All the World's A Stage - Anna Wilson

I have been thinking a lot recently about the importance of drama in English teaching. It was reading Polly Toynbee in the Guardian a few weeks back which sparked off this particular train of thought. The thrust of her article was about what the delightful Mr Gove plans for the future of our children's education, but about halfway in she makes specific points about the value of drama in schools.

'Gove pretends it's for schools to choose – but drama, dance, art and now literature will slip away. Confident top schools may keep these subjects, but average schools, under intense pressure to perform in core EBacc exams, will let the rest slide.'

It is easy to see how, facing such pressures, schools may be forced to relegate drama to 'club' status rather than keeping it in with the main-stream timetable. But what a shortsighted view. Drama is invaluable to a child's development - indeed, I would go so far as to say it is a natural part of a child's development and surely a step on the way to producing a confident reader.

Sit and watch a young child at play, and what is he or she doing if not acting out stories? Play is drama for the young child. It is how he or she explores the world around, tries out different scenarios, puts him or herself in another's shoes. And it is intrinsically bound up with storytelling.

When I go into schools to talk about writing, I do a lot of 'acting out' of the various scenes in my life which have wound their way into stories. I could simply stand in front of a school assembly and tell them 'this happened, and then this and then this', but in acting out how my tortoise must have felt when my dad glued a length of fishing line to its shell to 'stop it escaping', I think the story has more impact than my simply telling it. It allows the audience to put themselves in the place of the poor tortoise who had no say in my dad's crazy plan. And it makes the kids laugh. And remember my talk. One teacher emailed me after an event to tell me that the children were acting out my stories in the playground later that day.

Toynbee again:

'What is "low value" about drama? […] Ability to speak out, perform and pretend is essential for most jobs, from estate agent upwards. Employers complain that young people mumble, slouch and don't look them in the eye, prizing the "soft skills" that elite schools teach through drama and debating. Emotionally, drama teaches children lacking in empathy to put themselves into others' shoes, to express fears. But ever fewer schools employ specialist drama teachers: English teachers may or may not have an aptitude. Shakespeare is on the curriculum, no longer to be examined, but dead on the page without performance to breathe life and sense into it.'

'Dead on the page'. Is this how we want future generations to think of writing? Boring, dull, immovable, immutable shapes on the page? That was my own experience as a pupil in an old-fashioned grammar school, whose teaching methods had not changed since the 1950s; a decade Gove so keenly looks back to as a model for future generations' education.

We studied Macbeth for two years in the run-up to O-level English and he and the rest of the cast remained mummified on the page for me to the point where I gave up reading and dropped English like a hot potato as soon as I could. How differently I would have felt had I had the teacher my son had four years ago - a woman who is as passionate about drama as she is about reading and writing, and who had my son dress up as one of the witches and learn the cauldron scene in Act 4, scene 1 with his friends. He was only eight years old at the time, but he understood Macbeth's motivations and emotions so much better than I did at twice his age.

So drama is a 'soft skill' is it? I would argue that Gove might do a lot better in his own line of work if he went along to a couple of plays or even took part in one. He might at least learn a bit of empathy, if nothing else. Or is that wishful thinking?

Anna Wilson
www.annawilson.co.uk

The F Word - Anna Wilson

Fellow Sassie, Fiona Dunbar, recently posted the following question on Facebook:

“To all my friends who write for kids/young teens (particularly girls): do you feel enough is being done in fiction to address fat/thin stereotypes? With all the cultural pressure to conform to certain ideals, is it our responsibility to counter that – and if so, how? *Can* it be done?”

I quickly became engrossed in reading all the comments that were posted under Fiona’s question. I had more than a passing interest for, as well as being a children’s writer, I have two young teenage children of my own who are becoming more and more aware of what society is saying to them. My daughter, in particular, seems to equate “skinny” with “perfection”.

The Facebook debate did, however, remind me that I had once been found guilty of describing a character as a “big fat greedy wotsit”. I remember thinking at the time that it had not occurred to me for an instant that what I had written would be offensive, because the words were spoken by a seven-year-old character in that careless, thoughtless way that children sometimes do speak.

