Launching a book in lockdown: disaster or opportunity?

by Teri Terry

Do you have a book coming out - during lockdown or post-lockdown or possible future lockdown? The book trade and publishing landscape has changed - the world has changed - and we're just finding our feet again. Dark Blue Rising came out on 9th July. It was a difficult, stressful time in the lead up to publication. But some positives definitely did come out of it.

I ADORE my cover!!!!
Designer: Michelle Brackenborough
GIF by Sara O'Connor

A new book - a new series! - a new imprint, Hodder - a new year. It was all change for me after a 2019 that, well, let's just say had more than its share of challenges. But somehow I got through it, finished editing, was happy with the story, AND - the dream! - got a book cover that I ADORE. So around February 2020 I was feeling cautiously optimistic about the launch of Dark Blue Rising, coming in July.

And then ... well, you know what happened.

At first there was denial: this isn't as bad as it seems, it is an over-reaction, everything will be back to normal in a blink.

Then panic: it isn't as bad as it seems - it's worse. I'm worried about my family, my friends, the world. I can't write, can't concentrate on anything. 

(I got past my block, eventually - I'll post a vlog on that below.)

Then guilt crept in: I'm worried about launching my new book. 

The very entertaining, tail-wagging,
sock-stealing Scooby

It felt wrong to even admit it with so much going wrong for so many people. So far, the worst for me was having to cancel some events and a long overdue trip to Canada to see family. We were healthy and well, had Scooby to entertain us, a park across the road for our early morning walk, a decent sized garden for outdoor space, no immediate financial concerns. We had it good, and I knew this - still know it now. 

But what about MY BOOK?? WAHHHHH

Sometime around April I called my lovely agent - wondering if the publication date should be postponed. There were conversations back and forth with my publisher. They felt we should stick to the July date; that so many books were being postponed that the Autumn would be too crowded, and with the only other option leaving it to 2021, I agreed. 

Then things seemed to be getting even worse, both with the pandemic and in the book and publishing sphere. There were tales of new books being held up and not delivered to shops, supply chain woes, even Amazon was putting book delivery down the priority list. And again - feeling guilty to even be thinking about things like this when people were losing family, friends.

There is no point worrying about things out of my control, right? I'm rubbish at listening to my own voice of reason though. I half-heartedly read up a little on zoom and other virtual event platforms, but I was scared: of working out the technology, of security and privacy issues using virtual events with my mostly 12 - 14 year old readers, our woeful broadband, being on screen, etc etc etc. I was putting in time learning how to use a number of different platforms on free trials even as I didn't really want to go that way, and feeling increasingly unsure of the right approach.

Then on 9th June I attended - virtually! - a Society of Authors event with Candy Gourlay and Chitra Soundar, entitled Social Media 101. In the chat box I confessed my worry about launching my book, that nothing would happen if I didn't go virtual, that I didn't know what to do. And it felt so good to say it out loud! Well, typed in a chat box. And it really was from that moment on that I decided to take control of what I was going to do.

I won't go into all the details of how I came up with and structured my virtual events as I've blogged about it elsewhere; I'll post the link below. But this is what I did:

1. Virtual Publicity Tour:

I offered a week of free virtual events run on password-protected pages on my website, complete with live Q&A with me, but done in comment boxes: so there was no live video of me or them, no requirement for me to have their personal details. It worked kind of like chat boxes - the sort of thing I felt comfortable doing myself. 

Would schools be too stretched and stressed to want to take part? No! I ended up with eighteen school events being booked, from class size to year groups. I found them in a variety of ways: past teacher and librarian contacts; twitter; Facebook; being shared on a few librarian groups.

the tweet that started things off

Why free? Well, it was my book launch week. Also, I felt I didn't really know how it would work; it was a learning experience. From what I learned, I'm ready to go forward with paid events in the new school year.

