OLD STRATEGIES FOR THE NEW YEAR by Penny Dolan.

Happy New Year to one and all, and good to have you here on An Awfully Big Blog Adventure! 

 

Yes, it’s January the First. New Resolution Day! Now you may well be one of those people who don’t make resolutions, don’t need to make them, or prefer to make your resolutions on the magical cusp of the midsummer moon. 

However, if you - like me – use these early January days to shift your life into a more orderly state, here are three small, possibly contradictory and even familiar suggestions.

ONE JAR.

The story goes like this:  

A Nobel prize-winner came to talk to a business conference about planning. She went up to the desk, took out a glass jar and some big stones. She put the stones into the jar, filling it right to the top.

Then, from a dish, she took a handful of tiny stones. She tipped those in too, and another handful, filling the jar to the top.  “Full, again,” she murmured.

Then, from a third dish, she took a handful of sand. As she tipped that into the jar, the sand slid down to fill in the gaps. Finally, she smiled, took a nearby tumbler of water and poured that in too. “Full again, again?” she asked.

Then she spoke to her audience. “Believe me, the only way you can get so much stuff into this one jar is by putting the big things in first. So, when you start planning your time, get those big things put into your day first. The rest of the stuff will fit around them.”

Maybe in 2014, the most important work needs to come first, and all the small stuff should be made to slip into the gaps between?

Or, as somebody else said, “The main thing is to make the main thing the main thing.”

Now for: 

THE TWO TIMERS

A while back, I heard about the “timer technique” as a way of edging yourself back into writing, especially when you are daunted  by the work. I know lots of writers regularly turn to this as a way of getting unstuck.

Method: Take a kitchen timer (the portable tick-along kind, not the whole oven, obvously!) to wherever you intend to write, along with your notebook/laptop/pc/ whatever. 

Focus your mind on the project for a moment, set the timer for a short time, such as twenty or thirty minutes, and just write what you can. Then re-set and start again. Then again. If you need to take a short break, do - but then sit back down with that timer again.

Somehow, coping with a shorter commitment is easier than coping with the voice in the head that screams “I’ve got to do three hours on this really difficult project and I’m scared to begin, even though I sort of know something about it but do I? Aaaagh!” You might even find you write right through the timer, going on longer than you thought you could manage.

I’d suggest that, even if you have a timer for the kitchen, you buy yourself your own personal timer. Choose one with a tick that doesn’t irritate  - and it doesn’t need to be kept next to your ear while you’re working, anyway. Just keep the Timer Two near your desk and grab it whenever the void starts to echo, echo, echo . . .

There is a whole trademarked-tomato-shaped-Pomodoro-management-and-life-style website as well as various apps that do the same thing, but for me the real-world physical act of setting the timer to just the right number of minutes is part of the process.

So on to:

THE THREE ANYTIME PAGES.

Julia Cameron “Artist’s Way” approach is well known. Her writing style – or is it her so-American life style? - can seem slightly annoying here in the damp UK, but, as a good friend told me, you have to read through the layers to find the ideas that will work for you. 

Julia's core practice insists on the writing of three pages, on waking, without shaping or editing the words in any way. The drowsy mind lets all the worries and anxieties and bad stuff rise to the surface, as well as the moments of good stuff and gratitude. It’s worth finding out more about this whole approach if you haven't already dipped into her many books 

However, Julia’s “mornings” rarely seemed to be my “mornings”, often full of rush and responsibility, even now. So often, for many reasons, those three contemplative morning pages have seemed impossible, have been an empty failure at the start of the day.

Well, during the busy days of December, and having some writing trouble (too boring to expand upon!) I decided to opt for a half-way practice:   The three “anytime” pages.  Yes, anytime, anywhere. I gave away the guilt.

If I can do my pages first thing, I do. If not, I don’t grieve. I plan for some other patch of the day to sit and think and write, and so far this has worked, with only one day – the visitor changeover of Boxing Day-skipped entirely. I feel positive, not negative.

My anytime pages are written by hand, so there's no chance of the words being "work" - or even legible. I use a beloved green fountain pen, filled with green ink, and scribble away on yellow pages, which brings a touch of playfulness to the process. 

The quiet, slow, steady dropping down into the three anytime pages may not be Perfect Julia, but as December passed, I began looking forward to showing up at the page, started finding a little faith in my words and work again.

 Now, with the clear and empty days of the New Year ahead, who knows what might happen? Maybe it's not so big a step to get back into writing now the festivities are over, after all? And maybe old suggestions can still be good suggestions?

 Wishing you good writing and reading in 2014.

Penny Dolan

On Writing Competitions and Envelope Fatigue by Penny Dolan

I don’t go in for Writing Competitions, which is far more my laziness than an ideological position. Yet many people, including published writers, find them fun, possibly because of the attraction of a deadline. Nevertheless, I have just been the Secretary for a small, local writing competition.

The whole thing was organised by a newly formed Friends of the Library group and was publicised through the library, the local paper and other contacts. It was quite a success, especially the social evening when the Top Ten Ghost Stories were read aloud by a trio of experienced readers.

(Before you ask. While it can be important to honour writers by letting them read their own work, this library is large and has no microphone system. So it was far better to honour the works by letting the words be heard.)

Back to the Secretary role. We had fewer then a hundred entries but by the time the pile of envelopes had been emptied, I was very sure of what entrants to all postal writing competitions should know.

So. Things Not to Do when sending in to a Postal Competition.

Do make sure you put on the correct value of stamps for an A4 envelope so that it reaches the destination. (Yes, I went to the nearby Sorting Office, because I wanted this first Competition to be a success. Yes, I got the envelope. Yes, I found it was from an elderly writer I actually knew. No, it didn’t win.)