I did, however, edit the comment once it was pointed out to me that if you are a child struggling with eating disorders (which sadly affect children at a much earlier stage in life than they used to) then seeing the word “fat” used in a negative context can be very damaging, as it reinforces the stereotype that “fat” equals “greedy” or “lazy” or “unattractive” or just plain “bad”.

It was pointed out in the Facebook feed that we have, in fact, come a long way and that “we are better than we used to be”. Lord of the Flies was quoted as an example of how not to stereotype large children. I decided to go back and re-read a section of Lord of the Flies, thinking that I would surely not find it offensive, telling myself that the book is a product of a particular time and the characters who gang up on Piggy are hardly portrayed as heroes. However, I have to admit that reading the story again after a 25-year gap, Golding’s descriptions of Piggy did make me squirm:

“The naked crooks of his knees were plump . . . He was shorter than the fair boy and very fat . . .

‘Can’t catch me breath. I was the only boy at our school what had asthma,’ said the fat boy with a touch of pride. ‘And I’ve been wearing specs since I was three.’”

He is referred to as “the fat boy” until he admits that his nickname was “Piggy” and that is the name that sticks for the rest of the book. We never find out his real name. There is no doubt that the fact he is fat and wears glasses equates to him being unappealing and weak.

There is much debate at the moment as to what extent we in children’s publishing should be the “guardians at the gate” on various topics, including that of body image. Should we watch what we write, or does this restrict our creativity? Is the story the thing, or do we have a responsibility? Many publishers increasingly feel that we do. We publish our books under the clear imprimatur of “children’s publishing”, and that in itself says something important: that children are clearly looking for and need something different from adults. Otherwise, why bother separating the two markets?

Children are vulnerable and impressionable, we know that. As a parent I am constantly worrying about and trying to monitor what they watch on television, see on the internet and in video games, so should it come as any surprise that books, and the words in those books, need to be chosen carefully too?

Or are we going too far when we start to worry about editing our characters’ thoughts, appearances and dialogue? Is it in fact ridiculous to load such a simple three-letter word so heavily with negative connotations, thereby driving it into the arena of “issues”? As Caitlin Moran says in How To Be A Woman:

“In the last two generations, [‘fat’ has] become a furiously overloaded word – in a conversation, when the word ‘fat’ appears, it often alarms people, like a siren going off.’

So is the answer to avoid the issue of body image altogether in our writing? In Fiona’s Facebook conversation, writer Dawn Finch commented, “I try not to include any physical description unless it’s genuinely important to the plot.” She said that she likes to leave it to the reader to decide how the characters look based on how other characters respond to them. It is true that there can be nothing more irritating than being told someone is attractive or ugly because they are fat/thin/blond/tall/blue-eyed. (I recently read Michael Frayn’s Skios and found it incredibly annoying to be repeatedly told that the lead romantic male role was gorgeous and had blue eyes and “floppy blond hair”. Personally that immediately put me in mind of Boris Johnson, so from that moment on I was certainly not going to imagine him as attractive, I’m afraid.)

Inbali Iserles, another Sassie, said that “making it an issue is not a good thing”, while writer Sophia Bennett pointed out that even when books are addressing particular stereotypes, the covers rarely do anything to back this up, and in some cases actively do the opposite. She quoted Cathy Cassidy’s Ginger Snaps and Chris Higgins’ A Perfect 10 as examples of books whose covers perhaps even belie the content.

So what to do? Maybe we should at least not make “skinny” the default position for the beautiful and popular. If we are writing a romance, for example, should we go out of our way to make the romantic lead a larger person? If so, how do we do this without it “becoming an issue” as Inbali warns us against doing? And if we do all this, what about the book jackets? Maybe this, in fact, is where the redressing of the balance should start.

(With thanks to Fiona for letting me borrow her FB question!)

