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.

I should be writing! What stops you getting words onto the page? -- Linda Strachan

How often have you started something that isn't your 'work in progress', and thought... I should be writing?

There are so many things that get in the way of doing the one thing that I want to be doing - that is, spending time with my characters, getting the words written, editing and working them up, living in the story - and yet I find it is often the last thing on the list of urgent things to do.



Time ticks by relentlessly.  I find it is even worse when I don't actually have a specific deadline. Deadlines focus my mind and grab my attention! without them it is easy to look up and find another hour, morning, or whole day has gone by. 


Yet here I am writing a blog.... or updating my website... or facebook... or twitter... or answering and writing emails.....




 ... or travelling around the country, visiting schools, talking about writing, running writing workshops, and there is also the time spent in the organising and planning that all these things require.

Going for walks, definitely something to be recommended, and it is thinking time .... if I am on my own!

Doubtful Sound - New Zealand

Holidays and travelling add to that toolbox of images and textures that add tremendously to your writing.....

Friends and family also make up an important part of my life and those are definitely times to be treasured.

These interactions also add to the understanding of the emotions and difficulties life throws at people, that any writer needs to create real and interesting characters.

But while doing all these other things, part of me is longing to get back into Tuscany (my shed) and close the door on the world. I want to get back to working on the book, getting into my characters' lives, and finding out what they have been doing while I've been away!

 Don't get me wrong I love all the people and the varied things that make up my life but sometimes I think... I really should be writing. So I'm not here, now. No excuses.  I'm off out there.. writing!

What takes you from your writing?





------------------------------------------------------




Linda Strachan is the author of over 60 books for all ages from picture books to teenage novels and a writing handbook   Writing For Children 
Her latest YA novel is Don't Judge Me  

Patron of Reading to Liberton High School, Edinburgh 

website:  www.lindastrachan.com
blog: Bookwords

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.

Everybody's Free (To Wear Pyjamas) by Liz Kessler

Ten years ago this month, my first book, The Tail of Emily Windsnap, was published.

It was a book that I had started writing a few years earlier when I'd left a job as a teacher to pursue a writing career. I left my job in 1999, and in that year one of my favourite ever songs, Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen) came out. 

So in honour of both of these events, I've written some advice for new writers setting off today on the path that I began a decade ago. I've written my advice in the style of that wonderful song, so if you haven't heard it (or even if you have, because in my opinion, you can never get enough of this song) do have a listen via the link below. In the meantime, here is my advice...

Everybody's Free (To Wear Pyjamas)

Ladies and Gentlemen of the class of ’13, wear pyjamas.

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, pyjamas would be 
it. The long term benefits of working at home in your PJs have been proved by 
scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable 
than my own meandering 
experience…

I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the freedom and independence of being unpublished. Oh never mind; you will not 
understand the freedom and independence of being unpublished until you get a book deal. 
But trust me, in ten years you’ll look back at those early notebooks and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much autonomy you enjoyed and how many long, lazy days you were free to spend working on a single chapter.

Your opening chapter is not as bad as you imagine.

Don’t worry about getting a book deal; or worry, but know that worrying is about as 
effective as trying to write a bestseller by coming up with an idea about vampire wizards in bondage. The real writing troubles in your life are apt to be things that 
never crossed your worried mind; the kind that ping into your inbox at 4pm 
on some idle Tuesday when your editor tells you to lose 10,000 words by next week.

Write one sentence every day that excites you.

Read.

Don’t be overly critical of other people’s books; don’t put up with 
people who are overly critical of yours.

Edit.

Don’t waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes 
you’re behind. The race is long and in the end, it’s only with 
yourself.

Remember the compliments you receive; forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old readers’ letters, throw away your old rejection letters.

Stretch. (Especially when you’ve been at your computer for three hours solid.)

Don’t feel bad if you don’t know what to write next. The most interesting authors I know didn’t know at 22 what they 
wanted to write about. Some of the most interesting 40 year olds still don’t know what they want to write next.

Drink plenty of tea.

Be kind to your editor; you’ll miss them when they’ve gone on maternity leave.

