Keep Calm It's Only Novel Panic

By Emma Greenwood
Guest Blogger

Here it comes again: my regular dose of ‘novel panic’, ‘novel angst’, ‘novel just not good enough, never going to be good enough, think I'll just give up and go back to doing normal things like sweeping up peas when they fall under the table and providing clean underwear for my children’.

Guest Blogger Maureen Lynas: Writerly Incompetence Can Be Cured

Part One of a Series
Read Part Two - If You're Incompetent and You Know It Clap Your Hands

Maureen Lynas is an ex-teacher and literacy consultant who believes that with a bit more work and a load more willpower, resolve, fortitude, doggedness, tenacity, persistence, diligence, grit and determination, she will eventually win a publishing deal for Boggarty Bog’s Tasty Teeth. Or Kissy Wissy. Or Hatty’s Splendiferous Hats. Or one of the many other stories in her ‘finished’ folder.

Maureen is currently feeding her writing obsession by associating with members of SCBWI British Isles and has taken on the role of North East Regional Advisor. You can see Maureen’s reading scheme at the Action Words website 

Incompetent – moi? No!

Tick if you have ever done any of the following:

 Slumped in an emotional heap crying, ‘Do I really have to know the difference between an idiom and an idiolect – what sort of an idiot would think that was reasonable?’

Or

 Thrown the laptop with frustration - or wanted to, but thrown a cushion instead. Laptops don’t bounce.

Or

 Chosen to show your nearest and dearest exactly why they shouldn’t have said, ‘Yes, but what’s his motivation?’ Instead of merely telling him.

Do not despair if you have ticked any boxes.

You are merely suffering from incompetence. It can be cured.

The first step is to identify exactly how incompetent you are and from then on you must be treated with care.

There are four stages of incompetence, no matter what the subject or activity. But as we are all authors I thought I’d focus on writing, if anyone wants to contact me on how to be a brain surgeon then – you need to have your head examined.

Cartoon copyright Mike Luckovich from Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Stage One is Unconscious Incompetence.

Ah, bliss. A wonderful stage to be in. We do not know what it is that we do not know.

You could say we are delusional at this stage because we actually say things like – I have an idea! For a book! Wow, I’m going to write a book! I’ll be rich. I’ve read lots of books therefore I can write a book. I used to write a lot a school and it was good. I’ll be rich. I can use a pen. I have paper. I’ll be rich. I can use Word. I’ll type it. I’ll be rich. And it shall be a great book, and it shall wow the world with its uniqueness. AND I’LL BE RICH! After all, how hard can it be? It’s not brain surgery, is it?



Poor us. We have no idea. No idea of what is involved in the process of writing a book, how to approach a publisher, or what a writer’s life consists of. Ignorance is bliss! But not for long.

At his stage we also do things that demonstrate our ignorance.

We write the book. It may take as long as a couple of months (Phew! That was hard!), or if we write quickly (picture books are short) a night.

We stick a pin in a list of publishers and cry – He’ll do!

We kiss the book, printed off in Gigi (such a pretty font), single-spaced with COPYRIGHT 2010 on every page, and send it off to the publisher recommended by a friend who’s had a book published called History of the Railways 1898-1899 Vol 1.

And we wait.

And we wait.

And we wait.

Then we cry. Literally. Then we cry a different cry of – ‘Why!!!! Why have they rejected me! Why do they not love my book?’

I shudder when I recall myself at this stage. I want to curl up and die when I remember the first submission letter I sent out. Forty pages long. No, that’s an exaggeration for comic effect; it’s just grown that big in my head over the years. But it was about six pages. I even seem to remember, and how I wish this was not true, I even seem to remember calculating (with an actual calculator) how many picture books I’d read over the years as a reception teacher, and quoting this number as evidence that I knew my subject and was an author worth publishing. They were so kind, they did reply. It was a no. But it was a very supportive no. However, I was too busy crying the, ‘Why!!!!’ cry that I didn’t recognise it as supportive for many years.

Maureen cuddling up to the
lovely David Almond,
author of Skellig

This stage is the beginning of the writer’s journey. The idea has been planted. We begin to write a book not realising that we have started on an exploration of what it is to be a writer of many books, not an author of one book.

The next stage is a little bit more complex and will require another article.

Coming to you soon.

Help, I’m Consciously Incompetent!

Read Part Two of this series - If You're Incompetent and You Know It Clap Your Hands



Maureen Lynas also blogs on her own blog which she creatively named - Maureen Lynas

Guest Author Teri Terry: winning stuff at conferences and shocking endings

Teri Terry is a writing buddy who has blogged for me before. She’s been to the 30th Winchester Writers’ Conference and hauled a few awards, so this time, I thought I’d interview her - be sure to read to the end of this interview so that you don't miss the truly shocking ending. Teri divides her time between writing, stalking agents and publishers, and working in a library in Bucks, and as if this isn’t enough to keep her busy, is also reading for an MA in creative writing at the University of Bedfordshire in YA fiction.

