A Novel Way

In response to Amanda Craig's article...

2011-08-03T11:12:00.011+01:00

When I read Amanda Craig's article on the bullying she experienced at expensive-but-progressive boarding school Bedales in the 70s, it triggered memories in my mind I didn't want to remember. Over the last few days, I watched with alarming familiarity as current and old Bedalians defended their school, some turning into bullies themselves as they left obscene and threatening remarks on Ms. Craig's public Facebook site.

Bullying doesn't exist at Bedales, current students claim.

It's an exaggerated story - it wasn't like that at all, her contemporaries say.

Well, from my own experience, there's some truth to everything people have said - whether it be Amanda Craig, the current students or the old Bedalians who are defending their Alma Mater. For when it comes to bullying, the truth often lies in the eyes of the beholder.

I went to a somewhat idyllic primary school with small class sizes, where everyone just seemed to get along. Yes, we were all young, but that doesn't change the fact that bullying can happen at any given age. In my class, there were boys who were sporty, and boys who were more nerdy. There were girls who were tomboys, and girls who were girly. I belonged to the latter group, though was surprisingly invited to birthday parties of girls in the former group. There was teasing going on, but the kids seemed to know when they were overstepping the mark. I was happy there - to the point that I complained being at home whenever I was sick. These days, I know that my happiness was all due to the work of our class teacher. She had the ability to bring everyone together, to discipline us kids with words when we needed to, as well as being a source of solace in times when we needed support. You know a teacher was good when even decades later, you think of her with fondness. She was one of those.

But everyone has to move on, and by the time I reached high school by way of middle school, I already had mixed feelings about school itself. I went to a completely different middle school compared to my friends at primary school. Mostly, due to my parents' emphasis on practicality. Why send your child to a school miles away, when the nearest one will do?

If you're a parent, think again.

My parents didn't send me to the middle school my then best friend went to. That one could probably be described as academic-posh. Latin was the first foreign language they taught. Neither did they send me to the middle school most of my primary school friends went... one that even had it's own swimming pool. The middle school I ended up in was more akin to an inner city school, despite being in the middle of suburbia. It was a grey block, and its sight alone was enough to make you depressed. Bullying was ripe. Still, I knew I only had to go there for a couple of years before moving on to high school. That was what kept me going.

In a complete turn from their middle school choice, my parents sent me to a high school that was seen by some as catering for the elite of the area. It was OK at first, but due to my experience at middle school, I wasn't the most outgoing person. Neither was I all that interested in boys at that age. This made me unpopular and a likely candidate for being bullied. I made friends with a girl who I thought was bullied even more than me - to the point that I once stepped in to defend her. Again, probably not the best move to make, but one I thought was morally apt. The bullying mostly remained at an emotional level. You know, the kind of non-physical meanness you often see in teenage movies. But after three years of attending that school, I had enough. I told my parents I wanted to switch school, but they didn't understand.

Don't get me wrong. My parents were good parents in that they provided me with a lot, but they had a complete lack of knowledge of what was going on inside me, and how much I dreaded going to school by that time. My dad was way too confident to even know what bullying was like, and my mom was ever so popular in high school. It took a whole tantrum to make them change their mind, and even then, my dad wanted the opinion of the girl who had become my friend. The one I had previously defended from the bullies in class.

And guess what.

She didn't know of any bullying at all.

I was dumbfounded by her remark. I started to wonder whether I had imagined it all. Was it just teenage angst? The people I was closest to - my best friend and my parents - seemed to tell me so. After much pleading, my parents eventually let me switch school, and I ended up attending one with a progressive reputation. Some teachers were dedicated, but the kids obviously took advantage of the situation, and yes, there was still bullying there. But by that time, I had learned to be invisible. And when after GCSEs, most of the school bullies had dropped out, I rejoiced. I still feel a trace of triumph as I write this now.

Luckily, my parents allowed me to go on various school exchanges to Australia and the U.S. For all parents out there - nothing can teach your child more confidence than being in a foreign country on their own, and staying with a different family... particularly the U.S. When I came back to my school, I was more happy with myself. After having seen more of the world, I realized what a small portion of it my school truly was, and that really, my stay was only temporary. I stopped caring about the cliques, or what people thought of me 24/7. I became more of an observer, and with that came my salvation. Because if you take yourself out of the equation, you suddenly see the world with different eyes.

In short, it was like watching Discovery Channel.

Instead of being threatened by what went on around me, I found it rather entertaining to watch. Instead of being hurt by the bitchiness of others, I took it in my stride, inwardly rolling my eyes. I wish I had always been like that, but it took me years to get to that stage. In a way, my experience of feeling alone... feeling vulnerable... makes it easier for me to understand others in that situation. However, had I always been more tough, I probably wouldn't be able to comprehend how it feels like to be bullied. The girl at my school whom I (needlessly) defended probably didn't think much about the bullying. She simply brushed it off. She was made of much tougher stuff than me.

I understand how Amanda Craig must have felt at Bedales, but I also understand how others may have formed a completely different view of what happened. Their experience was different from Amanda's. They may not have been bullied by that gang who went after her. Or maybe, just like the girl I knew, they were more tough.

But it doesn't make Amanda Craig's experience any less true.

A Tongue-in-Cheek Post

2011-02-22T23:10:00.011Z

This is what happens, when you seriously fail at creating a deep and meaningful confrontation scene during a writing course (assignment: mother telling her son that his father is not his biological father). No "he said/she said" tags allowed. I just wasn't in the mood...

OK. Just a word of warning. This is TONGUE IN CHEEK. DO NOT TAKE THIS SERIOUSLY! The author accepts no responsibility for the psychological well-being of your child, should you take this serious.

THE SURE-FIRE WAY TO SAFE SEX - A GUIDE

Are you the owner of a pubescent child? Would you want to ensure that he or she practices safe sex? When you want to talk to your child about safe sex, do so under disguise. Don't mention the word BIOLOGY. Instead, use terms they actually know about. Horror stories, fantasy - those are the things that inhabit a teenager's mind. See the following case study for an example on how to ensure the teenager you own will obey the rules of safe sex.

“Jimmy, we have to talk.”

“Not now, Mom!”

“No, it has to be now. Sit down.”

“Mom! Ally is waiting outside in the car -”

“Which is why we have to talk.”

“If this is all about safe sex or something -”

“Jim! Sit down!”

“OK. What’s up?”

“I wanted to tell you about your father.”

“What about him?”

“Well, Jim, darling... your dad isn’t your biological father.”

“---”

“He’s merely your stepfather.”

“---”

“Jim? Say something. Are you alright?”

“Sure. I expected you to say that at some point.”

