When lockdown unlocks writers

Last year I was one of many who wrote a guest blog post for Chantelle Atkins, an author, writing group teacher and mentor with a similar teaching background to mine. She was collecting articles on experiences of the first lockdown (how long ago that seems! Yet a rerun remains a distinct possibility given how poorly the Westminster government have managed the pandemic). Don’t groan, that’s not the theme today. Instead, this interview with Chantelle celebrates the creativity she, her fellow writers and mentees, child and adult, demonstrate in this anthology just published. Like me, she enjoys encouraging children’s writing and storytelling and links it with adults’ creativity too. As we emerge into a changed world, do enjoy this varied set of approaches and reactions.

Hi Chantelle. Please start by telling me how you planned the anthology.

The first three sections came about from posts I wrote for my personal blog. I then asked other writers and bloggers to join in and write under the same themes. It was in my head from early on that if I got enough content, we could put a book together under Chasing Driftwood. Lots of contributions came from the writing groups and clubs we run and via word of mouth. Many others were writers and bloggers I’d connected with previously and who wanted to participate.

Which is your favourite piece and why?

I think I have to say the poems on Hope written by the children. Not to say the adult poems aren’t amazing, because they are, but I felt like the hope theme really caught fire with the children and we had lots of wonderful entries. Each hope poem really made me smile and a few brought tears to my eyes. The children are also particularly proud and excited to be published for the first time!

Was putting “Stay Home” together an individual task or a team effort? Would you like to acknowledge any special help here?

We couldn’t have done it without the contributors so a huge thank you must go to every one of them for participating first in the blog posts and then allowing us to publish their work in the anthology. Myself and my business partner Sim did the work between us, putting it together, formatting the ebook and paperback, editing and proofreading. We were extremely lucky that a talented friend of Sim’s offered to do the front cover design for free! So we are very grateful for that.

It’s a great cover! Did it take the designer many attempts or come right straight away?

Law Baker is a friend of Sim’s and we gave him a bit of a brief, wanted something with a house and windows and different people gazing out. It was his own idea to add the nurse on the street which I think is absolutely perfect.

How will the proceeds will be used?

They will all go straight into the bank account of our Community Interest Company (CIC) and will be used to fund our next community writing projects which will benefit young writers. The company is called Chasing Driftwood. The name came when I had two old songs in my head one day when walking. Driftwood by Travis and Chasing Rainbows by Shed 7. I combined them for something unusual!

A community interest writing group? That sounds interesting…

I started as an adult writing group, adding children’s writing workshops in 2015. Because my youngest was only a baby at the time, I was limited to running workshops in school holidays but it started to take off and in 2017 I applied to become a CIC. Once my youngest started school I reached out to local schools about running writing clubs and they were very keen. The local home education community approached me two years ago for clubs to accommodate them, and Sim joined in 2019. It’s gone from strength to strength.

Describe a typical children’s and/or adults writing workshop. Are they online only?

With the clubs, four are online via Zoom and four are in person, within schools and libraries. Workshops can be online or in person. Adult workshops include sessions on developing characters, how to build an author platform, whether self-publishing is right for you and more. The children’s clubs and workshops cover many things! Poetry, short stories, creative non-fiction, article writing, blogging, journaling, comic books, developing characters, how to plot, how to use literary devices and much more!

What’s the next project for you personally and/or for Chasing Driftwood?

I’m working on a four-book YA post-apocalyptic series, among other things! I’m also co-writing a YA series with Sim. As well as the many clubs and services we already offer, we’re hoping to launch a new Chasing Driftwood community writing project soon. I can’t say too much yet but it will involve putting together a climate and wildlife themed anthology written by young people, and will also involve another project that aims to connect children with nature through writing.

Thank you. It’s been a pleasure to play a part in Stay Home and to hear about Chasing Driftwood and your personal writing projects. Good luck with everything as 2022 approaches!

You can buy the ebook of Stay Home here and the paperback is here

Find Chasing Driftwood on facebook and Instagram

Find details of Chantelle’s books on her blog here or find her on Facebook or Instagram

And here are Sim’s Facebook page, Instagram and blog

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Five glorious years!

WordPress tells me I’m five this week! Not a message I expected to see when I wrote my tentative Welcome in 2016. Right now I’m very preoccupied by what’s best described as a Demanding Family Event so will keep this post brief (at last! you sigh). It’s a quick rundown of the posts you and I liked best every year. Thank you for travelling with me; do please revisit and return, and I’ll do my best still to be writing for you (and me) in 2026.

2016: My most popular post with (for me) a whopping 1,357 views obviously struck a chord with the teaching profession I was about to leave. Read my thoughts on teaching writing at Back to the Writing Bored. I haven’t changed my mind! But the post that pleased me most was The Great Amazon Dinner Party because my first novel The Infinity Pool had done so well. If Shakespeare had sat SATs was aimed at the same audience as the writing bored. I’m also pleased to reread my memories of a wonderful workshop with Professor Marina Warner at Dartington, which led eventually to The Magic Carpet.

2017: Most popular post: The Best Independent Bookshop in London. Could be subtitled How to Bring up a Bookworm. If you are more or less raised in a good bookshop, your welcome to the world of words is assured. Runners up in my own mind are diversions into UK travelogue: an exploration of “my” corner of East London called The World in Four Short Blocks and Marsh Frogs Sing Loudly in the Ditches which came from a trip to the ancient Sussex town of Rye. I also wrote a little about cultural appropriation as I worried my way into The Magic Carpet. I wouldn’t dare start writing that book now, but it has its merits and I hope Getting It Right expresses the sensitive dilemma so many authors face.

2018: Most popular post: I was surprised but pleased for my German translator to find this was Sought and Found in Translation, after the publication of Der Infinity-Pool. But I also enjoyed exploring an unusual POV In a Nutshell, and was humbled and proud (if you can be both at once) to be asked to start a fortnightly books column for Smorgasbord, one of which is here. I kept that up for a year or so before asking to contribute more occasionally so that I could get on with my own writing. But I was so pleased to be asked and Sally and her crowd of co-bloggers have become good and supportive friends. Finally, although sometimes along with many of you I feel as though I Can’t be Bloggered, I did have a bit of fun giving a backward glance to Prologues.

