Living in the Past

By Nick Cross



I've always been suspicious of nostalgia - that intense yearning for the past that often seems to be an excuse for not engaging with the present. As a result, all of my five novels to date have had a contemporary setting. Writing in the now just felt right - I was engaging with the issues that directly affected child readers, I was keeping up with popular culture and also avoiding doing much in the way of research (which I found tedious).

Yet I seem to have spent the last six months living in and writing about the past. What happened there?

A Room of One's Own

by Teri Terry

A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.

Virginia Woolf

I didn’t have either of those things when I wrote Slated so I don’t think they are a prerequisite – but I’ve recently considered renting my own writing space. Trying to make the decision got me thinking:

What do I need to write? What do I need to be happy? What is in the sweet spot on the Venn diagram where both co-exist, and why does it seem to keep getting smaller?

Can I say hand-on-heart that I need a room of my own in order to write? No.

To write, all I actually need are pen/notebook/laptop/time. For years I wrote early in the morning in bed before work; for the last five years or so I've been a full time writer who worked from home and often did the same. 

WOW did I love working from home to start with! Not having to go to work, not having to work to any schedule but my own (apart from the occasional pesky deadline), working in my PJs and talking to myself more than is good in public – total bliss.

But ... there are no boundaries:
Much like it did in the pre-published stages, it still felt hard sometimes to justify taking time and space from family/duck polishing/hanging out on Facebook. Working from home makes it hard to switch off the me that does all the other stuff.

It can be even harder sometimes to take time and space away from my writing to give it to the people who are most important. I think a lot of the reason is the amorphous nature of writing. It tends to take over your thoughts and attention when it shouldn’t, and nothing is ever completely finished. I could edit forever if I didn’t have to hit send on a deadline. So working from home also makes it hard to switch off the me that does the writing.

Over time how I felt about writing full time at home gradually changed for the worse:
I wasn’t even completely sure why. Changing the hobby you love to a job is always going to change how you feel about it, and that was part of it, but it wasn’t just that. 

I was looking for The Reason, and I blamed it on lack of space.

I do have the Writing Shack - a garden summer house that I can write in warm weather – but no dedicated writing space inside: not even a desk that was all mine. Stuff always had to be put away – I’m champion at losing things if they’re not left in sight. This was more of a problem on the business side of things than the writing side, though there was the one nightmare morning spent looking for ‘the’ notebook for one of my novels – convinced I’d lost it forever … it turned out the Man was tidying up and put it in the loft. I forgave him (eventually).

Solution: could I rent an office? Should I?
Well, reader: I did

Me! at my table! in my writing studio!
(Photo by Debra Hurford Brown)

The whole time I was considering getting an office, I focused on the practical: my need for dedicated space, quiet. This was my focus and there are huge pluses here with your work being able to be left spread out how you like it. I lose stuff less. I have a filing cabinet! And shelves for my notebooks. Also a work address is handy.

To get over the rent-is-dead-money issue, I convinced myself I’d be more organized and productive. And if that means more work done and hence more money in to pay the rent? Sorted.

But nearly two months on I’ve found it gives me so much more – for reasons that are perhaps even more important:

1. Separation of work and home: BOUNDARIES
I work at work and I don’t work at home. I wasn’t sure at first if that would happen – even though I ‘officially’ wrote during the day at home and not often in evenings/weekends, I always found myself doing bits and pieces then, too. But I’ve stopped doing that pretty much completely (confession: I’ve been writing this blog on a Sunday afternoon at home, but that’s a different sort of work!).
And what I’ve also found is that I’ve started to love coming home and being at home again, and if the man is out (generally at tennis!) and I’ve got an evening at home on my own I’m happy with my own company; when I was writing at home during the day I hated being on my own in the evening.

AND I got a red chair!

2. Getting dressed, going somewhere and talking to actual people!
I've rented an office inside a building with shared common areas. Now I chat for a few minutes with lovely office manager Caroline on my way in and out and whoever else is about of a half dozen or so engineers; there’s often chat by the kettle or at others times of day. They seem pretty tolerant of me babbling (so far!). And then I go to my space, and close the door.

Maybe I understand more now why many writers leave the house and go to write in coffee shops etc? If I didn’t live in a quiet village where the main not-at-home options are pubs (not a habit I need to get into) I might have tried that more, but I’ve never been good at working in places with people around me. It’s kind of like I want people there but not too close; I want to control my own space & sound also. Not a coffee shop option.

3. How I feel about what I’m doing has changed.
It’s kind of like me renting writing space is saying, I take this seriously – it’s my career – and I’m planning for it to continue. I’ve got faith in myself and what I do. It may sound weird to say this, but I feel more like a grown up (in a good way).

Conclusions on the practical stuff?

Am I more organised? OMG, YES.

Will I be more productive? 
I think so, I need more time to know for sure. Maybe not, because it may be that a book takes how long it takes to write and it may not work to try to speed that up. But I’ve decided I’m actually OK with that: I’m happier. The sweet spot has got bigger.

Me! at my table! in my writing studio!
It's so big I even have some giant sized notebooks, like this one!
(Photo by Debra Hurford Brown)

Weather or not - a quick guide to writing the weather in children's books

by Addy Farmer

When I mentioned that I was thinking about the weather and how it fitted into writing, that YA genius, Teri Terry uttered the immortal line:

'It was a dark and stormy night ...' which is the first line of a forgettable story by Victorian novelist, Edward Bulwer-Lytton (I had to google him).

