Liz De Jager

I had the chance, along with a hoarde of other SCBWI members to attend the Undiscovered Voices event last night.

For those who don’t know, Undiscovered Voices is an initiative by SCBWI British Isles where unagented, unpublished, authors have the chance to appear in anthology which is then sent out to agents and publishers and other movers and shakers in the KidLit world.  This is the Undiscovered Voices website here.

Last night’s event was the launch of the new project.  The organisers had all the judges there and it was a genuinely friendly panel who sat down, facing this room full of hungry aspiring writers.

The judges:

Sara O’Connor started the evening with a round of questions to get everyone relaxed and chatting.  The questions related to things like “favourite books growing up” and “books to recommend to aspiring writers”.  Julia Churchill copped out slightly on this question but it made me laugh because she said “read read read”.  Basically read within your age group, read with out of the age group, but just read.  The more you read, the better you will learn your craft.  I felt like standing up and applauding her.

Some of the books that were recommended were: How I live now by Meg Rosoff  & The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman.  And if you’ve read these, you may realise that what carries both these books so strongly and makes us remember them is voice and narrative.

My notes are rather random, so here we go.  The question of “What are you looking for / not looking for” went like this:

Rachel @ Egmont:

• not looking for straight historical / not looking for high fantasy.
• looking for adventure with humour for 8 – y/o
• survival stories, tying in with dystopic

Dagmar – Literary Scout

• books for younger readers are very much in demand
• also books with humour and humour done well

Amber @ Orion

• not looking for epic fantasy
• adventure stories
• YA – well written YA for the new Indigo imprint Orion has started

What can aspiring writers do when writing their stories, to stand out from rest?

Jo @ Foyles

• memorable characters – she quantified that the memorable characters may not even have to likeable.
• voice

Rachel @ Egmont

• character – original
• feel real – you want to continue with them on their journey
• the writer must have the writing ability
• strong voice
• stand out plot and hook

Catherine @ RCW

• voice
• character
• good writing

The group was then asked about pitfalls to avoid and also the most common pitfalls they see aspiring writers make:

Jasmine @ OUP

• theme*
• emotion*
• concern*

* Jasmine explained that they receive so many submissions written by adults for adults, telling children’s stories.  This is obviously not what they are after.  Your readers have to be able to identify with the above three items wholehearted and writing for kids is hard as they pick up when they are being talked down to.  Writers have to keep it fresh and original, even when reworking an old trope.  Take the trope and spin it around and make it new.   A lot of heads were nodding at this stage.  Not just by the panelists but by the audience.

Jenny @ ANA

• too many words
• not enough words
• the wrong type of words

Jenny, like Jasmine explained: too many works means when a writer just does not manage to get the story started immediately.  They harp on and on about a certain thing and five pages later nothing else has happened.  Similarly in not enough words, it is as the writer wrote in draft format only.  And the wrong type of words relates to finding the most boring way to say something.

Julia @ Greenhouse

• entering a scene too soon
• exiting a scene too late
• show don’t tell

There were some questions from the audience and from our watchers online but those I didn’t write down – sorry.  All in all, it really was a very positive meeting.  There were a lot of smiles on the panel and also from the audience and I think the deepseated fear everyone felt last year about publishing going through a tough phase has sort of worn off.  It sounded like people are honestly looking for new things and to help grow debut authors careers.

I loved the buzz and stayed far too late.  A great big thanks to both Saras who worked so hard to make this a success.  I will definitely be nabbing their idea to host it online too, for the Agents Party in September.

Eddited to add, because I am LAME: also, do visit Anne’s site - she’s a previous winner of the Undiscovered Voices anthology for her take on last night’s UV event.

  I have no self-control – I hate Selfridges.  Just look what happened when I took a stroll! All these beautiful things jumped into my hands.

Collection 1 – front and back

Collection 2 – front and back

Collection 3 – front and back

 Random tiny skinny notebooks – lined – picked up from www.artbox.co.uk

For World Book Day later this week I’ll be visiting a local school to to talk to three different classes of Year 6 pupils.