“You did?”

“Well, Dad often says that I’m nothing like him. He pulls this face of disgust each time he says it! So I figured whoever my real dad was, he didn’t like him much.”

“---”

“We done?”

“Not yet. Don’t you want to see a picture of your real father?”

“If that means we can get this done and over with -”

“Here.”

“What’s this?”

“Your father.”

“Wrong picture, Mom.”

“No, it’s not.”

“You gave me a picture of a... COW!”

“That’s not a cow, Jim!”

“Then what? A bull?”

“Jim. That’s your father.”

“You’re kidding, right? How could a bull be my father?”

“He’s not a bull. He’s a minotaur!”

“A what?”

“A minotaur. They are very powerful beings in Greek myth.”

“Yeah, Mom. M-Y-T-H. Mythological creatures do not exist in real life.”

“They do, Jim. He was a very sweet man, your father.”

“BUT HE WAS A FREAKIN’ BULL! WERE YOU ABSOLUTELY BLIND?”

“I had a few glasses to drink - sure. He looked much better the night before I woke up in his arms.”

“You’ve gotta be kidding, right? I mean... couldn’t he at least be Darth Vader or something? Do I even get special powers?”

“Well, you’ll be strong.”

“---”

“And you’ll grow more hair than other men.”

“---”

“See it this way. At least, you’ll never have a problem with baldness. Just be careful with girls, Jim. They say that the minotaur gene always jumps a generation.”

In our experience, you should talk about SERIOUSLY UGLY CREATURES. Whatever you do, DO NOT MENTION VAMPIRES. Due to the dark propaganda available in our godforsaken world, our children have been brainwashed to think of vampires as sex objects. Of course, this seems to have the opposite effect to what we all want to achieve in our society.

SCBWI - London Professional Series: EGMONT UK

2011-01-26T07:42:00.042Z

I attended SCBWI’s first 2011 ‘London Professional Series’ event yesterday, where two commissioning editors for EGMONT UK were in the room, facing a packed audience as the event was sold out. Of course, the talk started with a brief introduction.

ALI DOUGAL, Commissioning Editor for Fiction, studied English for her first degree, prior to undertaking a postgraduate degree in publishing at Oxford Brookes University. She seemed to have always known that she wanted to be in publishing one day, and started her career with Penguin. Over time, she realized that it was children’s fiction that she really wanted to be in, and successfully made the transition into this particular area of the market, inevitably ending up at Egmont UK, the biggest children's book publisher in the UK. Does she write herself? No. It is an ambition, though she believes she may be better in editing than writing.

Unlike his colleague, PETE MARLEY, Commissioning Editor for Picture Books, wanted to be a psychologist at first, having studied the subject in Nottingham. It was there that he realized psychology wasn’t his thing, and publishing was where he ended up in. He worked for ‘Top That!’ - a small publisher, eventually moving on to Egmont UK. Does he write? He wrote for their Winnie the Pooh range before, as well as ‘Pitstop’ - a satirical take on glossy mags.

EGMONT was founded 130 years ago in Copenhagen, Denmark, and has since grown into a global company with offices in London, New York and Sydney. All the offices are known to work closely together. Apart from being the biggest children’s book publisher in the UK, they are also the No. 1 character publisher in the UK (more about this later).

The company is passionate about getting children to read, finding new authors and illustrators, as well as supporting the existing authors on their list. Egmont has also been a frontrunner in ethical publishing, making sure that the paper they use come from ethical sources.

There are three divisions within Egmont UK:

Magazines (e.g.: TOXIC magazine)
Licensed Characters (e.g.: Bob the Builder)
Egmont Press (Fiction Books; age range: 0-YA/Crossover; few adult books)

Pete Marley mentioned that their list has grown considerably in recent years, and now also includes baby & toddler sections as well as gift books, which they believe will help them move away from the over-reliance on Waterstones, since independent small bookstores are on the decline.

On the fiction side, Ali Dougal said that the market continues to be dominated by PARANORMAL fiction, though ‘Twilight’ has finally seen a dip in demand. Those that are hot right now are about Angels and Werewolves. Books that have made it into film are big sellers for publishers, such as the Percy Jackson series. For Egmont, the biggest revenue continues to come from their backlist which includes Enid Blyton books (now being repackaged). Due to Steven Spielberg’s upcoming film ‘Warhorse’, the corresponding book has become Egmont’s very own ‘Twilight’. Other successful books are the ‘GONE’ series, as well as ‘Mr. Gum’ and ‘Lemony Snicket’. Egmont has obviously also followed the Paranormal trend, as seen through ‘The Dark Divine’ books (by Bree Despain). They also have an Angel trilogy coming out.

According to both the editors, there is room at Egmont for anything. In fact, although the market has gone down recently, Egmont Fiction grew.

DIGITAL PUBLISHING is growing as there are an increasing number of platforms out there. From 2008 to 2009, digital publishing has doubled, and this trend is set to continue. In 2009, Egmont created interactive eBooks for the Nintendo DS console. From this year on, all their new books will be simultaneously available as a physical book and in eBook format.

Since eReaders have monochrome displays, they weren’t really applicable to picture books. However, this changed with the arrival of the iPad. 'Sir Charlie Stinky Socks' became the first Picture Book App Egmont has produced. A question remains as to how you would be able to market it in the Apple App Store where it is drowned by all the other apps. They are also expensive to make, and when asked whether the financial investment is viable, the answer is: not yet. But at least, Egmont is exploring the possibilities for the future.

What came next was the golden question all writers would like to get answered: WHAT ARE EDITORS LOOKING FOR?

Pete Marley said that in picture books, there are no strict rules, but the stories should be memorable, and ideally, there would be iconic characters that appeal to children. The text should also be concise - which is the hardest thing for authors to do. They should be a maximum of 800 words in length, with a lyrical script. Of course, in longer fiction, there should be more elaborate descriptions compared to picture books, where the author has to trust the illustration to do the rest.

When Pete Marley looks at submissions, he views them from the eyes of a child. Is it easy to understand? Is it accessible enough? There should be a story arc, and a strong ending. He loves to see a type symmetry in the story, e.g. when the beginning and the end happen in the same place (it would be like the story has come round full circle). The text does not have to rhyme - in fact, it is more difficult to sell it internationally if it rhymes.

