When Reality Suffers in Translation, Try Fantasy

Sweating profusely in the tube the other day, I reached for a copy of the Metro freesheet to use as a fan. An interview with poet Bernardine Evaristo caught my eye. Her debut prose novel Blonde Roots has only just come out. Bernardine uses reversal similar to that employed by my hero Malorie Blackman in Noughts and Crosses. Says Bernardine:

I wanted people to look at the slave trade differently and the reversal was the vehicle for me to do that ... I wondered whether if I turned the slave/master roles around, people would have a different response to the issues ... Read the interview here

The white heroine is a farm girl taken away to be a slave in 'Aphrika'. The cover is very striking and it would be interesting to see how Evaristo builds her world. The Noughts and Crosses franchise is on its fourth book - Double Cross is out in November.

My fascination is partly out of self-interest - last year I started a novel based around some reporting I'd done on children left behind by the migration phenomenon in the Philippines.

The writing was bogged down by the weight and complexity of the reality I was trying to paint and I found myself turning to fantasy. The result was Ugly City, a 9+ novel about a city where parents have to leave and children stay behind.

If you had asked me a year ago if I would ever write a fantasy, I would have said of course not (I haven't even read Lord of the Rings, shock, horror!). But fantasy lends itself to turning unpalatable truths into roaring drama and with the layers pared away, I gained a lot of insight into the immigration situation I was trying to reflect on.

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My friend Elizabeth emailed me this Rant-Not-To-Be-Missed by Mark Hurst over at the Good Experience blog. Here are the first two bullet points about "how most - not all - publishers work":

• They're not doing it for the love of books. Publishers want something that sells. Similarly, bookstores want something that sells. Publishers and bookstores want a book that sells early, sells often, and sells for a long, long time. If they don't think your book will sell, they won't pay much attention.

• Conversely, if your book will sell, it doesn't matter what you're writing about. You could write something boring, or irrelevant, or nothing at all - just a blank set of pages with a coffee stain on them will work fine, if the book sells. Do you get the picture? It's not about any high-minded ideals of literature, or craft, or changing the world - publishers and bookstores want something that sells. Drop any illusions about spending time with book lovers; this is business.

Read Secrets of Book Publishing I Wish I'd Known

For the record, I am told that it is not really that bad ... but not far off.

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Being a rabid member of SCBWI, I'd just like to take this opportunity to point out to members that SCBWI's annual summer conference is now ongoing in Los Angeles. If you want to follow events, Alice Pope, editor of the Children's Writer's and Illustrator's Market, is blogging extensively about it. Thanks, Alice!

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I met Mark Robson, uber prolific author of YA fantasy series like Imperial Spy and Dragon Orb, when I appeared before the Scattered Authors Society to tell them the Internet doesn't bite.

Mark was one of the authors who didn't really need my advice, since he already had an excellent website, blogged regularly and spent a lot of time meeting readers at bookstore events. He emailed me today to let me know he'd invested in a game on his website and do I know any youngsters who would like to check it out.

Youngsters (and Oldsters if you so feel the need)! Go slay some dragons! Here's the link to Mark's game page, see how you do.

Authors and Websites: What You Need to Know

Before anything else, a bit more shameless publicity: I'll be doing a two hour workshop at the British SCBWI annual conference on 22-23 November. I haven't got a title yet but I've pretty much decided that it's going to be in the format of a web designer/client meeting going through step-by-step what the client needs to know about putting up a website. The tragedy is that my workshop is at the same time as a workshop on character and plot headlined by my friend Miriam Halahmy, uber creative writing guru. Drat.

Anyway. Speaking of the internet. I keep finding myself in little conversations with friends about author websites.

Do authors really need them? What's the point if you're writing picture books for little kids who don't go online? Should authors blog? Aren't there too many blogs in the world already? Aren't MySpace and Facebook just a big waste of time?

And what if THIS is the sum total of our computer savviness:

It's a big, big subject. And if I wrote too comprehensively about it, nobody will ever invite me to speak at their conferences again.

So instead of giving everything away, here's a list of things that authors who are thinking about getting a website need to consider:

1. Which gatekeepers are you targeting? The look and feel of your website is determined by your audience. Are you at a stage in your career where you need to present a professional face to publishers or stir up the interest of readers? Are you trying to get librarians and booksellers interested in your book or are you trying to meet like-minded people for support and contacts?

2. It's not about you, it's about them. The internet is no longer a world of static homepages. The internet-user is used to being able comment, upload, download and engage with a site in a million different ways. If your website can't engage with your visitor, you might as well print out a flyer.

