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.

Flight of the Undiscovered: Voices Coming Soon on a Children's Bookshelf Near You

This was their moment!

Suddenly, after years of being supplicants to the great and good of publishing, our SCBWI heroes find themselves the object of a schmooze-for-all, with agents, editors and publishers eager to check them out at the launch of the Undiscovered Voices anthology for 2010.

In 2008, the first ever SCBWI British Isles Undiscovered Voices competition led to all 12 winners (including me, yay!) being signed by agents.

And here's who we have to blame, The Saras (Sara Grant and Sara O'Connor) - who conceptualized the Undiscovered Voices and made it happen. Should you run into them, please be sure to kiss the hems of their skirts (or trousers), they have changed some lives BIG TIME - including mine.

Sara G and Sara O

Of the 12 2008 winners, eight now have book deals and an array of nominations, shortlistings, longlistings for the gamut of prizes available in the children's book world, including:

The Blue Peter book award
Barnes and Noble Top Teen book for 2009
American Library Association Best Book for Young Readers
2010 Waterstone’s Children’s Book Prize
Branford Boase First novel award
Borders Book of the Month

Steve Hartley, Sarwat Chadda, and Harriet Goodwin - the first three of the original Undiscovered Voices to see their books in print - were present as were copies of their books for signing.

Okay. Apologies to Harriet (right) and Steve (left). But that's what comes from not taking the time to pose properly. You should really try to be more like Sarwat (center). Just smile.

Here's the cheat sheet that all guests were provided with so that they could target their desired author with appropriate ardour:

It's quite remarkable to think that the lives of these 12 somewhat shy people are about to change forever.

Watching the winners screwing up their courage to talk to agents they had previously feared, I remembered what it was like two years ago when I spent the launch party cowering in the company of friends rather than schmoozing the great and good.

Now I am a great fan of the Undiscovered Voices patron, Melvin Burgess, but I just could not get a shot of the man with his eyes OPEN. Here he is with Natascha Biebow, SCBWI BI's regional advisor:



Luckily I managed to film his evocative speech with my trusty ... erm ... mobile phone. Turn up the volume to get the full impact - it was a moving tribute.



At the dinner afterward - which I gatecrashed along with Sarwat - Sara O'Connor toasted the winners and their soon to be golden tomorrows.

Sarwat and I were bemused by the guests that each winner took along, who all wore nametags that said 'Plus One' (as in added guest).

Lisa Joy Smith (Slugs in the Toilet) with her Plus One, Graham.

These are the powers behind the throne, we thought. So after Sara's toast, I offered another one: to the Plus Ones - these are the people who make it happen for us writers, the ones who have to take the moodiness, the lateness and who keep us going into the light. Most likely, these are the names who will grace the dedication pages of future UV books!

More Plus Ones, lined up against the wall!

I'm afraid I didn't manage to photograph all the winners or the agents for that matter as the white wine was rather distracting. But here's a sampling of the evening:

Jude Ensaff (One of a Kind) and Nick Cross (Back from the Dead)



Editors Jasmine Richards (OUP) and my editor, Bella Pearson (David Fickling) ... and of course Melvin with eyes closed



David Cousins (Fifteen Days Without a Head) has been signed by agent Sarah Manson (that's why they're toasting)



Natascha introducing Melvin





Katie Dale of UV 2008 who finally made it after missing the first launch because she was travelling; Lauren Sabel (Vivian Divine and the Days of the Dead) flew in from the US just to attend; Chris Snowdon, managing director of Working Partners, the generous sponsor of the anthology

Sorry again if I didn't manage to photograph anyone who should be in this piece. You can read more about the UV launch on Nick Cross's wonderful blog Who Ate My Brain? (catchy title, Nick). Nick wrote Back from the Dead. Yona Wiseman (Becoming Invisible) has also blogged about it on Daylight Procrastinator. Anne M Leone (Adele) blogged about it on Critically Yours.

Left to right foreground: Yona Wiseman, Lisa Joy Smith, David Cousins, Anne Anderson, Paula Rawsthorne; back row: Nick Cross, Melvin Burgess, Jane McLoughlin, Lauren Sabel, Abbie Todd, Claire O'Brien, Emily George (not in picture, Jude Ensaff)

Meanwhile, congratulations to all the winners. May your tomorrows shine. Write well.

My signed copy of the anthology!

You might want to read my interview with Melvin about his experimental Twitter short stories. Scroll down.

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.