I Flatline at Weekends

I’ve been neglecting my blog. And like a sick patient in an understaffed hospital, my blog is suffering as a result. But don’t take my word for it, just scroll down to the very bottom of this screen and take a look at its cardiogram. Eek!

Obviously, the ideal pulse rate would be a once-a-day (or at least twice-a-week) rhythm of site traffic spikes, as my scintillating wit and industry relevant infoblasts bring waves of visits to each post, but, um… I’m still warming up to that. In the meantime, while I wait to be industry relevant and scintillating (and rather than resort to posting pictures of kittens), maybe a detailed study of my blog’s stats will suggest a suitable medicine.

My most visited (I won’t say ‘read’), blog post is without doubt my claim-to-fame one. There’s nothing surprising there: write about something famous and people will find it. But my second most visited post, and by some margin too, is a throwaway piece I knocked out in a few minutes, whose popularity seems to be based on the fact that the play on words in its title is also a popular spelling mistake. So clearly the best shot in the arm I can give my blog is a dose of…

…Harry Potter and the Googled Myrrhmaid!

There. Long term though, there’s no alternative to getting back into the driving seat and making the effort to blog more regularly, but I have to move house first. In the meantime, please don’t worry if the patient slips into a temporary coma, it should be over by the end of June. And don’t go away, because there’s loads of news about my novel coming up (hey, I saw that look!), and more about Dan and the Dead, as well as my adventures with websites, my thoughts on branding (cowboy!), the experience of being edited, and the ups and downs and headaches of working with ideas. I’m also going to be giving stuff away.

See you soon (I hope!)

Out to Launch

Last night I went to the launch party for Caroline Green’s debut YA title DarkRide, a book I just about finished on the train journey home. Not because it’s short, I might add, just brilliant and difficult to stop reading. Congratulations, Caroline!

The launch itself had all the essential ingredients -- wine, a reading, good company and a charming author – not to mention that other strange phenomenon of a 21^st Century social life: the meeting of people one has already ‘met’ via social networking. In short, I had a great time, and I couldn’t help noticing that a lot of books were sold too.

The reason I find this particularly noteworthy is the fact that I was recently told (by those who know) that new authors shouldn’t feel the necessity to hold a book launch at all, at least from the point of view of sales. The reason being that all those who would come would probably have bought the book anyway. This has had me wondering about my own debut next year and whether I should go to the trouble of organising a launch party if, as is likely, the publishers don’t hold one. But last night’s spectacle of happy people chatting over dwindling piles of stock as the wine flowed has me thinking again. And after all, without that launch party I wouldn’t have met the author, I probably wouldn’t have bought her book any time soon, and I certainly wouldn’t have had it signed. So my question over whether to launch or not seems to have been answered right there. At least, from the sales perspective – it goes without saying that it’s always fun to open a bottle or two with friends, whatever the bean-counters think.

Before I sign off, I’d also like to send out congratulations to Fiona Dunbar, whose new book, Divine Freaks, is published today. Fiona was at Caroline’s launch last night, so I was finally able to chat in person with someone I only knew by reputation and facebook. Divine Freaks, by the way, is about a girl who can see ghosts, and you have only to glance at my last post to see why I find that interesting. Congratulations Fiona!  

Dan and the Dead

For a long time now I have been quietly working on a comic-Gothic novella for A&C Black (part of the Bloomsbury Group) and as the contract has recently been signed, I can finally announce the good news on my blog. This is a big deal for me, not only because it means I have a second fiction title coming out in 2012 (hurray!), but also because it will be lightly illustrated, and therefore the first time I have been able to combine my own illustrations with my writing for older readers. Double hurray! (The picture above is just a sample, but click for a closer look anyway.)

This project began life as a proposed contribution to a new series of very slim chapter books aimed at reluctant teen readers, but A&C Black felt the idea could be taken further than that, launching me on a very protracted (but ultimately very fruitful) journey. And there was even a brief of sorts: imagine a boy of between 10 and 14 years who has almost given up on reading, but who might yet be tempted to open a book if it looked exciting enough. You have this one chance to get him hooked. Now write! 

 

It turns out that was precisely the challenge I needed, and the stripped down, revved-up 22,000 word text that resulted was a sheer delight to write. I'm not saying it was easy – it certainly wasn't – but I learnt so much that I was able to go back to my novel afterwards and rip many thousands of pointless words right out of it.

So what's it about? Well, it's about a boy called Dan who can see dead people. Yup, like in the film, only I've added a twist that should hopefully freshen things up a bit. The basic set-up owes something to Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased), and sees Dan team up with the ghost of an Eighteenth Century gentleman called Simon, and go into business solving the troubles of the 'Desperate Dead'. For a rather extraordinary fee. Dan's the talent, Si thinks he's the brains of the outfit, and between them they're pretty damn awesome. In a skin-of-Dan's-teeth kind of way. There are dead Victorian magicians to contend with, the feisty ghost of murdered teen Emmeline, sleazy nightclub owners, gold polyester fluffy dice, scary lady vicars and more North Sea than is good for a boy whose hands are tied behind his back. Oh, and there are guns and car chases. And a severed finger. And something very, very grisly that Dan has to carry around all the time. There was even a Quiet Moment for a while, but I decided to delete it.