Maybe you’ll get a book deal; maybe you won’t. Maybe there’ll be a five-way auction over your book; maybe there won’t. Maybe you’ll be a best seller at 40, maybe you’ll go to see the opening of the movie of your book on your 75th birthday.

Whatever you do, don’t
 congratulate yourself too much (especially on Facebook and Twitter) or berate yourself, either. Your book’s fortunes are half chance, so are everybody else’s.

Enjoy experimenting with your voice; use it every way you can. Don’t be afraid of your imagination, or what other people 
think of it. It’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own.

WRITE. Even if you have nowhere to do it but your own living room.

Read all of your editor’s notes, even if you don’t follow them.

Do NOT read someone else’s tweets when they are retweeting their latest five-star review, it will only make you feel inadequate and cross.

Get to know your publicist; you never know when they’ll move on to another publisher (and they might end up representing you there as well).

Be nice to your fellow authors; they are the ones who will relate to you the best and the 
people most likely to understand what you’re going through when you feel stuck.

Understand that editors come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. Work hard to do everything you can to keep your publisher happy because the older you get, the more you need the people who championed your writing when you were the hot new thing.

Go to a publishing party once, but leave before you are so drunk you make an absolute fool of yourself in front of the MD; visit a primary school once, but leave before you get asked to run eight workshops and a full school assembly in one day.

Travel. (And remember, if it’s research, it’s tax-deductible.)

Accept certain inalienable truths: Amazon will always sell your books cheaper than anyone else; e-books will probably one day be as piratable as music is now; you too will go out of print, and when you do, you’ll fantasise 
that when you were young, independent bookshops still existed, books were made out of paper and children got lost in reading.

Get lost in reading.

Don’t expect anyone to keep on publishing you. Maybe you have an agent, maybe you have a stash of cash from a six-figure advance; but you never know when either one might run out.

Don’t mess too much with your proof copy or by the time you send it back, you’ll have to pay for all the extra changes.

Be careful whose writing advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it.

Giving writing advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a bit like looking back at our out of print books, giving them a quick edit and self publishing them via Kindle Direct for 99p.

But trust me on the pyjamas.

***

And now have a listen to the original...

Follow Liz on Twitter
Join Liz's Facebook page
Check out Liz's Website

Change of (Writing) Place - Change of (Writing) Pace: Lucy Coats

I've run away from home. This may sound strange if you know me. Home is usually my writing haven, a place of cool, green quiet, where feral sheep roam the meadows, and the only sound is that of wasps munching on fallen apples.

If only.

Home, as it stands currently, is in the middle of a plague of painters. That means dust, shouting, the smell of white spirit and gloss (both of which I detest), and a general hurmudgeon and flurration of noise, banging about and endless, endless questions.

So, as I said, I've run away.

This is my current writing desk.

A Little Venetian Writing Spot

Yes, yes I know. I'm very very lucky indeed. You're allowed to go a little green at the gills.

On a more serious note, though, I've realised, being here in Venice after a fairly hellish summer, that a change of place can give a massive boost to writing productivity and pace.  Because I was worrying about a whole lot of other things, and allowing them to bite into my writing day, I wasn't getting a lot done, and that in itself was adding to the stress.  Removing myself from all that, trusting that modern communications will cope with any real painterly or family emergency, has made my daily output of words double at least.  I should be well into the second third of my novel by the time I leave here.

A change of place is also good for revivifying the soul.  I'm not counting this as real 'holiday', since I am spending at least 7 hours actually working at a desk/table.  But it doesn't hurt that I'm in a beautiful spot, doing my day job to the sound of gently splashing water, the sound of gondolieri singing and the quiet chug of vaporetti and motoscafi plying their trades up and down the Grand Canal. Not to mention the *cough* wine and pasta.

Just down the road is the Palazzo where Byron lived,  and Henry James's residence is not far away. The literary heritage here lies thick as seaweed on the Lagoon. Maybe it will rub off on me.  I do hope so.

The other (perhaps unsung) delight of being in another country is reading the strange labels on familiar domestic products.  I know that our very own ABBA Venetian expert, Michelle Lovric, has written on this very subject some time ago.  I leave you with my latest discovery - Smac Tot - clearly a product Italians use to discipline unruly toddlers with.  Buon giorno, e in bocca al lupo con la scrittura!

