Camels and Bowler Hats

The latest tragedy in Pakistan makes me very sad. Sadness doesn’t fit very well with me, so I shall endeavour to cheer myself – and you – with a rather different vision of the place as it was just over eighty years ago.

My grandfather was a journalist and intrepid airman who flew to India in 1932 with a chap called Neville Stack, on one of the earliest flights to make the distance. One of their many refuelling stops was at Gwadar on the coast of Balochistan, of which Quetta is the provincial capital. Here’s what he said about the place.

 Baluchistan, on the edge of the desert, is the abode of quiet, friendly, peaceful people. There is a telephone at the block house which is all that is to be found at the aerodrome. It was possible to telephone to the village for both fuel supplies and food.

 

By 7pm two camels richly laden with choice viands and cool wine arrived for us. The riders astride them habited in Baluchi flowing robes looked very solemn and not a little droll in bowler hats of antique period. These they raised gravely to us in western salute. Then without speaking they descended, barracked the camels, laid out tables and chairs they had brought, spotless tablecloth and table napery, laid a first-class meal, waited on us with perfect manners, and when it was all over packed everything away back on the camels and tendered the bill as if we had been at Quaglino’s. Mounting their camels and with another grave doffing of bowlers in parting salutation they rode silently and mysteriously away.

 

We were alone with the desert. I had seen much of deserts and had slept beneath desert stars and desert moons for three or four years of the War. I am always fascinated by the prospect. 

 

My grandfather William Courtenay, third from left

It was still unbearably hot even in the cool of evening. We all managed to bathe in the plentiful supply of water brought out to us, and remained smoking and yarning till far into the night with our shirts hanging outside our shorts, Eastern fashion, for coolness. Stack regaled us with songs on his ukelele, and the situation was rather incongruous as the pale moon cast her light on the scene below and music from the ukelele to the strains of the ‘Persian Kitten’ floated over the desert.

 After midnight we turned in to enjoy delightful sleep on the hard desert beneath the wings of the monoplane which protected us from the heavy dew of the night. The desert can lull you beautifully to sleep.

 

***

 

I don’t presume to understand the difficulties modern Pakistan has faced to get where it is today. 1932 was a colonial aeon ago, I know. But humour me on this sad day. Close your eyes and smell the desert winds and picture the bowler hats and send positive thoughts to a land in mourning.

Parties, Parties

HAPPY NEW YEAR to you all, and Happy Christmas to you Russian Orthodox lot out there too. I’m sorry I’ve been so rubbish at blogging lately. Wrapping and unwrapping presents has occupied the entirety of my creative brain for nearly a month, not to mention thank you letters and coaxing mini mince pies out of their teensy foil cases without breaking the pastry crust which, I might add, is practically impossible. Did you all have a huge New Year’s Eve party? Where was my invitation? Hmm?

Here is an old poem of mine to reflect the party season. It was requested specially by a friend enjoying her birthday today. Happy Birthday, hon. Hope your celebrations aren’t anything like this.

