Why and How I wrote A Winter’s Day in 1939

When the Soviet soldiers come and order them out, Adam and his family have no idea where they are going or if they will ever come back.  The Germans have attacked Poland and the world is at war. Boarding a cattle train Adam and his family embark on a journey that will cover thousands of miles and several years, and change all their lives forever. And mine too. Because Adam’s story, the story told in my new novel A Winter’s Day in 1939, is very much my Dad’s story.

I often heard fragments of this story from my dad when I was growing up.  It was shocking, and sad, and amazing.  My Dad’s family was forced out of their home and taken to a labour camp in Russia. It was freezing cold, and many people died from disease or starvation. Even when the Soviets finally let them go, they spent weeks travelling around the USSR , were made to work on Soviet farms and were still hungry and often sick, with no idea of where they might end up next.  As a child growing up in a peaceful place like New Zealand it was hard to imagine the real dangers and terrible conditions my father experienced.

I didn’t get to know the full story until I was grown up with children of my own and was regularly writing stories for children.  I wrote a short story, also called A Winter’s Day in 1939, based on a single event I knew fairly well  from my Dad‘s childhood – when Soviet Soldiers first come to order them off their farm, the only home my father had known up till that point in his life. The story was published in The Australian School Magazine.  I showed the short story to the publishers Scholastic who liked it too. They wondered if I could turn it in to a novel.  This was a chance to tell my father’s story. By now I knew it was an important story that should be shared

Luckily my Dad had made notes about his life during World War Two; about twenty pages all typed up.  However I know people’s real lives don’t always fit into the framework of a novel and I knew I would have to emphasize some things and maybe leave other things out.

I read and researched to add the right details to the story. And asked my parents lots of questions. How cold was it in Poland in January 1940? Who or what were the NKVD? What were the trains like? What are the symptoms of typhoid? How do you make your own skis? Some information was hard to find. Some of the places that existed in the 1940s aren’t there anymore. And people didn’t keep records about how many people were taken to the USSR from Poland or what happened to particular individuals. But what I wanted to give readers most of all was a sense of how it felt to live that life.  So this then is the story of a twelve year old Polish boy in the USSR during World War 2 that all started on A Winter's Day in 1939. 

I think I might do a give-away of a signed copy in my next post :)

Wot a weekend...

Wot a weekend! It was a public holiday on Friday in New Zealand to celebrate Waitangi Day - 6 February was the date in 1840 The Treaty of Waitangi was signed between representatives of the Queen of England and Maori Chiefs agreeing to share the country (feel free to correct my interpretation - its a long time since i got up close and personal with the nuts and bolts of the document): kinda the birth of the nation really although the journey between then and now has sometimes travelled a bumpy road. Whatever the road has been like, celebrations in 2009 seemed happy ones and the long weekend was a stunner.

My eldest now has her learner's licence and her first driving lesson under her belt. This is weirding me out a little. Not because my daughter can get in the drivers seat and other drivers beware but more because my child is now legitimately considered old enough to drive. Crikey where's my zimmer frame. It was bad enough that my youngest is no longer at primary school. Folks, I may need a period of adjustment.

Other things were happening on the weekend. My parents are on the move to a new house after 25 years in the current one. I grew up in the one before where they are now. Another era comes to a close. 2009 seems to be a year for this. My siblings and I have been rallying around to help them box their possessions, get rid of twenty five years of accumulated junk and shift pesky things like pot plants.

Also went to a book launch yesterday for Jill Marshall's new women's fiction 'As it is on Telly' (Penguin). I enjoyed her last adult fiction 'The Two Miss Parsons' (Penguin 2008) and hope to clear the reading decks for this one soon. In the midst of a recession it was uplifting to celebrate the birth of a new book and hear that Jill is signed up for 2 more. All is not lost - publishers are still publishing! The launch was fun, I got to don my crazy new heels (that any witch-pirate would be proud to wear) and participate in a tv quiz which our team won. While some people are concerned about the number of hours we watch tv i have had many positive things come out of my viewing hours - story ideas, quiz wins (including a spot prize of a bottle of bubbles for knowing A Close Shave's Sean the sheep) and the introduction I use in my author visit talks. I seem to have quite a good mind for trivia which is probably not a bad thing when you are a writer, although I apologise if I've ever bored you to death with a conversation riddled with an endless supply of seemingly useless information.