2. GIF and Book Trailer:

The GIF was total serendipity - from lunching with lovely Sara O'Connor, previously of publishing fame but now working in coding and programming. I showed her my book cover which, in case I haven't mentioned yet, I ADORE, and she offered to make a GIF, as above. With everything going online it was brilliant timing.

The trailer I made myself: on Vimeo!

3. Social Media:

Hachette Childrens Books rightly focused their efforts here, and they truly did a great job of getting the word out on Instagram and Twitter. They made some great images that were perfect for sharing, and share I did. I did worry a little if I was sending out too much book spam, but actually I think that at the moment, we're all more tolerant and supportive of these things. We all understand - this is our megaphone just now, and we have to use it.

Overall: Disaster or Opportunity?

Both. 

Disaster: 

1. Not getting to events in person. 

2. Missing YALC. WAH! I was really looking forward to that.

3. Book Fairs being cancelled and foreign publishers likely being more cautious; time will tell how that pans out. 

4. Difficulty getting books sold with virtual events.

5. Worry about a certain large online retailer taking over, while independent bookshops and highstreet chains struggle. 

Opportunity: 

1. I know how to do stuff I didn't before. I'm much more comfortable making videos, something I used to HATE. I know how to make them look and sound better. There was a fair amount of hair pulling and occasional swearing along the way as I worked it out, but if I can do it - anyone can.

2. Even though I was quite seriously stressed about what to do/not to do in the lead up, I actually really enjoyed the virtual event experience! Answering an avalanche of questions in comment boxes took concentration and good touch typing skills, but it was FUN. I'm sure I'll continue promoting virtual events even if - finger's crossed - there is a miracle vaccine available just around the corner. 

3. Comments from librarians afterwards were that they felt the format engaged the students, in some cases even more than an in-person event: students who wouldn't readily engage or ask questions were comfortable doing so using this format (link to their comments, below).

4. Going forwards with paid virtual events in the new school year, the reduced cost compared to a live event will make it more accessible and less something only schools with bigger budgets can afford.

5. Shouting out about the virtual event offering got a huge amount of engagement from librarians and teachers around the UK. Many of those who couldn't take part for one reason or another expressed interest in hearing about my coming virtual workshops. Yay!

these were LUSH

6. The reach of virtual publicity events is far greater than just the few I could have travelled to in person. The word is out, even if only time will tell how that translates to sales.

7. I missed some hugs, but Zoom book launches have some pluses: you only have to buy your own wine, and you get to eat ALL the cupcakes.

8. At last: I could dye my hair to match my book cover! In complete confidence that no one would see it unless I wanted them to.

A final word: After my launch week, I was tired - but happy. I did all that I could to give my book its chance in the world, and what more can you do?

Links/Resources:

On the development of my virtual events, and what I'm offering now.

Librarian comments on my virtual events.

Reading Zone article on virtual events in schools.

And finally, below is my Vlog on struggling to write during a pandemic: other narratives are important!

Well, how did I get here? Luck & making your own luck

by Teri Terry

I honestly think most of the things that set us down one path or another and change our lives forever are random chance.

Take my start at university. My air force dad was transferred to Edmonton, Alberta, to take effect the summer after I finished high school at the other end of Canada, in Nova Scotia. I sent off for the engineering prospectus at the University of Alberta; they accidentally sent me medicine. I read it and found a thing called medical lab science – and hey, presto: I applied and did the first year! It didn’t last, though: as soon as I found out if I kept on the course I’d have to spend the third year in a hospital taking blood, I was out of there. I have an absolute phobia of needles, and swiftly switched to science in my favourite subject that year, microbiology. 

It’s startling - and a little embarrassing! - how many of my other major decisions weren't planned or even imagined before the moment.

Was pursuing writing and getting published any different – was it inevitable or more a combination of unexpected twists of fate?

Yes and no to both.

