Never Start a Book with the Weather... by Savita Kalhan

“Never start a book with the weather – readers will skip ahead to find people.”
This is one of Elmore Leonard’s basic writing rules.

I am about to embark on a new book because it’s autumn, but I will not be opening with the weather. I am writing this blog while it is still technically autumn, even if whole swathes of the country have already been clenched in the icy grip of a bitter northerly wind that brought with it snow and the usual accompanying chaos. The snow was forecasted all week, but it still took the councils by surprise and only some of the gritters braved the roads. There was high drama on the roads, avalanches descended on pavements, frozen train tracks, no school and lots of hot chocolate. But that’s already happened and set for a repeat performance this weekend when the Arctic winds blow our way.

But, even technically, autumn is fast receding, and I’m getting a little bit anxious because this is when I usually embark on a new story. I have done this every year for the past few years and it’s a tried and trusted system that has always worked for me. So why have I found myself messing about with the system?

Well firstly, I’ve belatedly discovered, at great pain and with much lost time, that being a writer doesn’t mean you’re allowed to sit around writing all day, heaven forbid. You have to be pro-active in creating your ‘brand’, raising your profile so that your work gets as far ‘out there’ as it possibly can because if you don’t do it then no one else will, and you have to maintain a visible and active profile in cyber-space, in schools, in bookshops, anywhere that will have you. That stuff takes time! I am only just getting to grips with it, and guess what? It’s definitely worth it as long as it doesn’t take over your life!

Secondly, I was side-tracked by the not unimportant task of finishing a psychological thriller. Enough said about that while it is being perused by the powers that be.

Whilst I have yet to start a book with the weather in Elmore Leonard’s definition, I do find it appealing and have wondered whether there are any best-sellers that do begin with the weather. I’m sure there are lots. Of course, I think he’s talking about his type of writing where an opening page on the weather would just get in the way of a rip-roaring story and brilliant characters.

Distractions, side-tracking, and Elmore Leonard aside, it’s still autumn (officially winter starts on 21st December) and I have obeyed that nagging voice and made a start on my next book and now I’m all set for the onslaught of winter, the decadence of Christmas and the advent of 2011...

Do Teens Read? Savita Kalhan

In April 2013, Nielsen conducted a survey in the US of the reading habits of teens aged between 12 and 17. Nielsen conducted another similar survey in September 2013 of teens in the UK, which also looked at their involvement in other activities. The results of both surveys are very interesting if somewhat worrying. Both studies came to the conclusion that teens are reading less compared to previous years, but also that they are doing far less of all the other activities they used to do too. What’s taken their place? Social networking sites, texting, You Tube and gaming apps – all of which they have easy access to as more and more teenagers own a mobile phone, a tablet or a laptop.

The answer to the question - How often do you read for fun? – was an eye-opener.

The percentage of US teens who read occasionally was 32 %. The percentage who read very often was 29%, with 39% who either do not read or seldom read. In the UK the figure for teens who read occasionally readers fell from 45% to 38% over the last year. Those who read often fell from 23% to 17%. Teens who seldom or never read comprised 27%, a rise of 13% relative to the previous year.

It’s a worrying development, particularly as it’s not just reading that is suffering. Teenagers have dropped or downscaled their involvement in many other activities, including hobbies, art, sports, and outdoor pursuits. What’s taken their place? Well, according to the study, teenagers are spending more time on social media, texting, You Tube and playing on game apps.

In the US  68% of teens read print books, but only 10% read ebooks. By April 2013, Print book readers had gone down to 45%, while the percentage reading ebooks had risen to 25%.

In the UK in 2012, 21% of teens said they read books digitally, which went up this year to 33%.

The US study clearly demonstrates that many teens still borrow their books from the library. They also still take guidance from parents and teachers and librarians, as 56% will read a book suggested by a parent, and 52% from a librarian or teacher. I don’t have the relevant figures for UK teens, but it would have been interesting to compare them.

It might also be interesting to see a graph comparing the reading habits of teens in the UK and the US. On the other hand, do the figures really need to be compared? It’s quite clear that reading amongst teens is declining.

Is the recent decline in reading a development or a trend? I’m not sure. I haven’t seen the figures from say five or even ten years ago. It’s very concerning if it constitutes a long term trend, particularly if the time that teenagers spend on the internet is at the expense of all other activities.

But what the UK study did show was that teenagers’ interest in books had not significantly declined. The time they might have spent reading a book was gradually being replaced by ‘activities’ that were internet based. How would we have coped with that much free entertainment at our finger tips, I wonder?

In the UK there are lots of initiatives to encourage teens to read more, and some of them are very encouraging. At the Kid Lit Quiz, which I attended last week, there was a hall full of engaged enthusiastic pre-teens, mainly aged between 11 and 12, who clearly read an enormous amount. It was inspiring to see. I think we might need a lot more of these initiatives over the years to come. And failing that, might US-style “interventions” be in order...?


www.savitakalhan.com

Beautiful Dead Girls

Recently on her blog 'Trac Changes’, Rachel Stark highlighted a disturbing and worrying trend in teen/YA book covers in which female characters were depicted as dying, beautifully and tragically. Her post “Cover Trends in YA Fiction: Why the Obsession with an Elegant Death?” discussed why the imagery of dead girls has become so popular in teen/YA lit. She considers that these images are “less the product of an overt “male gaze”, and more the product of teenage girls’ morbidity...anyone who has worked with teenage girls will know that many have an astonishing taste for that which is melodramatic, desolate and downright morbid.” Rachel Stark explores the idea that, at least in part, this fascination is a product of the internalised misogyny of teenage girls. You can read the whole post here - .http://trac-changes.blogspot.com/2011/10/cover-trends-in-ya-fiction-why.html?spref=tw

This post comes in the same week as the trailer for the film The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins hits the airwaves. If you haven’t read the series, Katniss Everdeen is the main character and she has gripped the imagination and emotions of thousands upon thousands of people, from pre-teens, young teens, older teens, young adults and adults, and she is also one of the strongest heroines to have emerged in recent years. Yes, there is lots of violence in the books, a love triangle, a terrifying dystopian world, but at the centre of it is a captivating heroine who refuses to die.
The book covers for the Hunger Games Trilogy do not figure a beautifully elegant dead girl. Yet the books are best sellers and they have captured the imaginations of girls and boys alike.

The covers of YA books are typically designed by publishers’ in-house designers, who usually first read the book to capture the mood and the story and who will then discuss the design with authors. But editors, and importantly, the sales and marketing department, have a huge say in book cover design.

Personally I believe that the design of book covers is largely in the hands of the publishers rather than stemming from a demand from teenage girls. I do buy Rachel Stark’s line that there is a strong undercurrent and receptiveness towards images of “beautiful morbidity” amongst teenage girls. But I’m not prepared to believe that this receptiveness has grown explosively. I think it’s down, as usual, to the sales and marketing department’s tendency to hunt in packs and to copy the latest fad. Perhaps too some authors get less of a say in the look of their cover than others.

