Author Envy

Ever read a really great book and wish you'd written it?

Actually, this happens to me quite a lot, and is probably a large part of what inspired me to want to write myself, after reading incredible authors such as Jodi Picoult (my literary idol) to Caroline B Cooney, Jacqueline Wilson, Sharon Creech.

Conversely, have you ever had a really great idea for a book, only to discover that someone else got there first? As the saying goes, there are only 5 possible plots in existence after all...

Both of these occurred to me most recently whilst reading Tamsyn Murray's "My So-Called Afterlife".

I first discovered the book after a fairly dismal meeting with a prospective agent who'd basically told me she liked my writing but what was selling these days was paranormal fiction.

My heart sank - all due respect to Stephanie Meyer and all the other supernatural writers out there but I just could not see myself writing a vampire book - nor could I see a way to incorporate vampires or zombies into Someone Else's Footprints! So I went to Leicester Square McDonalds and started brainstorming over a McChicken sandwich, watching people as they passed by (people-watching is one of my favourite hobbies in London).

Then inspiration struck - so many teen girls feel invisible - what if I wrote about one who actually was - because she was a ghost! Teen angst + supernatural! Hurray! Problem solved! And what if one day suddenly a guy did see her...?

I spent the next few hours furiously plotting - only to get home, go on Amazon and discover "My So-Called Afterlife", a book with an incredible title - and a rather similar synopsis...

"I knew it was time to move on when a tramp peed on my Uggs..."
Meet Lucy Shaw. She's not your average fifteen year old - for a start, she's dead. And as if being a ghost wasn't bad enough, she's also trapped haunting the men's toilets on Carnaby Street. So when a lighting engineer called Jeremy walks in and she realises he can see and hear her, she isn't about to let him walk out of her afterlife."

To say I was gutted is an understatement. But I was also extremely intrigued and was eager to read MSCA when it came out. Now I finally have I must say this:

I am SO glad Tamsyn got there first.

My So-Called Afterlife made me laugh, made me cry, and the plot races along like a wonderful rollercoaster, part-mystery, part-romance, part-comedy as it covers all aspects of being dead, from the difficulties of kissing when you have no lips and the agony of missing your favourite soaps and being stuck in stinky toilets, to heavier subjects such as bullying, grief, and murder, all dealt with truthfully and with Lucy's (and Tamsyn's) characteristic warmth and flair.

We may have started with the same seed of an idea, but Tamsyn's creation is an entirely different creature to what mine would have become - and all the better for it! It's MUCH funnier, faster, and probably a fraction of the size mine would've ended up, given the 140,000 words that poured into the first draft of my novel!

What it comes down to I couldn't have written this book, and I'm really glad Tamsyn did.


What books do you wish you'd written, and why?

And have you ever come up with a great idea only to find someone else wrote it first (if not better...?)

What's in a Name?

Apparently, quite a lot!


Just heard from my editors that they'd like me to consider an alternative title for my upcoming YA/Crossover novel. 'Someone Else's Footprints' they say "feels like something we've read before - perhaps a mystery?"

So they've come up with a few alternatives, and I've also added my own to the list above. (Please note, any title which includes the word Lives/Life I want to do something fancy with so it also reads 'LIE' e.g. Someone Else's Life/Someone Else's Lie)

This is where you come in! PLEASE HELP!!

I would be SO grateful if you'd have a quick squiz at the titles at the top of this page and tick your favourite(s) - which one would you pick up off a bookshelf?

If there are any you love - or hate! - please feel free to leave a comment (below) telling me why - Or perhaps you have a better suggestion altogether?

Anyone who comes up with a NEW title that makes it to print will get a whole stash of goodies - an ARC, a printed acknowledgement in the book, A CHARACTER NAMED AFTER THEM, and much much more...

Here's the synopsis:

"When seventeen-year-old Rosie’s mother, Trudie, dies from Huntington’s Disease, her pain is intensified by the knowledge that she has a fifty-per-cent chance of inheriting the crippling disease herself.


Only when she tells her mum’s best friend, ‘Aunt Sarah’ that she is going to test for the disease does Sarah, a midwife, reveal that Trudie was not her real mother after all – that she was swapped at birth for a baby destined to die…

Devastated, Rosie decides to trace her real mother, hitching along on her ex-boyfriend’s GAP year to follow her to Los Angeles.