2019: Most popular post: The Magic Carpet – Standby for Landing. This is one flight that hasn’t been cancelled so if you haven’t bought it yet… I also had the interesting experience of a blog tour in 2019, and there are a couple of posts about that. Not sure what I was doing otherwise, there seems to be a six month gap in blog posts.

2020: Most popular post: What Authors Don’t Bargain For. As when I struck a chord with all those angry teachers, I seem to get the biggest audience when voicing a collective grievance. Hope it makes people think! It was a sad spring, 2020, and here I am saying Au Revoir to Europe and just two months later worrying about how to write fiction in an age of pandemic. I hope you’ve all stayed safe and well into…

2021: …when as I say an ongoing family event has taken most of my time and attention, and my most popular post so far is from people revisiting my Easter Eggheads quiz of a previous year. My post on a workshop with Sophie Hannah did well though, and if you look back through there are others on writing courses each year. I’ve learned a lot in five years. Please stay with me, even if we’re both erratic, for the next five.

©Jessica Norrie 2021

First the quiz, now the answers. Well done everyone!

Many people said my Christmas Children’s Book Quiz was too hard – sorry! I was just about to provide more clues, when a friend who is a bit of a Hermione emailed me with a 98% score! (If you haven’t tried the quiz yet, it’s here.)

Whether you raced home like Hermione or are sulking in a snowdrift, I hope I conjured childhood memories and showed you books you haven’t heard of. Children’s literature deserves every bit as much attention as writing for adults, so I’ve added links to explore further (or enjoy reminiscing). One thing I’ve learnt from setting this quiz is that my knowledge needs updating, something for the next lockdown perhaps.

Round 1: Did you, like me, read these as a child?

1. Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling. Kipling was a product of his time and class, with much of his writing jingoistic. But these animal stories remain delightful.
2. The Children Of Green Knowe by Lucy M Boston. Not now as well known as she should be, Boston wrote ghost stories based on her own ancient home. The second, The Chimneys of Green Knowe, was unusual in featuring a heroine whose blindness isn’t central to the plot.
3. Peter Pan by J M Barrie. Strange notions of childcare here! But as stipulated in Barrie’s will, Peter Pan royalties go to Great Ormond Street Children’s hospital in London.
4. Just William by Richmal Crompton. She preferred her numerous novels for adults, but William – who never ages – is universally recognisable.
5. Thomas The Tank Engine by the Rev W Awdry. Despite brilliant illustrations the original text is somewhat dense, but the characters have adapted for each generation.
6. Island Of The Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell. This is a stirring story of an indigenous teenage girl’s survival after cruelty leaves her alone on a a remote island. See some of the Goodreads reviews for more in depth thoughts. I loved this as a teenager.
7. The Wolves Of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken. The first in a long, wonderful series. Aiken is up there with Pullman and Rowling for creating imaginary worlds and intelligent female leads.
8. The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge. Charming, nostalgic, romantic…
9. Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfield. Streatfield’s knowledge of theatre helps this classic story of yet more disadvantaged young girls deciding what they want and going for it!
10. The Borrowers by Mary Norton. There are definitely Borrowers in my house. Inventive, and yet it teaches about vulnerability and inequality too, if you want morals in your children’s reading.

Round 2: A Picture Tells a Thousand Words

1. Lucy and Tom’s Day by Shirley Hughes. This was first published in 1960. Hughes, now in her 90s, is still producing high quality stories and artwork, something new for every generation.
2. The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. The first book I read my children, when they were just a few months old. I’ve used it for the happiest teaching ever since, in lots of different languages.
3. Peace At Last by Jill Murphy. Another brilliant, repetitive bedtime story even for the youngest babies.
4. Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans. “In an old house in Paris that was covered with vines / Lived twelve little girls in two straight lines.” Who wouldn’t carry on after a start like that?
5. Funnybones by Janet and Allan Ahlberg. The skeletons try to scare the humans but they’re much too funny!
6. The Snowman by Raymond Briggs. Just to show that a book can captivate without words. Briggs has also produced much darker work, and drawn a touching biography of his parents.
7. Handa’s Surprise by Eileen Brown. Beautiful illustrations, funny ending.
8. The Mousehole Cat by Antonia Barber and Nicola Bayley. I still can’t read this without welling up – try it for yourself or just admire the fabulous pictures.
9. The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats. This 1962 US classic was possibly the first published picture book to feature a black child without stereotyping. It was still popular with the children I taught up to 2016.
10. So Much by Trish Cooke and Helen Oxenbury. At this family party, seen through the eyes of a toddler, you’ll have SO MUCH fun!

Round 3: Classics Old and Newish

1. Anne Of Green Gables by L M Montgomery. The later books disappoint (me), but Anne Shirley as introduced here is great fun, overcoming a rotten start in life to win everyone’s hearts.
2. What Katy Did by Susan Coolidge. The message about learning good behaviour through disability is cloying now, but this story fascinated me as a child. Again, the sequels are less successful (I think).
3. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. Still good enough to make a great recent film. Amy was always my favourite, but you’re supposed to like Jo best. The sequels? Nah…
4. Noughts And Crosses by Malorie Blackman. A simple but clever premise, and an excellent recent TV series. Some reviewers miss the point!
5. Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone by J K Rowling. Not sure where you’ve been if you’ve missed this one. An imaginary world that’s given pleasure to millions, despite some of the author’s recently expressed opinions running into opposition. The sequels work brilliantly, if at too much length.
6. The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe by C S Lewis. A wonderful series for any child (or adult) who’s ever played about with a fictional universe. It’s a shame about the girls’ roles and the blond, noble Narnians against the dark skinned evil Calormenes, but the imaginary world created and the love of nature and animals remain outstanding.
7. Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. Having loved this as a child, I was surprised how wordy I found it when reading it to my own children. But a roll call of illustrious illustrators have had enormous fun with the invention and characters over the years.
8. Winnie The Pooh by A A Milne. Now the subject of many Facebook memes, Pooh remains as lovable and silly as ever.
9. Northern Lights (published in the US as The Golden Compass) by Philip Pullman. My use of the UK title of the first in this fantastic series may have thrown some of you. But hey – it’s meant to be a mystery. The recent BBC adaptation does it far more justice than the film.
10. Mary Poppins by P L Travers. Quite dry to read, compared to the film, but worth persevering.