Lucy is now teaching Guardian Masterclasses on How To Write for Children. Next bookable dates October 19th and November 16th 2013

Her new picture book, Bear's Best Friend, is published by Bloomsbury "A charming story about the magic of friendship which may bring a tear to your eye" Parents in Touch "The language is a joy…thoughtful and enjoyable" Armadillo Magazine. "Coats's ebullient, sympathetic story is perfectly matched by Sarah Dyer's warm and witty illustrations." The Times   

Her latest series for 7-9s, Greek Beasts and Heroes is out now from Orion Children's Books. 

Lucy's Website

Lucy's Facebook Fanpage

Follow Lucy on Twitter

Ten Things I Wish I'd Known by Tamsyn Murray

It's been three years since my first book was published and I like to think I've learned a lot in that time. Things like how royalties work (erm...) and what publishers want (erm...) and the secret of how to make writing pay (erm...). What I really need is a DeLorean with a working flux capacitor and a Sports Almanac, then I wouldn't need to fret about any of those things. But while I wait for Michael J Fox to turn up, here are ten things I wish I'd known before I was published:

1. Writing your first book is easy compared to writing your second - you will never be so free again. Enjoy that freedom while you can.
2. Writing will not make you rich. Don't give up the day job - it keeps you in Haribo.
3. You will never think you are good enough.
4. There will always be someone more successful than you. Be reassured that they will never think they are good enough.
5. Don't be afraid of other authors - they are mostly lovely. Except that one person - you know who I mean...
6. Do not read reviews.
7. Don't give your work away for free. It doesn't work.
8. Do your edits sooner rather than later. Don't leave them until the last minute.
9. Social media is work - allow time for it. Read, make friends and if you follow any links, NEVER read the comments under the articles.
10. Once your book is published, it is no longer yours. Let it go. And if you work out how to do this, let me know.

So what do you wish you'd known before you were published?

A Tale of Two Activities - Clémentine Beauvais

If you're reading this post in the morning of the day it's come out, send me a positive brain wave and cross your fingers for me: I'm currently shaking fretting panicking calmly getting ready for a job interview in a university somewhere in the UK...

So I'm taking this blog post as an opportunity to reflect on the difficulties and joys of having another job in addition to writing, one that you really don't want to give up on. Most people tend to assume that I'm secretly dreaming of being a full-time writer. I often hear, 'Are you keeping up the academic side just for the money?'

That's easily answered in MS Paint:

To most people, if you have an 'artistic' side, anything else you do must surely be 'paying' for your artistic activity. If you're not giving up the 'day job', it probably means the artistic one doesn't earn you anything, or not enough. 

Even my academic colleagues have somehow internalised the notion that I would 'prefer' to write children's books as a full-time job; that it's what I really want to do. We were talking at lunch about what we'd do if we won the lottery (yes, students: that's the kind of thing your lecturers and tutors talk about at lunch), and several colleagues said that they'd quit their job immediately. I said I certainly wouldn't stop working - I like my research and teaching, and I'd get bored. The immediate response was, 'But you could spend all the time you want on writing your children's books!'

Frankly, if I really wanted to spend all my time writing children's books... well, I would take the jump and do it. And if I needed a job to subsidise this activity, I probably wouldn't opt for one that requires hours of teaching, reading, essay-marking, meeting-going, networking, jargon-deciphering, revise-and-resubmitting, email-sending at two in the morning, in a crazy incertain job market, with no weekends to speak of, holidays that are in fact conferences, and the absolute impossibility to stick to regular hours.

Well then, are you keeping up the academic job as a safety net, 'just in case the writing doesn't work out?'

(The notion of academia as a 'safety net' is just... I mean, I wish, but...)

If the writing didn't 'work out', it would probably be in part because of the other job. Writing success isn't some esoteric thing that does or doesn't work out according to the unpredictable movements of the stars - the more you work on it, the more likely it is to 'work out'. You might never be J.K. Rowling, but you can get very respectable sales by being strategic, working hard, meeting children and promoting your books. This is more difficult when you've got another job.

