Happy World Book Day everyone!
Alright, alright, so it might not be the official World Book Day today - it might not even be World Book Day for you but it is for many people. This week, and probably for the next few weeks too, authors, illustrators, poets and storytellers will be hitting the road to share their love of the written word with children in schools and libraries all over the place. It's a wonderful thing.
Now don't get me wrong, I think that the WBD initiative is brilliant. The idea of setting aside one day a year when everyone can share their love of books. Children in many schools get to dress up as their favourite book character - superheroes and little princesses abound thanks to the supermarket's ready made costumes but more imaginative creations come to light too. Throughout the day pupils and teachers share their favourite books and the aforementioned visit from an author, illustrator, poet or storyteller can add a much needed boost to the general book excitement.
Perhaps it's just me but the idea of a single book day does make me cringe slightly. One day isn't enough to generate that love of books amongst children that have little or no interest in books in their home environment. Sadly, I meet many children in school that really don't like reading - not surprising though as the whole learning to read business can be a very difficult and taxing one.
Recently I've been writing a series of little stories based on the lives of real people - Columbus, Elizabeth I, Neil Armstrong and others. The most recent book in the series is about William Caxton - not the inventor of the printing press but the man to first print books in the English language. Researching William Caxton really brought home the importance of the written word in particular. What he, and other printers did, changed people's lives forever. News, information and ideas could be shared quickly with many people. Caxton wasn't just a printer though - he was a businessman, a publisher, the first person to open a bookshop in England. He and others at the time brought about a real revolution of the word. Books suddenly became available to a much wider audience and now it's hard to imagine a world without books in it.
Books are everywhere and anyone can get their hands on them so why not share a book today and everyday. And to help spread that love of books why not get involved with the excellent Patron of Reading scheme. A book isn't just for world book day - it's for everyday.
My first post on this site,
Sliding Doors, told the tale of how I started writing, thanks to a poster in a bookshop. So for my World Book Week post, I’m going to describe the journey from winning a short story competition to my name on the spine of a paperback. It’s in shorthand, because it took some years! Along the way I got into the habit of collecting ‘ticks’ , because the odds against me seemed so huge it was the only way I could stay motivated. ‘Crosses’, I tried to bury.
I started writing a ‘book’ almost as soon as I heard that I was a PWA. (Prize-Wining Author – my family’s idea of a joke.) The idea was easy to come by because like all experienced marketers I ran a brainstorming session, inviting my kids, then 10, 8 and 6. (Interestingly I didn’t make a conscious decision to write for children, that was taken for granted somehow.) Two sides of scribbled-on sheet of A4 later I began my summer 2005 project. And loved it. I wrote every morning from about 6 to maybe 11, and the kids watched non-stop telly. Brill. Then we ate our bodyweight in three-course breakfasts. As the word count grew so did my determination for it not to languish on slush piles. (I’d bought the Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook by then so knew the jargon.) Keen to speed up the learning curve, I applied for a place on the University of Bristol Creative Writing Diploma.
Tick!
I shared my enthusiasm with a stranger at a party. The wrong person as it turned out. She said, ‘I’m a librarian and my husband works at Waterstones, but I can’t get a children’s novel published so you’ve got no chance.’
Cross.
I shared my enthusiasm with a published children’s author. She said, ‘everyone thinks they can write.’
Cross.
I submitted my first assignment at Uni.
‘Unvarying in prose style. No sense of time or place and some format problems.’
Cross.
Sometime around then the marvellous Show of Strength – a Bristol theatre company, announced a competition to write a monologue for a show of rolling performances. Wonderful idea. My monologue, It’s My Party’ was brought to life by Lynda Rooke (most recognised from Casualty). I stood in the audience and as the piece drew to a close I noticed the grey-haired man next to me was crying.
Tick!
Excellent, because more crosses were on the way.
I sent the first three chapters of my finished children’s book to an agent.
‘I love it, rush me the rest,’ she said.
I could see my future – hardback, paperback, film, Oscar ceremony . . .
Tick!
‘It’s got everything – drama, pathos . . . Can you come and see me in London?’
Tick!
She wanted a few changes. I obliged.
Time passed.
I let it – not wanting to be annoying.
Eventually I chased her.
She appeared to have forgotten about me, sending an email the essence of which was - ‘I didn’t like it that much after all.’
CROSS!
(In retrospect, approaching several agents at once might have been sensible, but I was terribly optimistic, so only contacted one at a time.)
The next response was something like, ‘it’s a ludicrous idea . . .’
Cross!
The next.
‘Too like Percy Jackson.’ (It really wasn’t.)
Cross!
Surely time for some good news? Yes!
Bruce Hunter at David Higham invited me for a cup of tea and agreed to represent me.
Tick!
Now, it would all fall into place.
Not.
The book was rejected by everyone.
Umpteen crosses over ten months (he too sent things sequentially).
In summer 2007 I wrote another book, which my agent loved. Was this the one?
No.
The book was rejected by everyone.
Umpteen crosses over eight months.
Cue Piccadilly Press, inviting me for a meeting.
I didn’t know what to wear. What do authors look like? Stupid thought.