Ali Dougal looks at all genres, whether it be science fiction or romance. She looks at all books aimed at kids aged 5+ all the way to YA/Crossover books. She pointed out that VOICE is important. MASS MARKET APPEAL would be great. She is also looking for books that are GENUINELY FUNNY. Basically, she has to love the book so much, that she can champion it in-house. If a book is promising, but not to her taste, she will pass it on to a colleague who may fall in love with it. There has to be a strong sense that the author can continue to grow. Naturally, it would be great if the book has CLEAR COMMERCIAL APPEAL. The BONUS would be if the book has international appeal and can be sold into 5-6 countries. This would mean that the author can earn out their advance, and Egmont could regain its investment. The icing on the cake would be if a film option or the screen rights could be sold.

Pete Marley informed us that submissions to him generally come from agents or via email from the occasional person who has found his email address somewhere. Novelty books generally arrive via post. With illustrators, he often asks them to come in with their scrapbooks. He likes to see them, because sometimes, there may be a character in there that has slipped away because they were thought not to be good enough. Once, for example, an illustration of a toddler in a ladybird costume in one such scrapbook captured his attention.

Egmont UK does take UNSOLICITED MANUSCRIPTS. Please send these to: childrensreader@euk.egmont.com

Submissions to the above email address would usually go to a junior reader, and if that reader is excited, they will pass it on to an editor. It has to be said that this process is much slower than submissions that come via agents who not only will pass it on to the editor directly, but probably know which editor to pass it on to (like everyone else, the taste of editors differ from one to another).

You don’t need to submit your CV with your submission. Only relevant details matter, e.g. writing competitions, courses, etc. With unsolicited longer fiction, the submission guidelines are as follows: Three chapters and an outline. Or, if available, the whole manuscript.

Ideally, it would be great to be able to say: this novel is xxx meets xxx. Some of the memorable submissions that are to be published this year are:

Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick: it is fast-paced, and a book Ali couldn’t stop talking about. It’s ‘Ferris Bueller’ meets ‘Kill Bill’. It tapped into a trend - the YA action thriller. There was something new about it, and there was film interest (screen rights now sold in auction to Paramount).
The Shadowing: a series for 10+ kids that is really well thought through and spreads across 5 books. There is a gap in the market for kids’ horror books - with the one outstanding top author being Darren Shan.
Dear Dylan: a coming of age story written in email format. The voice felt so real, it took Ali Dougal back to being 16. It also had a good PR story. The author, Siobhan Curham, self-published the novel after turning a two-book deal with a publisher down before, and went on to win the Young Minds Book Award. She also runs workshops with young people, so Egmont knew she would be good at public events.

Authors have to remember that although Egmont is an editorially-led publishing house, the editors still have to attend an acquisitions meeting where he or she will have to convince the sales, marketing and finance teams to buy the book. These departments would think about whether the book could become a bestseller or be a prize winner. An important thing to market your book well is a good hook. You need to find a one-line bullet point to describe your book (e.g. the ‘xxx meets xxx’ scenario).

Once the book goes through, they will start asking questions. When is the best time to publish? Who are the competitors? Peg against them or not? Prize-winning potential? Package/Branding? Advertising - bill boards or word of mouth?

The process is similar in picture books, though it will have a longer lead time. About 12-18 months prior to publishing, they usually take them to book fairs first.

What else could be said about being noticed... oh yeah... DON’T RELY ON GIMMICKS. They will eat the chocolate you send them, but it will have no impact on your submission.

Book Review: FORBIDDEN by Tabitha Suzuma

2011-01-08T21:47:00.016Z

Lochan is a painfully shy, but gorgeous 17-year-old boy. He also happens to be intelligent, and have a seemingly bright future ahead of him, which could propel him out of the council estate he grew up in. Maya is a sweet 16-year-old, pretty and also wiser than the average girl with a background similar to Lochan.

They could be like any other protagonist of a YA novel, you might say. They meet, encounter a few obstacles along the way, and end up together at some point - preferably at a high school prom somewhere - simply because they are perfect for one another. But what if I told you they may be more similar than you want them to be, for Lochan and Maya have more in common than their background. They share the same DNA. Yes, they are siblings.

That's right. With FORBIDDEN, Tabitha Suzuma has touched exactly what the book's title would suggest. That taboo subject of incest. And whilst we may all say "Ew!" at that, and pull a face of disgust, the author has accomplished something I cannot fully grasp yet. She lets you care about Lochan and Maya in a way that makes you start wishing that theirs was a case of mistaken identity at birth, that they are not siblings at all... and they could be together, and may I even say - without sounding corny - live "happily ever after". The author really lets you get into their heads, and you know that what is between them is, plain and simply, love. It's just that it's not the love siblings should feel for one another.

Whilst reading this book, I was seriously torn between what I knew to be wrong and what I felt was right for the two characters in question. It was an emotional roller coaster ride where you know where it's heading, and something in you wants to scream NO, and yet something else tells you... WHY? And that's the power this book has. It takes something that you know to be truly wrong, and scarily, makes you understand it - to the point where you almost think it's right.

Of course, a book like this can only have a heart-breaking ending. You must be prepared to grab a tissue or two, but I wasn't quite prepared for the ending of this particular book. Because without spoiling it entirely, its ending is devastating. I found myself wondering about Lochan and Maya, as if they did exist somewhere in London at one point in time. That's how much I started to feel for them. I thought about the environment they grew up in - having a drunkard as a mother who frequently abandons them at will, making her two elder children carry the responsibility of running the household with three younger siblings in tow. This pretty much sets the scene for what is to come, and I found myself openly hating the mother, because secretly, I believe that if she had been a better mother, these two characters I cared for would have been completely fine... probably not falling for each other like the ultimate star-crossed lovers.

I bow my head to Tabitha Suzuma. This book was nothing, but a masterpiece.

FORBIDDEN will be out in the U.S. in June 2011.

A Teenager... Again!

2011-01-04T01:05:00.006Z

When I read Nick Cross' blog about being stuck in Teenage Town despite being a full-blown adult, I had to smile. I have spent the last few days in the house I grew up in. You know, with Christmas and all that, my husband and I spent nearly two weeks in my childhood home in Germany, back with my parents and my younger brother. Being amongst my childhood stuff toys and playing video games with my brother (Dance Central on Xbox 360 + Kinect, if you care about such things), I could swear I turned into a teen again! The clock probably started rewinding in England already, when it snowed several inches a week or two before Christmas. I looked out of the door, and saw this white carpet that lay before me. I was still in what I would call my 'lounge wear' - old tracksuit bottoms & old sweater - and slowly made my way out into the fresh snow. I suddenly had the urge to feel the white powder beneath my sneakers with my bare feet. I looked toward my left and then, my right. No one there. So I did it! If you want to know how it felt like... it really was like stepping on ice-cold powder. Like you've put a bottle of baby powder into the freezer over night, spread it onto the floor, and stepped onto it. That's how it was. I told my husband what I did, and he started wondering about my mental age. Around that time, I was also mistaken by a lady (who was probably not more than ten years older than me) for a girl who goes to school with her son. Yes, school!!! Then, the bus driver suddenly started offering me a 'student ticket'...

