Welcome
Welcome to the launch of Spooking  
Have have a cup cake

And a glass of bubbly.

Cheers!

         

Great news for teachers
If you're a teacher in the Greater Manchester area, or not too far away from Salford, I may be able to offer you a free school visit. This would be about 90 minutes long, and would include a reading form the book, a question and answer session, a creative writing exercise with your class and a chance for your students to buy a signed copy.  Email me here for availability and to discuss details.
For schools further afield, I can offer a question and answer session. Just buy two signed copies of the book and I'll answer 20 questions form your students. Use the Add to Cart button below:      
         


Free copies 
I'm giving away five e-book copies via a draw between all the people who submit  an interesting question via the comment box below.

Continue following on Twitter and Facebook
I'll be adding more and more material to this site and letting you know via Twitter and facebook tomorrow.
Now for an excerpt from Spooking  
This is one of my favourite pieces. At a reading recently I actually sang part of this.

It was night-time. Tom could hear gentle snoring. His eyes got used to the dark and he realised he was in a student room. Kevin’s. Marcus was sitting up on top of the bookshelf, flicking through some of the books. 

“Twenty heavy text books, lined up by the wall,” he sang. “And if one heavy text book, should accidentally fall. -” He took one of the books and threw it to the floor.  “- There'd  be nineteen heavy text books lined up by the wall.”

One by one, Marcus tipped the books on to the floor. Then he wrenched the shelf away from the wall, so that it looked as if the shelf had given way under the weight of the books.

“Blimey, ‘e’s a good sleeper,” said Marcus, “We’d better do summat about that.” He floated over and took his mouth organ out of his pocket. He played a bell chime over and over again, getting louder each time. “Wake up Kev-in. Kev-in wake up,” he sang finally.

Kevin woke up startled. “Who’s there?” he called. “What’s that?” He snapped his bedside light on. “Oh Christ,” he said, as he saw all the books on the floor.

“Do not take the name of the Son of God in vain,” said Marcus in a very solemn voice.

“Can he hear you?” asked Tom.

“Just about,” said Marcus. “Not loud and clear like you can. Quiet enough that he might think he’s imagining it. ” He put his finger to his lips.

“Is there somebody there?” asked Kevin, his voice a bit wobbly.

Marcus stretched his arms out in front of him and went “Oooh” Oooh!”

Tom had to bite his fist to stop himself laughing.

“Can he see you?” asked Tom.

“He might be able to. If he’s sensitive enough,” said Marcus. “But by the morning or even as soon as we’ve gone, he’ll probably think he imagined it or dreamt it.”

“What about the books, though?” asked Tom.

“Well, he’ll just use those as the explanation about what give him the nightmare.”

Kevin was looking a little less startled. He got out of bed and started straightening up the books.

“Oooh! Ooh!” went Marcus again.

“Who the Hell’s there? What do you want?” shouted Kevin.

Marcus shuddered. “Do not mention the name of the Bad Place in vain.” Hhe spread his arms out in front of him again in classic ghost fashion.

“What?” cried Kevin. “What do you want?”

“He can see me all right,” said Marcus winking at Tom. 

Tom really had to bite his fingers hard now to stop himself laughing. 

“You can’t be for real,” said Kevin with a sneer. “Who the Hell are you?”

“Do not mention that dread place,” quivered Marcus.

Tom couldn’t help tittering. 

“Who’s there? What do you want? What’s so funny?” cried Kevin. His face was white.

“I have told you,” droned Marcus. He blew Kevin a kiss.

Kevin shivered. “Yes, all right,” said Kevin, pulling his dressing-gown on. “Now leave me alone.”

As Kevin opened the door to his room, Marcus blew at a stack of papers on the table. They too ended up on the floor. Then he slammed the door. 

(I have taken a couple of spoilers out of this!) 

Question and Answer Session

What was your inspiration? 

I actually can't remember. But the car in it, Binky, a blue Ford Fiesta, belonged to my son and then I bought it off him and allowed my daughter to use it. Some of the story takes place near Southampton, where I used to live, and some of it takes place at the University of Bangor, where I got my PhD.    

Did it take long to write? 

About nine months, including all of the editing I did before I sent it off. I try to write 2000 words a day.  Or deep edit 6000, or read through 10,000 or any combination of these. I usually work on more than one project at a time.    

Was there a particular reason to write it?

I wanted to start a new project whilst I was on Tenerife. The story had been flapping around at the back of my mind for some weeks. It also acted as a break between two volumes of my Peace Child trilogy.