Anna Wilson

www.annawilson.co.uk

Snapshots

Recently I found myself thinking about my earliest memory. It is a snapshot from a time before I had much in the way of language and it has worked itself from the moorings of anything else I was experiencing at that time of my life and floats freely now in the stream of my imagination. As a writer, it is a scene I find interesting precisely because of its lack of moorings, because it throws up questions and starts me thinking of the possibilities of its context.

So much of the memory is clear and sharp. I can see, hear, feel and taste things as though I were experiencing them this instant. The first thing I see is bars – cot bars. This immediately throws up the first question: how old am I? I must be less than two, as I know that I had to vacate the cot for my younger sister who came along about two years after me. But I am sitting up, so I am not a small baby. As I let the scene run in my mind’s eye I realize I can hear crying, and that it is me making the noise. So, I have been left in my cot and I am crying. But why? I am still very small, arguably too small to be left crying like this. I then hear that the crying is not particularly convincing. It has in fact reached a point where I am simply moaning the word “Mummy” over and over again at a subdued pitch. So possibly I have given up hope on anyone coming to see what I am crying about. I then realize I have already cried too long and too much by this point. I have come to the memory at the point where I have almost cried myself out; my eyes are swimming with tears, and my nose and mouth are full of tear-snot, that liquid which is thicker than tears and which comes at the end of a particularly long bout of weeping. I have managed to produce so much of it by now that I am blowing bubbles with it every time I say the word “Mummy”. My crying is slowly giving way to the creation of these bubbles as I watch, intrigued at how big I can make them. 

And then the memory ends, switches itself off as though I were watching a short video clip which is now finished. Did my mother come and get me? Had she left me for a long time because she had fallen asleep, exhausted by looking after a toddler while she was pregnant with my sister? Or perhaps someone else was looking after me that day? If so, did they feel bad when they finally came to me and saw how much and how long I had cried? Or was I in reality only crying for a matter of minutes anyway, my sense of abandonment amplified by my lack of an understanding of the passage of time?

As I thought about this memory, I realized that my writing often starts like this, with a scene or a snapshot of a character, and then the whys and wherefores, the what ifs and how comes are what set the cogs whirring and thus the story into motion. Without an initial image or soundbite, I do not have a hook on which to hang my story.

My book Monkey Business started with a voice in my ear, that of the hippy uncle character, Zed. I heard him muttering one day, talking to his nephew, Felix, and explaining how Nature has its own rhythm without recourse to watches or clocks. Suddenly a scene was there, fully formed, and I could work outwards from that to create the rest of the book – a story essentially about a little boy who worships his uncle and shares his love of animals and how this, coupled with a large dollop of misunderstanding, gets the characters into some tricky situations. I had wanted to write about a boy like Felix for a while, but had not known how to start the story until Zed turned up.

My most recent book, I’m A Chicken Get Me Out of Here! had a similar beginning. After a night of anxiety when one of our chickens did not come home to roost (but did thankfully appear the next day unscathed) I began to wonder how she had survived. I was turning this over in my mind when my son's friend asked if he could bring his guinea pig round to our house to meet our chicken. This meeting sparked off a scene in my imagination where the fictional chicken arrives at her new home to find she is expected to share a hutch with an OCD guinea pig called Brian. Once I had scribbled down my imagined scenario, the rest of the story found its way, spreading its tentacles outwards from that snapshot.

Even though snapshots such as these kickstart a story, they rarely find their way on to page one of the finished story; more often than not they will worm their way into the middle of the book, and beginnings are often written once I have got to the end.

So I thought I would throw this out into the ABBA ether – how many of you start with a scene or an image? And how many prefer to work in a more linear way? Answers on the back of a snapshot, please.

www.annawilson.co.uk

Just Do It!

I have just been interviewed for the local press about my latest book. I was asked the old chestnut, "How do you motivate yourself to write?" and I was very tempted to answer rather grumpily (well, it is hot!), "I don't know, I just do it!" But of course I have to motivate myself, in much the same way that I have to motivate myself to get off my butt and exercise every day.