Round 4: These characters are (part of) the family – but in which book(s)?

1. Mary, Laura, Carrie and Grace Ingalls are the daughters in the Little House… series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Controversial now for the way some (not all) characters view American Indians, but beautifully written and fascinating social history as long as it’s clear it’s from the point of view of white “pioneers”.
2. Bobbie, Peter and Phyllis are The Railway Children (E. Nesbit) For an Edwardian woman, Nesbit had an extraordinary life.
3. Pod, Homily and Arriety are The Borrowers (Mary Norton). See above.
4. William, Charles, Percy, Fred, George, Ronald and Ginevra are the Weasley children’s full names (Harry Potter). See above.
5. Kurt, Marcie and Minal Cricket are the siblings of Clarice Bean, in the series by Lauren Child. A popular contemporary series.
6. Pongo and Missus are the parent dogs in The 101 Dalmations (Dodie Smith). This link is to the edition I had as a child, as I prefer the cover to one with film stills.
7. Sally and I (her narrator brother) are visited by The Cat in the Hat (Dr Seuss). When he comes back things get even crazier!
8. Lily Rose, Kate, Jim, John, Jo, Peggy and baby William were The Family From One End Street by Eve Garnett. The language may seem patronising, but when published in the 1930s it was ground-breaking as the first British children’s series to feature a poor working class family in a realistic way.
9. Naledi, Tiro and Dineo were siblings in Journey to Jo’burg by Beverley Naidoo. It’s an easy to read story of children living in apartheid era South Africa. For my mixed ability classes of 12 year olds it packed a powerful emotional and educational punch.
10. Ahmet is the schoolboy refugee separated from his family in Onjali Rauf’s prizewinning 2018 debut, The Boy at the Back of the Class, illustrated by Pippa Curnick. There’s also a US book with the same title by Tahlie Purvis, which I hadn’t heard of when I set this quiz. Take a point (or two) if you’ve answered with that one (or both)!

Round 5: Animals

1. Paddington by Michael Bond. Pooh may like his honey, but for Paddington only marmalade will do.
2. Orlando, the Marmalade Cat by Kathleen Hale. Hermione tells me there’s also a heroine called Marmalade Atkins in a series by Andrew Davies.
3. Wilbur is described as SOME PIG in letters spun into Charlotte’s Web by E B White.
4. In The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf, Ferdinand is a bull who would rather smell the flowers than fight in the bullring.
5. Mog is Meg the witch’s cat in Helen Nicoll and Jan Pienkowski’s Meg and Mog picture books. Mog is also the Thomas family’s cat in Judith Kerr’s Mog the Forgetful Cat series. There may be more!
6. One owl service is a set of dinner plates featuring owls with magical properties in Alan Garner’s The Owl Service.
7. The second is the postal service provided by owls in the wizarding world of Harry Potter. See above.
8. The two benevolently despotic elephants I thought of were Babar by Jean de Brunhoff, and Uncle, by J P Martin. Hermione also suggests Colonel Hathi from The Jungle Book.
9. In The Magician’s Nephew by C S Lewis, Diggory’s Uncle Andrew was planted (and watered) by an elephant who mistook him for a tree. Google “images from The Magician’s Nephew” to see this incident as depicted by the wonderful Pauline Baynes. (Must blog about children’s illustrators some time.)
10. The Elephant’s Child (Rudyard Kipling) was spanked by his aunts and uncles for his insatiable curiosity. See Just So Stories, above.
11. Elmer, in David McKee’s picture books.
12. The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams.
13. Anansi the spiderman features in traditional folk stories that originated in Ghana and spread to the Caribbean. Anansi tells stories and plays tricks.
14. Although a dog, Nana was nanny to Wendy James and Michael in Peter Pan (see above). They escaped through an open window as she was babysitting.
15. Mole, in The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame.

Round 6: Identify the author and/or the book(s) they are talking about.

1. “It is the book I’m proudest of because it had something to do with the death of the Dick and Jane primers.” Theodore Geisel (Dr Seuss) said this of The Cat in the Hat (see above). The UK Dick and Jane were Janet and John. Janet helped Mummy in the kitchen. John helped Dad wash the car. They were boring.
2. “… reviewers at the time said things like: “in spite of the strange title, it’s a very good book.” Judith Kerr on When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit interviewed in the Guardian 18/2/15
3. “… my father had got to where he was by climbing upon my infant shoulders.” Christopher Robin Milne, in his autobiography The Enchanted Places, showed resentment of the Winnie the Pooh books by A A Milne.
4. Richmal Crompton complained here that William Brown “takes possession of every story I try to write, even though they are not about him.”
5. “I knew it would make people feel uncomfortable.” Malorie Blackman writing here about Noughts and Crosses.
6. “If you read my novels, you know, they’re not black novels – they’ve just got characters in them…” Benjamin Zephaniah quoted in The Guardian 14/10/14

Round 7: Snippets of random information

1. Tolkien and C S Lewis drank together in The Unicorn pub, Great Malvern, Worcestershire, whose gas lamps feature in The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe (see above).
2. James Thurber was part blind after being shot in the eye by his brother in a childhood game of William Tell. (The Thirteen Clocks and The Wonderful O was a favourite of mine as a child, in the Puffin edition with illustrations by Ronald Searle.)
3. Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York and once married to Prince Andrew signed a seven book “nurturing” children’s book deal in Australia and New Zealand in early 2020. I think authors should get contracts on merit, not because they are linked to the UK royal family. So I am not giving a link to her books. 10,000 bonus points if you agree.
4. The UK children’s author and illustrator who said “I get on with (children) perfectly well but spend time with them? No, no, no…” was Quentin Blake.

Round 8: And lastly, in honour of a Europe I’m so sorry and angry to leave, have a go at these questions:

1. Where The Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak (whose parents were Polish).
2. Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans (France). See above.
3. Miffy by Dick Bruna (Netherlands).
4. Strewwelpeter by Heinrich Hoffmann. This link is to the German edition because I loved the picture which was on my English copy as a child. Horrifying stories of awful punishments for children who misbehave.
5. The Diary of Anne Frank by Anne Frank (Holland). Apologies if I muddled you – I always thought this had the title I’ve given but now see recent translations call it The Diary of a Young Girl.
6. Fables by Aesop (Greece).
7. Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren (Sweden).
8. Pom, Flora, Alexander and cousin Arthur are Babar’s triplets and nephew in the French books by Jean de Brunhoff. See link above.
9. When they’re told by the Brothers Grimm (German brothers who collected fairy tales from all over Europe).
10. Pinocchio (by Italian Carlo Collodi) and Johnson are both shown with noses that lengthen with every lie.

