February Children's Litfest Update

Blimey it has been ages since I posted, time just slipped away from me. I have been very busy trying, amongst other things, to organise North Cornwall's first Children and Young People's Literary Festival. The event is themed around Myth and Magic, and with the help of some lovely people I have managed to secure Tim Bowler and Helen Dunmore to come and do sessions in the festival. I am working on trying to contact Angie Sage through her agent, but we also have lots of local talent. If he is still able I am hoping our very own Jon Mayhew may also do a session on writing scary stories! We have our own Victorian jail to hold it in, complete with resident ghosts! It is mayhem at the moment but I am hoping it is all coming together slowly and will be ready to launch.
I am at a loss for a name for the festival that will attract young people as well as children. Any ideas out there?
I have been doing lots of research for my book on living conditions of early nineteenth century Cornish mining families and the influences on their values and mindset. It has been fascinating but has made me decide to change loads in my book already. I also received an exciting ebay purchase today. It is a box that has a secret method to open and lock it - it involve tapping the box in the correct place to lock and unlock it. It is solid wood with a barn owl carved into it. I bought it because it has given me great ideas for a very important artefact in my book. Will post a picture next post.
I received my copies of the two books pictured above to read. I have read Ingo before but wanted to read it again and I had not read any of Tim Bowler's. 'Bloodchild' is his latest but I felt drawn to River Boy, at least for now. What are all you wonderful people in blog land reading right now?My current books ar, 'The Screwtape Letters,' by CS Lewis and 'Physik' by Angie Sage.

Tintagel Magic

I had a lovely time recently when a childhood friend came to stay. Among the many things we did was a trip to King Arthur's birthplace - Tintagel. The castle is in ruins and you have to cross a causeway to get to the part of the castle in the picture. It was stunning to be there again (I cannot take my kids as I get too nervous having little ones up that high and exposed!!) so I can only go when they are at school. The castle is on a headland and is opposite a couple of wondeful sea caves, one of which is aptly named merlin's Cave. You cannot fail to be inspired when you reach the castle - although it took a while to be able to breathe after the climb!!! I am hoping to return to St Agnes to the ruined engine house on the cliff (the one in my title picture) as opening chapters of my book are set there. Before the end of this week I will be back writing again.
I think the book cover for Mortlock is awesome Jon - as is the trailer! Well done Tam on Harriet's success! It is exciting to see people you have got to know via blogs having their first novels published soon.
I have been brave and revamped my holiday club proposal over the summer holidays. I recently submitted it again to another Christian publisher and await news ever hopefully!

Excitement and Potential Marital Strife!

This long awaited book arrived today and I am very, very excited indeed! Michelle Paver has been a real inspiration to me as a writer and her work is truly gripping. I defy anyone to read the first book and not be consumed with her characters and the attention to detail in order to create a stone age setting This is the last book in her series The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness, and I heard on a podcast that she wept quite a bit when she had finished it, as it was the end of the story for her characters...she would write about them no more. I wondered then what it would be like to write a series of books where you become besotted with the characters you create and travel with them as you create their stories, to then have to bring that to an end, never to write about them again. I am sure JK Rowling felt bereft when she finished her seventh book, as Michelle Paver did at the end of her sixth.
Marital discord could be prominent in my household as my hubby is as caught up in the series as I am and seems to think he will get to read it first as he thinks I should re-read the previous book (Oath breaker) as he has done in the last week, knowing that Ghost Hunter was on its way. I am not sure about this as I ordered the book, so we may end up reading it to each other!!!!
Also got my Children's Writers and Artists Yearbook 2010, so will be burying myself in that too!!

Progress

I found this wonderful image of a barn owl on Google and it has helped me think about the role of the barn owl in my novel. I now have a role, responsibility and a name for him. Research has been fab, especially the Barn Owl Trust website as they have a live webcam of a barn owl nest here in Cornwall. I have made lots of notes and plan to write him into the book very soon.
I also did the What Kind of Book are you? thingy over at Debs and spookily I came out as Sci-Fi/Fantasy - exactly the type of books I read and am writing!!! Go and have a go it is very cool - though I am not sure everything in the description is entirely accurate?

