area the size of TWO football pitches. Urban hedgehogs are often unable to travel such large distances partly because of garden fences blocking their way. 

And here's where we can help. If anyone with a garden could make a small hole under their fence it will allow hedgehogs the freedom to roam and find food. 

It's such a small thing to do so please help if you can. Better still, ask your neighbour to do the same. Imagine a Britain without the hedgehog. That would be tragic!

Earning a Living from Writing by Tamsyn Murray

Some of you may know that I achieved a milestone recently. Seven and a half years after I first resolved to 'take this writing business seriously', I handed in my notice at both my part-time jobs to concentrate solely on writing. From 1st July 2015, I will be a full-time writer. Hurrah!

Almost immediately after I'd done the deed (told my bosses I was leaving), The Fear set in. How was I going to pay the bills and feed my children with no monthly salary? What if it all went wrong? What if I had made a terrible TERRIBLE mistake?

My husband tried to reassure me. "Don't worry, you can just do some more school events if we start to struggle." And he's right - children's authors are lucky in that we have an additional stream of income to tap into: school visits.

I like to think that I give good value to the schools who book me. My events are funny, interactive and designed to get kids talking about books long after I've left. And obviously while I'm off performing, I cannot be writing so I charge a reasonable amount for an event. I don't mean for the short run of promotional visits I might do for my publisher, to promote a new book or series - I mean an everyday school visit. Two assemblies and a signing, perhaps, or a workshop and an assembly. And it occurred to me that not all children's authors charge for these standard events. Some do free events ALL the time, to help boost their books sales. They never charge. At a time when schools' budgets are being squeezed, I can understand the appeal of a free visit too - author visits are a great way to boost reading for pleasure, which has all kinds of quantifiable benefits. But here's the problem: when authors do an event for free, they are devaluing the work all of us writers do. Look at it this way - imagine a plumber offered to come to your house and fit your new bathroom for nothing. Word gets around and soon that plumber is crazy busy. People decide that they don't want a plumber who charges a lot of money when they can get the same job done for free. Lots of plumbers who made their living out of plumbing now can't get any work. And worst of all, the people who need their bathrooms installed don't see why they should pay anyone to do that work. Pretty soon, not paying is the norm, even though the work done is of a very high standard. Do you see what I'm getting at?

If you are an author who routinely does school visits for free all the time (and again, I don't mean a book tour or the occasional freebie you might do at your own discretion) then you are stepping on your fellow writers to build your own success. I urge you to stop and consider what is a fair charge - the Society of Authors has done some excellent work on this area recently, guided by the extremely wise Nicola Morgan.

Take a look. Value yourself and understand that constantly offering free events is undermining the rest of us. And help me sleep better at night now that I don't have the cushion of a monthly salary to snuggle up against.

What’s in a word? by Liz Kessler

Ten days ago, something wonderful happened for me. The very first book I ever wrote was finally published.

It took fifteen years. Coincidentally, it became my fifteenth published book – and my first YA novel.

The book is about seventeen-year-old Ashleigh Walker going through the final year of her sixth form in school, and the journey she takes during that year. It is what can loosely be called a ‘coming of age’ novel. It is also about Ash coming out as a lesbian.

Some people prefer the word ‘gay’. I don’t mind that. Some people use the word ‘queer’. I don’t mind that either (as long as it’s the modern usage of the word – ie celebrating diversity in sexuality rather than the older definition used as an insult to abuse and offend). Some (not many) still say ‘homosexual’. I don’t even mind that, although it makes me cringe a little to hear it, as it’s a bit old-fashioned.

One thing I have become aware of, during the lead up to, and aftermath of, this book’s publication, is the fact that there are an awful lot more words being used in discussions of sexuality than there used to be, and that for many people – particularly those who are new to the discussion – this can be bewildering. I’ve been in this game over twenty years, and I’m getting a little confused myself.