How did you find the Winchester Writers Conference?

I took a train to Winchester, got in a taxi, and said ‘take me to the conference’

….that isn’t what I meant.

I know.

Well…?

Can you be a bit more specific?

I see this is going to be one of those days. Tell us about the conference.

It was a full on intense weekend of panels, plenaries, workshops, one-to-ones, awards dinners, schmoozing, drinking, and not sleeping. But now I’ve had some time to recover and jump up and down to see what thoughts settle as a result.

Highlights?

One has got to be Terry Pratchett’s plenary address. His work, his life, the way he is getting through things now are such an inspiration. Also the way the packed to over-flowing venue was so silent you could hear a pin drop, everyone willing him to get through it, to find the right words. And he did.

I’m sure there were more highlights.

There were many: meeting up with old friends and new, all the discussions, the exchange of ideas, the one-to-ones, the…

Other sorts of highlights. Like, say, winning a few awards.

Oh, that. If you insist. Yes well I did win first prize in the Greenhouse Literary Agency prize for my 10-plus novel, Meet Me at the Lost and Found. That was adjudicated and awarded by Julia Churchill. And also a first in Writing for Children 12-plus for dystopian novel, Slated, awarded by Jude Evans of Little Tiger Press and associated Stripes. And Arthur and the Bad Lads was highly commended in the 8-11; and YA ghost story Claustrophobia was commended in the first three pages of a novel competition.

Teri (centre) with other victors at the final Winchester Conference winners photoshoot.

Wow that is quite a haul. I am truly impressed. Of course you are so talented, it is hardly a surprise.

Stop it, you’re making me blush!

If there are any agents or editors out there they should get in touch with Teri, right now.

Should we get back to the conference?

All right. Any other highlights?

I was also thrilled when friends Paula Harrison got a second for Rescue Princesses for Writing for Children aged 4 – 7, and Anne Jensen first prize in the page of prose for her Aphelion. We’re in the same writing group.

Lowlights?

OH MY it was HOT. So hot. Though heat is a great leveller: agents, editors, famous authors and wannabees all sweat, just the same.

Did you learn anything?

Robert Goddard says plotting is about meticulous planning.

Terry Pratchett doesn’t plot; he likes to see where he will end up, a sort of steered serendipity.

Terry Pratchett

Hmmm….

Anything else?

Three other thoughts settled in my mind after jumping about for a week: technology is OK, size does matter, and it’s a small world.

I see. Perhaps you could elaborate.

I went to see Carolyn Caughey (editor at Hodder) talk about finding a publisher in hard times. A good general discussion but she touched on these new-fangled electronic book gizmos. What do you call them?

Authors dread the rise of the handy, carry-anywhere digital reading device 

I’m supposed to be asking the questions, here. Do you mean e-books, like Kindle?

Yes. As a wannabee author, the thought of one day holding a book in my hands is part of what keeps me going. And by ‘book’ I mean the sort with an illustrated cover and pages in-between, and…

You mean like Tall Story, with beautifully illustrated cover and available at Amazon right now:

Don’t hijack. Anyhow the draw of holding my own book one day is so strong; I suppose I’ve viewed the potential explosion of e-books with a sense of queasy distrust. But she pointed out that those who produce the content (writers - us ) can only gain by new formats; those who produce the traditional formats (them – publishers, printers etc) need to get with it or be obsolete. I hadn’t thought of it quite that way before.

Your second point: does size matter?

Apparently. My adult crime novel Ready Steady Run – sort of like Bridget Jones with a body count – is very clever and amazingly well written, but too short to be taken seriously. Apparently 100,000 words would be just right.

And it’s a small world?

Oh yes. Sitting in the bar with a random woman who turns out to be author of a signed book on my shelf at home that I got as a raffle prize a few years ago (Dangerous Sports Euthanasia Society, by Christine Coleman). Scary story as her first book got published, then the publisher went bust, and….

NOOOO…. (stuffs fingers in ears). Not listening, can’t happen, la-la-la-la-la….

Calm down, Candy. breathe deeply. Couldn’t possibly happen to David Fickling Books, fantastic publishers of the beautiful Tall Story, could it? How about you ask me another question, now.

OK. How did the WWC compare to other conferences or retreats you may have attended in the past?

Tactfully asking about SCBWI events? Caught you. Well it is different as it is a general event: all types of writing and writers are represented, with a huge range of workshops on pretty much everything you could imagine. Probably there is more for beginners than the SCBWI conferences offer. Of course, for specific information relating to writing or illustrating for children you can’t beat the SCBWI, but if you are interested in other areas and the wider writing world, this is the place to go.