Having a 'Hoot'

Yesterday I thoroughly enjoyed a wonderful day out with my kids at the local Owl Sanctuary. It is a fantastic place that not only displays these incredible birds, but also rears owl chicks and rehabilitates rescued birds, including those hit by cars etc. They also do a flying display with a couple of the owls and my son and I were particularly thrilled to watch the falconer fly a barn owl. Barn owls are my absolute favourite; they have a hypnotic and inspiring serenity and beauty about them. My son shares my love of them and he had the particular thrill of being able to put on the falconer's glove and have the barn owl land on it. He is a sponge for natural history and fact finding at the moment, so it was a fantastic day for him.
It got me thinking about barn owls for my 'tween' novel. It has introduced another potential thread for my novel, which is great, but also has me worried that my story may have more threads than the Bayeux Tapestry and may therefore be too complicated to complete without ending up in knots!!
Really enjoying the summer holidays, although resigning myself to having very little time and energy for writing and therefore resolving to put all that energy into my two little people until September 2nd, when my youngest goes full time at school and I have a larger window of opportunity to finish my novel. In the meantime I will content myself with writing ideas I have on index cards and filing them under ' to be written'!!

Stress, SCBWI, Songs and Sheep

Life in my little niche of Cornwall has been very stressful this past week or so, but there is light at the end of the tunnel. On Sunday we depart 20 miles south to Looe to do our annual Family Bible Week. I am heading up the 8-11 year old tent (with 40 kids in it!!). As well as helping to run the morning kids work I am puppeteering all week, which means six songs! I will have shoulders to rival olympic swimmers by the end of the week.

We are staying with dear friends of ours in Liskeard, so we will be having decent sleep (no ravaged tents for me this year) and good company! I also plan to take my little notepad and write virtually every evening (except maybe when we go and see Ice Age 3 with the kids!) Although Bible Week is hard work I do enjoy it and so do all the kids so it will be worth it.

On a different note I finally joined the SCBWI (Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators) yesterday. It was a promised Mother's Day present and I have finally got round to doing it. I am really keen to go to the conference in November but a bit nervous about travelling to Winchester on my own and need to find £170!! However it looks FAB so I am saving all my pennies and seeing what possessions I can sell on ebay! Off now to write up song words for puppeteers such as "I just wanna be a sheep...baa, baa, baa-ba-ba" - Great song but don't ask.

Highs and Lows

I apologise for my terrible blogging at the moment. This past couple of weeks has been a series of highs and lows and it has meant that I have been through the emotional spectrum and had little time for blogging.


However here I am to share the highs and lows of early July!!

• High - Claire P has got a contract with an agent for 'Digging for Victoria' - FAB News


• High - Kat W has finished her first draft of her novel - well done mate


• High - Got the OK to organise Cornwall's first Children's Literary festival in February


• High - In connection with that, Helen Dunmore has expressed interest in being involved!!!


• High - My niece turned seven on Saturday and we had a lovely party despite the weather.


• High - Both my kids got great school reports

And now for the Lows

• 
  Low - Took my wonderful 7 year old son to see the Cleft team at The Royal Cornwall Hospital. Have been told he will need bone graft surgery in about 18 months time. He was born with a cleft lip and gum (see piccy above) and had his lip repaired at 10 days old. Since then we have put other surgery to the back of our minds, but as he now approaches 8 years old and more adult teeth are coming through, the time has come. He has to have a brace fitted first to widen the arch before they take the bone from his shin and graft it into his gum. Three days in Frenchay Hospital in Bristol! Sob!


• Low - Done diddly on my novel for two weeks


• Low - Stressed to eyeballs with work, delivering stuff and getting everything done for my schools before the end of term


• Low - Chicken problems -red mite infestation in chicken house. Chickens fighting and not getting on, one has gone broody and two have now stopped laying!


• Low - Point when I felt that I am wasting my time as I am probably not talented enough to even get my book finished, let alone read by an agent or a publisher!
  So there we are...strange fortnight. I am quite stressed about my boy, although it is all at least eighteen months away as I had almost convinced myself he would not need it. Deep breath and big sigh. Hope to be sunnier than the weather soon!

