Joan Aiken’s advice to young writers when she went to give talks in schools was always to carry a small notebook and to jot down anything of interest. She wrote: “The most frequent question they ask is Where do ideas come from? And if I’m talking to them in a classroom I produce the small […]
Joan Aiken produced some beautiful pastel drawings while mulling over her plots, you can see some of them on the website, but this little doodle on the back of an envelope suggests a rather different, very un-fertile state of mind, brought about by the distractions and pressures of daily life (Gas in barn? […]
Reading is one of the easiest ways you have of empathising with another person, a way of being alone with them when they are alone; it is a way of taking time off from your own preoccupations, and entering another mind, another world. Once you have experienced this, it is almost like making a friend, […]
It would be perfect if Joan herself were here to write this blog – with her many years of experience from her own early days of struggle and rejection slips, with her wide reading and appreciation of all kinds of life and literature, and her great sympathy for fellow writers, she would have had […]
Yippee! More Aiken available to read, and not before time! Must do some catch-up…
Do so sympathise with her teeth-grinding over Eleanor’s swarmy condescension: we’ve all met that type, in different walks of life.
I love the juxtaposition of “Gas in barn/applesauce” – almost poetic, and then the invitation of “PAGE 1″. How does a writer balance the everyday demands on her time with the book that’s calling her to write?
This tension and Eleanor’s comment remind me of a New Yorker cartoon: at a cocktail party, one man says to another, “A writer? Fantastic! Wish I had time to write.”
In her writing life Joan alternated between adult’s and children’s books, so I am pleased to have a chance to redress the balance by bringing some of the adult ones out again. She said there wasn’t a huge difference between the two : “There is a strong connection between thrillers and children’s stories: a tight plot is essential, and somehow right prevails.” For me a lot of Joan comes out in her ‘Gothic’ heroines – I think you’ll enjoy meeting another side of her!
Much gnashing of teeth… but in a funny way he’s right! Writers really have to pack in twice as much as anyone else don’t they? If not three times – live it, re-imagine it, write it, it’s just that they have to have the discipline to make the time?
Here’s an Aiken competition – what is the third element missing or resulting from that list to make up the plot?
Gas in barn + applesauce + [wait for it] … hungry pyromaniac.
I dreamt I went to the barn again last night… Strangely the pyromaniac turns out to be Eleanor…must look at the date on that envelope.