In fact, motivation comes from getting twitchy if I don’t do the two things that make me tick: writing and running. I feel just as agitated if I can’t get out for a run as I do if I can’t carve out time to sit with a pencil and notebook or my laptop.

To quote from Haruki Murakami’s memoir What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, “For me, running is both exercise and a metaphor.”

Writing and running have become intertwined in my life. Until I had read Murakami’s book, I did not know that anyone else felt the same way. I certainly do not put myself in the same category as Murakami, either as a writer or a runner – he now runs ultra-marathons as well as being a world-renowned, best-selling author – however, both activities are part of my daily routine in the same way they are with his; they are part of what keeps me sane and fit and healthy in mind, body and soul. I feel I cannot do one without the other, and I am certainly not in my right mind or my right body if I do not find the time to do either.

In his memoir, Murakami tells of how, before becoming a full-time novelist, he had an active lifestyle, running a jazz club in Tokyo. As soon as he gave that up to concentrate on writing, he realized that he was going to have to find a way of keeping fit, as a writer’s life is, of course, mainly sedentary.

This, too, was my motivation. I had worked in London as an editor and had been used to walking to work, running up and down stairs, going to the gym with friends and so on. I then had two small children after whom I ran as well, but once they were at school all day and I finally found the time to write, I realized that I was no longer moving around so much. And so I took up running.

At first then, that is all it was: a way to keep fit. And, as Murakami says, “Running has a lot of advantages. First of all, you don’t need anybody else to do it, and no need for special equipment.” A lot like writing, then!

Gradually it became apparent how much the two things had become wrapped up together: I would drop the kids off at school, go for a run and, during the run, start to churn over thoughts on writing. Knotty plot problems would often unravel during a run, conversations between characters would unfurl, ideas for settings or descriptions of the weather would come to me as I pounded the pavements in rain, wind, sleet or sun. If I did not get out for a run, I missed it: simply coming home from the school drop-off to sit at my desk felt wrong and had me pacing the house instead of concentrating.

When I first started running I could not run for more than a maximum of twenty minutes without being in pain. I had to make myself go out every day and try to go just that little bit further. I run along a towpath by a canal, so I would use trees or benches or narrowboats as markers to see if I could push myself to go further.

And so it has been with my writing: when I first started writing, I could not write for long periods of time either, and I could not write long pieces. I had to push myself just that little bit further over time.

Murakami has it right, I think, when he says, “What’s crucial is whether your writing attains the standards you’ve set for yourself […] writing novels and running full marathons are very much alike. Basically a writer has a quiet, inner motivation.”

He also says that he likes to run, “the point being to let the exhilaration I feel at the end of each run carry over to the next day. This is the same sort of tack I find necessary when writing a novel. I stop every day right at the point where I feel I can write more. Do that, and the next day’s work goes surprisingly smoothly.”

This is the pace I have tried to set myself too, both in running and writing.

I finally wrote my first long piece of fiction for children after a year of motivating myself to write every day. And I ran my first marathon two years after pushing myself to run further and faster by following a daily training plan.

I am constantly aiming to improve my writing and push myself to explore new ways of writing. Currently I am trying out writing for an older age group. I am also trying to improve my running and to keep it up, no matter what excuses present themselves! At the moment it is so hot that I have to find the right time of day to go out. And writing is always tricky in the summer as I have the children at home, wanting to be ferried to and fro.

But if I go the whole summer without writing or running, my head and body will both suffer. And so, each day, I suppose I do tell myself (to quote Nike, this time!) “Just do it!”, and I always feel better when I do.

www.annawilson.co.uk

A Dog Isn't Just For Christmas . . . by Anna Wilson

I have written quite a few books which include canine characters and thus often find myself asked to do strange things in the name of publicity. I have judged dog competitions, judged short story competitions about dogs, been to visit a veterinary surgery with a reader, taken my own dog to an event to publicise my books and "meet" my readers. However, by far and away the strangest event I was invited to was one sponsored by the Kennel Club called "Bark and Read".

