Angry Robot Books Opens A YA List

Here's a press release I got yesterday, at the same time as the other one I've posted. Angry Robot is a press of which I've heard; Joanne Anderton, a wonderful Aussie writer, sold them a novel which has been published recently, and this one doesn't seem to restrict itself to US writers, so if you want to go take a look at their web site, give it a go. You may sell them something! :-)

Angry Robot announces new YA imprint, Strange Chemistry

Angry Robot, the award-winning publisher of SF, F and WTF are pleased to announce their newest venture – a sister imprint, Strange Chemistry, which will publish Young Adult genre fiction.

The imprint will launch in September 2012, with five titles appearing before the end of that year, before settling down to one book each month. Strange Chemistry will follow AR’s strategy of co-publishing its books simultaneously in the US and UK, in both eBook and paperback formats. Subject matter will include fantasy, science fiction, supernatural and horror, and as with Angry Robot the lines between those genres are likely to be very blurry at times.

Running the imprint will be Amanda Rutter, until recently best known as the tireless blogger behind genre review site, Floor-to-Ceiling Books. She takes up her position in Angry Robot’s headquarters in Nottingham on December 12th.

Angry Robot’s managing director Marc Gascoigne said: “The key to any truly successful genre imprint is the personality of its editors. In Amanda we’ve found the perfect mix of editing skills and wild, wild enthusiasm for the subject. Her first signings are already making us jump up and down in excitement. We’re beyond delighted to welcome her to the team.”

Amanda Rutter commented, “Angry Robot have quickly become one of the most exciting and challenging genre publishers around, and I have so much admiration for the types of novels that the guys are bringing to the world of speculative fiction. I’m absolutely thrilled that I have the opportunity to join the team, and create a list full of Young Adult novels that share the same sharpness and passion as those in the AR list.”

:::

More information can be found at Strange Chemistry and Angry Robot Books. You can meet Amanda at http://floor-to-ceiling- books.blogspot.com.

Angry Robot is a new genre publisher, bringing readers the best in new SF, F and WTF?! All titles are released as paperbacks and in all major eBook formats. Distribution

is through Random House (North America) and GBS (UK). Angry Robot is part of the Osprey Group.

For more information, review copies, interview and feature requests contact our Marketing Manager, Darren Turpin at darren.turpin@angryrobotbooks.com or +44 (0)773 – 410 4792

Books for Darfur! And A Competition for new (American) YA writers

Today, I got this request. It seems like a very good deal and support for a good cause. The bad news is that you have to live in the US to enter, but with luck there are some US folk reading this, so I thought I'd put it up on my blog anyway. I work with a lot of African students, including plenty of Sudanese, and knowing what they've been through, I'd like to cheer this cause. Even if you don't win the competition, the anthology seems well worth buying. Just follow the link and decide for yourself.


Dear The Great Raven, 

Can you share this new Essay Contest for Aspiring Writers of YA/middle grade fiction with the readers of your blog?  Thanks if you can.  Please contact us if you have any questions.  Lorraine Kleinwaks, Book Wish Foundation, 571-281-3117.
______________________________

Win a literary agent or acclaimed author's feedback on your unpublished manuscript for young adult or middle grade readers.  This rare opportunity is being offered to the six winners of an essay contest recently announced by the literacy charity Book Wish Foundation.  See http://bookwish.org/contest for full details.

You could win a manuscript critique from:

• Laura Langlie, literary agent for Meg Cabot

• Nancy Gallt, literary agent for Jeanne DuPrau

• Brenda Bowen, literary agent and editor of Karen Hesse's Newbery Medal winner Out of the Dust

• Ann M. Martin, winner of the Newbery Honor for A Corner of the Universe

• Francisco X. Stork, winner of the Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award for The Last Summer of the Death Warriors

• Cynthia Voigt, winner of the Newbery Medal for Dicey's Song and the Newbery Honor for A Solitary Blue

All that separates you from this prize is a 500-word essay about a short story in Book Wish Foundation's new anthology,What You Wish For.  Essays are due Feb. 1, 2012 and winners will be announced around Mar. 1, 2012.  If you win, you will have six months to submit the first 50 pages of your manuscript for critique (which means you can enter the contest even if you haven't finished, or started, your manuscript).  You can even enter multiple times, with essays about more than one of the contest stories, for a chance to win up to six critiques.

If you dream of being a published author, this is an opportunity you should not miss.  To enter, follow the instructions athttp://bookwish.org/contest.

Good luck and best wishes,

Logan Kleinwaks
President, Book Wish Foundation

What You Wish For (ISBN 9780399254543, Putnam Juvenile, Sep. 15, 2011) is a collection of short stories and poems about wishes from 18 all-star writers: Meg Cabot, Jeanne DuPrau, Cornelia Funke, Nikki Giovanni, John Green, Karen Hesse, Ann M. Martin, Alexander McCall Smith, Marilyn Nelson, Naomi Shihab Nye, Joyce Carol Oates, Nate Powell, Sofia Quintero, Gary Soto, R.L. Stine, Francisco X. Stork, Cynthia Voigt, Jane Yolen.  With a Foreword by Mia Farrow.  Book Wish Foundation is donating 100% of its proceeds from the book to the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, to fund the development of libraries in Darfuri refugee camps in eastern Chad.