I hope you enjoyed my quiz. Do keep sharing it, and let me know how you did by commenting below. Happy new reading year!

Questions and answers © Jessica Norrie 2020.

Quizzing around the Christmas tree!

This Christmas will be quieter than usual so here’s a quiz to print off and mull over. See how much you can do without Google! Please do post comments and scores, but not answers – they’ll be on the blog after Christmas. You may have to think back to your childhood, maybe even your parents’ and grandparents’ childhoods as I’ve realised many of my choices are old fashioned. If any 21st century children and grandchildren would like to contribute up to date and more diverse examples of well known books for a future quiz that would be great and you can email them to me via the blog.

There are a whopping 75 questions (I worked HARD on this, or you could just call it self-indulgence). Score 1 point for every correct fact you get – eg a point for authors and for picture books illustrators’ names. A point for the title or series, extra for the countries the books come from in Round 8 and any other answer to a specific question. I make the maximum score 150 but it could be more. Let me know what you get – and note, some books and authors may appear in more than one question.

Here’s an example, for two marks: TMG by PP would be Tom’s Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce.

Round 1: Did you, like me, read these as a child?

1. TJSS by RK
2. TCOGK by LMB
3. PP by JMB
4. JW by RC
5. TTTE by RWA
6. IOTBD by SOD
7. TWOWC by JA
8. TLWH by EG
9. BS by NS
10. TB by MN

Round 2: A Picture Tells a Thousand Words

1. LATD by SH
2. TVHC by EC
3. PAL by JM
4. M by LB
5. F by J & AA
6. TS by RB
7. HS by EB
8. TMC by AB and NB
9. TSD by EJK
10. SM by TC

Round 3: Classics Old and Newish

1. AOGG by LMM
2. WKD by SC
3. LW by LMA
4. NAC by MB
5. HPATPS by JKR
6. TLTWATW by CSL
7. AAIW by LC
8. WTP by AAM
9. NL aka TGC by PP
10. MP by PLT

Round 4: These characters are (part of) the family – but what is the book or series?

1. Mary, Laura, Carrie and Grace
2. Bobbie, Peter and Phyllis
3. Pod, Homily and Arriety
4. William, Charles, Percy, Fred, George, Ronald and Ginevra
5. Kurt, Marcie and Minal Cricket
6. Pongo and Missus
7. Sally and I
8. Lily Rose, Kate, Jim, John, Jo, Peggy and baby William
9. Naledi, Tiro and Dineo
10. Ahmet – and why is he on his own?

Round 5: Animals

1. Who liked marmalade?
2. Who WAS marmalade?
3. Who was SOME PIG?
4. Which animal hero of a 1936 children’s book banned by General Franco and burnt by Hitler was, according to Life magazine, accused of being “everything from a fascist to a pacifist to a burlesque sit-down striker”?
5. Who had a cat called Mog? (At least two possible answers.)
6. Describe an owl service…
7. …and another?
8. Two benevolent despots in children’s literature happen to be elephants. Can you name them?
9. In which book did someone’s uncle get planted by another elephant who thought he must be a tree?
10. And whose aunts and uncles spanked him for his insatiable curiosity?
11. Who is made of patchwork?
12. .…and who of velveteen?
13. Where in the world does a spider play tricks and tell tales, and what is his name?
14. Which canine babysitter lost sight of her three charges?
15. Who got fed up with spring cleaning?

Round 6: Identify the author and/or the book(s) they are talking about.

1. “It is the book I’m proudest of because it had something to do with the death of the Dick and Jane primers”
2. “It was a brilliant title but the publishers didn’t like at first. Even reviewers at the time said things like: “in spite of the strange title, it’s a very good book”
3. “It seemed to me almost that my father had got to where he was by climbing upon my infant shoulders.”
4. “He takes possession of every story I try to write, even though they are not about him.”
5. “I knew it would make people feel uncomfortable.”
6. “If you read my novels, you know, they’re not black novels – they’ve just got characters in them; it’s about who they are, you know, the story and it represents the communities that I’ve lived in, which are very mixed communities. I don’t sit down and go “right, I’ve got to write black literature for black people” or anything like that. I just write stories.”

Round 7: Snippets of random information

• 

• 

1. Which two UK authors used to enjoy a drink together in this pub, in a town whose gas lamps inspired a famous scene in a book by one of them?
2. Which humorous US cartoonist and writer for adults and children was part blind after being shot in the eye by his brother in a childhood game of William Tell?
3. Which Brit signed a seven book children’s “nurturing” book deal in Australia and New Zealand in early 2020? (10,000 bonus points if you can guess my thoughts about this.)
4. Which UK children’s author and illustrator said about children: “I get on with them perfectly well but spend time with them? No, no, no. There’s no need, you see. I just make it all up.”

Round 8: Lastly, in honour of a Europe I’m sorry and angry to be forced to leave:

Photo by Mau00ebl BALLAND on Pexels.com

1. (Picture book) WTWTA by MS
2. (Picture book) M by LB (oh! I already had this in Round 2. 2 free points then.)
3. (Picture book) M by DB
4. (Poems) S by HH
5. (Autobiography) TDOAF by AF
6. (Classic) F by A
7. (20^th century Classic) PL by AL
8. Where might you find Pom, Flora, Alexander and their cousin Arthur?
9. Why might reading fairy tales not be an entirely happy experience?
10. How have cartoonists recently compared Boris Johnson to an Italian classic character?

Questions © Jessica Norrie 2020. Photos of The Unicorn and Snowman with books © Jessica Norrie.

