What matters more - the destination or the journey?

by Paula Harrison

One of the oddest things about how I ended up as a published writer was being picked up from a publisher's slushpile. Most writers go through an extended "nearly there" phase. They are shortlisted in writing competitions. They get full manuscript requests from agents. Then they get signed by an agent and go on submission but their story doesn't manage to sell. These are normal stages. Writers' successes usually come in tiny increments. Whereas I spent years and years writing with little sign that I was getting anywhere at all. Then suddenly - bam! Nosy Crow wanted to offer me a contract for a series.

But I think we can get too fixated on our destination as writers. We forget that any creative endeavour is a journey. We focus on getting an agent and getting a publisher. Of course these are important, but looking back they seem less important than they did at the time.

I think we can get too fixated on our destination as writers. We forget that any creative endeavour is a journey.

I started writing around age six when I invented a world of talking bookworms. I drew a map of their country in an empty exercise book and started writing down their adventures. I can't remember why I chose to write about talking bookworms. I suspect someone had told me that I was a bookworm and my brain had run away with the idea. Somehow in late childhood I lost the belief that I was able to write and, aside from some teenage poetry, I didn't return to writing until I was in my late 20's and by then a qualified primary school teacher.

A focus on readers has been a key part of my writer's journey. I spent years noticing how the children I taught reacted to stories. I noticed which books they picked from the library. I saw how they would return to a series or an author they loved over and over again. Then I became a parent and I got an even deeper insight into how children love stories and how they grow into readers.

Like all of us here on Notes from the Slushpile, finding SCBWI (the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators) absolutely transformed my journey. Not only did I find a wealth of expertise and information through their events, but I also met lots of lovely writers and illustrators. Nobody can work and improve in a vacuum, and suddenly I had a huge source of inspiration and commiseration for every stage I went through. Whether I was at the peak of a wave or down in a trough there was always someone there with me.

Suddenly I had a huge source of inspiration and commiseration for every stage I went through.

Around 2009, I was just coming to the end of submitting what seemed like my millionth middle-grade book to an slew of uninterested agents and publishers, when my children started enjoying young series fiction. Tired and fed up of endlessly writing and submitting fiction for 9+, I started writing my own younger stories. It would be a break from longer books, I told myself, and I could finish the books faster and get rejected faster too!

I was spending every bedtime reading all sorts of stories to a five and a seven year old. Somehow, without realising it, I internalised the story structure and pacing for young fiction. Suddenly I had a contract for my first series - The Rescue Princesses. Writing younger books gained me my first publishing contract and several more since. But I have found that more than anything, I love the journey. Success is wonderful. But publishers and readers often want more of the same. Writers like to try something new! So how do we balance the needs of our readers and the market with our need to move on as writers?

Publishers and readers often want more of the same. Writers like to try something new!

I am still working out the answer to this one. I have been lucky enough to publish several middle grade novels as well as the younger fiction that gained me my first contract. Writing is my living so I am always balancing creative and commercial impulses. I always have readers in the back of my mind and I am always up for trying something new!

Paula Harrison has published over 30 books including The Rescue Princesses, the Red Moon Rising trilogy and the Secret Rescuers series. Her next book Kitty and the Sky Garden Adventure publishes Feb 2020.

Confessions of a Goal Orientated Writer

by Paula Harrison

Cover art of my first published book by a very talented fan

I've been wondering for a while what makes me happy as a writer.

It's clear to me that my approach to work satisfaction has changed quite a bit over the past seven years since I was first published. I know - I know - if you're reading this as a pre-published writer you are probably yelling at the screen: WHAT WOULD MAKE ME HAPPY IS TO BE PUBLISHED, SO STOP TALKING RIGHT NOW! And you'd be right of course, but whether you're published yet or not, there are decisions we all make about what to write, how much time to spend writing, how much to listen to professional and peer opinions about our work and how much attention we pay to what publishers and agents are looking for right now, and I'm here to tell you that those decisions and compromises don't alter once you become published. They become even more multi-layered.