When you were a student yourself did you ever imagine that one day you would be a published author and a lecturer?  
I always wanted to write but kept not getting round to it. My first degree was in modern languages, and I became a language teacher. I did everything I could in that profession. Then it was time to move on. So, I started writing - children's books and educational materials. I still like reading in other languages however. I kept the dream going even though at first I wasn't successful. I then had a chance to do a masters in Writing for Children.  The dream widened. I now wanted to be published and talk with authority about writing to university students. I wanted to be asked to do readings. Then I was published and started getting invited to talk to groups. I started a Ph D in Creative and Critical Writing. I was asked to teach some undergraduates. Then I got the Ph D and the post at the University of Salford.
It was always important to keep the vision alive.  Which is why I say IF you  really want to do it you can. But it is a big IF isn't it?  

Did you have a "What if?" question in your head when you wrote "Spooking?" and what was it? 
I guess I did. What would happen if.... a young man died in a car crash before he had really sorted things out with his girlfriend? So yes, the "what if" question is important. But some other things go on as well ...  

How do you determine how to end the story? Do you pretty much know the direction you'll take before you begin writing? 
I think I always know the beginning and the end of the story. But it can meander a little between those two points. Yes, and that beginning and end usually makes up the first statement of the query letter.
With Spooking also both the opening scene and the closing scene were pretty clear in my head ... and kind of similar!      

Do you plan all your story lines up front, or do you see where it takes you and add sub plots as you go? OR a mixture of the above?
Really a mixture, I guess. I do quite a bit of planning. Opening, complexities, crisis, climax, resolution. Then think about sub-plots. I also spend quite a bit of time on the characters and setting before I start. Often, though, mainly in my head - while I'm driving, cooking or walking. Many ideas actually come as I write.       
 

  
I'm interested that you were a language teacher. So was I. What age groups did you teach and how did this input on your book?


I taught mainly 11-16 though I have taught younger and older, and adults as well. I don't think languages come into this one that much BUT I wrote most of it on Tenerife and was speaking a lot of Spanish at the time. And yes, I have another ide for a book from that time there - it's in a queue behind two others. Some of the scenes in Spooking take place very close to a school where I used to teach. It's possible that both Tom and Amanda went to that school. Tom's French teacher's a bit useless and absolutley not based on anyone I know, though she does say something to her students that is similar to what one of our teachers used to say to some of us ....
BTW J K Rowling an I share a chemistry teacher ... who was the model for Snape.
People need to be careful around writers. We might put them in books!  Actually, though, I'd say that that can be quite dangerous.
Going back to languages: maybe my trademark is that I'll often sprinkle a few foreign words into what I'm writing.  Sometimes they're form a real language and sometimes they're made up.     
 
 

Rewriting: more about addition or subtraction?

Which is it?

I was fascinated by a debate recently about whether editing / rewriting was more about adding or taking away. One of my MA students recently said that once he had edited his text it would be slightly over the 12,000 words required and that currently it was slightly under.  Mark Twain famously said that if he had had more time he would have written less. In the debate I followed, some writers were saying that their edited drafts were longer than their originals. Others said the opposite. So I started watching myself very carefully. I was already convinced I did both.

What tends to make drafts longer

It’s usually where I’ve been telling instead of showing. Of course, sometimes it’s okay to tell and an experienced writer has a sense of how to get the balance between the two right. We take short cuts in the 21^st century anyway as we don’t need as much detailed description. Say “New York” and even people who have never been there get an image. But the scenes I need to extend are usually the ones where I’ve been lazy. I need to show my reader that my character is uncomfortable by the way he acts and / or thinks. I need to create a film in my reader’s head similar to the one I have in my own.

Sometimes a whole scene is missing. It’s almost as if I’ve forgotten to spell something out to the reader. We are hampered by our intimate knowledge of our characters and stories. An extra scene can sometimes help to ground the reader more.

Sometimes I want to avoid using the word “said” too much. I certainly don’t want to substitute it with another word other than maybe “whispered” or “shouted” and I may have those there already. Yet the speech needs assigning. At that point it’s useful to have the character who speaks perform a relevant action:

 “I’ve no idea.” Barney frowned and looked away.  

What tends to make drafts shorter

Sometimes I discover that it’s just not necessary to say something. I do like to have my young adult characters say one thing and think another. But sometimes it’s obvious that that’s what a character thinks from a previous action.

I tend to use “seemed to”, “was ….ing” and “suddenly” too often. A more direct language is often more effective. “Suddenly he seemed to be sitting on the sofa,” is stronger as “He sat down on the sofa.”

Sometimes a whole scene is not needed at all. This happens especially near the beginning of a novel or a story. So often those opening paragraphs / chapters are there simply to help the writer into the story.