So of course, having another job isn't ideal for your publishers, agents and publicists. There is definitely faint pressure to 'quit the day job' and be a full-time author. School visits and festivals often happen during the week. Even if you can make some of it, you can't be one of these writers who do school visits all the time. Therefore your books might not sell as well, and you might not get as high an advance next time, or even asked for another book.

Gone are the days when it was acceptable to write your books in your 'free time', and to decide that this year, you'll only publish one, or none. It doesn't work like that in the UK (to a degree, it still does in France). The publish or perish rule applies here like it does in academia; being a part-time writer will always put you at a disadvantage.

Implicitly, there is pressure also from other authors and illustrators who are full time. There's a very legitimate worry that writers like me contribute to making our activity appear unprofessional, amateurish, dilettantish, something you do 'when you've got the time', or if a partner is subsidising your indulgent bohemian bourgeois lifestyle. I entirely understand this concern, and it does bother me that I contribute to this vision. Authors and illustrators should absolutely be in a position to live - and to live well - thanks to their work. Saying that your writing brings you 'pocket money' or is 'a fun thing on the side' is quite insulting to the rest of the community.

But choosing not to choose is perhaps the only authentic option when you have the luxury of having two activities that bring you different rewards, different challenges and different joys. And many people, I'm sure, secretly want to do not just one thing, but several. Recently a student asked me for career advice (I know, terrifying). She said she was split, because she wanted to be a film maker, but 'not just': she was also considering being a researcher in psychology, or perhaps a teacher, or even a consultant. Why can't we do several things at the same time, when we have so many interests?

I agreed of course, but said the reasonable thing: doing several jobs, especially an artistic one and another 'official' one, is difficult. She said 'Well, you manage it!' I told her 'managing' was a strong word - she doesn't see the moments when I'm marking essays all evening before updating my PowerPoint for a school visit the next day, or playing Google-Calendar-Tetris with deadlines on fiction-writing and article submissions and conference abstracts and book edits.

Since I was making it sound like my life was only slightly less sinister than that of the Baudelaire orphans, she blurted out: 'But you're happy, aren't you?'. I had to admit that I am...

_____________________________________

Clementine Beauvais writes children's books in French and English. She blogs here about children's literature and academia and is on Twitter @blueclementine.

Introverts R Us - Tamsyn Murray

My name is Tamsyn and I am an introvert.

It took me a long time to realise this, mostly because I am also (for want of a better phrase) a bit of a show-off. I used to put my hand up when I knew the answer at school. I do am-dram, which involves singing and dancing and acting, sometimes in lead roles, in front of hundreds of people. Since I became a writer, the performer in me has been even busier, because what are school visits if not extended performances? I can do interviews for TV, and smile and chat to people I've only just met in social situations, make small talk without any apparent paroxysms of terror. How can I do all of that and not be an extrovert?

It took one of those lists you see popping up on Facebook every now and then to teach me the truth about my nature. Things You Should Know About Introverts*, it said. And I thought that as a writer, I knew plenty of introverted people so maybe it was worth a read.

Point 1 made me pause: We need to recharge alone. I do, I thought. In fact, there's nothing I cherish more than a bit of alone time (although alone time = working time for me because alone time is a rare commodity) and I constantly feel I don't have enough of it. And certainly after an event of some kind, what I yearn for most is to be on my own. Hmmm.

Point 2: We don’t hate being around people, but we probably hate crowds. I thought about this for a while because I wouldn't say I hate crowds but I don't love them either. Unless it's a festival crowd, in which case I love them all. But I do quite often feel overwhelmed by crowds - the urge to go and find a quiet place to sit is strong (or sometimes even to go home) and I get around this by starting random conversations with people. This is a trick I have learned and I almost always enjoy the conversation.

Number 3: We don’t mind silence.This one depends on the silence. I had a boss once who used to come and sit in my office and say nothing. Those were not good silences and I would say anything to fill them (which resulted in more silences because I had said something stupid.) But there's nothing wrong with a companionable silence.

And point 4: Just because we are introverted doesn’t mean we are shy. Very few people would describe me as shy. But by the time I read this one I was starting to realise that there was a good possibility I was an introvert.