I’ve found that in discussions about the book, I use different terms, depending on who I’m talking to. In that respect, I’ve been feeling a bit like a chameleon, changing colour to suit my surroundings. One interviewer referred to my novel as ‘the gay book’. I wasn’t too keen on that (and told her) but that wasn’t because of using the word gay; it was that I hope it is much more than just ‘the gay book’. But other than that, I’ve found myself using different terms interchangeably, to fit in with the language of the people I’m talking to.

And I think this is OK. It’s a bit like having a wardrobe full of clothes and deciding which outfit is appropriate, depending on where you are going and who you are mixing with.

For example, I was (gasp, squeal, slightly hyperventilate) on Woman’s Hour and I don’t actually think that the words lesbian, gay or queer were used at all. Jenni Murray introduced the book by saying it was about a girl who realised she didn’t fancy boys, she fancied girls. We talked about coming out. But that was as far as the language went. And I am 100% OK with that. This is mainstream, national, hugely popular radio, so going back to the wardrobe analogy, I guess this is the place to put on my smartest outfit and do my best to blend in.

At the other end of the scale, I was the guest author on the lovely Lucy Powrie’s very popular #UKYAchat on twitter. If we’re to describe this in terms of the wardrobe, I guess this was the event where I stood in front of my clothes, trying to find something I looked cool and young and hip enough in (and cursed myself for even using the word hip, as that only showed how actually unhip I am) found my wardrobe a little wanting on this score – and decided just to go in what I had on.

The discussion on this forum was great: it was amazing to see such a variety of books being recommended; it was heart warming to be part of a discussion that was so open to books about sexuality. Hand on heart, though, there was a small part of the discussion which I have to say left some of us slightly running to catch up: the terminology.

A bit of background.

The gay movement is generally credited to have begun in the 1960s, with the Stonewall Riots. It was about rising up against years of being abused, beaten, oppressed and even killed by homophobic laws and actions. Back then, using the word ‘gay’ instead of ‘homosexual’ was radical and liberating.

The word ‘lesbian’ was later added and became widely used by many lesbian feminists in the 1970s.

My own political awakening came in the 1980s and this was around the time that there were arguments in the movement about adding the word ‘bisexual’ to the banners. Those arguments were huge and divisive within (what eventually became known as) the LGB community. Look how far we’ve come!

Similar arguments raged over adding the ‘T’ for transsexual, and I think these arguments lasted even longer. But now, LGBT has become a term that many are familiar with, and a banner that I am proud to stand under.

But even that already feels out of date in some circles. In terms of sexuality, we are living in times where people no longer want to define themselves with broad labels which basically divide everybody into three main headings: straight, gay, bisexual. The times we are living in today are about a richer, more diverse, more grey-area-y way of defining ourselves.

For some of us, this can feel challenging. I freely admit that I find it difficult to keep up at times. Over the last year or so, I’ve been introduced to the acronyms QUILTBAG, and LGBTQIA+ and others like this, which are highly-inclusive acronyms and umbrella terms that many people choose as their label. If this is how people choose to define themselves, I believe it is their decision to do this and nobody else’s. If people feel that ‘queer’ is the only word that sums up their own sexuality, again, that is their decision. Some people struggle with words like ‘queer’ and ‘dyke’, associating them with the negative connotations of the past. For others, ‘queer’ is the only word that they feel truly expresses who they are. It is up to each of us to define ourselves – not to listen to instructions from others.

But in the struggle for more and more inclusive terms, I believe it is also important to remember that not everyone is where we are, and to keep our hearts and our minds open to those who are on our side but might not have all the language to express that just yet. To some people, a coming out novel is brave and risky. To others, every YA novel ought to have characters from every bit of the sexuality spectrum and not be making a big deal about it.

Some might say that YA authors have a responsibility to represent every aspect of our diverse society and to use our novels as ways to educate young people in areas where schools, parents, newspapers and the internet are lacking.

I don’t actually agree with this. Yes, I do believe that books need diversity – and I am proud to be part of doing this in the world of YA books. But I do not believe that we have a responsibility to represent every aspect of society in every novel we write. I believe we have a responsibility to ourselves, our consciences, our deeply-held beliefs – and above all, actually, to our stories and our characters. If we start to think of our books as places where we owe it to anyone to write about certain things in certain ways, our books will turn into political manifestos rather than worlds of characters and stories to entertain, illuminate and impassion young readers.