We’re all guilty from time to time of expanded sentences: “It was a great disappointment to him that the museum was closed on Wednesday afternoons.” Why not just “He was disappointed that the museum was closed on Wednesday afternoon.”?

All of these, though, stay if they’re part of the character’s voice. It tends to be fine in conversation anyway.

Just changing

This is usually about finding something better than the accepted cliché.            

The clay-modelling analogy

My second and subsequent drafts d tend to come out a little longer than the first ones, despite there being more examples of reasons to extract text than to add it. I guess those scenes that need to be shown rather than told account for that. In fact, though, I take away almost as much as I add. I reshape a fair bit too.

It is a little like clay-modelling. The first draft gets out the basic shape. Then you add a little clay here, take a little away there and reshape as you go. You know about what needs to be done with your text the same way as you know what needs to be done with the clay. In the end it is intuitive rather than rule-bound.                

                        

       

Teaching Creative Writing

I was really delighted to receive my copy of this book the other week. I have one chapter in it: Finding a suitable narrative voice when writing for children. I’ve written on this theme before and I use the type of exercise I’ve outlined here quite often in my own classes. I even use it myself as I start each new children’s book.

But I don’t really want to talk about just my own chapter here. I’d like to say it’s an excellent reference book for a creative writing teacher or a writer. There are fifty chapters, so that means forty-nine creative writing exercises I’ve not used before. This is extremely useful as my students inform me that what they most like about their classes are the opportunities they have to complete creative writing exercises. It’s my own experience too that I’ll often get a completely new idea by doing one of these exercises.

There are chapters also by several colleagues I know well: Elaine Walker (editor), Steve May (the paperless workshop), Philip Gross (collaborative poetry game), Vanessa Harbour (voice in young adult literature) and Craig Batty (describing feeling). There are several people I do not yet know and I’m look forward to reading about writing animals (Sandra Burr), yoga on the page (Beverly Frydman) and leaving the comfort zone Nicholas Y.B. Wong.

The book is also extremely attractive and very tactile.                

A Writing Experiment

I’m currently working on something that to some extent was inspired by the master students at the University of Salford where I lecture in creative writing. They conduct some very bold experiments. I thought it was about time I did, too. The subtitle to our MA is innovation and experiment. I’m a fan of the OULIPO poets and I think what I’m doing would be approved by this group – though I am working within prose fiction rather than poetry.  

I don’t want to give all of the details at this stage but I will say there’s a lot of counting involved. I am one of those writers who plots loosely to start with, but keeps the two-line synopsis as the backbone of the story all the time. This time, however, I have only a very vague idea of the story line – in fact probably just that two–line synopsis and no more. But I do know precisely where the main turning points are going to come.

I’m finding that I’m building my characters up as I go along. Normally, I have a very good idea of exactly who they are before I start. They are no less rounded this time. They feel more real to me because I am getting to know them the same way I would if they were human. They are emerging before me, rather than being created by me.  

This experiment relies very much on word count. Sections are gradually getting longer. So, I’m writing what feels right, editing three times then making sure the word count is spot on. There can be no further editing part from a proof read and changing the odd word or two here and there – one verb or adjective for another, perhaps. I’m certainly writing more slowly than normal BUT editing is going to be a lot quicker. Maybe a read out loud and a copy-edit for spelling. There’ll essentially only be one draft.  

I’m not sure how commercial this novel is going to be or whether it will actually work at all. But it will be interesting to look at and it may pose many questions. It could open up a whole new area of research. I’ll post more on this when it’s finished. I’ve completed 11,000 words out of a possible 75,000.      

Writers, retreats and holidays

So, here I am, on a three week holiday in Nerja, Spain. I’m writing for anything between nothing (very rare) and two hours a day. I’ve written three blog posts. I’ve finished editing one book I’d started before I came. I’ve also edited two more and one short story. Yesterday, I started a new novel which is a bit of a writing experiment. I’ve also done some work on a text book. I’ve read a lot and watched people a lot. That all sounds a bit hectic. But actually, the holiday has been very relaxing and there’s another six days to go.

So, what haven’t I been doing? I’ve not been looking at work emails, or dealing with publishers or carrying on the manic self-promotion that is normally part of my working day. I’ve done no more writing than normal - possibly a little less. But I have been more focussed on the writing itself than all that goes with it. Plus the people watching and reading have fed my creative juices.

Not writing to most writers anyway is like not cleaning your teeth. It really is rare that I don’t write every day. It’s usually only if I really can’t – such as when I’m travelling or have visitors.

