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By: Candy Gourlay,
on 6/26/2016
Blog: Notes from the Slushpile (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
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By: Candy Gourlay,
on 4/17/2016
Blog: Notes from the Slushpile (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: dreams, inspiration, BFG, Addy Farmer, Roadl Dahl, Add a tag
Like Cathy's ghost in Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte.
Ill and bored with having to stay in bed, Marianne picks up a pencil and starts doodling - a house, a garden, a boy at the window. That night she has an extraordinary dream whereby she is transported into her own picture, and as she explores further she soon realises she is not alone. The boy at the window is called Mark, and his every movement is guarded by the menacing stone watchers that surround the solitary house. This story is creepy, disturbing and I realised that it echoed one of my own childhood nightmares where a witch lived in the house next door and I had to devise lots of ways to escape her attentions.
How about Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. There is a door at the end of a silent corridor. And it's haunting Harry Potter's dreams. Why else would he be waking in the middle of the night, screaming in terror?
And, as if you ever needed an affirmation of Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore’s wisdom, he also has something to say about dreams:
By: Candy Gourlay,
on 1/17/2016
Blog: Notes from the Slushpile (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: writing ideas, January, Addy Farmer, Add a tag
Really, I'd like to take a short cut to stories and have a massive brain capable of downloading and storing all the ephemera and whimsical bits and bobs of images and words that tickle me. Then I could have a good old rummage during January and pick out the ones which appeal the most. But my brain won't let me do that; ideas and information mostly end up as some sort of Mindless Mind Palace.
So what to do? I write them down on a scrap of paper which I lose. Or pop an idea into a notebook in close type and think that it's the most marvellous idea EVER and then never go back to it. Or keep it in a box ready for Doomsday and forget where the box is. Useless? No, not at all because somewhere, something happens and my brain sifts and sorts so that far from being a palace it becomes more of a compost bin and every so often something germinates.
Polly Dunbar has put together some lovely thoughts on ideas ideas...
Weird Science.
This is a great source of fun and inspiration. How about The Henn-na Hotel, which translates to "strange hotel," and is staffed almost entirely by robots. Or some very important research which answers the question, 'Where should Americans retreat in the event of a zombie apocalypse?' The answer to this and more science stuff can be found in Live Science.
By: Candy Gourlay,
on 11/22/2015
Blog: Notes from the Slushpile (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: SCBWI, friendship, Addy Farmer, SCBWI conference 2015, writing ffriends, Add a tag
And now? Well, I'll return to now at the end of this blog.
The world can seem big and cold ...
Nobody understands you like a friends does ...
A friend is somebody to understand you when nobody else seems to
In the end, friends will not give up on you
"To find out where Jonah had gone, he would have to go there too. One day it would come. He would hear something or see something, and he would know that this was the day. It might be only hours from now, it might be years. But he would know it when it came ... And then, he knew, he would find him."
Story or real-life
A friend will fight for us
Thanks to all our SCBWI friends who contributed to this blog. Catherine Friess also wrote a lovely post in Story Snug about fictional best friends - take a look for more ideas!
So back to the beginning and friend now; here are a few photos of friends or confrere at the conference!
By: Candy Gourlay,
on 10/11/2015
Blog: Notes from the Slushpile (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
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This ability is sometimes referred to as 'the mind's eye':
A Brief Peer into Visual imagination.
In an interesting blog summary I found:
"There was a debate, in the late 1800s, about whether "imagination" was simply a turn of phrase or a real phenomenon. That is, can people actually create images in their minds which they see vividly, or do they simply say "I saw it in my mind" as a metaphor for considering what it looked like?
Francis Galton, a nineteenth century psychologist, gave people some very detailed surveys, and found that some people did have mental imagery and others didn't. The ones who did had simply assumed everyone did, and the ones who didn't had simply assumed everyone didn't."
Recently, a new word has been added to the medical lexicon, Aphantasia, which brings us back to that sunset. The University of Exeter has taken up the work of Galton and come up with a new study.
Sit down and get yourself comfortable (not too comfy). Put the object on the table in front of you. Lean over where your face is two or three feet from the object. Now with your eyes open, look at the object. Study it in detail. Notice any glare from the light in the room. Pay attention to its texture. Is it smooth or is it coarse? Study it and get as many details as you can.
Now close your eyes. In your mind's eyes, picture the object as if you were still looking at it. If you have a rough time at first, just make something up. Try to get as many details correct as you can. Now open your eyes again and look again at the object. Study it in great detail for a few moments.
Keep going back and forth like this for five or ten minutes. Play around with the exercise a couple times a day to become good at this skill.
3. Object drawing. He tried 3D constructions of blocks and tried drawing them from different angles on paper. But there was no actual imagery or mental rotation involved.
In an interesting interview Jim Kay explains how he uses models for his work (presumably for consistency as well as a means of creating a beautiful image).
By: Candy Gourlay,
on 8/30/2015
Blog: Notes from the Slushpile (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: snow, Marcus Sedgwick, Emma Chichester Clark, Moomins, winter stories, Addy Farmer, Add a tag
There were delicious plans afoot: After a suitable number of days lolling in bed followed by jumping about in the garden, me and my family would go on holiday, read masses, get into all sorts of scrapes, rescue anything that stood in the way and actually climb a mountain. Not only that but I would have loads and loads of time to WRITE.
Inevitably, it didn't turn out like that. I will not bore you, dear reader, with the list of what got in the way of my perfectly reasonable expectations but it was mostly to do with not living in the 1950s. I did write, in snatches, but it was mostly editing and revising. It's good to have the quiet head-space for that full-on flowing and original story writing.
Never mind because in the end reading is the stuff of writing.
The media would have us think that Summer is a time for reading and I did read alot although not on the beach. But I don't think that I read anymore than I do the rest of the year. Radio 4 even had a brief say about how summer reading was no different to winter reading on the daily commute, really. Most of my summer reading has been a writer new to me, Frances Hardinge. I whipped through the brilliant, 'Verdigris Deep' and 'The Lie Tree' and 'Cuckoo Song'. I've just started, 'A Face of Glass'. These are cracking good stories and that is what I like to read any time of the year.