Apart from the obvious abject terror gripping my heart, I’m really looking forward to the day.  I get to talk to them about writing and creating characters and where ideas come from.  Having been asked to do this, has really made me evaluate my own writing and I’ve been talking to various authors extensively about writing processes.

I realise that my life seems to be turning in tighter spirals around writing.  I am worried that I am going through life not really paying attention to anything else.  And it worries me a bit.  But I suppose it could be FAR worse – I could not be thinking about writing at all.

I’ve created a brand new website called Beholder Photography to try and remind myself to look up from my books I’m reading as well my writing and crowd-sourcing whilst commuting.  The website will hopefully be updated each day with at least one photo from our existing cache of photos or from new photos taken on the day.

What can I say? I’m snap-happy!

Find the new photography blog here.

That is all.

I’ve been a bit quiet lately – mostsly I’m obsessing about revising and chopping and changing things.  But don’t let this fool you thinking I’ve done a vast many things.  I have done all of two chapters.  Part of it was a rewrite.  But mostly, it is deep thinking.  About my writing and own creativity.  I don’t know if it’s just spring being in the air, but I have this incredible urge to create something by hand.  And writing isn’t that thing I want to create.

I think it’s been brought on by visiting Folksy as well as Etsy.  I LOVE seeing all these beautiful items these creative people are making – jewellery, bags, clothes, household items.  I bought a shedload of items, but in particular I am hugely excited about this lovely ring:

Isn’t it lovely?  I sent Sarah my details and am awaiting the little gem.  I’ll be sure to be back here bragging about it.

This is a bit about the designer and jeweller:

A little reindeer forest spirit design cut out by hand using a tiny saw blade in a 10 mm sterling silver disc.

This ring is made to order so please let me know your ring size in the message to seller box upon purchasing. Also, please note that because each deer is cut out by hand the design will vary slightly, especially the antlers!

I was inspired to make this ring because of my love of the forest spirit in Hayao Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoke.

I fell in love with the tiny deer and just couldn’t resist.  Do find her Folksy site here.  The jewellery is so lovely and whimsical, I wish her all the best.

Next up I indugled in some more retail therapy (see what happens when I can’t buy books?) and induldged in some moleskine love - decorated moleskine love:

Again – just a wonderful item.  I bought two of them as I know I won’t be able to keep them to myself.  I also bought another one from the shop “Fresh ‘n Funky Cards” but that one will have to remain a sekrit as I promised that one to Kaz Mahoney when we next meet up.

I have also been inspired – hugely, massively – by the amazing Terri Windling and her ongoing “On Your Desk” series of posts.   She’s asked writerly and arty friends and other creative types to write in with pictures of their working spaces.  I love seeing other people’s work spaces.  To me it is akin to glimpsing Narnia, where the magic happens.  The desk below belongs to Robin Berk (8 years old), who is the crazy-talented Ari Berk’s son.  This is Ari’s link to his website – www.ariberk.com .

I feela  particuar kinship with this blogpost that went up yesterday / today.  It just goes to show how small a world it is.  First the link and then the picture that made me smile:

This is part of the excerpt to accompany this picture:

 ”Well, I like to draw at my desk, that’s what it’s basically for. I like to draw fantasy pictures, science pictures, and science fiction pictures. Some of the pictures come from things I read, or stories I hear, like myths and legends.”

“On my desk right now is a black hole picture; a comic book I am working on; a wand from my friend John Vickery who lives on Dartmoor; a three-eyed green monster I drew and cut out; lots of drawing supplies like pencils, markers, glue sticks, a stapler; and lots of paper. My desk is located in a corner of my dad’s study, right in front of his desk [featured in this "On Your Desk" post on December 14th]. It’s nice that our desks are facing each other because we can look at each other while we’re writing or drawing.”

The reason I’m smiling in a proud fashion is this: John Vickery, whom he mentions, the guy who made the wand and who lives on Dartmoor is a friend.  I met John many years ago, through a pagan community website that I belonged to but have distanced myself from when things became a bit too weird.