Blogger wings it with wordplay

Last week I couldn’t be bloggered so must post now… Scrabbling for inspiration I see my blogger colleague (bloggeague?) Robbie Cheadle has a nice post on nursery rhymes where she quotes Lewis Carroll changing the words of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Any wordplay good enough for Alice in Wonderland is good enough for me too! I’m always changing the words of songs and do it almost automatically in response to feelings and events. As do others – here’s one doing the social media rounds, origin unknown. If we all sing along maybe he’ll get the hint:

Donald the President packed his Trump,

And said goodbye to the White House

As Robbie says, learning and adapting song lyrics is part of language and creativity development for young children (at the other end of the scale there are important benefits for the memory and well-being of dementia patients). Children often make endearing mistakes, which I learn from a fascinating article are called Mondegreens. In my childhood all primary schools whether denominational or not had a Christian hymn at daily assembly and misinterpretations were common among the pre-readers. A more recent one suitable for Covid hoarders is “Come, come ye saints! No toilet paper here!” I found the child who sang that here. I wonder if like many children she follows it with:

Our Father who art in Heaven. Harold be thy name…

Photo by Ketut Subiyanto on Pexels.com

Also hooray for the deliberate adaptions! We all know the shepherds were much too busy washing their socks to keep an eye on any sheep. My family left carols alone but they’d roar round the table at Christmas:

Hitler – has only got one ball

The other is in the Albert Hall

Himmler – has something similar

But poor old Goebbels has no balls at all!

You can find many versions of this surreal take on Captain Bogey’s March in an informative but completely po-faced Wikipedia article that describes this as “a World War II British song that mocks Nazi leaders using blue comedy in reference to their testicles…” I’ve searched for the copyright owner but found only: “There is no known attempt by anyone to claim or enforce a copyright on the lyrics.” Writers should always take care quoting song lyrics.

As a teacher, I used song a lot: as a memory or pronunciation aide, to explain simple concepts and just for good old fun. About ten years ago I had the job of teaching teachers who only spoke English to teach French (which I speak fluently) or Spanish (which I have a basic grasp of) or German and Modern Hebrew (which I don’t speak at all) to their classes – do keep up at the back. That tells you all you need to know about investment in expertise for British state education, except that it’s even worse now. It was uphill but entertaining work. One exercise was to get the teachers in groups to set some key vocabulary/phrases to a well-known tune – at the most basic level this might be the numbers 1-5 or a bit later on, classroom objects to the tune of Y Viva España. The first line was:

La regla, el lápiz, el libro y el papel

Ironically I’ve forgotten the rest but the end of each verse was great fun as we went emphatically down the scale:

(1)¡Y el bol-í-gra-fo! (2) ¡Y el peg-a-men-to!

Gracias to www.saveteachersundays.com for reminding me of the vocab.

I was on safer ground with French, so cocky I got my knuckles rapped by senior management when I jazzed up the boring compulsory housekeeping announcements at the beginning of each training session. To the tune of Tea for Two:

En cas de feu, vous descendez

Dans le parking, vous rassemblez

Les WC*, vous trouverez

Tout près…

*pronounced lay-vay-cay

Many resource producers were more adept than me and I’ll be forever grateful to the authors of Français, français for setting an action song about body parts to the Match of the Day theme tune. Even the stroppiest kids took notice when they heard that introduction.

Back to messing about with English. If cheerful songs lend themselves particularly well to pastiche (I’m forever blowing bubbles; Yellow Submarine) so do the most respectable of poems. The first lines of To be or not to be, that is the question… must have been casually adapted by most people at some stage in their lives, with or without apologies to Shakespeare. Browning did us all a favour when he wrote, O to be in England, now that April’s here.. It’s a great leveller when we commoners seize ownership of such classics.  Wikipedia may not crack a smile but the rest of us have fun.

Photo by Suzy Hazelwood on Pexels.com

Blogger time, and the writing is easy

Words are flowing, and I’m seizing the day

I don’t earn much, and I’m hardly good-looking

But hush little blogger, it’s all okay!

I didn’t have a post but now I’ve winged it, albeit to a fairly random audience which could include writers, readers, singers, teachers, and humans. Also I just uploaded two illustrations from the free selection rather than adding lots of my own (but that may be a good thing). All those silly songs have released something in me and I think I’ll enter some writing competitions next. Which songs and poems get your creative juices going?

©Jessica Norrie 2020

Review: the Writers’ & Artists’ Guide to Self-Publishing

https://www.writersandartists.co.uk/store/9781472970299/writers-artists-guide-to-self-publishing/

Last year I was asked to contribute to the Writers and Artists Guide to Self-Publishing. To be more precise, the publishers asked self-published authors to contribute case studies, I responded and they kindly included me. The pandemic delayed my author copies. My thanks now go to Eden Phillips-Harrington, Assistant Editor of W&A yearbooks at Bloomsbury Publishing, who’s written a useful chapter on how publishing – traditional and indie – actually works.

Like others, I didn’t plan to self-publish. But after not quite making it past the editors/gatekeepers of trad publishers despite my agent’s best efforts, that was how my first and second novels appeared and I’ve been learning how to go about it ever since. As for my contribution to this guide, I felt as Groucho Marx did about his club – any book that included my advice wouldn’t be one I’d want to read. Now I realise the guide is a readable mix of useful reassurance, information and “next steps”. Even my words of wisdom may help someone somewhere.

All such information is available online, notably at ALLi (Alliance of Independent Authors) but I did like holding it in one volume, reading from start to finish how the process works, and scrawling pencil notes rather than trawling through linked web pages. W&A is a highly reputable brand and this guide has a practical, no-nonsense approach from a bevy of well qualified and established experts (apart from me). A good general introduction for absolute beginners to the self- publishing world, it also contains information still unfamiliar to me after five years, explains concepts I was pretending to understand and signposts old and new tasks I must get around to (website! Email list!)

The very clear chapter on editing explains, with checklists, what different types of editor do, in which order, with timescales and tasks. Using an editor is non-negotiable. Self-published books have a rotten reputation, partly a hangover from vanity publishing days and still sometimes deserved. It follows that self-published authors have a responsibility to all colleagues and readers to ensure their product is of blameless quality.

As a contemporary fiction author who doesn’t need illustrations, tables, photographs etc, I’ll admit the detailed chapter on design made my head swim! It’s maybe best read after the chapter which explains both physical and ebook production. Providers include firms that undertake every aspect of production for you, including editing, design, manufacture, distribution and marketing, specialist services you can dovetail (you hope) together, and market giants like Ingram Spark or Amazon. Together these chapters start you off whatever your project, establishing when you can go it alone and when you’ll need to pay for professional input.