Just for Fun Competition

Having a good week so far. I managed to write about 3000 words over the weekend and I am hoping for a few thousand more this week. It is encouraging to begin to update the word count progress on my chart. Up to nearly 20000 and I am aiming at around 50000.

This picture was taken at Pembroke Castle while we were away on holiday in Wales a while back and Kat gave me an idea for a little fun competition I could have here on the blog. A useful writing exercise I do sometimes is to take a photo and write for thirty minutes about what the photo has made me think about. You can read a couple I did back along on my Thirty Somethings blog

I am sure you all have loads better and more productive things to do, however if you have time or a bit of a blank day and you would like to have a go, here's what to do.

Take a few minutes to look at the photo above and think about what it creates in your mind. Set a timer and write for thirty minutes. No editing once it is done. Email it to me at Michelle and I will publish entries on the Thirty Somethings blog. May be able to dig out some prizes but really it is just for fun. Enjoy!!

Home from Holiday...there's lovely!

Well we are back from sunny Pembrokeshire and we have really relaxed! Thank you to all of you who were so kind and wrote encouraging things on my last post as I was having a terrible week. We had a fantastic family time away and although Andy had to leave the holiday for a couple of days to drive to Liverpool and then fly to the Isle of Man for his grandfather's funeral, we managed to have a wonderful time together. We did loads of activities including visiting Fun parks like Heatherton, where C got to Go-Kart, play Robot Wars and thrash his parents at mini-golf; and a dinosaur park with lots of dino info and things to do. We also indulged the medieval historian in me and visited Pembroke Castle, where I got some lovely photos and got to see some birds of prey they were flying there that day. My 4 year old suggested I took the picture below of one of the corridors in the castle, which has come out really well as an inspirational picture for a story. We also did some brass rubbings and C chose a knight that turned out to be the very same Earl of Warwick that I wrote my dissertation on!!!! I have included some photos for your pleasure,I am sure you will agree that the photo of the beach at the top looks like it could be in the Med rather than at Tenby! I also couldn't resist snapping this carpet of bluebells in the nature woodland walk near our cottage where we were staying.

On the writing front I had a wonderful week, planning my novel out in scenes and tracking its development, so it is planned out to the end now and I have a vision for the way forward which is a huge thing for me as I was beginning to worry whether I would get lost in it a bit. I also wrote another three thousand words on the novel itself, started a picture book story and wrote a 100 word competition entry about an encounter with wildlife. I wrote about a magnificent encounter I had with a barn owl at about 12 midnight on a country lane near us on the way home from ASDA. I feel refreshed and ready to write, all I need now is time and no more stress from work to keep myself focused. Got lots of research to do too around young carers and head injuries! I have been reading a great little book about the dangers of mining in Cornish copper and tin mines as part of my research and it has been fascinating in a macabre sort of way!!

Horrid week with a top 15% High Spot!

This week has been tough for a number of reasons and I have been a bit of a 'car crash' emotionally over the past two days. Work has left me stressed and unappreciated at times and it all hit a head today when I walked out of a meeting before I either exploded with anger or broke down in a weepy puddle. We are due to go on our first ever family holiday on Friday to South West Wales and the kids are so excited, however my hubby's grandfather passed away yesterday and the funeral is on the Tuesday of our holiday...in the Isle of Man. Hubby is trying to arrange transport to get him there and back over the bank holiday which is proving very difficult. Quite an emotional week! Although I have now finished work till after the holidays, we still have our warring chickens to sort out and all the packing etc to do. Stressed is not a strong enough word!!!!

However in the midst of all this angst I received a letter today which gave me a lift and made me feel good about me for a while. I had entered the Children's Academy of Writers annual competition to write a short story for children. I had entered a lengthened and revised version of my Echoes story (the original version is on my Thirtysomethings blog). The photo above was the inspiration for the story. I did not win, neither did I get second or third, however I reached the top 300 out of 2000 entries, which apparently put me in the top 15%. The letter I received said lots of nice things such as...