John and I got on really well and we had some tremendous email conversations.  Mark and I visited him and his wife several times in the past at his cottage and I fell in love with his workshop.  I asked John to make me several items.  To this day, my wands from John, along with my hand-carved wooden athame and set of runes, are some of my most valuable and treasured possessions.

 This is my Yew Wand John made me.  I still have a note that goes with it:

This one is made from yew – an unusual choice, John tells me – as he usually uses holly for the unicorn twist. It has a hidden compartment for crystals or herbs.

Sadly, as far as I know, John no longer makes these gorgeous items, but I do know that these treasures mean a lot to those of us who had the chance to get them from the “source”. 

I think, the thing about hand-made items is that they are so tactile.  I love playing with my runes John carved for me.  I don’t even do readings with them, I just love handling them.  The same with my wands and my athame.   Added to the fact that I know these were made for me, by a very talented crafts person, puts their value above estimation.

Yes, so you see from all of the above, why I’m feeling the need to make something with my hands.  I may have to resort to baking to get the itching to stop. 

I have yet again been considering – seriously – doing a class in bookbinding but honestly, these cost SO much and although – in theory – I think I will be able to make back the outlay on course, I still can’t justify it.  Not when we’re battening down the hatches to seriously save up for a place of our own.

Oh, for a decent sized lottery win, you know?  Either that or a mahusive bookdeal.  Oh, speaking of which, maybe I should get my itchy hands into the manuscript and see what comes of it, eh?

Thanks for popping by to look at all the shiny things.

PS: Today makes it Day 47 of going cold turkey on book-buying.  I came this close to wavering yesterday as I went into Waterstone’s for the first time since I made my resolution.  It was a close ugly scary thing, but I walked out without a single thing.  All I’m focussing on is my massive blowout at the end of the year.

The week before we left for Prague was dark.

Our building recepitonist stopped me the one morning as I can in and asked me if I was okay as I looked so unhappy.  I was really startled.  I had no idea that my inners were visible on my outers.

And I was unhappy.  Birthdays – which I both love and loathe – have become more and more difficult for me as I’ve grown older.  It’s not because I’m growing older (pah!) but because I miss my mum not being there and celebrating with me.  I miss her so much my heart physically aches sometimes.  And although the loss is there quite a bit it is only at my birthday where I feel this big gap in my life.  But then I take a deep breath and think to myself that being here, in London, following my writerly dream, is something she would totally understand.  And that it’s okay to be a bit sad but not to let it drag me down.  She followed her dreams and she would want me to do the same.  Then I pick myself up and consider all the things I should be grateful for, and continue on.

Prague in silhouette - very proud of this photo!

So the trip to Prague was amazing.  Mark was wonderful and really went out of his way to pander to me and look after me.  He is a great travel companion.  We can be quiet together and noisy together.  We only have to share a look to know what the other is thinking.  Scary, but also very nice.

We had a wonderful time – the food was good, the company was great, the city was mindbogglingly beautiful.  It surpassed everything I had thought it would be.  To me Prague is what Paris was supposed to be.  Impossibly grand and wonderfully old and a bit doddering and a bit weird too.

We walked all over the city.  From the Old Town to New Town, all around the Jewish Quarter and Lower Town and the castle and poked our noses down deserted alleyways and we saw and experienced so much.  And what made it so lovely too was our hotel in New Town.  We got home after a heavy day of taking photos, eating pastries and the most gorgeous cheesecake in the WORLD and having dinner at a tiny restaurant near the castle, and there was a bottle of champagne and a bowl of strawberries from the hotel management for my birthday.  How utterly cool is that?

Prague by night - a shot of the Charles Bridge and the castle

I had most of the strawberries and some champers (being allergic to grapes is crappy) but Mark had most of the champaigne and we lazed about feeling truly decadent.  It was fabulous.  Very truly spoiled.

We got home yesterday and as much as we loved Prague we were glad to get home to our couches, our own bed and our books.  At 3pm Barking Mad showed up with Sparrow who had been on his own holiday to a host family.  It was great seeing the crazy Pup of Woe again but sadly he was a bit out of sorts, a bit miserable, and so we snuggled for hours on the couch.  This morning he’s back to his usual bouncy happy dog-like self and we fawned a bit over him.