I loved reading and making things up as long as I can remember. When I was 17 I decided I wanted to be a writer, so the intention was there from quite a young age – but the belief wasn’t. I’d never met an author or heard one speak; nobody I knew wrote. It felt kind of like saying I wanted to win lottery: it’d be great if it happened, but how likely was it, really? I was also desperate for independence and set out to get it – studying and working at various things in Canada and then Australia: science, law, optometry. I still wrote; poetry, mostly. But it was something I did on the side, didn’t talk about much and definitely never let anybody read.

What changed? In one of those twists of fate I found myself moving from Australia to England to get married, and needed to either retrain as an optometrist - my profession at the time - or have yet another career change. What was I going to do this time? And I remembered being that 17 year old who wanted to write but never really took it seriously. At that point I decided I didn’t want to wake up one day decades later and never have tried.

And try I did. My first novel I finished in the summer of 2006. Titled Life Lists, it followed three lifelong friends and how their lives changed from what they'd been so sure of as teens, written on lists and opened when one of them died years later. It was for adult readers and In hindsight it wasn’t great – though at the time I seem to remember feeling so immensely proud at finally having finished something that surely someone would congratulate me and publish it! Alas, no. But I did get some personal comments from submissions. 

I carried on writing – short stories, novels – but somehow felt something wasn’t quite right. Without really understanding why, I started to fall out of love with the process.

Then, chance intervened. I got a job at Calibre audio library – a charity that does audio books for the visually impaired and dyslexics – to develop the children’s side of things. For the interview I had to convince them I knew a lot about children’s books: I didn’t. I did a crash course in libraries and bookshops and somehow got the job. And then I thought I better read some of the authors I'd been telling him I knew all about: children’s books. Something I hadn’t done in years. And I fell back in love with words, reading, writing. This was where I was meant to be. 

I started my first children’s novel on an overnight flight back from Canada. My dad there was very ill and it was an emotionally fraught time to say the least. Soon after I read about the Winchester Writer’s Conference in a writing magazine, and I think I was desperate for an escape, to do something that was just for me. Away I went! I entered that first children’s story I’d started on the overnight flight into a competition … and it won. I'd tell you what it was about but it's still in my might-rewrite-it-one-day file. 

I finished it and then started subbing it to agents and publishers using the handy Children’s Writers and Artists Yearbook, and somewhere in that book a children’s writing organisation was mentioned: the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. I looked into it. And went off to their conference that November, in 2008.

And there I found my home. I met Candy Gourlay and loads of other children’s writers at that first conference. Other than one year when I wasn’t well I’ve been every year since, as well as to countless other events. I got a reality check or two along the way – apparently just finishing a novel that wins a prize isn’t enough to guarantee fame and fortune? And I learned and wrote and shared the good news and bad along the way.

There were all the slings and arrows of writing more novels, getting rejected, getting encouraged, getting rejected some more … and some more … and yes, you guessed it: some more. Finally, my novel Slated – the ninth I’d written and submitted – found a home with agent Caroline Sheldon and publisher Orchard books back in 2011; it was published in 2012.

So. How much of getting there was written in the stars, and how much was total luck? I like to think a bit of both.

---

Teri Terry is the author of best-selling award-winning thrillers for teens, including Fated, the Slated trilogy, Mind Games, Book of Lies and the Dark Matter trilogy. She has lived around the world but now calls a village in Buckinghamshire home. Teri loves all animals but especially Scooby, the world’s cutest puppy.

Five Top Tips to Prompt a New Writing Idea by Kathryn Evans

It's almost September, the start of a new academic year, so here are some ways to kick start some new ideas.

TOP TIP ONE - What If?

via GIPHY
Ideas come from everywhere.

With an open mind you can pick up ideas like a magpie picks up shiny things.
The ideas behind my book More of Me came from:

1. Looking at old photographs of my daughter and wishing I could have kept all the previous versions of her - toddler Emily, six-year-old Emily, twelve-year-old Emily - maybe not fifteen-year-old Emily, that version was quite hard work.

2. And from observing the weird ways some insects reproduce - notably, aphids - what if that was exploited by science?

3. Remembering what it was like to be sixteen and feeling your life was being controlled by your parents - what if it really was?