Those impressive named judges are very unlikely to receive your entry directly, so any ”wow” factor such as decorative coloured envelopes will not reach them, let alone affect the judging. Stationery, in such quantities, is not as amusing as when one is idly luxuriating in stationery shops.

Be aware that triple-sealed envelopes will truly annoy the competition secretary. She or he may have to use scissors to get the wretched envelope open and might, by then, be in a very bad mood. You think your work is so precious? Then use a better quality envelope in the first place.

Come to that, use a better size envelope anyway. Do not fold your A4 story to fit into something designed for a notelet. Haven’t you just spent time on this story? Relatively, is this envelope a fitting choice? And you did use A4 paper, didn't you?

Use a cover sheet with title name, address and so on. However, do put the title of your piece clearly at the top of the first page too. And when you do, give the poor title a bit of room. Don’t cram it right at the top of the page and start your story a single line space below. You need to show you value your work.

Do put those page numbers on the top right hand corner. Please. Your story may be photocopied among several others as part of the judging process. Copying machines are erratic creatures, liable to break down at odd moments. It is very easy to (almost!) lose an un-numbered page - especially if the story is an informal dialogue between two un-named characters. If your story becomes a chosen piece, any numbering at the foot of pages will make it harder for performing readers to lightly check through the order of your story when reading.

Yet, after all the above, do not put your name on the top right hand corner of every page as well as numbering it. You can place the title there, but do make sure the page number is to the right and clear. Redacting those documents took a long time – and this was a small competition that I wanted to succeed. .

Finally. Never, ever, ever include any photograph or illustration when entering for a writing competition. Even if you have been taught extreme cut ‘n paste techniques and hold a. M.Phil in Photoshop, my feeling is that nothing puts judges off any written entry more than an accompanying illustration. Or any “original” use of font, especially the gothic styles. Let your words speak for themselves.

Which reminds me to add my writer’s tip. Make sure that you read your work aloud before sending it off, more than once. So many stories, in this and in competitions where I've been a judge, have felt too front heavy and too light at the end, even for the Ghost Story genre. The end needs just as much careful work too, even if you feel relieved to have reached it.

If you are entering on-line? Read any entry information thoroughly and do just what they say. Tormented geniuses can apply but they should follow all entry rules. I'm sure that variations of my real world secretary niggles apply there too.

Reminder. The Ghost Story event took place in a Library and was organised through a Library as many literary and community events around the UK are. There’s an open letter to Ed Vaisey around on FB and elsewhere that needs all the signatures it can get by 19th December, so please add your name. That’s what I’m off to do now.


Penny Dolan's exciting novel for 9-12 year olds is A BOY CALLED M.O.U.S.E. Out in paperback now from Bloomsbury. (And an ideal story for Christmas, if I say so myself)

www.pennydolan.com

MOLLY WHUPPIE AND ME

I am lucky enough to be able to slip out of my “author talk” mode during school visits and tell traditional stories. One of my personal and most enjoyable favourites is bold, brave Molly Whuppie.

If I was truly academic about my telling, I’d know when I met her or which parts of the telling came from where and when, times a hundred. Was she among Andrew Lang’s tales read long ago? Certainly I knew the story well before meeting Kathleen Brigg’s great collection. And how much of my version echoes Alan Garner’s wonderful re-telling? Or does the perspective I see in my head during the escape scene echo that of Raymond Briggs' illustration?

The truth is that I don’t want to go back and look, because I have my own Molly alive in my head, shaped by many tellings.

Molly is a kind of female Jack, who manages to keep her two mean-spirited sisters and herself both safe and sheltered in a bone-crunching ogre’s castle overnight.
However (and it's the however that counts) there’s a truly chilling scene where Molly nips out of the overnight bed she’s sharing with her two sisters. Swiftly, she switches the three necklaces of plaited golden straw the ogre had given Molly and her sisters last night at dinner with the bright golden chains he had placed around his own three strange daughters necks.

When, moments later, the ogre comes in to the dark chamber,and feels for the damning chains of straw, it is his own three daughters he takes away, down to the cellar.

Now I do not tell this tale often or to young children, or to children I have only just met, or without other tales of different moods before or after. Molly needs the right moment, as well as an awareness of what is going on in that schools life at the time, and any horrific news stories that are high profile at the time. Sometimes with younger children, I make it clear that the ogre just locks his daughters in the nasty dark cellar. But it is a shivery moment, and always needs handling with care and concentration.

The horror is partly diminished by the later scenes, because not only does Molly get her sisters safely away and eventually married off, but she also returns three times to steal the giant’s treasures. Molly is not anyone’s simpering heroine, but practical and brave, and there is no mention of her being beautiful.

Molly Whuppie wouldn’t be classified as a tale of real life but I can’t tell the tale without acknowledging the deep human feelings within it. Molly is real but she isn’t “real life.” So Molly cheers me immensely when I worry about not being able to write pink kitten stories, or wacky stories about underwear, or gritty urban drama.
I need the cloak of the past to give my best writing its feelings and shape.

Where and when do you find or place your best-loved stories?


Penny’s latest book, A BOY CALLED M.O.U.S.E is out now. (Bloomsbury)
www.pennydolan.com

Note: The triple theft scenes in this tale are woven through with the ogre calling a something like “Woe betide you, Molly Whuppie, if ever you return again.” To which Molly replies “Twice more, thrice more I’ll come to Spain”, a refrain which suggests that at this tale was current when Elizabeth I was on the throne, facing a Spanish invasion.

ON BEING A GOOD CHILD by Penny Dolan

Were you a “good child”? Were you taught to answer “yes” when somebody asked you to do helpful things? Are you too dutiful for your own “good”? Read on.

Back in 2012, I’d been organising a group involved with children and reading for some years, Sadly, I could see that  - no matter how fond I was of the group and the organisation as a whole – I had worn out my energy for the thing. I didn’t want the group to fold, but I was doing it no good. As a writer, I live a fairly solitary life, but what the group needed were people with links and professional contacts and lots of social energy. None were coming forward. None were saying yes.

