21st July - a rabbit in the garden and Jemima grows and grows
Yesterday Phil was keeping an eye on Jemima whilst I was in the bath, when suddenly he yelled that there was a rabbit in the garden - how exciting! 'Is it a wild rabbit or a domestic one?' I called back. 'I don't know,' he said. 'It's grey.' 'Then it's probably a wild one,' I said - but when I got out of the bath and had a look out of the back window, there was a grey and white lop-eared rabbit happily chewing on the clover in the lawn (which wasn't there last year, where did it come from?) Definitely domestic, which left the thorny issue of catching it and tracking down its owner. Fortunately, I grew up with rabbits, so did manage to catch it (after coaxing it over with a particularly yummy dandelion) and put it in our recycling box (the only one to hand) with a carrot from the fridge, which it had nearly polished off ten minutes later. I got a nasty scratch for my trouble, and a fleece-full of rabbit fur.
Luckily we didn't have to look far for the owner either - just two doors down. So the Episode of the Rabbit ended happily for all concerned. Jem and I spent most of the morning in my writing shed, where she dozed and I wrote some more pages of the BABYFATHER playscript. It's tricky work because the play needs to work on two levels, unlike the book: the dialogue has to be suitably easy to read but the play also needs to work as a performance. So do you sacrifice realistic dialogue for the readability, or do you make the words a bit harder in order to make the play better? Hmm. Still, it was GREAT to be able to get out and get writing again, and Jem behaved herself very well. We're doing OK - she's a very hungry baby, so I seem to spend frequent occasions feeding her - and each week is slightly easier than the week before. The photos we've taken over the last three weeks show an astonishing difference - we can't believe she's changed so much already, from day one to three weeks:
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8th July - Jemima Ann arrives!
Well, she was two weeks late in the end (28th June), but here at last is my goregous daughter, Jemima Ann:
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Naturally, Phil and I think she's the most beautiful baby we've ever seen, but then we could be biased ;-)
These first few days have been horribly hard work, but we never expected it to be easy, so we're battling on through OK - up times and down times. Apologies to people who email me at the moment - you may have to wait a while for a reply!
In book news, it looks as though my novel needs a rewrite, which is kind of what I expected, but disappointing nevertheless. It will have to wait until I get a few more moments to myself and some better quality sleep! However, the good news is that Barrington Stoke liked the playscript for PERFECT, so at some point soonish I shall get cracking on the other two.
20th June - still waiting for arrival of baby!
Well, I had been putting off updating this page because I hoped by now I would be able to introduce my new baby to you, but alas, it is quite comfy where it is and so I'm afraid I'm STILL pregnant! Oh dear, these last few weeks of waiting are pretty dismal. I have made oodles of cards and done hundreds of wordsearch puzzles, and that's about the limit of my abilities right now!
Bookwise, I did indeed finish the novel (hurrah!) and it is currently with Penny, who will read it and get back to me with feedback soonish. I'm hoping it's in a fit state to be sent to editors as it is, but I'm a bit worried that the second half is lacking pace and will need re-working. If this is the case, then it'll have to wait for a few months until I regain something resembling a brain.
I am also waiting to hear back from Barrington Stoke about my playscript for PERFECT, which I completed and sent off a few weeks ago before I start work on BABYFATHER and MINDSET.
I didn't win the Lancashire Book of the Year Award (it went to Tim Lott for FEARLESS) but I am still very sorry to be missing the award ceremony this weekend; it sounds like a wonderful occasion with lots of opportunities to talk to readers and a posh dinner too! Here's hoping it's not the last awards ceremony I'm invited to...
17th May - maternity leave and new projects
Hooray! I am finally on maternity leave - and that's the reason I haven't written for aaages. I have been spending a lot of time on school stuff, making sure my pupils are all up to date with coursework and creating a file of information for the lady who's taking over my job for a while. That's pretty much taken up all my energy when I've not actually been at school teaching, so I am relieved that it's all finished now. I have found the last couple of weeks really very hard, although it was lovely to be able to do some work in the garden when the weather was so warm.