A retreat is completely different. The SCBWI retreat this year was chilled, relaxed, you got time to really think about things, and talk to people. The WWC is frantic.

Relaxed attendees at this year's SCBWI retreat 

Are you glad you went? Would you go again?

Yes, and probably yes. I’ve been to the WWC three years in a row now, and I’d love to go every year. But it is the old finances and juggling time that comes into it also, and maybe if one has to go the SCBWI events are more relevant to me, personally

Any hints for those thinking of going next year?

Apply early: you give a list of agents, editors, writers and others you’d like to see for one-to-one appointments, which is included in the conference. You can have up to three. But the earlier you apply, the more likely you are to get who you want.

What is the accommodation like?

It’s not 5 star. It’s not four star. Or three... (you get where this is going?). Think typical student accommodation, and you get it. It is fine considering you’re only in your room to sleep, and not much for that. Take your own alarm clock, tea cup, hairdryer.

No it wasn't at all like these student digs.

How about the food?

Let’s just say packing snacks is a good plan if you are fussy like me.

How was it for networking: did you meet any agents, editors, famous writers?

There was a good sprinkle of authors, agents and editors about. You could spot them owing to the adoring crowds following them about and pushing each other out of the way to sit next to them at dinner.

Aspiring authors quietly approaching agents at the Winchester conference

Really.

Politely, of course: this is England. But seriously it was great to see how giving people were of their time, how willing to chat. Though there were stories of manuscripts being thrust into the hands of agents as they exit the loo. I prefer a more subtle approach to my stalking.

Do you have anything else you’d like to tell us?

No. I’m good.

Any, say, confessions you’d like to make?

No.

Confession is good for the soul.

Is it?

Well?

OKAY, fine!

One magnificent Candy Gourlay thought it would be cool to interview me for her blog about the conference, but owing to her impending departure to the Philippines for a whirlwind promotional tour of her amazing book Tall Story (editor's note: thanks for repeating this over and over and over again) was a bit pressed for time.

So…..?

Solution? I interviewed myself.
(bet you never saw that coming)

Thank you, Teri for so presumptuously interviewing yourself. Editors and publishers gagging for this immense if rather compulsive talent, you can fight over Teri via the contact page of the Writer's Coven website. No pushing, now! (From the Real Candy Gourlay)

More!

If you've stumbled on this old post and enjoyed it, you might want to know that Teri finally got a book deal with Orchard - and she's expecting triplets!

Guest Blogger Teri Terry: confessions of an unpublished children's writer

Teri Terry is one of those writing friends I met online, and have been lucky enough to have a peek at some of her works in progress which are very, very good.

She currently divides her time between writing, stalking agents and publishers, and working in a library in Bucks. She is contemplating a research Masters degree at Bedfordshire on limits in YA literature. Teri won second prize in Writing for Children 12-plus at the 2009 Winchester Writers Conference, and first prize in ages 8-11 the previous year. She has written seven novels to date. She is currently stalking agents and publishers with a YA fantasy, Life's a Beach, Katie Moon, in which Katie sells her soul to surf, and also an adult crime series, Ready Steady Die: shades of Janet Evanovich, but as it is set in England, more polite and with fewer guns. Work in progress includes a YA horror story, Claustrophobia, and a dystopian fantasy, Slated.

That Teri is still an author-in-waiting is, I believe, a temporary situation. It's only a matter of time, Teri.

I have a confession to make.

I suffer from Rosoff-envy. I can’t help it. I can’t read any of her stuff without turning a deep shade of lime green and reaching for chocolate.

Teri Terry writing while wrapped in sleeping bag; 

Teri (right) in a deep shade of lime green

So I couldn’t resist going to hear Meg Rosoff and Mal Peet speak at the Oxford Literary Festival.

The blurb had it that they were going to tackle what it means to write for Young Adults, and it was even capitalized. They were going to chip away at the limits of teenage fiction; avoid its comfort zones; discuss edginess, and risks. And Meg’s blog also promised it would be ‘chaotic, messy, and horribly indiscreet’.

Soldiering on despite sneezing and sniffling and general germy-ness, I caught the bus to Oxford, prepared to be shocked.

As promised, there was no moderator to rein them in. They were free to interrupt each other at will, and they did.

Meg began by introducing Mal, winner of the 2009 Guardian Children’s Fiction Award for Exposure. She then read a lyrical passage from Penalty, despite claiming to know and care about as much for football as I do.

Meg posed the question: what makes a YA writer?