But to whoever decided that beautiful dead girls on covers sell books and to those who continue to endorse the trend, isn’t it about time for a trend change?

SCBWI Savita Kalhan

This weekend I will be getting on the train at Paddington and heading down to the beautiful city of Winchester for an Event. I don’t know why I’ve never been there before, but I haven’t. It is, after all, less than an hour and a half from London. I’ve heard that it’s very beautiful and well worth the visit. It’s a paradise for shopping connoisseurs, apparently, although I’m not going for the shopping, and it’s packed with museums and historic buildings. It even boasts a couple of haunted inns and a theatre!

In my bag I will have packed something that passes for smart evening wear for the Event. I’ve agonised over it, read the messages toing and froing between the people attending it, and have settled on an outfit that doesn’t involve any of the banned items of clothing – jeans, slippers and a comfy jumper! But does involve a few sequins and some bling. I will be finishing the look with the only type of heels I can guarantee I won’t fall over in – wedged boots! (If I do fall over, it’ll happen at the end of the night and it won’t have anything to do with the heels!) As long as no one looks at my feet, I’ll be fine!


But of course no one is going to be looking at my feet. We’re all going to be too busy talking books, chatting, drinking, eating, and generally having a good time. It’s SCBWI’s annual conference – their tenth anniversary, and it promises to be a fantastic event, complete with sparkling wine and a string quartet.

For those of you who do not know about SCBWI here’s what it’s all about. SCBWI stands for The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators and it’s open to published writers and illustrators and those yet to be published. SCBWI is international, and it runs lots of events from writing workshops, critique groups, discussion groups, talks by published writers to meeting in a pub and sharing stories. It’s great for networking and learning the ins and outs of the craft of writing and working in the children’s book industry.

I came to SCBWI very late having already had my novel published. I did a lot of things the wrong way round, but better that way round than not at all. But there is still so much that the organisation can offer in terms of advice, guidance and support even after you have been published. And when you feel confident enough, there are many writers who have yet to find the elusive publication deal, who might benefit from knowing what a published writer has learnt along the way. Once they have found that deal, we might see their names on the SAS roll call as well as SCBWI’s.

So cheers to SCBWI - I’m really looking forward to Saturday night, meeting lots of new children’s writers and talking children’s books.

Something new...About Time!

Everyone’s saying what an amazing time it is to be a teen/YA writer. YA lit is being taken more seriously. Over the last ten years, the teen/YA market boomed, expanding dramatically with books about the paranormal, myriad dystopias (always in a long series) and dark supernatural romances. These books became the next big thing, and then thebig thing, as they were adapted and appeared in a cinema near you. Book shops were awash with one or two narrow genres, filling shelves until they were overflowing. But there was barely any space left for any diversity, and dare I say it, bar a few exceptions, anything original.

Agents, at least in the States, are saying they’ve had enough. The market has had enough. It’s all reached saturation point. Now agents are looking for something else. The problem is, they’re not entirely sure what that is.

The genres they now say they’re interested in are crime, psychological thrillers, gritty realism and contemporary dramas. The one-off, stand alone book looks to be making a comeback. If that’s true then hooray!

It is too often I hear people saying that boys are reluctant readers, and asking what we can do about it? Well, given the choice they’ve faced over the last decade, I’m not entirely surprised. I was in a bookshop the other week and a teen, a boy, was asking for recommendations. The shop assistant had very little to offer him – he’d read the small number of general action/adventure series that were on display there, and he wasn’t interested in paranormal or dystopian. Well maybe, finally, the kind of books boys like him might like to read will get a look in now. Of course many other factors will play a part, but this is a beginning, a small kernel, which needs to be nurtured and developed.

To read the full report from the Publishers Weekly about the changing focus of agents and publishers in the US follow this link:

 Publishers Weekly

Here’s another link to an interesting US blog post with literary agents there about what they’d like to see landing on their desks:

Adventures in YA Publishing

Of course the most important thing in teen/YA writing, and actually in any writing, is the voice and the story, no matter what the genre. But it is good to hear that, at least across the Pond, agents and publishers are showing an interest in manuscripts across many different genres, which means that the contemporary stand-alone novel has more of a chance to get its voice heard and to find some shelf space in a bookshop or library.

Children’s Laureate Malorie Blackman’s work has been diverse, covering different genres, themes and age groups. She has initiated a YA convention to be held in London next year where she will be promoting Young Adult literature. It’s going to be held at the London Film and Comic Con at Earls Court in June 2014. The convention will include publishers and writers, workshops, signings, and talks. It sounds exciting and I’m looking forward to it. I hope it makes a difference.

So what are publishers and agents saying here in the UK where UKYA is on the up and up? I think it’s time to find out...

www.savitakalhan.com

@savitakalhan

Shameless - Savita Kalhan

The Long Weekend is my debut novel. When it was published I was disgustingly naive (I’ve blogged about this before). I had never spoken to another children’s author much less met one. I was utterly internet illiterate and didn’t have a clue about so many aspects of the publishing industry. I didn’t even know that book bloggers existed.

Over the last couple of years I’ve learnt so much. I wish I’d known all of it before my book had been published, but at least I’m better prepared for when the next one is published. My list of book bloggers and reviewers is ready. I have sourced where to get book marks made, and now that I’ve found an amazing director, I know where to go when I want the book trailer for the new book done.

Book trailers are supposed come out before the book. They’re supposed to promote your book, create awareness of it, and stick in people’s memories so that they remember to buy it.

Well, rather than wait for the next book to be published, I’ve just had a book trailer done for The Long Weekend. Why? Because I always wanted one for The Long Weekend, and although it has come out a considerable time after the book, it can still tick all the other boxes, which it has been doing.

My agent was very pleased when she learned of this. She said that publishers like it when the author takes a pro-active role in marketing their books. She is submitting my manuscript to various publishers and said she will definitely be including the link to the book trailer too.

My book trailer is directed by Mal Woolford – an exceptionally talented film director. You can watch some of his work on Vimeo. They are not suitable for children, so I won’t post the link here, but go and watch them if you get the chance. RedBlack is a personal favourite. I was confident that he could capture the mood and the feel of my book – and he did! He did his research, read my book a few times, sourced the music, discussed his ideas with me, and this is it -

Take a peek at the book trailer – it’s less than two minutes long. I’d love to hear what you think.

Banned Books - Savita Kalhan

Offending a vocal minority, or arguably even a hostile majority, in the areas of politics, religion and morality can result in your book finding itself on the banned list. Banned Books week, launched by the American Libraries Association, ALA, to celebrate the freedom to read and to highlight the dangers of book censorship, has just come to an end. When I read Anne Rooney’s piece, "Banned: The Hidden Censorship of Children’s Books", it all brought back memories of what it was like living in a society where 95% of published books were banned.

For most of us in the UK, it’s an alien concept. Yes, we know that in the distant past books have been banned here, but not in modern times. We’ve got used to the choice, knowing that if a book is out there, the librarian or bookseller only needs the ISBN number and, hey presto, the book will arrive in the library, or in the bookshop, or through your letterbox in a matter of days.

