every day should be a susie day

The face behind the book

Posted on 15. Jul, 2010 by susie in blog, books i've been reading, cooking, holidays, kids' books i've been reading, other writers

My sister once sent a fan letter to Anne McCaffrey. She received, to her amazement, a typed reply (and I mean typed, with awkward spacing and ribbon smudge: this must’ve been ~1985) answering each of her 20 questions in turn, clearly from Anne herself. I remember being impressed, jealous, but mostly confused. I liked books, not the people who wrote them.  If I could’ve written to Lucie Pevensie or Mrs Twit, I could see the point, but writers were probably waffly old ladies who’d tell you to eat your greens and pull your socks up and – most worryingly of all – might tell you to sod off and stop bothering them, thus ruining their books by associated disappointment for eternity.

Now that I am writer, I know that we love to be bothered by readers.  Sometimes you say heartskippingly kind things that we remember when it all seems a bit pointless and impossible.  Even when you don’t, replying to you means we can put that niggly bit of  Chapter 7 off for another ten minutes.  And of course we’re all infinitely more accessible in the post-typewriter age. Publishers expect their charges to have a website, a blog, an online presence, well before their first book ever touches shelf – and swathes of us already tweet and blog our writerly woes, because that niggly bit of Chapter 7? It’s still there.

I’m struck lately, however, that I’m meeting more and more writers online (and occasionally in person: lucky me!) before reading their books – which means I’m often sitting down with a pristine new tome, and the eeriest sense that the writer is sitting opposite me: watching, poised, hopeful, waiting to footnote any pause or lip-squinch as I go, and glowing whenever I smile, or cry, or (let’s not get too demanding) fail to throw it out of the window.   What does that do to the reading experience, exactly?  And do other readers do that too, now that we’re so much more likely to have a face to put to the name on the book?

What do you think?

Me, I’ve worrited over it as a pernicious influence (not least because I can think of one writer whose online interactions have made me firmly decide never to read his books, and for all I know they’re wonderful).  But you know what? In my experience, writers tend towards the lovely. If you encounter them on Twitter, or their own blog, or someone else’s, you can probably gauge whether they’re the type of lovely you’d want to invite round for tea and nonsense, and if they are then you might want to read a book by them too.  All this online interaction is like an extra, perpetually updating, ultra-nuanced, personalised, everchanging book cover.  And that writer you’ve seen online, who is now sitting, ghostlike, across from you waiting for you to start reading the book you hold in your hands with their name on it?  They’re not frowning or tutting or squinching their lips.  I like to think they’re reading the book to you.  And who doesn’t love a bedtime story?

*

WOW. I’ve found my Catcher in the Rye.  I thought Frank Portman’s King Dork might be it, because it’s almost exactly the dry witty sincere hip-not-hipster late teen novel I wanted to read when I was 17 – but now I’ve found Simmone Howell’s Notes on the Teenage Underground, and that, my friends, is the real shiny deal right there.  It’s not only that it’s ‘girls and films’ instead of King Dork’s ‘guys and bands’ (though I’m sure that’s a chunk of it: all hail Gem, a female protagonist who is beset by all the standard friends/virginity/absent dad/what next? trauma of a teen era ending, but who gets the most empowered line of any teen girl in the history of teens and girls without it feeling for an instant like a cliche or a reach or a lecture). Make no mistake: this is a bible of cool AND an emotionally honest, enticing, snort-your-cola funny read.  All those how-to guides that tell you to focus on ‘voice’ when you write?  This is what they mean.  I’m rereading bits already. (I met Simmone a few weeks back, and when reading I can entirely see her impishly grinning from the pages. She’s @postteen on Twitter, and her website is here: go fangirl at her, she’s aces.)

I’m…writing.  I don’t even know what I’m writing, or if any of you will ever see it, but I am writing.  It is a mite worrying how many words I can wring out of describing the Tower of London gift shop in lieu of plot, mind.

Realising that a British barbecue is actually amazingly delicious and involves none of the trad food poisoning/burnage when you put a Galician in charge;  getting very flaily indeed at the prospect of going to Canada in 5 weeks (hooray! oh no, bears! but hooray!); inventing a new approach to cooking which involves making normal food and then putting peas in it.  I do like peas.  They are a bit weird in a bacon sarnie though.

Trailer!

Posted on 31. May, 2010 by susie in blog, books i've been reading, girl meets cake, kids' books i've been reading, my invisible boyfriend, other writers

Yep, that is me blethering away there in the background.  (Even the Mycroft Christie bits.)  That’s my special ‘oh no, I’m talking to myself, let’s try to get this over and done with as quickly as possible’ voice.

MY INVISIBLE BOYFRIEND has now been read by lots of people who aren’t my Mum, including the lovely ABA, who’ve picked it for the Kids’ Indie Next List Summer 2010. (I’m rubbing shoulders with Diana Wynne Jones, David Almond, Mark Haddon, David Levithan… mind officially blown, tyvm.)