THE KING’S BASTARD: Book 1 of The Chronicles Of King Rolen’s Kin, By Rowena Cory Daniells. Oxford: Solaris, 2010

Byren Rolen Kingson, a prince of the kingdom of Rolencia, is only seven minutes younger than his twin, Lence, making Lence the heir to the throne. That is fine with Byren, who has no interest in ruling Rolencia, but strange things are happening. Suddenly, the brother with whom he has been close all their lives, is not happy with him, and the terrifying forecast made by the old seer at the start of the book seems all too possible.

And Byren has other troubles. His cousin and best friend, Orrade, is declaring his love for Byren, the girl Byren loves thinks he prefers her brother, warlords out in the mountains may be on the rampage and Byren’s father is sending him into the middle of it.

At some time in the past, during King Rolen’s teens, there was a rebellion by the Servants of Palos, an organization with gay links and renegade Power Workers supported them, killing Rolen’s father and brother. As a result, gay men are definitely not welcome in Rolencia and anyone born with something called Affinity is banished, executed or sent to an abbey where he or she will be trained to use their power for the benefit of the kingdom. The youngest son of the royal family, Fyn, is there already – and there may be another family member with the unwanted gift…

The world-building in this book is fascinating and, to be honest, my favourite part of it.  What is Affinity? While you can be born with it, there are things called seeps that bring it up from under the earth, so is it a genetic thing or is it to do with the planet? Perhaps this will be revealed in a future volume.

The society is more or less mediaeval Europe, but with additions. Instead of a Church, there is a god and goddess, although they are served by monks and nuns with Affinity. The entire novel takes place in winter, when the lakes, rivers and canals are frozen hard, making skating a viable form of travel, sometimes faster than going by horse, where there is a short cut. Everyone skates. Such heraldic animals as manticores and phoenixes (or, in this world, foenixes) are real and have a normal life cycle like any other animal, although they are known as Affinity beasts. There are unistags, rather than unicorns and leogryfs rather than hippogriffs (although the hippogriff is, I have read, a joke animal created long after heraldry came into being), but when you carry a unistag on your shield, you know there are real ones out there.

I quite like all the politics, which is reflected in a game called Duelling Kingdoms, not unlike the game of Thud in Terry Pratchett’s novel of the same name.

I did wonder whether King Rolen had thought out his strategy of putting all those people with powers into abbeys, where anyone with ambition or resentment has access to followers with a variety of powers. If it was me, I’d be putting my son there to make sure he became abbot and supported me, not to get rid of the runt of the litter.

But then, King Rolen isn’t the smartest character in the book and has issues that blind him.

And there are two more volumes to come, tying up all the ends. Hopefully, they will answer all the questions this book raises.

Picking Names For Fiction

Recently on Goodreads, I came across a post by an author who is working on a novel. One of her minor characters had a name the publishers didn't like, so she was inviting her fans to suggest names. It made me think about how I choose names for my characters. I'm not -

Interruption! We have our first Children's Laureates, just heard it on the news! About time. They've had them in England for YEARS. Did you know, at one point, there was serious danger of there being no money to run the Children's Book Council of Australia awards? That hasn't happened, fortunately, but it goes with the attitude of folk who ask me when I'm going to write an adult, i.e. a "real" book. (My response is always, "Never!") The first two Aussie Laureates (for two years) are Boori Monty Pryor and Alison Lester. They will have the job of getting kids to read. I will be following this with great interest, and mention it on this blog whenever I hear about it. I am thrilled to bits! Here's a link to a news article on-line, though there must be more; today's Sydney Morning Herald.


Now, back to the topic of this post - names, as I do them. In a previous post I discussed names in Harry Potter (and recently I wandered back to Insideadog and found, to my delight, that a young reader had commented on that post after all and liked it. Which reminds me, I owe Cara some bookmarks, must email the CYL and ask for them to pass them on, as I don't have the young lady's address.). I noted that the names in JKR's novels generally have meanings that are appropriate for the characters concerned. I think it's wonderful the way she has worked them out, but me - I mostly pick names because I like them.

This was mostly the case for Wolfborn, though I did have some characters with names that meant a little more than that. The wise-woman was called Sylvie because she lived in the forest. The werewolf knight's fief was originally called Lupin ... until I read the third Harry Potter novel and realised that it was no longer an in-joke - someone else had got to it before me. I called him Geraint, even though it didn't fit in with all the French names, because I liked it and because it was a name associated with mediaeval romance.

Eglantine, another of my characters, was named for Chaucer's Prioress for reasons I can't reveal without spoilers, but also because I thought it a good, soppy name for a soppy character, and from what I've read, it may be that Chaucer also thought it a nicely soppy name. ;-)

The Faerie characters were originally named after the ones in Shakespeare. "Come on, Sue, you KNOW Oberon and Titania didn't appear till much later than this story!" said my editor (it was my own universe, but yes, it was meant to be a sort of twelfth century Europe) so, grumbling to myself, I found them other names - the names of a couple of Celtic gods who were appropriate for these two characters - a horned god and a goddess of the grove with whom he was associated. But personality-wise they remained Oberon and Titania.

My short story called "Brothers", which is being published in the Specusphere anthology Mythic Resonance, early next year,  was based on Snow White. I called the princess Blanche (White) and because I'd decided that my seven dwarfs were going to be seven Dwarves a la Tolkien, I gave them Norse names.