So, last December, as part of a mailing to all the members. I called an ExtraOrdinary General Meeting for early in 2013. I wrote that I was stepping down. Then came the bit of blackmail: if I wasn’t doing X, then Y would not happen. I posted the envelopes, crossed my fingers and waited.

Well, it turned out that Y did matter to the members. Some people came forward. Over the year, bit by bit – because they are all as busy as I am -  the group has taken on this or that aspect of the work.  I have just signed “my” last cheque and the new committee’s is about to take over the finance. When that happens, I’ll be totally free of any responsibility. I am so glad there were people there to catch the baby.

However, that “NO” took almost a year to accomplish. My escape had to be planned well ahead so others could take on the burden at their own pace.

So why I am blogging about this? Because I want to remind you that if you are a “good child”, your sense of duty and obligation may get in the way of your writing. This busyness – and heaven knows there’s enough of that involved in looking after a writing career already – can get in the way. It may make you a “good child”, but not the good writer you could be.

Instead of creative day-dreaming, the mind grinds on about all the small things it should be doing or sorting out.  Instead of being free to “fill the well” with new experiences and good or interesting stuff, you spend your spare time – and more -  sorting out administration.

We all have things we get involved with: clubs and groups and organisations. If your special thing “feeds” you and is just what you need, all’s fine and dandy. But if it doesn’t - or doesn’t any longer – stop being a “good child”.  

If you feel you need to make an escape, start working out when and how. You have all the coming year to make your escape. Maybe, for your writing sanity, you need to learn to say no?

Penny Dolan.

BOOKSELLER SUNDAYS: On selling more Mary Hooper than Stephanie Meyer and more Penny Dolan than J.K. Rowling – Katie Clapham at Storytellers, Inc.

One of a series of guest blogs by booksellers who work with children’s authors. We’re posting this one today by way of a ‘Happy Birthday!’ to Storytellers, Inc., who are just about celebrate the completion of their first incredible year, during which they have dared and done many brave things, always on a ‘handmade’ and human scale. Bookseller Katie Clapham describes some of Storytellers, Inc’s innovations, including their single copy policy, their ‘Cool Books in School’ campaign and their child-sized secret reading den.

Imagine a place where giant power authors, you know - the ones with their own signature font, are pushed aside for lesser known authors. A place where hand-written signs and friendly recommendations overshadow expensively produced online trailers and bestseller lists. It is your local independent bookshop – a magical enclosure where the bookselling playing field is somewhat smoothed (it will never be absolutely level, but that’s a good thing too).

At Storytellers, Inc. we generally stock single copies of everything. This was a decision we made during the initial stock of the shop nearly one year ago. Range was more important to me than filling shelves with multiple copies of the most popular titles - we’ve got a WHSmith in town for that. Of course this means we’re taking more responsibility for the stock but that’s a power I’m glad to wield. I delight in finding hidden gems and sharing them with customers who are excited to take the risk. Of course there is no getting away from the fact we get more requests for Julia Donaldson and Jacqueline Wilson than Kazuno Kohara and Reinhardt Jung but it’s also true that our bestsellers include Alan Garner’s Weirdstone of Brisingamen (we’ve got generations of recommendations and personal ties to the story’s location), the beautiful Madame Pamplemousse series which have dazzled lots of little girls, who’ve then come back to buy copies for friends, and Chris Ridell’s stunning Ottoline series, which a local school picked up as a class book.

We can’t afford to pay authors and illustrators to visit us in the shop yet so we’re gratefully accepting tour dates from publishers and booking school visits for the authors. They’ve paid off; we’ve sold more Mary Hooper than Stephanie Meyer and more Penny Dolan than J.K. Rowling. The children who heard Penny talk about her book were coming into the shop for weeks after, desperately asking for their MOUSE books with worn-out parents telling us how they’ve heard of nothing else since the talk. Having an author come to the school is a real treat and as the personal investment in the book and its author is sealed, the financial is guaranteed to follow.

As a business we’re trying to find ways of drawing this mass attention to new titles on a more regular basis. I’ve recently written a new scheme for schools that takes a brand new title and develops a term-length feature on it for local schools. The Cool Books in School campaign was launched in September with four local schools taking part. I have selected two new books (one for primary years 3 and 4 and another for years 5 and 6) to work with. The term started with a visit from me to introduce the book and read the beginning as a class storytime (repeated in as many classes as I could until my tongue dried out). Later this term I will return with a creative writing session loosely based on the text (theme or form etc.) and we will finish the term with a schools-wide writing competition. For the duration of the term the chosen books are offered at a promotional price to the schools and pupils taking part. I also wrote to the publishers of the chosen books demanding to know what they were going to do in return for my relentless promotion of their books.

I am planning to repeat this campaign three times a year, getting new releases into schools, raising awareness of current authors and sneaking some creative writing into classrooms. My personal goal is that with each term I will win another school over (some are proving very stubborn!) Author visits within the term’s campaign would increase the appeal even further and I’m really hoping this will form a part of the future model. Should my own children’s novel ever find a publisher, school visits would be top priority on my agenda. I truly believe they are the most useful and exciting way to get children to try new authors.

On the smaller scale we blog, we tweet, we facebook and do everything we can to get on first name bases with authors and publishers. Promotional material can really make a difference – a few extra Department 19 POS packs meant I could chop up some posters and make a window display around the new title; we sold more HB copies of Will Hill’s debut than any other teen novel.