Anyway, it's something to put in the diary for next Spring:)

In Search of a Lost Reader

The recent death of Diana Wynne Jones has got me thinking. A great many tributes have been posted on-line recently, not just by those who actually knew her, but also by many who trace their own development as writers back to reading her magical books as children. And it's that that's got me thinking, because no matter how far I delve into the crumb-filled cardboard spaceship of my own childhood memories, I can't find Diana Wynne Jones in there anywhere.

Perhaps it doesn't matter. I mean, I have read some her books as a grown up, and seeing as how I have a professional interest in keeping my inner eleven-year-old alive and dreaming, maybe that's enough. But I can't shake off the obvious question: what was I reading then?

Well, the earliest memory I have of being signed up for permanent membership of the Great Book Club of Life was reading The Hobbit at about age 13. Yes, I know that's probably the most uninteresting piece of autobiographical information I have ever posted here (what boy didn't read The Hobbit at age 13?), but for all it's banality, it was still a key event for me. It was the first time I remember feeling bereft at the finishing of a book, and also the moment I understood fully that a story doesn't disappear just because it's over. I even remember exactly where I was standing when I realised I could turn the book over and start it again if I wanted to. The best thing about book covers is everything they contain.

Anyway,The Hobbit led to The Lord of the Rings, and from there I discovered Terry Pratchett, Terry Brooks, John Wyndham, Douglas Adams, Arthur C. Clarke, Real Life, and eventually Girls. But how did I get to Tolkein in the first place? What steps did I take to become a committed reader? And how can I – as a writer for children -- help make sure that other young people get switched on too?

Well, I can reveal that I did read Enid Blyton, though only because I borrowed my little sister's Magic faraway Tree books. I was about 11, and already aware that they were too young for me. I have also -- with the help of Facebook friends -- uncovered the fact that I read The Three Investigators, and this might push my reading back to the age of ten. There were comics of course, and much further back I know my father read Beatrix Potter to me, and my mother was definitely there when the tiger came to tea, but no matter how I look at it there's definitely a big round hole in my memory, and it's at exactly the point where Diana Wynne Jones would have fitted in nicely.

Oh, well. I can't exactly complain about having lots of great books still to read, now can I? But I am sorry to have missed her first time round, back when I wasn't bristling with critical faculties, prejudice and ugly ambition – back when all I needed was a torch and a duvet and a heap of books under my pillow.

So how did you become a reader? And what do you do to help the young people in your life find out where the stories are? In fact, should you do anything?

(I lifted this photo from a fansite. I have no idea if I need permission to use it or not -- feel free to tell me if you know better)

How To Write a Rhyming Picture Book and Get It Published -- Part 3: A Reader’s Perspective.

This post has been moved to my new blog. Please follow the link to read it.

"Read this -- it's good for you..."

Michael Gove (British Secretary of State for Education) is getting a proper ribbing for his recent comment that ‘…our children should be reading fifty books a year’. Quite apart from the tragicomic illogicality of saying such a thing at a time of library cuts -- and indeed the absence of libraries in an increasing number of British
schools -- his call for ‘leading children’s authors’ to select titles isn’t going down too well either. Librarians are surely the true experts, as many authors themselves are pointing out.

What really worries me though is the nature of many of the books on any such list of fifty (why fifty?) titles children 'must read'. When grown-ups start waving classic works of children’s literature at their kids, you can almost hear the Angel of Literacy crinkling at the edges as she shrivels and dies.

As a boy of 12 or so, we started reading Treasure Island in English Class. The teacher read aloud for five minutes, then we took it in turns to stumble through Stevenson’s Victorian prose ourselves. There seemed to be a story in there somewhere, but all I could hear was a hesitant drone and the rustle of paper aeroplanes. When weeks turned to months, the teacher finally decided something had to be done. She held a vote and we elected to stop reading and do a mini project on democracy instead. Obviously we all loathed Treasure Island by then.

Years later, when writing my own seafaring tale, I read Treasure Island again (hoping to pinch Stevenson’s research). Needless to say it’s quite brilliant, and Long John Silver is one of the great villains of literature. But as a set text at school, blurted out from behind the hunched shoulders of the class bully, it didn’t stand a
chance.

Isn’t it time to abandon the concept of ‘children’s classics’ altogether, and accept that Stevenson, Ransome, Carroll, et al are best left for more mature readers? Let’s stop beating kids round the head with what they should read, and let them take their pick from modern writing, comics, flash fiction, anything that keeps them reading. This is meant to be a 'Golden Age of Children’s Writing,' after all. But it’s libraries, not lists, that could help it become a Golden Age of Reading too.