But I do like Winter and stories set in winter time. So, let's just conveniently forget the intervening hufflepuff-like season of Autumn and spring to contemplation of Winter stories. Is there a difference between these and those set in Summer? Perhaps, we might personify them. Summer is perky with arms-wide and smiling where Winter is dark, hunched and dour. One camps outdoors, one skulks inside. One looks out at the world, the other looks inwards ... well, you get the idea.
Winter is coming (say it like a cinema trailer announcement). Put that way, it sounds scary which to my mind is not a bad thing. Traditionally, Winter is associated with death and hibernation. It is when the flowers fold and the garden hides. The cold makes your fingers freeze and your bones ache; it requires effort to keep warm and keep moving.
So, let's look at the coming of Winter another way. 'Winter is coming!' Woo-hoo. The days will be short and the nights will be long and the fire will be flickering and there are stories to be told and there will be
SNOW!
Winter Time by Robert Louis Stevenson
Close by the jolly fire I sit
To warm my frozen bones a bit;
Or with a reindeer-sled, explore
The colder countries round the door.
When to go out, my nurse doth wrap
Me in my comforter and cap;
The cold wind burns my face, and blows
Its frosty pepper up my nose.
Black are my steps on silver sod;
Thick blows my frosty breath abroad;
And tree and house, and hill and lake,
Are frosted like a wedding cake.
Here, in A Child's Garden of Verses, Stevenson sums up all the good stuff I used to love as a child about Winter. it could be the comfort of playing outside on a snapping-cold day, then the glorious comfort of warming yourself, not to mention the breath-taking beauty of a landscape transformed by SNOW.
Snow. I can't say it enough. Who cannot love a fresh fall of snow? To read Dickens you'd think it was as deep and regular as the seasons themselves. But frozen winters with frost fairs were a thing of the medieval past. It seems that Dickens was being nostalgic, looking back to a time when snow was more likely in winter. Snow was very much part of his winter story, A Christmas Carol. It made Victorian London almost cosy and charming.
" The darkness and the mist had vanished with it, for it was a clear, cold winter day, with snow upon the ground ... the quick wheels dashing the hoar-frost and snow from off the dark leaves of the evergreens like spray"
I like that C.S Lewis added a touch of Victorian London to Narnia. Not only that but the snow makes it beautiful. I want to go there. The snow plays a more sinister role here; it is seen as stilling time and freezes life to its essentials. The land waits for Winter to end (spoiler - it does).
Snow can bring danger from creatures which form part of a wild and distant past.
Revolver is like a snow dome: a taut thriller trapped in a world of cold. A perfect snow storm.
Ah, but it's not all teen-angst gloom and doom. At the younger end, there are so many ways for snow to be the cheery, comforting, exciting and playful.
The Finn Family Moomintroll sensibly hibernates during the Winter but when Moomintroll awakes during their long sleep, he finds a beautiful, alien world. It is silent and dark and scary to be alone but soon he meets Little My and Too-ticky and the snowy fun begins. But the Moomins being the Moomins this wintry world remains a haunting and challenging place.
Bear and Hare:Snow! by Emily Gravett celebrates the joy to be had with friends in the snow.
One of my favourite friendships is that of Melrose and Croc by Emma Chichester. Here is the cold of no friends ...
.... before the warmth of friendship found and all wrapped up in Christmas - lovely.
I leave the obvious to last and I'll whisper it, Christmas. It seems that no Christmas is complete without snow. I agree. I want Christmas to have deep and crisp and even snow ...
so we can make snowmen.
So never mind that it's the end of Summer, Winter is coming and it brings ...
By: Candy Gourlay,
on 4/18/2014
Blog: Notes from the Slushpile (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
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By: Candy Gourlay,
on 7/25/2012
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By: Candy Gourlay,
on 4/4/2012
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By: Candy Gourlay,
on 3/11/2012
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By: Candy Gourlay,
on 7/27/2011
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By: Candy Gourlay,
on 7/3/2011
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By: Candy Gourlay,
on 2/27/2011
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By: Candy Gourlay,
on 6/26/2016
Blog: Notes from the Slushpile (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
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By: Candy Gourlay,
on 4/17/2016
Blog: Notes from the Slushpile (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
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The Dreamers of Dreams by Addy Farmer
We are the dreamers of dreams - Roald Dahl
My grandmother used to tell me that I was dizzy-dolly-daydream. She said it quite a lot and I began to wonder if this was a good thing, so I finally asked her what it meant.
She said that me being in my own funny little world was a bit frustrating for her; however, she thought that that dreamers were important. The important bit made me feel ten feet tall but with little idea of what she was on about since most of my mental meanderings were to do with going to Sweety Land where I could eat everything in sight or jumping into a puddle which took me to the seaside or rescuing a sad donkey/mouse/rabbit from certain doom.
She said that me being in my own funny little world was a bit frustrating for her; however, she thought that that dreamers were important. The important bit made me feel ten feet tall but with little idea of what she was on about since most of my mental meanderings were to do with going to Sweety Land where I could eat everything in sight or jumping into a puddle which took me to the seaside or rescuing a sad donkey/mouse/rabbit from certain doom.
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| A real donkey being rescued! Don't worry - he was fine and happy |
Then Granny being the pragmatic woman she was, added, 'But you do need to do something with your dreams, dear.' Thanks, Granny.
Only in our dreams are we free. The rest of the time we need wages. Terry Pratchett
We can range free in our daydreams, slip the surly bonds of earth and all that, though we are strangely constrained by some inner logic in our night-dreams and nightmares. Whatever they are - daydreams, night-dreams, nightmares - maybe the stuff that dreams are made of can make a story ... and turn the insubstantial into substance. You must have had dreams you remember? I have had dreams in which I'm falling off a tall building, only to land on a squashy car (I've had this at least three times) and the embarrassing dream in which I find myself swimming in a public pool with no costume on (please do not analyse). I have also had dreams which rehearse an important event and woken with a sense of security about what's to come (quite useful but uncontrollable).