3. It takes five visits to make a sale. I don't know where that fact comes from but it comes up time and again in reference to website effectivity. Whatever it is you are selling (your book? yourself?), ask yourself: how do you get someone to return five times? The answer is what will make your website successful.

4. Nobody can drive it but you. Content management is the bugbear of author websites. You see a lot of author websites that were last updated in the previous century. Ask your web designer, how am I going to update this without you? These days, you don't have to learn code anymore to be in control. The reason blogs are so popular is because blogs are just websites with easy-to-use content management systems. You don't have to be a blogger to have a blog.

5. Write the book. You can blog, you can facebook, you can myspace ... you can do everything possible online but your web efforts are nothing if your product doesn't measure up. At the end of the day, the internet cannot save a bad book.

So go write.

And write well.

How Brad Pitt Didn't Turn Up for the SCBWI Retreat

So I've just returned from a weekend of writing at the British SCBWI retreat in Codsall near Wolverhampton.

It was very fattening.

Anita Loughrey preparing to gorge during the retreat.

But ultimately inspiring. Don't we all look inspired?

Well-fed retreat attendees just before yet another meal. Click on the image to find out who was photoshopped into the picture (that's what you get when you leave early).

We also saw this goose:

Goose with grass on its beak

What did I learn?

Well Julia Golding (The Diamond of Drury Lane) assured us that it was entirely possible to write 10 novels in two years even if you have three children (and be slim and beautiful and composed but I'm not going to go there).

Julia Golding - and she visits schools and conducts seminars and ...

The charming Shoo Rayner demonstrated how easy it was to get published. All you have to do is write books, illustrate, know html code, learn flash, sing songs, play the guitar, create your own cartoons, design ebooks, have a wonderful, manly speaking voice, speak Norwegian ...

I was so transfixed by Shoo that I forgot to take his picture. Here's a picture of Brad Pitt instead:

Shoo Rayner is a polymath. But Brad Pitt isn't. Or maybe he is. He should get in touch and let me know.

On the last day, the ethereal Tessa Strickland of Barefoot Books came to explain how to solve all your childcare problems by starting up a publishing business. Barefoot Books' business plan combines a conscience with a real love for books and by the time Tessa finished speaking, we had all become Barefoot Book authors ... if only she would have us.

We fell in love with Barefoot Books and Tessa Strickland

The word I would use to describe the SCBWI retreat is 'transformational'.

I came away with a fresh perspective, new avenues into writing, and a sense of confirmation that this thing I am into ... writing for children ... is a really good thing!

Thank you to Sue Hyams for organising the retreat!



Shameless Advert: if any of you are at Hay-on-Wye for the Guardian Book Festival, please, please attend my friend Elizabeth Pisani's talk on Sunday. She drew the graveyard shift ... well, it's at 9 in the morning. As an incentive, she is giving away chocolate and durian flavoured condoms.

Home from Bologna to Internet Silence

So I'm back from the world's biggest children's book fair, having met loads of famous people, seen oodles of exciting new books, and with photos and posts galore to put up on the blog.

But my internet was down.

I felt like this:

But today after an emotional reunion with my internet provider, Virgin Media, I'm back and I'm ready to tell you all about Bologna - in nifty, accessible chunks to aid digestion. For now, here are five interesting things about the trip:

1. British Airways provided passengers with a waste bag which is a folded plastic bag within another plastic bag. TWO plastic bags for one!

2. SCBWI British Isles was the opening feature of the first SCBWI Showcase stand at Bologna. Here we are just before the crowds came rushing. From left to right, author Margaret Carey, British SCBWI regional advisor Natascha Biebow, British SCBWI illustrator coordinator Anne Marie Perks, illustrator Sarah Mcintyre, me, author Catriona Hoy, and illustrator Trish Phillips. SCBWI stalwart Anita Loughrey missed the photo-op because she was busy schmoozing educational publishers.

3. Agents really work hard in Bologna. Here is the most terrifying hall in the fair.

Lined up like cattle, the agents didn't look that scarey.

4. Bologna has really INTERESTING statues. Here I am with illustrator Anne Marie Perks in front of a woman with spurting breasts:

5. In Bologna, it is possible to randomly meet cool YA authors. Here I am overcome with joy to meet Uglies creator Scott Westerfeld

Ah.

It was all very, very good.

And though the internet was down when I got back from my four days away, everything else was just as I had left it - particularly the mess in the kitchen.

And the children had not escaped.