JUST WRITE WHAT YOU LOVE...

Well, yes. Clearly if you loathe and despise reading detective fiction you shouldn't go there as a writer either, but most children's authors have a range of age groups that they could write in and a number of different interests so you're still making a decision about where to start. This can be influenced by what you like reading, what your children (if you have them) like reading or just what you think might prove popular.

DON'T TRY TO WRITE FOR THE MARKET...

I've seen this advice on so many writing blogs and in so many writing books that I'm not even sure which source to credit. The reasoning is that if, by some chance, you notice that books about handsome vampires are very popular in teen fiction right now, then by the time you've written your own and submitted it and it's ready for publication, the trend will have moved on to something else. This can be true. Except that it's more complicated than that. I HAVE seen people make a success of writing in an area that is selling well by entering that genre or age group with their own unique idea.

MONEY, FAME OR REVIEWS AND RECOGNITION?

You may be laughing at this point. So, do children's authors ever achieve good money and fame unless they are part of the tiny handful of household names? Well, maybe not fame. But it is possible to earn good money if you are lucky and your books sell well overseas, for example, but the authors who achieve this aren't necessarily the same ones getting great reviews in the Sunday Times. So would you rather earn well or have people praising your book? If you had to choose what would you do?
Interestingly, I recently began reading The Happy Brain by Dean Burnett, in which he talks about how important it is to us to have the approval of other human beings. I'm paraphrasing here, but he talks of peer approval having a similar effect on the brain as earning money. So we see approval as a very real gain. I think that's relevant to us as writers. Part of the reason we want to be published, to have the big book launch, the great reviews, the praise on twitter, is because we're wired to want it. We all do it. But is that what writing's really about?

WRITING AS A JOB VS WRITING AS A PASSION

Here's the crux of my change in attitudes over the last seven years as a published writer. Writing became my bread and butter, and with that came the realisation of what is actually possible. As a goal orientated person I probably started off with ALL the possible goals: money, reviews and recognition. Yes, please - that would be great!! But being an author can be a difficult and uncertain business and that reality sets in quite quickly for most people.

BUT WHERE IS YOUR PASSION, PAULA?

Don't worry - I haven't lost it! I often write a book that I'm passionate about in between something that will give me a more guaranteed chance at a contract and writing income. This way I can try to balance personal satisfaction with things that will enable me to buy groceries. Sometimes a safer, more commercial project will become the project of passion - taking a turn that brings fan letters from all around the world.
When this happens the readers become the goal. If we're helping children to learn to read, to discover the power of their imaginations, to see themselves in books, then isn't that the best goal of all?


Paula's new series KITTY, featuring a superhero-in-training with cat-like superpowers will be published by OUP in September and is illustrated by Jenny Lovelie.  https://paulaharrison.jimdo.com/kitty-s-midnight-adventures/

In praise of rights teams

by Paula Harrison

A small selection of the Rescue Princesses books that have been published internationally

I feel very lucky. I love my job and I don't have to climb bleary-eyed on to a commuter train to London at 7 o'clock each morning. Plus I get up to make a cup of tea whenever I want. This is no small thing.

Yet when I run a course for pre-published writers, as I did in London a fortnight ago, they've heard how little writers earn, how it's getting harder to make a living as an author. This is all true. The market is difficult. Celebrity writers are gaining a lot of shelf space. Many writers are hanging on through money from school visits or sometimes teaching writing to adults. BUT there is still a lot of excitement about debuts and a new author has that in their favour.

Another thing that makes children's authors very lucky is that UK children's publishers are simply excellent at selling foreign rights. Nosy Crow, the publisher of The Rescue Princesses (pictured above) has sold rights to those books in many languages including Italian, French, Hebrew, Japanese, Turkish, Romanian and Czech. The American publisher they sold rights to has published twelve books from the series.

