Everyone should read more books...

Can you believe the world at the moment? American politics is eye-popping material and part of me is holding my breath waiting for the presidential election to play out (but not all of me because we know what happens when all of you holds your breath from september to november). I worry over the fact that I cannot have an impact on the outcome but that the outcome will undoubtedly have an impact on me. And the financial crisis. Did no one see that coming? Yikes - is there a brain big enough to see the long term implications of whatever rescue package they come up with now (compared with whatever bright sparks came up with the plan that got them into the mess in the first place)? I am not filled with confidence. Myself, I think the answer is - everyone should read more books!!!!!

At least we have the internet. My favourite blog post of recent days is this one http://dawn-metcalf.livejournal.com/10762.html - found via www.jetreidliterary.blogspot.com/ - you will need to know who Calvin and Hobbes are to appreciate this. If you don't know who they are, this is an excellent reason to find out.

I had my last two events for NZ Book Month on the weekend. A visit to Auckland Central Library late saturday morning and one to Auckland Art Gallery in the early afternoon. I was one of four authors at the library and I really enjoyed sharing the visit with Maria Gill, Jenni Francis and Lorraine Orman. I think we complemented each other well. At the Auckland Art Gallery I was scheduled to follow Tessa Duder - a potentially daunting position to be in but she was extremely generous and encouraging which put me at my ease. It was such a pleasure to listen to her read and speak. I haven't been to any author talks for a while. I did so many a few years back they all began to sound the same and I stopped going, concentrating on my own work. Now I'm thinking the occasional one will be inspiring, and illuminating and i must make sure I make the time for them.

the happy victim of books...

Karl Lagerfeld says 'Books are a hard-bound drug with no danger of an overdose. I am the happy victim of books.' Thanks to Gondal-Girl for the excellent quote (http://www.gondal-girl.blogspot.com/ via Rachael King's blog at http://www.soundofbutterflies.blogspot.com/ ).

Out Now - The Were-Nana

My book, The Were-Nana is out now. This is a scary story best suited to the slightly older reader (4 or 5 plus). Like me when I was a child, the young girl in the book, Stella-Rosa, has an older sibling who likes to frighten her. And like me as a child, Stella-Rosa is about to meet a grandparent she doesn't know. Is her Grandmother really what Simon says she is?

I tell my children a little bit of fear is a good thing. It heightens our senses and helps us be prepared. I never really stopped being a bit afraid of my one and only grandparent with the thick accent and gruff manner that i rarely got to meet, and my older sibling never got over the fun of scaring us but will this happen in the Were-Nana? You'll have to read it to find out. Published by Scholastic NZ and available at super duper book shops like Jabberwocky and Wheelers now.

Many thanks to John Graham of Paper Plus...

Maureen Crisp (www.maureencrisp.blogspot.com ) gave some good advice on self-marketing/promotion in a comment on my last post - many thanks Maureen. In many of the venues we may find ourselves as children's writers it can be difficult to have our books available for sale. I made an author visit to a local library yesterday as part of NZ Book Month and was kindly supported by John Graham who runs several Paper Plus stores in Auckland. A few books were sold and I hope this is enough to make it worthwhile for him attending on a glorious sunny Saturday afternoon. His continued support of Kiwiwrite4kidz writers is very much appreciated. I still find myself feeling so grateful to bookshops who stock my books and buyers who purchase them. I have to remind myself that they are not treating me as a charity case but are investing in a good read, but its hard work.

In the same vein, I am working hard not to feel guilty about charging a reasonable amount of money to the school I will be taking writing workshops at over a six week period (yay! - I got the job). It is more than I have earned per hour before in previous jobs but less then the recommended rate. I am very keen to do the workshops and have some exciting ideas for them and hope they will be pleased with the results. It is weird to actually be making money as a writer in an industry that up till now has successfully trained me to devalue my worth (because even if i'm rubbish i'm still worth more than 10 cents an hour which is about what I earn now). We do not seem to have a nationally prescribed and accepted 'profile' or 'going rate' like writers do in some countries and I find it makes for some awkward moments. Maybe this is another topic that can be raised at next years conference of children's writers in Wellington. To end todays post i just have to borrow this fantastic query letter that i found via Kristin Nelson's blog at www.suvudu.com/2008/09/what-i-learned-this-week-part.html :

Dear Editor:
I am monster.
Monster look for publisher.
I am main character in new book, [title removed]. 330 manuscript pages approximately.
Good horror story: lots of action. Blood.
And guts.
Monster enclose return postage.
I may be monster, but I have manners.
Monster thanks you for your consideration.

I promise I'll only make a small scene...