But obviously, the years of being a teen would be nothing without those outbursts all teenagers are prone to have. Mostly, including those people also known as PARENTS. The last few days of being a teenager once more certainly gave me a taste of that - in the form of a full-blown argument with my dad. This involved accidentally smashing a glass pane when I slammed a door... something that never happened when I was a teen, but which my brother told me happened to him, too, a few years ago, after an argument with none other than our dad. So this will be the second time the glass pane needs to be replaced!!! Seriously, I am not really a glass smashing person, but as my brother (and my mother!) will testify, our dad has the innate ability to annoy even the most placid monk in Tibet.

Being a teenager is often about raw emotions - when even the tiniest thing that happens in life seems to matter. Maybe because a lot of what happens to teenagers is new and fresh - unlike for adults who may have gone through the same thing a dozen times in their lives. A classmate at school may say something unpleasant that makes you cry; or a boy you like may know nothing of your existence; or you may not be as pretty, intelligent and witty as you would like to be, and hate yourself for being the person you are instead... the list could go on and on. Sometimes, I get asked why teenage books are so dramatic - why the girl may constantly pine for that one boy. Well, just imagine yourself back at high school. There are a limited amount of boys there - and for a teen, high school often equates to 'the world'. Now, imagine that the one and only boy you end up liking does not like you. And again, remember - school is 'the world'. No one else is there that you like. Bummer.

Adults do tend to tell you about life after school. Especially when you are in need of major consolation. But you've never experienced that life yourself, so it would be difficult to associate with what they say at all. They can tell you about how the 'Miss Popular' of their year pretty much peaked at high school. As a teen, that may be difficult to imagine. They will tell you there are more boys out there in the world. Well, what if they all turn out not to like you, like the boy in your school? They will tell you that being bookish is not all that bad. Ha! Tell that to the poor boys of The Big Bang Theory.

But there are good things about being a teenager, too. Your future (defined as adulthood) is still unknown to you. Anything can happen - just like at the beginning of a novel, when the plot is still unclear. When you do fall in love, you do so with all your heart. Like in George Michael's cheesy Christmas ballad, you really give your heart away... because your heart is as yet untouched by all the hurt that may come along the way.

This is the reason I love writing for teenagers. The purity of emotions that graces the pages of YA novels attract me like no other. And high stakes really do exist in everyday life within a teenage mind, simply because (unlike in our grown-up world) everything... even the tiniest detail... matters.

Book Review: CLOCKWORK ANGEL by Cassandra Clare

2010-12-26T10:58:00.005Z

I have read Cassandra Clare's "The Mortal Instruments" series at a fear-inducing speed earlier this year. The author understands how to create addictive characters, though I'm still uncertain as to how she manages to do this. It could be because she can portray the characters with words so skillfully that you feel they truly exist or at the very least could jump off the page any moment. It could be that she's enormously talented at creating male leads that will prove attractive to many of her book's readers - whether they are a teen or not. It could be because of the forbidden love that is depicted on the books' pages, and you really want it to be resolved (and not the Luke and Leia way).

When the first book of her "The Infernal Devices" series came out, I was a little hesitant. I so loved the world of her former series (set in present-day New York), I wasn't quite prepared to jump into her new one (Victorian London). It was partly because I spend Mondays to Fridays in (present-day!) London already, and The "Mortal Instruments" offered the escapism I was looking for. But needless to say, a few months after its official release, I finally bought "Clockwork Angel", and I can truly say I do not regret it at all.

Reading the book, you know it is Cassandra Clare's work, but should you have read her last series, you would notice something else. Her writing style is slightly different, as if it was being matched to the elegance of the period it tries to portray. Spending most of my days in the city where the story is set, I can see how her characters may have brought mayhem to the London of the past. And the past is truly where they belong. "Clockwork Angel" combines YA Paranormal with historical fiction whereby the former takes centerstage whilst we're being provided with 'just enough' of the latter to feel the authenticity of the setting without the need of having to dust off our history books just yet.

The story revolves around Tessa Gray, a girl from New York who lands on the shores of Southampton, England, expecting to be picked up by her brother who had moved to London before her. But this journey to another country turns out to be much more than that. It becomes a journey to a magical world where good must fight the evil. Tessa Gray turns out to not be as plain as her surname would suggest - unknowingly, it seems as if she had always been part of the world she's now entering. Here, she meets the Dark Sisters who torture her, but show her the abilities she has. She meets dashing, but complex Will Herondale and his parabatai Jem Carstairs. She gets introduced to the world of the Shadowhunters, but yet, does not know what she herself is, and where her place in this strange world is supposed to be.

"Clockwork Angel" is full of action, love (or the yearning thereof), betrayal and puzzles that will leave you begging for the release of the sequel... which is still some time away. *Imagine sigh of frustration*

Cassandra Clare seems to only get better with time, and I can't wait to see more of her work in future.

Cassandra Clare - Upcoming Novels:

CITY OF FALLEN ANGELS - Release date April 2011

CLOCKWORK PRINCE - Release date August 2011

Tweeting with Egmont

2010-12-19T04:05:00.015Z

An hour around either side of midnight - between the 18th and 19th of December (British time), Egmont publisher Elizabeth Law (@EgmontGal) and Egmont editor Alison Weiss (@EgmontUSA) were on Twitter to answer questions covering the Young Adult market (hashtag #askYAed). The reason it was so late was that, well, they are in the US, and it was scheduled for 18.00-20.00 PM EST. What I was doing up so late? Don't ask!

For those who have missed it, below is a recap. Bear in mind, this is Egmont USA, so the info may be more aligned for that particular part of the world. Still, the US is a very, very large segment of the English-speaking book world, so should never be ignored.

Informational aspects come first, funny parts come later. The items in brackets are my own comments.

On the standard of manuscripts submitted:

It is definitely the case that agents should work with the authors to get their MS into the best shape it can be before submission. It's a lot more competitive out there these days.

Role of Agents:

They only take agented submissions at Egmont USA. The volume would be too much otherwise.

State of the market - Middle-Grade versus YA:

MG has suffered due to library funding cuts. YA is the best-written they have ever seen these days - it's the golden age for YA Lit.

On Revision:

Elizabeth Law says that the amount of revision is something that affects whether she will buy something. Can the book be great? If something had brilliant ideas/themes/writing but was a huge mess, she may ask for one revision before an offer of a contract.

