Failure is the only option

I was deep in conversation with an artist the other evening, and we were talking about the traps that lie in wait along the footpath of creativity.





My artist friend told me, 'I was in my life-drawing class, and the tutor looked at my work and said, 'stop trying too hard.' I nodded. My friend continued. 'I often wish that I could go back to doing another Foundation course. During that time there were no rights and wrongs. I could do whatever I liked. There was a freedom in making mistakes.'

I nodded some more, and asked, 'Do you ever feel that if you work at a painting too much, you begin to destroy it, strangle the very soul of it?' 'Yes yes,' she replied.

I continued. 'Do you find that if you allow yourself to scribble away, without thinking, you create something real, something raw, that you wouldn't have if you thought about it too much?' 'Yes, absolutely,' she replied. 'But there's also when you stay with a piece and come back to it, again and again, changing something here, doing a little more there.'

'Surely that's only after you've found the resonance, that unspoken otherness, the magic of what you're creating, isn't it?' I asked. 'Yes,' she replied.

'Surely that's only after you've found the resonance, that unspoken otherness, the magic of what you're creating, isn't it?' I asked.   

Everything we learn to do in life has to start with failure. From failure grows determination, from over-thinking grows effortlessness. It all becomes second nature. You no longer have to think about the nuts and bolts of what you're doing.

When I took my driving test, I reversed around the corner and up on to the pavement three times. After each unconventional manoeuvre, during which, thankfully, I hadn't flattened a cat, a child, or an OAP, I pulled on the handbrake, checked my mirrors, and set off to try again.

 Thankfully I hadn't flattened a cat, a child, or an OAP, I pulled on the handbrake, checked my mirrors, and set off to try again

When I finally succeeded, the examiner offered me a polo-mint. I gratefully accepted. We returned to the centre, went through a few points of the Highway Code (thank God I did my test back in the dark ages before this new regime), and was told I'd passed. I can now drive enormous distances without any recollection of how I got there.

Learning to play the fiddle in my thirties, meant hours upon hours of tortuous cat-strangling in the kitchen with the door shut. It was the only place I could be relatively unheard by my long-suffering children. Taming the wild instrument that is the violin is no easy task. The seemingly impossible combination of finding the right note on the fingerboard whilst at the same time making the string sing with a tightened stick of horse-hair, took me to unseen corners of my patience.

Taming the wild instrument that is the violin is no easy task

The more I struggled, the harder I tried, the more bloody-minded I became. But what joy I eventually found. There is something magical about being lost in playing music – you forget about the mechanics, and become a part of the whole.

And writing? Hmm. Well. My success has been in short stories – every one of which I wrote either as a flash (timed, with no room for thought) or as a very close first draft. Yet the more I consciously mess around with words, the quicker I kill them off. I am more afraid of making a terrible noise with words than ever I was with music. I'm more anxious to succeed the first time around, to capture the magic in one fell swoop.

The more I mess around with words, the quicker I kill them off

My WIP, a novel about a boy who discovers that living alone on a ship in space is anything but normal, has had him on so many false starts he's beginning to wonder if he'll ever get out of his predicament.

But I know, it is only through failing, again and again, that my words will ever sing without the faintest hint of a cat being strangled.

Don't forget to check out:

Monday's interview with Melvin Burgess, by K. M. Lockwood. If you missed the conference workshop, have a read of Philippa's perceptive questions, and discover Melvin's answers on the difference between plot & story, and the importance of fairy-tale.

Tuesday's Ten minute blog round-up. I don't know where we'd be without Nick's comprehensive filtering of all the good stuff that's out there. There are some real gems in this latest haul.

Wednesday's Breaking into Educational Publishing – an eye-opening report of the conference panel, and the options out there to break in to the educational market, by Anita Loughrey

Thursday's Janet Foxley gave us a fascinating overview of SCBWI British Isles Conference 2014's Craft Intensive on Writing for Reluctant Readers. And there was sad news that our North West Network Organiser, Steph Williams has unfortunately had to step down from the role due to ill health.