I have never written a book where my starting point has been political in any way, or where I have sat down and decided that I want to educate or bring about an awareness of certain issues or themes. If I did that, I believe I would kill the story flat and no one would want to read it. Instead, what I have learned to do is to trust that if I open my mind to my stories, and allow my characters to explore and follow their own journeys, the things that matter to me will find a way of sneaking into the pages. And if they do, you can guarantee they will find a way of sneaking into my readers’ hearts and minds too, somewhere along the way.

So whilst the twenty-something-year-old me might have been out there with a megaphone, telling people how they should think, talk and act, I am more comfortable with the way the forty-something-year-old me does it, which is to move more gently, to compromise, to be more accepting. I am willing to listen, to learn as well as (hopefully) educate, to know for a fact that I am not always right and to be willing to let someone tell me how I can do things better.

I have also (finally) figured out the acronym I am comfortable using for myself. It is: LGBT+ which stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender with the + as a way of not excluding other sexual orientations or gender identities, but stopping the abbreviation becoming too long! I have seen this used quite a bit, and it feels like the right one for me. See, the great thing is that I get to choose that for myself.

Going back to the wardrobe (which I’ve just realised could also be called a closet) analogy, this feels a bit like I’ve been looking for the perfect outfit for ages and have finally found it. And so I’m going to step out of that closet and wear my new outfit with confidence, and I’m going to shout about my new book with pride, and I’m going to continue to bang a drum for LGBT+ people everywhere, and hope that one day there will be so many of us standing under these umbrella terms that we find we have the whole world in one place and the labels are not needed at all.

Buy Liz's new book Here
Follow Liz on Twitter
Check out Liz's Website 

Vaguely reading and writing-related technology – Jess Vallance

Last month, book blogger and all-round teen marvel LucyPowrie asked me to take part in a Google Hangout as part of her UKYA Day. Sure, I said. No problem. What's a Google Hangout? 

Anyway, it turned out to be quite cool – video conferencing essentially. I do a LOT of conference calls and this was easily one of the least awkward ways of doing it. 

It occurs to me that there are probably lots of useful apps, websites and other tech stuff out there that I've never heard of, so really, what I’d like to do in this post is just ask everyone to tell me all about the useful things I don't know about. But that doesn't really seem in the spirit of blog-posting, so I’ll kick things off with a few tools I find quite handy.

1)      Pocket

This is great as an anti-procrastination tool. You set up an account, then you send any interesting links you find on the internet to your virtual ‘pocket’ so you can come back and read them when you’re waiting for a bus/in bed/not trying to write a book. 

Click on the link in your Twitter feed or wherever, then click Send to Pocket.

2)      Cold Turkey

Another one to help you avoid time-wasting. Cold Turkey lets you block yourself from certain websites for a set period of time.

List the offending sites, then choose how long you want to block them for. 

3)      Feedly

There are lots of blog aggregators out there, but I like this one best. It lets you add all the blogs you regularly read into one place, sorted by subject.

The numbers show you how many new blog posts since you last checked. 

4)      FreeAgent

Unlike the others in this list, this one isn't free but it is well worth the money if you’re self-employed. It lets you keep track of all of your income and outgoings, send invoices, upload bank statements and store your receipt scans in the right places. (NB this screen shot is from the company’s demo site, in case you’re all looking at it and thinking I’m loaded.)

5)      Spritz

This one’s more weird than useful, but I’m adding it just for interest’s sake. 

It’s a bit of technology that aims to help you increase your reading speed by showing you one word at a time at a set rate – the idea being that by keeping your eyes looking in one spot rather than scrolling down a page, you can take in words more quickly. 

It’s quite hard to explain but try it out on the website. I predict that most people here will hate it as it completely ruins the natural rhythm of the text and makes you read every single word, which I don’t think we’d normally do. 

Set your WPM speed, then the words will appear one by one. 

OK, that’s all I've got. Now tell me yours. 