I am coming to the last stretch of my new novel, I think - probably about 10k words to go. It's ending up a bit longer than I expected, but I don't think that's a bad thing in itself, since there's a lot to cover. I suspect that it may even be added to once I start revising it. Sadly, Faber decided they didn't want it, so now we will have to look around for another publisher. However, Penny is quite optimistic about finding a home for it, so fingers crossed. We have decided that it's better for me to finish the whole book first before we send it out to new publishers. So that's my no.1 priority now, although...
Barrington Stoke has asked me if I would turn PERFECT, BABYFATHER and MINDSET into short plays, which is a delightful idea and I'm extremely keen to do it. I like writing plays, and here the work is practically done already since the story and plot and characters are already sorted. I have a deadline of early August for all three, so I'm hoping that I can work around my baby's sleeping/feeding times!
On Friday I visited Matthew Arnold School in Oxford to talk about my writing, and I had a really lovely time. The pupils were bursting with questions, which was fantastic as I hate to stand at the front and just talk whilst people's eyes glaze over! And lots of them bought books at lunchtime in the Library too, which was great, especially as I saw several boys buying RED TEARS which I had sort of assumed wouldn't appeal to them because it's about girls. These boys are clearly far more enlightened than many publishers think! (publishers tell authors that books with girls as the main characters don't sell to boys.) Anyway, I had a wonderful time there and came away feeling very uplifted, so many thanks to all involved (and especially to Miss Kemmitt, the Head of English, who thoughtfully supplied me with cake at break time!!)
20th April - back to school
Last week I was back at school for the beginning of the summer term - only four more weeks before I start maternity leave! Which I will be glad about, because I am starting to feel quite fat and uncomfortable and am having trouble sleeping, which leaves me tired and grumpy - not the best mood in which to be teaching! There's lots to do too before I go off on leave, not least make sure that my replacement knows what's what and where and when etc.
In the midst of this I am also trying to race through the new novel, which has a working title but I shan't tell you what it is yet. Reached 32k words on Thursday, although it's being written in fits and starts so I have no idea if it hangs together properly as a story... Penny has sent the first 25k and the synopsis to Faber, so I am waiting to hear whether they want it or not - fingernail-biting time!
I also finished the nursery murals, so here's the other wall with the fairytale castle:
Ignore the picture hooks, they've been removed now!
7th April - I meet two of my heroes!
Yesterday I dragged my husband along to hear Kevin Brooks and Melvin Burgess talk about teenage fiction at the OLF. I am SUCH a huge fan of Kevin's - Lucas is one of my Wow! books, and everything of his that I've read has just blown me away with its powerful plots and characters. Melvin's books have, I believe, paved the way for books such as SCREWED, since he's already pushed the boundaries with Doing It and Lady: My Life as a Bitch. His books tend to make me uncomfortable in some ways, but I think that's a good thing since they make me question my own sensibilities and judgements - which is surely a sign of good writing.
Anyway, I really enjoyed the session (and so, to his surprise, did Phil) and was able to say hello and have a quick chat with both Melvin and Kevin afterwards, which was wonderful. Must stop gushing now...!
6th April - Sunshine, Screwed and Snow
We've just come back from a lovely restful week in Portugal where we sat around all day in the sunshine, reading books - bliss! I finally read I Am the Great Horse by Katherine Roberts, a fellow SAS member, and it's a fantastic as Mary Hoffman said. A great tome of a book, epic in scale, but written with such a fresh and vivid style that you don't get lost or bored with the many battles. It's written from the point of view of Alexander the Great's horse and is just enthralling.
Anyway, we came back from this:
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to this:
which was a bit of a shock! But it gave me an opportunity to try out my new camera again on the very pretty grape hyacinths in the snow...
However, the sun is already out (the sky is so blue!) and great chunks of the snow are already falling off the fence, so it won't hang around for long.