They loved my book.
Tick!
But didn’t want to publish it – too quiet.
Cross!
Did I have any other ideas?
That morning (just in case) I’d had another brainstorm with the getting-older kids (12, 10 and 8). I regurgitated the rough idea of a gang of children called Tribe – who they were, what they did.
I was dispatched to write a short synopsis.
‘A paragraph will do,’ the publisher said.
Three paragraphs later (I didn’t want to under deliver), I had a contract.
TICK!
This October my fifth book will hit the fresh air. It’s about how one small act changes everything that follows. We’re back to Sliding Doors.
It’s World Book Week this week, so I thought I would share some of my favourite reads over the last year in teen/YA and adult fiction. I hope you’ll share some of your favourites, books you would recommend, in the comments section. It’s always nice to find undiscovered treasures...
Here's my recent Teen/YA reads:
Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell
Between Shades of Grey by Ruta Sepetys
5
th Wave by Rick Yancey
Looking for Alaska by John Green
Wonder by R J Palacio
Exodus (series) by Julie Bertagna
The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
The Testament of Jessie Lamb by Jane Rogers
The Uninvited by Liz Jensen
Secret Son by Laila Lalami
The Light Between Oceans by M L Stedman
And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini
And one of my all time favourite books –
A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
HAPPY READING!
www.savitakalhan.comThe Long Weekend by Savita Kalhan
The Long Weekend Book TrailerTwitter @savitakalhan
7th March 2013 was World Book Day. As usual, the requests came in: “Would you like to visit our school for Book Week...the children would love to meet a real, live author”. This year I visited primaries in Sheffield, Leeds, North Yorkshire and Edinburgh and, now that all the rushing about is over, I’ve time to reflect a bit about what authors can bring to schools.
When I visit a school, part of it is “the talk” – often to an assembly group. In this session I’m trying to do a few things: share my excitement about books and reading, get across that reading is not a “worthy” activity but something that can take you into new worlds and generate real, edge-of –the-seat excitement; and convey that my job is fundamentally about STORY – creating narratives that people want to read, and where all the time they are demanding “what happens next?”
It’s important for primary children to realise that this is an entirely different skill to handwriting, spelling or punctuation (which they may be bad at, and heartily dislike.) It’s not necessarily got much to do with adverbs, “openers”, “connectives” or “wow words” either. These are just parts of the tool-kit, that can be brought out when required. The aim is to create the world – the characters within it – and their story. As well as talking to the children, I do workshops. I spend a lot of time preparing these, and asking myself the question – what extra thing can I, as a writer, bring to the children? What can I provide, that a teacher, however well-trained and inspired, might not?
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| ....What if your mother was a witch? |
Increasingly, I focus on story. A lot of the writing that children do is not based around creating stories – yet for me, that is the key part of being a writer. And it’s hard, incredibly hard, to come up with a gripping story – one that holds attention, suspends disbelief and both surprises and satisfies.
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| Imagine Jessica's problem.... |
So most of my workshops are about finding different ways into a story. Whether it’s about inventing a surprising character (a mermaid who can’t swim, a dragon that can’t breathe fire), looking at a place you know and searching out the things that happen there, or thinking about a “What If...” situation...What if your mother was a witch? (Jessica Haggerthwaite: Witch Dispatcher). What if your new dog turned out to be a wolf? (Wolfie).
Some of the most fun I’ve had in schools recently has been creating stories in groups. I start the ball rolling...”What is your character’s name?” “How old are they?” And in a surprisingly short time we will develop a story...sometimes an amazing story, in which I will be astonished by the creativity and imagination all around me. “I think I’ll steal this one for my next book” I tell them (actually quite tempted!)
Best of all are the comments from teachers, about the children who have taken their stories home, or gone on working at them at playtime or in class. Sometimes I’m sent copies of the finished versions!
Emma Barnes's
web-siteEmma's latest book is
Wolfie - available from Amazon Wolfie: "funny, clever and satisfying" - Book of the Week,
Books for Keeps
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Your events sound wonderful - and so important - long after that year with the really deadening teacher is over the kids will still remember the creative sparks flying!
Thanks, Emma - really interesting to hear what other people do. That's a couple of posts on school visits I've read recently that emphasised that we need to NOT be teachers, and it's a warning to bear in mind. I have found myself getting more 'teacherly' as I've gone on, partly because you feel somehow that's what they want you for, partly because it's an easy model, but of course you have to focus on what's really important and different about being a writer, rather than a teacher! I once went to a Michael Morpurgo talk, though, and he spent quite a bit of it talking about punctuation!!
I've learnt a lot from speaking with teachers and hearing about the activities that they are doing with children. I suppose what I meant to say is that there is no point in my doing something that they are already doing as part of a planned curriculum - I need to try and bring something from a writer's perspective. And at the moment I think a focus on the "story-bulding" side works well.
A lovely post Emma that has regenerated my enthusiasm. And a timely reminder not to fall into the 'teacher' mode which is so easy to do. As Joan said these visits will be remembered for a long time after... who knows you might be inspiring a future best seller!