Sometimes it can feel like a hard-sell. We email our regulars with newsletters and offers and I write to the head teachers and telephone their exasperated receptionists but it’s all worth while when a delighted parent comes to the shop telling us that this was the book that created an interest in reading that wasn’t there before, or a child who previously restricted their reading to one genre (or author!) decides to explore the literary landscape. We’ve made an effort to make our shop a place that encourages these discoveries, there is seating and storytimes, coffee and baby changing facility (no, you keep your own baby). We’ve got our child-sized secret reading den and creative writing workshops in the school holidays.

We can’t compete with the prices online and in chain shops so like everyone else we’re trying to stand out in all other areas. It’ll be our first birthday on the 1st of December and we’ll be celebrating the fact that there is a market for the independent bookshop, particularly for children who want to see and touch and smell and maybe chew the book before they buy it. They also want to hear how great it is and for you to look excited and congratulate them on the book they have chosen, they want to come back and tell you about it when they’ve read it. As adults we are so fond of our booky memories, it is such a charming privilege to be part of these new memories in the making.

Caption: photograph of Katie Clapham with her homemade dump bin.

Storytellers, Inc website

A GLIMPSE INTO COLLECTING STORIES by Penny Dolan.

I tell stories, finding them here and there, usually in a paper form, before adapting them to my own way of telling or writing. Not every story suits ever teller. There's even one of those sayings: The Story Finds You.  

The original "plot" might come from a collection such as the Tales of the Brothers Grimm or the codified volumes of Katherine Briggs. The old, familiar resources. However, there are still people who set out inot the world to collect stories. I have always wondered what such a life would be like “in the field”, as archaeologists and anthropologists might call it. 


Then I came across an answer: Wandering into my local library, I glanced at the display of new books, gave a little cry of delight and grabbed. Yes! 

There was a book that I didn’t know existed and one that I so wanted to read: THE LURE OF THE HONEY BIRD: The Storytellers of Ethiopia. Written by Elizabeth Laird, it is an account of just such work, here in the modern world.

I had heard Elizabeth Laird at the 2012 Children’s Writer’s and Illustrators Conference, when she was sharing a session on research methods with Gillian Cross. She is know for many well-researched novels about children in difficult areas of the world. 

Naturally, Laird spoke about all her novels for young people, but she also mentioned a picture book, based on the stories she had collected in Africa, so I knew of that book. But I didn’t know of this newly published book, which is definitely a book for grown-ups. The occasional stories that Laird offers here are not tales that can be swiftly taken into UK schools, in my opinion. ,

Laird, who had both lived in and re-visited Ethiopia, was concerned about the reading books used by children in government schools, especially as the level of literacy within the population is so low. As the official language is now Englis, the often-donated reading books were Eurocentric. The pupils were learning to read using texts that had no relevance to their lives and did not reflect the many varied cultures of that vast land.

Laird mentioned this concern over dinner one night, suggested it might be a good idea if someone collected the traditional tales, wrote them in English, and then each region would end up with its own stories and readers. The project – eventually - was approved and funded and it was Laird who set off, somewhat anxiously, to collect the tales. THE LURE OF THE HONEYBIRD, published by Polygon, is her account of those travels and the stories she found in these ancient and often biblical kingdoms. 

I had to slow down my reading to take in all the details of travels and the landscapes.  Although Laird is "there" in the book, the pages teem with the people and groupings she meets along the way: drivers, translators, officials, the storytellers and many more.  

She does not ignore the huge damage done by forest-clearing, global interests but the pages are also full of admiration for those who live with kindness, resourcefulness and dignity.

Collecting stories in remote and varied regions is definitely not light and easy work. The chapters reveal the long, careful collecting process: the finding of good tellers and good tales, the story sessions in an unknown tongue, the anxiety over recording, the constant work of translation, the re-checking, the writing, the approving by the tellers.  

Continually conscious of herself as a foreigner within these communities, Laird's account also contains all the small things one wants to know about , all the worries, joys, reverses and practical matters that rarely appear in the final, polished reports of projects. The reader is in no doubt as to the difficulties of the work, both the administrative annoyances and the pure physical discomforts and the work is the more admirable than that. I admit that, at times, my knee-bones ached in sympathy for all that sitting on floors or being bumped about in cramped vehicles!  

THE LURE OF THE HONEYBIRD is a wise book about the travels involved in an amazing project. From now on, I shall feel more respect for the tales that I so comfortably collect, and for the intrepid collectors.

Penny Dolan


ps. There is also a website where the stories can be read and heard: www.ethiopianfolktales.com

Weightwatching for Writers: Penny Dolan

If you haven’t come across it yet, you will: the problem of weight.

I don’t mean the thickening of the person known as Writer’s Bum. “New” writers can often be identified by their sylph-like figures and some “older” writers are rangy, athletic type because they intersperse their writing with gym sessions or six-mile runs. However, well-worn-in writers are usually distinguished by a certain roundness of physique, plus a space on their desks reserved for chocolate and drink.

No, the weight problem I am talking about is to do with writing, to do with keeping the manuscript moving in the right sort of shape. For example, my current Work in Progress has developed an over-weighty beginning that currently eases off into a very tiny tail. Structure wise, the WIP is like one of those big blobby tadpoles that will somehow vanish from the jar or a cartoon whale.

This may well be to do with the computer as tool. How can this be the fault of a bit of machinery?

Simple. Seeing something on screen is not the same process as flicking though the pages and carrying on from where you last put down your inky brass nib. Whenever I get the current WIP up on screen, the opening appears in all its sudden dreadfulness before my eyes.

Even if I resist and skim on swiftly for a few pages, it’s not long I spot something that urgently needs my attention. Yes, a word or phrase is shouting out at me from a chapter I’ve already done. Heavens, this plot of mine thickens but it does not blooming well lengthen. Well not hwere it should.

Of course, I could and I do print the manuscript out, even though I can’t help feeling that “printing it out” is a kind of honour granted when I feel the pages are good enough. When. More usually I print the WIP out whenever I get totally desperate about the structure so I can make notes and do the analysis and the breakdown – and go back to the beginning again.

