The Hatching Season

It’s the hatching season. Not just of the various critters that appear to be attempting to invade the house, but of a new story.

It struck me this morning as I waddled around the kitchen that I felt thoroughly pregnant. Like the egg was ready to be laid. I’m speaking metaphorically, and I hasten to add there was no waddling, just the sensation that I should be waddling because I’m carrying this huge “thing” that needs birthing. Then I remembered that I’ve had this feeling several times before and always at the same time of year. It’s as though there is a season for bringing a new story into the world.

When I started my paranormal novel a few years ago, it was in March. When I started each book in my midgrade fantasy trilogy, it was the end of February. When the novel I’ve just finished first appeared, it was late February/early March. And now it’s happening again.

As with the others, this story has been composting and brewing in my subconscious for a long time – this one for perhaps longer than any of the others. I’ve started first chapters of it on several occasions, but it’s never been the right time to really bring it into the world. Now it is.

The trouble is, I decided that I would really like to try and plot this story. I figured I’d take control, avoid the endless rewrites, and condense the whole process. But I’m not by nature a plotter – I am a complete “pantster” – I write on the fly – I have nothing but the barest hint of what is about to happen and I don’t know where the story will go. I have a concept and I have a character and I go from there, to who knows where, on a huge adventure with my characters. You might say the story happens to me as much as it does to my characters.

For me, this is the “magic” of writing; it’s like “channeling” the story. That’s the wonder and richness of it. For someone who is usually very organized, disciplined and well-grounded in business and process protocols, this is where the creative energies force me to trust them and take me on an alchemical ride of their own. It’s once the first draft is down that I regain my power, and my work (the rewriting and editing) begins.

This time, however, I thought I could try and change the process. Ho-ho-ho.

For the last few weeks, knowing the story has been reaching boiling point, I’ve been trying to find the various bits of it so I can sit down and plot the thing. Ha! Not a chance. It’s just not going to happen. Every time I try to sneak up on the story to unravel its secrets, it hurtles off and blows raspberries at me from behind a bush. Each time I try to cajole it and encourage it to reveal its inner workings to me, it slinks off and sulks. It becomes capricious, petulant and single-minded. Any attempt to pin it down, just makes it thoroughly elusive.

Let’s not kid ourselves, stories have minds and lives of their own. They are alive and they live on their terms. Some people’s stories may allow themselves to be captured and tamed into submission to reveal their inner depths. The stories that come to me don’t.

So, I will now capitulate and sit down in front of my blank screen and wait for the story to reveal itself. It’s the only way to do it and frankly, at this stage, I’m so heavily pregnant with story that if I don’t, I’ll probably explode. And we all know how messy that might be - chocolate and vanilla will be splattered everywhere!

As it is, just having said all this, I can hear the gentle rustling of wings as the story settles itself down and readies itself to be told.

Here we go…!

I'm not that Other person

The Real Deal

Someone on Twitter just happily told me they had just discovered me and were reading my book… Oh dear, not again.

See, I’m going to start getting a bit snarky about this. So can we please, for the record, get something straight… I am NOT a chick-lit author. And frankly, I wish the chicklit author who is using my name as her nom de plume would relinquish it.

For heaven’s sake, girl, use the name your parents gave you or use your husband’s name. Come out of the closet, ‘fess up and tell the world who you really are. I’m sure your real name is a lovely name. You should be proud of it - and of the books you write. And, er, you are aware, aren’t you, that Freud was pretty clear about alter egos being tendencies of the narcissistic personality? As I recall, he said something like “The idea of the "double"...sprung from the soil of unbounded self-love, from the primary narcissism which holds sway in the mind of the child.” Ahem. Alternatively, you don’t perhaps just want to be done with it and to call yourself Ms Hyde, do you?

Okay, so some of you reading this may be wondering how I’m so sure that the Other is using a pen name. Well see, she says so on her blog (for which, as a matter of course, I will not provide the URL) that: “I work in publishing and sneakily write books by day…” “…as most of you may suspect, my true identity is hidden from the world-at-large. The reason, of course, is that should the world-at-large (read: those with little or no sense of humour) discover my serious daily persona actually hides a slightly deranged cake-eating chick-lit author, me and my reasonably large rear end will become too-well acquainted with a Jools'-style cardboard box in which to live. Well, okay, I probably won't get booted into a box, but certain people I come into contact with on a daily basis may be less than impressed with my schizo tendencies. Having said all that, it is kind of nice living a double life, particularly as I get to admit to my hero worship of sugar without it affecting any stuffy board meetings.”

I’ll probably find myself in agreement with her employers here in saying that I’m not overly wild about her schizo tendencies either. (My own lunar tendencies notwithstanding, of course).

Now let’s be quite clear about a few things in distinguishing Chick-Lit Author - aka the Other - from the Real Nicky Schmidt (that’s me):

1. I do not have a reasonably large rear end. Mine is neat and trim and regularly visits the gym.
2. I do not eat cake – which is why I do not have a large rear end.
3. I do not hide my true identity – mostly because I’m not trying to kid myself or the world at large that I’m somebody else, and I don’t have employers whose time I’m nicking to write my books.
4. I do not attend stuffy board meetings. Been there, done that, got several t-shirts. It’s so 20^th century.
5. I do not hero worship sugar, which is why, see note above, I do not have a large rear end. Mostly, I detest the stuff. Give me vanilla instead.
6. I don’t have rubbish computer abilities as my nemesis claims she has. In fact, I’m quite a dab hand, if I say so myself.
7. I am totally not into pastries whereas the Other claims to have no self control in the pastry department. Again, see that note about the large rear end…
8. I’m far better at blogging than she is – she really doesn’t appear to be getting the hang of it.
9. I’m listed on Linked-In as me – she’s not – well not under her nom de plume anyway.
10. The real Nicky (i.e. Me!) is currently the first hit on Google.

And finally, the most important points:

11. I’m not trying to build a brand based on sugar and a big bum.
12. I own the relevant top-level domain names…and they’re not for sale – unless she’s offering millions and billions of pounds.

I will say this – it’s pretty disconcerting how the Other has named herself - not only does she have my name, she also uses the initial letter of my second name as hers in her Twitter profile. I’m starting to think there’s been full on identity theft. It could mean war. I might have to start with a “cease and desist” letter. It might have to be followed by a disclosure of fur and fangs coupled with some lunar tendencies - and perhaps an attempt to lay claim to her royalties as my own...

Alternately, given my many years in marketing, I might just turn all this to my own advantage…

Oh, and for the record – I’m also, most definitely, not this bloke… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyp6GUhV1wk

The Glass Half Full

I started writing a post the other day about the angst I sense in some of my fellow writers. Then I deleted it, feeling sure that what I wanted to say would offend. But the thing is I keep reading angsty stuff – and it bothers me that people would waste so much energy in being counter-productive. There, I’ve said it.

Now I realise this anxiety is not the preserve of only writers (everyone is affected by the same sorts of emotions) but the writerly space is the one I hang out in. And what I see is anxiety which goes around getting published, not getting published, staying published, marketing oneself, finding an agent, not finding an agent, losing an agent, the state of the economy, the effect of the economy on publishing, the effect of digital publishing on the future of writers and gatekeepers. If you worry about it all, I’d guess there’s enough there for a nervous breakdown or spontaneous self-combustion!