The distribution model, sales and royalties to expect (or aspire to) are outlined next. These differ widely according to decisions you take at the production stages; bullet pointed lists assist you. Two factual inaccuracies in this chapter highlight the drawbacks of a paperback guide to a constantly changing subject: since it went to press Bertram UK wholesalers, sadly, went into administration, and UK ebooks are no longer subject to VAT.

I HATE MARKETING MY BOOKS! Fortunately, a sympathetically written marketing chapter has made me more receptive. I’m almost basking in the sentence Put the readers’ needs first and you won’t ever feel uncomfortable or like a salesperson. I’ll never write “I love marketing my books” but the checklists, practical suggestions and myth-busting do help. However, fourteen printed links to online sources is too many for one chapter. That’s fine for ebook readers, but…it would have been better to summarise what they say.

Although I HATE MARKETING MY BOOKS, here’s one: http://getbook.at/TheMagicCarpet

The authors’ case studies show the enormous amount of mutual help authors provide. I cannot stress this enough. It’s only human to envy others sometimes, but by and large self-published authors form a supportive and generous community, especially online. It’s also nice to see book bloggers recognised. These mostly unpaid reviewers and publicists give invaluable service and should be treated with care and courtesy at all times or they’ll give up and then where will authors be?
Most people needn’t cover every item on the TEN PAGES of to-do lists, but they do mean you won’t leave anything out. As the guide says, “enjoy ticking them off”. The further information sources and glossary at the back should come in useful too.

Occasional statements beg for expansion. Some strong independent publishers prefer to deal with authors directly, says the Introduction. Since most self-published authors don’t by definition have agents, I imagine readers screaming “Who? WHO?” Although I do understand, in the present climate, how quickly details change.

Although I HATE MARKETING MY BOOKS, here’s another. Http://getbook.at/TheInfinityPool or for the German and French type the title and author into Amazon.

Genre and cost are two elephants in the room. I think genre is within the guide’s scope as the closer a book fits a genre, the more likely a self-published author is to succeed. My own sales have fallen foul of not being crime, romance, horror etc. How did I fall into the quagmire of “general fiction” and is there a helping hand out there?

Producing my first novel cost nothing. A friend supplied the cover photo, a designer friend put it together, we uploaded everything to KDP and off we went. It sold 4000+ copies. Well done me, but I squirm now. Professional editing would have made a good debut better. Second time round I bought design, editing, proofing, a blog tour… maybe £2,500? Your budget is very important! You will be covering all costs yourself and you need to be clear what these are! says chapter 4. But the guide is coy about the sums involved until you reach some of the author case studies which – gulp! – give food for thought to would-be millionaires.

So – helpful, practical, a very good start or waymarker for any self-publishing journey. Now would W&A please publish a guide to using the updated WordPress Gutenberg Block Editor. It has about the same speed and flexibility as its namesake, a printing press designed around 1440. Apologies for any swearing that’s leaked while attempting to write this post. See you next time, unless I give up in despair.

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©Jessica Norrie 2020

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Those who can, teach and translate

I do have some news this week, but first I have a question for you:

Did you ever go to school?

As many of you know, I was a teacher for 33 years. I posted a lot about it when I started this blog, because I was still in harness. Then I retired and with gratitude in my heart for a fascinating career that at last I was leaving (when I started I only intended to stay a few years), I blogged a farewell.

Four years later, what a lot of crap we’ve seen, and even more this week. Nurses, porters, paramedics and hospital cleaners have been refused a pay rise. They’re supposed to live on clapping and rainbows, I suppose. Teachers did get one (from existing money, so something else will have to go), and immediately teachers are blamed for it. Why have they got a pay rise? They haven’t even been in school! Lazy, workshy – and so on.

Right then, today the class task is 5 minutes silent reading which you’ll find here. It’s a heartfelt plea from a practising English teacher. Authors who read this: we need English teachers. They read our books and teach the readers of tomorrow! So head over and read her POV, please, and I want to see you back in here as soon as you’ve finished.

Now spend 5 minutes writing your answer to Susan English. How are you going to help put things right for this teacher and her colleagues? (You at the back – if we don’t get this done today we’ll all be staying in until we do.)

My goodness, look at the state of that exercise book!

This possible model answer is more or less what I commented on her blog:

I do so sympathise. I taught all age groups and some teacher training/school improvement. In my NQT year (then called “probation”) I went to a family party at my new partner’s home in a county where they love to tell you they’re “proud to call a spade a spade”.

“What do you do?” asked an aunt/cousin/bad-fairy-at-the-wedding.
“I’m a teacher,” I said.
“Teachers? I wouldn’t give you the time of day for ’em!” she retorted.
And so it went on… party after party, all my teaching life:

“What do you do?” / “I’m a teacher…”
“Teachers? Ever heard that saying: ‘those who can, do; those who can’t, teach’. Ha ha ha! Oh I remember Mr X/ Ms Y. We used to love winding him up! And we made her cry! Yes, she used to run out the room weeping! Those were the days!”

These otherwise pleasant people somehow became bigoted monsters the moment you said you were a teacher. I can only think each of them had been damaged at an early age by one of the very few colleagues who doesn’t have pupils’ welfare etched deeply in their hearts.

Nowadays I go to parties (currently only on Zoom, of course) and when people say “What do you do?” I say, “I’m a writer!”
“WOW!” they answer. “That’s so impressive! I could never do THAT! You must be so brainy, have such focus, work so hard, have such imagination and empathy…”
“Yup,” I say. “I developed all those when I was teaching, and I did my best to develop them in your children too.”
“You were a teacher? Oh we had this teacher and we used to make her cry…” etc.

When you leave, write a novel about it. Or start one now. Writing The Magic Carpet was as good as therapy and it really boosted my morale. Yes, I HAD done a good job, yes I HAD worked hard, and I know you do too. Even if no-one else does, I’m saying, “You’re a teacher? Well DONE!” 

(A* for the blog post too.)

My teacher-therapy novel, started while still teaching and published last year. More fun than this makes it sound!