I honestly do know I should move on, on, on. I should work on the section at the end where there are slight traces of the intended story, such as “Chapter 29: Something Really Interesting happens to Marmaduke & Leticia in Grizewold Alley. Or Does It????”

Those later chapters are the places that should be my destination Those thin ghostly apparitions are where I should be adding weight. The misty unidentifiable-as-yet regions are where I need to go with my word-grappling hook and my haversack of Dolan’s Essential Word Supply and Super-Bonding Glue.

So come on, people. Why don’t I? Why do I think "Better see to this little bit first"? It is a mystery.

Off to make myself some hot buttered toast and honey. At least that will go towards building a weightier end.


Penny’s current novel for older juniors, A BOY CALLED M.O.U.S.E has been praised for its excellent finale..

www.pennydolan.com

TEA WITH A TIGER – Dianne Hofmeyr

A train trip to Newcastle-on-Tyne became more than a journey into uncharted territory but an unexpected chance to have Tea with a Tiger and a cuddle with a cat of slightly smaller proportions, called Mog. To prove it, here are Penny Dolan and I with our smiley tiger.

Where are we? Not at the zoo but in the wonderful building that houses Seven Stories, the National Centre for Children’s Books in Newcastle-on-Tyne... a  building that stretches over seven floors and whose attic houses the most marvellous installation of books about to be eaten by Henry – The Incredible Book Eating Boy, who might suffer a severe stomach ache if he ate all the books his creator, Oliver Jeffers, has strung from the rafters for him.

Oliver Jeffers who was resident storyteller at Seven Stories a while back can be seen working with a group of children putting together the installation on the U-tube link below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6azoJrFVkY

But why were we having this exciting visit? It was part of a Society of Authors event, which coincided, with the current exhibitions of two major children’s authors – Judith Kerr, who has given her entire archive of work to Seven Stories, and Enid Blyton, whose collection was acquired at a nail-biting auction. Both are utterly marvellous.

The Enid Blyton display covers a multitude of facets in her life – not just the ideas behind Noddy Goes to Toyland, first published n 1949, but also the first artist’s roughs of what the characters might look like, down to her minute gardening diaries filled with miniscule writing and her original typewriter used when she lived at Green Hedges, and then of course all those covers both old and new of stories many of us knew so well. I was given a new Famous Five for every holiday train journey I went on, to what was then Southern Rhodesia, and passed the hours rocking up on my top bunk pretending I was George setting off on an adventure in my boat. Pirate coves and tiny islands in a rainy climate seemed far more exciting than any African landscape.

What immediately sprung to mind when I saw Judith Kerr’s display which spans 70 years, and includes childhood paintings, drawings from her student days, and finished artwork for most of her published books, including The Tiger Who Came to Tea, is that from her very earliest drawings done as a child, there is a strong sense of movement and body space, people drawn in profile busily involved in selling hotdogs and balloons, a girl diving off a diving board. In one of the rooms, for those of you small enough to fit into a tiny cat-suit, you can curl up in a basket and get some grown-up to read you a Mog story which is exactly what was happening on the day I went… a mum and her toddler were having a snug story-cuddle.

I’ve saved the best for last. Although the archive is housed in another building, on the day we went, an archivist brought material out for us to view… glorious and detailed Edward Ardizzone illustrations... (note the white gloves for handling) that we pored over, the detail of line and texture too amazing...

and Harold Jones – the Harold Jones illustrations so familiar that they, rather than the words, seemed to be the very essence of the stories I once read. 

The expressions on Helena Pielechatty and Nicola Morgan’s faces say it all. 

So Tea with a Tiger and a cuddle with Mog, what more are you waiting for? The Seven Stories in Newcastle-on-Tyne is the place to be. And there’s a jolly fine coffee shop and bookshop too. THANK YOU to all the staff for making our day there, wonderful!

Independent's Day : Penny Dolan.

Writing demands a certain level of ego. I think, therefore I write down my thoughts, or at least something I’ve constructed out of my thoughts. I have hopes this stuff might be worth reading, by myself even if by nobody else. I feel, as so often I do, that there is a vanity about bothering to write at all.

Vanity’s bubble is easily burst, so I have what I think of as my imaginary “iron corset” on hand at all times. It is a very useful protection against the many small pinches of the writing life:

The silence that tells you a submitted manuscript has been rejected.

The email that says, after several re-writes, “we really liked the idea but have decided that now the words aren’t quite right.”

The day when a bookseller tells you that someone at the publishers has told them that your book has gone out of print. Nobody has bothered to tell you.

The moment when someone in a staff-room asks “Should I have heard of you?” Obviously you haven’t, not even with my name written on today’s school notice board.

Every such occasion is an amusing reminder – how else can one look at it? – of how fragile the writer’s role and ego really is. Ouch! That smarts!
So I gird my iron corset around me for extra reinforcement when these small pinches arrive. Now I can pretend the painful digs don’t get to reach me really. Ha, ha, ha!

However, these last two weeks I’ve really needed my clanking virtual corset. Every few days, walking into town, I have passed the only bookshop. It's part of a chain now. I’ve used it over many years and seen many staff come and go.

During this month, I'd had a book out: A Boy Called M.O.U.S.E. Sorry, I know one shouldn’t say this but the book is so good that I cannot believe I wrote it. My name on the front suggests I must have been involved somehow. The thing is a lucky mix of fancy, imagination and words.

Furthermore, the hardback cover looks magnificent. It must be pure cover karma: by some weird chance, I am the author who ended up with all the good luck left over by unfortunate writers who ended up with covers they hate. Before you despise this evidence of even greater vanity, remember that if you don’t love your book, who else will? I feel anyone would be pleased to see the book on a shelf. "Now I have to search for many books in town."