These seem like random ideas but they came together to make an award-winning novel that was nominated for the Carnegie medal.

My new novel, Beauty Sleep, came from similar apparently disparate thoughts.

1. What if a girl from the eighties suddenly had to cope in a world where she's inundated with social media?

2. What if homelessness became a crime?

3. What if a great beauty product held a dark secret?


You'll see those two small but important words that are at the heart of every writer's work:

What If?

So that's my first and most important tip - build the question what if into everything you see/do/hear:

What if I'm doing the washing up and the drain expands and sucks me in?

What if I go to bed and when I wake up, I'm in a different century? ( I might write this one!)

What if my puppy gets bigger and BIGGER and BIGGER?

You get the idea. Hopefully.

Top Tip Two- If you're stuck, cheat.

via GIPHY

Use story prompt websites. They aren't really cheating, they're just lighting a match under your ready to burn tinder. Reddit is great :

https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/

But there are dozens of these sites - have a google and find one that works for you.

TOP TIP THREE - Use some Imagination tools.

Okay, this is kind of like Top Tip Two but I just confessed to cheating and you can NEVER trust a writer.

Story Cubes: I've never used them but I know someone who has and got a book deal out of it! Jill Atkins threw a torch, an open book, and a keyhole. She wrote a story called Grandad's Magic Torch and Franklin Watts are publishing it for their Reading Champions series in April 2020. Jill has written over 100 books, so if it's good enough for her, it's good enough for me.

Prompt Cards: I have a stack of cards with about thirty characters, inciting incidents and decisions a character makes to prompt in writing workshops and they ALWAYS spark loads of ideas.  It takes the pressure off to be given a trigger and quite often the writer rejects the card in favour of something else it's sparked off.

Other Writing: Dipping into history books,  guides for tourist sites, science magazines, myth and legend books will all fire something in your brain, guaranteed. Even practical writing books can help, Marie Basting, author of the fabulous debut Princess BMX, says:

When I was unsure where to go with new project, I read 'Stealing Hollywood' by Alex Sokoloff which really got me back on track.

TOP TIP FOUR - Talk to other writers.

Teaming up with other writers is a great source of support, encouragement, and stimulation. I was stuck on a story when I went to my monthly SCBWi writers group and they made a couple of suggestions that turned my story around. Give the girl a friend and give her a magic way out. I tore up the script I'd just finished and started again - it's SO MUCH better.  I haven't followed the advice exactly but their interest in my story kick-started something much more fun and imaginative.

I also asked my writer pals on twitter what they did to fire their story engines.

Mo O'Hara, the author of the Zombie Goldfish books, is a people watcher:

I people watch and listen to snippets of conversation. There is always a story.The other day I saw a really tough looking teenager in a hoodie with a giannormous cuddly toy. He was prob on a call but he looked like he was arguing with the Panda...story!

GR Dix takes himself off for a trip:

I drive around the countryside / look at a map - daft village names = character names = inspiration!

As does Nina Wadcock:

Visit old places or graveyards and wonder whose stories are beneath my feet.

 Top Tip Five - Lower your Crap-o-meter.

This is possibly the most useful tip I've ever been given and it was from our very own award-winning, best selling, Teri Terry. It's okay to write rubbish sometimes.  You can edit later.

Get it writ, then get it right.

Don't hamstring yourself by trying to be perfect from the start. No book is perfect from the off. It's like expecting to chisel out the statue of David with the first couple of hammer taps. It's not going to happen. Take off the pressure and have some fun with your writing.


Happy writing everyone!

via GIPHY


Kathryn Evans latest book, the pacy, gripping thriller ( Sunday Express)  Beauty Sleep, is out now.

Making things up: going out of order

by Teri Terry

Part 6 in Marking Things up: a blog series about the creative process

When you are writing, do you start at the beginning and carry on until you get to the end, or do you write scenes out of order? 