You do have to be careful with name choices. Justin D'Ath wrote his novel Pool with a heroine called Audrey who had nearly drowned in a pool as a child and had miracles associated with her. All he had in mind, he tells me, was Audrey Hepburn, but some of my students, researching for their creative responses to the book for English, stumbled across information about an American girl called Audrey whose story was uncannily like the one in the book! Now, it may be he read about it in the news some years ago and forgot, but as far as he knows he had never heard of the real-life Audrey.

At least he got to choose his names. Try writing for the education publishing industry and thinking carefully about your names!

Publishers there will change your names at the drop of a hat, without consulting you; the first you know of it, often enough, is when you get your contributor's copy!

I wrote two chapter books for the education industry, The Sea's Secret and Grey Goo. The former was about a hunt for a painting donated to the school before the artist arrives for a visit. Nobody knows what happened to it, since it was twenty years ago, and there are rumours about the Principal of the time having kept it. I had three siblings, Ariel, Hanna and Nehama.

Ariel became Adam, Hanna became Hannah. Oddly enough, even though these and other names in the book were Anglo-ised, the youngest sister, Nehama, remained Nehama. In the American edition, the Principal's name and gender were changed. I wouldn't have minded so much if they hadn't been changed halfway through the book! I remember reading my contributor's copy of the US edition and saying, "Hang on, who's ... ? Oh. The Principal? " The thing is, somewhere in the US, someone is reading my book - a teacher, a librarian, a parent - and thinking, "What sort of an idiot can't remember the names and genders of her own characters?" Sigh!

Grey Goo had a heroine called Amelia, named for my little niece. In the original manuscript and right up to the page proofs, her brother was called Max, the name of the real-life Amelia's brother. Proudly, I showed the kids the page proofs, promising them a copy of the book when it came out.

Problem: when I got the book, the heroine was still Amelia, but she now had a brother called Mark. When I inquired, I was told that there was a character called Max in another of their books, so they had decided to change this one. I still can't see any reason for it, but there you are. They weren't the ones who had to break the news to Max that he had been bumped from my book. I let him keep the page proofs.

Whenever I need a teacher, I call him Mr Pearl after my brother-in-law, who is the best primary teacher I know, but as it happens, he will appear in my short story "Call Him Ringo" in Trust Me Too, being put out next year by Ford Street Publishing, for a different reason. It's about the Beatles' visit to Melbourne in 1964, and my brother-in-law, long before he met my sister, was at the Southern Cross on the day the fans gathered outside the hotel because their heroes were staying there. How could I not give him a walk-on?

There are plenty of on-line name generators which are no doubt fun, but even choosing a name just because you like it is no reason to choose one at random, without caring about the character, however minor. I am never going to do that.

After Midnight, Still Going

I've spent the evening at the opera (and couldn't believe that parents would bring children to see an opera about a dying courtesan in 19th century Paris, but serve them right if they have to explain it). Now, I'm sitting here on-line, after midnight, loading my students' book trailers on to iMovie, adding them to the Literature Circles movie, so I can burn more discs. Today I showed my class the last of A Midsummer Night's Dream (they loved it! I hadn't intended to show them the lot, but they wanted me to, so...) and then, with a few minutes left, I showed them the book trailers done by some of them. They were interested and when I asked them who wanted a copy of these and the Literature Circles movie (they've seen bits of that before I edited it on iMovie) nearly every hand went up. So, because next Friday will be our last class together (sob!) I thought I'd present each student with a DVD.

And there were some nice trailers there, though everyone chose music which cut out before the trailer finished (but the music was appropriate in all cases). Andy and Amadeu did theirs on Dragonkeeper, using almost the same images and the same music, but they were different. Andy asked me if he could fix his up because he spotted some errors. He can, of course, though if he doesn't get it to me by tomorrow, I won't have time to add the corrected version to the student DVD - I want to do some on the weekend. Andy is our computer genius, but it was Amadeu who knew how to convert raw Moviemaker files to WMV(and then I converted them again, using Handbrake!). Michael's trailer for Once was beautiful.  Minh had done his on the novel his group read, Cirque Du Freak (Darren Shan). I watched him research it, looking for pictures of freaks from freak shows. They aren't exactly the ones in the novel, but impressive all the same, with a good musical soundtrack. Taylor kept looking through Google Images for just the right pictures to use to represent Wolfgang and Audrey and families for her trailer of Justin D'Ath's Pool (and I will be sending Justin a copy at some stage, as promised). Emily did a very good trailer of Marianne De Pierres' Burn Bright, with music changing abruptly when she got to the bit about Ixion, the isle of Evernight, to a loud rock beat, appropriate for a place where teenagers party all night. "Hey, I did one on Burn Bright!" called Brittany and I suggested she gets it to me so I can add it to the DVD. It was supposed to be a part of the assessment. She was actually studying Pool, but loves Burn Bright. Elizabeth and Rana did A Ghost In My Suitcase, but it was too late to add music. I'm putting on the silent trailer anyway.

I will be adding Paige's lovely, if short, trailer for Fallen, because the rest of the class admire it.

Gotta go to bed, guys! I still have to be up at six, but Amadeu's trailer is taking ages to load.