Imagine a place where there are no books, no fiction to speak of, no poetry, no comics, no magazines, unless they have been vetted and deemed suitable by the Ministry of Information. It’s a terrible vision, too awful to contemplate.

For several years I lived in a country where there were no public libraries to speak of and only one bookshop. It would be two or three years later before the second bookshop opened.

This was back in 1991. Most books were banned. You could pick up the work of a few lucky authors – but the choice was limited. I remember John Grisham being stocked, but I think the covers of his books were pretty uncontroversial. If you wanted to read a half-decent book you had to bring it in to the country yourself. And that was a tall order. You had to smuggle it in.

So, my once or twice yearly trip to the UK involved buying lots and lots of books, and when I went through a phase of reading fantasy epics, well, you can imagine the problems that that caused. The trilogy was out of favour. Several thick books in a series were common. Yes, it gave me headaches, and I hadn’t even got as far as thinking about how heavy my suitcases would end up, the excess baggage payment, or the sweaty-palmed dread as I walked towards customs at the other end.

I spent several years hiding books in the lining of my suitcases, folding them inside clothes and secreting them about my person, so having to wear the voluminous black abayas did have a use! It was no laughing matter. A few hundred pounds of books were hidden away in our bags, and so much more. To be caught red-handed meant the books would in all probability be confiscated. If you were lucky you would get some of them back. It really depended on the covers, the book title and the mood of the customs man. If he found some of your books and he wasn’t feeling magnanimous, they would be sent straight to the Ministry of Information, where they disappeared in a bureaucratic black-hole while you desperately applied for the books to be returned to you. To be caught meant being deprived of several months of reading and that was a horror that I didn’t want to contemplate. It was a situation that faced us each time we disembarked with our bags and headed towards customs.

We shared our books with our friends. It was the kids I felt sorry for. If they didn’t go to the International School, then there was nothing out there for them. We left just before my son was one. It was the same with the local television. There was a dubbed children’s programme that had been cut to such an extent that the original half hour programme barely lasted ten minutes. As soon as satellite television became available, people installed it as fast as possible and from then on no one watched the local television stations.

Almost twenty years later and I can say there has been a change for the better. There are quite a few bookshops now and they stock a wide variety of books from crime to classics, and instead of taking up a small corner at the back of a shop and the rest of it being devoted to stationery, books now take up half a floor or more. There is still no teen or young adult fiction, so teens there still have to make the leap from children’s fiction to adult – much the same as we did here thirty, forty years ago. And there is even a lovely bookshop for younger children. That’s real progress, but it has taken time and perseverance to achieve that state.

My son will be studying To Kill a Mockingbird at school this year, which if he was in a certain state in the US he would be denied. He’s twelve. This summer he read, amongst several other books, The Hunger Games trilogy, Killing God, and White Tiger, the latter falling firmly into adult fiction. He’s a wide reader. Lots of kids are. He also knows when he’d rather put a book down and leave it for another year or two. He uses his mind and tries to think for himself. He wouldn’t stand a chance in the bible-belt.

Take a look at the banned books of 2010, not banned in the UK of course:- http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/gallery/2010/sep/24/censorship-libraries#/?picture=367015209&index=9

So, why oh why would anyone want to slam doors shut when books are meant to open doors and open minds? One can only hope that over time, those people who like bashing the good book, will have their minds opened.
Go back to the days of censorship? Never.

(Apologies for the late posting! I got the day wrong...)

Fat/Thin in Teen/YA Savita Kalhan

Where is the dividing line between describing a character’s physical characteristics and stereotyping him or her? And should this be an issue for teen and young adult fiction?

Some children’s writers have commented that they don’t go into their characters’ physical descriptions to avoid saying fat, plump, skinny, thin etc, unless their book is addressing the issue of eating disorders. This is because apparently many more kids today suffer from eating disorders. That might well be true, I don’t know.

Perhaps I’m wrong, but I don’t see the “fat/thin issue” as being an issue in teen/young adult literature.

I’ve got an overweight boy in my current WIP. He’s black and he’s being bullied. It’s not the central theme of the book. I describe him as plump, but incidentally. Another character in my WIP is very skinny. Neither of them suffer from eating disorders. It’s just the way they are. Their weight is not an issue in the book and it’s not an integral part of the story. The overweight character is not bullied because he’s overweight. He’s not particularly lazy or greedy. The very skinny character is not anorexic. I could take out the descriptions but I’m reluctant to because they are relevant in our understanding of the characters and how we see them. Also because I don’t think I’m reinforcing any stereotype or somehow causing offense or upsetting younger more vulnerable readers.

When kids are under 10 they rarely notice things like the size and colour of their classmates – it’s almost never how they define them. That awareness comes in at some point in middle school and is definitely there by secondary school. Under 12s look for different things in fiction because they’re still seeing the world in a very different way. Yes, their outlook is far more innocent. By the time they reach their teens, their awareness of the distinctions that so pre-occupy adults has increased, and they are less innocent. So maybe as a writer for younger kids, the line between describing a character and reinforcing a stereotype is closer.

One of the commentators on the blog last week was a teen who said she quite liked reading about spotty teens because she was a spotty teen. Reading about spotty characters didn’t give her a complex about being spotty or make her feel that she was being singled out as a stereotype. Reading about an overweight teen does not equal lazy teen or bullied teen or greedy teen. A skinny teen does not equal anorexia or bulimia or body image paranoid teen.

The world is populated by all sorts of different people who are all sorts of different sizes and all sorts of different colours. Describing a physical attribute is not the same as pigeonholing that physical attribute with a way of being treated or viewed by people.

I guess stereotyping people should be avoided, but not to the extent where writers become afraid of describing how they look and who they are.


www.savitakalhan.com
Twitter @savitakalhan

Training or Assault? - Savita Kalhan

“Select your instrument according to the child’s size,” writes Pearl. “For the under one year old, a little, ten to twelve-inch long, willowy branch (stripped of any knots that might break the skin) about one-eighth inch diameter is sufficient. Sometimes alternatives have to be sought. A one-foot ruler, or its equivalent in a paddle, is a sufficient alternative. For the larger child, a belt or larger tree branch is effective.”

Additional advice from their Web site: Switching with a length of quarter-inch plumbing supply line is a “real attention-getter.”