Simeon’s parties were frightfully gay, renowned for their polish and poise, Peanuts were absent and Twiglets outré; just champers, the girls and the boys. Invites were more often latish than never, but Simeon showed no compunction, For only the in and the rich and the clever would feature at any such function. He handled his guests with the elegant hauteur which only a phoney could feign (Provided the guest was a New Labour voter and drank only vintage champagne), And such was the pitch of the elegant chatter that guests would be filled with delight That their habits and hobbies and feelings should matter to Simeon, host for the night.   It was later than late when she came through the door, her repartee sharpened and burnished, She took in the marquetry parquetry floor, the quarters so properly furnished, Unsure of the reason behind her inviting, beyond the potential resumption Of Simeon’s favours and consequent fighting with women who had the presumption To trespass on territory rightfully hers, by blood and by line and by longing, She’d murder her personal shopper or worse to resume her most rightful belonging. With shoulders set straight and her knees on display, she clutched on her Soave with suavity, And walked in with thoughts in decided array, in purposeful search of depravity.   Gussy the stockbroker offered her punch, and grinned with intential leching, While lesbian Lilian tried to fix lunch and told her her blouson was fetching, She elbowed her way past asparagus tips in determined pursuit of her quarry, She’d offer him languorous kissable lips and tell him how dreadfully sorry She was on the news of his boardroom defeat – he really deserved all the laurels, And she’d never accuse him again in the street of favouring brains over morals. The press of the room would account for the touch – then she’d lean up against him confessing Her palpable need for a favour, not much, which required him to help her undressing.   They sat, a selection of sizes and styles, the exes all patiently waiting For Simeon’s signals, his summons, his smiles, their appetites anxious for sating, She eyed them for battle while chewing a nail and arranging her breasts to display them, Prepared to resort, if bravado should fail, to discourage, disparage or pay them. But too late! For it seemed that on Simeon’s arm, a vision of ravishing beauty All dripping with diamonds and “Darling!”s and charm was fast making off with the booty. She watched with dismay as they mounted the stair, enrapt in each other’s attention, Her poise disappeared and she clutched at her hair, and bellowed a word I can’t mention.   Mutiny! Riot! The party scene ends, in shards of surprising unsorrow, The exes converse like the closest of friends and arrange to have dinner tomorrow, The guests laugh out loud in united abhorrence of all that their host has created, They stop talking Wagner, Derrida and Lawrence, discussing instead how they hated The primping and preening of cash-rich careers, the choking society rigours, And wishing for Twister and Scrabble and beers, and pizza to ruin their figures.   Simeon’s parties are no longer graced by the guests that he wants to invite, They are filled with the dull and the square and the chaste, and it serves him jolly well right.

Wolves and Angels

Fresh-faced from my first conference: The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators at the University of Winchester. What a gas! Brilliant speakers in Celia Rees and Debi Gliori, more spent on books in 2 days than I normally manage in a month, good food and conversation, and a terrific workshop with experts Julia Bell and Julia Golding which revealed to me how LAZY I am about characterisation.

Questions to ask when you come up with a character.

1. Who is this person?

2. What is their mood colour?
3. What animal do they remind you of?

4. What do they smell of?

5. What was the last thing they ate?
6. What are they thinking, the first time you see them?

 

*cracks knuckles, settles down to task, tongue firmly clamped between teeth*

Right. Let’s take, say, a wolf. 1) He’s a wolf. 2) He’s wolf-coloured. 3) He reminds me of a wolf. (This gets better.) 4) He smells of wet dog. 5) The last thing he ate was me. 6) He was thinking, ‘I’ll eat that author right there because she’s rubbish at characters.’

Hey, this is fun! I’m good at this! Let’s try another one.  1) He’s an angel. 2) He’s bright orange. 3) He reminds me of a golden eagle. 4) He smells of fire. 5) The last thing he ate was completely irrelevant because he’s an ANGEL, haven’t you been listening? 6) He was thinking something much too profound to put into words.

Fine. One angel, one wolf. So far so good. OR SO I THOUGHT.

Now swap one of the wolf’s six elements with one of the angel’s. Suddenly your angel smells of wet dog, and your wolf is bright orange. Or your angel likes eating authors and you have a zen wolf with a PhD in Philosophy. Zing!

This is so totally cool that I’m just going to leave it there.

 

Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad E-Book?

“I’m sure there’s a bookshop here somewhere”

It’s scary out there. The apocalypse is upon us, and I’m not talking about Superstorm Sandy. The existence of the human race hangs by a thread of organic matter because the e-book is no longer a dystopian vision of the future. It’s HERE! It’s REAL! It will devour you from the inside out and transform you into… into… someone dependent on yet another gadget! The days of paper and print are over, dead, finished, kaput, erased! Excuse me for a moment while I shriek in ghastly terror.

Yikes.

OK, now I’ve got the terror thing off my chest, let’s get sensible.

Books are stories, and stories are about as far from physical as you can get. If you want to commit stories to something more solid than the air from which you have pulled them, then words are still black things on a white background, whether electronic or the pulp from a dead tree. E-jokes or inky ones have an equal power to make you laugh, or perhaps just wonder how that author ever got a deal creating jokes as bad as the one you’ve just read. Self-publishing has got easier, fulfilling long-held dreams and occasionally making money. Why the fear?