Mal said he does not write for a particular reader, but has a Myna bird on his shoulder when he writes, saying ‘crap, crap, crap’. Football issues aside, I instantly warmed to Mal: I thought that was just me! He went on to say that he tries to present books that are ‘complex, testing and challenging’, and that he expects his readers to be good enough to read his books. If he writes for anyone, it is what he would have read himself at 15 or 16.

Meg’s view is that they are elderly adolescents and write for themselves. She disagrees with the idea that a different tone of voice should be used when writing for children, and wants the reader to ‘rise to the book’. Also she writes for adolescents for a reason: in many ways it was the most important time of her life. It is about remembering what it is like to not be able to see the world clearly; to be searching for what life is about; working out how to find love, and relationships. And these don’t things don’t end at 19, or even 21.

Meg asked Mal about the embarrassment of being a YA writer: she finds herself making excuses for writing for children, not adults.

Well. Try admitting to being an unpublished children’s writer. Few confessions can clear a room with more speed.

Mal usually says he is a plumber, as they are more in demand than children’s writers, and make more money.

As a defence to the ghettoization of children’s writing, Meg pointed out that the books you read and treasure at 15, 16 and 17 make more impression on you than anything you ever read as an adult. Crime and Punishment got her through a traumatic summer of boys climbing through windows to be with her beautiful roommate. I would have gone for chocolate, but I can see how that could work.

Mal attempted to take over, and introduced Carnegie-medal winner Meg. He also read a wonderfully evocative passage from Meg’s What I Was.

He asked Meg about her books ending in a sort of ‘triumphant melancholy’. She responded that is what life is kind of about, and she has to watch that they don’t end with a character cradling a Puppy of Hope. Her husband has the job of killing off said puppies with a red pencil. We all die at the end: the way to make sense of it not lasting forever is to feel we made the best of things we can.

Mal asked if she feels any responsibility to not be bleak: she doesn’t feel her books are bleak. She writes about what is in her brain: various permutations of love, and how it doesn’t always follow the path it is supposed to follow. As a writer, your subjects should choose you. It is not about having a contest to see who can be the most shocking. Mal added that books should not be categorized by what they are about, but how well they are done.

Regarding endings, Mal felt the truth about writing novels is that you never finish one, and he never feels a wonderful sense of closure, but is an obsessive fiddler. He hastened to add, with his books. Meg, on the other hand, is usually happy with books in the end, but in all cases, they are not the book she set out to write.

In response to a question on the title of What I Was, Meg noted that until the last second it was, instead, The Dark Ages. It was renamed at haste when the original title was rejected.

My quote of the day: Meg admires Dan Brown and Stephanie Meyer ‘in the abstract’. Hmmm…

Overall, what did I learn on my trip to Oxford?

• It is OK to publicly admit to imaginary friends on one’s shoulder. 
• Consider plumbing as a career option. 
• It is all right to still be tackling the big questions of life that I was probably supposed to work out when I was 16. 
• It is wise to have alternative titles in reserve 
• Keep a copy of your manuscript with you at all times, since you never know when Catherine Clarke may hold the door open for you, again 
• Bus 280 may or may not choose to stop at the temporary bus stop during road works and only comes once an hour on Sundays 
• Watch out for the Puppy of Hope. (I’ll keep my Bunny of Hope – you know, the one sitting on my shoulder, who is convinced my publishing deal is around the corner and we’ll be scoffing cocktails on a cruise ship, soon, and that a few squares of extra dark organic will help in the meantime.)

Teri's Bunny of Hope. With cocktail. On cruise ship.

In addition to sniffling and sneezing, I am now also suffering from boot-prints on my butt: from my own boot.

At the end of the event there was a long queue to Meg and Mal for signings, and I was thinking to myself: should I or shouldn’t I say hello to Meg.

Would she remember we spoke at the SCBWI conference in November, or that I say hello now and then on Facebook?

I left. Didn’t want to stand in front of her, drooling (and sniffling, and sneezing), saying ‘like, um, I really love your books, er, um, do you remember me?’ and risk her having a ‘who the hell are you?’ look on her face.

But I’d put a message on Facebook the day before that I was going, and then last night Meg posted, where were you Teri?

D’oh.

I wailed to my tolerant other half that it was like he had a chance to meet Bruce Springsteen and didn’t, and then Bruce texted him out of the blue and said, where were you, mate?

Another time, Bruce.

ADD: And here's Meg's own post about the Oxford Literary Festival (strangely mostly about stalking Hilary Mantel. Ah, the literary food chain goes round and round)

Guest Blogger Fiona Dunbar: a Mother's Day Tale

It's Mothering Sunday this weekend and to mark the day, my guest blogger and friend Fiona Dunbar has written this moving tribute to her mother, who herself had writing aspirations. Fiona is the author of the Lulu Baker trilogy which has been turned into the TV series Jinx, and the Silk Sisters trilogy which features a girl with the power to change like a chameleon. You can follow Fiona's blog here. Welcome to the Slushpile, Fiona!