On Books and eBooks:
They shall co-exist. YA eBook sales are increasing. From January 2011, all Egmont YA novels will concurrently be available in eBook format.

On the trend for Magical Realism:

They have seen a handful of submissions, but no more submissions that would hint at this trend. Elizabeth Law mentioned, it was the second time this week she was asked this, so this may well be a new trend.

On Epic and High Fantasy:

Elizabeth Law mentioned that there will always be room for this in YA, it has never gone away in 70 years.

On Book Series:

They generally prefer novels that feel complete, whether or not there are more books in the series.

On Crossover Books:

Adults will read YA novels, but it is generally easier to publish Adult fiction and get young adults to read them, too, than the other way around. So many adults dismiss YA without knowing about it.

On Taboo Subjects:

Incest is still taboo, though Tabitha Suzuma's "Forbidden" (note: love this book!) treats the subject brilliantly.

On Book Length:

There is a lot of Book Bloat out there at the moment. Authors should use as many words as necessary and no more. Word count shouldn't be too important though the thicker the book, the more daunting.

On YA Historical Fiction:

Alison Weiss noted she loves historical fiction, but it's a tough market. Elizabeth Law mentioned her best friend has a historical YA under submission, and agreed with Alison as they aren't popular these days. It needs something more compelling to make it work, i.e. totally engrossing romance/scandal, etc. Plus: young adults who like this genre can read adult books. Though - what is "historical" these days. Is the time of the Vietnam war historical? What about the 90s? (Yes, a MS set in the 90s was submitted as historical fiction - God, I feel OLD!)

On Survival/Adventure Books For Boys:

They want them. Period. (Get writing, guys!)

On Trilogies and Dark Endings:

(Guess who asked this?) Dark endings shouldn't be a problem. Mockingjay has a daaaaaaark ending. Are the readers going to be satisfied with the ending? That's what you have to ask. Preferring a hopeful ending though.

With series/trilogies, preferably no cliffhangers. (I agree that cliffhangers can leave readers unsatisfied. Off-topic: I mean, with no new James Bond out, I feel Quantum of Solace asked too many questions at the end...)

On Paranormal and Dystopia:

Still very hot. Demons.

On Myth-Based Fantasies:

Absolutely, particularly if you bring something new to the table. Also seeing ancient-culture based fantasies.

On Mysteries:

Mysteries are HARD to write, and thus hard to find. It takes a lot to be able to construct one that is fresh and compelling.

On Horror:

Would love to read more mid-grade/YA horror.

Define Paranormal versus Fantasy:

(Needed to ask this as I've been getting more and more confused!) Paranormal: werewolves, vampires, angels, demons etc. Fantasy--not those creatures.

On Editors Pitching to Sales/Marketing:

Generally, editors at Egmont still make the decision. It would be nice though to be able to pitch in the "If you liked xxx, then you'll like xxx" way.

On book deal being more likely due to interest from Hollywood:

Interest alone doesn't mean that a film will be made. There are films out there for which there are no books. However, having a film deal helps a rep sell your book on sales calls.

On Boys Reading Fiction:

They are reading books, though often move on to Adult fiction straightaway.

On Manuscripts that blew them away:

One of the books Elizabeth has mentioned is Allen Zadoff's "Food, Girls and Other Things". She laughed and felt both sad in the first 10 pages. (That's a fantastic feat!)

On Author Websites:

User-friendliness. Make it easy to buy your book.

About cursing/f-bomb:

There needs to be a reason for cursing.

About Amish YA Literature:

I was told at the writing course I took in November that Amish YA Lit was a new trend in the US, so I asked whether this was true. (I was very curious!)

Overwhelming response: No. It is big in Christian Lit, according to @KristaAshe: "You can hardly go thru the Inspirational sec without seeing bonnets galore". @DreamingReviews said that they have YA protagonists (aged 18-20), but the books are meant to be for adults, really. This ended up leading to a small banter about Rumspringa which in essence would make a good YA premise as @misskubelik stated, and Elizabeth Law said so, too, all jokes aside.

If that one question would lead to Egmont suddenly receiving lots of Amish YA manuscripts in the coming weeks... :-)

Reading through all the tweets, they may well end up with an Amish YA novel with numerous f-bombs, that includes sex, vampires and may or may not have a transgender subplot...

There was more, of course. The tweeting did go on for a little over two hours. But I hope I captured most of it. For now, good night (or good morning?) - need to go off to bed!!!

But before I do that - thanks again to Elizabeth and Alison at Egmont for sacrificing some of your weekend for us. It was a great Christmas present.

Experimenting with The Way We Write

2010-12-17T11:49:00.002Z

The other day, I tried something that helped me a lot with my writing. It was a result of me wondering how one can manage to write 100,000 words of beautiful sentences and paragraphs. Now, most books will have a handful of paragraphs within chapters that I really like, which is more than enough. What makes me like them is:

(1) The elegance of the writing. I love it when words come together to form a beautiful sentence. Some people may not understand that. My husband often talks about 'beautiful' or 'pretty' equations which is often lost on me.

(2) It fits into the storyline. There's no need in putting a beautiful paragraph into a story when it doesn't fit. It's better to save it somewhere, and maybe build a story around it.

(3) It makes me see and feel the character or the scenery it describes. Nothing beats the blooming images in your mind when a story comes to life. It is much like having your very own portable cinema.

I understand that writing one beautiful paragraph is doable, but it always baffled me how someone can keep the same quality even a hundred pages down the line. Everyone has their own way of writing, and the way I write is chapter by chapter. I am very fussy when it comes to writing (which others may think spreads to other parts of my life), and can only continue with the next chapter once I have edited the previous ones about a dozen times. For some reason, a little voice inside my head continuously tells me a story is not worth telling unless I am 90% happy with what I have written. I simply get a writer's block if they aren't up to par. When I do get them right, the little voice tells me, 'Well done, you can move on now!', and lifts the iron curtain that had stopped me from going any further. This is a time consuming thing, simply because sometimes, I am simply not in the mood to write one particular chapter.

So the other day, when this happened again, I decided to experiment. Instead of working on that chapter for the tenth time and banging my head against a brick wall in the process, I started writing things down randomly. I would write a sentence a character may say, or maybe, a dialogue. Or even an entire scene. The result: they fell into the category of 'beautiful'. I realised that because I wrote them without the pressure of them turning into a chapter, I could write more freely and the words just came out flowing. I now have a file that is filled with beautiful, but fragmented paragraphs that may not form a chapter yet, but may do so one day.