"To reach the final 15% you obviously have an understanding of young people that impressed our panel of judges. This is a quality that is invaluable to a would be children's writer...your 'way with words', indicates that with a little effort your natural talent could be developed to enable you to produce work of publication standard."

Now the cynic in me could say that these are nice things to say to encourage me to do their correspondance course, however to receive a letter like this during this week in particular has been an oasis in the desert. I have not switched on my book for over a week and was beginning to get that, " Who am I kidding?" about my writing. So to have a letter that gives me these comments, personal replies apparently only sent out to the top 15% (!), meant a great deal to me and gives me hope that I might yet one day see something I have written in print with a lovely cover sitting on the bookshelves in Waterstones.

Picnic at Cardinham and Bullies!!

We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves yesterday on a gloriously sunny Sunday. We had a church picnic at Cardinham Woods, which is a Forestry Commission beauty spot near us. It has a large green with inbuilt BBQ's and a river running through it (see above pic).

Apart from a small drama when my little lady's shoe became detatched from her foot and had to be rescued from the river by a kindly teenager, it was a fab day. All came home exhausted but feeling we had made the most of the sunshine.

Currently I am having to be a member of the Chicken Bullying Police. Three of our four hens have taken it upon themselves to bully the other one. They have always all got on fine, but I noticed one of them was missing quite a lot of feathers around her neck and head and she looked scrawny compared to the others. Today I caught them in the act and they were being really horrible to her, clearly terrorising the poor thing. We have not got the facilities at the moment to separate her, so we are making do with emergency plans until we can source a rabbit run to get her out and help her recover. At the moment she sits on top of the hen house and will not come down to eat or drink, so we are feeding her by hand and shutting the rest away so she can drink and peck in peace.

I know I should not create from misery, but it could make a good picture/story book about bullying. So please spare a thought for poor Belle as she recovers

Writing,Day, Fab Hubby and Spring Bank Holiday!

I love Cornwall all year round, but I particularly love spring and autumn. The wild flowers I can see when we are out and about near us are stunning. The bluebells and wild garlic are carpeting the woodlands at Respryn, near Lanhydrock and they are beautiful to behold. I found two little Cornish pixies exploring among the bluebells too! (see picture below)

We had a lovely walk on Saturday through the woodlands near us, enjoying the gorgeous spring weather and nature's bounty. I was in a particularly sunny mood as the day before my wonderful hubby had the day at home doing paperwork, and so sent me out to a very nice local cafe FOR THE DAY to write!!! I had from 10am till nearly 3pm all by myself writing and enjoying totally scrummy toasted Mexican chicken wrap for my lunch, plus numerous cups of tea. I wrote over 3,000 words amd completed a chapter and a half. I was also able to do some research for my book on early ninteenth century clothing as well as mining shifts and jobs and the households of bal maidens in the ninteenth century. I sat with my book, my new notebook plus memory stick and my imagination for a whole day. It was bliss!!!! I need now to keep my momentum going as I fear work will overtake me again this week. However I wanted to share my lovely walk, my fab day writing and exhort the praises of my hubby who child managed all day so I could do it!!!!

Babies of all sorts!

I have become an auntie again this week for the second time. At 9.15am on Thursday 23rd April (St George's Day) my sister had a baby boy. She had a four hour labour ending with a beautiful 9lbs 7oz bundle of joy. His name is Kian Peter and he is very gorgeous. Mum, Dad and big sister and all doing well. It is strange but wonderful to have a baby in the family again as the last baby was my little lady who is now four and a half. My daughter thinks he is lovely and even my seven year old son was intrigued and enchanted by this little person (maybe because he doesn't have to live with him...he was less enchanted with his sister when she arrived!!!).

I don't know if this new life inspired me or not, but I sat down on Friday evening and wrote for nearly three hours on my new baby. My hubby bought me a 10.2" notebook for me to write on and I had to use it as soon as possible. It came with Windows XP and Microsoft Office 2007 preloaded so I just plugged it in and off I went. I was delighted with my progress and then went to bed happy having done a word count hat has gone up to just over 12,000 words. This is about a quarter of the way through the book, which feels like a milestone for me.