If you pay attention to the children's book world you'll have noticed tweets and pictures coming from Bologna this week. Rights teams and agents fly out there every March and work incredibly hard. A huge part of the work (I am told) goes on before and afterwards, following up on appointments and so on. I'm massively grateful for their efforts and thrilled each time a book in a foreign language comes through.

Top: American and Polish editions of The Secret Rescuers from Nosy Crow
Bottom: French and Spanish editions of Robyn Silver from Scholastic

Seeing your story travelling round the world is an amazing feeling. I should also mention the fabulous work done by translators such as Nicolas Ancion who translated Robyn Silver into French and the amazing artwork produced by talented illustrators around the world including Alban Marilleau whose cover artwork is pictured above.

No doubt rights teams are wheeling their suitcases back home right now feeling pretty exhausted. Well, I would just like to say a HUGE

THANK YOU!

And Happy Easter! Apologies that the blog is a short piece this week - I blame the Easter baking! I will leave you with a picture of the new Rescue Princesses book out very soon. The Enchanted Ruby is the 13th book and publishes as part of a refresh for the series. The beautiful illustration pictured is by Sharon Tancredi.

Let's start from the very beginning

by Paula Harrison

Beginnings are hard. I've heard writers talk about how they get lost in the middle of their manuscripts or how they find it hard to finish a story the way they want to. But to me, beginnings are hard... although I still love writing them.

So how do recently-published books in the middle grade age range pull the reader in? I thought we should take a look...

First up - The Girl of Ink and Stars by Kiran Millwood Hargrave

They say the day the Governor arrived, the ravens did too. All the smaller birds flew backwards into the sea, and that is why there are no songbirds on Joya. Only huge, ragged ravens.

Bad omen alert! The symbolism of ravens - those dark, carrion-eating birds - instantly puts us on edge. But more than anything it's the image of the smaller birds flying backwards into the sea that sticks in my mind. Flying backwards is pretty unnatural! This story sets up a sense of foreboding right from the start. The information is told to us second-hand too and this introduces the importance of myths and old tales.

Next let's look at Tin by Padraig Kenny

Snow was falling from the night sky, and all the world was cold and hushed except for the regular metallic squeaking of Jack's joints. Christopher glanced at Jack, but the mechanical looked straight ahead oblivious to the sound.

The poetic feeling of this opening is quickly punctured by the end of the first sentence as the metallic squeaking contrasts with the snowy night-time setting. What is a mechanical? We immediately want to know.

And on to Letters from the Lighthouse by Emma Carroll

We were halfway through the news when the air raid started. It was a Friday in January: we were at the Picture Palace for the 6 p.m. showing of The Mark of Zorro. All month the Luftwaffe had been attacking us, their bombs falling on London like pennies from a jar, 

This book was one of my favourite reads of 2017, partly because it's fantastic and partly because it has a historical setting. I don't write historical myself which means I find it more relaxing to read. This opening has a simple style but that image of the bombs falling like pennies from a jar transports you straight into the mind of the main character and her life in war-time London.

And finally let's look at Wed Wabbit by Lissa Evans

It was such an ordinary evening, but every detail of it would matter; every detail would become vital.

This story had me at hello! My goodness - WHY would every detail become vital? I haven't finished this book yet so no spoilers please, but I had to add this book to my TBR pile after that. Also I love the voice of the main character and how you can tell that she's a young person from the slightly melodramatic way she's expressing herself.

All of these beginnings are authors absolutely in control of their material. We all know why beginnings are so important. Children can easily put a book down if they lose interest in the early pages. A well-crafted opening is a beautiful thing... then you just have to make the rest of the book as good!

Paula Harrison is the author of 5 middle grade novels and 22 young series books, and if you buy them you are welcome to analyse their openings! 