And here’s what some other people (who also aren’t my Mum, unless she’s been very busy) thought:

‘quirky, hilarious, and entertaining… Heidi is an unforgettable protagonist that will not fail to make readers laugh with her LOL-worthy shenanigans and escapades’ – The Undercover Book Lover

‘a strong first-person narrative voice that reminds me a little of Georgia in Louise Rennison’s series (Angus, Thongs, and Full-frontal Snogging, etc.)… very funny’ – Book Aunt

‘one darlin’ book that I simply couldn’t get enough of’ – Lauren’s Crammed Bookshelf

‘very, very funny… Every single secondary character (Dai, Ludo, Teddy and Fili especially) comes to life on the page, and I want to be friends with all of them’ – Wondrous Reads (on GIRL MEETS CAKE, the UK/World edition)

‘I just really fell for Heidi and her friends… cute and entertaining, and if you like Brit humor the way I do, like fun romantic comedy-type stories, or like books with a funky and diverse cast of characters, you’ll really get a kick out of it’ – Forever Young

Just in case you were, you know, wondering if it was your cup of tea… :)   I think what’s really stuck out in all the reviews so far is how very British people have found it.  I’m still wondering exactly what that means.  Blog on the subject will ensue, once I’ve pondered some more…

I’m reading a book about faeries – and loving it to pieces (despite being a cynical git who tends to find straight fantasy and ‘magick’ a bit of a stretch) because it’s just that good.  It’s R.J. Anderson’s Knife (published in the US as Faery Rebels: Spell Hunter), which so far is reminding me of The Borrowers: an enticing doll’s house world of tiny furniture and monstrous humans (who might turn out to be allies, after all), and a tough bored girl who wants to see the big wide world.  The prose is glorious too.  Zippy clever stuff for 9+ girls.

Still puttering away at the opening chapters of Exciting New Secret Book Thingy, juggling a few scenes around to get the best fit.  It’s like a jigsaw with a piece missing at the moment (sorry, peanut-butter-in-bra story I borrowed from Girl Scout camp, not sure you’re quite good enough) – but I’m itching to get to the next bit.  Plus coffee with agent, shop-talky dinner with an old mate who’s now commissioning teen lit for a living (small small world), and oceans of tea with awesome writer-buddy Sarah Mussi. That all counts as work, right?

Going out for dinner and ending up dancing to random 60s girl groups in an awesomely manky student nightclub; discovering that the Marylebone Oxfam Bookshop is where Scholastic mock-ups go to die (I found a Philip Pullman with a Big Woo cover, and an Ally Kennen which was Girl Meets Cake on the inside: utterly surreal); eating a lot of peas.  Mmm, peas.

Books, Glorious Books

Posted on 22. Mar, 2010 by susie in blog, books i've been reading, doctor who, my invisible boyfriend, other writers, project poppy

Books! (And a door handle. Ignore that bit.)

Look what I’ve got! My Invisible Boyfriend (out in less than 2 weeks, wheee) in all her hardback glory.  If only cameraphone and dismal Oxford clouds could do it justice. Honestly, it’s the shiniest, most strokeable book I’ve ever owned, and that has nothing to do with my name being on the front.

Oh, all right, maybe a little bit. But I bet you’ll want to stroke it too.

Loveliest of all, there’s even a surprise when you sneak the jacket off…

Look! It's more of Heidi looking adorably baffled!

I have Happy Writer Face today. :D

The Diary of A Doctor Who Addict, by Paul Magrs. Sometimes a book resonates with you so powerfully that it’s hard to review. Part of you wants to incoherently mash the keys with glee, and just type READ IT READ IT IT’S WONDERFUL, because attempts at description will fail. Part of you worries that what made it so wonderful was so deeply personal to you that no one else will really get it anyway. But I want to try, because I loved this, so much, and it’s a book that’s all about realising that you aren’t the only one, after all. 12-year-old David is beyond giddy at the prospect of new Doctor Who on his telly in 1982: the Doctor looks like Peter Davison now, not Tom Baker, but David still can’t wait to record The Show, and listen to it over and over, and write his little stories about it. But his best mate seems to have regenerated into a teenager, one who thinks Doctor Who is just for little kids, and David is suddenly under attack – not from Silurians or Cybermen but the ultimate enemy: adolescence. Magrs has impeccable Whovian credentials, but The Show is but one metaphor in a gloriously well-drawn 80s landscape, where adverts convince you that Pot Noodle is delicious, and make-up thrillingly might not just be for girls. While the nostalgia is epic for an old git like me, this book isn’t a stealth memoir: it’s a funny, touching coming-of-age tale, with utterly convincing characters, especially Mum and her own overwhelming mother. David’s realisation that perhaps he’s not just a ‘sensitive’ boy – that perhaps he doesn’t want to kiss Karen, at all, and won’t ever – is beautifully handled, and I defy anyone to read the final chapter without filling up. This is what books are for. I’m so glad I read it. I want to read it again already.