Friday's Procatsination – another neat snippet from the life of cat & dog immersed in the creative world

Saturday's call-out for a Celebrations' Editor – this could be YOU! Get in touch pronto if it is...

Look forward to:

Monday Clare Bell shares her experience of writing a non-fiction book for Cadbury, in honour of National Non-Fiction November
Tuesday Another bodacious Blog Break with Nick
Wednesday Interview with Anthony McGowan by Celia Anderson, getting all the insights in to school visits, scatology and dyslexia
Thursday Something amazing...
Friday Interview with SCBWI BI's member of the year - Anne-Marie Perks




Nancy Saunders is gradually stepping in as the new Editor of W&P, with a generous helping hand from Jan. You can find her short stories here, and on Twitter @nancyesaunders

Hello New Celebrations Editor! We're Looking Forward to Welcoming You!

Sharing members' good news by editing W&P's Saturday morning Celebrations is a lovely job - everyone loves you!
If you're a @SCBWI_BI member,  have a sunny disposition, spend more time than is good for you on Facebook and can deliver members' good news with lots of joy, virtual cake and fizz, please do study this card!

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Very much looking forward to hearing from you! editor@britishscbwi.org

ProCATsination, by Jion Sheibani

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Jion's Illustrator Showcase Gallery is here, She can be reached at jionsheibani@gmail.com
Click here for her personal website.

Network News: North West Thank You Stephanie Williams – A SCBWI Star

We are feeling a little sad out in the networks this week. Our North West Network Organiser, Steph Williams has unfortunately had to step down from the role due to ill health.

Steph is a long serving SCBWI volunteer. She has been working hard to build the North West network for a number of years now, setting up critique groups in Manchester and Chester, as well as launching the popular North West Professional Series. Before that, Steph was the Editor for Words and Pictures.

If you keep up with the discussion on our SCBWI British Isles Facebook Page, you’ll know there’s been much love out there for Steph this week.  Members have been paying homage to Steph’s hard work and commitment and thanking her for the support she has offered in terms of their own writing journeys.

Here are some of the lovely things our members have been saying:

"Steph has done an amazing amount during the years I've been a SCBWI member. Hers has been a long and genuine commitment. Thanks, Steph. You're a true mate and helped set me on the writer's path."

Marnie Riches

"Steph - you were an ace, hard working coordinator and will be hard to replace."

Carmel Waldron

"Oh my goodness, that's sad to hear. The North West events I went to were always top drawer. Steph did an amazing job."

Louise Cliffe-Minns

On behalf of the Networks team, I’d like to once again thank Steph for her amazing contribution to SCBWI. Steph, you are a Scoobie star. I hope you are back to full health soon, and until then we’ll keep your seat warm at the Manchester critique groups.

Writing for Reluctant Readers #scbwicon

Janet Foxley

Following the excellent interviews with Mairi Kidd of Barrington Stoke and Barrington Stoke Author, Anthony McGowan, Janet Foxley gives us an overview of SCBWI British Isles Conference 2014’s Craft Intensive on Writing for Reluctant Readers.





It was all about High and Low. The High of getting one’s first book contract or the Low of receiving one’s hundredth rejection? No, this was about writing High/Low books: high interest level, low reading age.

Mairi is Anthony’s editor at Barrington Stoke, publisher of ‘dyslexia friendly’ books for young (and older) people who, for a variety of reasons, find reading difficult.

Barrington Stoke have designed their own font, with serifs, longer ascenders and descenders and subtly different shapes to some of the letters.

She started off by telling us about the appearance of their books. The text is easy on the eye, printed on a cream rather than a white background. (It’s not cream paper, by the way, but white paper printed with cream ink – I bet you didn’t know that.) The paper is thick, so the eye/brain can’t be confused by print showing through from the other side. They also leave more space between letters, words, sentences and paragraphs than normal typesetting. And they have designed their own font, with serifs, longer ascenders and descenders and subtly different shapes to some of the letters. It looks like this:

From The Fall by Anthony McGowan, Barrington Stoke, 2011.
A scan of Janet's own copy of Anthony's book
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With the printing now made easier to read, it’s over to the writer and editor to make the stories easier to read. Mairi suggested that authors should write the first draft in their normal style and address the low reading age at the revision stage.