I accept it takes all sorts to make a world. I also realise that for the most part, I’m one of those irritatingly glass half-full people. This is the result of life experiences, parents who insisted I look for the positive, my spiritual beliefs and goodness knows what else. I fully accept that life does not always appear to be fair, but I firmly believe that life is what you make of it. You can be a victim or a victor. It’s entirely up to you. No one else, just you.

I, like everyone else, have my baggage – you don’t need to know about it, you just need to know that if you have baggage, I get it – I know what it’s like, and never mind the half empty glass, I know what it’s like to be at the very bottom of the glass. But what I’ve come to understand is that while life throws curved balls and it can deal a shitty hand – it’s ultimately it’s up to the individual to decide how to play the game. You can curl up and die or you can find solutions.

I was watching Kung Fu Panda the other day, for the umpteenth time...

“There are no accidents,” said Master Oogway
“There is just news,” he said, “There is no good or bad.”
“My friend the panda will never fulfill his destiny, nor you yours until you let go of the illusion of control,” he told Shi Fu.
And when Po was angsting over being the Dragon Warrior or quitting and going back to making noodles, Master Oogway said to him: “Quit, don't quit? Noodles, don't noodles? You are too concerned about what was and what will be. There is a saying: yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called the "present." “.
“You just need to believe,” said Master Oogway.

I love that Turtle, really I do.

We spend so much time worrying about tomorrow, fretting about yesterday, troubling ourselves about things over which we have no control. We forget to live, to be. We chase dreams and rainbows and are in turn chased by nightmares and demons. We forget how to believe. We forget that we bring the good or the bad into our lives through our own attitudes and thoughts.

I write because I love to write. I’ve written since I could first string two sentences together. I love to craft a good story, I love to try and make that story the best I can – I enjoy the challenge, I thrive on using my intellect and exercising my creativity. I’ve realized that while it would be deeply cool to be published, and that it would bring a whole lot of new experiences and new learnings (and what is life without new learnings – it’s how we grow), I also know it won’t kill me if I’m not published. Sure, I would love my stories to go into the world – and I believe if they are meant to, they will. I accept that if my getting published is meant to be, it will be. If it doesn’t happen, it wasn’t meant to, and while I am trying, it’s a helluva ride and I love it. As Master Oogway says, there are no accidents; in other words, everything is as it should be in this moment – even if it doesn’t seem to make much sense.

Do you know how much easier that makes life? I don’t sweat the small stuff because there’s no point. I change the things I can change, I influence that which I can. Yeah, I chuck the odd hissy fit, get down and have periodic rants –but none of it lasts long. I do it to acknowledge what I feel or let off steam but I don’t stay in that space because, honestly, I don’t like being negative. Negativity mires us and traps us in sludgy fear. Who’d want to be there? I mean, really? So I accept that there is much I cannot control, and I work within those parameters.

I work hard and I enjoy it. Sure, rejections aren’t fun, but they don’t kill me and they never will. I accept it when someone says, “It’s not right for our list” - it probably isn’t. I accept that perhaps I sent it to the wrong publisher or that the manuscript needs more work – and that gives me something concrete – I can focus on making the manuscript better, that’s in my control. I accept it if an editor says, “The market is saturated” – it means I got my timing wrong – I may have written a great story and that in itself is the victory. Being rejected may suck, but lots of things in life suck – but it doesn’t mean the end of the world. It means it’s time to move on and write something else.

In the same sort of way, I don’t believe in writer’s block, just like I don’t believe in a whole lot of other man-made concepts. Man-made concepts are seldom about the truth. I do, however, believe writing has a rhythm, just like the seasons do. If the words aren’t there today, or I don’t feel like writing, I honour and respect that – and do something else. If, however, I have a deadline to meet, I meet it – that’s about discipline, that’s something I can control because it’s about me and not some funky concept with which too many people to beat themselves up.

You see, we choose how we respond to situations – if we are angry, happy, sad or anxious – that is our choice – no one else is making us feel a particular way – we’re choosing to feel that way. We can just as easily choose to feel differently. It’s like the person who constantly complains about an ache or a pain and you say, “Go and see So-and-So, she’s a brilliant doctor.” And the other says, “Yes, sure, I will…” and they don’t. You know what that tells me? It tells me the person enjoys hanging onto their pain – they’re getting something out of it, they’re getting off on being in that space. If they weren’t, they’d do something about it, even if that means conquering a great fear.

Like I said, don’t think that I write this from a position of having lived the fairytale/dream life. I don’t. I write from this position because I know how tough life can be. But here’s the thing – your glass can be half full, or your glass can be half empty – that’s something you can control – because you choose how you want to be.

So, here’s my wish for all those, writers or others, who’re feeling anxious or gloomy – live in the moment, remember the now – today is a gift, respect and appreciate that. With just a little help from you, tomorrow will actually take care of itself – and it will be what it will be – and whatever that is, it will be the right thing for you.

Believe.

Videos courtesy of YouTube, images nicked from the internet.

Oh, so you're a writer...

So, there was this discussion on the SCBWI-BI group a while ago – about how people respond when you say, “I’m a writer.” The responses are a study in psychology, with possibly enough material for an entire convention...of psychologists, not writers – we-ell, then again, maybe both.

There seem to be two distinct types when it comes to responses, and it depends on how well people think they know you. The better they think they know you, the tougher the experience.

Family members or family acquaintances either provide pitying looks, roll their eyes or pretend they have a gerbil stuck in their ear when I tell them I’m writing a novel. These responses appear to be based on one or more of the following thought processes:

a) she couldn’t string a coherent sentence together if she tried. Poor deluded dolt.
b) writing a book? Yeah, right - what a waster!
c) shame that she will eventually have to realise that she’s just not “famous” material. Her? The next JK Rowling? Ha!
d) she’s never got over being retrenched from “corporatedom”, poor thing.
e) she’s just trying to make out that she’s “different” and better than us. Always been a stuck up little beast. Why can’t she just go off and be a secretary.
f) oh crap, I hope she’s not going to want to tell me about it. I so don’t care.

Occasionally, I’ll get a vague, “Oh, that’s nice, dear.” At which point a jam doughnut is conveniently stuffed into their mouths and masticated with sticky gusto thus preventing further discussion. Very rarely, they may ask, “What’s your book about?” You can rest assured that in this instance their eyes will glaze over before I’ve uttered four words. (Note to self – work on 3 word pitch.) God forbid I should tell them I’m writing for children. Because that, really, is just proof that I:

a) can’t string a coherent adult sentence together,
b) really am just goofing off,
c) am a seriously deluded wannabe,
d) am incapable of holding down a proper job and,
e) am just pathetic and have never grown up,

In the almost unheard of instance when an aunt asked what I was writing, a conversation very nearly ensued. It went something like this:
“Oh, you know cousin X’s ex-girlfriend...?”
“No.” (I’m unsociable like that.)
“Well, she’s just published a picture book. It’s all about sharks. It’s very good, you know. When’s your book going to be published?”
When I muttered darkly about how tough it is to be published (especially somewhere other than my own country), the aunt in question gave me a look which indicated I may well have been some noxious substance on the sole of her shoe, and then stuffed a ham sandwich into her gob.