When you are spanking your child and she cries and is upset about it, Michael Pearl says this:
“When she screams or flees, calmly follow through by physically subduing her. Sit on her, if you have to, and slowly explain that you will not tolerate this resistance. Explain in a normal tone (She will eventually stop screaming and listen) that you are going to give her, say, five licks for the original offense and an additional two licks for the fit. Slowly apply the five licks, counting out loud. When I say slowly, I mean with a thirty second gap between each lick and a calm explanation to the screaming child that you are not the least impressed except that you are going to spank harder and she still gets the additional two licks plus one more for her ongoing screaming. When you have finally arrived at five well- anticipated and carefully counted licks, say, “OK, your spanking is over; that is the five licks you got for hitting your brother, but now I must give you two more for trying to run away.” Give her one lick and say, “Now, that is one of the licks for running away; you have one more coming.” Give the second lick, and then calmly and slowly explain that all her licks are over now, except for the one additional lick she incurred for continuing to scream during the spanking. After you have finished, tell her that you are going to let her up now, if she stops screaming, otherwise you are going to give her one additional lick. If she stops, or at least makes a great effort to, then you have won. You may never have to go through this horrible time again. But, if she is continuing to scream in defiance, you have the option of continuing to warn and spank, or of ceasing here with a parting warning: “Next time you better not run and throw a fit; for if you do, you will only get more licks and harder ones.”

This is an excerpt from a book called To Train Up a Child by Michael and Debi Pearl, as reported by Child Abuse Australia. The book is published by the authors’ ministry – No Greater Joy.

In New Zealand, where there is an anti-smacking law, they are considering whether to ban this book. In the UK it is illegal to smack a child with an implement. In the past I’ve blogged about banning books and my view has always been that books should never be banned. But are there certain books that should qualify for a ban, or at least come with a warning?

Apparently the five children of the authors of To Train Up a Child were all home-schooled and are now well-adjusted adults with families of their own. But the book has been linked to cases of child abuse and even to the deaths of a few children. In each case the advice the Pearls give on “child-training” was followed by parents who were struggling to raise their children and sought advice through their Church networks. This was the book that was handed to them, this was their manual. It’s available for free on an online Christian website, and you can buy it for £4.19 on Amazon.co.uk.

Worryingly, it is particularly popular with evangelical home-schoolers. Michael Pearl’s sole credentials on child training, as he puts it, is raising five children. He and his wife Debi quote that the Bible and common sense are the foundations for effective parenting.

This is a huge topic and I have barely touched upon it here. (Blame my rotten cold!)
I only heard about this book recently through Twitter, but I find the idea of a book that promotes violence to very young children horrifying and frightening, and I wonder what you all make of this...

Doubt - Savita Kalhan

The definition of doubt, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is a feeling of uncertainty or lack of conviction. It also defines my frame of mind at the moment, and the problem with that is that while a certain amount of it is very good when writing, too much of it is very, very bad. It’s inhibiting, and for a while it has been paralysing. It has affected my confidence in my ability to write, and my self-belief was shot. Words were written and then scrubbed. More words were written, and then rewritten to be scrubbed again and then not written at all. I got to the point where I seriously didn’t think I could write anymore.

Somehow, despite the doubts of the past year, an ending to my WIP was reached and written. That’s when the doubt sneakily crept back in and I decide to write an alternative ending. Which ending was the right ending? I didn’t know and couldn’t decide.

Was the ending the problem or was it the book itself?

Now I’m back at the beginning of the current WIP because having read it through, I wasn’t happy. It wasn’t working, the voice was lost. I tried rewriting the book, making it sharper, more immediate, but still it wasn’t working.

Was it time to shelve it and walk away? Well, I did for a while.

With the end of the summer looming, I managed to push all the doubts aside, and by now there were very many of them, and started again. It hit me straight away. I was writing the book in the ‘wrong’ person. I rewrote the first few chapters quickly, setting the ‘I’ aside for the third person, and I think it’s working. It’s got to be done quickly, before I change my mind, before I let the doubts creep back in.

I’ve been wrestling with the question of why I’ve been experiencing so many doubts this year for a while now. Writing is a solitary occupation; there are lots of rewards, few of them financial, and lots of knocks, which I’ve weathered as best I can. But recently I’ve been wondering whether it’s the right occupation for me. The problem is that there isn’t anything else that I’d rather do. So I’m writing again. And hoping and working towards being published again. I’m persevering, another word which, like doubt, I’d rather scrub from the dictionary.

I was going to write a nice little post on Dr. Seuss, which would have been far more uplifting, interesting and fun. So when I find the right frame of mind, that’s what I’ll write - next time.

 

www.savitakalhan.com

Twitter @savitakalhan

 

The Formidable SAS

by Savita Kalhan

My first novel, The Long Weekend, was published in October 2008, the contract with my publisher signed almost a year before the publication date. I had no idea then that it took as long as that from signing a contract to seeing my book on the shelf of my local bookshop. I found out later that it could often take much longer than that. That’s just one example of my complete naivety at the time. I stumbled through an alien quagmire of contracts, edits, proof-reading, strap-lines, tag-lines, blurbs, AI sheets, and so many other mysterious things most of which I had never heard of and didn’t know if I had a say in. My agent was good and experienced, but, still, I would have loved to have been able to run a couple of things past another published children’s writer. I had no peer-group support network whatsoever. Even though I had been writing for a number of years, I had not been bold enough to call myself a writer until I was told the publication date for my book. So I was a writer in isolation, and I felt it keenly.

One January, in 2010, I was looking at some writers’ websites, surfing and browsing, and letting the double-click take me where it willed. I had become a little more au fait with the internet and even gone as far as setting up a Facebook and Twitter account, which I had yet to do much with, when I stumbled by pure chance on something called the Scattered Authors’ Society, the SAS. It took me a while to find out what it was. Every time I put SAS into the search engine, you can guess what came up. I knew it wasn’t any of the offerings Google presented me with but a very different elite, crack group. I persevered. I found their entry on page five of my Google search.

I was amazed and excited. I wondered what the criteria was for joining the ‘other’ SAS, and whether they would accept someone like me. On February 8th I contacted Damian Harvey expressing an interest in the SAS and requesting more information about what it was and how to become part of it. This is a small section of what he sent back to me:

What is the SAS?
In 1998 a few children’s authors got together to form a self help group. We had been writing for children and teenagers for a number of years and were experiencing feelings of isolation.

We decided to seek each other out. We advertised and were contacted by about thirty writers who were keen to meet and talk.

We organized a number of lunches across the country. These were purely social events but writers got a chance to talk to others about similar problems; agents, publishers, deadlines, new technology, working routines etc. We had a residential weekend where we had discussions about the world of publishing and the business of being a writer for children. We found shared problems and possible strategies for overcoming them. We gained much needed information from each other. We found working contacts and friends.

I thought – WOW! I had no idea anything like this existed. I had, of course, heard of the Society of Authors, but hadn’t yet sent my application to them, and that was about it. The SAS sounded too good to be true. Damian went on to tell me about the internet chat facility where I could pose questions, queries, share thoughts and ideas, and he also told me about the Awfully Big Blog Adventure, which I started reading every day. I joined the SAS, and within days my name and details were up on the SAS website, and sent out to all SAS members. Within a week I had an email from a local author who had read the new member memo and wondered if I would like to meet for coffee. That was Miriam Halahmy. Within a few months, we tentatively decided to think about forming a local Children’s Authors’ Roadshow, (CAR) and met with a few other authors.