All-round gorgeous readability

I went to a lovely party at the local Waterstones last Friday, celebrating a recent deal with Amazon whereby they can sell Kindles alongside what might be coyly termed ‘real’ books. The shop looked great. Inviting, varied, exciting. Rainbows of titles on the shelves, canapes from Waitrose, Rosamund Lupton to talk to, a quietly investigative Kindle corner. The only thing missing was a large sofa into which one might sink while perusing Nigellissima in hardback form. What is there to be scared of, apart from a hole in your purse from spending too much on words in their endless lovely forms? Better that than an ill-advised pair of shoes at ten times the price. (Ehem.)

There is still plenty of room in the world for the physicality of books. Their smell, weightiness and colour; their paper silky or textured; the delicious crunch as you open up the spine for the first time. (I believe orthopaedic surgeons feel much the same about that last one.) So stop screaming, people. Make room for books on your shelves and an e-reader in your pocket. Buy two editions of the stuff that you like: the e-version and the paperback. That’s TWICE as many stories out there as before. And that’s not scary at all.

Booby Prize

What a day! The sun is so bright it’s clearly struck up a sponsorship deal with that dishwasher product, Finish. Or maybe De Beers. Anyway, someone big and shiny enough to sponsor the sun. AND it’s National Poetry Day. So that means basically that you’re in for a poem with sunny bits.

This is a poem I wrote around fifteen years ago, on a pleasant summer’s day. I need to warn you that it makes uncomfortable reading because EVERY WORD is true.

Oh Eva. You have no idea.

The sky was blue, the sun was hot,

She felt her Wonderbra would not

Be comfy in the heat,

So breezy cool in buttoned frock

She stuffed her sunbag chock-a-block

And headed for the street.

 

The frock was a navy blue stretchy sundress with buttons from neck to navel. This is an important detail.

This is what I looked like as I jumped on the bus. Minus the hat. And whip. And horse.

The bus went by with speedy roar,

She upped her gears from one to four

To catch that bus, oh glory!

Adrenalin in heart and head,

She galloped like a thoroughbred

When ridden by Dettori.

 

I like to imagine at this point that I looked marvellously lithe and lissome, charging down the pavement. In my buttoned frock sans Wonderbra. Can you see where this is going?

The bus disgorged its sweaty horde –

She leaped upon the running board

With antelope finesse,

All peered above their magazines

With eyes as big as tangerines

And focused on her dress.

 

“Read on, Lizzie,” as Mr Bennet would say in a heavy voice.

The passengers appeared to freeze –

She sensed a rather pleasant breeze

About her upper body,

Then saw with dreadful clarity

Her bosoms waving loose and free

Enthralling everybody.

Ealing. That is all.

 

Damn buttons.

She steeled her very British nerve

And swivelled slowly to observe

The driver dazed and reeling,

She tucked herself in decently,

Then said with awful dignity:

“A day return to Ealing.”

 

(OK, not every word is true. I bought a ticket to Putney.)

The Great British Write Off

“Should it be less or fewer buns, Mary?”
“Depends how many chaps are in the changing room, Paul.”

It’s a show in the making. Imagine the fame and fortune, the prime-time slot. The book deal goes without saying. Instead of a pinny, a holey cardigan whose chief merits are how nicely it wraps around you three times, with the added advantage of a breast pocket to keep hair bands in. Instead of staring at the oven and muttering, substitute a screen of that blue variety all writers dread. Explode every now and again for the entertainment of the masses.

OH GOD! IT’S CRASHED! LITERALLY, I HAVE LOST THE PLOT!

Judges Lynne Truss and Louise Doughty pace about offering amusing remarks about infantile sentence construction while outside the tent it rains cats and dogs. Writers make sweaty notes about avoiding clichés. They observe each other’s workstations, assessing the ratio of Post-Its to yoghurt-coated raisins, and take a measured guess where the serious competition lies. All communication between contestants is via Twitter.