Number 5: We can turn on an extroverted personality when necessary, but it is especially draining. This was a clincher for me - I know I do this. When I'm in a crowd and I want to talk to people because I feel uncomfortable (point 2) I switch on. Or for a performance. Actually, being extroverted is a lot like acting, except that I'm just being a much brighter version of myself instead of playing another character. And afterwards I am invariably exhausted.

Point 6 was: We aren’t judging you. And again, this depends on the situation. If you are supporting UKIP then I am judging you pretty hard.


7 made me cringe in shame because I know I do this: We secretly love it when you cancel plans. It doesn't mean I don't like you, it just means I don't have to be switched on.

Number 8: We can get very wrapped up in our own thoughts. AKA Daydreaming. Thinking time. Plotting. So I'm not ignoring you, honestly. I might just have forgotten you are there.

At number 9 we had: We can be pretty bad at connecting. And I wondered about this because I think I am good at connecting. Then I realised it's because I am good at listening - I like hearing other people's stories. And as luck would have it, listening means I have to talk less.

In at number 10 was: We don’t like to hang around. I decided this one depended on the situation. If I'm comfortable somewhere then it can be hard to get rid of me. But in a crowd situation when I've been switched on for a while, an unguarded exit can be too difficult to resist.

The last point was: We have strong opinions. And I decided this wasn't an introvert or an extrovert thing, because almost everyone I know has strong opinions about some things. Writers in particular have strong opinions - why else would we write?

So on balance, I decided that I'm an introvert. And it's nice to know finally that it's OK to want to be alone, to enjoy being on my own. Many of my writer friends are great to be around because they know how that feels, because they are introverts too. But ultimately, I'm not sure it really matters what you are, except that it feels good to know even when I'm alone, I'm not really.


*Things You Should Know About Introverts taken from http://playfullytacky.com/

The Best-Laid Plans, or Down, Characters, Down!

I’ve always been a planner; the idea of starting a novel and ‘seeing where the story took me’ was anathema to me. After all, I was the writer; I was in charge.

Despite this, my last novel, Still Falling, out in February 2015, was a mettlesome beast, running to nine drafts before I and my editor were happy. But I’d begun it without a contract, shelved it for nine months to write a commission (Too Many Ponies), and besides, the subject matter took me into darker psychological places than I’d ever gone before – so maybe it was natural that it shouldn’t bend to my will as easily as previous books.

the best-laid plans

The work-in-progress, Street Song, would be completely different. Because my agent wanted a full outline for this year’s London Book Fair, I’d thought through the story and knewexactly where it would go. It was a simpler story than Still Falling and for once I hadn’t had to struggle with the main female character – I’ve always found boys easier to write – as she’s very like me as an eighteen-year-old.

I’d promised the couple of interested publishers that the novel would be ready by the end of the year. Challenging, but not impossible. I set a tight schedule – 80,000 words in three months, July to September. I knew I’d over-write – I always do in a first draft; but I told myself I wouldn’t over-write much this time, because of my great outline. By 30^th September the first draft would be done; I could fit in something else in October, and get back to it with plenty of time to redraft.

What could possibly go wrong?

On the first page the male protagonist, Cal, announced he was a recovering addict. Unexpected, but it went well with the story, so that was OK. In fact, it made some of his later choices much easier to justify. I don’t tend to get fanciful about the creative process, but it really was as if I hadn’t made that fact up; it was part of the character’s history that he hadn’t been able to tell me until I actually let him speak.

As for Toni, my female MC – what a cow. If I really was as smug as that as an eighteen-year-old, it’s a wonder I had any friends. Her epiphany is meant to be the moment she realises that she doesn’t want to go to Oxford; it was her mum’s dream rather than hers. When I found Cal telling her that it was her dream, she was just scared of failure, I was annoyed at his cheek. I was the writer; he was simply a not-very-perceptive boy (and a made-up one): who was he to tell Toni what she was thinking when even I hadn’t known that?

But he was right.