In there, I have also stored a scene I wrote that will be slotted in somewhere in the middle of the book. Had I written the way I usually write, I may never have come up with it, simply because I may not have been 'in the mood' by the time I came to that chapter. This scene now happens to be my husband's favourite, and he said he could have read more if it actually went on further... simply because in that moment, he felt as if he was right there with the characters. He was appalled at that thought, as he knows the story itself is more appealing to girls than boys. The thing is, whilst I was writing that scene, I did feel the wet grass beneath my feet, heard the stillness of the night, saw the starry night sky up above and the dark forest ahead, beckoning me to enter. I was not sitting in my living room facing a busy street in Oxfordshire where the traffic never stops. Just like the people of ancient times who carved graffiti on the wall or those bored people who write messages on a lavatory door, I could have walked towards a tree in that scene, and etched on its bark that most famous line of all: "I WAS HERE".

So the lesson I have learned from this little experiment is that whenever I get stuck with a chapter, I write something else. Something little. A sentence, a paragraph or a scene. Something that will take the pressure off me. Or maybe, I'll write something that matches my mood of that day to a particular moment in the story. I realised that works wonders. Who knows, maybe one day it will become an entire chapter or even an entire book - filled with words that combine into a beautiful heap, that is.

Libraries - Not just a place to borrow books from...

2010-12-04T01:03:00.004Z

Recently, library cuts have been a major topic in the world of literature in Britain. The financial crisis and the resulting government cuts mean that many libraries will need to close down. Because who really borrows books these days when the internet offers information for free or next to nothing, and you don't even need to leave your house to do so?

Whilst I may not use libraries that often anymore these days, it's nothing to do with me not wanting to visit one. In fact, I have looked for libraries I could visit, but realized that there was no way I could make the opening times due to being grown up and having a full-time job now. However, there was a time in my life when I was younger, and I frequented libraries quite often - not just to borrow books, may I say. Libraries are seriously much more than that.

The first library I remember borrowing books from was a tiny one, close to my elementary school. It was probably just the size of my living room now (ok, maybe plus the hallway), but for a girl the age of 8 that little oasis opened a door to hundreds of stories. I used to go there often after school - these were the days when 8-year-old kids were still allowed to walk or cycle back home on their own, without parents having to do the school run. Of course, my parents also bought me my own books - but the library offered me the chance to just browse around, and find the books I liked with the absence of my parents. Let's say it offered my younger self a taste of literary independence. No form of internet can have the same impact on a child as a room full of books. Whilst the internet will give you what you want quickly, finding a book you want to take home in a library is akin to finding that buried treasure in an adventure. It takes longer, but it feels more special.

At high school, the library closest to my school was huge. It was the main public library of the city I lived in - seven stories high, and with fantastic facilities (see picture below). For a bookish girl like me, it was my very own piece of heaven. I spent countless afternoons there during my teenage years - this time, not only spending time in the fiction area, but using non-fiction books to do homework, and doing research on what I wanted to do later in life, i.e. university, career, etc. Back then, the top floor consisted of the music department which offered library users the opportunity to book the "piano room" which had a grand piano in it. I was never a great piano player - I hated the discipline of having to learn playing notes perfectly in the exact way they were written maybe a hundred or so years ago (my brother is much better than me in that). I loved tinkering about on the piano, playing my own made-up stuff (which I still do from time to time), but there was no way, anyone would have let me touch an expensive grand piano for that. I mean... me? Silly me?? Well, the librarians didn't seem to mind, and I spent a few hours of my life imagining I was one damn amazing pianist. If only.

I attended Durham University after high school. Obviously, universities have libraries. I have to admit that I only ended up in the library in the third term of my first year to prepare for the exams. The reason I didn't go there earlier was (1) the library was up a freakin' hill (ok, in retrospect, it wasn't too big a hill, but all the students called it "the hill" which made it seem like Mount Everest to me - there was also another hill called "Cardiac Hill", but that's another story); and (2) my college was one of the few lucky enough to have its own small library. I did go to the main library much more often in my second and third years. And I swear - not - that it wasn't only because my younger self had crushes on certain boys who frequented the library more often than me (and they weren't even geeky). For anyone who has a daughter doing this - don't stop them! Had I developed those crushes earlier, my grades would have been much better!!

When I moved to do my Masters degree in London, I even had access to the British Library - a grand institution that doesn't lend books per se, but rather offers them to people for research purposes on its premises. Why I went there was not necessarily because I needed the books, but because the environment made it easier for me to write my papers. There is something about the subtle tension and quietness of libraries that makes me work better - where you know that people are meant to remain quiet, but at the same time, you know that everyone's brain is at work... whether it be reading, wondering, thinking, pondering... who knows? Fact is, they do.

My point is that libraries are not solely there for the books we may borrow. They are there for so many other things that end up fueling our imagination. They do so in a very subtle way - we don't tend to know the impact they had on our lives until much later, when we look back and remember. I may have the benefit of the internet now, and the Kindle to fuel my consumption of books, but this doesn't change the fact that my most perfect dream home (the kind of home I could only afford if my name ended with "Gates" or "Buffet" or anything of the kind) always includes my very own library - with several stories of books in dark wooden shelves and spiral staircases connecting the floors with one another. Yes, it's just a dream where I can have all that I want... but how come in such a dream, I still long for an entire library that is mine?

My new writing toy...

2010-11-30T14:51:00.003Z

On Friday, my belated birthday / early Christmas present has well and duly arrived. Welcome the beautiful Macbook Pro:

Since then, I have downloaded this wonderful writing tool called Scrivener, and may I say... I'm in writing heaven. I have tested the Scrivener beta version for Windows before, but since I was always tempted by the Mac and could see from the Windows version how good it could be if I did have the Mac version, I just couldn't stop myself and went ahead and bought a Macbook Pro 13".

The reason I never had a Mac before was due to its cost. Plain and simple. However, for all those who are interested - Amazon sells both the Macbook White and the Macbook Pro 13" for over £100 cheaper than the RRP. Still a chunk of money to pay though. But then, I added up the amount I spent on Windows laptops over the last 5 years, and I realised that I could have bought about 3-4 Macbooks in that time. The reason being that all the machines had defects that started weeks after their warranties expired. The Sony Vaio's DVD player stopped working. The Compaq's hinge (the one that connects the keyboard with the monitor) broke. The seemingly fast and top-spec PC Specialist laptop was too high-spec for its own good: it would heat up to the point where the user (moi!) would almost get burned, and would subsequently crash - just one of the many, many problems it had. My Samsung netbook served me well. Ultra-portable, fantastic battery life... but its body did start to crack. I know. I'm a little clumsy. But it was also because I took the thing everywhere I went.