I have killed my father. 

He lies over the desk in the study. The angle of his neck is wrong and from where I am sitting, I can see the side of his dead eye and thick blood at the corner of his mouth…

So begins a science fiction story called The Medusa Plant that, to my knowledge, has never been published. Or maybe it was – if so, it’s all lost in the mist of time now. It was written by my mother.

For years, I strenuously avoided turning into my mum. Having completely idolised her as a child, I then morphed into a teenager, and the rose-tinted spectacles came off. I vowed not to be loud and embarrassing in social situations like her, or have such disastrous relationships with men, or fail repeatedly at achieving goals, such as getting one’s work published.

I really don't know why Fiona doesn't want to turn into her yummy mummy

Not that I had any such ambitions at that time. In those days, my creative impulse was channelled not into writing, but drawing. (I have always written, but back then, the words were a mere adjunct to the pictures). Everything I produced was pronounced a marvel by my mum – and therefore, as far as I was concerned, utter rubbish.

Cornwall 1971: Interesting this photo because grown up Fiona so looks like her mum (see black and white pic below of Fiona with her kids)

This is the First Law of Motherhood:

You can’t win. 

Say your kids’ work is lousy? Consign them to years of therapy. Say it’s wonderful? Ha! What do you know? "You would say that, wouldn’t you? You’re my mum." (I’ve had that one too, from my own teenage daughter).

Fiona and her own kids (taken a few years ago)  

As for my mother’s own creative endeavours ... well, she never fully realised her ambitions there. Why? It’s not as if she wasn’t talented. In fact, I think she was really good. Good enough to have had an agent, and to have had a couple of things published ... but knowing her and her work as I do, I think there was a great deal more that could and should have happened, and never did.

One of her mum's manuscritps

I think she’d have made a good YA author – only back then, there wasn’t really any such thing. She was most at home with short stories, citing Saki as an influence, and wrote both for adults and for children.

Her writing was perceptive, lyrical, macabre and darkly funny. As far as I can remember, she had just two short stories published: a riveting children’s science fiction story called The South Gate Sea, and an adult story about, ahem, losing her virginity. (Yes, I actually read it. And yes, it was thoroughly cringe-inducing). There was also a TV play with Dennis Waterman that I didn’t rate much – but I was pleased for her that it got made.

As you might judge from the above, it probably didn’t help that she was so diverse.

Her concept for a children’s TV series called The Upside-Down People, (featuring characters called Sagacious, Prod and Umpulk) never saw the light of day; nor did a ghost story called Walking To Coverack, inspired by a holiday we took in Cornwall in – oh wow, I’m dating myself here – 1971.

An 80s Fiona poses with her mum

Reading it recently gave me goosebumps – not just because it’s spooky, but because it evokes so wonderfully the sights, sounds and smells of a part of the country I first fell in love with then. And more than anything, because it was written by her.

The last twelve years of her life were hampered by ill health. But she took a keen interest in my own nascent literary efforts, and when, in 2004, she was invited to the launch party of the first of my Lulu Baker books, The Truth Cookie, she was as excited as I was.

Wooden spoons for invitations! Yes, we were going to do this in style. Alas, the party never happened; the night before it was due to take place, she was struck by a brain haemorrhage. She died two weeks later.

So, did I succeed in not turning into my mum? Well, I don’t think I’m loud and embarrassing in social situations – though my kids might disagree. I’ve fared more happily on the relationship front: my husband and I have been together for nearly twenty years. As for the publishing: well, like most of us, I have a drawer full of stuff that didn’t go anywhere. But The Truth Cookie is still in print, has been followed by six other titles, and has inspired the CBBC TV series, Jinx. I have a contract for a new series, and right now, I’m about to embark on one of them…a ghost story, set in Cornwall.

The Lulu Baker books re-released with the Jinx covers

So you might say that yes, I succeeded in that objective.

Except that this is not the whole picture, of course.

There were so many wonderful things about my mum – her warmth, her humour, her wit and compassion ... even, yes, the economy and cleverness of her writing – that I aspire to myself. The big difference is this: she didn’t believe in herself enough. I’m not doing better than she did because I’m more talented – I don’t think I am. I’ve just stuck with it.

Guest Blogger Gillian Philip: the landscape of us

When I read Crossing the Line, Gillian Philip's evocative teen novel, I was amazed at its unabashed Scottishness. Being from Somewhere Else (sunny Philippines), I struggle with the need to frame stories from within my cultural identity while hoping to appeal to readers in the West where I live. My very first novel (yet to be published - perhaps never), had English characters and a European setting. It had SNOW no less - at a time when I had yet to see the stuff though no longer. I was genuinely afraid anything I wrote would be labelled an 'issue' novel or too foreign to be commercial.
 An agent gently told me in so many words that it would be tough to sell a debut novel by an author who had no cultural connection to the story. So I decided to have a go at a novel with a Filipino element. It was only when I began to build worlds with Filipino characters that I felt my words began to sing . . .

