It's for real! Tall Story arrives in the post

It came in the post today!



Pretty!

It has yellow endpapers!



And a picture of me on the back cover!



And here's what it looks like naked.



Dontcha just love the silver embossed text?

And look! I'm featured on Tracy's terrific Tall Tales and Short Stories blog!

I'm so happy I could give away a copy of my book!

In fact ... why not?

The Tall Story book trailer is going to be finished within the next few days and I'm trying to get a whole bunch of my blogging friends (and relatives) to post it at the same time - our very own WORLD PREMIERE!



The idea is we all post the trailer on our blogs and facebook/or other profiles at the same time! Simple!

In abject gratitude, I am offering world premiere people an advance viewing of the trailer on a password protected site - AND a chance to win a freshly minted copy of TALL STORY before it's in the shops!

If you would like to join us - and you don't have to live in England to join - please send me an email on mumatwork AT blueyonder.co.uk with the subject header 'World Premiere'!

THANK YOU!

Oh someone pinch me.

But not too hard.

Something from the Vogon Postal Service and Proofs of My First Little Book

Well I got some Vogon post the other day!

The message was: DON'T PANIC!

I tried not to but it was hard given that the envelope contained an advance copy of EoinColfer's sequel to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - titled And Another Thing. Well ... actually only half of it. No point marketing the product to oblivion I suppose.

It was a tabloid size newsprint edition. I don't think it will be easy to read but it's a cool collector's item!

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the book marketing world, Jacqueline Wilson's Tracey Beaker is about to launch as a computer game!

Meanwhile, the proofs of my forthcoming book for Oxford University Press Treetops series arrive and it's very very pretty! It's illustrated beautifully by three very fine artists Galia Bernstein, Margaret Chamberlain and Thomas Docherty. Boy, what a difference illustrations make to prose!

Me happy!

Treasure from Manila: Pieces of Me

MANILA -- On the flight to Manila to visit my mother, I read Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones (thanks to Daoud for lending it to me), and it was just as dazzling as one critic described it. A blurb from the Observer said:

“Mister Pip is the first of Jones’ six novels to have travelled from his native New Zealand to the UK. It is so hoped that it won’t be the last.”

Discovering that there are more novels by an author you've just fallen in love with is like winning the bonus question in a game show. How wonderful that Lloyd Jones has more treasure for me to uncover ... IF of course UK publishers deign to bring them over.

I went to Bologna last year to attend the SCBWI Conference that precedes the Bologna Children’s Book Fair. I was stunned by the number of book stores, stuffed with books in Italian. Books I will never read unless I find a way to become proficient in the language.

Makes you think, what a disadvantage it is to have just one tongue and access to just one canon of publishing. All those books waiting to be read out there ...

I count myself lucky to have access to an ‘other’ world of books in my native Philippines –although bookselling sensibilities here definitely deserve the description ‘Developing’ in Developing World.

Charging around Manila visiting bookstores, I was at first disheartened by the thick wallpaper of Stephenie Meyer at shop entrances, the thicket of American titles in front and a puny selection of Filipino books hidden away in a corner. At several shops, I was escorted to the Filipino book section by staff who seemed bemused that anyone should be interested in local writing.

But at one book store, I was excited to find Filipino authors mixed in with Western authors, instead of hidden away in a dusty exotic corner. The display tables that other bookstores reserved for Stephenie Meyer and JK Rowling were given over to picture books that starred water buffalos and monkeys instead of fluffy bunnies and red-breasted robins, there were Filipino thrillers and romance novels, and even children’s historical fiction. Bravo, Power Books.

Here is some of the treasure I’ve amassed from trawling the bookstores:

Tiger on the Wall by Annette Flores Garcia, illustrated by Joanne de Leon
The Very Good Carabao by Rosario Calma and illustrated by Liza Flores.

I must have read these books a hundred times to my three year old nephew. These are published by the pioneering children's book publisher Adarna Books (someday I hope to become one of their authors!).

The graphic novel scene in Manila is exciting, with ranks of local graphic novels on display everywhere. I picked Martial Law Babies by Arnold Arre - because I was a child during the Martial Law years in the Philippines.


I was so excited to find young fiction by Carla M. Pacis - a middle grade chapter book Owl Friends that described the friendship between two refugees of the Pinatubo volcanic eruption, a tribal boy and a little girl. Enrique El Negro imagines the story of a Filipino boy named Enrique who is recorded by Pigafetta to have travelled with Magellan as a translator before Magellan's death in the Philippines in 1521.