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| It was all a dream ... |
I have also dreamed of the dead. I have done this twice. In my dreams I talked to those lost ones, forgetting that they were dead until waking when the memory of loss returned with the most crushing sadness. So my dreams are rubbish for plotting but they have on occasion been wonderful for feeling.
And then, in dreaming,Back to Granny. When I was about eight I had an incredible experience. I so loved being with Granny at her house and I would frequently dream about being there. One night, I dreamed about my bedroom in that house - the perfumey scent, the sunshine on the bed, the creaking wardrobe door. I woke up and for a glorious few seconds I was there - in that bed, in my granny's house and my happiness was like sunshine. It lasted no time and I woke up again, confused and with a terrible weight of disappointment and a fierce yearning to be back there. Sometimes, I think that this it is what being a ghost might feel like - a tremendous yearning to get back to life. I haven't knowingly used this experience in my work but I recognise it in other stories.
The clouds methought would open and show riches
Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked
I cried to dream again. Caliban, The Tempest, Shakespeare
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| Don't let her in, you fool |
knocking my knuckles through the glass, and stretching an arm out to seize the importunate branch: instead of which, my fingers closed on the fingers of a little, ice-cold hand. The intense horror of nightmare came over me: I tried to draw back my arm, but the hand clung to it, and a most melancholy voice sobbed, "Let me in—let me in!"Set on the wild and windy moors, Bronte’s Victorian classic has lots of dream-like qualities. There are several occasions when characters are guided by their dreams. The character Lockwood has an unsettling dream about a brawl at an endless church sermon while staying at Wuthering Heights, while Catherine accepts a marriage proposal from Edgar after connecting a dream about going to heaven with their union.
‘I have dreamt in my life, dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas; they have gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the colour of my mind. And this is one: I’m going to tell it – but take care not to smile at any part of it.’ the HousekeeperThere are those books which deal directly with dreams like one of my favourites, 'Marianne Dreams' by Catherine Storr.
Ill and bored with having to stay in bed, Marianne picks up a pencil and starts doodling - a house, a garden, a boy at the window. That night she has an extraordinary dream whereby she is transported into her own picture, and as she explores further she soon realises she is not alone. The boy at the window is called Mark, and his every movement is guarded by the menacing stone watchers that surround the solitary house. This story is creepy, disturbing and I realised that it echoed one of my own childhood nightmares where a witch lived in the house next door and I had to devise lots of ways to escape her attentions.
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| Soooooo atmospheric and dreamlike in quality |
How about Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. There is a door at the end of a silent corridor. And it's haunting Harry Potter's dreams. Why else would he be waking in the middle of the night, screaming in terror?
As with Agamemnon’s dreams, courtesy of Zeus (I've waited a long time to reveal that nugget of knowledge), Harry is also led astray by subconscious thoughts implanted by a villain.
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| I love a spooky door |
I cannot write about dreams without referring to Alice in Wonderland by the peerless Lewis Carroll
Lewis Carroll really took full advantage of the limitless possibilities of writing within a dream setting. The 19th century author used Alice’s ability to get lost in the dream state and make connections and observations in her real life – much like we all actually do when dreaming.
‘Yes, that’s it! Said the Hatter with a sigh, it’s always tea time.’
Then there's, Mary Shelley's, Frankenstein
With a head full of an evening’s talk of reanimation and galvanism, Mary Godwin did not sleep well: “My imagination, unbidden, possessed and guided me, gifting the successive images that arose in my mind with a vividness far beyond the usual bounds of reverie?.I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out?” She realized she had found her “ghost story.” “What terrified me will terrify others; and I need only describe the spectre which had haunted my midnight pillow.”
Twilight by Stephanie Meyer
In June of 2003, suburban Arizona mother Stephenie Meyer woke up from an intense dream in which two young lovers were lying together in a meadow, discussing why their love could never work. On her website, Meyers says, “One of these people was just your average girl. The other person was fantastically beautiful, sparkly, and a vampire. They were discussing the difficulties inherent in the facts that A) they were falling in love with each other while B) the vampire was particularly attracted to the scent of her blood, and was having a difficult time restraining himself from killing her immediately.”
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
His horror classic also sprang into existence because of its writer’s graphic nightmares. In this case, a “fine bogey tale” tormenting him as he slept grew into one of the most famous and genuinely scary English-language novels ever penned — most especially considering its all-too-human antagonist and protagonist.
"In the small hours of the morning," says Mrs Stevenson, "I was awakened by cries of horror from Louis. Thinking he had a nightmare, I woke him. He said angrily, 'Why did you wake me? I was dreaming a fine bogey tale.' I had awakened him at the first transformation scene ..."
Stuart Little by E.B. White:
One of the most memorable and beloved characters from children’s literature entered into E.B. White’s subconscious in the 1920s, though he didn’t transition from notes to novel until over two decades later. From there, the tiny boy with the face and fur of a mouse became a classic.
Dream on, dreamers! (And thanks, Granny)
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By: Candy Gourlay,
on 1/17/2016
Blog: Notes from the Slushpile (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: writing ideas, January, Addy Farmer, Add a tag
by Addy FarmerDid you know that January used to be known as the Wolf month? Well, that's what the Anglo Saxons knew it as - when food was so scarce that the wolves dared to enter the villages. There's still something of the wolf about January...  |
| How'll I find those ideas?? Now, January is a time of non-wolf voluntary dieting. It's when garden life seems to hibernate (usually) and the shops are like old news and Christmas sparkle is packed away. But January is also fresh-faced and full of promise; maybe you wrote an entire novel in November with NaNoWriMo? Maybe you packed in some story-making during the Christmas holiday? Now in the month of the brand new year you have sent your precious babe out into the woods in the hope that she is picked up by someone who will love her to bits. Even if you are not waiting and waiting, sometimes January can be a curiously creatively empty month. So it's best to crack on and fill it with ideas because you never know - one of them might become a proper real story. |
“What are you?" I whispered.