I have, however, learned to find the positives in these situations; relatives are magnificent fodder for stories. Remember this: everyone is fair game in a writer’s twisted mind. Piss me off, and you may end up as a villain in my next book – and you can be sure my hero will bring you down – hard.

The second type of response usually comes from strangers.

They are lovely – mostly. Strangers are infinitely more supportive and often wide-eyed with wonder that they’ve actually met a real writer (we’ll get to the unpublished bit later). They’re inclined to be interested, fascinated and seriously impressed. I have to tell you, it does a girl’s ego the power of good. Of course, the trade off is they do also want to tell you about this great idea they have for a book (doesn’t everyone) and maybe you could help them write it.

Sitting on the train a couple of months ago, having visited a dear writer pal in Wokingham, the bloke next to me kept trying to make conversation. Now, my mother always told me not to speak to strangers, and when it suits me, I heed her advice. Given that the guys in the next row of seats were as drunk as skunks after a day out at Ascot, I was keeping my head well down. But my fellow passenger was persistent and eventually he asked the inevitable, “Why are you in England and what do you do?”
So I told him.
“Wow… Wow… Wow!” Pause. “Wow… So you’re a writer? Wow!”
(This is the point where girl raises hand to hide smile.)
“So what do you write?”
"Ficion for young adults, you know, older teens."
“Oh wow… That’s…that’s just so amazing. I wish I’d started speaking to you earlier. This is my stop but, wow… I just met a real writer!”
He left the train in a cloud of wonder.

I couldn’t help but imagine what would have happened if I’d been a published author and could have offered him one of my books - which brings me to the point when strangers say, with tremendous earnestness, “So where can I buy a copy of your book?” or "Have I read your book?"

It’s at this point that I feel I’m letting them down terribly. I shuffle a bit, and mutter that thing about how hard it is to write for children, how competitive the market is, how tough it is to get published, how it’s even tougher in the current economic climate – and then we both look embarrassed and run out of words. I try to mumble about the encouraging editor and agent feedback I’ve had, but really, I feel like I must, after trying for so long, be totally rubbish, and I know they think they same. And they smile then, and it’s sort of pitying… and the moment is entirely ruined and I have to turn into the clown and dig us both out of the hole.




See, here’s the thing, the longer one is a writer-in-waiting, the tougher it becomes. People are less inclined to believe you’re doing a “proper job” and are more inclined to believe that you really can’t string those two coherent sentences together. (Because, really, that is all that writing’s about, isn’t it…? Just stringing sentences together…). And so the pitying looks increase, and ultimately, they stop asking you how the book is going. My non-writer friends stopped asking me years ago about my writing – I think they just find it too embarrassing. In some ways, this is a blessed relief - though, sadly, it limits my opportunity to bore them witless about the exploits of some or other make-believe person. Ultimately, it may all go a long way to explaining why I spend a lot of time hanging out in cyberspace with my writer pals and being increasingly reclusive in the real 3D world.

Oh no, wait, I’m not reclusive, I’m very busy working, doing my job - writing and writing and rewriting and rewriting… and then writing again!

Baaaad Vanilla!

Mea very very culpa. I have been a bad girl. I have become horribly behind in all sorts of things I undertook to do and I hereby beat my chest, tug my forelock and groveling-ly apologise to all those I have let down.

Yes, yes, it’s true. I am entirely behind all the author interviews and book reviews I promised to do. I owe Sarwat Chadda and Nick Green author interviews. I promised book reviews to Ellen Renner and Gillian Philip. And I’ve been so caught up in “life” that reading - and I regret to say, writing - have been cast aside.

In an effort to catch up, I am now reading Sarwat Chadda’s Dark Goddess and Nick Green’s The Cat Kin at the same time. It’s causing me no end of trouble… Sarwat’s Billi Sangreal keeps morphing into a cat, while Nick’s Ben and Tiffany keep getting chased by werewolves – and that’s just all so wrong – because it’s Billi who’s hunting down the werewolves who’ve abducted the Spring Child, while Nick’s Ben and Tiffany have the wondrous ability to draw on their inner Mau and morph into catlike beings in order to go after the bad guys.




Note to self: really, don’t try to read two books at once, you are simply not in any fit state to do so – go and eat chocolate instead.

At least, I’m not getting confused between Ellen and Gillian’s books, as I’ve not even started them yet (sorry, grovel, sorry). But what I will say is this: there is a smouldering burn on the carpet next to my bed - and it’s all that Seth’s fault – for those who don’t know, he’s the seriously hot half-feral son of a Sithe nobleman in Gillian’s YA novel, Firebrand. He’s so seriously hot that I think he’s sent Ellen’s Tobias running for a huge bucket of water in the City of Thieves. Good old Tobias – I’m hoping he’ll prevent my entire house from burning down – assuming his family don’t nick the house first...




Anyway, at least you know what will be forthcoming on the blog, if I ever manage to get my life sorted out. And…there will also be, when it arrives, an interview with Savita Kalhan about her debut YA novel, The Long Weekend.




Right, now I’d better get on with catching up on the critiques owed to three of my critique partners, Jackie Marchant, Candy Gourlay and Lynn Huggins-Cooper.

I may be a while – again.

Mr and Mrs Smith, and it’s such a shame he doesn’t even look like Brad…

or... The Dream Breakers


So, here’s how it goes. Ever since I returned to South Africa in 1995, I’ve wanted to leave. Hey, what can I say, I’m just contrary that way. I guess I felt safer in the UK, I felt more at home – my mongrel heritage is, after all, entirely European (north, east central and west). But I realised, having returned to South Africa, that I wasn’t going to get back to Europe that fast. I was, though, willing to work with a longer term plan.

When I discovered I wanted to write full time, I also realised that in order for me to have a more even chance of getting published, I really did need to be somewhere closer to the main centres of publishing - and for me that once more meant the UK. I started to set my plans in motion, including networking intensively with fellow children’s writers in the UK. I soon realised that pretty much all my friends lived there, not here – writers and others, including old uni pals and ex colleagues who’d made the Great Departure. Yep, I thought, I needed to move. I had to move. I was determined to move. I would make the dream a reality.

And then the global economic crisis hit and Lovely Husband ran scared. “Not a chance am I going anywhere in this economic climate,” he announced. Fair enough. I could get that. But as time elapsed and things settled a little, I also came to realise, and reluctantly accept, that the reality was that Lovely Husband didn’t want to leave South Africa at all. That was my dream, not his – but like women the world over, I’d figured I could change his mind. A word from the increasingly wise (yep, that’s me) – never try to change someone and never try to change their mind (oh would that I listened to my own good advice…). The universe gave us free will and it’s a hard nut to crack when it’s someone else’s.

I’ve had a tough time accepting that a long held dream is just not going to become a reality. That time has also been compounded by my mother’s recent illness, age and the acceptance that I’m going to have to sort something out for her – because she sure as nuts won’t do it herself (I can do without lurching from one matriarchal drama to the next). Looking at the two situations and given that I have a really hard time being a glass half empty person, I set my sights on the next thing. And what I figured I would do was find my mother a really nice cottage in a retirement complex, and a piece of land for myself where I could build my dream home. It was a good goal and dream to have, I figured. I actually became quite seriously excited. (Yes, there was a lot of bouncing about.)