But all does not go to plan, and as Rosie discovers yet more of her family's deeply-buried secrets and lies, she is left with an agonising decision of her own - one which will be the most heart-breaking and far-reaching of all... "

So what should the title be...?

Suggestions so far:

PARALLEL LIES                                THE DECISION

SWAPPED                                          STOLEN LIFE

EXCHANGED                                    CHEATING FATE

LIFE SWAP                                        SIDE BY SIDE

DEADLY LEGACY                            THE CHANGEOVER

DEATH SWAP                                    MY MOTHER'S DAUGHTER

FINDING ME                                      WHO IS ROSIE?

Inspirational, Informative and a Social Whirl!

Wow! 10 Years of the Society for Childrens' Books Writer and Illustrators of the British Isles - and what a success story it has been!

Attending the Conference this year was

a) Incredibly Inspirational:
So many big names in childrens books shared their pearls of wisdom, whilst a HUGE number of fellow SCBWI members celebrated book deals, publications, and awards - including Carnegie nominations (plural! for the fab Keren David - When I Was Joe and Candy Gourlay - Tall Story) it was inspiring just to mingle in their midst. 

b) Wonderfully Sociable

Writing can be such a lonely activity - by its very nature it's a solo enterprise and while I'm actually very lucky in that my Mum's also a writer so we usually spend our days side-by-side on the sofa with our laptops typing away, or critiquing each other's drafts - but whenever she's out or away, and especially now I'm (finally!) about to leave home, the prospect of working day after day alone in an empty house does feel very isolating.

It's so wonderful, therefore, to such fantastic occasions to meet other writers in the same boat - friends made over Twitter or Facebook finally meeting in the flesh - as well as new friends met for the first time. The social supportive comradery of the SCBWI is truly incredible. 

c) Interesting and Informative
For we were not there only to shmooze and idolise, but to learn - about honing our craft, about the markets, about publicizing, promoting, and social networking...

So what did I learn?

1) That it's okay - nay advantageous - to be an internet slut. (It certainly hasn't hurt Carnegie-nominated Keren David!)

2) It is possible to literally devour a book

3. That writing 'Contemporary' fiction can be both a blessing and a curse:

Your work can 'date' really quickly - beware of slang and cultural references.

Or treat it as a contemporary historical novel - just without all the historical research - we're living it! In ten years time what does it matter if the cultural references are out of date - it's a story set in a particular time and place - not being 'current' hasn't hurt Enid Blyton.

Or you can hedge your bets by updating these references in a few years time - as long as the story is timeless, so should the book be.

4. It is possible to write a Carnegie-award nominated novel in 3 months, and blogs in 20 minutes.

If you are the superhuman Keren David.

GRRRR

5. Always interview prospective partners/friends/flatmates to assess their potential future usefulness - lawyers, the police, doctors will prove extremely useful resources down the line...

6. Writing's about what you can get away with! As long as you get the important facts right, you can invent much of the rest! - Creative license! 

7. Even when you think your editing might be finished, a workshop with the inspirational Miriam Halahmy will make you want to go and attack it with red pen all over again!

8. Writers read blogs, and teens use your Facebook page - sometimes to flirt with each other...

9. Dave Cousins has an incredibly impressive array of hats!

10. Don't get too distracted by tweeting and, erm, blogging, as it's the writing that counts. Um, on that note...

What's in a Name?

Apparently, quite a lot!

Just heard from my editors that they'd like me to consider an alternative title for my upcoming YA/Crossover novel. 'Someone Else's Footprints' they say "feels like something we've read before - perhaps a mystery?"

So they've come up with a few alternatives, and I've also added my own to the list above. (Please note, any title which includes the word Lives/Life I want to do something fancy with so it also reads 'LIE' e.g. Someone Else's Life/Someone Else's Lie)

This is where you come in! PLEASE HELP!!

I would be SO grateful if you'd have a quick squiz at the titles at the top of this page and tick your favourite(s) - which one would you pick up off a bookshelf?

If there are any you love - or hate! - please feel free to leave a comment (below) telling me why - Or perhaps you have a better suggestion altogether?

Anyone who comes up with a NEW title that makes it to print will get a whole stash of goodies - an ARC, a printed acknowledgement in the book, A CHARACTER NAMED AFTER THEM, and much much more...