Pepa and Shane Interview Gabrielle Wang

 One of the nicest things about being involved in children's and YA writing is the people you meet. Gabrielle Wang, the author of several lovely, gentle fantastical books for young readers, is a Melbourne writer, so we've met at a number of events at the Centre for Youth Literature and other places. Two of my students, Pepa and Shane, absolutely loved her novel A Ghost In My Suitcase, which they read for English, as a part of Literature Circles - so much that they hunted up her other books to read. Pepa is currently enjoying Little Paradise. It seemed a logical follow-up to ask her some questions - and Gabrielle very kindly agreed to answer them - not only that, but to publish the interview on her own web site. But for now, you've read it here first! Take it away, girls!

P/S: Did you write this book to help children face their fears against ghosts they are afraid to find?

G. I wrote A Ghost in My Suitcase to explore ghosts and ghost hunters and the Chinese idea of death. Hopefully along the way, children will also be able to overcome their fears. The idea came from the character Por Por in The Pearl of Tiger Bay. She was so strong she needed a novel written all about her.

P/S: Have you seen ghosts?

G: I haven’t seen a ghost but I have heard them calling my name. I’ve also had strange, ghostly things happen like doors opening and even words that suddenly appear the next time I open the word document on my laptop.

P/S: According to your site, you have used ghost-hunting equipment. What equipment have you used?

G: Did I say that? I’ve never actually used any ghost hunting equipment but I do have some coin swords and mirrors.

P/S: Why was the sequel, The Pearl of Tiger Bay,  published before this one?

G: I have already answered this in Question One. When I wrote The Pearl of Tiger Bay I had no idea I was going to write a prequel.

P/S: Okay, I’m going to ask about the characters now, the places and the culture.

About the Characters –

How come Celeste is the only one who has the ability to fight ghosts with her voice? Is she the chosen one? Because according to Por Por, she never found information about this ghost ability she has.

G: Yes, Celeste is the chosen one. It came naturally to her. That’s why she was destined to be a ghost hunter. She was the first ghost hunter to use her voice as a weapon.

P/S: What caused Celeste’s mother to die?

G: She died of cancer. Even though this is not written in the novel, a writer has to know her characters’ complete background.

P/S: About Ting Ting, how did you develop her character?

G: When I first began writing A Ghost in My Suitcase, Ting Ting was Celeste’s Shanghai cousin, a university student called Ky. He was also a boy. But I grew bored with Ky and I thought that if I’m bored with him so will my readers be. As soon as I changed Ky into a moody girl, the story suddenly took off.  

About the places –

Does Isle of Clouds exist? It seems so real! I want to visit it!

G:The Isle of Clouds is based on an ancient water town near Shanghai called Wuzhen.

P/S: Does Bao Mansion exist?

G: Bao mansion is based on an old house in the hills overlooking West Lake in Hangzhou, China. When I was writing the scenes with Bao mansion, I pictured the old house in my mind.

P/S: s the story based on true events?

G: Everything in the novel is made up except for the historical parts about China and the international settlements.

P/S: If you caught a weak ghost, can you actually turn them into goldfish?

G: I made that up too. I thought it would be fun and far less violent than destroying the poor ghosts. Only Shen Da Pai needed to be destroyed because he was Celeste’s enemy, and an enemy of her family for generations.

P/S: If you were trapped in a mingshen mirror, could you really get out with the help of pure or holy water or tears?

G: I am told you can trap a ghost in a mingshen mirror but the part about using tears I made up.

What do you think it would be like to be trapped in a mingshen mirror if it was possible?

It would be like being trapped in a goldfish bowl. You would be able to see the world outside but not be able to escape. It would be like torture.

P/S: Celeste’s mom made a short appearance in the book. During that short appearance, she was planting tomorrows. What are tomorrows? I tried surfing the net about it and I ended up with ‘How to plant tomatoes’.....-_-.

G: I made up ‘tomorrows’ to symbolise the future. Celeste’s mum was planting them because she knew she didn’t have many ‘tomorrows’ left. She died young.

P/S: About the types of ghosts: were those types of ghosts (such as fat belly etc.) real in Chinese culture? Are there more types of ghosts?

G: All the different ghosts came out of my imagination. It’s so much fun writing novels!

P/S: Are there different techniques to catch or fight ghosts?

G: Some of the techniques I researched are real, like trapping ghosts in mirrors and controlling them with coin swords.

P/S: With all the ghost and supernatural books you have been writing, do you actually believe in supernatural things such as spirits and an afterlife?

G: I do believe in an afterlife. I am not Buddhist but I lean towards that belief – that we are reincarnated.

P/S: Do you celebrate any of the things the Chinese culture celebrates, such as hungry ghosts, mingshen mirrors and others?

G: We celebrate Chinese New Year with a big family dinner, the Autumn Moon festival with moon cakes and grave sweeping day where we clean the grave of my father.

P/S: Do any of your books describe yourself or any of your own memories?

G: Much of what I write is from personal experience. For example the scene in A Ghost in My Suitcase where Celeste is in the bus on her way to the Isle of Clouds is from a real experience. While I was studying painting in China we went to sketch in the mountains. To get there we rode for hours in a rusty old bus. That chapter is exactly how I experienced it including frogs jumping around our feet and the big hole in the roof. I really did have to put up my umbrella. My YA novel Little Paradise was based on my mother’s story. And my first novel, The Garden of Empress Cassia is based on how I felt when I was a child. 

P/S: In the middle of your writing, do you feel that you are the characters or the main character?

G: I am definitely all the characters - even the bad ones. They are parts of myself.