He shrugged again.
"Something," he said. "Something like you, something like a beast, something like a bird, something like an angel." He laughed. "Something like that.”
David Almond - Skellig
So what to do? I write them down on a scrap of paper which I lose. Or pop an idea into a notebook in close type and think that it's the most marvellous idea EVER and then never go back to it. Or keep it in a box ready for Doomsday and forget where the box is. Useless? No, not at all because somewhere, something happens and my brain sifts and sorts so that far from being a palace it becomes more of a compost bin and every so often something germinates.
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| Food for thought |
Soooooo, ideas and where to always be able to find them.
This is a great source of fun and inspiration. How about The Henn-na Hotel, which translates to "strange hotel," and is staffed almost entirely by robots. Or some very important research which answers the question, 'Where should Americans retreat in the event of a zombie apocalypse?' The answer to this and more science stuff can be found in Live Science.
Old inventions
With their tortuous methods and construction old inventions make my heart skip a beat. In fact, I like then so much that I based an entire character around them with my Wilf's World Blog. Wilf loved inventions (as should we all) like the fantastically named Tempest Prognosticator or the more ordinarily named lawnmower and its inventor, Edward Bear Budding. A lot of these Victorian inventors also had brilliant names like Sir Godlsworth Gurney who invented giant machines for heating large spaces like cathedrals and who nearly blew up the Houses of Parliament. |
| The Tempest Prognosticator - early weather machine |
News stories for new stories.
There is so much weirdness out there (or maybe I'm just very tame) and it's interesting to be an onlooker
You Can Now Pay To Have Someone Call Your Friend As A Turtle
The Huffington Post is a repository of odd stories. Who wouldn't want to have a call from a turtle and mistake it for a real turtle who has gained astonishing super-powers and sends your hero off on a trail of the mad scientist who has captured this innocent creature and seeks to exploit it ...
Fly-tipper sought to blame imaginary twin brother for his crimes
Brunch news reports a fly-tipper who blamed an imaginary identical twin for illegally disposing of car tyres. Yep, there's a story right there ... |
| Blame the other one |
And inevitably, there is Buzzfeed for the best cat stories and other strange-but-trueness
This Cat Making Biscuits On Himself Is The Most Magical Thing Ever
Images
There are some images that I've taken or seen which stick in my head. I keep everything on Flickr.
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| Honey and Izzy fall out about who is trundling through the bendy tube first |
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| Stuck in the mud |
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| Wheel on fire |
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| Ruin in the woods |
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| Tell me a story |
Books by the side of the bed.
Along with my to-read pile, there is also a permanent stack of books which I go for ideas. |
| Fantastic book for spooky/funny/ridiculous stories |
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| Magic is real ... |
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| dipping in to find stories behind stories There is so much more, so many places you can go, places you can see, people you can meet, astonishing stories to uncover. They won't all stick but they'll be one or two that do and what fun there is in the finding. Finally and perhaps most importantly ... |
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By: Candy Gourlay,
on 11/22/2015
Blog: Notes from the Slushpile (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: SCBWI, friendship, Addy Farmer, SCBWI conference 2015, writing ffriends, Add a tag
by Addy Farmer
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| Friends celebrate at the SCBWI conference! |
A friend is a comrade, chum, compatriot, crony, advocate, ally, a confrere ( I like that word). The bond of friendship is forged by many and varied things - common opinions and values, humour, food, shared experience, even disagreement can bring us together as friends. Friendship can be lifelong or fleeting. We remember friends from when we were little - when everything was supposed to be a great deal less complicated but often was not. Then there's the primary playground where we fell in and out of love with our friends as quickly as the cloud moves across the sun. Then, in a teenage time of change we longed for or adored or hated our friends and most probably all at once.
friend - noun
a person attached to another by feelings of affection or personal regard. orig. present participle of frēogan, cognate with Gothic frijōn to love
See how dark and gloomy the world looks when you're friendless.
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| Harry - in a place of isolation |
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| Croc is looking for a friend at Christmas |
You might be lost and sad ...
I loved the brother sister friendship in I'll Give you the Sun, how it broke down, how each made new friends, before finding each other again. I also loved, as a child, the sibling friendship in Linnets and Valerians. Perhaps it has something to do with not having silblings that this type of friendship always catches me. Nicky Schmidt
Nobody understands you like a friends does ...
“Without friends, no one would want to live, even if he had all other good.' Aristotle
Wise words, Aristotle. In other words, you don't need stuff to make you happy. One of my favourite picture books about friendship is this one ...
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| Crispin has everything or does he? |
Crispin has every expensive present he could possibly wish for at Christmas but he finds no joy in them until he has friends to play with as well. At the simplest level friendship makes us happy and the lack of it makes us sad. Friendship can be profound and it can be frivolous. It can make us laugh, it can make us cry, it can make us really cross, it can support us in our hour of need, it can save our lives. It is the stuff of stories.
I would not wish
Any companion in the world but you.
(The Tempest 3.1.60-1), Miranda to Ferdinand
For me, friends are the thrumming heart of stories. On her own, our hero is alone in the woods with only the wolves for company. She spends her time scrabbling for berries to eat and scurrying to the makeshift hut to escape being eaten. By the light of the makeshift fire, she knows that this is quite a boring and dodgy way to live. Eventually hunger drives her out of the woods (hers and the wolves) and she meets a small boy who gives her a three course meal. She discovers the joy of having a proper chat with someone who is not a tree and who also has the power to hypnotise wolves. Plus, he tells the best jokes. And we're off.