But I swear, the gods must be playing a rough hand of poker up there or wherever the hell it is that they are. Or it might be that the buggers are all pissed out of their skulls on mead. I don’t know. Perhaps the ethernet connection between me and them is just faulty and my mail’s not going through. Whatever.

See, I found a plot, a really, really nice plot – one with sweeping 180 degree views across the mountains, the valley and the sea. It was in an elevated position on a mountainside and, I was convinced from the moment of seeing it, that it was mine. It just had that feeling about it. Of course, whether I could actually afford to fulfill this dream was another matter. Thank goodness for calculators, prudent financial planning and bean counters etc. Yes, I finally worked out it was indeed do-able and I was even up for the nightmare of building. Shucks, I’ve dealt with enough stuff in my life; builders hold little or no fear for me.

So, new dream in hand, I set out to make an offer to purchase. And what do you know. Enter Mr. and Mrs. Smith. No, I’m not kidding, they really are called Mr. and Mrs. Smith. But unlike the Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie version of the couple, these two don’t assassinate people, just their dreams. Mr. and Mrs. Smith, you see are estate agents – of the unethical and unscrupulous variety, sort of like the greater striped venomous viper (yes, I know, like so many others of their species). Mr. and Mrs. Smith believed I should have made an offer on the plot through them. When Mr. and Mrs. Smith learned that I had put in an offer with another agent, Mr. and Mrs. Smith turned nasty. I have, indeed, spent the entire weekend doing battle with Mr. and Mrs. Smith. I regret to say, that until or unless I can find a sneaky sort of solution, Mr. and Mrs. Smith have broken my deal and won. Exit the dream.

Frankly, I’m getting more than a little miffed with all this dream wreckage. I’m also wondering what the hell to do next. My motivation levels appear to have descended to the depths of hell where they’ve used up all the fuel in the fires so there’s none left to propel me back up and out again. The Black Dog is snuffling around, making growly noises and slavering in a most unattractive manner. I tried seeing the sod off with some choccie raisins, but he just came back for more; serves me right for trying to take a conciliatory approach with the beast. Now I’m just staring at the glass – you know, the one with the water in it (would it was champagne…), trying to figure out if it is half full or half empty. Just sitting here, staring and staring and staring…

I may be a while.

An interview with Tabitha Suzuma, author of Forbidden

Tabitha Suzuma is yet another of the remarkable authors I have met online via Facebook – it highlights how social networking can indeed enrich lives – and I very much look forward to meeting her later this year. Tabitha is not only a gifted writer (she has won, been nominated for and shortlisted for multiple awards); she is also a warm, funny, extraordinary and courageous person.

I had not previously read any of Tabitha’s work but I was aware of the subject matter she chooses to write about – and let’s be clear about one thing – Tabitha does not choose easy subject matter. In her latest book, Forbidden, Tabitha Suzuma tackles the taboo of sibling incest.

“How can something so wrong feel so right…?”

Before you recoil, read on.

A romance with a dramatic difference, Tabitha Suzuma’s Forbidden should come with a warning label: “Expect to have your world rocked.”

Forbidden is without doubt one of the most emotionally disturbing, powerful and haunting novels I have ever read – even Nabokov’s Lolita pales next to it. Richly complex and emotionally dramatic, Forbidden left me reeling.

Tabitha’s words are beautiful, her characters are vividly alive, the raw emotional power is palpable, and her story is challenging and intense. Forbidden is not a story for the faint-hearted, but it is a novel which will grip and hold you throughout.

This is writing at its most potent. This is a story which will push your buttons and leave you seriously questioning an openly accepted moral taboo and legal crime as you face, just as Lochan and Maya Whitely face, the forbidden love which Tabitha Suzuma has so bravely written about.

Lest you think that sibling incest is both an exception and something morally bereft, consider this:

History is littered with examples of brother-sister love: Cleopatra VII was married to her brother Ptolemy XII, the Roman emperor Caligula is rumoured to have had sexual relations with all three of his sisters, and the Hapsburg and Bourbon dynasties are riddled with incest. It is interesting to note that incest is not illegal in all jurisdictions and the taboo is more often than not driven by religion. On the flip side, “incest” is fairly normal in the animal world and, at its most fundamental, the issue for humans is that avoidance is about genetics and gene pools - inbreeding creates small gene pools and those groups subsequently die out. At its most simplistic, it becomes then, a matter of biology rather than morality. Taken like this, the taboo and law against incest becomes an interesting one, particularly if abuse is not involved. As Tabitha's Maya says: “They’ll never stop us. Not as long as this is what we both want. But you’ve got to stop thinking it’s wrong, Lochie. That’s just what other people think; it’s their problem, their stupid rules, their prejudices. They’re the ones who are wrong, narrow-minded, cruel…”

In reading Forbidden, the reader truly feels for Lochan and Maya Whitely; one does more than just empathise with them and one might even support their “forbidden love”. If it feels so "right", how can it be "wrong"? Forbidden raises many interesting moral questions, some of which are highlighted in an article The Guardian ran in 2002 entitled Forbidden Love in which it becomes quite clear that incest happens all around us, all the time. In short, sibling incest is far more common and prevalent than we’d like to think.

“You’ve always been my best friend, my soul mate, and now I’ve fallen in love with you too. Why is that such a crime?”

But enough of the background, let's get on with the interview.


I am totally delighted that Tabitha agreed to be interviewed on Absolute Vanilla, even though this is the toughest interview I’ve done to date. Tabitha, I'm afraid, found my questions equally challenging and begged to bow out on some of the more complex ones, so if it appears that there are "holes" in the interview, well, there are.

Tabitha Suzuma

Genius, tortured souls, worlds falling apart appear to be trademarks of your storytelling, and you are unafraid to tackle emotionally challenging topics such as depression, alcoholism, dysfunctional families, and, in Forbidden, sibling incest. What draws you or influences you to write stories of this nature?

Haha – when you put it like that, it makes me sound completely mad, which is only partially true! I guess I write about what I know, what fascinates me, and what I think is important, and all of these topics fall into at least one of those categories. The genius in A Note of Madness and its sequel A Voice in the Distance is Flynn, who is a musical prodigy, and his ‘genius’ was greatly influenced by my then teenage brother who is currently training to become a professional concert pianist. I am also fascinated by the link between mental illness and the artistic temperament. I studied psychology for a while, and one of my favourite books is Touched With Fire by Kay Redfield Jamison, which studies this link by exploring the lives of the many, many illustrious writers, musicians, composers and artists who suffered from some sort of mental illness.

Most of my books revolve around mental illness or mental suffering because it is something I am very familiar with. Refractory clinical depression is a condition I have lived with for most of my life and one which has come close to ending it on numerous occasions.






In Forbidden, in addition to the central tenet of the novel, you also draw together the threads of a broken family, an alcoholic mother, social phobia, older children raising younger children and the constant threat of intrusion by social services. Where did you start with this story and how did you find the various threads came together?