And now here's Gillian!

‘Identity,’ Candy suggested, and I went ‘Gulp.’

I was thrilled to be asked to guest on Candy’s amazing blog, and delighted that she made a suggestion for a subject (because I’m not very good at thinking of them), but as soon as I thought about it my mouth went all dry. I’m not very good at identity either, I realised. But ‘I was very struck by the Scottishness of Crossing the Line,’ Candy told me, ‘which is why I suggested identity.’

Which set me wondering why it did have a strong Scottish flavour. Yes, the book is set in Scotland, though like my other novel Bad Faith, it never says so. Generally speaking, though, readers seem to ‘get’ the setting (Keren David, the author who guested here a couple of weeks ago, got one location right to within about twenty metres). I don’t think I could have set those books anywhere else. I don’t think that’s a strength. It’s probably indicative of a typically Scottish insularity.

I was an expat wife in the West Indies for twelve years and because I was without a work permit for a lot of that time, and childless for all of it, you’d think I would have used my vast quantities of spare time to write. I’d always wanted to be a writer. It wasn’t like my career was going places other than a beach bar at the bottom of our hill.

A gruelling life in the West Indies

Well, I did try, some of the time, at least before sundown. I sold some short stories, and then some more, and I felt pleased with myself though I didn’t enjoy it, because I knew I could never write a whole novel. Nothing occurred to me (see above). I did wring a flimsy sodden half-novel out of my rum-fuelled brain, and while the plot hung together and the story wrapped up rather nicely, it was a load of old tosh, because I believed none of it. The only character I believed in was the rum-sodden beach bar owner (I wonder where that came from) who was, of course, Scottish and homesick.

I suppose no writing is ever wasted and it was all good practice, but I’m happy to say I burned that one. My next project was romantic novels (I was under the all-too-common misconception that these are quite straightforward). I believed these ones, more or less, but Mills & Boon didn’t, so that was that.

Then, in 2001, two babies arrived and I said ‘I’m going home,’ and home we went, and back in the right landscape my brain was hit by an avalanche of stories. It wasn’t just the hills and lochs, I might add, though those came into it; it was the mean streets, the flashy streets and the downright dull streets. It was the weather, it was the light. I was just in the right place, and writing the right stories (between nappy changes). But it wasn’t the people.

Moving to Scotland to take a rest from all that cruel sunshine.

I think it’s a real failing that I couldn’t write a convincing story in a tropical landscape (mind you, I’ve read a few books that think the landscape, some quaint locals and/or oodles of rich people are enough, so not writing was preferable to producing something like that). But in a way, I don’t think I didn’t write about it.

The island where I lived was a small country with a small country’s quirks and disadvantages as well as its charms; so is Scotland. That island’s politics and personalities seeped into my writing; they just became Scottish, and it wasn’t as awkward a transition as I perhaps thought. Virtue and venality, they both travel. I was just writing about people. The way you do.

I think that’s why I haven’t identified Scotland in either Bad Faith or Crossing The Line. It may be my muse (whether I like it or not) but it would be a distraction, to me if to no-one else. That’s not to say I don’t want a strong sense of setting and landscape; I want to write stories that do happen in one place, but could happen anywhere. For Bad Faith I cherrypicked incidents from current affairs all over the world, but set them firmly in an unnamed Scotland. I hope they happen convincingly there, just as I hope that the events in Crossing The Line could happen, with different accents, in another country.

Scotland informs and influences my writing, whether I like it or not. It even kick-starts my writing. I love my birthplace, and at the same time there are things about it that drive me demented with fury and resentment and frustration. I didn’t belong in the West Indies but having lived there for so long, I don’t belong entirely in Scotland any more (now that is a very Scottish phenomenon, just to blow my thesis out of the water). So I would resent being in thrall to the place.

I’ve talked myself into a corner as usual, and I’m not sure what I’d conclude from thinking about this. Perhaps just that I like grounding my stories in a landscape I love; I’m grateful for the way the landscape sparks those stories.

But characters, they travel. They go anywhere and come from anywhere. You can’t confine human beings to one playground. And who’d want to? I have a Scottish identity and it means a lot to me, but I have another identity: I’m a writer. And that means I can really and truly be anyone I want to be.

Gillian Philip blogs on The Awfully Big Blog Adventure. You can find her website here.