Children who have never been read to have no experience of running a narrative in their heads.

Some of what is required is the same as for any commercial fiction: a strong opening hook, a sympathetic protagonist, plenty of cliff-hangers. Then one must consider the struggling reader’s specific needs – short sentences, short paragraphs and if possible no words with difficult spellings that can trip them up: ‘-ough’ words, for instance. Concrete nouns are easier to understand than abstract nouns.

Children who have never been read to have no experience of running a narrative in their heads. The writer must help these readers by following a simple linear structure. A single point of view is best and description should be kept to a minimum as it distracts from the narrative. Care must be taken not to lose the reader’s interest by referring to things that fall outside their frame of reference.

The word order must be like natural speech, not literary language. 

The writing itself must be clear, with no room for confusion or ambiguity, no unreliable narrators, no word play, no clues which the reader would need to remember in order to understand what happens later on.

The word order must be like natural speech, not literary language. Dialogue should be tagged with the speaker more often than usual, using names rather than pronouns so that the reader doesn’t have to wonder which ‘he’ or ‘she’ is speaking. If the narrative is in the first person, the reader must be made aware of the narrator’s name early on. And double rather than single quotation marks should be used, as they give the reader a bigger signal that they’re dealing with speech.

Finally there should be a clear, satisfying and preferably upbeat conclusion – no open endings where readers could feel they have missed or misunderstood something.

You might think all these constraints would lead to stilted writing. They don’t. See for yourself – read Anthony’s The Fall, or Brock. Or both. It won’t take you long – Barrington Stoke books are short. Mairi gave us this table:

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 One writer I know said she knew she’d ‘arrived’ when she was asked to write for Barrington Stoke.

Someone then asked how to go about submitting their work. The answer was ‘you can’t’. Barrington Stoke invite only well-established authors to write for them. They aim to give their readers the same authors and the same quality of writing as non-struggling readers enjoy. One writer I know said she knew she’d ‘arrived’ when she was asked to write for Barrington Stoke.

“Tim said” is preferred to “said Tim”

The news that they’re not open to submissions may have been why a few delegates didn’t return for the afternoon session, in which we were given a bit of practice at high/low writing. We had to write a short passage and pass it to someone else for appropriate editing. Then Mairi and Tony came round to assess our efforts. “Tim said” is preferred to “said Tim”, apparently.

Many thanks are due to Mairi and Tony for this thoroughly interesting insight into a specialist arm of publishing. I was fascinated by the whole process of creating a Barrington Stoke book. As a writer, I felt that a lot of what I’d learned could usefully be applied to my writing of Early Readers and chapter books. And as the mother of a severely dyslexic son, I couldn’t help wishing that Barrington Stoke had been around when he was young.

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Janet Foxley was nearly put off books for life by a degree wading through German and French classics. She always preferred writing books to analysing them, and she started writing children’s stories when her own children were small. There was little help available for aspiring authors at that time and it took her 35 years to find a publisher. Then, ‘overnight success’, Muncle Trogg sold to 24 countries and was optioned for an animated film. Janet has since written two more books about Muncle, the third currently published only in Germany. She joined SCBWI in 2007.

Breaking into Educational Publishing

Have you ever thought about diversifying into educational publishing and non-fiction, but don't know where to start? Anita Loughrey reports on tips and suggestions from a panel of top authors and publishers at the recent SCBWI conference. 

On the panel sharing their thoughts about writing fiction and non-fiction for the educational market were Juliet Clare Bell (SCBWI member and author), Rebecca Colby (SCBWI member and author), Steve Rickard (Ransom Publishing), Sophie Thomson (Pearson Bug Club) and Kersti Worsley (OUP). 

It was a fantastic panel and Clare Bell did an excellent job of keeping everyone to time as they had so much information to share with us. I think the most significant thing for me was Clare’s and Rebecca’s advice on how to break into the non-fiction picture book biographies market. We were told to look for non-traditional approaches and think who might commission us to write a biography - charities, museums, art galleries, organisations like the National Trust, etc. I know for a fact the charity, Skin Deep Behind the Mask (SDBM), is looking for children’s writers . Would they be interested in a short biography about a significant person with a skin disorder who did amazing things?