At our next meeting there will be ten children’s writers, poets and illustrators, all interested in talking and perhaps doing a number of different events together. Even if it turns out that we do very little together as a group, the benefits will still have been enormous. We’ve met, shared experiences, shared our books, exchanged ideas, and perhaps forged a few friendships.

Within a few months of joining the SAS, I trepidatiously (my favourite made-up word!) put my name up to do a monthly blog for The Awfully Big Blog Adventure. I had never done a blog, was still not internet savvy, and wondered what I would write about, if I would have enough to say, what other Sassies would make of it, and of me. Now three months on since my first blog, and having done a few, I know I was worrying unnecessarily. Some idea about what to write about has always materialised at the time. The blog is sub-headed “the ramblings of a few scattered authors,” and that’s exactly what it is.

I sent the link to the English teachers who asked their pupils in Year Seven and Year Five for their top reads for my blog in July. The teachers had never heard of it, but were very interested in anything that might be a valuable resource for them and of interest to their pupils. I sent the link to the librarians and schools in south London when I wrote my first blog about the Fabulous Book Award, which The Long Weekend was shortlisted for. They had never heard of it either, but again were very interested. They wanted to read the ramblings of a few scattered authors, and why wouldn’t they? They had read and admired/promoted many of those authors’ books over the years.

The Awfully Big Blog Adventure is a precious thing and far more than “the ramblings of a few scattered authors”. I look forward to its continued development and hope that ultimately it reaches a far wider audience, which it deserves, which we all deserve, but also hope that it retains the essential “rambling” quality that makes it so unique.

I wholeheartedly thank the few writers who met in 1998 and set up the marvellous SAS, and I wish I had known about the group before January 2010. There were many things I could have asked for advice on – how to do a successful book launch, how important the pre-publication and post-publication time is, how to get book reviews and when you have them, how to use them effectively, how to promote my book and give it exposure so that it doesn’t get lost in the time tunnel, so many things that perhaps a long time ago the publisher would have taken care of for you or advised you on, but which is now left in the hands of the author. I wish I had known...

Now I am part of the SAS. I know where to go if I need advice or need to grumble about the essence and pitfalls of being a writer. I know someone will listen, I know someone will help if they can, and I know I’m no longer a writer in isolation. And let’s face it, in today’s environment the business of being a children’s writer needs all the help it can get.

The Long Weekend by Savita Kalhan
www.savitakalhan.com

In the beginning... by Savita Kalhan

The opening few lines of a book are probably the most important the writer writes. They represent the key to the door, the invitation for the reader to step through and enter the story. Openings are the hook. Obviously the rest of the story must live up to the opening, but without the hook of the beginning, the rest of the story might not get a look in.

Opening lines may set the scene, the tone, the style, the action; they are a unique hook individual to the author, and running through them will be the voice that defines the author – and if you like that author’s voice you come back for more, for more stories by that author. As a reader, if I love one book by a particular writer, I’ll want to read everything else by that writer. “...there's one thing I'm sure about. An opening line should invite the reader to begin the story. It should say: Listen. Come in here. You want to know about this.” Stephen King

I have an odd habit of writing opening lines, opening paragraphs, and occasionally opening chapters. I’ll work on them when I’m in between books and projects, rewriting them, refining them; I’ll add to the collection too if I’m feeling inspired. I’ve got a whole file of them, full of ideas for stories in a variety of genres, full of characters and a world of voices. I’ll use some of them in creative writing workshops, allowing the pupils to choose an opening paragraph to continue a story. Often I’ll use them myself. I’ve been doing it for a long time. It’s the way I find my next book, the next voice. Having them on the back burner feels very much like having a safety blanket. I don’t really plot a book, I’m not a plotter but a panster, who lets the opening paragraph take me on a journey. The back burner simmers away until one of the openings reaches out and grabs me, ripe and ready to become something more. I used to think that this habit was peculiar to me, until I talked to a few other writers, and recently I read that Stephen King agonises over his opening lines. So maybe I’m not that odd after all! I bet many other writers share the agony over the opening lines... 

Here are a couple of mine: “It’s tough being the new kid, but when you’re not the only one it’s not so bad. The problem was Sam was always the new kid and always the only one...” The Long Weekend 
“I sat staring into space. It was empty, the way space should be, vast, endless, and empty. Except it wasn’t vast and endless. There were four walls and a small window. I was lucky to have a cell with a window...” The Poet, A short story. 

 Here are just a few of my favourite opening lines:
 “Once upon a time...” 
 “Kidnapping children is never a good idea; all the same, sometimes it has to be done...” Island of the Aunts by Eva Ibbotson 
 “There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife.” The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman 
 “Where’s Papa going with that ax?” Charlotte’s Web by E B White 
 “If you’re interested in stories with happy endings, you’d be better off reading some other book.” The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket. 
 “Against the white cliffs, the girl in the red dress was as vivid as a drop of blood.” Cruel Summer by James Dawson. 
 “They come to kill me early in the morning. At 6 am when the sky is pink and misty grey, the seagulls are crying overhead and the beach is empty.” Almost True by Keren David 
 “When Ben got home from school, he found something good, something bad and something worse...” The Catkin by Nick Green 
 “My life might have been so different had I not been known as the girl whose grandmother exploded...” The Vanishing of Katherina Linden by Helen Grant 

Here’s a link to a fun first lines quiz from The Guardian to mull over while you’re having a break: http://www.theguardian.com/books/quiz/2010/mar/24/first-lines-quiz

 What are your favourite first lines?

 www.savitakalhan.com Twitter @savitakalhan

The Short Story Tradition Savita Kalhan

The recent announcement by BBC Radio 4 that the short story slots were being cut was met by an outcry by writers and listeners alike. The new controller, Gwyneth Williams, intended to axe them in order to make room for more news, specifically a longer World at One programme. She felt that the programme wasn’t long enough. In her words, “Stories now develop faster and need a fresh eye by lunchtime. Parliament sits in the morning now and WATO needs to cover emerging issues." Many people disagreed with her. Yes, current affairs are important, but is fifteen minutes every other day too much for a small slice of fiction?

A campaign began to save the short story slots. A petition was started and signed by almost 6,000 people the last time I checked. To sign – No More Short Story Cuts - please follow the link below.
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/noshortstorycuts/

The campaign has already helped bring about a small U-turn. Radio 4 have said they will keep two short story slots instead of one.

Short stories suited radio, and Radio 4 championed them for many years. But why is the short story so suited to radio?

Maybe because the short story has its roots in oral tradition. Long, long ago, short stories were told before they were read aloud. They had their origins in fables and anecdotes in many cultures across the world. But the same is true of the intervening years and it’s even true of the present day. The short story has been around since before Aesop. Chaucer wrote a linked collection, The Canterbury Tales. The short story covers every genre from crime to science fiction, and every age group from toddlers to adults.

If you’re lucky to have had parents who read aloud to you as a child, you will probably have been read short stories, and before that stories told from pictures. In school you will have been taught how to write compositions for English exams. They were basically short stories. As you got older, those short stories may have become longer.