In schools where there are a number of children who have difficulty reading aloud, specially trained dogs from the Pets As Therapy scheme can be sent in at lunchtime to sit and listen to children read. I was asked to attend such a session at Vallis First School in Frome in Somerset, near where I live. I took some of my books and was asked to read some of my stories to the visiting dog, Percy, a Clumber Spaniel. Percy was adorably gentle and quiet and sat and listened attentively as I read about my fictional dogs having adventures, getting into scrapes, and solving mysteries. When I finished, Percy patted an electronic button which announced I had done a "Good Job!" The children, who were extremely shy at meeting me, relaxed when they saw Percy listening to me read and were soon clamouring to have a go themselves. The teacher explained to me afterwards that the children in the group all had learning difficulties or were suffering with tricky home lives, and that this time with Percy once a week was giving them a quiet space in which to practise reading aloud and enjoying stories without worrying if they were making mistakes or reading books that were "too babyish" for them, etc.

Recently my sister mentioned that my nephew was not enjoying reading aloud and was becoming quite anxious when asked to do so at school. His teachers had suggested he practise at home, but he was reluctant to do that too. I told her about the Bark and Read scheme as my sister has two lovely Labradors who I thought might be good listeners. She immediately jumped at the idea of her son reading to the pets. And it has worked! My nephew now asks if he can read aloud to Scooby and Teasel, the Labs (and the cat, Wormy, not to be outdone, has slinked his way in on the act as well).

I would highly recommend this approach to anyone who has a child struggling with reading. I have a feeling that any pet would enjoy a good book. I know our tortoise is not averse to a bit of bedtime storytelling. So if you have a reluctant reader and can get your hands on a willing pet, put the two together and you might just see something magical happen.

If you are interested in the Bark and Read Scheme or Read2Dogs with Pets As Therapy, visit these websites:

http://www.thekennelclub.org.uk/barkandread

https://www.petsastherapy.org/join-us/read2dogs-scheme

Anna Wilson

http://www.annawilson.co.uk

http://www.acwilsonwriter.wordpress.com

A Box of Delights - Anna Wilson

The village I live in has no pub, no shop - no focal point at all. Days can go by without me seeing any of my neighbours, which can make working at home rather lonely. I was musing over this with a friend one day and we came up with the romantic idea of turning the village phone box into a mini library in an effort to bring people together. Little did I know that it would take a whole year to get the project off the ground.

BT are keen to get rid of the responsibility of maintaining the old-fashioned red phone boxes, as they are costly to keep smart, and of course so few people use the phones these days, that the cost of keeping the lines open is a waste of money as well. I discovered that it was possible to 'adopt' a kiosk for the princely sum of £1. BT would then come and take the phone out, leaving me free to put up shelves and fill them with books.

Sounds easy, right? Well . . .

First I had to contact BT through their website to ask for a contract. I had to do this before I could send my £1 anywhere. For weeks I tried filling in the appropriate page on the website, only to have it crash every time. I asked other friends to try via their laptops and iPads, and they all had the same problem. I ended up Tweeting 'Trying to contact @BritishTelecom to adopt a kiosk, but website keeps crashing'. Funnily enough, I received a response within the day asking me to DM my request. Public shaming gets you fast results.

It turned out that was only the start of a set of hurdles I had to conquer. To get the contract signed and approved, I was told I had to have the signature of someone on the village committee, as the committee is a registered charity. Fine, I thought, I know a few people I can ask. However, at first no one was willing to do this, as they were worried about Public Liability Insurance in the event of anyone using the box having an accident, and the village fund could not cover the cost of this insurance. I also began to receive negative comments from some neighbours who thought that a phone box full of books would be set on fire or used as a urinal.

I was told to contact the local Parish Council to get permission to use the box as a library before anyone would sign the contract, which, to complicate matters further, is in the next-door village because our village doesn't have a church. By this stage, I felt as if I were lost in the corridors of the Circumlocution Office.