Well, someone had to say it and actually it has become a rather well known first line. So well known in fact, that primary school children recognise it and Janet Alhberg used it as the title of her pirate kidnapping picture book.

Maybe this one sentence is the reason, Elmore Leonard declared:

Never open a book with the weather.

Ok, so he also went on to say,

“If it’s only to create atmosphere, and not a character’s reaction to the weather, you don’t want to go on too long, the reader starts skipping ahead looking for people”

Thanks, Elmore but actually we're children's writers and we NEVER go on too long.

And thanks to the excellent, Candy Gourlay, I came across what the excellent Scott Westerfield writes as an excellent rebuttal to this dictum. Here's a taster:

The early summer sky was the color of cat vomit. —Uglies Yeah, baby! I not only start with the weather; I start quarter-million-word trilogies with the weather. That’s how I roll.
Scott Westerfield

Basically, this cat-vomit sky is in Tally’s head; the sky is actually lovely, but her depression turns it ugly. In a few weathery sentences Westerfield subtly evokes character and setting and tone. Beautiful.

I promise this is the last name-drop, but no less an author than Hemingway did urge:

Remember to get the weather in your god damned book—weather is very important.

You'd be relieved to know, Mr Hemingway that I agree with you  - I think the weather is very important to get into your god-damned book.

So what is the role of the weather in children's stories?

Sometimes the weather is the story.

Children can be scared of storms with their loud noises and flashes of light - a primeval fear in us all maybe? 

Dealing with the aftermath of a storm is a situation common to many

I'm often accused of having my head in the clouds

Weather as mood music ... 

Hagrid looks out of the hut window, contemplates the sky over Hogwarts and murmurs, 'There's a storm coming, Harry and we'd best be ready when she does.'

'There's a storm coming, Harry. And we'd best be ready when she does.'

Is there an actual storm coming, Harry? Probably best to put your hoods up and run back to the castle! Or is our lovely half-giant being all metaphorical and warning of trouble ahead. Well, of course it's the latter and just about every young reader will understand what J K Rowling intended when she wrote those lines. A storm is a common metaphor for turbulent times; it brings with it, the threat of danger, the need to take cover and the feeling that this is Not Normal. I love a good storm.

Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! Rage! Blow! You cataracts and hurrincanoes, spout!' King Lear

I remember studying King Lear in sixth form.  His descent into madness was accompanied by the fearful stormy weather. King Lear's tumbling feelings of anger, despair and confusion were reflected in the weather and this was my introduction to the literary device of pathetic fallacy. It acted as a short cut to show how Lear felt and added visual depth to the feeling. Then came one of the best lines ever, a full-throated bonkers cry, 'HOWL! HOWL! HOWL! HOWL! HOWL!'

You just can't imagine King Lear uttering this against a backdrop of sunny meadows.

In Holes, by Louis Sachar; unlike the cold, stormy weather of King Lear's moor with its abundance of noise and flash, the weather is hot and sunny and dry. Camp Green Lake is cursed with a never-ending drought. But with Stanley's arrival, it becomes an oven where sound is muted and movement is slowed. You know that soon the heat will become unbearable and then something BIG will happen. “There was a change in the weather. For the worse”. It’s not until the tension is broken that the rain comes.

At the end of the book, the rain signifies the end of the curse. It is a cleansing agent, washing away the sins of the past and preparing the way for renewal - yeah, my interpretation is a bit flowery but this is A GREAT BOOK

The cold weather of winter and the warm weather of spring signify different feelings in Oscar Wilde's, The Selfish Giant'

Oscar Wilde's beloved tale tells the story of the selfish giant who built a wall around his beautiful garden to keep children out. It was always Winter in the garden, for no other season would venture there. Then one morning, a special child brought Spring back, and the giant's heart melted along with the snow.

This is a story where the weather is a big player. The cold is symbolic of the barren, cold, spirit-less heart of the giant; it is made concrete for the child reader with the depiction of a Winter garden. Similarly the rebirth, the acceptance of giving-love and ultimately Christ, into the giant's heart, is revealed through a Spring garden. Simple and effective and affecting.

Random weather check 

I looked at a random selection of books to see what role the weather played. Interesting ...

In ghosty history mystery, The Crowfield Demon by Pat Walsh, the weather is on the front cover! It starts in Chapter 1,  paragraph 2,

"The March morning was cold and a biting wind whipped the grey clouds across the sky."

In the dystopian Maggot Moon by Sally Gardner. Chapter 3, page 5:

" ...in another country where the buildings don't stop rising until they pin the clouds to the sky. Where the sun shines in Technicolour. Life at the end of the rainbow."

So far so weathery ...

A slice of history but not as we know it. Here lies Arthur by Philip Reeve. Page 4:

"Wrong as snow in summer or the sun at midnight. War's a thing for autumn, when the harvest's in and the rains not yet come to turn the roads to mud."

So, it turns out that the weather is useful, it can act in many ways:

• it can be the story
• be a plot device to move the story along
• help set the scene
• be symbolic of a theme
• be a reflection of mood
• be a reflection of plot
• add depth and texture to a scene
• without it, you're either indoors or in space

But before you go, dear reader, let me indulge you and me with the Moomins. And yes, I know, Snufkin is talking about the seasons but it's close enough for me. The weather has its place and you just know when it is right to use it:

“There are such a lot of things that have no place in summer and autumn and spring. Everything that’s a little shy and a little rum. Some kinds of night animals and people that don’t fit in with others and that nobody really believes in. They keep out of the way all the year. And then when everything’s quiet and white and the nights are long and most people are asleep—then they appear.”