On Thursday I did my first Festival event - at the Oxford Literary Festival in ChristChurch. It was great to be paired up with Sharon Dogar, whose book Waves came out last year and is a wonderful read. We were joined by Julia Eccleshare, the Guardian Children's Books Editor, who was absolutely brilliant and kept asking us interesting questions so that we didn't run out of things to say! Sadly although I took my camera with me, I forgot to ask anyone to use it so I haven't got any pictures! Yesterday I went to 'look after' Justin Richards, who had come down from Warwick for a day of events. A hugely prolific writer - I don't know how he manages to fit in writing so much! - and a thoroughly nice man. The funniest moment was when a couple of photographers mistook him for Louis de Bernieres and suddenly they were all snapping his picture! I'm not sure Justin protested quite enough...! Sadly his morning event was very poorly attended, which was a great shame because he's got so much that's interesting to talk about. I hope his later events went well - I'm sure they did because Justin writes and commissions the Doctor Who books (and he writes the Top Trump cards!!) so is quite closely involved with the Dr Who process. His main event later was to be with some other Dr Who writers, and given that the new series started last night (thought the first episode was GREAT) I should think there would be a lot of interested fans there!
SCREWED came out on Thursday too, although as usual these things pass without anything remarkable happening to mark the day (it was nice to do the Oxford event). I gather that some people who pre-ordered through Amazon had received their copies several days earlier - don't know how that works! Was VERY chuffed to get a message from Malorie Blackman through my MySpace page to say she's ordered her copy - wow!!
I am slowing down a bit due to the baby growing (only 10 weeks to go now!) but am determined to get a move on with the current novel, especially as Penny read the first 10k words while I was away and was VERY enthusiastic about it! I gather from fellow writers that once the baby arrives, I won't be able to keep the threads of an entire novel in my head, so will have to resort to writing shorter things! So it's quite important that I get the first draft of this out of the way before the middle of June. It should be do-able, but as usual all sorts of other things keep popping up and taking time away from writing. Plus every time I do a little bit too much, I find I have to lie horizontal for several hours to recuperate! Baby Bimini is moving around a huge amount, which is sometimes lovely and other times quite exhausting! One wonders if this means it'll be an active wriggler when it finally arrives!
21st March - Nursery Painting and Happy Easter!
I haven't updated for a while, partly because I have been quite busy, and that has somewhat wiped me out. This pregnancy thing saps all your energy, you know! It doesn't help when people say helpful things like 'oh, second trimester? You should be bursting with energy!' Yeah, thanks.
On the second weekend in March, I went to the Scattered Authors' Society annual Coventry conference, which was exhilerating and exhausting by degrees. Lovely to be able to recognise so many faces now, and to meet a few new members too. We had a talk by Candy Gourlay, which made us all realise how important our websites are and how we could do so much to improve them - and see, I haven't achieved anything yet!! But I will, I will...
First editions of SCREWED and MIND-SET have arrived and look jolly good. I do like seeing my name on the cover :-) it's a very satisfying feeling!
So as far as writing goes, it's rather slow. I have decided to concentrate on the novel for the moment - you know, that story that was going to be a 'hobby project'? Oh well. I sent a synopsis to Penny, my agent, and she was quite enthusiastic. But since then I've only managed to add another 2000 words, partly because I've been very under the weather this last week and have had no energy for anything at all. Fortunately, the last couple of days have been an improvement, and so as well as breaking up from school (hurrah! Only four more weeks of teaching when I go back!) I have finally got round to making a start on the Nursery walls upstairs. I thought you might like to see this dragon:
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I can't take credit for the design - I found it on the internet when googling 'dragon' - but I did make a couple of small changes and of course had to draw it onto the wall using a grid system. It's nearly a metre tall! I am also doing a rainbow over an archway and then I shall be doing a castle on another wall. Drawing and painting pictures on walls is really rather fun - like doing something naughty you weren't allowed to do as a child!