Owl Friends, Illustrations by Yasmin S. Ong
Enrique El Negro, Illustrations by Mel Silvestre

I also found this beautifully designed book about the use of fruits and vegetables in folk medicine - it will be a treasure trove of research for my novels which always have Philippine folk elements.

Medicinal Fruits and Vegetables
by Jaime Z. Galvez Tan and Rebecca Marana-Galvez Tan

And then there was this fantastic fact book about the Aswang, a Filipino vampire monster - another great character to add to my bestiary. The Aswang Inquiry based on a report by Frank Lynch, retold and illustrated by Gilda Cordero-Fernando, one of my favourite Filipino authors. I also acquired collections of Filipino folk stories and legends, books on superstitions, DVDs of classic Filipino movies - all in the name of research ... and fun.

I stocked up on books by Jose Y Dalisay - a fabulous writer who really ought to be writing more short stories intead of newspaper columns. I am at the moment reading Killing Time in a Warm Place and it's brilliant.


In Mister Pip, a girl in Papua New Guinea is read the story of Pip from Great Expectations by her English school teacher:

Mister Watts had given us another piece of the world. I found I could go back to it as often as I liked. Not that I thought of what we were hearing as a story. No. I was hearing someone give an account of themselves

Bringing these books back from the Philippines is just like bringing back pieces of me that I had left behind long ago.
 
 

Ten simple pleasures on my visit to Manila

MANILA -- On Facebook, I keep getting invitations to create lists – 25 random thoughts, seven things about me, 10 unusual facts I know etc.

Well here’s a list. And all my online friends can breathe a sigh of relief ... I’m not tagging anyone to do the same.

Watching London engulfed in snow on TV, with the electric fan on full blast.


Drops of water on palm leaves after a tropical rainshower.


The Indonesian print on my mother’s pyjamas.


Seeing this lovely painting of Remedios Circle, a place near the flat where I used to live. It’s become quite rundown now, and I’m glad there’s a memory of its better days here.


Going to a good bookstore. Power Books in SM Megamall.


Stumbling upon an empty restaurant with a piano, late at night, while in the company of musician friends


Having my family go bananas playing bananagrams.


Watching my niece play volleyball for my university.


Enjoying the way Filipinos find their use of English so hilarious. Without Further Adieu illustrated by Elbert Or, published by Tahanan Books


... and PURPLE plants!

On Focusing and Dropping off the Face of the Net

Just got a text from a friend who was wondering if I'd died - I'd been so quiet on the blog and on Facebook.

The truth is, I've been a really good girl.

I have written 21,000 words of my new novel. Helped organize some SCBWI events. And given a talk at a conference. Tutored my daughter for the admissions exams. And sorted out the house.

Nope. Not dead. Yet.

Click on the picture to see enlarged

This is a cartoon I did for the Comixtravaganza online exhibition of British SCBWI - an offshoot of the wonderful Turning Pages conference I attended this weekend (more to report soon!)

My Friends Are Dragging Me Kicking and Screaming Into Facebook

So you see, though I've got a page on MySpace and a page on Facebook and a page on Bebo and a page on YouTube, and a page on Ning (bet you haven't heard of Ning) I was only doing the social networking lark as RESEARCH.

Honest!

My main photo-sharing thingy is Multiply, which a lot of people haven't heard of and that's because it mainly populated by my family and friends in the Philippines and frankly, I was happy to keep it that way.

The main thing I've learned from social networking is that the "social" is just as important as the "network". You can network meaninglessly with as many people you don't know as you want on MySpace, on the off chance that someday you will need to tell all these strangers that you've published your book. But there's nothing like a network that actually interacts with you - it takes years of blogging to get more than four comments (unless you join the Nude Blogging Movement, and then you get an instant fan base).

Or not.

I find Multiply the most rewarding because it's where my "social" is ... I only have to put one silly photo up of my husband and within seconds I have 27 pithy comments from my best friend in Washington and 27 comments from my brothers and sisters in Manila (there are many of us), discussing in detail every aspect of my husband's nose, ears, hair, etc.

It's very rewarding (unless you're my husband).

Anyway, my Facebook contacts may have already noticed that I have increased activity on Facebook. This is because my Multiply friends are slowly moving to Facebook. So now I have to go on Facebook to leave insults on their albums. Boo!

Meanwhile, one of my fave YA authors John Green (Abundance of Katherines) posted this fab link imagining HAMLET's newsfeed on Facebook!