“Dividing me brings certain copyright issues.”

Rather like Gaul, the contest is divided into three parts.

1. Signature challenge: Authors are required to sign five hundred books, all with a variant spelling of “Josephine”. The signatures must be uniform from start to finish.

2. Technical challenge: Competitors produce a sentence at least a hundred words long, intermittently broken up with interesting punctuation. This is tested blind, which is a challenge in itself.

3. Showstopper challenge: competitors must dazzle, adding those unique touches of humour, finesse and hazelnut parfait that really make them stand out from the crowd.

At the end of the show, one writer is selected as Waterstones Book of the Month. Another is pulped on the spot. The rest breathe again, safe in the knowledge that it’s been a journey of 110% which they’ll write about that bit harder next week.

“Soggy bottom alert! I just spilt my tea on the keyboard.”

Rules for Writing (3)

For my last trick, I would like to assess a former Poet Laureate and his suitability for life as a children’s entertainer – for that, minus the squirty flower, is what we children’s writers are.

Poetry in Motion

Sir Andrew Motion: economical with words and with a surname that makes me want to move along in a perambulatory fashion. We are spoiled for children’s poets, though they aren’t as celebrated as they deserve to be: Benjamin Zephaniah, Roger McGough, Michael Rosen, Giles Andreae, Shel Silverstein to name but a scraping from beneath my little fingernail. Would Sir Andrew suit this life, or is he too airy-fairy? Here are his 10 rules for a productive writing career.

1. Decide when in the day (or night) it best suits you to write, and organise your life accordingly.

How many times have I sat bolt upright in bed and thought to myself: “3am! I must get to my writing implements at once!” Er, never. Daytime writer, me.

2. Think with your senses as well as your brain.

This is like seeing with your eyes closed, shopping without spending, singing in your head and other sundry every-day experiences. Fine advice.

“Seriously. The human was big.”

3. Honour the miraculousness of the ordinary.

NAUGHTY FAIRIES legitimised my love of scrutinising the small things and then rushing inside to write about them. The bloom on a wet pebble. The smell of a beetle’s wings. How furry a bumblebee actually is. Writers don’t need mass world events to produce good material. Here’s a challenge for you. Sit in front of a flower for five minutes and look. Note colours, smells, textures, insect activity. Observe the fairy thumbing its nose at you from the tiny leaf near the base of the plant. Thumb your nose back. Write it down. Ta-da. A book.

4. Lock different characters/elements in a room and tell them to get on.

There is something pleasingly totalitarian about this. “Just TALK to each other! How hard can it be? You went to Hogwarts, he went to Hogwarts…”

5. Remember there is no such thing as nonsense.

Bionic hamsters notwithstanding.

6. Bear in mind Oscar Wilde’s dictum that “only mediocrities develop” – and ­challenge it.

I can’t decide if this means the Poet Laureate feels mediocre himself, or if he thinks we can all be geniuses if we work at it, or both. A bit obfuscatory I feel.

7. Let your work stand before deciding whether or not to serve.

I like the implication that my books are, in fact, a case of fine wine. Another glass of silly jokes and peculiar metaphors, Vicar?

8. Think big and stay particular.

This sounds terrifically guru-ish, if a bit smug. I have no idea how to put it into practice but I’d like to try.

9. Write for tomorrow, not for today.

I believe one has to be rich in order to think like this. There’s no shame in approaching your writing commercially if you have bills to pay, not to mention men in dark suits standing at lonely crossroads with weaponry, receipts and long memories. The perfect approach is a mixture of both. Write for 11.59pm – 12.01am. Bingo.

10. Work hard.

You’re meant to be a poet, man! I am sure this dull little truism was SUPPOSED to read: “Chase those words around like sheep, with hours to go before you sleep.”

Which brings Sir Andrew Motion’s total to an arbitrary 6/10. Don’t ask me how I reach these figures, people. Call it artistic licence. All together now: There once was a poet called Motion…

When approached for this 10 rules thing, Philip Pullman wisely declared: “My main rule is to say no to things like this, which tempt me away from my proper work.” So it’s back to penguins for me tomorrow.