Back years ago when I was still learning to write novels, I had a problem. I'd come a long way and could say I had these three elements pretty much in hand: 

1. Idea for the story: one that was big enough to take a whole novel to explore.
2. The beginning: one to drag readers into the world and story
3. The ending: a satisfying end to the character's - dare I say it? - journey. The sort you don't necessarily see coming but once you have it gives you that feeling that says it always had to be that way.

What's missing? the pesky middle

I loved - still do! - writing beginnings and endings. Then I'd rush as quick as I could from one to the other. I didn't have saggy middles; it's more that they were missing. I'd put in the essentials to lead from beginning to end but no more. There were no pauses or beats in the story, no subplots, no breaks for the reader - just a breathless rush from one to the other.

It took me a while to understand this, but once I did, I still struggled to understand what needed to be there. 

When I wrote the Slated trilogy, it was originally going to be a single novel, not a trilogy. I wrote the part of it that would have been the first third if it was a standalone, and realised there was too much of a rush through it, that it needed more, and made the decision to change it to a trilogy. So, I had something less than 20,000 words that needed to grow.

I think this is the first time I made a chapter table: first column, chapter number/word count; second column, a paragraph saying what happened in the chapter; third column blank. The important third column is where I'd add notes of things that were missing, needed to change etc. Doing this helped me see what was missing and where to put it, and is still something I do today, not so much as an initial plotting tool but further along in the process when I'm getting stressed about the missing middle.

Because of the way Slated evolved, I'd written the beginning and ending before I filled in the middle. To be fair I wrote the ending before I'd finished even the shorter version of the novel that I had to begin with. I'm pretty sure this is the first time I did this: write the ending early on in the process.

If I save a scene that is in my head, clear in my thoughts, and don't allow myself to write it until I get there in the plot, once I'm there it's lost what it had before - that urgency the words need to have, that delight in writing it also. 

Writing out of order is something I've done since then whenever I had a scene in my head that won't leave me alone. It might have to change - even drastically - when I get there, but that's ok. I need to get it out when it wants out.

Somewhere along the way I stopped writing out of order: multiple viewpoints tripped me up. Book of Lies, the Dark Matter trilogy (Contagion, Deception, Evolution) and Fated all have multiple viewpoints. I tried different ways of approaching this but I found that writing out of order to any extent didn't work when I was alternating chapters between different character's points of view. I still occasionally would write a few critical scenes - the key scenes that define the character &/or move the plot along - that were niggling at me even though the point of view would end up changing later on once I got there. 

Now I'm writing a Shiny New Thing: I can't tell you much about it yet, but it has a single point of view. I think somewhere along the way I'd forgotten how much fun it can be to do things out of order, and how useful it is to my writing process. 

Writing takes a lot of self-discipline, particularly when you add in deadlines. I used to really push myself to hit word counts or hour counts of how many hours a day I was writing, and it was taking the fun out of it. Being able to daydream my characters and think ahead and backwards and ahead again makes it more fun, but beyond that:

Writing critical scenes first cements the story and key elements in my mind. It makes it obvious what is needed to link these scenes together - and there is my missing middle. 

I still use tables to keep me on track when I need to. At the moment I'm at the stage where I'm approaching the finish line, and there are gaps here and there in my table - missing chapters that need to be written still - that get me from one critical scene to another.

There are no rules on the best way to write a novel: every writer and every story will work in a different way.

But if you've ever felt it is inherently wrong to jump ahead to the fun stuff in your plot, don't punish your muse! They like a bit of freedom.

Making Things Up: previous blogs in this series on the creative process

Part 5: Finding the place for your story
Part 4: The Care and Feeding of Plot Bunnies
Part 3: Writing all the right words: but not necessarily in the right order
Part 2: Getting Started
Part 1: Because I'm a writer, and that's what I do

Confessions of a backtracking author: on Brexit and writing Fated

by Teri Terry

serious face...