Two weeks ago I was passing the shop, having done the bank and sent other stuff in to Mouse’s publication. Stupidly I was tempted. I thought “Why not?” and edged into the bookshop quietly. After all, I had just had a mention in the local paper, and know at least one person who asked after a copy last week. Was my book there? Nope. Nope. Nope.

Than only a couple of days ago, I needed to get a present for friend so had to call in to the shop. Nope again.

This time I approached the desk, spoke sweetly, humbly and casually to the girls behind the desk. It seems they have only just sorted out who runs the children’s department. The book is definitely on order. The computer says my volume hasn’t come in yet. So odd! Then I recalled grumbles about the company’s central book ordering system in the past, but I laughed too. Ha ha ha! If you’d like me to come in to do some book signing, do get in touch. I said. I felt myself simpering stupidly as I gave my contact details again, again.

Today I passed by the shop. In the window hung a long list of half-term activities. Roald Dahl, Halloween. Horrible Histories, and so on and so on. By now I feel totally in the wrong for even offering anything to the shop. The corset grows stronger round my heart. I am becoming Tin Woman! Clang, clang, clang! You cannot get me now, cruel fate. It is best not to care!

Don’t worry. I’ll be okay soon. If it wasn’t for the support I had from the Children’s Bookshop in Lindley, Huddersfield, and several reports from writing friends who have spotted my lovely tome in independent bookshops all across the land, I fear I might have dreamed the whole Mouse experience up. So long live the great Independent Booksellers of Britain.

I wonder who's your favourite and most helpful bookseller then?

Penny Dolan
www.pennydolan.com

A Boy Called Mouse, published by Bloomsbury October 2010.

HA HA! HEE HEE! A BOOKLIST TO MAKE YOU HAPPY! by Penny Dolan.

Today  is a celebration of one of the most important reasons that children read: LAUGHTER!

It's often the funny books that get taken out of the libraries,  shared with friends, talked about, quoted, shown around and giggled over. So hooray for the dozen books that make up the SHORTLIST FOR THE 2013 ROALD DAHL FUNNY PRIZE!
 
 

Here's the list of titles, but beware! If you're someone who likes reading with a torch when you should be asleep, GROWN UPS CAN HEAR YOU LAUGHING!

 The Funniest Book for Children Aged Six and Under

• Weasels by Elys Dolan (Nosy Crow)
• Spaghetti With the Yeti by Adam and Charlotte Guillain, illustrated by Lee Wildish (Egmont)
• Troll Swap by Leigh Hodgkinson (Nosy Crow)
• Monkey Nut by Simon Rickerty (Simon and Schuster)
• Do Not Enter the Monster Zoo by Amy Sparkes, illustrated by Sara Oglivie (Red Fox, Random House Children’s Books)
• Noisy Bottoms by Sam Taplin, illustrated by Mark Chambers (Usborne)

The Funniest Book for Children Aged Seven to Fourteen

• The Grunts All At Sea by Philip Ardagh, illustrated by Axel Sheffler (Nosy Crow)
• My Parents Are Out of Control by Pete Johnson (Yearling, Random House Children’s Books)
• Pants Are Everything by Mark Lowery (Scholastic)
• Geek Girl by Holly Smale (HarperCollins)
• Fish-Head Steve!  by Jamie Smart (David Fickling Books)
• I Am Still Not a Loser by Jim Smith (Egmont, Jelly Pie) 

WHO ARE YOU TODAY? by Penny Dolan

Who are you? Or as a writer, when are you, you?

Yesterday, on Desert Island Discs, I heard Lee Mack say that he hated performing when people he knew well, and who knew him well, were at his show. As long as his family and/or friends sat at the very back of the venue, preferably out of sight, he could pretend they weren’t there. He could carry on being “Comedian Lee Mack.”

Later, he said he worried when people who think they “know” him from his appearance on TV and Quiz Shows turn up at his comedy gigs. The “Would I Lie to You Version” of Lee Mack, with all the swearing edited out, wasn’t the person they’d meet in his Live Show tour next year.

Most writers, especially children’s writers who “perform” in schools, can understand what Lee Mack meant. The "Showtime Author"you is not the real you, or at least not the “author you” that does the work.

 There may be people who are completely one and the same in real life and show life. Sarah MacIntyre may sit at home, drawing in her sketchbook or or ipad, wearing a vast oceanic wig and dreaming up more SeaWig stories.

Philip Ardagh may constantly speak in surreal, combative twitticisms while strolling through the lost Victorian streets and poorly lit alleyways, sharing strings of world weary observations with his hero Eddie Dickens.

Historical fiction author Caroline Lawrence may talk to herself in Latin as she wraps herself in her Pompeian toga or, more recently, practice quick-gunning on handily empty hooch bottles.

But I don’t think so.  

 The Showtime Author is -  usually - a kind of creation, a personality developed and angled to attract the spotlight, not the whole self. Furthermore, pushed to the highest volume, Showtime Author can also be a danger, a diversion from what life as a “real life author” is like. 

Publisher’s publicity teams, the media, schools, teachers as well as children and parents love those writers who are larger than life and who can entertain, maybe, hundreds of children. But that Author is a simplification, a writer that's not quite real, a distortion of the role. 

Because super smiling Showtime Author isn’t the one who does the writing, or draws the drawing. The Working Author - imo and all that - tends to be a solitary, slightly tetchy creature, mooching around, thinking writing thoughts, mulling over words or plots, rehearsing lines or scenes or testing out characters in their head.

Working Author is the one who sits at the book, who persists when they could be doing other things. Most of the time, they are not really that bothered about interacting with ANYONE other than the shadows in their heads.  It may even be best if they don’t appear anywhere, not without some tidying up or refocusing their attention.

Yet – and I wish some people in education would realise it – Working Author is the one who writes, drafts, rewrites and edits, the one who uses up long hours of life on making the stuff, on the art and the craft. They do the work. They put down the words.