Post To Come - Interview With Gabrielle Wang!

Two of my students, Shane and Talapepa, have interviewed Gabrielle Wang, author of some fabulous books, as their creative response to their Literature Circles book, A Ghost In My Suitcase. Gabrielle's answers have just arrived in my cyber-letterbox and when I have been able to get it into a readable order, I will be sharing it with you. Gabrielle was impressed with the girls' questions and I must say, I've learned quite a lot from her answers that I didn't know before! :-)

So stand by. If you're not yet a Gabrielle Wang fan, what are you waiting for? Go check out some of her books right now!

Riffling through my bookmarks

Over the years I've been on-line, I've collected an awful lot of bookmarks on my Safari browser. The thing about web sites is that you can never tell whether they will still be there when you come back, but they form a history of my on-line research. There are a large number of crime-based web sites from when I was looking up stuff for Crime Time: Australians behaving badly. There are some on spy-related themes from when I was writing Your Cat Could Be A Spy. The CIA web site was especially terrific for that, with all sorts of stuff about spy gadgets, which they have in a museum - much more entertaining than the Australian version, which was just a dull public service thing back then. There are the teaching-based ones which I looked up whenever I was desperate because they'd just given me a class in an area in which I had very little experience, or none.

And then there are my favourites, the ones that helped me research my fantasy fiction.  Monstrous is an encyclopaedia of monsters and such creatures of the night as fairies (or even Faeries!) and where they came from. Gosh, I wish I'd had this one when I was researching my first book, Monsters And Creatures Of The Night! I did go on-line for that - once a week, for an hour, at an Internet cafe on Glenferrie Road, Malvern,back in the early days of Internet cafes, when you could actually buy food there. But mostly, I was researching in the State Library of Victoria, using books. Twice a week.

Omniglot is an encyclopaedia of languages, where I went to look up Breton, in case I needed some words. And speaking of languages, there is the one I have only discovered recently, the translator in Dictionary which lets you translate from one language into another. For example, "On Saturday I'm going to the football" translates into Irish as Ar an Satharn, tá mé ag dul go dtí an peile. The only disadvantage is that if the language doesn't have Roman letters, you'd better know how to read Arabic or Hebrew or whatever! But it comes in handy if you need a character to say something - briefly! - in another language. It's a great web site anyway, with a pile of other sections. There's the Reference section, which has stuff like the word of the day (frondescence is today's, meaning  "leafage/foliage" - what a cool word!) and a hot word (did you know in Old English the word "gift" referred to a dowry?) or you can look up something as you would in an encyclopaedia.


I stumbled on to Mysterious Britain and Ireland when I was trying to remember where I'd come across the story told by Armand, the hero's friend, in Chapter 3 of Wolfborn. For some reason I'd vaguely recalled it being French, but it was Irish and, in fact, comes from the Travels of Gerald of Wales (Giraldus Cambrensis), who lived in the time of King John. The web site has a link to another one which tells the story. The stories on this web site are short, but useful, and range from water horses to werewolves.


An amazing web site I heard about from Juliet Marillier at her Swancon workshop on fairy tales is "Sur La Lune fairy tales" which gives a huge variety of fairy tales from all over the world, including variations on the same story from different countries. It has its own blog, which, right now, has a video of “The Lady of Shalott in art” with Loreena McKennitt’s song. It has a lot of annotated fairy tales, which have comments on the different themes in the story. I really love the variations. You think "Snow White" is just a Brothers Grimm story? There are versions from Italy, Turkey, Romania, even West Africa! I checked this out when I was doing my story "Brothers" for the Specusphere anthology on myths and legends. Mine, in the end, was fairly straight European, but if you want to try something that starts somewhere else, this is a fabulous web site.

If you're planning to write a Celtic fantasy or just want to have a browse among all the things available, why not  check out these web sites?

Personally, I just love the browse. You know how it is? You're looking for something and there's a link to something else, which is so fascinating you have to read it and that has yet another link and before you know it, you've gone a long way from where you started and you've learned a lot more than you expected.

Ah, I love the Internet!

Book Launch: Michael Pryor's New Book

If you live in Melbourne and can get to the Northcote public library at four p.m. this Wednesday December 7th,  Michael Pryor's new book, Extinction Gambit, Volume 1 of a series called The Extraordinaires, is being launched.

I won't be there, alas! I work in Sunshine and can't get away much before 3.30 p.m. I did buy a copy at the last CYL Booktalkers for the month and get the author to sign it for me, but there's nothing like a good book launch!

It's a pity it was timed this way; if they'd done it a bit later, plenty of people could have made it - and on another day, the Nova Mob SF group which meets there every month, could have come as a group. As it happens, that's been planned as the annual end-of-year dinner, somewhere else. But a later time on that day and some of us, at least, could have scrambled into each other's cars and gone to the launch first.

Ah, well. Go if you can, though - it will be well worth the effort!

Hour Of Need: The Laws of Magic #6 By Michael Pryor

Sob! The Laws of Magic series is over. No more will we read of the adventures of Aubrey Fitzwilliam and his friends George, Caroline and Sophie. The only thing that comforts me is that the author has begun a new series, The Extraordinaires, which I’ve just started reading. It has taken me a while to finish this one because I was trying to relish it, but finally, after my month’s stint on Insideadog, I am working my way through all those review copies that have been languishing in the pile by my bed. And I do have a new Michael Pryor book to read, after all… ;-) By the way, Michael is doing this month's stint on the Dog - go have a look.