I’ve personally always had a kind of horror of message books: where you can see what the author thinks in a heavy handed way, as if the characters only serve to get across the author’s own agenda. Readers should be allowed to draw what they will from a story, not be told what to think. I also truly feel that my characters are their own people, to the extent that I don’t always – or with some of them, even often – agree with what they think or do. 

ER … 

Well, that may have been my starting point. My tenth book is about to come out, and along the way when I was writing the others I was actually really surprised to find how much personal stuff creeps in – things that worry me, scare me, or personal issues. In my first trilogy – Slated – the main character’s memory has been wiped, and she’s trying to fit in and work out who she is in an unfamiliar place. I’ve moved around countries and continents all my life, and it’s safe to say struggling with identity is personal. 

But I still haven’t ever chosen a story deliberately to work out personal stuff – it just kind of happens. And I most definitely would never, ever write something to get a message across. No way. Not going to do it.

ER …

Let me take you back in time to the morning after the Brexit vote.

I have such a clear memory of sitting on a train early that morning, on my way to a book award (the Amazing Book Awards, Sussex), thinking – what the flipping fire trucks (insert expletives of choice) just happened? I felt shell shocked. I hadn’t slept. I felt like I couldn’t take in what had happened. I felt completely … FREAKED out.

if only the bell worked

There was a group of teenage boys on the train opposite me. Three of them were saying, what the hell has happened? One of them was explaining it – quite well, I thought.

And I remember thinking, even though this totally sucks, it’s done something. It’s made young people like these ones say what they think, be aware, be seriously pissed off, even. Understand how important voting is in being part of a democracy.

But how can it be right that people my age have voted (or not voted, or protest voted) and had such a profound effect on young people’s lives like this? They’re not old enough to vote, but they’ve been saddled with what has been decided for them? And it just seemed so WRONG.

Later that day I was in a taxi with a bunch of authors on our way to the ABAs, trying to work out what happened. How can we just go on and talk about books like they are important after this?

I felt this way, too. But I also thought – and still think – that books and thinking and talking about stuff are SO IMPORTANT. 

My crystal ball works too well;
sorry about that

When I wrote Slated, I never, ever thought leaving the EU was something the UK would do. I wrote Slated between 2009 and 2011, before Brexit was even a word. The backstory to Slated was that the UK had left the EU, closed borders, and became isolationist. Wide spread chaos and rioting followed. Underage students were blamed. There were executions and imprisonments until a medical procedure – Slating – was developed to deal with underage criminals. Memory wiped, they were assigned to a new family for a second chance.

During the lead up to the Brexit vote I’d started to become obsessed with the idea of writing a prequel to Slated: one that showed how the world in Slated came about; how a democracy likes ours could disintegrate into something else.

I’m not British by origin. I’m Dutch/Finnish/Canadian/Australian who landed in the UK and called it home way back in 2005. It IS home to me, but I’m not sure I have the right to say how it should be, how it should be in Europe, when I’m so new to being part of it – even though I know how I feel about it all. 

When Slated was published in 2012 I remember reading some reviews that said the UK would never leave the EU, and even if it did, they couldn’t imagine the rest of it.

Well, welcome to 2019. 

So, here comes Fated - a book I felt driven to write. It is more truly dystopian than anything else I’ve done. It does say what the author thinks through her characters – though hopefully not in a heavy handed way, or in a way untrue to her characters. They do live and breathe in my heart and mind and I hope I’ve done them justice. 

And I really do think that one person CAN make a difference – even if it isn’t now. Even if it takes a while.

Trying to make a difference is worth it, no matter what.

And there is only one way that I know how.

It's taken me a while to come to terms with having backtracked on things I believed in before. And it's OK. None of us live or write in a vacuum. Pretending the things that enrage, engage and inspire me to write don't exist would be counterproductive, shortsighted and completely daft.

Are teenagers - and their brains - different?

by Teri Terry

For a long time it was thought that most brain development takes place in the early years; that a teen essentially has an adult brain. 
But then why do they think and act so differently? 
For example, why do they - comparatively speaking - have poorer impulse control, take more risks in the presence of their peers, and generally find their parents excruciatingly embarrassing to be around? Why won't they just grow up?
Is it a societal thing - is it our fault - is it theirs?