Faber is creating a Bebo page for SCREWED and I need to write some extra bits and pieces that can be included on it. I also need to put a short article together for Geraldine Brennan, who is creating a new newsletter for Barrington Stoke and would like a teacher/author's point of view on Inspiring Reading in Secondary Schools. Got to get my thinking cap on...
Happy Easter!!
19th February 2008 - Red Tears is shortlisted!
Very exciting news - RED TEARS has been shortlisted for the Lancashire Children's Book of the Year Award 2008! I am so very chuffed - it doesn't seem to have made much of an impact award-wise anywhere else, so it's such a boost to get this news. The Award has been running for over 20 years and what is so nice is that it's actually selected by 13-14 year olds from Lancashire, not a panel of librarians or authors or critics. So my target audience has actually shortlisted me from over 100 books submitted - what an honour! The winner is announced in June at a special ceremony, but unfortunately I won't be able to go because it's the week after I'm due to give birth! Which is very bad luck, but I'm hoping to send someone on my behalf, even if I don't win (I do get to find out in advance but I should imagine I'm SWORN to secrecy!)
The editor at Barrington Stoke has just got back to me with some very positive comments about the rape story, which is great. A little tweaking to be done, and then we're just into the difficult area of deciding what to call the flipping thing. Then the consultant process begins, of course, but I always enjoy that.
Yesterday I actually got to spend two hours in my shed, WRITING - amazing! I was really hoping to go out again today but it's miserably cold (the shed heats up very quicky when the sun's out, but it's foggy today so little chance of that) and I wouldn't be able to see the fantastic view anyway, so I'm at my PC in the back room instead. Which is very comfortable but I have the added distraction of the internet...has a very bad effect on my concentration!
As for WHAT I'm writing, well, that's a bit difficult to answer because it seems to change daily! I actually have four stories on the go at the moment - three shortish ones for younger readers and one longer one (likely to be a novel) for the 10+ age group. I am very excited about the novel since it's rather different from my usual style, but I think it's a 'hobby project' for the moment. I would like to get a couple of the younger stories sorted before too long as I think it's good practice. And of course there's always the vague possibility that one of them will find a home somewhere. Of course, I had yet another idea about a series last night (or was it this morning when I woke up early?) - but need to check out that no one else has already written something very similar. So many ideas, so little time! But it's nice to HAVE some ideas again after so long being brain-fuddled. And I'm on half-term holiday this week, so there IS more time to write (although mustn't forget to mark the GCSE work on Macbeth that I took in last week).
The pregnancy continues well, although I have the skin of a teenager which is very depressing when you're 32! Must be all those hormones. On the plus side, there's lots of kicking from the baby, which is very exciting. And the bump has a temporary name too - Bimini - which we picked from the 'Cool Names for Babies' book. Since we don't know if it's a boy or a girl, we needed a name that was fairly unisex, and then we discovered that Bimini is a small group of islands in the Bahamas so that seemed rather good too!
Oh, PS - RED TEARS didn't win the Coventry Inspiration award but it did get down to the last four (out of twelve) and the final winner was TWILIGHT by Stephanie Meyer, which is one of my WOW books and I don't mind AT ALL losing out to her since I think her book is AMAZING. Go read it, everyone - I'd have picked it over RED TEARS too! ;-)
2nd February 2008 - Snowdrops, Screwed and Something Exciting!
I went for a walk the other day (with my new digital camera) and saw some lovely little snowdrops:
Sadly, our garden is looking a little worse the wear since the high winds, and it looks like the fence will have to be replaced sooner rather than later, unless we want next door's dogs in our garden!
Here, as promised, is the front and back cover for SCREWED:
I am really pleased with the way the back ties in with the front - it does make me feel a lot happier about the front cover in general. It's still not the title I would have chosen, but Faber has done their very best to accommodate my suggestions, so I shall at least feel happier about telling people about it!