The threads you mention came from the need to find a reason for the two main characters, Lochan and Maya, to be drawn together into a romantic relationship. Consensual sibling incest happens more often when the siblings in question are brought up apart and meet for the first time as teens or adults. Consensual incest between siblings brought up together is relatively rare and so I needed some form of explanation for this to occur. Making them child carers, without any real or positive parental influence, forced to act as adults from a young age and to look after their younger siblings enabled me to make their relationship different from most brothers and sisters right from the start. They were close friends, partners, who shared an incredible burden that the rest of the world was unable to understand. They had to act like parents themselves which drew them into a relationship very different from your average brother and sister. It also alienated them from others as they were not free to hang out with friends after school and Lochan’s social phobia reinforced this sense of alienation by creating an actual barrier which prevented him from being able to reach out and talk to his peers. The threat of social services coming in and tearing the family apart placed an extra burden on Lochan and Maya and meant they had a secret (that they were living without parents) which drew them even further together. All of these factors pulled them closer together and made them increasingly dependent on one another for love and support.


In Lochan Whitely you have created a brilliant yet deeply troubled, complex and tragic character. How did he arise for you and how did he form as you wrote?

Lochan was a great character to write. I put a lot of myself into him, as well as a lot of the kind of person I would like to be. His social phobia was just an exaggeration of the kind of social discomfort many teens experience at some point or another and his sense of responsibility from being the eldest was greatly influenced by my own experiences growing up as the eldest of five. His kindness and sensitivity towards others was influenced by a close friend of mine and his brilliance was inspired by the link between genius and the troubled mind.


Troubled male main characters, albeit often balanced by strong secondary female character, seem to be prevalent in your writing. What draws you particularly to write from a male perspective – and the troubled main character perspective at that? And how important do you feel a balancing female protagonist is, and why?

I put a lot of myself into my main characters and when I started my very first book, A Note of Madness, I decided to try writing it from a male perspective so that I was able to create some distance between the character and myself. So that I could be less self-conscious, I suppose, and free to put as much of myself into the character as I wanted without actually feeling as if I were writing about myself. I guess it was a form of camouflage. But I also wanted to write a book about a teenage boy suffering from a mental illness because I think that society makes it far more difficult for boys than for girls to talk about their feelings, especially when things are going wrong, and much more difficult for them to speak out about their problems and seek help. Not that it’s easy for anyone, but teenage boys are much more inclined to keep their feelings bottled up. I also felt there were far more books about troubled girls in YA fiction and that more books about troubled boys needed to be written as they suffer just as much but often receive far less help. I now feel extremely comfortable writing from a male perspective but I also enjoy writing in a dual narrative, as in Forbidden, because for a love story I think it’s important for the reader to experience the feelings of both characters involved.


Lochan and Maya’s mum is a hopeless, and ultimately destructive character, who clutches at her fading youth, a bottle of booze in hand. Were there any particular influences and inspiration behind the creation of her character, which is the primary and fundamentally abusive force within her family?

I think her complete disinterest in her family and her selfishness and most importantly, lack of parental love was influenced in part by my late father, who was physically abusive towards me when I was a child and rarely showed affection.


Would you say that in creating Forbidden you wrote intuitively or did you have to do a considerable amount of research?

The only research I had to do was regarding incest and the law, and the details in the final chapters.


So now, Tabitha, the obvious question arises: what motivated and inspired you to write a book about sibling incest?

It started with the desire to write a tragic love story. It came down to incest by a process of elimination. I wanted the book to be set in contemporary London and I needed the two teens in question to be old enough for their love for each other to be taken seriously. But I quickly realised that (fortunately) in modern-day Britain there are very few – if any – obstacles that could keep a couple in love apart. Cultural and religious difference maybe, but if the couple were determined enough to go against their families' wishes, they could always run away together. I needed something that would be condemned by everyone wherever they went – a relationship that could never be and moreover, was against the law.


Many authors believe their writing is autobiographical to a greater or lesser extent. To what extent does your own life inform your writing?

As I mentioned earlier, I suffer from clinical depression so on the one hand I have always viewed writing as an escape from the real world and as an escape from my own problems and from myself. On the other hand, I also find it very therapeutic because I am able to discharge a lot of my own pent up emotions onto the page. I think it’s an escape because I’m not writing about myself directly and I’m not writing about my own immediate problems; however I definitely use the intensity of the emotions I’ve experienced at various points in my life to make my books as real as possible. I often also find, upon re-reading, that I have unconsciously used many episodes in my life to influence my writing and choice of subject matter. Obviously, my books about depression stem from my own battle with the illness but it took me a while to realise how much of Lochan and Maya’s responsibilities and concern for their younger siblings mirrored my own childhood. I am the eldest of five and although I wouldn’t go as far as saying I was a child carer, I did leave school at fourteen when my youngest brother was born and played a big part in bringing him up: I did the school run, the bedtime routine, bathed him, dressed him, even had his friends round to play. My sister, ten years my junior, called me ‘mummy’ until she was three.




Your characters and your voice are mature, some might even say more suited to an adult as opposed to a young adult readership. What is your view on this and what it is to write for young adults?

I never set out to write for young adults. In A Note of Madness, if you read the prologue, you might be able to tell it was intended initially for an adult audience. But then I found that because I was writing about teens, the book seemed more suitable for a teenage audience. I find myself drawn to writing about teenagers and about what some might call teen issues. Therefore my books fit better in the YA section. However I have had a great number of adults write to me to say how much they have enjoyed my books and I certainly don’t change my style or significantly simplify the vocabulary I use.


I know that in writing Forbidden you went through many revisions, edits and rewrites. What was the view of your publishers on presenting them with the initial manuscript and what were the points on which you differed?

Actually there was only one, major rewrite. And that was in order to remove several of the sexual scenes. I was very keen to keep the story as realistic as possible and didn’t want to do any ‘glossing’ or tasteful fades to black. In order to keep the story real, I felt there would also be quite a lot of sexual content seeing as the couple are more or less left to their own devices. However my publishers felt that Lochan and Maya’s relationship was too sexual and not romantic enough and so I had to rework some scenes and do a lot of negotiation until we found a middle ground we were both happy with.


Do you get to interact much with your young adult readers and, if so, what sort of feedback have you had from them on Forbidden?

I am fortunate enough to get a lot of wonderful emails from my readers. So far, the feedback on Forbidden has been overwhelmingly positive which feels great. However many readers have also written to tell me how much the book moved them, often to the point of tears, and many told me they never thought they would find themselves rooting for a brother and sister to be allowed to have a sexual relationship but that their feelings changed completely during the course of the book.




Finally, what next for Tabitha Suzuma? I know you are working on a new novel, can you tell us a little about it and when it will be published.

My next book is a tragic love story with, as its central theme, euthanasia.



Many thanks to Tabitha Suzuma for agreeing to be interviewed and I wish great success with Forbidden and her forthcoming novel.


For more about Tabitha Suzuma you can connect with her via:
Her website
Her Facebook fan page
On Twitter

Her books can be found on Amazon UK
and Amazon USA

For those interested, overviews of incest and incest taboo can be found on Wikipedia.

Cue Stage Left: enter batty writing recluse

I am in grave danger, I realise, of becoming a Grade A batty recluse. Aside from two trips to the gym, one of which involved a quick dash for some grocery supplies, I have not left the house for the past eight days. I’m sure it’s not healthy.

Instead, each morning has seen me shuffling down the passage in my pyjamas and wrapped up in a manky old cardy, cashmere pashmina and what can only be described as increasingly rank slippers. A note on the slippers: I fear they are due for exorcism and burning on the pyre. Note to self: do not wear furry slippers day in and day out without socks. ‘Nuf zed.