Ha ha - so you know how they say be careful what you wish for...I wanted something to happen and it did. Its a good thing - a short gig working with some intermediate age children on their writing. I've wanted to do this for some time and this particular opportunity fits the bill perfectly: great age, excellent group size, and of course, my favourite subject at a local school. Whats more its a paying job although i've sent back details of my pay rate and haven't heard back yet. I guess cost may be a stumbling block but I'm hoping we work it out. I realised a while back that i wasn't going to earn enough money from my books alone (ha ha ha ha) and I had to diversify if I wanted to earn a bit more. I'm really pleased that I am making progress on this front, although I have such a healthy cynicism I never believe anything is truely happening until I'm actually there or the contract/book is in my hand or...you get the picture.

So something changed but secretly i wanted the change to involve one of my manuscripts. It still may happen but as time waddles on I get further and further away from my last manuscript acceptance and the old self-doubt creeps in, exacerbated unpleasantly by the reducing nature of the current publishing industry. I am most saddened by my manuscript Made With Love which people seem to like but publishers don't want to publish. I think it compares well (yes, yes I know I can't be objective but this is different - I've had serious careerist writing folk praise this one) to other picture books in the bookshops so I'm a little heartbroken over that story. I really hope its time will come. Cos i know you would like it too.

I've been mulling over one other aspect of publishing the last day or two. How much of all of the crap thats get thrown at us should we accept? I'm famous/notorious (you pick) for my impatience. I know I'm not alone on this one but I am frequently told that this is the nature of the business and I must accept it or go do something else. Okay - I kind of get (in my more lucid moments) why certain things take time. If they are not getting back to me its because they haven't made up their minds yet. Its not because they are afraid to say no to me, its never stopped them before and I have shown myself to be a person who doesn't make an awful scene or threaten violence if things don't go my way. But this is not the only crap we must endure. I am SURE we each have a secret list of things that happened to us and our writing that drove us mad. My list has been growing like a bug in a petri dish recently. And i just have to accept it all and go write some more stuff that they can screw around with and mess with my head over. Does this seem right to you? Would people just STOP mucking me around please! Its starting to affect my writing. I may just have to channel all this pent up emotion in to lobbying for an educational lending right.

Melinda ate one too many crabby patties...

Do you ever get those days when you wish, when you would give just about anything (even your first born who is so over school right now that i am tearing my hair out), for something to happen or change. Something significant that will break you out of the morass of self doubt you are bogged down in. And deep deep down you know, right down in your DNA you know, this event is so unlikely and that yes tomorrow will look just like today and the day before, that you need some other way to try and move forward and change things yourself. I am so tempted to write a slew of rude letters/e-mails venting my frustration but of course the short term gain is not worth the long term pain. None of this is helped by reading about New Zealander Helen Lowe (www.helenlowe.info/ ) who after securing a US agent now has a YA fantasy book coming out with Knopf in the US (released here in october) and they have also contracted an as yet incomplete four book series of adult fantasy. This is fantastic stuff and i so wish her all the best but I can't help contrasting it with my own experience where I'm not feeling the love. That pointed stick i am using to push that runny poo uphill is NOT WORKING. Garrrr! And who decided to put fashion week in the middle of NZ Book month (or NZ book month around fashion week). This is New Zealand, a small country with a population you can count in one night (although it takes them several years to collate the results). Fashion week must distract people from book month. What were they thinking (oh, okay maybe no one WAS thinking or the right hand wasn't talking to the left hand cos there's a body inbetween). Double garrr!

A stable of writers...

So I 'invigilated' yesterday and am happy to say I survived. Have now couriered off exam answer sheets etc... to the UK and hope I didn't make too many mistakes with the way I conducted the whole thing. Time will tell but i do hope it was good enough to get paid for it. It was a strange day yesterday and my friend blamed that particle collider experiment happening on the other side of the world. Seeing as some people thought it would create a black hole that would swallow our lovely planet I am relieved that a bit of weirdness was the only tangible result for those of us outside the scientific community.

I have been contemplating today (in lieu of actual writing of WIP) whether the current publishing trends in NZ will include a move towards publishers wanting to keep their writers to themselves. I know of at least one australian publisher who operates this way and with the recent changes in NZ in submission policies, the sale of publishing houses and booksellers, and the economic recession I just can't help thinking this might be one more strategy added to the pile by publishers over here. Even if a publisher and I worked equally hard for eachother I'm not sure how I would feel about having only one publisher looking at my work and then, if acceptable to them, publishing it. As I've said before when thinking about loyalty I don't think one publisher would want all the things I write. My writing projects can be so different and in the long term i don't want to be restricted to a particular selection of genre, age groups, etc... And what would i do with the stuff they didn't want? Would I be prevented from sending it elsewhere? I want to challenge myself to try new things and explore different voices. Would a single publisher dictate the topics and styles I worked on? At the moment it goes against the way I work. But if this was the only way to get published would I do it? What would I do to stay published? I never say never, but right now its hard for me to imagine working this way. And if this way of working was adopted wholesale by NZ publishers is there anything I could do to influence how its applied to me or the way it works in general?