This brilliant cartoon by Nick Anderson of the Houston Chronicle

AND here's an image of VP hopeful Sarah Palin that I took off the facebook page of Maureen Johnson (Suite Scarlet, 13 Little Blue Envelopes). Yup that's a bear. And yup, that's a giant crab. It really focuses the mind on the coming US elections.


THESE are the things that make all that wasted time on Facebook seem worthwhile.

Once Spoken, Forever Forgotten - Me on Cynthia Leitch Smith's Blog

Goodness gracious, I have inadvertently appeared in YA author Cynthia Leitich Smith's blog!

I was interviewed by the excellent Anita Loughrey in anticipation of my talk before the SCBWI pre-Bologna conference.

Reading the interview, I was struck by how little I remembered of what I'd said.

And we mustn't forget that this is the world that our readers take for granted--TV, computers, games, the Web--this is the world our readers know. As writers for children, it is our responsibility to inhabit it with them.

It's a good thing someone was writing it all down.

For lack of anything interesting to illustrate this article with, here is a cartoon from my unpublished collection of pregnancy cartoons Who Are You And Why Are You Standing On My Bladder

The Unbearable Lightness of Being Discovered (alternative title: Matching Faces to Rejection Letters)

So last night was the reception for winners of the Undiscovered Voices competition of British SCBWI, sponsored by Working Partners.

It was held at Foyles Bookstore in Charing Cross at the height of the rush hour which made the turn-out of people from the book world all the more incredible.

A few days before, the organisers emailed the authors a list of people who had RSVP'd. This gave us time to compose ourselves and thus reduce the chances of anyone inadvertently drooling on unsuspecting agents.

The superhuman Saras (Grant and O'Connor) - who organised the event and edited the book - went so far as to provide guests with a photographic contact sheet to make it easier for agents and editors to identify and snatch a chosen author before any of the others get there first.

That's me, bottom right, in a photo taken by my eight year old daughter. I must say I photocopy rather well.

Surveying the Foyles reception space, I rather regretted ditching an earlier plan to smuggle members of my critique group into the invitation-only party. There was a good sized curtain at one end that would have been a perfect hiding place.

Natascha Biebow, British SCBWI's energetic leader, in her welcome speech described the anthology as a "creative way for creative people to get noticed".

Chris Snowdon, managing director for Working Partners, recalled the "mind-boggling number of scripts" submitted. "There is some damn fine writing in the anthology," he said.

The celebrity guest of the evening was the wonderful David Almond who wrote a foreword to the anthology. David delivered an inspiring talk, recalling how he himself had been an "undiscovered voice" for a long, long time and the intense humiliations he went through - people who want to write "must dare to feel stupid". "There is something inside us that drives us to write stories," he said. "You spend your lifetime trying to find out what that thing wants to say."

Hobnobbing with agents and editors is a strange experience. I had to restrain myself from curtseying and kissing the hems of their wide-leg trousers - being a supplicant is a hard habit to break. It was the oddest thing finally putting faces to all those rejection letters I had received over the years!

The best thing was my agent (MY agent) came along to say hello. She was probably aware of my need to be reminded that she really does exist. I promised her that I wouldn't splash her identity all over my blogs to keep her safe from stalkers and wannabe-authors-who-jump -out-from-behind-bushes -at-night. But here's a lovely picture of her anyway toasting my success with uber children's author Jane Clarke on the right.

The weirdest thing about the evening was that people kept saying, "You're not UNdiscovered anymore!"

Which is very nice in theory. That said, there's plenty of work to be done.

Still. Pinch me someone!

Yes It's You: Good News Strikes

It felt a little bit like winning Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.

When the moment came, it took me ages to process what was actually happening, Rejection having been my default setting for so long.

The phone rang and I took a message. The message was: YES.

Yes, I like your book.

Yes, I want to represent you.

Yes, it’s going to happen.

Come to think of it, that was David Almond’s inspirational message this past SCBWI Writer’s Day. “It happened to me, It’s going to happen to you.”

I got the call last week and I’m only blogging about it today because today, I had my first meeting with My Agent.

I tried to explain to the Husband what a different experience this meeting had been from a previous agent near-miss that had ended in disappointment. Was it the way this agent expressed an interest in my other work? Was it the fact that she urged me to chase her on the phone when I needed to follow something up? Was it – ? The Husband stopped me in mid whinge.

There’s no point looking back. The difference between then and now is this book. You have written another book.

And that’s the thing.

I’ve written another book. And it’s better than the previous one. Which was better than the one before.

So after more than 10 years, three novels and dozens of rejections, I’ve got an agent.

One can only get better at it.