For me, listening to a short story on the radio is an oasis in the day. I won’t know where I will be taken or how far it will take me, or how much I will enjoy it, or become involved in it. But I know the voice in the story will transport me to a very different place, to a different experience, and that is something I look forward to.

I wasn’t one of the lucky ones whose parents read to them as a young child because my mother was illiterate, but, like generations before her, she retold the stories that had been handed down to her by word of mouth...

5 Year Seven and Year Five Top Reads (not!) - Savita Kalhan

Originally, when I first thought of the subject matter for my blog for this July’s FIVE theme I was going to pick two children: a Year Seven and a Year Five, and ask them for their top five reads of the year, and then discuss the books on their list. Then I got to thinking. How much more interesting would it be to see what whole classes of kids were reading and recommending?

A teacher at a local school kindly asked fifty pupils in Year Seven their recommended read of the year. Another teacher did the same for me with classes of Year Five kids. The results are interesting to say the least. I assumed, wrongly as it turned out, that there would be fewer books, hoping perhaps for five or so that would make this special July’s blog easier to write, or for five particular titles that would come to the fore as the most popular amongst the year groups.

As you can guess that was not quite the case, and I’m glad about that. The books the Year Sevens and Year Fives recommended were varied and wide-ranging. I ended up with a list of a hundred books, which did not easily fit into this month’s theme, but which I hope you will find to be far more interesting to look at.

With some thought, I could have made the titles fit into five distinct genres. However, I dislike classifying books in such a way for any reason, partly because my book was described as a ‘horror’ and for me horror meant Stephen King or Darran Shan, and that label doesn’t adequately describe my work, and partly because I would be doing it for the sole purpose of making it fit July’s FIVE theme.

Also, I’m not scientifically minded enough to make books fit into an all encompassing genre, or to slot the books into the type of list so loved by the publicity and marketing arms of publishing houses. Each of the books below are unique, as are the stories they tell, the vivid worlds they bring to life and the array of characters that inhabit them, and it’s not for me to play God. Kids know this and as you can see from their selections, they are not afraid to venture into them.

This is a list of all the books that were recommended by the kids and if anyone out there would like to have a go at organising the books into categories, then please feel free. I have very simply put them into the girls’ list and the boys’ list.

From the vast array and variety of stories here, I think one thing is clear – kids are reading, and that’s something to be celebrated. It’s good to see that the list is so wide-ranging - from Jacqueline Wilson to J D Salinger. It’s also wonderful to see how their tastes expand and mature within two years. On the other hand, and somewhat to my surprise, there is a marked absence of children’s classics on the list.

Here are the books recommended by Year Seven and Year Five kids. If the book is picked by more than one kid the number in the brackets indicates how many kids chose it.



Year Seven Girls
The Lovely Bones – Alice Seabold
Cookie – Jacqueline Wilson
Monsoon Summer – Mitali Perkins
My Family and Other Animals – Gerald Durrell
Mill on the Floss – George Elliot
Small Steps – Louis Sachar
Checkmate – Malorie Blackman
Goodnight Mr. Tom – Michelle Magorian
The Outsiders - S E Hinton
Noughts and Crosses – Malorie Blackman (2)
Checkmate – Malorie Blackman
Series of Unfortunate Events – Lemony Snicket (2)
Cherub – Robert Muchamore
Lovely Bones – Alice Seabold
Twilight series – Stephanie Meyer (3)
Alone on a Wide, Wide Sea – Michael Morpurgo
Born to Run – Michael Morpugo
Girl Missing – Sophie McKenzie

Year Seven Boys
Storm Runners – Barbara Mitchelhill
Striker Boy – Jonny Zucker
Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters
The Red Pyramid – Rick Riordan
Catcher in the Rye – J D Salinger
Beast – Donna Jo Napoli and Rafal Olbinksi
Brisinger – Christopher Paolini
The Changeling series – Steve Feasey
Bobby Pendragon: The soldiers of Halla – D J McHale
To Kill a Mocking Bird – Harper Lee
Treasure Island – Robert Loius Stevenson
The Airman – Eoin Colfer
Time Riders – Eoin Colfer
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince – J K Rowling
The Thin Executioner – Darren Shan
Crocodile Tears – Antony Horowitz
The Knife of Never Letting Go – Patrick Ness
Shakespeare’s Stories – Usborne
Eldest – Christopher Paolini
Born to Run – Micheal Morpugo
Half Moon Investigations – Eoin Colfer
Dead Man Running – Ross Coulthart and Duncan McNab
The Enemy – Charlie Higson
Wolf Brother Series – Michel Paver (2)
I Coriander – Sally Gardiner
I’m Not Scared – Niccolo Ammaniti


Year 5 Girls
The 13 Curses – Michelle Harrison
Harry Potter series – J K Rowling(3)
Diary of a Wimpy Kid – Jeff Kinney(3)
Candyfloss – Jacqueline Wilson(2)
Famous Five on Fininston Farm – Enid Blyton
The 6th at St Clares – Enid Blyton
Dork Diaries - Rachel Renee Russel
Eclipse – Stephanie Meyer
Twilight – Stephanie Meyer
Captain Underpants – Dav Pilkey
The Monster Story Teller – Jacqueline Wilson
The Outlaw Varjak Paw – S F Said
Double Decker – Jacqueline Wilson
The Big Pig Book – Dick King-Smith
My Sister Jodie – Jacqueline Wilson
Cookie Fortune – Jacqueline Wilson
The Cat Mummy – Jacqueline Wilson
Bed and Breakfast Star – Jacqueline Wilson
Midnight- Jacqueline Wilson
The Suitcase Kid – Jacqueline Wilson
Clementine – Sara Pennypacker

Year 5 Boys
The Baker Street Boys – Anthony Read
Diary of a Wimpy Kid – Jeff Kinney(6)
Horrid Henry and the Mega Mean Time Machine – Francesca Simon
Harry Potter series – J K Rowling(3)
The Boy Who Lost His Face – Louis Sachar
Skullduggery Pleasant – Derek Landy(4)
The 39 Clues series – various
Little Dog and Big Dog Visit the Moon – Selina Young
Boy – Roald Dahl
A Hat Full of Sky – Terry Pratchett
Wee Free Men – Terry Pratchett
Wintersmith - Terry Pratchett
How to Train Your Dragon Cressida Cowell
Percy Jackson series – Rick Riordan



I would like to thank Mr. Russo at Belmont School for the Year Seven list, and Mr. Hyde and Mrs. Horseman at Moss Hall School for the Year Five list. I would also like to thank them for all they do in promoting a love of reading amongst children.

Savita Kalhan
www.savitakalhan.com

The Long Weekend plus Hidden - Savita Kalhan and Miriam Halahmy

A Risky Business Savita Kalhan

You’ve written a book that you think is good. Everyone you give it to thinks it’s good too. Your agent loves it. The publishers love it. So why is there a problem?