Not the "Hey, I'm an Amazing Fun Guy", although the work has its own fun. Not the hugely social Showtime Author, entertaining vast assemblies, although there’s few things as satisfying as a brilliant break-through-the-log-jam idea. The Working Author who writes is, usually, a different kind of personality altogether. In fact, I'd almost say that the two rarely appear at the same time.

The hall is full. I can imagine Working Author - her, or him - sitting there in the shadows, away at the back of the audience, giving a knowing glance over the heads of all those gathered together that says “And that’s not even the half of it . . .”

Penny Dolan 

Illustration by Peter Bailey from my book "A Boy Called MOUSE" (Bloomsbury)

PS. There is, of course, that other version - “Author as Ordinary Person” - the alert and often practical soul who deals with relatives and kids, shopping, poorly cats or dogs, visiting workmen, broken computers, post-holiday blues and more, while still yearning secretly – or not! - for a bit of Working Writer time.

Things I Learned On The Road by Penny Dolan

Two weeks ago I was out on the road on a publisher organised tour. No doubt many Awfully Big Authors have done many such trips and tours but this was my first “official” time on show.

I am not new to the game. I’ve been doing school & library visiting for year – and still do if asked - but this was the first time I felt part of somebody else’s plan. Usually I’ve been a big part of the organising chat so have picked up some sense of what I’d been meeting, and been able to spread the events out to give some recovery time. This time, the knowledge was just a five-day paper schedule.

The trip was – with due respect- a low-key version. It wasn’t me swanning about among the venerable stones of Oxford, Cambridge, Bath, Cheltenham. Edinburgh. There were no hotels away from home, no glam meals and not even a Hogwarts express to whirl me along.

This was me, alone, driving to Lytham St Annes, Rotherham, Leeds, Stockton and Preston version, and not truly the worse for that. My publicity manager came all the way up from London to support me on Day One and Two, as well as meeting new on-the-ground contacts with a view to future visits by other authors.

So what do I know now that I didn’t before?

I know that having a kind of ”visit uniform” - no matter what style this takes - to put on in the groggy time after the alarm rings get greater as the week wears on but also that the putting on the "Showtime Coat" - as we call it home here - gets easier as the rhythm of the week goes on.

I know now that the sand dunes of Lytham St Anne’s are closer than I thought. I love learning the landscape, even when there are gale warnings across Lancashire and Yorkshire. The A59 has wonderful early morning views unless you get so dreamy about the hills (and the hour) that you forget to watch out for the pushy lorries, erratic tractors and slow tankers.

I know that a using a fixed book talk with powerpoint – rather than segueing through various titles as I have usually done - makes it much harder to edit down a talk when you must cut twenty-five minutes or risk book sales because the visiting schools arrive late and want to leave early and the kind bookseller is sitting there with piles of books on view.

I know that technology is definitely not all. The power behind the lamps of projectors is very, very variable which mattered when some of the images in my talk were archive photographs. One morning I had brand-new double screen clarity and brightness. That afternoon, even the best images could only be seen in the front row on a tiny unfolding screen. Ah, bless those 60’s plate-glass libraries with their daylight! So back to the original version, the "plain" author talk complete with a large display book of illustrations carried around the corners of the audience.

I know to check the tour sheet well. The schedule had a blip, a cut and paste address sent in that didn’t match the named school. If I hadn’t neurotically googled all the venues, we'd have lost one of the most positive and delightful schools of the week.

I know now that Publicity Managers need special skills. They need to be full of energy to cope with the early mornings, long days and late nights; full of calmness when not everything is as they had been told by their contacts and full of diplomacy when they have to witness the usually private witterings of pre-session authors. Time after time.

I know that I have met some brave people out there working as independent booksellers: the Storytellers Inc bookshop and creative space in Lytham St Annes, Silverdell of Kirkham which is both bookshop and ice-cream parlour, and Radish, a small eco-bookshop in Chapel Allerton, Leeds.

Last of all, I know that at the end of the day, I just love the Go Home button on my satnav and that any form of speech or sociability has given out by the time I get there.

But thanks to all involved!

Pictures on a Page: Penny Dolan

Encircled by light, a boy flies above the stage, mesmerising the audience. Who is he and how did he get there? The boy, I know very soon, is called Mouse. That aspect of my young hero appeared in my head some time after seeing flyers swooping on wires at the theatre. The image was bright and clear at the centre, but fuzzier around the edges.

So I nursed the picture, gently asking questions. “What exactly is happening here? Why? Where? Who are you, Mouse? How do you feel, way up there? Who do you know? And who knows you?” Gradually the picture grew. Mouse was a boy who was not much afraid of heights.

Other images hidden in my mind woke, stretched themselves and grew into other scenes in the story sequence.

Bulloughby’s crumbling school, far beyond sight of any other building. Nick Tick’s clockmakers shop. The canvas walls of Charlie Punchman’s puppet booth. The glorious golden auditorium of Hugo Adnam’s Albion Theatre, and more, all snipped from somewhere in my memory then reshaped and stitched into Mouse’s tale.

These were like the big beads on my story thread. Between them I needed the small but essential beads, and often I had to re-arrange the order or polishing dulled ideas until the pattern was as good as it could get.

I would love to plan, but my writing process is always visual. I have to wait for the picture. Does this habit come from bored hours staring at the narrative art hanging on classroom walls? Certainly, that Naughty Wet Lady Ophelia stuck in my mind more vividly than the meek, haloed virgins.

The best narrative paintings, story-wise, were seeped with possibility, with “what might be”. I once heard Quentin Blake, whose drawings are so beautifully alive, say that he tries to illustrate the moment just before the action happens. As a writer and story-maker, I’m greedy to make that moment, and to fill in the gaps between too. I want my words to make pictures in other people’s minds.