Website: www.jessvallance.com

Twitter @jessvallance1

The death of (my) imagination - by Nicola Morgan

I don't know what I'm asking for here or why I'm burdening you with my trivial writer's angst. No one's dying, though something is dead. Perhaps it's just a silly scream in the dark and I should deal with it silently. All I really ask is that if you think there's no such thing as writer's block you do one or both of two things: think again or say nothing. You don't know.

My imagination has died. "Use it or lose it" is the brain's well known way of functioning. And not functioning. Well, some time ago I stopped using my imagination and filled my writing brain with non-fiction; and now I've lost it. I used, years ago, to write fiction and non-fiction happily in tandem, bobbing from one to the other constructively and profitably. But a few years ago the non-fiction took over. It took over because I loved doing it, because it was (for me) easier, because it was successful, because it was bringing me in royalties, because it led to lots of wellpaid events (generating more non-fiction writing as I prepared myriad handouts and presentations and blogposts), because it gave me self-esteem and reputation, my niche, self-actualisation.

I thought that was enough for Heartsong. I should never have forgotten that for me it wasn't. Imagination was the lifeblood of my heartsong and I'd accidentally left the tourniquet on too long.

So, when I tried to write fiction, without which I don't feel whole, I found that the fiction muscle, my imagination, was dead.

At first, I thought, as you are thinking, that it was temporary. Dormant, not dead. All I had to do was all those things we know about, the things you're all wanting to say in support:

1. Just do it - apply butt to seat and fingers to keyboard and write
2. Give yourself time - don't worry
3. Get outside and walk
4. Stop thinking about it - it will come back
5. Try a new environment
6. Try another new environment
7. Do some creative napping
8. Listen to your dreams
9. Read lots of fiction
10. Read poetry
11. Allow yourself to write rubbish
12. Make yourself write rubbish
13. Set yourself targets; don't set yourself targets
14. Read Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg

I did them all to one degree or another. In fact, Writing Down the Bones nailed the problem in such a way that it created a new block by identifying the block: "If all of you does not believe that the elephant and the ant are one at the moment you write it, it will sound false. If all of you does believe it, there are some who might consider you crazy; but it's better to be crazy than false. But how do you make your mind believe it and write [it]?"

And that is the problem. I don't believe. Because of that dead imagination.

You see I'm trying to write a novel in which the central idea - invisibility - is a physical impossibility. You need your imagination to write or to read about it. And when I come to write it, to create it, all the time I'm thinking, "Don't be stupid: that can't happen." There's a disconnect between what I know stories do - the suspension of disbelief - and my ability to suspend disbelief for long enough to create belief.

I can't make anyone else believe it because I don't believe in it - what I'm trying to write or my ability to write it - any more. 

I don't expect an answer. And I don't want to sound self-pitying. As I say, no one died. There are really only two answers: give up or carry on trying to force life into a dead thing, charging up those chest paddles.

Or give my imagination a name: maybe Lazarus. No, I never believed that story either. Actually, I probably did once, before.

[Edited to add: funnily, someone crashed into me as I was walking along the street just now and he looked completely shocked and confused, as though I had been temporarily invisible and he was trying to work out how that could be. Then he just carried on walking as though he was thinking, "Yeah, so, she was invisible. So what? Get over it."]

Being paid and a writer's confidence.

Many years ago, a friend of mine, an artist, got into a prestigious London Art College to do postgraduate work. One of the first things said to her was 'you are going to have to charge more for your paintings if you want to be taken seriously.' So she put up the price and demand increased. It made her feel rather odd. They were the same paintings, but people seemed to value them more just because they were more expensive. Was money so important?

I have found this whole subject very difficult. The only source of funding for my book 'Girl with a White Dog' published March 2014 was from my wonderful family and, in the last two years before my mother's death last May, my carer's allowance of £58.00. Just going up to London to the wonderful Wiener Library http://www.wienerlibrary.co.uk would, for example cost me over half what I earned as a carer.  I spent lots of money on research books. My husband believed in me and encouraged me to use our family money from his earnings to go to Germany for a weekend to visit Dachau. Then my book was published, and because I believed passionately in the issues it discussed, I did lots of free talks about them locally and accepted some invitations to travel up to London to discuss them (and hopefully sell the book), but none of the invitations involved offers of payment, and I was too embarrassed to ask. It seemed like I was exploiting the sufferings of the Holocaust to ask for payment.  I was asked to go to a particularly interesting event, but when I asked on what terms (too vaguely and without explicitly mentioning payment) they emailed back (I worried that the words showed that they were hurt),  'we just thought you'd be interested'. I was too embarrassed to say I couldn't afford it.