There are as many different types of friends as there are characters
There are as many different types of friends as there are characters
I love the way Oliver Jeffers explores friendship in his boy and penguin books (Lost and Found, Up and Down etc). The misunderstandings and problem solving are handled beautifully .Katherine Lynas
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| A short-lived but bright-burning friendship between a pig and a spider |
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| Max is called stupid and Freak is called Dwarf but together they are unstoppable |
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| Pippa Wilson Flora And Ulysses is an absolutely brilliant one to look at. |
In Juliet Clare Bell and Dave Gray's, 'The Unstoppable Maggie Magee', the friendship between Maggie and Sol is unusual in that Sol cannot speak and has limited communication but Maggie is his friend and they find their own way to communicate because it's important to them. Their friendship takes them to the places that they dream of.
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| An important story of an unstoppable friendship |
In Jeanne Willis', 'Dumb Creatures', Tom's got plenty to say but it's all caged up inside him. Then he meets Zanzi the gorilla who changes everything. Like Tom, she too can sign and it makes for an unusual and touching friendship.
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| Not so dumb creatures |
In 'Siddharth and Rinki' when Siddharth moves to England he feels that the only friend who understands him is his toy elephant, Rinki. But slowly Siddharth understands that friendship can come through gestures and smiles and adventure.
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| You don't have to speak the same language to make friends |
School Friends - The first rule of children's books is Kill The Parents/Adults, that leaves your character only one option - make friends. It's a brilliant story arc that works everytime. New school, everyone hates me, make friends. I'm all alone with no one to help me, turn to another child for solidarity. I use this theme again and again. Oh! My secret is out! Jo Franklin
Friendship can go beyond boundaries.
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| Wonderful, quirky friendships in a wonderful quirky world suggested by Pippa Wilson |
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| Friendship does not recognise fences |
Huckleberry Finn chose to be with friends with Tom Sawyer, "the best fighter and the smartest kid in town".He thought himself lucky to have such a friend and in 1884 America, such a friendship was also brave.
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| Stephanie Cuthbertson pointed out the friendship in Huck Finn as unconditional with no agenda and no prejudice. |
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| Friendship can be stronger than death |
Keith Gray has written a brilliantly unsentimental odyssey, Ostrich Boys. Three friends steal the ashes of their dead friend and set out to give him one last adventure.
"You know, yesterday and today have been amazing. All the stuff we've been through? And it's all been because of him. I'm telling you: we've got the best story ever. But he missed out. He's never gonna be able to tell it." His shoulders shook as he wept.
But they did it - Kenny, Sim and Blake. They braved authority and defied common sense for the sake of friendship.
It's as good as picking up a sword. Remember Neville in Harry Potter?
It's as good as picking up a sword. Remember Neville in Harry Potter?
Friends will go to the ends of the world to save you
Someone can overcome incredible odds to rescue their friend. In The Snow Queen, small, young, Gerda risks her life and soul to recover her friend, Kay from the Snow Queen.
Someone can overcome incredible odds to rescue their friend. In The Snow Queen, small, young, Gerda risks her life and soul to recover her friend, Kay from the Snow Queen.
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| A wonderful illustration by the illustrator Amy Chipping |
"I can give her no greater power than she has already, said the woman; don't you see how strong that is? How men and animals are obliged to serve her, and how well she has got through the world, barefooted as she is. She cannot receive any power from me greater than she now has ... If she cannot herself obtain access to the Snow Queen, and remove the glass fragments from little Kay, we can do nothing to help her.”
― Hans Christian Andersen, The Snow Queen
In the end, friends will not give up on you
"To find out where Jonah had gone, he would have to go there too. One day it would come. He would hear something or see something, and he would know that this was the day. It might be only hours from now, it might be years. But he would know it when it came ... And then, he knew, he would find him."
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| When everyone else despairs of finding him, Joe never gives up on his best friend, Jonah |
Story or real-life
A friend will fight for us
Rescue us
Stick up for us
Stick up for us
Find us when we are lost
Support us when we are unsure
Tell us the truth
Or close their eyes to our faults ...
Or close their eyes to our faults ...
Thanks to all our SCBWI friends who contributed to this blog. Catherine Friess also wrote a lovely post in Story Snug about fictional best friends - take a look for more ideas!
So back to the beginning and friend now; here are a few photos of friends or confrere at the conference!
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| Pirate Pals |
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| Ah-ha! |
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| Ahhhhhhh! |
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| Aye, aye, Cap'n! |
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| Pirates have seldom looked better |
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| Pirate lovelies |
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| Pals |
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By: Candy Gourlay,
on 10/11/2015
Blog: Notes from the Slushpile (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: writing exercises, Addy Farmer, Jim Kay, Marcus Sedgewick, Apahntasia, visual imagination, Add a tag
by Addy Farmer
I wonder if you can summon up the image of a glorious sunset inside your head? Can you capture the nuance of colour in the sky, the shape of the sun, the texture of the scene? I'll leave that one with you for now.
This ability is sometimes referred to as 'the mind's eye':
The phrase "mind's eye" refers to the human ability to visualise i.e., to experience visual mental imagery; in other words, one's ability to "see" things with the mind.
I have always had this ability and I have always assumed that everyone else was able to do the same. It turns out after a quick delve into history, that this is not the case.
In an interesting blog summary I found:
"There was a debate, in the late 1800s, about whether "imagination" was simply a turn of phrase or a real phenomenon. That is, can people actually create images in their minds which they see vividly, or do they simply say "I saw it in my mind" as a metaphor for considering what it looked like?
Francis Galton, a nineteenth century psychologist, gave people some very detailed surveys, and found that some people did have mental imagery and others didn't. The ones who did had simply assumed everyone did, and the ones who didn't had simply assumed everyone didn't."