Writing pyjamas and gardening wellies...

At the end of the passage is my writing cave in which I fear there may be a cranky old bear or two. Oh, no, wait, that’s me. Sorry.

But I’m getting sidetracked. Did I mention “batty”? Yes? Right.

So, enter the writing cave, switch on the computer. Shuffle from cave to kitchen to create rocket fuel brew of chocolate. Recipe here. Shuffle back to cave clutching brew.

Take quick trawl around Facebook. Play a couple of games of Wordscraper and Scrabble with Janey and Val. Direct attention to matters in hand.

And here, you see is the problem.

There’s a new manuscript in progress.

Or, rather, there’s a complete rewrite of a manuscript first drafted two years ago. And it’s dark and gritty. It’s deep and intense. It’s shot through with bolts of lyricism.

And it has consumed me.

The writing cave on a non-writing day...

Picture this: Writer, in pyjamas, swathed in blankets, in darkened cave. Note, the blinds are remain drawn and the protesting orchids have had to be moved out. The blankets, I should add, are frequently over the writer’s head. The heater is on full blast. The writer, it appears, has created some sort of bookwomb. No, not bookworm (though there might be some of them lurking between the covers too).

The writer stays like this until about 14h30 when she realises she’s forgotten to eat and she’s starting to smell something less pleasant that a camel’s armpit. (I have smelled a camel from up close. I know.) At this point she scuttles down the passage and throws herself under a steaming shower.

The trouble is, the shower acts like a psychic phone-booth, so the ideas start to flow again.

At this point, the writer flings on a mangy dressing gown and hurtles down the passage to capture the new ideas before they take wing into the stratosphere.

By now it’s 16h30 and the writer still hasn’t eaten.

However, it’s at approximately this point that a modicum of sanity prevails and the writer gets dressed. Usually in her “writing pyjamas”. In case you’re wondering, pyjamas are the fundamental element of a writer’s wardrobe. (I will be putting in several tax claims for pyjamas.)

A short break ensues while the writer nibbles on fruit and cheese and rice cakes and stares, somewhat blankly, at the television screen.

Inevitably something will trigger an idea or a solution to a problem in the plot.

And it’s off again.

The writer’s husband has realised it’s probably best to a) get his own dinner, b) accept starvation or c) hope like hell she’ll cook something that will last several days. It’s usually a or c which prevail. (I’m not such a bad wife.)

Where it all happens...

So. This blog post written, the washing in the machine and on the line, I will step back slowly from the computer and take the day off. I have flung open the doors and windows, despite it being only 12 degrees outside and I am going to sit in the sun and read some other mad writers’ ramblings/words of wisdom/lyrical prose/insane witterings/seering insights. I’ll decide just what after I’ve spent several minutes staring at the pile of books that have been breeding next to my bed. Tomorrow, I will no doubt enter from stage left, again, clad in my jammies and descend upon the cave. But that’s tomorrow and today the batty recluse needs to grasp at the straw of sanity drifting in the wintery breeze.

An interview with children’s author, Ellen Renner

Introducing children's author, Ellen Renner

I know many lament social networking and in particular the productivity sink that is Facebook. But for me, it has been a godsend - as aware as I am of its shortcomings. As you will have gathered from the various interviews with fellow writers, Facebook has been a fertile meeting ground, and I’m happy to introduce to you yet another of my writer pals found through the connectivity of social networking.

Ellen Renner was kind enough to send me a copy of her debut novel Castle of Shadows when it became blindingly obvious on someone’s Facebook wall that I hadn’t read the book. What a treat!

Castle of Shadows is shortlisted for the West Sussex Children’s Book Award and on the Times and Independent newspapers’ lists of suggested summer reading. For readers aged 9+, it’s a beautifully written story, full of political intrigue, derring-do, wit, imagination and has a plot that twists and turns through chapters filled with smoke and mirrors. It is a story which is filled with evocative imagery and has a feisty heroine whose life story pulls at the heartstrings. It is a thoroughly enjoyable romp of a read!

The blurb reads as follows: The day Charlie discovers a scrap of paper that could solve the dark mystery of her mother's disappearance, her world changes. Forever. Charlie and her friend, Toby, must race against time on a dangerous mission to uncover the sinister truth. But in this shadowy world of secrets and lies, there is more to fear than they can possibly imagine...

But without further ado, let me introduce to Ellen Renner.

Children's author, Ellen Renner

Ellen, the clarity of your descriptions gripped me from the start. You paint the most vivid images with words and without lapsing into rambling prose. You do that thing that writers are always admonished to do – you show rather than tell. Examples which spring to mind are: “His voice was soft and sharp, like a slice of lemon cake.” “The dress was made of silk the colour of cool water.” “The pain was too fierce for tears. It burnt them to ash.” Did you find it easy to show, was it something that came naturally to you or was it something you had to work on?

Hi Nicky,

First, thanks so much for interviewing me. There’s nothing writers like more than talking about their books!
Show-not-tell. That’s the mantra, isn’t it? But you have to know how to do both. Sometimes you need to tell. However, it’s certainly true that if you want to write for the children’s or YA market these days, you must be able to show. It’s partly a fashion for filmic writing. But for me it’s also the most effective way to accomplish what I want to do.
I want the reader to experience, as much as is possible, what it feels like to ‘be’ my character. If I keep jumping out of their point of view and into an authorial voice with loads of objective description, back-story or telling, I not only slow the pace, I yank the reader out of my character’s head.
I do tell in several places in Castle, just to get some information in there the reader has to have and which I can’t do any other way. But I keep those sections to an absolute minimum. I try to work them in as seamlessly as I can and I always know when I’m doing it.
I’ve been teaching creative writing for a few years and show-not-tell is the number one problem most beginning and intermediate writers have. It’s like maths, it just has to click and then you get it. You must always know when you are telling and why. After that, by all means break the rules if that’s what’s best for your story – form should follow function – as long as you’re in control of the technique and not the other way round. Editors and agents tend to immediately reject any manuscript that starts off with back-story or telling, especially if you’re a new writer, so use with caution.


Castle of Shadows is a very rich story, a layered tapestry of political intrigue, emotion, and the heartfelt quest of one girl to find her mother. How did the idea for the book develop and what came first – the character of Charlie (Princess Charlotte Augusta Joanna Hortense of Quale), the setting i.e. the castle, the political intrigue – or something else – and, what was your inspiration?

The characters came first, the mad king and his neglected daughter. The image of the king dangling from his scaffolding about to put the last card in place on his enormous card castle just popped into my head one day.
I started off by staying in my comfort zone. I was thinking fables, a short book for younger readers, nothing too big or ambitious. Then something happened and I realised that playing safe was not an option if I ever wanted to get anywhere with my writing. I had to try to write the sort of book I actually wanted to read. I knew I had the germ of a good idea and I didn’t want to waste it.
Castle, as you say, has layers. There are some pretty heavy themes going on in the background: bad parenting, the threat of war, political and scientific responsibility, and what happens to children when grownups do the wrong things for what they think are the right reasons. It has a complex plot set in an alternative world and the hardest thing of all was to juggle all of that and keep the narrative moving forward at a page-turning pace.
The book might never have been finished if Helen Corner hadn’t run the 2007 Cornerstones Wow Factor competition. A writing buddy encouraged me to enter and then I had to write to speed to keep up with the deadlines. Castle of Shadows won and I got my agent as a result.