Here's the synopsis:

"When seventeen-year-old Rosie’s mother, Trudie, dies from Huntington’s Disease, her pain is intensified by the knowledge that she has a fifty-per-cent chance of inheriting the crippling disease herself.

Only when she tells her mum’s best friend, ‘Aunt Sarah’ that she is going to test for the disease does Sarah, a midwife, reveal that Trudie was not her real mother after all – that she was swapped at birth for a baby destined to die…

Devastated, Rosie decides to trace her real mother, hitching along on her ex-boyfriend’s GAP year to follow her to Los Angeles.

But all does not go to plan, and as Rosie discovers yet more of her family's deeply-buried secrets and lies, she is left with an agonising decision of her own - one which will be the most heart-breaking and far-reaching of all... "
 
So what should the title be...?

The Never-Ending Edit...HAS ENDED! (For now...)

Phew! Hi! Remember me?

Actually, I hardly do - it's been so long since I've surfaced from the swamp of paper, red pens, computer files to do - well - anything...

 - Look in the mirror...how'd I get so pale?


- Stand on the scales...Eek! (Editing is definitely bad for diets - all that mental agility and slogging doesn't actually burn off all that chocolate "brain food"- shocker!)

- Twitter...I've lost so many followers! :(

 - Clean the house...I had a massive tidy today (it had really gotten THAT bad!) and found a letter from my bank saying if they didn't hear from me by the end of September, they were going to close my account.

Oops.

I feel like I've been grounded for the past eight weeks, dropped off the face of the earth - it's been murder on my social life, my exercise routine, and I haven't been shopping in eight weeks!

But good (hopefully!) for the book - and that's the important thing.

For once it goes to print...there'll be nothing more I can do...

And that thought scares me silly.

That's why I've become a bit obsessive, devoting all my time and energy, poring over every word, every scene, tweaking and polishing til my keys are rubbed raw...

Actually, I'm a believer in the neverending edit. That may sound like a writer's worst nightmare - and in many ways it really is. It can be quite obsessive, but I each time I read something I've written I want to change it, tweak it, phrase that sentence or more - take out or add entire chunks...

I do worry sometimes that too much editing is actually counter-productive. I got quite obsessive over one new scene and spent two days constantly changing it until finally I realised that the best version was the one I'd started with. Distance is, of course, vital for perspective - sometimes you can't see the shape of the story for staring at the individual words, and it's only after stepping back for a bit that you discover what you've written isn't necessarily what you think you've written - especially by draft 15 or so! Sometimes they can be scarily different!

I'm relieved to discover I'm not the only one. Teri Terry wrote about how Mal Peet (winner of the 2009 Guardian Children’s Fiction Award for Exposure) feels the truth about writing novels is that you never finish one, and he never feels a wonderful sense of closure, but is an obsessive fiddler.

Phew!

That's why, the night before D-Day, I decided I should have just one more read-through...and consequently didn't send off the ms 'til my body finally ceased functioning at 5.30am  (Thank GOODNESS for email!)

Now I feel a bit dizzy. Drafts still linger stacked by my computer, as if confused to be suddenly abandoned after so much attention; every time I open my laptop I am irresistibly drawn to open the 'Footprints' folder - it's like it's become part of my routine - my muscle memory - it's so weird to suddenly be released from the pressure that's being weighing down so heavily for the past two months...

I've resisted (so far) reaching for said drafts to have just one more read-through, just to check everything, just while the editors are reading...

Stop it! Distance, remember?

Luckily I have other projects to take its place - new deadlines! After all, a change is as good as a rest, and you can't get much more removed from angsty teenagers than fairy-tales, can you? From 100,000 word novels to 1500 word funny rhymes - I'm so lucky to be able to do both!

And now the pressure's off a bit and the house is tidy, I can finally kick back and relax a bit - catch up on 7 episodes of Downton Abbey and weeks of Neighbours (thank you Demand Five!)

And I may have missed Halloween, but this weekend it's fireworks night and I can actually go out and enjoy it! I can go shopping again! And read books - books for fun, not research - books, not A4 typed pages covered in red scrawl -

BOOKS!

My shiny copy of Tamsyn Murray's 'My So-Called Afterlife' has been gleaming, neglected, on top of my TBR pile by my bedside table for FAR too long - so long she's brought out a sequel and written a third! - and now I can't WAIT to dive in...

But first I'd better go visit my bank manager...