For some reason for which I am very grateful, my worries about my seemingly incessant spending of money I hadn't earned back came to a head at the Federation of Children's Books Groups Conference this year. I was feeling bad about spending yet more of our family money to go away to it and when talking to three friends from twitter, Zoe of @playingbythebook @minervamoan and @chaletfan I unexpectedly burst into tears. They were wonderful. I told them that I kept being asked to do free things by good people who had v little budgets, and I didn't know how to say 'no'.

They were wonderful. They made me practice saying 'yes, I would love to come. I charge the standard rates.'

Then, barely quarter of an hour later, whilst @chaletfan was standing nearby, a teacher approached me, asked me if I did school visits and I said 'yes, but I would have to be paid,' she said 'of course!"

I have very recently joined the Society of Authors. I think it will pay for itself over and over again just by going me the courage to refer to their rates.

This week I was asked at v short notice to go to talk to a local group of retired women for an hour about my books. I have done lots of similar ones for free. I said 'I am afraid I have no transport,' - they said 'we will pick you up and bring you home.' I said 'I have just decided to start charging' they said 'no problem, we have a budget - how much do you charge?' I said 'I am not sure if you could afford the Society of Authors' Rates' and they said 'we can pay up to £60.00' I said 'O.K.'

The night before I could not sleep. How could I dare to charge such a huge amount for an hour? If they normally paid speakers then they would see that I was not worth the payment. My confidence was at rock bottom. I wanted to ring them and say I would do it for free. My husband said 'Anne - you have no idea how interesting the writing process and business is for people who don't know about it, and  you are very good at talking about it.' He also reminded me that I HAD been paid before for speaking: my friend, a writer and Creative Writing lecturer at a local university, had invited me soon after 'Girl with a White Dog' was published last year, to speak to her students and had paid me as visiting speaker - Edinburgh Literary Festival had paid me last summer for being interviewed with Dawn McNiff about our debut books 'Girl with a White Dog' and 'Little Celeste'. Edinburgh Literary Festival had paid us for speaking, and had ALSO paid for accommodation and travel expenses. I had had lovely feedback, but  9 months between paid gigs is a long time.


So the day came and I packed 5 bags of books and manuscripts and proof copies and a box and a notice board  with pictures of Nazi children's books and white German shepherds and I spread them all out on  tables in front of about 30 women.

Then I spoke. It went so well. I found that my husband was right - just telling them about the process of getting published was interesting for them. They were so lovely. They thanked me over and over again for coming at such short notice and apologised for not being able to pay me more. I even sold some books! Then they drove me home and said it was a fascinating talk and they were so happy that I had come.

So what is the point of this post? I want to tell other writers not to be embarrassed to charge and urge them to apply to join The Society of Authors to give them confidence. I want to thank the Edinburgh Literary Festival and @Heidi_Colthup for inviting me to talk and for paying me last year, and  @playingbythebook, @chaletfan, @minervamoan for being so kind this year and telling me that I shouldn't be embarrassed to charge for talks. Thanks Joanne Harris (@joannechocolat on twitter) for that wonderful blog post, a link to which I will put at the end.

None of the ladies I spoke to yesterday are active on twitter or will be following my blog, but they have no idea how much they have helped my confidence. I have to honour a couple of re-arranged free events, but after that I will no longer feel arrogant or greedy for asking to be paid. I owe it to my family. I will try to charge the standard rates so as not to undercut other authors.

And please, if you are someone who invites speakers - please read Joanne's Harris blog on festivals. She is right.

http://joannechocolat.tumblr.com/post/112440623146/on-festivals-and-fees