My proper excuse to buy a Mac though inevitably came from Marcus Sedgwick's talk at the SCBWI conference - he bought himself an Amstrad machine ages ago when he started out, so that he could feel more like a "proper writer". (That's when I thought he may actually be older than I thought him to be, because I had no recollection of those machines.) Anyway, my own version of Mr Sedgwick's story is finally getting a Mac and Scrivener.

I have now imported all my finished chapters, etc., and have worked nearly non-stop on my novel over the weekend. What makes Scrivener my choice of software for writing is that it simply makes my job easier. Not to mention that loads of successful authors out there use it, too. Gone are the days where I would have several Word documents open, cutting and pasting scenes that were out of order. In Scrivener, you can save scenes into different files (making them very movable) and yet you can read them all together as if they were one and the same document. It is also incredibly easy and quick to shift between chapters - all done within a fraction of a second, rather than the seconds of "Opening Document.." moments in Word. It is difficult to describe it really. I guess it is the way the "Master Document" should work in Word, but doesn't. Another way to describe it would be: a more modern, slick and easier to use version of PageFour.

You can save all your research in your Novel folder - again making it terribly easy to jump in and out of the material - whether they be pictures, texts... you can even import a website, should you wish to do so. Basically, I would need numerous software packages and several folders set up on a PC to be able to do what Scrivener does effortlessly. Without me having to ask and beg for it like I always felt I had to with any other software I used before. And that's why I feel like I'm in seventh heaven right now...

Oxford University Online Course: Writing Fiction for Young Adults

2010-11-22T10:29:00.006Z

I have signed up for an Oxford University online course named Writing Fiction for Young Adults that is due to start on the 12th of January, running up until the 25th of March. The reason I have signed up for this is that I have been waiting for a course like this to arrive on our shores. I guess Arvon had one once, but the last time it ran was about two years ago. There are plenty of these courses in the U.S., and I was about to sign up for one of them (it was offered by one of the universities in California - all online).

As many will know, there is a huge difference between writing for children and writing for adults, but there is another subtle difference between writing for those two market segments and writing for young adults. Teenagers are no longer children, but yet, they are not adults either. They are still finding their place in the world. No matter what your taste in music, you can't deny that the few lines that forms Britney Spears' song "I'm Not A Girl, Not Yet A Woman" describes this moment of (a girl's) life perfectly.

The course costs £180, so despite it being a bit of a commitment, it's not going to cost several months' rent. It is also an accredited course, so if anyone is interested in taking things further, they can. Also, it truly is an online course, i.e. you don't have to be in the vicinity of Oxford to do it as long as you can rely on your good old friend - the internet.

Is anyone out there who will be taking this course, too? Let me know...

Writers' Workshop

2010-11-20T22:41:00.015Z

Today, I attended a one-day workshop which covered the basics of writing, such as character, plot and writing style. It was in Oxford, and offered by a company that organises workshops both there and in London. The teachers are published authors writing mostly books for adults.

In the morning, we had a two hour session on "Character" which was disrupted only by a fire alarm that was probably set off by a toaster or something. Once we all returned back to our seats, we created a character - each participant contributing a random feature to that character which means that the character was rather odd. Here are all the things the group came up with:

- male

- middle-aged

- frustrated

- rents out bouncy castles

- has two children (boy and girl)

- wants an affair

- wanted to be a surfer (in his youth)

- wants to expand his business empire and seduce his secretary

- has a collection of stuffed owls

- feels kinship with these stuffed owls because he doesn't feel alive

- about to attend "bouncy castle conference"

- tempted by illegal stuffed owl trafficking from Afghanistan

- his name is Bruce

As you can see, all very random! Our task was to create a scene revealing some of the details of this particular character. This is what I came up with:

Bruce was sitting in his study, surrounded by his dead and feathered friends. He may as well have been one of them - that’s how lifeless he felt inside.

In the past ten years of his life, the only time he remembers to have felt truly alive was last week, when Beth had touched his hands ever so slightly, albeit involuntarily. That was the time when he finally realized that the walls of this house resembled that of a prison: thick, unyielding and impossible to get out of.

“Dad,” he heard a faint voice from behind the doors. His daughter. What did she want from him now?

He opened the doors slightly, so that he could see her narrow face filling the gap. She was no longer the little girl she once was - she now even had a boyfriend or maybe, that was last week. His daughter’s somewhat whimsical way of life was completely different from his stale and monotonous being. “What is it?” He asked, his voice brisk and without affection.

“Mom sent me,” she said. “Dinner is ready.” A wrinkle formed between her brows. “If you want to eat with us that is.”

“Tell her I’m going to eat later,” he said, almost regretting the sharp tone of his voice. It wasn’t her fault after all that he felt the way he did.

She rolled her eyes, and let him be. In the corner of his study, Bruce could see an old picture of him and his daughter. She must have been about five. Behind them was a yellow bouncy castle - the first he had ever bought and sold, the first living hour of what was to be his business. How different life was now compared to then.

We discussed this in class, and decided that maybe the first paragraph or even two was unnecessary.

What we were taught in terms of characterisation is:

1) Deploy over time; reveal the character slowly.

2) By the end of the story, your character needs to be in an irrevocably different state - there has to be a character arc. (James Bond is a bad example because he never changes)

3) Don't try to be too clever. The biggest mistakes writers can make is to think they are so clever that the writing rules that applied to Shakespeare and other great writers of the past do not apply to them.

4) When writing a trilogy, you need to provide three character arcs / prove that your character changes again and again.

5) Make a character change by putting them in jeopardy. Force them to make a choice at the risk of losing something.

6) Motivation - know what your character wants out of life and what they can lose by pursuing their desire.

The "Character" part of the session was followed by a short talk about the business side of books, which again was followed by a two hour or so session on "Plot".

What we were taught about Plot is:

1) When the book ends, there has to be a resolution.

2) Enter Late. Leave early. (When telling a story)

3) Feel free to combine plot templates.

This was followed by a ninety minute session on "Prose". We went through a very small segment of our work, and we all got a very honest and frank critique from the teacher. What I learned here is that less is definitely more. Every single word and sentence in your novel has to have a purpose. If not, delete them. In my case, at least it wasn't too bad. I wasn't told that my page had to be scrapped or that everything had to be reworked. Instead, I was told I write sentences that would be beautiful and even poetic, if only I left out a few unnecessary words. I have to distance myself from my work a little and dare to delete those words to make the manuscript the best it could possibly be. That's actually a lot easier said than done, but I will try...