Today I’m back in the office but it’s not too bad – the sun is shining and I have received some great review books from Gollancz and Transworld.  I can take my time sorting out various things work-wise and lunch time I’m off to go and write as I got hit with the Eureka stick last night and this morning regarding Grimm’s backstory and some plot items.  I stupidly didn’t bring a book in for my commute so this morning I sat with my moleskine and I made a lot of notes on the backstory and how it will go ahead and influence the story going forward in the draft.

Whoo!  I love it when a plan comes together.

At the end of last year I decided on a very firm New Year’s resolution: not to buy books in 2011. 

*pause and let that sink in*

This doesn’t mean that I won’t stop reading or anything like that, no – it was more a case of taking charge of a habit I’ve gotten into these past few years.  Buying books, endless amounts of books, to have and to hold, and then just having them SIT there on the shelf for AGES and not read them, as I felt I had to give priority to the books I’ve been receiving from publishers to review.

But 2011 is going to be different.  I must have probably bought around 60 – 80 books last year, if not more.  That’s more than what some people read in a life-time, I’ve come to realise.  Out of those I’ve maybe read twenty.  And all of them are still sitting there, waiting for me to open them up. 

I’ve taken the vow not to buy any more books for 2011 so that I can actually get to all these gorgeous books I had bought in the past and not yet read.  Other decisions followed this non-book-buying vow:

1.  Read more widely, outside my comfort zones.  I’d like to pick up more non-fiction this year as last year I read The Tiger by John Vaillant and loved it.

2. Try new authors and genres. In 2010 I read a swathe of science fiction novels.  And I mean, proper heavy sci-fi.  Some I really liked and some I didn’t.  But it was great making myself do this as I’ve learned that sci-fi is not as scary as I remember, thank you Mr. Asimov, reading it at age 10.

3.  Try older stuff (i.e. Tolkien and CS Lewis and Sabatini and RL Stevenson and other authors) Ah, some of these authors I have read but long ago, so instead of “try” this should maybe read “reaquant” myself with older authors.  Also, this year I am determined to read: The Hobbit and all 3 books in the LoTR trilogy. 

4. Try reading some Warhammer 40K stuff.  Mark has been going on and on at me about reading them, saying that if he can’t get ME to read them, then what are the chances of other noobs picking them up.  Which is a fair point.

5.  Space.  Our house is a small Victorian (two up/two down) and I think we’ve reached the capacity for bookshelves – 3 in the lounge, 3 in the dining room, one on the landing and one in the spare bedroom.  Bear in mind that both Mark and I are readers.  That is a lot of books for two people in a small house.  Most of the shelves are double-stacked.  We also have over a thousand books in storage.  Again, I reiterate: we are both readers and these are books we’ve been collecting for say the past ten years.  As for hiring space: - get this – it is cheaper to hire space for storage than it is to move to a bigger house. 

Not buying books is a big thing for me – I go to bookshops to feel better, especially after an awful day at work.  I pick up books, browse the shelves and just love being around them.  They are my go-to for cheering up and for clearing my mind of clutter.  But I also buy impulsively.  3 for 2 at Waterstone’s has been the bane of my existence for ten years. Most of the times I try and be brave but I won’t lie and say I can walk away from a good deal.  I haven’t been able to.  Until this year.  So, as a pat on the head for being so brave, each month I will be dumping say around £15 or maybe even £20 into an existing gift card from Waterstone’s. I already have £50 on there that was given to me as a gift by a colleague at Christmas.

I am taking each month as it comes, but so far I have not bought a single book for myself in 32 todays.  If this continues, it means that at Christmas I can go into Waterstone’s and buy £230 (or thereabouts) worth of books. Which really is one of the coolest blow-outs I can imagine.

And honestly, this resolution / vow has been one of the most difficult to stand by.  It is driving me crazy not to one-click on Amazon and to walk away from Waterstone’s sans anything.   Equally, walking past charity shops and their beconing shelves.  Gaaah.  It is tough.  But I can persevere.  I have to.