Getting to grips with a different genre - my switch to mystery writing

by Paula Harrison

I started my writing life dreaming up fantasy adventures for 9 +. These were the books I loved best as a child, particularly The Dark is Rising series by Susan Cooper and The Weirdstone of Brisingamen by Alan Garner. I wrote the Red Moon Rising trilogy, published by Nosy Crow, and the Robyn Silver books, published by Scholastic, which very much fall into that genre. But I also had eclectic reading tastes so it wasn't long before I switched age groups and switched genres in my writing too.  

I love trying out new things so I thoroughly embraced writing mysteries. My books are short mysteries, about 15,000 words long, and best suited to children aged 6+. But they're mysteries nonetheless. Writing them involved a slightly different process than a fantasy adventure and that's partly why I enjoyed doing them so much.

Firstly, plotting was different. I'm not a pantser - I plan out my stories before I start - but if you have a sudden inspiration in the middle of your adventure book or if you find that your plot isn't working, you can wing it quite a bit and write your way through the middle of your book. I've always enjoyed doing it. Some of the best inspiration comes when you are deep within a story and you can see that the artifice you set out to create at the beginning doesn't fit together as well as you thought it would. It feels a little bit daring, leaving the plan behind and thinking on my feet.

However, this does not work well for me when I'm writing a mystery book. For my mysteries I need the framework to be absolutely solid. All plot lines, suspects and red herrings must be worked out and thought through in detail before I begin, otherwise the whole thing can fall apart.

The second thing I found very different was the overall shape of the book. To me, the plot of a book has a shape and this is often the 3 act structure that most stories use. There is the beginning, an incident which heralds the meaty middle section of the book, and then a climax with a concluding section. When I started to write mysteries I was interested to find my 3rd act or concluding section much shorter than I made them in adventure stories. I wondered why this was the case and I decided  perhaps it was in the nature of mystery or detective fiction. The whole thrust of the book leads to the moment when the mystery is resolved and after that it works best if the story is wound up fairly quickly.

So here are my first four mystery books. The Case of the Stolen Crown and The Secret of the Silk Dress are out now with the 3rd and 4th books due out in January.

Happy Holidays from Notes from the Slushpile!

2016. 'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness. It was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity' ... doesn't Charles Dickens describe this outgoing year to perfection? Rather than dwell on the worst, the foolish and the incredulous, we thought we'd celebrate the festive season by looking back on our personal highlights and reflecting on the inevitable lessons learned. May the holidays be a time of friendship, love and creativity for all our lovely readers. 

Monsters!

by Paula Harrison

Me and a crowd of monster-loving children on the growl!

Fortuitously, it falls to me to write the Halloween blog. Lucky, of course because my new book Robyn Silver: The Midnight Chimes is about a girl who is born on the stroke of midnight. Being a 'Chime' means she can see monsters that no one else can see.

The World according to Robyn Silver

by Paula Harrison

Dear Slushpile readers, I had a book published last Thursday called Robyn Silver: The Midnight Chimes and I'm more excited than a child who's eaten too much sugar.

A whole box of Robyn Silvers from Scholastic!

How not to choke as a writer

by Paula Harrison

A children’s writer encounters many obstacles on the way to publication - learning their craft, understanding the children’s book market, finding an agent and publisher who love their writing. Before reaching publication, many of us believe that once we find that Golden Ticket marked You Have Got a Publisher, the journey is over and we will simply float away on a fluffy cloud into a blissful published heaven.

How to Thrive on Deadlines

Paula working as a Pirate
before she realised she
could write like the wind

We are so pleased to introduce the latest recruit to Notes from the Slushpile, our best-selling writer pal Paula Harrison — she who has sold more than a million Rescue Princesses and seems to have books effortlessly leaping out of her jumper. Recently, Paula branched out from princesses to dragons, unicorns, firebirds and magical foxes. As if that isn't enough, this September, Paula's launching a new middle-grade book: Robyn Silver. What an example for us slow-coaches to emulate and the Slushpile is sooooo lucky to have her! Welcome, Paula ... we're hoping some of your publishing magic dust sprinkles over the rest of us!