I have also been involved in setting up a new book club at our church, reading and reviewing Christian fiction and biographies. We have finished our first book and have begun on the second. I decided to set up a blog to post the reviews and discussions so if any of you are interested in what sort of books fall into this genre please feel free to visit. I did not know this whole genre existed so it has been a revelation for me! www.thefictionfellowship.blogspot.com

Easter Walk and Skellig

Hope you all had a wonderful Easter. We have been manic as usual, doing family fun days and puppet shows at church and elsewhere. It has been a busy time, but FAB. We had a lovely walk on the Camel Trail (a former railway line that is now a cycle/horse/walk pathway running from Padstow to Wadebridge and then on to Bodmin). We have found a quieter part out on the moor where the kids can scooter and cycle on a flat surface. It runs alongside the River Camel and the banksides are awash with primroses and now some bluebells too. It was breathtaking as it was a beautiful spring evening last night.

I have cherry picked TV this weekend as I have not had the energy or time to watch much. I enjoyed Dr Who and Robin Hood on Saturday (despite the absence of Richard Armitage) and my son and I adored the Sky One adaptation of Skellig on Sunday, although I was a bit annoyed at how much they added that was not in the book. That aside, we were all hooked and now Connor wants me to read the book with him. Tim Roth was great, a really grumpy character and truthfullyI like most things with John Sim in it.

I have been unable to post because my ISP has been down inexplicably for over a week...joy...joy!! Any way it seems to be back for now so I have taken the opportunity to go visiting and to do this quick post. I have been so tired out after a hectic weekend that I cannot seem to contemplate anything in terms of my writing before the children go back on the 20th!! Lots of ideas brewing so I am itching to get on with it.

Inspirational Lewis!!

I have just finished watching the first in a new series of Lewis. I have not watched this before and confess to never being a Morse fan, but it was ironing night and so I gave it a go! I was gripped; probably because it centred around a young author who had had his fantasy novel published. Of course being a detective series there are grisly murders and seedy secrets, however I was intrigued with how the plot was laced throughout with cross references and nods to two writers who share Detective Lewis's surname:

CS Lewis

and
Lewis Carroll

One of the characters lectured on Carroll and the young author, who was later murdered by his foster mother/lover(!!) was inspired to write by CS Lewis. It was inspired how the references to these two authors, their love of fantasy and potentially their secrets was woven in alongside solid detective Lewis.

It also got me thinking, I wonder who we writing bloggers are/were inspired by? What authors inspired you as a child? Which books grip you now as an adult? Does your choice of writing reflect your tastes in reading? Answers in the comments box below folks, I really would love to know!

For me there are so many, however as a child I read CS Lewis, Enid Blyton and Roald Dahl in particular. I loved Famous Five and devoured them daily, reading them till I knew them by heart. I also read a lot of books about ponies!! As a teenager I was absorbed by Terry Pratchett and Arthurian legends. I think quite all of these have inspired me with fantasy and history (although I studied medieval history at Uni so I didn't need much encouragment!) In adult life I have read quite a bit of YA and 'tween' fiction, but without doubt one of my main inspirations has been Michelle Paver. I am reading, "Shadow mancer," by GP Taylor at the moment and really enjoyed Eoin Colfer's' "Airman," recently too. So now you know a bit more about my tastes, I would love to hear about yours!!

The great thing about writing and blogging is...

I was away 'up north' in Leeds last week and have been playing catch up tonight with those lovely people I blog with. What do I discover ...that not one but TWO of them have secured publishing deals this week. Congratulations to both Jon and Tam for their successes. It made me realise a number of great things about being invloved with writing and blogging. Firstly you get to meet some wonderful people and find encouragement and support from people you may never meet in real life! When the sort of thing that has happened to Jon and Tam happens, you realise that it is not an impossible dream that one day you could be a published author, which is brilliant when you are going through the early stages of putting together a magnum opus with various degrees of difficulty.