Whilst writing both Grimm and Djinn music played a bit part in my writing.  Not necessarily influencing it, I think, but definitely having some kind of background noise going helps me concentrate and sort of, sets the mood.

I recently did a tally of what I tend to listen to whilst writing and was honestly surprised by how many soundtracks I own, both in CD form and via iTunes.

Here is a list of some of my favourites:

• 13th Warrior
• Avatar
• Bioshock
• Guild Wars (all of them)
• Halo
• Chronicles of Narnia
• Inception
• The Chronicles of Riddick
• Twilight / New Moon
• The Music of Hans Zimmer
• Gladiator
• The Last Samurai
• Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
• House of Flying Daggers
• Troy

I have probably around 20 more that I have on this massive playlist on my ipod but these soundtracks are great to zone out to.  When they come on (when not writing) my hands sort of twitch in this Pavlovian way that indicate that I have been conditioned.  Soundtracks mean writing time.

These soundtracks will also accompany me whilst I’m doing my edits in the next few weeks.

And I think I’ve come up with a battle plan for revising Grimm.  It will go as follows: (scrabbles for diary)

1. Have edits and rewrites done by end March / beginning April *to go our to beta readers for feedback.

2. Hopefully get those back by end of April for further rewrites over May / June. *

3. Then go a bit crazy.  Have a fit.  Decide I’m useless.  It is all rubbish and awful and it will never sell and that an agent won’t touch me with a barge-pole.

4. Suck it up, and get on with it.  Have it checked again by a few more trusted readers for feedback then with hitlist of agents in hand, I will approach them, ninja-style and ask them if they would be interested in reading my ms.

I like this plan – it gives me a enough time to put out a good product and hopefully I will be able to polish it and make it shine.  As for the asterisks I’ve added to those dates, it just means that these are flexible and can change. 

This is the plan.  Am hoping it will work.

From http://academics.utep.edu

Once upon a time I wrote short stories.  I loved writing short form fiction.  I belonged to an online livejournal group called MuseMuggers and we had to write bits on a pretty regular basis.  I found that my confidence grew and I enjoyed myself.  I found that most of my writing turned quite dark and a bit emo and a bit gothic.  Completely unlike my usual voice when trying to write longer fiction.  It was a surprise.

So this weekend I decided to polish up a short story I wrote some time ago and to submit it to a short story competition.  I mentioned this on Twitter and had amazing messages of support.  I did not expect it but you know, I took it.

It’s quite frightening really – sending off a short story in for a competition or even a novel length story in for a competition.  I mean, it’s not like you know any of the people doing the readings and the judging.  They don’t have to be nice to you.  But having said that, it is all a bit anonymous in its entirety and your fiction has to stand on its own two feet.

I don’t know if I’ll get anywhere with this competition.  Who knows?! But I loved revising the short story and I realised that writing in a different voice is so much fun.  And also hard work.

So, a few more readings and some feedback to be incorporated before sending it off, thankfully via email!  Phew.

I may have mentioned that I finished my novel for older teens just before Christmas?  Well, I’ve been thinking of my edits. New ideas have surfaced, ways to improve the narrative and wotnot.  What I am keen to use is my critique from my critique group that I meet with monthly.  These are my friends Sue Hyams, Paolo Romeo and Maureen Oakeley.  They read the first ten chapters of Grimm and liked what they saw.  They gave considered feedback.  It was terrifying.

I also have two other people who form a separate crit group and we call ourselves the Triptych Sisters: Sarah Bryars and Sharon Jones.  Their advice is as considered but I’d like to think their approach is far more personal and nitpicky.  Which I honestly need. These five people are the ones I’ve relied on heavily to get the tone of Grimm right.

And recently, as I was zooming towards the end of Grimm, I won a random competition on Twitter hosted by The Lighthouse Agency in which I submitted to them my covering letter and the first three chapters of my current WIP (Grimm) for perusal.