I have a book to finish.

No one in my house is impressed by that excuse for not doing the washing up any more. I always seem to have a book to finish. My work squeezes into the school day and spills over into the evening. With two chapter book series to work on and a novel for 9+, I sometimes feel like I’m juggling hoops, whilst riding on a unicycle, whilst taming a lion, whilst... You get the idea.

A sketch of me juggling whilst riding a unicycle whilst taming a lion.
Drawn because SOME people in my house found it amusing!

Not that I’m complaining. I know how lucky I am to be published and writing full time. But there’s a lot to do and while publishers will move deadlines back for authors of stand-alone books, in my experience they tend not to do so if you’re writing a series. It could be that changing the time gaps between the books is problematic for them. (It's worth mentioning here that I've never written for a packager - all my stories are dreamed up and written by me - but I assume if you do the deadlines involved are not particularly flexible either.)

So I’ve developed a few tricks for writing more than one book for more than one publisher. Authors who have to do this are often picture book and/or chapter book writers. But first here’s a quick round up of what I’m currently working on.

Secret Rescuers is a chapter book series which I’ve largely completed. I’m waiting for copyedits on the last two books. 

Robyn Silver: The Midnight Chimes is for 9 + and is DUE OUT IN SEPTEMBER! Sorry did I get a little excited there? Did I mention I have an awesome cover and very shiny proofs courtesy of my new publisher, Scholastic? I’ll be writing more of the second book this summer. 

Young detective series with a secret title! This is what I’m currently writing and it’s due out in 2017. Not having written mysteries before, I’m finding I love it. But I can't tell you anything else about it yet!

OK, TIME FOR THE TIPS!

Make a plan

Whether you keep it in your head, note it down on paper or make a spreadsheet on the computer, you need a plan of what you’re going to write and when. It take practice to work out how many weeks or months each stage of a book will need – first draft, edits, copyedits.

My plan is in my head mostly, but if you’re new to managing multiple deadlines I’d recommend using a calendar. Allow yourself a cushion of extra time in your plan because stuff happens! You may get flu or the washing machine may break. Life can get in the way!


Let your agent and publishers know how you’re getting on

If things take longer than you’d expected, let your publisher know. The sooner you tell them there may be a problem, the easier it is for them to try to find you extra time. Nobody wants to be that person who says they can’t make a deadline but with lots of notice it is less of a disaster.


Focus on one thing at a time

Writing is an immersive experience and we live each story as we write it. You can’t do that properly if you’re thinking about the book you’re about to move on to when this one’s finished. You also can’t immerse yourself fully if you’re thinking about the cat’s vet appointment this afternoon.

Find ways to pour yourself into the story. For me, music is an excellent short cut into the mood and mind-set of my story. I have at least one piece of music for each book – sometimes more. Sometimes I find a song that suits a particular character. Then I’ll play it before I start writing.

Objects can also be helpful. For Pale Peak Burning, the last in the Red Moon Rising trilogy, I kept a chunk of granite taken from the Peak District where the book is set on my desk. When I wrote, The Storm Dragon (Secret Rescuers book 1) one of my kids made me a little dragon that sat beside my monitor. I know writers who create mood boards either using collage or online using Pinterest or a similar site. I also change the wallpaper on my computer to suit each story so that as soon as I switch on, I’m in the right frame of mind.

The original Storm Dragon - in Plasticine

Organise yourself in a way that suits you

Like most writers, I have a large collection of notebooks and I make sure I have plenty written down to refer to. It’s the worst thing in the world to return to your story at edit stage, after spending time writing something totally different, and have gaps in your memory about settings etc. If you think you may forget, write it down or draw it!


Protect your creative time

I’d like to refer you back to Teri Terry’s recent Plot Bunnies blog post here. All this organising, making plans and writing down notes can make you feel as if your writing life lacks colour. You need time to mull things over – to have that unexpected thought that changes the direction of your story. Allow time in your schedule for this – the creative spark is what brought us all to writing in the first place.