Unless you are an established children’s writer there are places that you cannot go because the risk is deemed to be too great. I write dark, edgy fiction for teens. With my first book, The Long Weekend, I went to the edge, but not over it because I write for teenagers, yet I recall some publishers asking for it to be turned into a simple story about two boys being kidnapped for a ransom. They wanted what made the book edgy and unnerving, and dark, removed from it. But it would have left the book soulless, so I kept it the way I wanted to keep it and waited for an editor who was willing to take a risk on it. I was lucky and found one.

So I went on to writing the next book, and yes, it is darker and edgier, and, in the words of one publisher ‘Powerfully written’. But far too risky. The perpetrator of the crime is from an Asian background, so is the main character, the victim. Maybe if neither of them were the book may have stood a better chance...

So I wrote the next book, and when it was finished and submitted, and the powers that be quote how good the first published novel was, and how dark and powerful the second, rejected, manuscript was, I wonder whether they will say that this one is a very good book, well written, great story, but isn’t dark enough or edgy enough. What do you do? (apart from tear your hair out!)

You move onto writing the book after that.

There comes a time when you sit back and wonder: What exactly is it that publishers want? Will that change? Does it change all the time?

There are lots of teens out there who scour the bookshops for books without magic, sorcery, vampires, demons and zombies. Honestly, there really are. They want edgier, more real fiction and there is space for choice if whole sections of bookshops weren’t devoted to black and red covers. It’s a shame their voices aren’t being heard because the books they want have already been written for them...

Dark and edgy is all the rage, vampires have had their say, so you would think dark edgy contemporary realism would have more of a chance. And it does. But just not if it’s too dark and too edgy...

Thinking Space by Savita Kalhan

In the middle of May I received a call from the local allotment secretary. A space had come up and I was next on the waiting list. Did I still want one? My first reaction was to say: No thank you. I really don’t have time for it anymore.

This past year I’ve had very little spare time because I discovered the internet, bloggers and blogging, twitter and face book, and saw with open-mouthed shock exactly what I should have been doing even before my book had come out. I had absolutely no idea. I had purposefully never worked on a computer that was hooked up to the internet, and I suddenly realised what a mistake it had been.

I immediately hooked my laptop up to the internet, discovered the SAS in January 2010 and began digging my head out of the sand.

I hurled myself into the fray and bloggers started reviewing my book, not put off by the fact that it had been out for a long while, and I was interviewed so many times I think every morsel of my life, likes and dislikes, even down to my favourite sweets when I was a kid, is on the internet, which is just a little bit scary! But I carried on at break-neck speed, giving The Long Weekend my all.

I got fed up of dragging the laptop around everywhere and got myself an iPhone – it soon became my co-conspirator, making it easy for me never to miss anything...and never to switch off. Ever. Spare time didn’t exist anymore because I had to keep abreast of everything, comment on everything, make myself known as a children’s writer. It became a habit, one that I was finding hard to wean myself off. After the two blog tours, which did require lots of publicising etc, were over, I was still on the internet, afraid that I might miss something important.

Was it worth it? Yes. Definitely. But I lost a sense of balance.

So when the allotment secretary rang me, no is not what actually came out of my mouth. I’ve been on the waiting list for a few years now and if I didn’t take up the offer now, who knew when another space might come up? This one came up because a 93 year old had decided that it was getting a bit too much for him to manage! The allotments are next to the woods behind my house, less than a minute away...

So I said yes, I’d love it, thank you!

I’ve worked my bit of land for the past few weeks, preparing it for sowing all the wonderful veg and salad we eat the most. I inherited blackcurrant, redcurrant and raspberry bushes and only needed to add some strawberries to the fruit collection. As I’ve been working down there, I’ve realised that I cannot hear my phone ringing, I’ve never once checked my emails, and the only tweeting going on is that of the birds, although I think the parakeets and woodpeckers turn their noses up at tweeting. And whether it’s for half an hour, an hour or all afternoon, I get to switch off from the whole world, allow my brain to wander aimlessly where it will, and finally it’s thinking stories again, ideas and characters are reappearing, opening paragraphs for possible future work are being written. It’s bliss.
I hope I’m on the road to achieving some equilibrium between my chosen profession and the rest of my life.

How about you?

Four Children’s Laureates Savita Kalhan

Early on Saturday morning we drove up to Oxford for the Children’s Laureates Event at the Sheldonian, which launched the Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival children’s programme. Four children’s laureates were present; the current Laureate, the illustrator Anthony Browne, and three ex-Laureates: Anne Fine, Jacqueline Wilson, and Michael Rosen. They each shared the initiatives that they brought to the role and took into schools during their two year tenure. They also talked about their childhood love of books and reading, what had inspired them to become writers, and the books that had had an impact on them as they were growing up.

Anthony Browne talked about how kids these days were moving on from picture books to reading books far too quickly. He devised the very cool Shape Game and then discovered that the game had been around for a long time and played across the world. His aim has been to introduce it more widely into schools across the UK. His hope is to encourage more parents to read picture books with their children, appreciate together the art that exists within them and that magical gap between picture and text. He firmly believes it fosters a great bond between parents and children too.

Jacqueline Wilson, undeterred by her stinking cold and cough, talked about her council estate background, which she said her mother would want to describe as a ‘cut above the average council estate’, and allowing her imagination to escape into books. She once found a book that featured ‘real kids in ragged clothes’ and shared her excitement at the discovery that children’s literature didn’t have to be all about middle-class kids! She shared a fond memory of her dad, who had never read to her until then, reading Enid Blyton to her when she was ill. She wrote her first novel, all 22 pages of it, at the age of 9.

Anne Fine was so ahead in school at 7 that instead of being required to join a class two years ahead of her age, she was granted a year’s sabbatical, which she spent reading in a room full of glass-fronted bookcases! Whilst she was Laureate she encouraged children’s reading and raised the profile of libraries. (Why are libraries always under threat when it’s clear what an important role they play in everyone’s life?)

Michael Rosen was amazing – funny, witty, honest, and engaging, just like his poems and stories. He shared lots of snippets from his childhood: about how his older brother taught him to read using the unconventional method of making him memorise long lists of words, about how their dad used to read aloud from Great Expectations on every camping trip, about how his teacher used to read a chapter from a book every Friday and then, despite their pleas for him to read the next chapter and knowing the book was not yet in the library, making them wait a whole week before reading it, leaving them to champ at the bit.

The Laureates also talked about what made them readers and makers of books. What unified them was their appreciation of books from a very young age – whether it was through teachers and school, through their parents , or through school libraries or local libraries. They loved books, they loved being read to when they were young, and they loved reading. This is essentially what they spent their term as Laureates promoting in schools.

Their collective enthusiasm was inspiring for all the kids and adults present that morning. But they were speaking to the converted. The next Children’s Laureate will be announced in June, and if the last five Children’s Laureates are anything to go by, he or she promises to bring their own special touch to the role. But we increasingly live in a world where for children the simple pleasures of reading and being read to now compete with a whole host of obstacles ranging from modern technology to library cuts. While some kids are lucky enough to have had their parents reading to them throughout their early childhood, so many more are not so fortunate. In the end school is where children are required to spend the majority of their day, and it is there that the love of reading and of children’s literature can be championed best.

