Yay! Whoo Hoo! And Whoopy Do!

by Maureen Lynas Who is celebrating! 

I may be odd but I love going to the tip and on Friday our car was packed with bags of shredding, old computers and cardboard boxes. Tidy house! Hurrah! Geoff was ready and waiting, I was putting my boots on, and the phone rang. I nearly didn’t pick it up - the tip was awaiting! But I did. Right choice!  

Amber Caraveo from the Skylark Literary Agency was ringing with an offer of representation! We talked for an hour, we agreed our terms, we discussed editorial suggestions and happily said our cheerios. Amber went on to share the news with partner Joanna Moult and announce it on twitter. I went to the tip.

Then out for a celebratory lunch. I was a jumble of emotions as I tried to fill Geoff in on all the details. This has been a long time coming and it was a bit overwhelming. By the end of the weekend I realised there had been quite a few emotions at play.

Elation, relief, exhaustion, acceptance, fear and - determination

Elation - the whoopy doops, the yay’s, the yahoo’s, the twitter and facebook storm of congratulations and new friends. It’s exciting. A happy dance must be done. Prosecco must be drunk. Chocolate must be consumed. It was. By both.

Relief - JOB DONE! No more agent rejections, no more fingers crossed, no more searching and hoping that one day someone will ‘Get me’. Relief that Amber loves my work so much she’ll invest her time and effort into my career. Thank you!

Exhaustion - This has been a long journey! I once climbed a seemingly never ending mountain called Ingleborough, in Yorkshire. It had many false peaks and I was convinced that each rise was the top. That the torture would be soon be over. My writing journey has been similar. There’s been a number of false peaks and sometimes it’s been difficult to get back up from them. Songs have helped. Especially this one from Chumbawumba. 

Acceptance - This may take some time but I think using these words as often as possible should help - My agent. As in: When I was talking to my agent. My agent is lovely. My agent is going to be pitching soon.  My agent said… (I intend these sentence endings to be something wise and intuitive to show she is the best agent a writer can get.)  

Fear - Amber is going to pitch my book! It’s not ready! It’s not good enough! I have three pages of editorial suggestions. What if I can’t do it! What if I end up with a big mess of a muddle?

Determination - There’s been a lot of determination over the many years of writing and learning and hoping. Now it’s needed even more than before. Because getting an agent is a huge, wonderful step but it isn’t the end. The end is one of my books in a child’s hand and, hopefully, a lot of laughter.

Here's a song that says it all. Thanks Rod!

Now I'm off to come up with a plan of action for Witch School Sucks! Because MY AGENT is waiting. 

Maureen 

You can see the first half of how I got MY AGENT through the Slushpile Challenge on SCBWI BI's Words and Pictures

Notes on How to Write Action

By Candy Gourlay

Greetings from the writing cave as I plod my way to a May deadline. Before we begin, may I just say this: AAAAAAARGH!

That's better.

So how do you feel about writing action? Not just the fun action like battles and fight scenes a la Jackie Chan  but all the movement that happens in a story. Characters DOING things. Getting from one place to another. Or when a character is building something, like a rocket or a time machine. Or when your character is living out his dull life and time is passing so that you can get to the part where story kicks in.

As I soldier on with my current work in progress, I constantly ask myself, why am I writing it this way? Is there a better way to get my character from A to B?

How to Write a Bio.

By Kathryn Evans and Nick Cross




Kathryn writes:

I hate writing biographies. In my head they always sound like this:

Oh look at me, look at all this stuff I do, Aren't I great, aren't I busy?

I don't feel hugely confident in how to write them either, and now I'm being asked for them all the time, I thought I really better learn. Nick Cross, who loves writing them and is typically brilliant at it, has agreed to help.