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| Francis Galton - close your eyes and then try and recall the detail of his lovely sideburns |
She ... realised that her ability to conjure a mental picture differed from her peers during management training in her 20s. She said: “We were told to ‘visualise a sunrise’, and I thought ‘what on Earth does that look like’ – I couldn’t picture it at all. I could describe it – I could tell you that the sun comes up over the horizon and the sky changes colour as it gets lighter, but I can’t actually see that image in my mind.”What does this mean for readers? Beyond being presented with images in a book full of pictures, is a reader hampered by an inability to conjure images in her head? Crucially - does it put someone off reading non-illustrated texts when they are older? In the Exeter summary, a bookshop worker says
Dame Gill has a successful career and does not feel hindered by her lack of a “mind’s eye”. But she said: “I became more aware of it when my mum died, as I can’t remember her face. I now realise that others can conjure up a picture of someone they love, and that did make me feel sad, although of course I remember her in other ways. I can describe the way she stood on the stairs for a photo for example, I just can’t see it.”
Niel works in a bookshop and is an avid reader, but avoids books with vivid landscape descriptions as they bring nothing to mind for him. “I just find myself going through the motion of reading the words without any image coming to mind,” he said. “I usually have to go back and read a passage about a visual description several times – it’s almost meaningless.”
And is there a knock on effect for writers? For example, does a limited or non-existent visual imagination stop a writer, wether knowingly or not, from writing longer more descriptive stories. Might a writer avoid writing, say, a ghost story, where creating atmosphere is crucial? I know that there are children's writers out there who have this condition to some degree - I wonder what they think?
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| Okay - which part of my fevered brain did this come from? |
How Good is your Visual Imagination?
I love a quiz and the BBC have helpfully posted a way of finding out where you come on the visual imagination register. Give it a go!
Clearly there are some cases where you may benefit from a bit of brain re-training. In his book, The Mind's Eye, Oliver Sacks talks about a case of, "alexia sine agraphia" which means the inability to read while retaining the ability to write. The patient was a crime writer called Howard - how would he ever write another detective story if he couldn't read his own plot notes? In a novel (sorry) approach, he trains his brain to understand what he sees by tracing the outlines of words with his tongue. Weird but true or as Sacks puts it, "Thus, by an extraordinary, metamodal, sensory-motor alchemy... he was, in effect, reading with his tongue." And so he goes on to write another novel.
Consider this, the strangest of facts: your thoughts, memories and emotions, your perceptions of the world, and your deepest intuitions of selfhood, are the product of three pounds of jellified fats, proteins, sugars and salts – the stuff of the brain and as tough as blancmange. It's absurd, wonderful and terrifying. The Guardian Review of The Mind's Eye by Oliver Sacks
The brain can do remarkable things. I am not advocating licking your words to find a deeper meaning (feel free) but maybe shaking ourselves out of our 'normal' way of thinking may give a different perspective or unlock a way of writing you had not considered before.
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| Beware moving vehicles |
A Bit of Brain Re-training
You might try these exercises lifted from here
Pick something simple at first, such as a plain mug or even a small piece of blank paper. Until you get good at this, stay away from complex items such as car keys or anything that has lots of colours, designs or textures.
Now close your eyes. In your mind's eyes, picture the object as if you were still looking at it. If you have a rough time at first, just make something up. Try to get as many details correct as you can. Now open your eyes again and look again at the object. Study it in great detail for a few moments.
Keep going back and forth like this for five or ten minutes. Play around with the exercise a couple times a day to become good at this skill.
As you improve, start playing around with more advanced visualizations. Imagine what a room would look like from a top corner. Image what a city would look like from a tall building. The whole idea is to be able to visualize anything that exists – to be able to hold a good, clear and detailed picture in the mind's eye. As an aside, the most common mistake people make with this is not making the visualization clear and detailed.
BUT this simply does not work for everyone. One person with a very limited visual imagination who wanted to improve this skill tried this:
1. Explicit imagery practice. He drew simple shapes, like a square or a ball, then stared at the shape, closed his eyes, seen the shape for as long as it stayed visualisable, opened his eyes to refresh, repeat. But he only retained a brief after-image.
2. Staying in visualization situations. When he found himself in the just-before-sleep state, he stayed there for a while and played with imagery. But he reported no increase in his range of visualisation states or ability to visualise.3. Object drawing. He tried 3D constructions of blocks and tried drawing them from different angles on paper. But there was no actual imagery or mental rotation involved.
Are Artists Natural Visual Imaginers?
Are there any artists who CANNOT conjure up a sunset? Presumably, actual haunted houses, the Moon, a jungle clearing to give just a few examples, are not always within easy reach to copy but the image can be captured in an artist's head like a writer's voice is captured on the page. I do wonder how far illustrators 'see' picture books in their heads? Is it just broad brush to begin with, then the details come with the image on the page?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-34448224
Imagination Plus Experience
Back to that sunset. I find that when I try and visualise it, it is not a crisp photographic vision but more a feeling or approximation of one. For me it is not an identical process. There seems to be a fuzziness in the border between the visible and the conjured. I like to believe that my mind's eye alone is able to colonise the story landscape, mastering and portioning, fixing places and deepening the scene. But is this necessarily so?
What can deepen writing of course is experience. Actually going somewhere and using your senses can enhance your story so that your readers really feel what you feel. So, writing a night scene could be enhanced by actually going outside and feeling the cold and hearing the owls and sniffing the air, well you get the idea. It's not just the visual but the smell, touch, feel of the night. Which is all great if you don't have a scene in space.
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| Marcus Sedgewick talked about falling in a ditch full of snow whilst researching and transferring the experience of gasping cold into his writing. |
There are of course heaps of writers out there who write without the joy of the mind's eye (and it is a joy to me) and still have the joy of writing. Just as there are writers who do not experience everything in order to write well about it.
Perhaps the more interesting questions which remain are about how the visual imagination or lack of it, might impact on the individual reader and how this might limit her engagement with a text. Or in the case of a writer how this might limit their range of writing.