My Library and Me - Savita Kalhan

Libraries are under threat and there has been a huge outcry against cuts and closures that span the whole of the United Kingdom. And rightly so. Libraries are precious and should be placed under a protection order.
You will all have read or written many articles and blogs about the intrinsic importance of libraries and what they mean and what they provide for the individual, for children, for adults, for the disadvantaged, for society in general.
This is what they meant to me when I was a child.
I came to live in England with my parents when I was 11 months old. My father was an educated man – he spoke and wrote Hindi, Urdu and English, but was forced to leave school much earlier than he would have liked in order to help his parents. My mother never went to school. She was put to work when very young and although all her younger sisters went to school, she missed her chance and by twelve it was too late for her. She speaks only Punjabi, but can understand some Hindi, mainly learnt from films. She was brought up in a village, so as a child her experiences were limited, her knowledge of the world severely restricted.
My parents worked very hard. Our family grew, and we were raised in a very traditional environment. We had to work hard at school and at home. And we weren’t allowed to go out at all. Except to one place – the library.
Both my parents were in complete agreement about this. My father because he wanted us to do well, excel in school and in our studies, make something of ourselves. Even though he was in many respects a traditional Punjabi man, he never considered himself saddled with five daughters. He expected as much from us as if we were boys. And my mother because of her reverence for books. She couldn’t read them herself, but for her they were the source of wisdom, knowledge and understanding, and therefore the means to escape from poverty and derision. She held them in awe and respect. We were never allowed to put books on the floor, or anywhere they might get damaged.
We couldn’t afford to buy any books. So we joined our local library.

Wycombe Library - the grand opening in 1932!

Wycombe Library when I joined it

The brand new Wycombe Library in the Eden Centre and the fantastic Children's Library

As much as school, our library provided us with knowledge, but also a wealth of entertainment and pleasure – I think we always maxxed out our library cards with the number of books allowed to be taken out in one go. It was also to become our sanctuary and refuge through some very difficult and troubled times.
I do not think I would be the person I am today without them.
I would in all probability be trapped within the confines of a small-town Asian community in England, having succumbed to a traditional arranged marriage. It almost happened, but I fought it and escaped that fate by the skin of my teeth, but escape I did because although we were never allowed out while we were growing up, my horizons had been broadened exponentially by everything I had read and learnt and discovered – and it gave me a voice.
For many people, adults and children alike, the library still means as much, and so much more.

More library information:
Campaign for the Book http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=43030635058

Alan Gibbons website http://www.alangibbons.net/

ABBA blog guest post ‘What my Library Means to Me’ by Shamila Akhtar, Friday February 22nd:
http://awfullybigblogadventure.blogspot.com/2011/02/something-children-love-and-need.html
Fight for Libraries Campaign from The Bookseller http://www.facebook.com/pages/Fight-For-Libraries-campaign-from-The-Bookseller/134767896588119
Voices for the Library http://www.facebook.com/voicesforthelibrary
On Twitter – write your tweet and add this - #savelibraries. Or use it to search tweets about saving libraries.

Bucks Libraries haven’t escaped the dreaded cuts either. Some libraries may have to close unless run by volunteers, and they also face a 10% cut in opening hours. It’s a treacherously slippery slope. More information on the Friends of High Wycombe Libraries here http://www.fohwl.plus.com/

I will undoubtedly have missed some important links in my haste to get this post up on time! If any kind person wishes to add any I have missed, please do so in the comments.

Donning Hats and Juggling Acts Savita Kalhan

Why write if it's not to be read?

I’ve been writing for a number of years, almost solely for teens, and so far I’ve had one book published. I’ve written several books, and I have ideas for several more. In my last blog I talked about my need to start on a new book each Autumn. It’s now January and yes, I am deep into my new story and loving the main character, although I’m not sure the main character loves me for what I’m putting her through! Regardless, I’m writing and I know I’ll continue writing until the book is finished when I’ll read it through and edit it, and agonise over it before sending it off to my agent, who will cast her critical eye on it and deliver her judgment, and if it’s a positive one it will get sent off to the publisher who will do the same etc, etc...

But this is just one aspect of being a writer – of intrinsic importance, of course, and you can’t call yourself a writer unless you are prepared to go through all of the above – there are other aspects that might be perilous to ignore.

To be a successful writer these days, several other hats should be donned once the writing has been done. The same is true even to be a moderately successful writer. There was a time when writers did not have to don any other hats – there were people who did that for them. These hats include upping your profile, trying to get (hopefully rave, but no guarantees!) reviews – online and in the press, making sure everyone, including the right people know about them, doing signings, visiting schools, blogging about your new book, blogging about yourself, being active on twitter and facebook, getting interviewed, networking, courting bloggers and librarians, speaking at conferences, and finding as many platforms for yourself and your book as possible. (Even Margaret Atwood maintains an active Twitter profile)

Creating a bit of a buzz for your book is important. The books that find their way onto all the shortlists and often win prizes haven’t got there all by themselves, unless their authors have been extremely lucky. The writers have been doing all the above and more to ensure their book’s success.

Not as many people read my first novel, The Long Weekend, as I would have liked. There are so many factors that contributed to that. I’m putting my hand up and saying that one of those factors was my naivety as a newly published author. No one knew about my book and as I wasn’t shouting it from the rooftops or even holding it up for people to see, things stayed that way. I didn’t know about all the other hats I needed to wear if I wanted my book to reach its readers, I just assumed that others were donning them for me. Consequently my book was only in a few book shops and found by very few readers.

Now I know what I have to do and I have been trying to do that, if somewhat belatedly. I still can’t wear all the hats I’d like to wear, but that’s okay. Some hats are easier to wear than others and are less time-consuming, so I try to wear those. I know I need time to write and to have a life outside of writing! So one of the things I decided to do was to promote my book on the internet, and that’s where I found those wonderful book bloggers from around the world. Luckily for me, book bloggers don’t mind at all that a book has been out for a while because what they love doing is reading good books, and they’re more than happy to review them, and if they like the book they rave about it. They are avid book readers and they’ve built up reputations and followers who want book recommendations.

They love my book, and this has led to a blog tour across the States and Canada in February.
http://theteenbookscene.weebly.com/the-long-weekend-tour-details.html

Followed by another blog tour in March, details to be announced here in February:
http://www.iswimforoceans.com/

More people will get to hear about my book and hopefully more people will read it. Finally, my book is reaching its readers.
I haven’t got a new book coming out – yet. But when I do, I won’t be making the same mistakes as I did when my first book came out.

I don’t think I’ve got my head buried in the sand anymore, although I’ve still got a few stubborn grains of sand in my ears. I’ve learnt an important lesson this past year - I know what I should be doing, I know how much I am comfortable doing, and I’m learning how much I want to do and how much I can fit in. I’m finding a balance that works for me.

And, yes, I guess in the end I do write because I want to be read.