What other news do I have? It’s BIG news, it deserves a post to itself and next time I’ll have one. The French version of The Infinity Pool was published this week. It’s called Infinitude. Are you French? Do you know French people? (Could be because a French teacher started you off…) Soon I’ll be interviewing Isabelle the hard working translator but for now here’s the book cover, the link’s above, and here’s some bon vin français to drink a toast. Now please find someone to buy it, and/or Der Infinity-Pool which is the German version because guess what? Teachers DO mostly earn more than authors or translators. Except in respect.

KONICA MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERA

 

©Jessica Norrie 2020

 

A good deal of author news!

It’s funny how the sense of myself as a “real” writer comes and goes. The smallest thing can puncture my self-belief. But this has been an excellent week and I can hold my head high. When I looked up my ALCS payments they were much improved following a dip last season; my agent said Novel 3 is ready to pitch to publishers; and the French translation of The Infinity Pool appears almost ready to publish after a hiatus in which the translator quite reasonably got on with earning her living. In more good news, after many nominations by my agent, The Magic Carpet ebook has been selected for a UK Kindle Monthly Deal. Please tell your friends that from today for a whole month they can fly my magic carpet for 99p. Especially tell the parents, grandparents, child care workers, city dwellers and teachers – it’s uncanny that I wrote about urban families struggling and interacting as they cope with a home/school project and now here so many of you are homeschooling!

99p for the ebook for a month!

In an aside for fellow writers, it was selection for this sort of deal that pushed The Infinity Pool up the charts back in 2015. I think Amazon also advertise them, whereas normally we indie authors are left to sink or swim, so I’m hoping for better visibility, more reviews and improved sales. Being in a deal may also mean it’s price matched globally – worldwide friends, it may be only 99¢ or a very small amount of whatever your local currency is. (Please let me know – if I look at non UK sites I don’t necessarily see the correct data.)

To anyone still wondering whether they’ll get good value for their 99p, another affirming thing to happen this week was a BRILLIANT new review from bookblogger Felicity Grace Terry at Pen and Paper. I’m quoting it at length, not to omit too much of her enthusiasm. But do visit her blog for a refreshing style and good recommendations and not least to pay homage to a bookblogger who’s been at it more than 10 years! And please do comment when you get there – I know so well how much bloggers appreciate comments.

{OOH! A story about the telling of stories. For us bibliophiles things don’t get much better than this, right?}

…I just don’t know where to begin sharing all of the aspects that made it such a joy to read .

…Hats off to the author for giving us such a memorable and authentic cast of characters. That she gave them all (both as individuals and family units) such a unique (and thankfully stereotype and cliche free) voice; that each relationship (indeed every event) was written with such depth, it wasn’t long before I came to invest in them (and) they became as friends and neighbours…

Insightful, heart warming and thought provoking…

Not just well researched but heartfelt; the author’s knowledge and love of teaching young children apparent. That the novel explores just how the issues adults seek to keep from children believing they are shielding them can have a profound effect is just one of the many, many things that, characters and plot in general aside, made The Magic Carpet such an engaging and, yes, important read for me.

SUMMED UP IN A SENTENCE … The utterly engrossing story of a society trying to assimilate different cultures, backgrounds and faiths peopled by characters you cannot help but invest in, The Magic Carpet is every bit a story of our times.

Enormous thanks to Felicity, and thank YOU for your attention. Please do spread the news and I’ll report back later whether there’s still gold in them there deals the way there was last time. Meanwhile stay safe, all of you. And that’s as near as I’ll go to mentioning l*ckd*wn.

©Jessica Norrie 2020

Bookplay

Still determinedly sticking to the positives about this p**ndemic, the creativity it’s brought out in some people is amazing. Have you seen the tableaux of famous art made in response to the Getty Art Museum Challenge? And last week this clever storytelling game appeared online (read the titles on the spines in order). If anyone can tell me  which clever librarians created this, I’ll happily credit them.

Of course I rushed off to see what I could come up with. I found myself immediately in sinister realms – by the way it helps if you add punctuation:

Missing, presumed a matter for the jury, invisible women vanish in an instant. Snap!

Some titles are easier to play with than others. Anything with that begins with “The” is tricky, but Invisible Women could have made multiple contributions, and I’m keeping an eye open for titles to go with, well, Keeping an Eye Open by Julian Barnes. You don’t have to stick to books you have in the house. Swipe a few covers from Goodreads and away you go. It’s surprising how often the final title could just as easily go at the beginning.

Keeping an eye open

for whom the bell tolls

last orders,

in the springtime of the year.

A different, easier game is to find as many titles as you can containing, say, colours, places or people’s names.

Looking for titles with women’s names in them, I chose this cover of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie because I thought it was absolutely lovely.

The prime of Miss Jean Brodiebrodie

It’s a peaceful game, choosing the best cover – on Goodreads search for a book by title, click on “Other editions” on the picture of the cover and enlarge them to see which you like best. There were some strong contenders here; the book clearly inspired many designers.

As a household you could find titles with numbers in them and put them in order. How strict you are depends on your family – do you include ordinals and cardinals and can two or four include too, to, second, for, forth and fourth? The nerds among us might wish to print the covers and display them, or at least write out the titles…

…all the way up to… well, you could set a limit or be open ended. As my daughter’s friend boasted when she was about six: “I can count higher than you! I can count up to infinity!” 

Other ideas for children could include finding covers with animals on them, or little girls or boys; stories about buildings or stories set in the past or “abroad” or somewhere magical. Or all the covers they can find that are mainly red, or have circles on them, or include the letter z somewhere in the title or the author’s name. If you don’t have many books available, try browsing online bookshops. Your children could use your books as well as theirs, with bonus points for putting them back exactly where they found them (adds the alphabetical nerd within).

Book title dominoes is harder, probably not so good for children. You can only build on to the list using the first or last word of a title, although different forms of the same root are allowed, eg animal/animals; farm/farmer/farming. I think for this you’ll have to search beyond what you have at home. See how long you can keep the thread going.