Guest Blogger Kathryn Evans: fat fibs and proper work

Guest blogger Kathryn Evans is possibly the only belly-dancing-farmer’s-wife- mother-of-two practising to be an author in West Sussex. Nearing the end of her 10,000 year writing apprenticeship, she is currently seeking a home for:
SKIN: Surviving cryostasis for 250 years is the least of Laura’s problems. When her little brother Alfie falls dangerously ill, Laura risks more than her own life to save him. A twisted journey of discovery for 12+.
DYLAN AND MOUSE: Lonely Dylan befriends Mouse, a rodent with a hamster complex and an endless supply of inappropriate costumes. A series of comic adventures for 7+.
All enquires to her agent Sophie Hicks

When Candy asked me to be a guest blogger, I nearly said no. I can’t follow on from  Keren David's guest post! I’ve read Keren's When I was Joe, it’s brilliant.

I am unworthy, unpublished and …ah, in need of publicity. I swiftly changed my mind, before Candy could change hers. After all, this is Notes from The Slush Pile, That I can write about.

I take it seriously, my author apprenticeship. I spend half the week on farm work and the other half writing. By some miracle of parenting, I also find extra bits of week in which I look after my family.

It isn’t easy and makes for conversations like this:

Daughter: ‘Mummy, I need to talk to you about something reeeeaaalllly important.’

Me: ‘Can it wait half an hour darling? I’m working.’

Daughter: ‘You’re on Facebook, aren’t you?’

Me: ‘No. I’m working.’

Daughter: ‘But Mummy, I reeeaaallly need to talk to you.’

Me: ‘Can I just finish this chapter?’

Daughter: ‘Oh, so it’s not proper work then? Good, because I really need a haircut and I don’t know if I should dye my hair red and Mr B*****t was so annoying today and it wasn’t my fault and can I go out on Friday? And, and, and……’

Don’t misunderstand me; I want to listen to my daughter download her day but then, I have to write late into the night. I could just go to bed. No one is going to tell me off. I’m not breaking any contractual obligations.

But I don’t.

I work until my eyes are gritty.

Why?

What is this passion?

Where does it come from?

Maybe it started in 1978, seeing my first poem published. The thrill, the utter thrill of putting words together and seeing them in print; basking in the heart swelling warmth of Miss Heathen’s approval.

Volcano
by Kathryn Hodgkiss
Age 9

I am a volcano, under the sea,
I also live in Italy,
I’m dead now, but my old days were good
As I set off my flames, as fast as I could…
(There were more verses but luckily for you, I can’t remember them.)

Kathy in bellydancing mode: what some folk will do to get noticed

Or was it 1977, when my siblings and I wrote and performed ‘The Water Babies’ for an excited crowd of six. All went well until Lisa, such a Prima Donna even at three, refused to take part unless she had her own hairbrush. Little upstart, we booted her off the show, replacing her with an orange. That orange was as wooden as the bowl it came from, we had to rewrite the whole play.

Spot the Difference.

Or maybe it was 1984, when I started telling big, fat, fibs to make myself sound more interesting? Like the night I had to leave a party embarrassingly early and told everyone I had a modelling job next day. They looked at my 5 foot 2, very ordinary self, with disbelief. I showed them my hands. My dainty fingers were insured for thousands, I bragged, you’ve probably seen them on countless adverts for cuticle cream. I’d never admit Dad had said, be home by half past ten.

In honesty, I don’t know what made me seek this career fraught with poverty and rejection. I do know it isn’t the first time.

For most of my life, I wanted to be an actor (that was definitely to do with ‘Orange Water Baby’).

During my degree in drama, however, I accidentally fell in love with the suntanned neck and broad shoulders of an agriculture student. I couldn’t imagine life without his easy smile so I married him.

 Farming and theatre work are not an ideal mix. And I wanted, wanted, wanted to be with my kids as they grew up and, though I did take them filming on occasion, you can’t build an acting career on the odd bit of work that passes by your doorstep.

I look rough because I was acting, note the hands though, insured for thousands ...

I don’t remember replacing acting ambitions with writing ones, but that is what happened.

Maybe it was having a FRANKLY BRILLIANT, story idea. I typed it up, smiling at my own cleverness. Oh, look at me, I’ve written a book, la la la, stick it in an envelope, la la la, send it off to a few editors la la la wait for the offers to come in.

I got a snowfall of standard rejections.

I wrote another story, only this time, I reread my script and even corrected some of it. Surely, my genius would shine through.

No.

But I did have a rejection from Natascha Biebow. She took the time to critique my work and gave me a brilliant piece of advice. If you’re serious, join SCBWI, learn your craft.

I joined and read and wrote and learnt. The rejections still came but they were more detailed. Beverley Birch even sent me one three pages long. It was the best rejection letter I ever had.

I ‘finished’ SKIN and sent it to an agent. An email came back.