Rules for Writing (2)

A big rule in children’s books is: no stand-alones. It’s important to think in trilogies, sets of six, that kind of thing. So let’s do three of these ‘Rules for Writing’ riffs and take it from there. You never know. I might sell translation rights and get a licensing deal. It’s important to be open-ended.

Margaret Atwood: showing how it’s done

After the disappointment of Elmore Leonard (see Rules of Writing (1)), who better to analyse next than Margaret Atwood? Her book THE HANDMAID’S TALE totally out-dystopes THE HUNGER GAMES and boots it into a cocked cornucopia. How would Ms Atwood fare in the cut-throat world of ponies, bottom jokes and amusing chapter-head puns inhabited by phraseandfable? Here are her ten rules.

1. Take a pencil to write with on aeroplanes. Pens leak. But if the pencil breaks, you can’t sharpen it on the plane, because you can’t take knives with you. Therefore: take two pencils.

This is not just advice about writing, friends. It’s advice about life.

2. If both pencils break, you can do a rough sharpening job with a nail file of the metal or glass type.

This woman really thinks things through. You could give her a dragon rampaging through an enchanted forest, no problem. No randomly burned villages. No continuity issues with the heroine’s hair or ill thought-out knight scenarios.

3. Take something to write on. Paper is good. In a pinch, pieces of wood or your arm will do.

You have an idea and you desperately need to write it down because your brain is like a teabag and just the tiniest amount of hot water will wash all your thoughts into the chipped mug of forgetfulness. And YOU HAVE NO PAPER! It’s a disaster! A… what was I talking about again?

4. If you’re using a computer, always safeguard new text with a ­memory stick.

Yes. Unless you really REALLY enjoyed that extremely complex exposition about your future world / alien planet / superpower accident and fancy doing it all over again in exactly the same way.

5. Do back exercises. Pain is distracting.

Comfy writing chair: check. Well-positioned keyboard: check. That’s your lot. Be grateful.

6. Hold the reader’s attention. But you don’t know who the reader is, so it’s like shooting fish with a slingshot in the dark. What ­fascinates A will bore the pants off B.

Children’s writers have a small advantage of writing for age bands / genders here. As a rule of thumb, boys hate ballet, girl heroes and kissing. Girls like everything. Editors and sales folk believe this to be true. I can’t speak for the writers or the actual children themselves.

7. You most likely need a thesaurus, a rudimentary grammar book, and a grip on reality.

Lose the grip on reality, Mags. It’s a hindrance.

How did I get here again?

8. You can never judge your own book because you’ve seen how the rabbits were smuggled into the hat. 

I’m deeply interested in those rabbits. Were they up your sleeve? Inside your shirt? Whipped up from a parallel universe with an incantation whose precise origins are lost in a sea of time and wizards?

9. Don’t sit down in the middle of the woods. If you’re lost in the plot or blocked, retrace your steps to where you went wrong. 

THE GRUFFALO is a good example of what can happen if you sit down in the middle of the woods without having first checked everything out. Even if your nut is Fairtrade.

*NEWSFLASH* Gruffalo loses the plot

10. Prayer might work. Or reading ­something else. Or a constant visual­isation of the holy grail that is the finished, published version of your resplendent book.

Also prawn cocktail crisps and Mah Jong online.

***

A whopping 8/10 for Margaret Atwood there, people. But we shouldn’t be surprised. She’s done children’s books already and the titles are fabulous. WANDERING WENDA AND WIDOW WALLOP’S WUNDERGROUND WASHERY, for goodness sake! Genius!

Rules for Writing (1)

I found a great article in The Guardian some time ago, where famous writers gave their ten rules about writing. Should we children’s authors follow the same rules? Isn’t there’s too much else going on inside the crazy place that we call, for the sake of argument, our heads?

Elmore Leonard:
King of fart jokes

The first sage and important grown-up author on the list: Elmore Leonard, American king of westerns and thrillers. Kids love both. Bodes well. So how will he score in the face of the merciless forensic analysis that is phraseandfable?