Still tapping away at the Project Poppy edit (two and half chapters to go!), boosted by the fact that fabulous writing group buddies Sarah Mussi and Ruth Eastham have now read the first chapter, and a) didn’t hate it and b) kindly pointed out the part that was drivel. I’ve cut that bit. Now we just need a title. Um.

Stroking kittens, foolishly rediscovering my peanut butter obsession, getting all over-excited about the prospect of spring (even if it seems to have sodded off again this morning, the fiend).

Sheroes? OH NOES!

Posted on 12. Mar, 2010 by susie in blog, books i've been reading, doctor who, kids' books i've been reading, my invisible boyfriend, other writers

The Guardian have chucked up a distinctly random Top Ten Heroes of Children’s Books today. Like all Top Tens, it makes you want to jump up and down and go ‘you included HIM and not HER?’, and being a gallery, it doesn’t disclose its selection criteria either.  Do we mean ‘best’ or ‘favourite’ when we say Top Ten?  Were anti-hero protagonists excluded on principle?  What do they mean by ‘hero’ anyway?  And what the blithering spoonbenders is George from Dick King-Smith’s George Speaks doing in there?

There’s another glaring fact: the lack of any characters of colour, although I suspect that says more about children’s literature (and not just the classic kind) than anything else.  Lucy Coats,  however, thinks something else is missing: the gender divide.  Do I feel the cold hand of political correctness (surely not in the Grauniad!). Why didn’t they do 10 best Sheroes and 10 best Heroes?

Now, I’m a big fan of nonce-words generally – but not when there’s a perfectly good word already in my dictionary that does the job.  (I once read about someone who was trying to sell their fiction quadrilogy.  Not a quartet.  A quadrilogy.  Good luck with that.)   But ‘Sheroes’ isn’t replacing a perfectly good word here – because ‘heroine’ isn’t a perfectly good word.  The Guardian chose not to divide up their bookish heroes into boys and girls because our fictional heroes are the characters we love, admire, relate to and aspire to be – regardless of whether we share a chromosome or two (or in the case of hairy Mary Plain up there, rather less).

Lucy says I’m misunderstanding her: that’s she’s trying to celebrate ‘the female side of things’.  I’m sure she’s sincere (I’ve met Lucy, she’s perfectly lovely) – but that’s not what ‘Sheroes’ means to me.  It means taking Lyra Belacqua, and Petrova Fossil, and Pippi Longstocking, and putting them in a different box from  proper, real heroes, worthy of the name.

And that matters.  Our words matter.  I write ‘pink’ books, with bottles of nail polish and love hearts on the covers.  My latest title is a romance, all about a teenage girl who is so stricken with panic at being the only one of her friends to be boyfriendless that she invents an imaginary boyfriend – because that’s the real world that our teenage and tweenage readers have to live with.   Let’s not make that world any more skewed, destructive or demoralising than it is already.  Let’s call Lyra, and Pippi – and even Heidi the imaginary-boyfriend-inventor – heroes, because I don’t ever want a reader of mine to imagine for one second that’s something they could never grow up to be.

Paul Magrs’ The Diary of A Doctor Who Addict, which arrived from this morning. Peter Davison and teenage angst! I’m in heaven.

Edit edit edit. Three chapters to go! And I’m working on an EXCITING SEKRIT PROJECT TOO. My writing group (well, some of us!) are meeting this weekend. Expect curry-powered genius to ensue.

Creating the world’s first flavour-free chicken balti; wondering if trying to sleep in a tent over Easter is a Very Bad Idea or Attractively Daring; listening to a quite worrying amount of Duran Duran.

The kids are all right

Posted on 28. Nov, 2009 by susie in books i've been reading, kids' books i've been reading, other writers

… but the adults are useless!  This was the view from the author seats of the Kids’ Lit Quiz UK final in Oxford, where we all sadly realised that we might write children’s books, but we’ve forgotten about all the ones we’ve read.  The terrifyingly brainy teams had no such trouble – and for their pains got to hear a sneaky snippet from Charlie Higson’s next Young Bond book, courtesy of his chum Harry Enfield (who then ate it, as befitted a top secret document).  Huge props to Wheatley Park School for taking first place in such a closely-fought contest (and a special hello to Iona, Varshini, Skye and Flora from Mary Erskine in Edinburgh: well done, girls!).

Now to see if I can come up with a sensible reason to be in Edinburgh in August, when the World Final takes place…

  Peter Pan. For Very Important Reasons which will all be revealed.  (Unless I cut that bit out, in which case they won’t, and you’ll be left wondering what on earth I was on about. No change there then.)

  I’m not far off one third of the way through The Hilarious But Untitled Time-Travelling Teenage Adventures of A Girl Who Is Currently Called Poppy, Although That Might Change Too, You Never Can Tell With Time-Travel.  Woo!

Finally working out why this site was down all last week (oops) and plotting a revamp (ooer); becoming worryingly obsessed with Co-Op’s Wensleydale with cranberries; losing all my gym motivation – I think it’s wedged somewhere under my big, warm, cosy bed?