So where do your stories begin?


A BOY CALLED MOUSE is published by Bloomsbury Children’s Books on 4th October.

CHOICES, CHOICES by Penny Dolan - with additional information from Philip Caveney.

  

So, the first of September arrives. A time of positive planning for the months ahead but, oh, so many hard decisions!  Should one opt for last minute places at the autumn conferences, like the National Association of Writers in Education (NAWE) at York? 

Or keep a writerly nose strictly fixed on the screen and WIP - and just finish the damn story thing? 

After all, the Frankfurt Book Fair is looming and editors may be on the lookout, assuming you also fixed that matter of becoming an overnight celebrity. 

  Or should one rush for tickets to October’s book events, like the 40th Ilkley Literature Festival and more? 

If so, will you be hoping for deep literary understanding and inspiration? Or will you be watching for ways to improve one’s own possibly jaded performances? Such ice in the author’s heart! 

Or should one hold back on committing to October events in case the few schools still able and willing to fund author visits decide to contact you? Should you choose to eat or pay your bills, perhaps?

Then there’s that long-neglected website, needing the botox of attention. Or perhaps it is the moment to re-activate the half-forgotten blog? The one you began in the hope of rousing the nation – nay, the world! - into buying your books? Choices, choices, choices!

September is a month for wistfulness too. How swiftly the summer days - having arrived – seem to be over.

And with that, yet another chance for visiting the Edinburgh Festival in all its many forms. 

Was I, as Facebook suggested, the only person not attending?

 So there's a quick extra item today . Here, for those of you whose summer was mostly at a desk, not on some remote Scottish island or idling near Padstow - are one of our newest blogger’s responses to the Edinburgh Fringe 2013.

Philip Caveney on the Highs and Lows of the Fringe.

This was my third visit in a row to The Fringe and it’s always one of the year’s highlights. In 2011, I was there in my capacity as a writer, but this year, I went along as a punter along with my partner, Susan and my daughter, Grace. Thanks to the kindness of my friends, Sally and Gus, we were able to stay in a rather swish apartment on the Quarter Mile, a stone’s throw from some of the hottest events of the festival. If you’ve never visited the Festival, you really must make the effort to go. There’s a real buzz there, and those of you who enjoy celeb-spotting will have a field day. On this trip alone, we saw (and in some cases spoke to) Stewart Lee, Richard Herring, Rebecca Hall (actually staying in our apartment complex!) Nina Conte, Sandi Toksvig, Simon Amstell, Mark Little, Sean Hughes… and many more.

Our first visit this year was to see Stewart Lee at the Assembly Rooms, George Street, with his new show, Carpet Remnant World. We all love Lee’s work and we’d failed to get tickets for him the year before, so this was a must-see. (We were quite surprised to meet him actually handing out fliers as we went in!) I’m happy to report that he was as cerebral, analytical and vitriolic as ever, so we awarded him 5 stars.

(And no, this photo isn't Stewart Lee with Philip Caveney! One's a Plague Doctor. Ed.)

Next up was the National Theatre of Scotland’s musical, An Appointment With The Wicker Man(again at The Assembly, George Street). We’re all fans of the original film and though knowledge of it isn’t essential, it certainly helps! The show was, quite simply, hilarious, full of sly in-jokes and totally inappropriate dance routines. Another 5 star show!

As a Ray Bradbury fan of long standing, I was intrigued to pick up a flier for The Lonely One (Underbelly, Cowgate) an adaptation of a chapter from his novel Dandelion Wine. The company did a lovely job of interpreting the tale through spoken word and shadows and light, managing to perfectly capture the spirit of 1920’s Americana. On the downside, the cheek-by-jowl venue meant that we could hear another actor bellowing his lines in the adjoining theatre through some of The Lonely One’s quieter sections. 4 stars, nevertheless.

Another performer at the Assembly Rooms was Scottish poet Liz Lochead, who also turned out to be an engaging and charming performer. 4 stars.

As Heaton Moor residents, we had to see Punk Rock, by local author Simon Stephens at Space 1, and I’m glad we did, because this hard-hitting play set in a Stockport school was brilliantly performed by the young cast and fully deserved a wider audience. 4 stars.

The following morning saw us enjoying Shakespeare For Breakfast at Venue C34. Well, that’s to say, we enjoyed the Shakespeare, a lively reinterpretation of Romeo & Juliet incorporating a host of contemporary references. The breakfast was rather  underwhelming, comprising as it did, one solitary stale, cold croissant (the coffee machine was on the blink) 4 stars, though I did consider deduction one star for the croissant!

Of course, the run of 4 and 5 star shows couldn’t last, but Amy Lamé’s, Unhappy Birthday was so awful, it barely warranted a single star. Lured along by the fact that the show was about Morrissey (or more accurately his absence from Amy’s birthday party) we had high hopes that were soon flattened . . .

It wouldn’t be the Edinburgh fringe without Richard Herring (we’ve seen his show on our previous two visits) so off we went to the Udderbelly, Bristo Square to see his latest effort, Talking C**k. (Their asterisks, not mine!) While it might not have reached the heights of Christ On A Bike, it was nonetheless funny and thought-provoking and I was amazed to spot Richard in the local Starbucks, only a couple of hours before the show. I hammered on the window and bellowed my praise in his general direction, which was probably quite disconcerting for him. 4 stars.

What a busy few days! Thank you for this account and critique, Philip.

 Hmmm. Clearly, I will need the next eleven months to build up my personal stamina if I have any hopes of seeing all there will be to be seen at Edinburgh 2014. Especially the Children's Book Festival!

 

Oh. Bother. Isn't that another thing I need to make choices about? It never gets easier, does it?

So, do you have any Autumn author goals or promises?

www.pennydolan.com 

A Boy Called M.O.U.S.E. Bloomsbury.