The depiction of the Charlie’s father, the king, swinging from the scaffolding building his castles in the air, his castles of cards is a particularly powerful image, and in multiple ways. Can you tell us more about this and what it means to you?

It is the book. It was the genesis and yes, it’s loaded thematically. My original title was Castle of Cards. Worlds built on lies, crumbling castles, political intrigue, personal relationships, identity, the king’s own fragile emotional state – it all refers back to that first image. And then there’s the climactic scene …
I feel quite tenderly towards the king: he’s gentle, kind, well-intentioned – and a bad parent. Life has proved hard and he’s opted out, neglecting the kingdom and his child, leaving her to cope with the loss of her mother on her own. She’s lonely, isolated and abused by the housekeeper, although he doesn’t know about that – or to be more accurate, he hasn’t noticed.
There’s a bit of him that’s about parents who become obsessed with their work to the point that they neglect their children. My son suffered some benign neglect while I was writing the book and some of my guilt is in there, although he was probably very pleased that Mum had something else to worry about for a while.




There is a lot of detail in terms of cloth and clothing, the castle layout, the pneumatic railway in the story. Did you have to do a lot of research and could you see clearly in your mind’s eye what you wanted to describe?

I did a lot of research. I write visually so I want to be able to see a scene, like a film playing before my eyes. The book is set in an alternative Victorian kingdom, and as much as possible corresponds to 1840s England – a fascinating period of political, social and technological upheaval. A time of boom and bust, extremes of poverty and wealth, mass migrations to the cities. The French revolution still loomed large in the imagination of the English political class: they were terrified of mass unrest and the Whigs begin the process of political reform and extending the franchise as a way of addressing these fears. Pneumatic and atmospheric railways existed. Isambard Kingdom Brunel built the only working atmospheric railway in Britain in the 1830s between Teignmouth and Starcross in Devon. It only ran for a year because rats ate the waxed leather seals and the vacuum kept failing. Vulcanised rubber was invented 10 years later. If that timing had been different, we might still be riding on atmospheric trains. There’s a working one in South America somewhere.

You’re an American who has lived in the UK for many years and your story has a quintessentially English feel to it, is this because you are completely at ease with the language and literary style of your adopted country, or because you set out to create a particular style?

I’ve lived in the UK for twenty years now. I’m doubtless pretty anglicised, although I try to keep that detachment which is one of the great benefits of being an ex-pat. My vocabulary is a mixture and I forget these days whether a term is American or English. I grew up reading a lot of English fiction, which is one of the reasons I headed to the UK first when I started traveling. I come from the Ozark mountains of southern Missouri and live in Devon now, where the local accent and dialect remind me of the Ozarks (as does the countryside). I use a vernacular for Tobias; his words may be anglicised but his rhythms and tone have a bit of Ozarks in there, I think. And that’s the lovely thing about alternative worlds: anything goes as long as there’s an internal logic.


There were many aspects of Castle of Shadows the reminded me of the classics of English children’s literature. To what extent have you read and been influenced by those English classics?

Massively. I discovered I wanted to write for children after I moved to the UK. My husband and I are always buying books; our house has piles of them everywhere because there are never enough shelves. We spent a lot of our pre-parent days trawling through second-hand book shops. He’d disappear into history, biography and social sciences, and I’d head for fiction. I bought lots of lovely old Puffins and dug in. Sometimes I’ll revisit a favourite, like Tom’s Midnight Garden or The Way to Sattin Shore, by Philippa Pearce, or John Gordon’s The Giant Under the Snow, or Leon Garfield’s brilliant Smith. I’ve read everything by Joan Aiken, Margaret Mahy and Diana Wynne Jones many times over, and I’m kept busy these days reading people like Garth Nix, Jonathan Stroud, Charlie Fletcher and Sally Gardner. My current to-be-read pile is nearly as tall as the king’s card castle and contains Halo by Zizou Corder, Hootcat Hall by Lucy Coats, The Ogre of Oglefort by Eva Ibbotson and Amazing Grace by Mary Hooper, to name just a few. There are so many good books out there!


Castle of Shadows is the first book of a quartet. Did you know from the start there’d be more than one book or did the ideas evolve as you progressed through the Castle of Shadows?

I fully intended to write a stand-alone. The message was clear: publishers do not want trilogies or quartets. But the characters hadn’t finished with me. Castle does work as a stand-alone, but I wanted to write Tobias’ story before I’d finished the first draft of Castle and as soon as that was winging its way to the Cornerstones competition I set down and wrote the first draft of City of Thieves in about six weeks.
There are four books. Each has its own villain and contains a complete story which is resolved, but at the same time there’s is a larger villain and over-arching story for the entire quartet. That has been great fun to work out. I don’t like series where a book just stops with a ‘to be continued’. There can be a sense of the larger story continuing, but I want that specific story to have a finite shape and resolution.

Ellen signs books for fans

Castle of Shadows is rich with political intrigue; the entire story revolves against this backdrop of deceit, machinations and the lust for power. What prompted you to choose politics as your canvas for Charlie’s story? And do you think it’s the sort of scenario young readers can readily appreciate?

I don’t think any subject is out of bounds if handled appropriately. My readers are 9+, same age as Harry Potter and Dark Materials. Speaking of which, ‘deceit, machinations and the lust for power’ figure pretty largely in both of those. Politics is everywhere. It affects most aspects of children’s lives and kids are not stupid or unaware, especially these days.
But the book isn’t overtly about politics. Grownups reading it will see the political aspect; many kids will be reading it purely for the adventure. At that level it’s no different than any other book with a big villain. Most villains are after power in some form: Voldemort, Lord Asriel, The Wicked Witch of the West, Aladdin’s uncle. Castle of Shadows is enjoying a wide readership; because it has levels, kids and grownups both seem to like it. At the most basic, it’s a fairy tale: mad king, neglected daughter, evil advisor. Mostly, the kids are responding to the characters of Charlie and Tobias. They are living the adventure with them.


Were you, in choosing a political backdrop, deliberately intending to parody the machinations of government or a particular state or system of government?

No. The book started with the image of a king building a castle of cards. If you have mad king you have a kingdom in trouble. It begs the question of who’s running it. Enter a prime minister. It’s that simple.
But it’s certainly true that my own preoccupations determine the slant a story will take. I was around ten when I learnt about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in WWII. Ever since, I’ve been obsessed with the question of whether or not scientists have moral responsibility for their discoveries.
So yes, the world of my book contains a weapon of mass destruction and impending war. During the Iraq war the news media in the UK reported on ‘collateral damage’. It was no surprise to learn that the majority of those killed and injured were women and children. It’s always been the weakest in society – women, children and the elderly – who suffer most in wars. So an obvious question is: Can you be an effective politician in an imperfect world and remain a moral being? Windlass does bad things for what he believes are good reasons. Is he right? Are there levels of morality where shades of grey slide into black and when does that happen?
Again, these were some issues I was thinking about as I wrote the book, but it’s part of that thing about levels. It’s background. Adults may see some of it, but I doubt many children are aware of these themes as they read. Page-turning adventure is what they want and what I was determined to provide.