It has given me a lot of things to think about, but since it was a general writing course, you could see the there was a difference between writing for adults and writing for children or young adults. There was another lady there who was working on a children's fantasy book, and we agreed on quite a few things that I believe is more relevant to us than other authors who write for adults. I have suggested that she joins SCBWI because for what she is working on, she would definitely benefit from being a member. Not that I am a walking advertisement for SCBWI, but going to a more general writers' workshop has really brought to light the relevance of what is offered by the society.

A Weekend of Learning and Hoping - The SCBWI Conference

2010-11-15T13:08:00.017Z

This weekend was the first time I've ever been to a writer's conference, although I have always been wanting to write - in teenage speak - for like ever! A few weeks ago, the slightly whimsical side of me decided to go ahead and book myself a place at the SCBWI Conference in Winchester. Now, I'm normally a planner when it comes to things like this - everyone will tell you that. I'm the sort of person who books holidays up to a year in advance, only to narrowly make it onto the plane when the time comes. I blame the slow queues at the security gates of Heathrow Airport. Seriously... they are so... slow. Where else could it take over an hour to check in and go through security? I've heard even Israel can do better than that, and they probably have a lot more problems than us.

Anyway, SCBWI stands for "Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators", and was founded in Los Angeles about 40 years or so ago. More details for to be found here. The British chapter, the SCBWI British Isles has been in existence for 10 years, and has been supporting both published and unpublished writers since then.

Celebrating its 10 years

SCBWI holds numerous events over the year, the biggest of which is the annual conference in the month of November. As I have never been to such a conference before, I didn't know what to expect. I knew there would be lectures and workshops, but I wasn't sure whether they could hold my interest for an entire weekend. I missed quite a few lectures at university for the plain reason that a module did not prove of any interest to me. Well... now that the conference is over, I can tell you that an amazing thing has happened: every single lecture or workshop kept my mind enthralled the way my lecturers at university could only ever dream about. The teachers were fantastic, the volunteers extremely helpful.

On Saturday, after what can only be described as a very rushed Full English Breakfast, I actually enjoyed Marcus Sedgwick's keynote speech. He is the kind of writer I always thought would be good at writing children's books - as he himself said, part of his brain is still a kid (though getting a little older by the year). Ellen Renner went through all that a writer has to do to become a success (you need luck, too, of course), and I found her session to be extremely inspiring. It was quite funny listening to her straight after Marcus Sedgwick's talk. Mr Sedgwick is a plotter - the character comes later (easy to revise whereas plot is not), whilst Ms Renner likes to focus on the character. I think we have the usual boy / girl difference here though. Boys tend to be more excited about plots whilst girls tend to be more into the characters themselves (hence, they can fall in love with a fictional character, which I have never seen a boy do). As a girl, I was more in Ms Renner's camp with regards to this matter, in fact, I agreed with everything that she said, and have ordered a few of the guide books she recommended to us that very day. I also wanted to do Linda Chapman's session Letting the Genie Out of the Bottle, but unfortunately, I could not clone myself in time for the conference. What a nuisance! The industry panel was very informative, and enabled me to see the writing world from an editor's point of view.

Prior to the conference, I had been looking forward to Marcus Sedgwick's afternoon lecture A Sense of Place very much. You see, the setting for the novel I'm currently working on is extremely important, and I wanted it to have more of a role in the novel itself. His lecture gave me a few ideas. So let's see whether I can put those tips into practice. The lecture was followed by the State of the Nation panel that touched upon certain issues such as e-Books. I know the music industry had a lot of problems with illegal downloads, and everyone is worried that the same fate would befall the book market. But I have to admit that I am a very big fan of the Kindle. I have it in my bag about 90% of the time. I commute 4 hours a day, I need books to entertain me whenever I'm taking a break from writing on the train, and with young adult novels* these days easily reaching 100,000 words or more, my bags wouldn't be able to deal with that. I don't download books illegally either - I wouldn't have the time in the day to find out how to. In fact, the books that I do like on Kindle, I sometimes end up buying in their physical form for purely emotional reasons, so I actually purchase them twice rather than just once. Also, I've given my husband a Kindle for his birthday towards the end of October. He has not read a fiction book in years. Seriously, the last real fiction book he remembers reading was the Lord of the Rings trilogy. And that was years before the films came out! We are now in mid-November (barely a month after he has received his Kindle) and he has almost completed all three books of Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy. He is even starting to worry about what to read next! Whilst e-Books may make piracy easier, I also believe they open up a whole new audience to writers. And even if e-Books did not exist, piracy would continue to thrive as could be seen with the 100% fake, but solid Harry Potter books seen in China when Deathly Hallows came out. Sad as it is, all we can do is hope that the majority of humans on this planet abide by some personal moral code rather than spend every waking minute trying to find more and more loopholes in the law.

On Sunday, I took the two workshops led by Miriam Halahmy - Give your plot a facelift and How to make your characters stand up and stand out on the page. I don't think I have overcome my public speaking fears during those hours, but it could have been a step in the right direction. During lunch, I had an interesting discussion about mother and daughter relationships with another conference attendee. This is a very important aspect of the novel that I'm working on, and it has provided me with quite a few head-banging opportunities over the last few weeks. It was good to know that they are indeed as complex in real life as I believe it to be for my story. A favourite topic at lunch was Social Networking, inspired by the talk given by Candy Gourlay, Sarah McIntyre and Keren David. I realised I don't do anywhere near as much social networking as other people do. Yes, I do have Facebook, but it's still under my maiden name, and I have only Facebook-befriended my close friends, family and a handful of colleagues. Blog - well, I decided after that to "renew" my blog (you're looking at it now), as it might help me with my writing. Twitter - gave that up when I no longer had a Blackberry. I'm really behind in all things social networking...

... speaking about which, my mother has recently joined Facebook, i.e. my brother has set her page up for her, whilst she does her updates. Upon seeing that I was in Winchester over the weekend, a friend asked me on Facebook what I was doing there. My mother asked the same. I told them about the conference, upon which my mother posted the following:

"That's great that you are finally doing something that you really wanted to do for a long time - write. I wanted to do it myself before when I was young, but limited budget and time cancelled those dreams. Continue yours!"

This post nearly brought a tear to my eye at the conference. Those few short lines encompassed everything that the conference was about (to me, at least). All of us (whether published or not) have a dream, and we must stay in pursuit of that dream or else, we may give up on them. More often than not, it is the support that we receive from our loved ones and organisations like the SCBWI that is of vital importance. It should be valued highly. After all, Cinderella would never have gotten to that all-important ball without the support of the fairy godmother.

*I'm not actually that young. It's just that I'm particularly interested in this market, and I'm pretty sure my brain has never gone beyond the teenage phase - with reference to Mr Sedgwick's comments.