Brainstorm is a play created by Islington Community Theatre (now called Company 3) and cognitive neuroscientist Sarah-Jayne Blakemore:

You say to me...
Your brain is broken. It's like an adult's brain that doesn't work properly.

Brainstorm, companythree.co.uk

Whether you are a teen, write for teens, live with a few or work with them by the dozen, watch this excerpt: it is powerful.

Brainstorm from Mattia Pagura on Vimeo.

When I started writing for teens years ago, it wasn't long after the time that YA fiction was becoming a thing. 

Around the same time I remember coming across this argument, one I've heard many times since:

No matter what you call them - teenagers, young adults or adolescents - the whole youth culture is a recent creation of an affluent west. YA fiction grew out of this: it is a market artificially created by publishing companies to make money.

So, are they real or did we make them up? 
Whatever label you want to use, are teenagers distinctly different from children and adults, or are they actually a recent invention? 
And why does it seem so socially acceptable to mock teens and the ways they are different, their likes and dislikes? 

I'm all too familiar with how dismissive people often are of books written for teens and those who write them, and the view that readers should go from children's stories straight to adult classics with no stops between; that giving them access to teen fiction they enjoy allows them to be lazy and unchallenged.

I went to a talk by award-winning cognitive neuroscientist Sarah-Jayne Blakemore at New Scientist Live last weekend: The Secret Life of the Teenage Brain.

She knows what she's talking about. This is her bio, from the New Scientist Live website: 

Sarah-Jayne Blakemore is Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at University

College London, Deputy Director of the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, Editor-in-Chief of the journal Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience and a member of the Royal Society Public Engagement Committee. She has won multiple major awards for her research, including the British Psychological Society Spearman Medal 2006, the Turin Young Mind & Brain Prize 2013, the Royal Society Rosalind Franklin Award 2013 and the Klaus J. Jacobs Research Prize 2015. She was one of only four scientists on the Sunday Times 100 Makers of the 21st Century in 2014.

I took LOADS of notes to do this blog, and then I found this: a TED talk! 
Well, Sarah-Jayne says it much better than I can, so here you go: 

So, there you have it. 

Teenagers ARE different; their brains are undergoing important work at making them who they are. This is the case across cultures; across centuries; even species. 

So, cut them some slack. 

And I'll keep writing, and know this: 

If I write a book that a teen connects with, one that makes them understand themselves or other people better, one that makes them feel that if a character their age can do something amazing, maybe they can, too - or even if it is just pure escapism from a difficult day - I know I've done something important.

Should you go on a writing retreat? YES

by Teri Terry

Have you ever wanted to go on a writing retreat but weren't sure what you might get out of it? I love writing retreats! Especially the SCBWI variety. But the reasons why have changed over the years.

Back when I was unpublished and unagented, I wasn't sure I could justify the time or expense of a writing retreat...

It took me a year of thinking about it before I finally took the plunge and went to my first SCBWI retreat.

I didn't write at them very much the first few times - in fact, the first one I went to, way back in 2010, I spent all the scheduled writing time reading Jon Mayhew's Mortlock, which I'd brought along for him to sign, and having unscheduled naps and weird Mortlock-related-dreams. This was my very first retreat, and the last one in the midlands; one of the last few ably-organised by the very much missed Sue Hyams.

It still stands out in my mind all these years later: 

1. the sheer joy of being around other creative types for a whole weekend. I started to feel less alone. If other people out there talk to the characters in their heads all the time too, maybe I'm not completely bonkers?

2. a one to one with Lee Weatherly with a ghost story I still may go back to one day: she said my voice was just right for YA!

Lee's latest

3. a talk Lee gave also, where I still remember one of the things she said: that if you've had a full manuscript request somewhere - even if it's a no - it shows you can write; keep going, you'll get there. I'd been in just this position around that time and was feeling down about it, and she made me turn it around and see it for the encouragement that it  was.