Listen, guys -- I'm kind of in charge here...

my low-tech approach to word count

As July moved into August, and September loomed, the word count grew. At first it was all about hitting those magical targets. Then, on a week’s retreat to finish the draft, just before the climax, another unexpected thing happened. A minor character, meant to be just a random girl in a bar, turned out to be something more. She needed to be rescued by Cal. He won’t be up to the task, I thought: and anyway, I hadn’t planned this. Maybe I should just delete her? After all, I was now at 85,000 and no end in sight. But you know what? She was right too. I’d underestimated Cal, and in fact the ending (when I get there) will be improved by his actions.

It’s all just a bit… inconvenient. My characters are behaving like – well, like people.

And now my meticulously-planned 80,000 word draft is a huge messy long thing well over 100,000 (I’ve stopped checking). I’m two weeks late in starting my next project for which the deadline is – well, it’s too scary to type here but SOON.

have stopped checking the scary word count

But you know what? Every surprise, though tiresome, has made for a better story in the end. Like an unexpected but essentially welcome visitor. She might throw your routines out, and need a bit of looking after, but it’s so much fun to have her in the house.

And if the book has outstayed its welcome in my carefully-worked-out life, well, maybe that’s taught me something important about the creative process too.

Though I do need to finish it TODAY.

Writer's Guilt…. Or Have I Done Enough? by Megan Rix / Ruth Symes

What I love most about writing, and thought I would love most even before I was published, is the freedom it gives you. Freedom to write when you want and where you want, about what you want and how you want to.

For a few years I probably averaged a 1,000 published words a year (this was when I used to spend 6 months in the UK and 6 months travelling round the world). Now my average is more like 1,000 words a day. (I try not to work weekends unless I’m really behind on a deadline or so desperate to tell a story that it just can’t wait. I’m writing this on Saturday though - so I probably write more often at weekends than not.) If I've written a 1,000 words in a day I stick a sticker on my annual wall chart. I like seeing the stickers build up only... only there never seems to be enough. Not every day’s got a sticker and I want to write more. I always think I could do more, if I was more focused more, more disciplined yaddah yaddah yaddah.

I call it writer's guilt but really an average of a 1,000 words a day is good.... isn't it? I’ve won two children’s books of the year this year (Stockton and Shrewsbury) and will have had 3 novels out this year in 10 days time.

'The Hero Pup' is written under my Megan Rix pseudonym and being published by Puffin. It follows an assistance dog puppy from his birth until his graduation as a fully-fledged Helper Dog. Anyone who knows me knows how close this book is to my heart and I'm very much looking forward to working with guide dogs, medical alert dogs and PAT dogs on the book tour.

But not only do I have ‘The Hero Pup’ coming out under my Megan Rix pseudonym on the 1st of October I also have the first in a new series of books about the Secret Animal Society coming out under my Ruth Symes name. 'Cornflake the Dragon' is being published by Piccadilly. It’s about a school lizard that turns into a dragon when it’s taken home for the holidays.

How many words do other writers write each day? I don't know. They probably all do much more or maybe they do less but every word they write is pure gold.

And what about the thinking time? You've got to have thinking time, or I have. I like to mull over the story for a month or so these days. Not forcing it to come. Just researching and thinking about characters until I know, absolutely KNOW it's the story I want to tell. I don’t get a sticker for thinking but it’s just as valuable.

Then it comes to the talks at schools and festivals – meeting your target audience. In the past year I've spoken at 16 schools and 5 festivals - an average of little over one a mouth. Is it enough? It feels like the right amount for me but I know of other writers who do lots more. Should I be doing lots more? I don’t know.

And that's what comes with having a career where you choose so much for yourself. There's so many choices that it's hard to know if you've made the right one. But better to make the mistake yourself than be living someone else’s mistake. Maybe there shouldn't be writer's guilt or writer's goals maybe we should just have the aim of improving every day.

Chris Rock (excuse the swearing) has a very funny sketch about the difference between a job or a career His main point, and I agree with him, is if it's a career there's never enough time for all you want to do to advance it but if it’s a job there is always far too much time and you can’t wait for it to be over. Writing is definitely a career and I wouldn't have it any other way :)


My website's are: www.meganrix.com and www.ruthsymes.com.