I have today finished the draft of the new Barrington Stoke story. This one is about rape (another cheerful topic!) and, like MIND-SET, it offers no easy answers. The basic plot is that a boy and a girl get drunk at a party and have sex - only half-way through she changes her mind and asks him to stop - but he doesn't. I'm sure it happens far too often, and the question is - who's to blame? And is it really rape? And all of those difficult questions that we can answer logically in the cold light of day, but when faced with Real Life, it's not so straightforward.
As for that series idea, I think it's going to be shelved for the moment. I simply can't get my head around it, partly because I have a far more exciting project on the go at the moment - I'm expecting a baby!
Yes, I can finally share the news with you since we're far enough on now to be considered relatively 'safe' (well, as far as one can ever be safe with these things) and so Phil and I are expecting the arrival of a screaming child some time towards the end of June! And no, we don't know if it's a girl or a boy and we won't be finding out, either!
So that explains why my writing has rather ground to a halt over the last few months. I have been feeling terribly sick, but fortunately that has passed now. However, nobody warned me that I would also lose half my brainpower! 'Mind like a steel trap' Phil used to say - not any more! 'Mind like a wobbly jelly' would be a more accurate description. Still, we are obviously thrilled to bits and having great fun re-organising our house and sorting out what will be The Nursery. I have also splashed out on a few items from maternity designer label Isabella Oliver too, which were a bit extravagant but SO comfy and I shall be wearing them non-stop! (Highly recommended, by the way, and have an excellent re-sale value on eBay - sshhh!)
2nd January 2008 - happy new year!
Well, it's been a while since I updated so let me see if I can remember what's happened in between! Firstly, the proofs of SCREWED arrived and they look pretty cool. I shall add the front cover to my site soon so you can see what it looks like. There is a version on the internet already, particularly on Amazon, but it's an earlier version and I do prefer the final one. Hopefully it will be changed soon. Marketing starts in February, so I need to get my head around my part in that!
MIND-SET is coming out earlier than I expected - 1st March according to Amazon (source of all information!!) and the front cover is below:
I am delighted with the front cover, I think it looks FAB. The illustrations (by Julia Page, who did BABYFATHER) are going to be great too. I wish I could draw like that!
What else happened, book-wise? I have heard (through googling myself, she admits shamefacedly) that RED TEARS has been nominated for a Coventry Inspiration Book Award, which is fantastic news! Apparently young people in Coventry can vote online to 'save' their favourite book, and the book with fewest votes gets dropped each week, Big Brother-style. RED TEARS is up against the magnificent TWILIGHT by Stephanie Meyer, along with several other stonking books (LEAVING POPPY by Kate Cann is brilliant too and pretty scary!), so I can't imagine it would win, but it's so nice to be included in the shortlist! Thank you, Coventry Libraries!
I am in the process of writing a new book for Barrington Stoke, but I have written two synopses and beginnings for two different ones and am waiting to hear from the editor which she prefers. The deadline for that is the end of January I think, so I hope I hear back soon! Otherwise I am still mulling over ideas for a certain series, but it's been difficult to find time over the Christmas break to sit down and get my head into it properly. I am also terrified that it'll be rubbish, or that no one will want it. Maybe I should stick to what I know, even if it means I'll never be able to earn my living? (teenage novels - one a year - doth not a full salary make). I am always alarmed when people ask 'so what are you writing next?' with the blithe assumption that I have an idea, sit down to write it, and the publisher snaps it up and publishes it straight away. It's not like that at all! I have lots and lots of ideas, and some of them I love more than others, but some might sell better than others, and you have to factor in how long each book takes, which would be a waste of time if no one buys it and I have to have something to live on, don't I?
So I think that's why I don't make New Year's Resolutions. I can have goals I would like to achieve, but setting some kind of deadline on them has always seemed a bit daft to me, especially as most people's resolutions seem to be things like 'get fit' which good intention lasts for about three weeks or until the first month's gym membership has expired...
So maybe my resolution is simply this: to carry on doing what I like to do, in the firm expectation that soon something will happen (i.e. a paycheque) that makes it possible for me to do exactly the same thing next year. Amen (or something).