<img src='/cms/84_GregMcQueen2.jpg'> This month's blog doesn't come from me but from Greg McQueen, the brain behind the <b class="pink">100 Stories for Haiti</b> project mentioned on our news page. <b class="pink">Greg's Story:</b> The title of the project comes to me as I research some facts about the earthquake online. ‘100 Stories for Haiti’. I type some notes. A few strung-together facts from the news reports I’ve seen about the earthquake in Haiti. I print them and switch on my webcam. I glance at the notes but I’m not really reading them. The words come out because they are already there. “Dear Twitterverse,” I hear myself say. “On January 12th 2010 a 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck near Haiti’s capital…” When I am finished I post the video on YouTube, and embed it on my website. I post it on Facebook and Twitter for good measure, and then wander downstairs and stick the kettle on. As I am making tea, my mobile phone chimes. It’s an e-mail. Someone commenting on my YouTube video. Blimey, I only just posted it. I read the comment. Then I read it again. What the heck have I done? I hear the front door open, and my wife comes in. She smiles, peels off her coat, and dumps it on a chair before joining me in the kitchen. She slips her arm across my shoulders and kisses my cheek. Then she frowns, because she’s seen the look on my face. “You okay?” “I don’t know. I think I might have just made a total arse of myself.” Her frown deepens. “I just posted a video online, asking writers to send me their stories. I’m going to publish a book and donate all the money to … I don’t know. Maybe the Red Cross.” She’s still frowning. “What about your novel?” she asks. “I thought you needed to finish it?” “I do. But …” I shrug. Don’t know what else to say. “You haven’t thought this through, have you?” she says. I shake my head, as though I am a ten year-old confessing to breaking a window. “I think it’s a wonderful idea,” she says. Smiling now. “Really?” “Yeah. I’ll help you make the cover if you like.” “Cover?” “Books need a cover, don’t they?” “Yeah,” I say, “Books need a cover …” Shit, she’s right. I haven’t thought this through at all. “…and it needs quite a lot of other stuff, too.” Starting the project was a rush. I admit it. I started the project thinking that I'd scrape together 100 stories. 400 within a week really was a fantastic surprise. Two weeks into the project the whole thing nearly collapsed. The first paperback publisher pulled out for totally understandable reasons. Other things were going on. People in the project were telling me to stop. That was a real low point. As I'm writing this ... the new paperback publisher is typesetting the manuscript, and today, they sent through the ISBN number. We're setting up to take pre-orders in anticipation of the official publication date, March 4th, 2010. One highlight that hasn't happened yet ... the moment I hold an 80,000 word book in my hand. A book that me and a bunch of other writers banded together to make. I'll probably stare at it for an hour, cry for a bit, and then climb into bed and sleep for a week. 2010-02-17T15:44:47+00:00 11 2010-02-17T17:41:08+00:00 <img src='/cms/101_Virtual_Reality.jpg'> I am about to get a virtual PA to help out with the mountain of admin work I have been struggling with over the past year or so. I’m actually not sure how 'virtual' she’s going to be as I know who she is, I know where she lives and sometimes she may be sharing my office, but it did get me thinking about all things virtual. These days you can get ‘virtual’ just about anything. You can have virtual friends, courtesy of social networking sites; you can do virtual exercise, courtesy of Wii; you can use virtual doctors as Dan Woolley discovered when he was trapped in a lift-shaft following the terrible earthquake in Haiti. He used a medical app on his Iphone to give him information on treating his wounds. You can even be stalked by virtual stalkers as I myself can bear out with the vile posts from ‘Anonymous’ posted on this very site. Which brings me to virtual books, or e-books as they are more commonly known. What do we, as writers, feel about them? Are they, as many believe, a threat to the printed word or are they, in fact, an amazing opportunity for writers and readers alike? If you look at the news section of this site you will see that one of my authors is putting together a collection of short stories to raise money for the Haiti earthquake appeal. Because he is planning to publish the stories as an e-book he can get it out quickly and efficiently without waiting for an editor’s say-so or a publisher’s permission.However, interestingly, he is also publishing the collection as a paperback. Many people point out that CD sales have fallen since ITunes was launched in this country in 2004. However in my opinion it’s not the same thing as the e-book/book debate. The CD is a mass storage device which has now been replaced by more efficient mass storage devices. The e-book on the other hand is a completely different medium to the printed book and I can see them happily existing side by side. For example I use my Sony e-reader for first readings of manuscripts, but in order to do a proper edit I need to have the full manuscript printed out as hard copy. And if one needs any more poignant reminder of the importance of the written word you only need to look to the bravery of Miep Gies, who died aged 100 on 11th January. Miep was one of the loyal and brave few who daily risked their lives in order to bring the family Frank supplies as they hid in the famous Secret Annex during the Nazi occupation of Amsterdam. It was Miep who picked up the abandoned pages of Anne Frank’s diary when the annex occupants were finally betrayed and arrested on August 4, 1944. One can only wonder if Anne’s book would have survived if it had been stored on a laptop or, more importantly, if it would have ever been written at all. So that’s my say on all things virtual. I’m now off to virtually walk my virtual dog in the virtual rain. If only! 2010-01-22T18:58:30+00:00 10 2010-01-22T19:07:53+00:00 <img src='/cms/57_Jedward.jpg'> I love rubbish tabloids, breakfast tv and X-Factor. I know I should read the Times, listen to Radio Four and get out more on a Saturday night, but that’s me. And because of my terrible taste in media entertainment