My family and other ANIMALS

ANIMAL FARM

FARMER BOY

BOY; tales of CHILDHOOD

I can’t continue to the left because I’m hard pressed to think of a title that ends in “my” – although perhaps there’s a board book for toddlers called “Mine!” and if there isn’t I’ll write it. But as I’ve discovered in the past it’s fun to see the juxtapositions you get…

Childhood’s end

End of Watch

Watching you

…and there I had to stop because it was surprisingly hard to find books with titles beginning with You or even U (partly because one of my personal rules is it has to be books I’ve either read or would like to read now I’ve discovered them. That Lisa Jewell looks great). An easier version is titles that contain the same word but don’t necessarily match the first or last, or alternating opposites. Archetypal words work well here, eg love, nation, adventure, birth, world…

A ghoulish friend has come up with It’s not the books in your life, it’s the lives in your books. The idea is to replace real death rates with fictional ones on a daily or weekly news bulletin, depending how fast you read, tallying them up as you go and perhaps racing a friend towards a target score. Fortunately in my case Hilary Mantel provides a useful cast list you could use for this while reading The Mirror and the Light. If you decide to play, I don’t recommend choosing this time to bone up on Hamlet….

£17.97

…but a good stack of children’s books should do wonders for morale. 

Finally, over on the TripFiction blog there’s a very cheerful post about books published with predominantly yellow covers. I don’t want to pinch their photos but do drop by and see for yourselves – or make your own. If you can perch an Easter chick or a daffodil on top (if not too late for that where you are) it makes it even prettier.

You know what, soon we’ll all be enjoying ourselves so much we’ll wish lock down would never end! Who needs charades? But I finished my jigsaw and here are the Elmers I said I’d make last time with pride of place on the piano I am no longer playing enough.

 

Stay safe, everyone.

©Jessica Norrie 2020

 

Striking the right note…

I’ve heard there’s this nasty bug going around… No, that’s too trivialising. EVERYONE’S GOING TO DIE! Alarmist, untrue. All things must pass: cliched but almost certainly correct. How are you all, blog followers (unless you’ve dropped out for which I wouldn’t blame you)? I haven’t posted for months, partly due to a second glaucoma operation (fitted in just in time) and partly now due to, well, this bug that’s going around. It’s high time I checked you’re all ok out there, and shared some positives from how I’m passing the locked down time.

This is normally a books and writing blog. Reading does help, it’s true. I’ve finished the latest Philip Pullman – very entertaining, very dark, perhaps a few too many meetings of the Magisterium to hold my interest and I’m not sure he’s quite as secure writing the young woman Lyra as he was writing the child – but as always brilliantly inventive, perceptive, unpatronising, chilling. I needed a complete change after that, so am in the middle of Caroline Criado Perez’s Invisible Women. Just as chilling, in its way. Women are 47% more likely to die in car accidents, because safety trials use male dummies as default. Female pianists are 87% more likely to suffer from RSI due to the size of a standard keyboard. A male investor, faced with a business plan for an  innovative breast pump that outclassed the commonly used standard US models, recoiled in disgust. It’s wittily written, informative, and just as you’re despairing, it has messages of hope. Then when I’m ready to return to fiction, my pile is not for the faint-hearted. Just as well we’re in lockdown.

I finished the 3rd edit of Novel 3 and sent it back to Agent X. Agent X expressed irritation the other day because authors were clamouring along the lines of “you must have loads of time for reading now”. So I won’t nag Agent X, but y’know, if I don’t have a publishing deal by midsummer, I’ll…I’ll…well, I’m not sure what I’ll do.

Still with an eye to words and writing, I signed up for the Curtis Brown Creative Weekly Writing Workout, if only because I have absolutely no idea how to follow Novel 3 and some of their ideas may help. I’m playing online Scrabble with old friends and relations – this site is marvellous because you can swap tiles, use outlandish dictionaries no one else has ever heard of, search for bingos and definitions…It’s more about placement and less about your own skill than the traditional board game, and there are no adverts to distract you, with unlimited games, languages and combinations all for $15 a year.

Every day we go for a walk. Sometimes in countryside within walking distance, sometimes through streets. We seem to be noticing more, and valuing it. Here is a garden in the next road, complete with sculptures and cowslips. On our walks I surreptitiously break off cuttings of overhanging plants, as I was all set to order for empty spaces in our garden when what one choirmaster calls “The Great Adjournment” began.

The ex infant teacher in me is lapping up the online ideas posted to help (or pressurise) parents trying to homeschool their children. As soon as we finish the next plastic milk carton, I’m going to make an Elmer. I don’t happen to have a stock of coloured tissue paper, but there’s wrapping paper, old magazines to cut up, my partner’s clothes…I may unearth my neglected mosaics kit, perhaps when I’ve exhausted the puzzle I bought in Kyoto art gallery (those were the days). Simple pleasures: a jigsaw, a good cup of coffee, and Jenni Murray’s rich, reassuring voice on BBC Woman’s Hour.

Credit for the Elmer design goes to Amy Trow from https://www.facebook.com/groups/houseboundwithkids/

The days start with my home made version of yoga and stretches and then I practise my piano, fortuitously delivered just before lockdown. That means it hasn’t had its inaugural tune, but the friend with whom I swap 5 minute recordings of what we’ve managed today hasn’t complained so far. I’m not posting a recording here as I do have some pride, but the regular, extra time will surely result in a better technique and wider repertoire by the time lockdown ends – won’t it?

I’m very sad there’ll be no Wimbledon and no Dartington this year. I’m apprehensive about catching the virus. I’m concerned for people who were vulnerable before any of this even started – refugees, domestic violence victims, the mentally ill and the disabled. I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t like to see my children, friends and Hackney Singers in real life rather than on Zoom, but otherwise the simple life is rather appealing to me. I’m hoping we’ll all reset our values and habits as a result of this episode. Perhaps we’ll value home cooking more, and fashion that lasts, the company of our partners and our own company. Perhaps wildlife will thrive with less polluting traffic, and have you seen how clear the sky is without aircraft? Maybe our government will at last resource our NHS as it deserves and recognise how much low paid and low prestige workers contribute to society. In the West, at least, some of us had become decadent and spoilt. Perhaps as a species we’ll learn some timely lessons.

I don’t underestimate the difficulties, and I do sincerely hope you all come through unscathed. Take care, wash your hands, stay at home, count your blessings, and if you are a key worker of any kind, I particularly thank you and wish you well.

©Jessica Norrie 2020