Finally I got the contract through and, with the help of my friendlier neighbours, was able to spend last weekend cleaning the box, putting up shelves and attaching stickers to the windows saying 'Village Library'. An invitation went out to everyone in the village to come along at 6pm on Sunday to have a glass of wine and fill the box with books.

And they did! It was a joyful evening, in which I discovered that our village boasts four other authors, one of whom is a naturalist who is now helping my son with his various wildlife projects. There were many conversations about people's favourite books, what people are reading in their various book clubs and which titles they would recommend. So in the end, a love of books has overcome negativity and red tape, and I have made some new friends in the process. (Sometimes it is worth battling the Parish Councils of this world, however circumlocutory they may be . . .)

(It wasn't until this photo was taken that we realised we were Team Turquoise . . .)

www.annawilson.co.uk
www.acwilsonwriter.wordpress.com

Wanted: No Change by Tracy Alexander

Penny Dolan’s post Wanted: One Technical Geek made me think of how the departure of my three teenagers over the next few years will affect my writing. I have a technical director in the shape of my husband, so there’ll be no service interruption on that front, but many other problems may arise.

Being current

I use words that label me as a teenager from the 70s and 80s.

Fab. Cool. Get off with. Pictures. Snakebite. Purdey. Bimbo. Sloane.

With no idea what bands, series, gameware and social media are ‘happening’, I lazily slot in One Direction and Gameboy, knowing that my hopelessly yesterday attempts will be crossed out, sometimes with a sarcastic comment, and Que Sera by Justice Crew and Xbox One popped in.

Plotting

Meal times are essential for solving problems with my plot, or lack of. I outline the issue and let the four heads around the table come up with the answer, for which I take credit. How well this works seems to be directly proportional to the number of brains involved. A decline is inevitable.

Writing for older audiences

My first four books were for ages 7-11. Uncannily, I had exactly that age range in my family. My two news books are YA. Uncannily, I have exactly that age range in my family. Does that mean my future will see me attempting an adult novel?

School visits

I take a dustbin of props on my school visits. Most of the props do not belong to me. I will lose my light-up skull, my night-vision goggles, the tardis and everyone’s favourite, Dangles the Monkey. I expect I will be allowed to keep the lime green fairy wings and the Harry Potterglasses.

Excuses

I cannot write full-time, and sometimes hardly at all, because I have all sorts of important jobs to do with the kids, like watching The Great British Bake-Off together, going to Costa for hot chocolate, and making banana muffins. When I do not have anyone to do these things with or for, will I have to spend more time in my study?

Structure

The school day provides a fixed hour to get up, a chunk of time when I have the house to myself, and a reason to cook a meal sometime around six. I am grateful for the routine because left to my own devices I can imagine lolling around in my pyjamas until late in the day and then writing in the dead of night, still wearing boots.

Company

If I’ve spent a good few hours in the study, I am desperate to talk to someone. This usually means I go to the local shops and talk to strangers. With less people to talk to in the house, the shopping trips and liaisons with strangers will increase.  This seems dangerous.

Encouragement

I moan about writing. When I moan, rather than telling me to shut up, my children say encouraging things.

Enough of the negatives.

In order to not end this post dreading what’s to come, I can see that all of the problems have potential upsides.

I may find writing in boots at three in the morning produces wonderful results.

I may, through my idle chats with fellow shoppers, find a friend, or a story . . .

I will, almost certainly, find new excuses like ice-skating, or trying out recipes from The Great British Bake-Off – that would certainly kill a few hours.

I may, take the plunge, and abandon my dustbin, because I have been doing the same thing for five years now and it’s probably time for a change. I can entertain without a tardis!

I won’t write for adults, because I don’t want to. And anyway, as Anna Wilson pointed out in her post Childish Things? "Booksellers now estimate that almost half of young adult books are being read by people who are over the age of 18,” so I’m there already.

There must be other people I know who might enjoy plotting in return for a meal.

And being current, well, there’s a novel set in the twenties that has been hovering . . .

There we are – I feel better now. Off to watch X Factor – with a child, obviously.