I find I have a lot of sympathy with one Simon Cowell. In the lead up to the live X-Factor shows Simon (and his fellow judges) listens to act after act who think they can sing. He knows they’re never going to make it - hell, we know they’re never going to make it - yet week after week these poor, sad, deluded acts turn up convinced that they’ve got what it takes to break into the big time. I don’t know about you but I feel like screaming at my tv – listen to yourself, you’re rubbish, you can’t sing. Yet despite the obvious they react with fury when Simon tells them –listen to yourself, you’re rubbish, you can’t sing. I can relate to Simon sometimes. Writers approach me and they seem to have no idea as to how they rate, as writers, in the general scheme of things. More often than not they haven’t looked at the current market and have written something that is wildly unoriginal. Sometimes they have looked at the market and written something that is inadequate. Other times would-be authors are simply illiterate and make the most basic of grammatical mistakes, even in their covering letter or email. And yet, and yet... I remember when I was first starting out in this business. At the time I was fiction editor on a popular teenage magazine and a certain George Michael turned up at our office for an interview apologising profusely that the other half of Wham couldn’t make it that day. What losers I thought. They’re just another wannabe pop act and they’ll never make it. How wrong was I! Which is why I now never give up on would-be authors if they have sufficient self-belief. It’s not all about pure talent no matter how much we’d like it to be. Sometimes it’s about hard work, application and perseverance. ‘Jedward’ bring it on! 2009-12-04T18:14:03+00:00 9 2009-12-04T18:21:13+00:00 <img src='/cms/57_Robin_Hood_Blog.jpg'> I've just finished judging a competition run by the Nottingham Writers Group (hence the picture of Robin Hood!) and thought you might be interested in the feedback I gave them. When judging this competition I used the same criteria any editor would use should any of the entries find their way into a publisher’s slush pile. Firstly I looked at the first page of each entry to see if the opening lines grabbed me. Four entries fulfilled this criteria. The trick to writing a good opening paragraph is, firstly, to speak directly to the reader and, secondly, to intrigue the reader. Too many of the entries opened with dialogue or narrative which bordered on the mundane. Secondly I looked at targeting. Considering this was part of the competition brief I was slightly puzzled as to why three of the seven shortlisted entries made no mention of a target age range. This ruled them out as far as I was concerned because if you don’t have a clear idea of your target readership then you are very unlikely to find a home for your manuscript. Knowledge of the current children’s book market is absolutely crucial if you are serious about writing for children. Once I had considered first lines and targeting I was left with four manuscripts and, out of the remaining four, I ruled out two more on the grounds that the targeting wasn’t accurate. In my opinion the subject matter of these two stories was too young for the age group they were written for. By now I was left with two manuscripts –A Near Death Experience and An Indian Summer. The former had a more intriguing opening but the latter had a more contemporary feel. And, at the end of the day, it is ‘voice’ that is the most important aspect of any piece of writing. However literary agent, Darley Anderson, writing in October 23rd's Bookseller, says that good writing is the last thing he looks for. Instead he looks for character first and plot second. So is it first lines, targeting, plotting, characterisation, subject matter...or none of the above? What, exactly, is 'the most important thing'? 2009-11-09T17:44:54+00:00 8 2009-11-09T19:00:33+00:00 !/cms/2_Blog1.jpg(Louise Jordan)! The beginning of the year starts at different times for different people. For many people January 1st heralds the start of the year. However Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) is usually in September and, for the Chinese, New Year doesn't start until the end of January or February. For those of us working in the children's book world I would say that our year begins in September/October with the start of the autumn term. So, as this is a site devoted to writing for children, it seems like an appropriate time to be starting my new blog. But what about other beginnings? What about, for example, the beginnings of stories and books? What are we, as editors, looking for when we pick up a manuscript and turn to that all important first page? Last week I attended the Children's Bookseller Annual Conference where I learned a number of interesting facts - not least of which is that the children's book market is showing huge resilience in these difficult times and has grown by 30% in the last five years. And the answer to the question 'what are editors looking for?' could well lie with points made by a couple of the speakers. John Webb, Tesco's Buying Manager, pointed out that consumers need to know what a book is all about just by looking at it. If they have to get to the last page before they can work it out, it's too late. Danielle Davis, editor of Spinebreakers.com (Puffin's teen reading website), underlined this point. A visit to the Spinebreaker's home page tells you exactly what the site is all about by defining the word 'spinebreaker' as 'any story-surfing, web-exploring, word-loving, day-dreaming reader/writer/artist/thinker age 13 - 18'. On the other hand some guy speaking at the end of the conference illustrated what editors are not looking for when he tried to explain how his computer gaming system tied in with children's publishing. None of us could work out what he was on about! So what's the answer? What are we, as editors of children's books, looking for in a 'beginning'? I think the answer is 'clarity'. It has to be clear, very quickly, what we are reading about and why. If you get that right then the rest of the story should follow as naturally as...well as naturally as New Year's Day follows New Year's Eve! Share your thoughts on what you think makes a great beginning to a story... 2009-10-12T19:08:10+01:00 7 2009-10-15T19:38:41+01:00