The war is in full rage and is looking quite a lot like our World War I. Aubrey and his friends, a special unit, are right on the battlefields. And it looks like Dr Mordecai Tremaine, who is supporting Holmland (Germany) may just get his shot at immortality. How do the friends stop him from murdering half of Europe to get his way?

I can’t tell too many more details, because of spoilers, but this one is non-stop action, following on directly from Moment Of Truth, the fifth volume in the series. It builds to a tremendous climax in which Aubrey is going to need all his magical abilities to cope, and even those won’t necessarily work out as he needs them to.

Like all the other novels in this wonderful series, Hour of Need has plenty of humour – and at the end, while I can’t reveal it, I thought, “Oh! How clever! This is where Aubrey’s universe will split from ours and go down another path.” Actually, I would have liked to know how the world got this way in the first place; perhaps Mr Pryor will return to this universe one day to write about it, even if it’s only as a novella – perhaps for another volume of Ford Street’s Trust Me! short fiction?

The women in this universe are strong, intelligent and ass-kicking – but not unbelievably ass-kicking. Aubrey, son of a strong woman, a scientist, and a strong grandmother, has been brought up to respect strength in women and find it attractive, so Caroline is a believable partner for him.

You really can’t read this without having read the others, but that’s no problem. Just read them if you haven’t.

The series is doing well in my school library and there’s a student currently waiting for this last volume, so I’ll have to buy another copy, next year if necessary; he isn’t getting mine.

A Different Kind Of Book - Cookbooks!

I have a confession to make: I'm addicted to cookbooks.

"Who isn't?" you may ask. They're so colouiful and mouthwatering to look at.  But you're never going to make all those recipes, unless you're that lady who cooked her way through Julia Child's book and blogged about it...

Well, yes, all that's true. My sister has gotten rid of all her cookbooks and now finds any recipes she wants on-line. Actually, she admits to an addiction to recipe blogs.

I see her point. It saves space in the cupboard and it's true you're never going to cook all those things. I mean - red braised duck with plums? Quail stuffed with this or that? (I won't even EAT quail - a schoolfriend of mine used to keep them as pets).

But when I find a recipe I like, I make it and type it up on my computer, so I have them all in one file and can look up favourites without having to hunt it up.

And meanwhile, while going on-line is fine for a specific recipe you want, how you you get ideas from it?

Right now, I'm drooling over a Women's Weekly Christmas cookbook and a Good Taste magazine with Christmas recipes in it. Christmas isn't actually my holiday, but there is plenty in there you can use any time.

Last year I made chocolates for gifts, using moulds I bought in a convenient el cheapo homewares shop. I experimented and didn't use either cookbooks or on-line help. This time, I'm playing with truffles. I admit I got some recipes for those on-line - good heavens, just type "chocolate truffle recipe" into Google and you get 1,350,000 hits and it's everything from the elegant ganache-based ones you have after your dinner party to the condensed milk ones suitable for kids to make (and very nice indeed - just so you know, my students made and sold enough truffles to make $65 in profit as their donation to Greenpeace).

But can you really wade your way through that many recipes?

It took a hard-copy book to suggest something that hadn't occurred to me: why not make a chocolate coating for your truffles? I'm going to try that this weekend. It warned not to make the coating too hot or risk melting the truffles. I'll let you know how it works out.

The home economics teacher at my first school swore by the Women's Weekly cookbooks. They have recipes even kids can make, under supervision, among the adult ones. They're well laid out. They have a good glossary at the back, explaining some of the more unusual ingredients.

This one that I'm drooling over (I really must try some of the ice cream recipes) actually tells you not to worry if you don't have the exact amount of, say, cream - one carton this size will do - saving you buying two cartons and wondering what to do with the rest, a real problem for me; I still have a packet of cardamom I bought a while back for one recipe with "two teaspoons of cardamom". I don't have an ice cream maker, so it was nice to find a cookbook that says, "If you don't have an ice cream maker, here's what to do instead."

And then there are the more exotic cookbooks. Some years ago, I bought the Death By Chocolate cookbook, which has in it a recipe for chocolate peanut choc chip cookies, utterly decadent, easy to make and not as expensive as you might think, given how many biscuits you get out of it.

That said, I also collect recipes from the sides of packets - my nicest banana cake recipe came from a packet of house brand flour.

Yet there are even cookbooks based on recipes from the sides of food packets!

In the library I found a cookbook with recipes from the ancient world. I have since tried out some of them. One of them, involving a kind of pancake from ancient Greece, my Greek library technician told me was still made. She herself makes it. Wow!

Another one a Queensland friend sent me was about mediaeval holidays and festivals, which, apart from the fun of cooking mediaeval (my friend and I agreed that perhaps it was a bit much, nowadays, to waste a bunch of roses on rose petal bread), is useful for me as a writer, as reference material. I could possibly have found some of this on-line, but not curled up and absorbed it, knowing the person who wrote the book is an expert in this area.

The Ritz Guides (discovered in one of those discount book shops I mentioned on the Dog) are fun and I have made some wonderful family holiday breakfasts using the Ritz guide to breakfast, able to assure everyone that this is how they make Irish soda bread and decadent hot chocolate at the London Ritz.

Mmm, I'm going off to have a special breakfast right now...