Returning once again to your fabulously evocative descriptions, I laughed out loud at the image of the “fishy” Esceanian ambassador, I couldn’t help but love the loyal Mr Moleglass, the butler, and I bristled in indignation at the malevolent and scheming Mrs O’Dair in her bustling bombazine. You have a wealth of brilliantly depicted characters and I have to wonder, are any of your characters based on real people? And, how do you go about getting to know your characters?

I think the best fiction is character-led. My characters are the heart of my books, although I love plot twists and shamelessly manipulate my readers to keep them turning the pages. I don’t draw on real life for my characters. I don’t know where they come from and I don’t enquire too closely. They always seem to show up as needed, often fully formed. Only one of the minor characters in Castle is partially based on a real person, and he was added in the very last draft for plot reasons.


I was intrigued throughout the story by Charlie’s maturity. You’ve made her 11 but in many ways, despite her tomboy-ishness, she reads more like she’s 14 or 15 – both in her manners and her interactions with other characters. What made you settle on 11 as her age when the book could easily have been targeted at a Young Adult audience and might even be said to be a little too mature for a 9 – 12 year old market?

I see this rather differently. Charlie’s rising 12. Her mother’s a scientific genius and Charlie is no slouch in the brain stakes, but that’s really beside the point. Her circumstances have formed her: she’s had to raise herself since the age of six, living by her wits and facing a formidable enemy in Mrs O’Dair. She’s lost her mother and is emotionally abandoned by her father, who is a burden of care to her rather than a parent. I would be surprised if she didn’t seem older than her years. I’m sure that Elizabeth the First, who lived her childhood in traumatic and dangerous circumstances, was precocious as well. She would have had to be to survive. (btw, the red hair is not coincidental.)
Adults tend to forget what it was like to be ten or eleven or twelve. I remember that age vividly: what I was reading and thinking about, my moral and philosophical preoccupations, the conversations I had with friends. At 9+ brains are fully formed and functioning; it’s only experience and context which is lacking. I would always rather err on the side of over-estimating anyone, especially children, which is why I also don’t simplify language past a certain point. If the story is good enough, kids will skip over words they don’t know, getting enjoyment from the sound of them and meaning from context. It’s how you learn.
Also, I don’t think this is a teen idea: it’s classic adventure story territory, no more complicated than the setup in the Harry Potter or Dark Materials books. And quite frankly I didn’t want Charlie and Tobias snogging! There aren’t enough adventure books for 9+ with strong female leads. Girls are often ghettoised into pink and sparkly. Publishers are worried boys won’t read about female characters. Well, they do if you give them the right one. Pullman proved that with Lyra, and boys seem to be loving this book as much as the girls.


Castle of Shadows’ sequel, City of Thieves, in which Charlie’s friend, Tobias Petch plays a starring role is due out in August this year. What made you want to write about Toby in particular in the sequel?

Yes, the second book belongs to Tobias although Charlie is still a strong presence. She returns to the foreground in the last two books. I can’t say very much about my reasons without giving away a plot twist in Castle of Shadows, but Tobias is a boy with secrets. He has a pretty big problem as well as an unusual talent, and both those things were begging to be written about. It was also necessary for the overall narrative arc that his story be told next. I loved writing him. In some ways, he’s easier to write than Charlie, because his personality is simpler and more direct.




Castle of Shadows is your debut novel; what has the journey to publication been like for you and what advice would you give aspiring authors?

That’s a huge question; we could do an entire interview on that. My journey has been untypical. I’d only ever previously submitted one other thing to an agent, a short book for 7-9 year olds (which was rejected). But I had spent years learning to write and studying what was being published. I only started to submit once I felt I was writing at a professional level. Castle of Cards (as it was then) won the 2007 Cornerstones/Writer’s News Wow Factor competition for best unpublished children’s book, which brought me to the attention of my agent, Rosemary Canter. There was luck involved as I very nearly didn’t enter the competition. There’s been bad luck too, of course. Some debuts may have stress-free and magical journeys to publication, most of us do not.
As a pre-published writer I didn’t really look past the goal of getting an agent and then a book deal. It’s such a huge, difficult thing to achieve, especially these days. Things happened fast after the Cornerstones win, and I found that my journey had only just started. The learning curve is huge and no one has time to tell you anything, so you wing it. Possibly the worst thing is that it becomes increasingly difficult to find time to write, which is what you love doing and is the only reason you’re here in the first place.
Advice? First, make sure you know what you want out of your writing. There’s nothing wrong with writing for pleasure and if you want to share your stories with friends and family, internet self-publishing is much easier now. If your ambition is to be published traditionally, then make sure you want it badly enough, because unless you’re very very lucky, there’s little money in it and a great deal of stress. You will have to promote. You will have less time for writing and your family. The positive side is worth it for me: seeing your book in shops and libraries and meeting readers is all fabulous, as is a glowing review in a national paper. Best of all is the fact that people are reading your story and giving it life beyond you. The first time I saw a copy of my book in a public library was one of the most thrilling of my life!
But do be aware that the climate is very harsh right now. Publishers are forced by current market conditions and the power of retail monopolies to take a scatter-gun approach to writers. They throw a number out there every year and see who sticks. Unless they’ve paid mega-bucks for you in a huge auction (probably becoming a thing of the past as most of these advances fail to pay back), you’ll be doing most of the promotion yourself. And if you don’t sell well enough, you’ll find it very hard to get another publishing deal.
Still want to find an agent and get a book deal? Okay, write for yourself and write the best book you can. In order to do that, join SCBWI, find a good critique group, learn to re-write and develop a very thick skin for rejection.
And when you are getting close to publication – when you are getting personalised rejections – get a website up, start blogging, get on FB and Twitter and build relationships. Don’t just promote yourself: be interesting and supportive. You need to be doing that at least six months before the book comes out. I didn’t. I was too busy writing, the family was very busy, I’m shy and don’t like the idea of self-promotion. Well, six months on and I’m still struggling to catch up. You have to get yourself out there. On the positive side, I love school visits and working with the children almost as much as writing. It’s a rare privilege

Ellen on a school visit, with some of her readers

Tell us what it felt like when you landed an agent and then a publishing contract?

It was great, of course, but in hindsight I wasn’t ready for either. I’d been a member of SCBWI for five or six years and thought I was clued up, but I was dreadfully naive. Again, if I had been on Facebook talking to all you lovely people I would have been a whole lot wiser. When Rosemary Canter told me she wanted Castle to be a ‘big’ book, at first I thought she meant longer. Duh! What I hadn’t realised (although I thought I had) is how fast the industry is changing and will continue to change. We’re in uncharted waters.


And finally, where to from here for Ellen Renner?

City of Thieves is out in the UK August 2010 and has an amazing cover. I can’t wait to hold a copy in my hands! The autumn is already booking out with promotional events: school visits, festivals, library visits, book store signings. And I get to go to Sussex in November to visit schools taking part in the West Sussex Award process: 74 schools are studying the 9 shortlisted books over the autumn term. So it’s going to be very busy. I have to write a book as well. And it needs to be brilliant. So it’s all pretty fantastic, really.


Many thanks to Ellen for agreeing to be interviewed and here’s wishing her all the very best of luck and success in her ongoing authorial adventuring!


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All images courtesy of Ellen Renner