4. a picture book talk with Pippa Goodhart! 
I wasn't sure why I was even going - I didn't want to write picture books - but I went along, and I still remember something that she said: that animals are often used in picture books because it makes it less scary than if it were a child. This is something I came back to in other contexts when I was thinking about the appeal of dystopian novels: put something in another world or in the future, and you can look at scary issues in a way that might feel too confronting in our world.

Retreats then moved to Dunford House in West Sussex:

I've been to every one, and even volunteered to organise it myself a few years. The reasons I went changed over time and the years merge together a bit in my brain:

my Dunford Houe library writing buddies in 2011:
Christian Colossi, Jo Wyton, Tina Lemon

1. writing time: more and more I was using the retreat to focus on my work in an intense way that can be hard to do at home with family & work commitments.

2. friends! Writing friends! No one else wants to listen to us agonise over a word or point of view choice or plot point like they will; no one understands the agony of rejection and dusting yourself off again like they do; no one else is quite the same cheer leading section.

3. it made me feel like a writer! Which can be elusive sometimes in those pre-published stages.

Then in 2011 I got a publishing deal, hurrah! Slated was published in 2012. Things were changing ...

Once I was agented and published, I wasn't sure I could justify the time or expense of a writing retreat...

Why go if I don't need one to ones, I'm less interested in going to workshops and talks, and now that I'm writing full time I don't really need the dedicated writing time away?

I kept going. I couldn't not go, somehow.

1. writing time! I still loved having this weekend to focus, away from home/family.

Writing buddies in Dunford House library, 2018

Dunford House

2. writing friends! I think I said it all above: they're the best.

3. Dunford House! more and more it was becoming a place I loved going to every year; an annual ritual; my favourite weekend of the year

Dunford House Conservatory one May

What about solo retreats?

Another point about retreats: I know authors who go away on their own for a week or two to write. This doesn't work for me; I've tried it. I get too morose being on my own 24 hours a day. The SCBWI retreats - also Charlie's residential retreats in beautiful Devon - work for me because I can write all day but have lovely chat with friends at meals and in the evening.

I almost didn't go to the SCBWI retreat this year: 

I've been travelling too much. I've got 

Scooby, the World's Cutest Puppy.
I did miss her dreadfully

some intense deadlines. We have a puppy. Lots of things were falling through the cracks and I didn't register for the retreat: it was sold out. I also didn't plan a book launch for Deception, the second book of my Dark Matter trilogy.

But Dunford House is closing soon so it was the last one there, and I found I couldn't stay away. Someone sadly had to cancel and I got their spot! And then I remembered my very first retreat, and Jon Mayhew bringing along bottles of bubbles after Mortlock was published ...

blurry Jon Mayhew pouring bubbles - back in 2010?
I think it was 2010

... and I had a cunning plan:

A book launch! Prosecco! a writing retreat!! What's not to like?

Prosecco! a glass! no free hands for the book,
but Susan Bain snuck in to help out

Thanks so much to everyone for being there! And thank you to Mel Rogerson and Alexandra English for organising everything so wonderfully. 
Thank you to editor Rosie McIntosh for coming along, and to Dom and Hachette Children's Books for the Prosecco, and to everyone at Dunford House for making this retreat - and my book launch - as memorable as all the others.

And thanks also to Candy Gourlay and Kathy Evans for making the trek, and for the photos!

Books! bookmarks!

from left: Kathy Evans, Nina Wadcock, me, and Candy Gourlay's selfie magic

Editor Rosie McIntosh saying lovely things

So cheers to SCBWI, Dunford House, writing retreats, and writing friends everywhere! 

Thanks to Sue Hyams, for talking me in to going on my first retreat.

the dedication page in Contagion

Please share: writing retreat happenings? things learned? writing retreat successes? haunted rooms? things forgotten/lost? hangovers?