Whatever kind of writer we are, we should be sponges. We have to suck up life, shlurp (?) up conversations and read, read, read until we are rubbing our spongy eyes. Whether these stories materialise as something like a film or photographs or a voice in your head or a lickable page, I suppose it doesn't matter. In the end, the stories will come and we will write them.
0 Comments on Can You See A Sunset Without Looking? Exploring the Visual Imagination as of 10/11/2015 11:49:00 PM
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By: Candy Gourlay,
on 8/30/2015
Blog: Notes from the Slushpile (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: snow, Marcus Sedgwick, Emma Chichester Clark, Moomins, winter stories, Addy Farmer, Add a tag
by Addy Farmer
About two minutes ago, the Summer Holidays stretched out like this ... |
| not a computer in sight |
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| Moominpapa could write whenever he wanted to |
Never mind because in the end reading is the stuff of writing.
The media would have us think that Summer is a time for reading and I did read alot although not on the beach. But I don't think that I read anymore than I do the rest of the year. Radio 4 even had a brief say about how summer reading was no different to winter reading on the daily commute, really. Most of my summer reading has been a writer new to me, Frances Hardinge. I whipped through the brilliant, 'Verdigris Deep' and 'The Lie Tree' and 'Cuckoo Song'. I've just started, 'A Face of Glass'. These are cracking good stories and that is what I like to read any time of the year.
But I do like Winter and stories set in winter time. So, let's just conveniently forget the intervening hufflepuff-like season of Autumn and spring to contemplation of Winter stories. Is there a difference between these and those set in Summer? Perhaps, we might personify them. Summer is perky with arms-wide and smiling where Winter is dark, hunched and dour. One camps outdoors, one skulks inside. One looks out at the world, the other looks inwards ... well, you get the idea.
Winter is coming (say it like a cinema trailer announcement). Put that way, it sounds scary which to my mind is not a bad thing. Traditionally, Winter is associated with death and hibernation. It is when the flowers fold and the garden hides. The cold makes your fingers freeze and your bones ache; it requires effort to keep warm and keep moving.
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| Hope you're wearing a vest, Gandalf |
SNOW!
Winter Time by Robert Louis Stevenson
Close by the jolly fire I sit
To warm my frozen bones a bit;
Or with a reindeer-sled, explore
The colder countries round the door.
When to go out, my nurse doth wrap
Me in my comforter and cap;
The cold wind burns my face, and blows
Its frosty pepper up my nose.
Black are my steps on silver sod;
Thick blows my frosty breath abroad;
And tree and house, and hill and lake,
Are frosted like a wedding cake.
Here, in A Child's Garden of Verses, Stevenson sums up all the good stuff I used to love as a child about Winter. it could be the comfort of playing outside on a snapping-cold day, then the glorious comfort of warming yourself, not to mention the breath-taking beauty of a landscape transformed by SNOW.
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| Where the dickens did all this snow come from?! |
" The darkness and the mist had vanished with it, for it was a clear, cold winter day, with snow upon the ground ... the quick wheels dashing the hoar-frost and snow from off the dark leaves of the evergreens like spray"
I like that C.S Lewis added a touch of Victorian London to Narnia. Not only that but the snow makes it beautiful. I want to go there. The snow plays a more sinister role here; it is seen as stilling time and freezes life to its essentials. The land waits for Winter to end (spoiler - it does).
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| Guess where this is Snow can blanket and muffle and make the world a silent place. Time stands still and you are the only person in this white world. "Our snow was not only shaken from white wash buckets down the sky, it came shawling out of the ground and swam and drifted out of the arms and hands and bodies of the trees; snow grew overnight on the roofs of the houses like a pure and grandfather moss, minutely -ivied the walls and settled on the postman, opening the gate, like a dumb, numb thunder-storm of white, torn Christmas cards." Dylan Thomas, A Child's Christmas in Wales |
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| RUN! |
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| Mad as a box of frogs |
Snow can be a truly scary person, The White Queen in Narnia or The Snow Queen. In the story of Kay and Gerda we see how the snow forces Gerda to be astonishingly brave as she searches for her friend across a harsh, frozen landscape. The weather provides the obstacle to be overcome. It tests her friendship. The Snow Queen becomes Winter personified and is defeated by the warmth of Gerda's love.
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| She looks almost cuddly |
Marcus Sedgewick seems very fond of setting his novels in places where snow is a given. They are places of vampires and bears and treacherous ice. If you stay outside too long you will die and not only from the cold.
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do not cuddle this bear |
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| The best cover in the world |
In After the Snow, by S.D Crockett the snow provides the dystopian landscape where everything has gone wrong. Where the odds against our hero are already stacked high and made worse by the deep snow she finds herself wading through. Here the snow is bleak and unforgiving.
I'm gonna sit here in my place on the hill behind the house. Waiting. And watching. Ain't nothing moving down there. The valley look pretty bare in the snow. Just the house grey and lonely down by the river all frozen.The snow can force you inside and send you mad or make you see things that might or might not be there. It is the perfect setting for a ghost story as Dark Matter by Michele Paver so brilliantly and shiveringly demonstrates. The snow blinds the hero, Jack. “How odd, that light should prevent one from seeing.” he says. The snow controls his movements and eventually his mind and makes him see what should not be there. In the end, the snow subdues him.
Ah, but it's not all teen-angst gloom and doom. At the younger end, there are so many ways for snow to be the cheery, comforting, exciting and playful.
Summer fading, winter comes
Frosty mornings, tingling thumbs,
Window robins, winter rooks,
And the picture story-books.
Picture Books in Winter by Robert Louis Stevenson
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| Come in! It's lovely and warm inside! |
Bear and Hare:Snow! by Emily Gravett celebrates the joy to be had with friends in the snow.
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| We've all done it |
.... before the warmth of friendship found and all wrapped up in Christmas - lovely.
I leave the obvious to last and I'll whisper it, Christmas. It seems that no Christmas is complete without snow. I agree. I want Christmas to have deep and crisp and even snow ...
so we can make snowmen.
So never mind that it's the end of Summer, Winter is coming and it brings ...