I read an article in one of the free magazines here that claimed that low background noise –i.e. the sort of buzz you get in a café – or indeed on a beach – often aids creativity. It seems to be based on some solid research and I’ll be investigating it in more detail when I have a chance. And again, I’m buzzing with ideas.

Coming here anyway is a sort of pilgrimage and continues to serve as a retreat. I’d always wanted to write but I wasn’t entirely sure what. Strange happenings on the hills, astounding weather, miraculous caves and children running out of reading material the first time we came here convinced me that I wanted to and could write for children. Each time we have come here since the dreams and ideas have grown. I’m now living the original dream but the growth of the dream accelerates every time I come here. It’s possibly to do with the sunshine being so relaxing. Bathing in salt water is always good anyway. But I’m actually quite convinced there’s another layer of magic here. Long may it last!  

Going beyond perfection – everyone needs an editor

There are beta-readers, critique groups and even literary consultancies that offer full editorial services for a fee. Many self-publishers are now realising the necessity of getting their work properly edited. But if the work is going to be edited anyway, why bother doing it yourself first?

Yes, it is one of the harsh facts about the business. You think you have got your text perfect. Then an editor comes along and wants you to do more. I personally edit my work about 18 times, looking at something different each time. So, how can I make it any better? Can I offer anything in response to editorial comment?

I probably can, actually. The time my typescript stays with the editor gives me  the opportunity to obtain some distance from the text and in that time I also continue to develop as a writer. The closer you get to your 10,000 hours – the amount of time anyone needs to learn a craft properly – the more rapidly this process takes place. I now find myself editing published work as I read it out loud.

Obviously, your work must be pretty good already if you want a major publishing house to take it on. They don’t have all that much time or budget for remedial editorial work, despite their job-title. But if you’re paying an editor why not expect her to do all of the work?

The problem is that even paid editors only have so much time and so much editorial energy. I notice when my students give in work that is so riddled with punctuation and formatting mistakes that I run out of time to look at the more subtle improvements that could be made – the sort of improvement that will turn a good text into a great text.

I once looked at a self-published book for a publisher, to see whether they could / should take it on. I advised against it. Although the story was good it would have taken about £6,000 worth of editorial work to fix the writing.          

Also, we often get too close to our own writing. We sometimes can’t see a glaring fault whilst we tinker with parts that only need a little polish. We are convinced that a section is perfect but sometimes precisely that part needs a substantial amount of work.

It’s important therefore, that you get your text as good as you possibly can. Then leave your editor the space to make some magic happen.   

The Anti-cliché Edit

I knew I was a writer a long time ago, even if it did take me ages to take myself seriously. Probably even before I received some praise from my teacher because I had written in my account of visiting my grandmother that “Sandy, her little brown dog made us welcome.”  That is actually one great big fat cliché but the teacher was delighted because I had taken my work beyond  the very simple level of subject verb object, which is what most other seven-year-olds were producing. I had managed this probably because I had been reading a lot – that too was no doubt a joy for my teacher. She probably hadn’t noticed that it was mainly Enid Blyton.

Yes, I’m currently completing the “get rid of clichés” edit on The Tower, and I would not tolerate that “made us very welcome” phrase in my work, nor in any of my students’ work, nor in any of the texts I edit.

But clichés are there because they work

Yes they are. And often it’s very difficult to express that idea any other way. How else do you describe a bull in a china shop? It’s probably all right now and then. But too many really weaken your work. Close your eyes. Look at your scene. What do you see, hear, smell, taste, feel (in both senses)? Now write. Writing with the senses helps you to avoid cliché and always produces good work. Try these: How do you describe rain to someone who doesn’t know water? What does chocolate taste like? What does orange peel look like? Pretend you’re an alien and look at your own planet differently.

It’s okay if it’s a part of someone’s voice

Yes, you can use them as much as you like in speech – as long as it genuinely is part of the way that person talks.

Borrowing form other language can be effective

Indeed you may have an advantage if you speak another language. You can borrow clichés, sayings and proverbs and they will sound fresh in your own language. An angel is passing, they say in France, when the conversation suddenly stops. Young women shouldn’t eat soup before lunchtime in Spain, if they don’t want to end up as single mothers. Many a Spanish man has taken delight in staying on top of his wife. Germans may tread on your tie, put their mustard in your sausage and find that a problem is in fact nothing but sausage. The Greeks are wary of announcing the spring if they have seen but one swallow.

Avoid the lazy option

If your resort to a cliché, no matter how apt, you are simply being lazy. Use them sparingly even in your characters’ speech. Maybe making up clichés peculiar to your characters is more effective. And even take a little care with borrowing from other languages. Only use the new phrases if they really fit – don’t contrive to find a space for them.