On Writing And Finishing Things

This is a large chunk of my very last post on the Dog, with a bit extra. It's aimed at younger writers because it was written for a youth web site, but no reason why it can't pretty much apply to anyone interested.

I have had an email from a young writer who asked me how to go about being a writer, because, even though she is  already running what I think is a wonderful blog on things that matter in this world, what she really wants is to do a novel.  She does write fiction, including some pretty good poetry, if the samples she sent me were any example, but says she can’t seem to finish anything. She hoped I might have some tips. I hope she will forgive me for putting it all up here instead of answering personally, because it just seems like something that can apply in general.

Perhaps I’m the last person who should be offering tips on finishing stuff. I have two unfinished novels sitting on my computer. One of them, only a few chapters long, is a mainstream YA novel. The other is a companion volume to Wolfborn and is already longer than the finished book! I’ve put them both away for a while, till I can get a fresh look at them and meanwhile, I’m writing short fiction. I've sold three stories that will be out over the next few months and am working on another one right now. It's not like doing a book, but it makes me feel good not to be doing nothing writing-wise.

In the end, the only way to be a writer is to write. I never go anywhere without a notebook and pen. (People don’t ask me if I have a pen, they say, “Sue, can I borrow your pen?”). Just write. I once read a book on writing that advised you to overcome writer’s block by starting with, “I remember…” It makes sense – you can’t get writer’s block about your own life, can you? And it worked for me; I once wrote fifteen pages after a severe case of writer’s block, using that exercise. One of these days I will use what I wrote that time to do a historical novel.

Why not try short fiction while that unfinished novel is waiting for you to get back to it? Perhaps write a story set in the universe of the novel? This, in its turn, might help you to get a new perspective on the book-length project. And you've got all those handy characters and settings lying around already and if you can sell it, that will raise interest in the novel when it comes out. 

There are, by the way, plenty of youth markets out there. Why not try Voiceworks, a Melbourne magazine produced and written by people under 25? It takes poetry as well as fiction and it pays! For more, you can Google. I just looked under “Young writer markets Australia” and a whole pile of web sites popped up. This one – 40 of the Best Websites for Young Writers - seems pretty good. It features links to a lot of other web sites, including Inkpop, the one which my students swear by, an on-line writing community which is run by HarperCollins and where your work may be seen by a real publisher. Writing can be a lonely job, but on-line you can share with people who have the same interests as you do and the same problems.

So – write. And read. You love reading, right? Why else would you be writing? :-) Check your markets by reading, to see what publishers are buying. Join a book-based web site like Goodreads and “friend” as many people as you can. See what they’re reading and share.

If you write, you may never sell anything, but if you don’t write, if you spend your life boring your friends with that “great idea for a book” you mean to write one of these days, you definitely won’t.

The Night After Leaving The Doghouse

So, what do you do when your writing commitment is over?

I'm going to read and read and read tonight. I've just started a new iMovie project, putting together my students' book trailers. I really can't put them all up, even if I had their permission, because there is too much need to check out how much material is copyright, although it was all credited. Too much hassle! But I will be burning it all on to DVD for the staff's professional interest, so they can see what Year 8 English students can do when they try, and catalogue it for my library, and I will be showing it to my class before we all go off for holidays.

If any of the authors want to see what 8B has done, I'll be happy to pop a copy in the mail for them. They're not perfect, but they did what I needed - showed they understood the book and that they had got something out of it. Also, they hopefully persuaded the viewer it might be a good book to read.

Here are the books: Pool, by Justin D'Ath,  Dragonkeeper by Carole Wilkinson, Burn Bright by Marianne De Pierres and Once by Morris Gleitzman. A Ghost In My Suitcase was saved as a plain Powerpoint because I couldn't open the original file (pity - they could have changed it to .wmv - if  only I'd known! )However, two other students prepared interview questions for Gabrielle Wang, who has kindly agreed to answer them and offered to publish it on her own web site as well as this one.  Anyway, if any of you guys who wrote these books are reading and are interested in a copy, let me know.

I'm also about to prepare some interview questions for Miffy Farquarson, who has agreed to answer questions about being a CBCA judge.

So, while I won't be blogging every day now, I will be keeping busy.

Today I got such a nice email from Bill Condon, who had been a WIR on Insideadog too, and said how much he had enjoyed my posts. It does feel a little lonely when you blog away and nobody - or, in my case, almost nobody - commented. But it's nice to know.

Late dinner time - I'm off to eat and read.

Insideadog - The Last Post!

Well, my month's gig on the Dog is over. I am very, very tired. I spent lunchtime today supervising students who were selling frog-in-the-pond for their Pathways community assignment. I think i may have given myself ten minutes to eat an unsatisfactory sandwich and a little fruit after lunch was over. After work I went to the year's last Booktalkers at the State Library. We got goody bags! With books in them! Michael Pryor was there to talk about his new book, and Paul Collins had finally been invited to talk about the new Ford Street publications, including the new anthology with my story in it ... and an Obernewtyn prequel by Isobelle Carmody, which you'll have to buy the anthology to read.

Tomorrow, more supervising of Pathways projects and no lunch break at all, and another long day.

But I was determined, tonight, to get that last post done, so go over and hopefully enjoy. Good night!