I got some great feedback from them, a lot of which will be incorporated into my revisions, items that particularly resonated (I’ll skip the covering letter for now):

I think we could do with a bit more Kit in general. She sounds brilliant, and by the time I get to her fighting the red-caps with the boys I like her very much. But a few strokes in the first few pages would give the reader much more to connect with. (I mean things like page 16, where we understand why she likes physical exercise. That’s a great pointer to the kind of person she is – you could drop in a couple of things like that earlier.) It’s vital that the readers like Kit and begin to understand her as soon as the novel opens.

Also something I’m very panicky about at the moment which they caught:

Watch out for slipping into different tenses. On page 1, second paragraph, we flick between present and past tense. Same on page 26 ‘the other world has reached out and touched someone else…’ Just something to be aware of.

And this made me both swell with pride as well as quake in terror:

Your handling of the 19^th century voice is really adept, and you have a knack of setting a scene in just a few short lines.

Because is there anything more terrifying than being told you’re doing something right?  And all you’ve written in that voice is two short journal extracts which need to expand to at least 6 more journal entries? Aiee!

There are a few more items in they mention but to prevent all the world knowing the storyline I’ve mentioned a couple here that I am very keen to work on.  I liked how swiftly Lighthouse came back to me and how I could tell they were enthusiastic about my writing and how their advice made sense.

I know it’s a bit of a random thing to say, but it was logical, down and dirty advice.  Also, they were the first “professional” readers for Grimm and the mere fact that my writing did not burn their eyes and scar them for life, is a huge relief.

I really wanted to wait longer to start my edits, but honestly, I think I’m ready.  And there is a lot of advice that has to be measured out, sifted and considered.  But mostly, I know what happens in Grimm and although there will be some big changes, I’m really confident that I can pull this off.

I have to look at how the next few months pan out and set myself a deadline so that I can revise it at least twice (if not more) and get a few beta readers to go over it before I start setting up a hit-list for agents.  Wish me ze luck!  I will need it!

My SCBWI booklet arrived yesterday so I got to read it this morning over breakfast.  I skimmed some articles to be read more fully later on, but I did read this one article by a writer called Joelle Anthony.  The article was “Red Hair is not as uncommon as you think” and really what it was about is the cliche’s YA writers fall into when writing, or things they use as fall-backs because everyone else is doing it.

This is the link to the article on her website: http://joelleanthony.com/daily-writings/the-new-red-haired-best-friend/ - and do pop by and read it.  You can click on the pictures and enlarge them too.

***

Something else I’ve noticed recently is how far I’ve fallen off the social scales.  I’ve somehow become incapable of talking about anything but a) books b) writing and c) the process and d) bookswritingtheprocessrevisionsandotherwriterlytalk.

And it worries me.  Just a bit.  I used to be able to talk for ages about any random thing.  Even if I wasn’t deeply interested in something, I could at least pretend to be and listen and absorb information.  These days, not so much. 

I listen to colleagues talk about X Factor or Corrie or whatever tv show they watched the night before and I think to myself: really? This is how you choose to spend your free time?  And yes, it’s being snobby and snooty and awful, but I can’t help it.  I haven’t watched a soap since I was 16 and I haven’t watched a single episode of any kind of Big Brother / X Factor / Strictly Come Dancing 0r anything like that ever in my life. 

Is there something wrong with me?  I’d rather be reading or writing or watching National Geographic / History channel or I don’t know, some kind of series like Supernatural, Criminal Minds, Warehouse 13 or Fringe.  Dear heavens, I love Fringe.  Or any of the kazillion movies we seem to own.

Also, I’m not keen on cricket or football (soccer) so even in that respect I fail hugely as conversationalist.

So I am worried – I have effectively cut myself off from talking to bog-standard non-reader / writerly types.

Am I doomed?  Am I the only one?

Will I turn into someone, like one of those mum’s who are so used to looking after babies and toddlers that their voices go high and questioning during a conversation, even when they are talking to adults?  (I’m allowed to say this as we have friends who tend to do this and we laugh at them roundly for doing so – but never in a mean way, because we can so relate).

Anyway – there you go.  Sort of a new years resolution from me: learn to talk to people again.  And not scowl at them too much for talking gibberish about reality tv and soaps.  I must remember to try and not appear too weird in public.

Please note that both pictures used in this blogpost was nabbed out of my Word clipart folder.