1. Never open a book with weather.

Personally, I love it when a book cracks you right into a custard rainstorm, or a howling wind so cold that the nearest iceberg is reaching for a bobble hat and a warming mug of Horlicks.

2. Avoid prologues.

Try breaking this to the prologues. What have they ever done to you? Children’s writing is about inclusivity, man! Prologues all the way in this house!

3. Never use a verb other than “said” to carry dialogue.

When I write young fiction, I think about this question a great deal. Shouldn’t I be introducing a few more exciting words to enhance my young readers’ vocabulary? Joked, groaned, bellowed? Prognosticated? Please, can I use prognosticated?

“And… FIRE”

4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb “said”.

I admit to a fear of adverbs, especially the hairy ones with too many legs. I should take heart from JK Rowling. There’s a writer who wasn’t scared. Armies of adverbs advance through her books, left, right and hopefully. As with most things, moderation is the key.

5. Keep your exclamation points ­under control.

Good lord, Leonard, you fool! These are children we’re talking about! CHILDREN!! They LOVE ‘EM!!!

6. Never use the words “suddenly” or “all hell broke loose”.

… except when hell suddenly breaks loose, which happens a lot around Darren Shan and David Gatward. Just saying.

“Wha gwaan?”

7. Use regional dialect – patois – sparingly.

To which I shall merely reply: Rastamouse.

8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.

What about when the character has six heads and green teeth? Or is a witch in fabulous stripy socks? When it’s VERY IMPORTANT INDEED that you know the character you’re reading about is a weird vegetarian vampire about to bite your neck and turn you into a beetroot? Please.

9. Don’t go into great detail describing places and things.

Crikey, Len. First people, now places. Don’t you describe anything at all? Description can be GOOD. Pirate ships with window boxes and pants drying in the rigging. Cute koala cubs with ears like cheerleaders’ pompoms. Odd planets where everything’s just deliciously wrong. The precise squidginess of chocolate cake.

SCARLET SILVER: swimming with description

10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.

At last! Totally with you on this one. If you’ve got stuff readers tend to skip, then you’ve got no business being a children’s writer. Or indeed, any sort of writer at all.

And finally:

My most important rule is one that sums up the 10: if it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.

Best advice of the lot. Read over what you’ve written. Then read it again. Then fix it. But leave the bit about the dinosaur drooling on the teacher’s handbag. I love that bit.

* * * * *

So there you go, all those friends and weirdos still hanging in there as I ramble away. Elmore Leonard scores 2½ out of 11 as a children’s writer. Disappointing. No Working Partners commissions for him any time soon. 

Apply Here and Pray

Someone I know has just asked if I can help with his CV and write a covering note for a prospective employer. I’m happy to offer my expertise. But just how wise is it to ask a children’s fiction author to write your personal statement for you?

It’s the warrior! And I just bought a new hat

As a highly motivated warrior with a tendency for flaying squirrels and pinning them to the enemy’s heavily bolted wooden gates, I’m just the person for the job at Krumbly Biscuits Inc. My hand can be turned to any task, however bloodthirsty, and I have a nice line in battle cries. I sprinkle Rice Krispies in my hair and encourage crows to widdle on my head as I make my final death charge. It makes a fine show as I storm the gates at annual sales conferences.

Having just completed my degree in Fairies, Witches and Magic, I feel that I could bring an inexplicable something to Carpet & Rug Ltd. Something which none of your customers could explain, but which might leave them with a warm sense of well-being and an urge to dance uncontrollably through your salesroom, singing about shagpile.

Qualifications: chocolate

Passionately committed as I am to finance-related products, there is a risk that halfway through a sales pitch for you at Sign Up & Cry, I will bite off my own head and post it to Belgium where it will gorge on chocolate and send you postcards written with its tongue.

Skill set: includes incineration

I would bring a wide range of colour, jokes and entertainment to the Soupy’s Circus staffroom at break times, occasionally pointing out of the tent window while gasping: “Was that a dragon I just saw, buffing the Ringmaster’s unicycle?”

I’m going to enjoy this. I can’t speak for the friend, although he’s bound to find an extremely interesting job by the time I’ve finished with him.