January 24 2013

And since this post has had so many hits since I wrote it, I am finally attaching the link to the Insideadog post itself - go check it out! That was a great month and the one and only time I have ever had this sort of gig!

http://www.insideadog.com.au/blog/so-long-farewell-adieu-and-other-stuff

On Being a Library Teacher - second-last post for the Dog

I suddenly realised that I'd left out my post on YA book blogs, so I popped that up this evening. Then I put in tomorrow's post, which will be about my other hat, that of library teacher, and some of the things we've had happening in the library in the last year or so.

I am very tired, alas, and hot and ready to go take a shower and fall into bed. Tomorrow night I will be at the State Library for the last Booktalkers for 2011.

It would have been nice to be invited to speak at Booktalkers myself,  some time, but being on Insideadog for the last month, and meeting the challenge of a post a day has been good.

I'm already throwing myself into review books so that I'll have those to blog about in a few days. And I suppose I'll need to go back into slushing for ASIM.

Meanwhile, thanks to those of you who have been following. You might be interested to know that in the last month or so, my hit rate seems to have tripled!

Keep visiting! :-)

What's On TV Right Now - Pride And Prejudice

I've just finished my post for the Dog, on YA book blogs. After sitting through one book-based TV show, Brideshead Revisited (Revisited - it's a remake) while working on my post, I'm having trouble tearing myself away from that wonderful version of Pride And Prejudice with Jennifer Ehle and the gorgeous Colin Firth, even though I have my own copy of the DVD, autographed by Andrew Davies, the scriptwriter. I remember when it was first on and all the female teachers at my school gathered every Monday morning to drool over Colin Firth. And the producers knew what effect he'd have. That wet shirt scene and the one where he's in the bath were never in the novel... :-)

This episode is the one where Elizabeth and Darcy are finally realising that they just might be right for each other (just before she gets the bad news about Lydia and has to go home).

The series was clearly made by people who loved the book. There's the beauty of the countryside, the costumes and the music. The actors are just right for the roles. And if you know about it, there's the delicious fact that Anna Chancellor, who plays the role of the snooty and jealous Miss Bingley, is actually related to Jane Austen.

It's my favourite of Jane Austen's books and this one does it full justice, in my opinion.

Has anyone seen Lost In Austen? Loved it! Especially that scene where the heroine, who has somehow swapped places with Elizabeth Bennet, asks Darcy to please walk into the water so she can see him in a wet shirt. (wide grin)

Welcome, Emma! A new link

Welcome to the new member of this site, Emma McGregor, who was kind enough to attend my writing workshop at the Bendigo Catholic College Lit Fest (see my post about this visit on the Dog).

Emma has her own blogs, one of which I've added to the links on the right hand side of the page. I really need to work out how to make it a proper blog roll. That wasn't an option when I started this site, but I'll get there.

Emma's site, Be The Change, has lots of terrific social justice and environmental stuff on it and useful links to things like Fair Trade sites - no more having to go Googling it all (which I have been doing) just check out on Emma's site. Emma is also a writer and I hope she sells lots of books, a lot earlier than I did. Meanwhile, why not do yourselves a favour, guys, and join  Be The Change?

Procrastination - a post from early in the month

Puttingitoff-TheJoysof

This was up on Insideadog earlier this month. I put in a link and so many people have checked out the one on this site which just said, "This is my new post" and put a link to it that I thought maybe I should put up the actual post here in case anyone else wants to read it.  It's the only one for which I got any comments at all, AFAIK, both from Goodreads friends. The comments thingie on IAD is confusing. To add a comment or even to see if there ARE  any comments, you have to click the heading. And I don't think there are instructions, or anyway, not where I can see them.

Procrastina

Which is a lot of waffle, but for those of you who didn't follow the link or who have just discovered this blog - enjoy!

When thinking about this post, I went on-line to look up the word “procrastination”, which means, “putting it off”.

 Here’s what I found on Dictionary.com:

 procrastination

1540s, from L. procrastinationem "a putting off," noun of action from procrastinare "put off till tomorrow," from pro- "forward" + crastinus "belonging to tomorrow," from cras "tomorrow," of unknown origin.

Notice the date? 1540s? So even back then, it seems, people were putting off doing things. I’m sure they were doing it before, but in the 1540s, someone must have said, “I’ll just go watch the execution of the King’s wife before I finish making dinner, cleaning the house, writing my poem… hey, there should be a word to describe that.”

 This is NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), the idea being that you write 50,000 words in a month and if you break it up nicely you can get it done, even if you have a day job. I believe people have met the challenge and some have actually sold their writing month books.

   I don’t think I could do it, but I can totally relate to the idea that if you have a deadline you’ll somehow meet it. That’s one reason why I love writing non-fiction. It’s commissioned, you have a deadline and you can break up the work. If you can’t actually write something just now, you can do some research.

 Right now, I’m putting off washing last night’s dishes (I made chocolate truffles for my students and the sink is a mess) because, knowing how I do put off things, I’ve set myself the challenge of writing a post for Insideadog every day this month.

 Having a deadline helps.  Even if you only get a draft done, you have the pleasure of seeing the whole thing in front of you. Who cares if it’s a mess? You can fix it later.

 There are other ways. I have to take public transport to work each day.  I take along a notepad and scribble away. While I had time off work to write Crime Time, I took my laptop to the local café, where I could have another pot of tea without having to get up. That way I had no excuse for not writing.

 Mind you, I was putting off cleaning the house and doing the wash…