STORIES!
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By: Candy Gourlay,
on 4/18/2014
Blog: Notes from the Slushpile (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
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Beverley Birch is friend and mentor to many slushpilers and published authors alike. She was a senior commissioning editor for Hodder Children's Books and three times shortlisted for the Brandford Boase Award in recognition of the editor’s role in nurturing new talent. She is a writer of more than 40 books including novels, picture books, biographies and retellings of classic works and folk
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By: Candy Gourlay,
on 7/25/2012
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by Addy Farmer Then Bella did something very kind. 'Would you swap this Teddy for my brother's dog then?' she asked. Just look at Dave - heartbreaking. Shirley Hughes' illustrations perfectly match the tone of the text What is it about this bit of Dogger by the genius Shirley Hughes that moves me so much? What is it that makes my voice wobble? First of all, there's Bella's kindness
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on 4/4/2012
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By Maureen Lynas Are you embarrassed by the size of your slushpile? Do you hide it, ignore it, lie about it? DON'T! Be PROUD of it! SHOUT about it. I'm telling you now - MINE IS HUGE! Why am I telling you now? Well, after reading Candy's latest blog post on the trauma of completing her second book, and seeing ex-lurker Tamsin's comments about writing for six years and not giving up, I was
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on 3/11/2012
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by Addy Farmer So here it is. Finished. For some weird reason, I'm almost ashamed to admit that the manuscript for my 12 plus novel has been 9 years in the making and began taking shape soon after my youngest was born. However, before you decide that I must have been carving it out a word at a time, I would point out that, no, I hadn't been working on it the whole time. I would have exploded
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on 7/27/2011
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by Addy Farmer Featuring Juliet Clare Bell, Linda Ravin Lodding and Julie Fulton On Notes from the Slushpile, we chronicle the slings and arrows of trying to make a dream come true so we get embarrassingly excited about debut authors. In our new series That’ll Be The Debut, we meet debut authors and get the lowdown on what life is like beyond the Slushpile. Here is the fourth of the series in
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By Addy Farmer Featuring Janet Foxley, Caroline Green and Helen Peters On Notes from the Slushpile, we chronicle the slings and arrows of trying to make a dream come true so we get embarrassingly excited about debut authors. Last week, we launched our new series That’ll Be The Debut, where we meet debut authors and get the lowdown on what life is like beyond the Slushpile. Here is the second of
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By Addy Farmer Guest Blogger So I'm at Point A ready to take flight. I'm wearing my sparkly Captain's uniform and I'm just brimming with confidence, eager to reach Point B. I have a fabulous crew of top notch characters, well rounded yet vulnerable, all ready to do my bidding. My ship is beautifully constructed both inside and out. With such a crew, with such a craft surely a swift flight
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Don't Let Go by Jeanne Willis and Tony Ross always gets me! I have to steel myself to read it out loud.
Thanks, Addy. And Debi Gliori's 'No Matter What' -the UK English non-board book edition. Interesting what Jane said about the US market being happier to have something tear-jerking. 'No Matter What' in the States has a massively toned down ending to remove all reference to death. If you know the book (in the English version), you'll know how crazy that is. The final couple
Something Else by Kathryn Cave and Chris Ridell always kills me with the line, 'You're not like us. You're something else'. And ditto the line from Dogger. I can almost burst into tears even thinking about Dogger!!! I also love, love, love the line from Tiger Who Came to tea about being in the cafe with all the lights outside..<br />*lies in corner and sobs for rest of day*
Ah, yes! Thanks, Charlotte!
That's lovely, Clare. Sooo happy Debi's going to be at Winchester!
That scene in Tiger says so simply and unsentimentally what it's like to be a child. I also like another book by Kathryn Cave and Nick Maland called, 'Friends'. I love this, "when you are lost, in the wood, in the wood, I will find you." Bravery and friendship in a lyrical line - love it.<br />Now, cheer up, Caroline!
What a lovely post Abby. Wonderful to read about such moving stories, and what they mean to people. Also great to find out about books that I've not heard of. I can feel a trip to my local book shop coming on.
I interviewed a bunch of kids about their favourite books and it was interesting that when they started reminiscing about the picture books that they loved when they were barely out of babyhood, they got quite emotional (watch the film <a href="http://www.candygourlay.com/2012/07/we-read-my-diy-documentary-of-what.html" rel="nofollow">here</a>). <br /><br />I so agree with you about Oscar Wilde -
thanks, Sally! Hope you enjoy a good weep!
I love your 'We Read' video - such an important film to see, I think. I'd forgotten The Happy Prince and THAT line. Waaaah indeed.
I can't possibly read this! I'm crying too much! Could someone pass me a tissue?
I meant to say 'ALL of the work'
you'll set everyone off, Jackie!
One line that has always stuck in my mind is from Not Now Bernard - But I'm a monster, said the monster. It may not tug on the heart strings as much as some others but I can still remember the first time I read it - I felt his confusion!
Lovely post. I loved The Maggie B by Irene Haas as a child which is a surreal story about a girl bringing up her little brother on a boat all on her own. Even as a child, I felt there was a sadness to this story although it was a 'wish-come-true' and when Margaret sings her brother to sleep, I always feel a little teary.
"Her Mother's Face" by Roddy Doyle and illustrated by Freya Blackwood. It's just so beautiful to look at, and I love how the girl struggles to remember what her mother looks like. As she grows up she sees her mother's face reflected in her own. I was very teary just thinking about my grandparents and trying to remember the sound of my grandpa's voice. He didn't talk
I know what you mean although I felt so very sad reading this out loud. Kept wondering if I did that ignoring thing too much. Children just enjoyed it for what it was.
Thanks, Amelia. I don't know that story but will look it out.
Meant to say, have you read 'Bye, Bye Baby?' by the Ahlbergs?
Ah, that's so sad! And clever with the ending. I love the way pci books can be appreciated at different stages of life.