‘I like this,’ said Sophie Hicks, ‘let’s talk.’

SOPHIE HICKS!

Kate Thompson’s Agent. *Swoon*. Eoin Colfer’s Agent. * Double swoon* My heart leapt out of my chest and did a little dance all by itself. This was it, I’d made it!

Gratuitous photo of bestselling children's writer Eoin Colfer with whom I share an agent

Not quite.

Making it to print (and staying there) will always hinge on the next person loving what I do - be that agent, publisher, bookseller or reader.

So bring on the late nights because I do have obligations. If I want to be read, I have to be good. It’s a competitive business and I owe it to Sophie, and everyone else who reads me, to be the best I can be. And one day, one day, maybe I’ll say to my daughter:

"It is proper work."

And I won’t be telling a big, fat, fib.

Guest Blogger Keren David: rewinding the path to publication

Guest blogger Keren David is a writer and journalist. Her debut YA novel When I Was Joe is published in the UK by Frances Lincoln books. The sequel Almost True will follow in August. Both books will be published by dTV in Germany, Walker Books in Australia and Frances Lincoln in the US. She lived in Amsterdam for eight years and Glasgow for two but it is London that feels like home. Connect with Keren on Twitter @kerensd or on her blog Almost True

I get a little embarrassed when I tell my story of how I got published. It is far from the usual lengthy saga of years of hope and struggle.

In fact I went from starting to write the book to publication in around 21 months. A plot-planning exercise at my evening class in March 2008 turned into a first chapter by April. Three months later I had an 80,000 word first draft of a novel.

2007, in Cambodia

I had an agent in November, a publishing deal the following February and When I Was Joe, a thriller for teenage readers about a boy in witness protection was published on January 7 2010. Oh and in the meantime I’ve been working on a sequel Almost True, which is going to be published in August.

Sickening, I know. If you’re a struggling writer with numerous manuscripts stuffed into drawers then I bet you hate me right now. Jammy cow. How come she had it so easy?

Well, now I come to think about it, maybe I’m exaggerating the speed of the whole process. Maybe my path to publication actually started in September 2007, when my family stopped being expats after eight years in Amsterdam and arrived back in London.

Adjusting to a very different way of life was traumatic and exciting at the same time. Watching my children start at new schools and make new friends helped me imagine my way into the head of a boy who has to change everything about his life, including his name and the colour of his eyes.

 :
Family life

Or perhaps the starting point was actually March 1999, when my husband got a job in Amsterdam. Moving there with no friends, no extended family, I struggled with depression and loneliness. These were pre-internet days. Without that alienating experience of feeling utterly isolated, could I have understood how lost and angry the boy’s mother might feel?

Or maybe the novel was born along with my son Daniel in February 1998. Daniel never got to go out into the world, as my fictional characters will. He was stillborn, at full term, a terrible, inexplicable tragedy.

Losing Daniel gave me a far greater understanding of suffering - a dreadful thing to live through, a bittersweet gift to a writer. Losing him made me determined that some day I would do something worthy of his memory, something that might make a difference to others. It took ten years to realise what that might be.

Working at the Independent

Learning how to write a novel went back earlier though. Rewind to August 1981, when I screwed up my A levels and found myself unexpectedly lacking a place at university. Instead I landed a job as a messenger girl on a national newspaper, and even when I’d retaken the exams and got my college place, I couldn’t bear to leave. Decades of reporting, writing, and editing didn’t make a novelist, but they did give me essential skills to enable me to write - and write quickly. Write about what you know, they say, well, my training and experience is in news. I know about crime and justice and politics. And so that’s what I wrote about.

Let’s go back further - to the late 1960s. At infant school I met a girl called Hilary, who became my Best Friend. We’d invent whole schools of children, drawing them, naming them, making up stories about them. We played with Barbies and Sindys, acting out lurid adventures. We convinced ourselves that there was buried treasure in the school playground and planned to meet in the dead of night to dig it up.

Our friendship nurtured our imaginations - and we were lucky enough to be at a primary school which valued creativity. At 11 we wrote a play and performed it to the whole school – and I experienced the joy of making an audience laugh. Even when I was terminally bored at secondary school, even when I was busily building a career or buried in motherhood I never quite forgot the sheer fun to be had from losing yourself in a made-up world.

Or take it right back to the beginning. Somehow my scientist parents had a little girl who liked to watch and write and weave stories. Who knows where that comes from? Who knows when it started?

So, 21 months is just one measure of my path to publication. And it was fast, and it did feel urgent and during those months I had my share of luck and desperation, determination, rejection, dejection and complete elation. But the real story is longer and deeper, and I’ve hardly told you any of it at all.

I just hope that I can keep on writing, because now I’ve discovered that I can write books, it feels like it’s what I was always meant to do.