Secondly you realise that being able to blog with like minded souls is encouraging, inspiring and uplifting. I would be overjoyed if my neighbour Kat got a deal, but I am equally delighted for Tam and Jon who I have only ever spoken to in cyberspace.

I managed to find a cafe in Leeds while my hubby did his plumbing exam. I was able to write undisturbed for two hours and completed the next chapter of my YA novel. I had great conversations with a delightful elderly lady and a charming man who was the living epitamy of aYorkshire stereotype; flat cap, tweed jacket and he bred racing pigeons!! It was bliss to write like that and it has encouraged me on with my writing again.

A circle of writers, however geographically far flung they may be, is a circle that is a blessing and an inspiration. We all have our ups and downs; our successes and failures so let us keep writing, keep blogging and encourage one another on.

Well done guys and I hope one day to be able to post a message

like you did this weekend!

I'm Back!!

Sorry I have been out of the blogging way for over five weeks now!!! So busy and it seems every night I had no energy to sit and write a post. I am writing now with a flu thing going on in my body, but I wanted to make contact again with everyone...I missed y'all.

So what have I been doing for the past five weeks...well the picture above is our back garden about three weeks ago. Our part of Cornwall had snow for the grand total of two whole days, so we made the most of it, as you can see from the picture of Connor below.

Once the snow was gone I have managed to get on and write another chapter and a half of my YA novel. We also had a very dear friend of ours come and stay with us for a few days and I let him read the prologue to the novel. His life experiences made his comments very valuable to me for this story so it was great to talk through the book with him. Whilst he was down we went to Watergate Bay for the afternoon. the weather was good and the surf pretty spectacular to watch. Watergate Bay is a surfer beach but it is great for families as there is beautiful golden saand and small caves to explore. We had a great time there as some of the pictures below will show.

Reading an excellent book called, "Airman," by Eoin Colfer, great swashbuckling stuff, which was useful as I sat in the doctor's surgery yesterday for 40 minutes as they were running late.
Currently feeling very sorry for myself, but hopefully will be on the mend soon. Good to be back again!

Edit-Fication

Well I have begun the editing and re-shaping of my holiday Bible club MS. I have been through the five days of teaching and I am in the process of adapting and editing the discussion questions. Once this is done, the main piece of work I have to do is condense my synopsis to one page, which will be a challenge. It was great to sit down and begin to plan and go through the layout and how I am going to submit this work to this particular publisher. I am determind that by mid Feb at the latest I will be ready to submit this again.

I loved writing this three years ago for the holiday club at our church and have been actively encouraged to try and get it published, so we will have a go.

The subject of Daniel is exciting for kids and relevant and I have had a buzz out of revisiting it again!

My YA novel is calling to me but I am determind to do one project at a time to finish it, otherwise I go off and nothing gets finished!

Happy New Year - Pox, Puppets and Promises

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you all had a great Christmas and a fantastic start to the New Year. I am so sorry that I appeared to disappear off the face of Blogger planet for a few weeks, but two weeks before Christmas my children contracted chicken pox (at the same time) which caused stress leading up to the school nativity as my son was Joseph, however we made it (just) as his spots had dried up enough not to be contagious. Of course Christmas had gone on hold too, so the last week before Christmas is a blur for me! We had a great Christmas and are just beginning to manage the finer points of using a Wii controller now!

Never very good at New Year's Resolutions so I have set myself a number of goals that I want to achieve by the end of 2009. This makes it less likely that I will feel a failure if I do not achieve them all by January 31st!! Some of my goals have to remain in my little head, however I will share some of them with you!

1. Lose ** pounds in weight
2. Send my holiday bible club MS off to at least two other publishers
3. Write regularly i.e most days
4. Get organised (ha ha ha - fairyland I think that one)
5. Come to terms with the departure of David Tennant as The Doctor
6. Remember that the computer has an off switch!!
7. Complete the first draft of my YA novel
8. See if life without regular doses of Galaxy is possible

Just a few of my ramblings? Would love to hear if any of you guys have goals or resolutions, although you are all far too organised and sensible to need to do such things I am sure!!!!

The picture above is of my two and my niece with some of the puppets we used to do our puppet nativity shows before Christmas.