 (Pssst! If anyone says you’re writing too many books remind them that Shakespeare wrote 37 plays and 154 sonnets! Taking 7 years to write a book is absolutely fine and so is taking 4 months. Let's embrace our differences as writers - be that many books or few!)

No deadlines were missed in the writing of this blog!

Playing with Peril: Fairies in Children's Books

by guest blogger, Paula Harrison

Paula Harrison is the author of Faerie Tribes (for older readers) and The Rescue Princesses (a younger series). She wanted to be a writer from a young age but spent many happy years being a primary school teacher first. She finds inspiration in lots of things from cloud shapes to snippets of conversation. She loves sandy beaches and eating popcorn. She lives with her husband and children in Buckinghamshire, which is nowhere near the sea. Whenever possible, she packs her family into the car and journeys far and wide to find a sandy beach where she can paddle in the waves.

It came to me one teatime – one of those goose bump ideas. You know: the kind that make you run round the room searching for a pen. Fairies live among us.

But these fairies weren’t the tiny creatures that live under a toadstool at the bottom of the garden. They look like us. They talk like us. Your next door neighbour could be one of them and you would never know.

The first thing that happened was that my fairies turned into faeries, because apparently this is what you do if you want to make it clear that you’re writing for children aged 9 + and there will be darkness in the story. The spelling change made me think about some of the different representations of these magical folk in children’s books. (I’ve left out YA here and focussed on books up to ages 12/13) First up there are the kinds of fairies you get in young, girl-skewed series such as the popular Rainbow Fairies.

These small creatures are beautiful and friendly and perform all sorts of useful tasks as guardians of pets, flowers, special occasions and so on. Is it all sweetness and light? Not completely, because you also have a magical villain called Jack Frost with his goblins.

The fairies in Michelle Harrison’s Thirteen Treasures trilogy are a lot less friendly than those in young fiction and are quite capable of inflicting serious harm if you get on the wrong side of them. These fairies remind me of the ones found in many folktales: capricious and not to be trusted. Also for older readers, the Artemis Fowl series by Eoin Colfer gives you a completely different take on the wee folk. I love these fairies and the way they combine magic with technology. They fly around kitted out with all sort of gadgetry and there’s even a centaur as the technology whizz.

So how did I want to represent my fairies, I mean faeries? I knew from the start that they would belong to different tribes and that Laney, my main character, would be a member of the Mist tribe even though she doesn’t know that at the start. Mist faeries draw their power from water and can perform great things with it. Other tribes would draw on their own elemental powers.

I wanted them to feel a strong connection to the landscape around them, even though they’re hiding their true nature from the human community they live in. I also knew that not all of them would be good and that using a faerie’s “dust” (their dead body) would bring the greatest power and the greatest curse of all. 

There are lots more children’s books with fairies in that I haven’t covered here. What are your favourites? Let me know in the comments! Faerie Tribes: The Crystal Mirror is out now!

'Oh, my Daddy, my Daddy!' - Words that move in older fiction

by Addy Farmer

The blog that never ends. More choices of words that move from me and you... 

Behind the tired old words, Tog heard the harsh grate of fear and loved Allanza even more for his stupid bravery, even though the prat had got them into this mess. J.P. Buxton - I Am The Blade

I love this book and I love these words. Here, we arrive just at this point when our hero, Tog realises what lengths his friend will go to for him - even if the action is idiotic.What is bravery if not the act of doing something which scares you witless? And then when you do that something brave for a friend - well then, then it becomes so moving.

Princess Paula to The Rescue! Paula Harrison on launching books, writing for younger readers and how to get that lucrative publishing deal...

by Maureen Lynas

Hi Maureen, thanks for having me on 
Notes from the Slushpile. 
I’m very excited to be here!