They also suggested approaching US publishers as they are particularly looking for biographies at the moment. They suggested we make ourselves familiar with the US common core standards. It struck me there must be so many SCBWI members who have researched historical figures for their novels. They could turn their research into a short, fun biographical picture book and this is the opportune time to do it.

We were advised to concentrate on a main event and not make it too general. Clare and Rebecca stressed the best non-fiction tells a story and the best fictional picture books include drama, page turns, beautiful language, rhythm, repetition, even rhyme. The approximate word counts to aim for are:

• 3-6 years – 500 words
• 6-9 year – 800 words
• 10+ - 1200 words

These are average word counts and do not include the back matter and bibliography.

The words of the editors on the panel echoed what both I and Louie Stowell, who works and writes for Usborne, told SCBWI members at the recent London Professional Series. I have summarised what the editors on the panel said:

OUP
Kersti Worlsey told us ideas for OUP’s books are generated in-house and they commission authors directly, or via their agent. All their series, such as the Oxford Reading Tree, are produced after a lot of in-depth market research. They often work on 24 - 72 titles in a reading series at a time. They will send their authors a brief summary of their requirements and the authors submit a 200 word synopsis. They do not ask for the complete story in the first instance as they want to check the synopsis fits their needs before-hand.

They try out a lot of authors for each project but it is invitation only. They have to be a talented writer, flexible and be able to fit the purpose of the series. They should also have an awareness of children’s educational needs and knowledge of phonics. If the author is taken on they may be asked to revise their synopsis and they have about three weeks to complete the manuscript. This manuscript will often be sent back with suggested changes. There is always a valid reason for the changes. They never accept unsolicited manuscripts or ideas for their reading series. Payment is usually 3-5% royalties, or if commissioned on a flat fee 50 words may receive between £100-£200. Well known, agented authors may receive an advance of up to £1000.

PEARSON
Pearson publish the Bug Club primary reading scheme for ages 4-11 years in over thirty countries. Children’s engagement is their number one priority. Sophie Thomson told us authors are sent a loose brief which includes, age group, number of pages, word count, things to include and to avoid and are invited to submit stories, non-fiction text and synopsis ideas. The best fit author will then be commissioned to write the text on a flat fee basis, which could range between £800-£8000, depending on how well known an author is and the word count of the book. Sophie said it was approximately £3 a word for a 500 word story. The selected writers will be sent a very tight brief with chapter by chapter story outline. The timeline and payment is agreed prior to the main delivery. Sophie’s top tip was to be flexible and view it as a challenge.

Pearson also have a bank of illustrators with portfolios on file. They usually choose their favourite and ask them to draw characters from the story to see if they fit the desired style. They are then given a storyboard on a flat fee basis ‘work for hire’.

RANSOM
Ransom publishers again worked in much the same way commissioning writers and giving the general topic areas to their writers. They pay royalties only, but they are considerably higher than OUP at between 5-10%. Steve Rickard stressed that writing high interest, low reading age books requires a very different skill many writers have not got. All their writers are excellent and Ransom only commission the best. They are different to Barrington Stoke who only commission established authors who make big sales in the book shops.

Having written for the high/low Star Struck series for Ransom Publishing, under the pseudonym Cathy West, I understood how getting it right educationally is only the start. The books are aimed at reluctant and struggling readers so topic, look and feel drives the reader’s choice. Steve also pointed out there are two customers the teachers/librarians and the kids. Ransom aim to produce books children want to read.

I still feel NOW is the best time to break into educational fiction and non-fiction, as there is a new national curriculum. Publishers want books and online material to meet the needs of each level description in every subject area. For ideas and more information you can view the latest curriculum here.

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Anita Loughrey writes educational fiction, non-fiction and teacher resources for a wide range of publishers. She also has a monthly column in Writers’ Forum about authors and their research. She does school visits and runs workshops and seminars on writing for children. You can find out more about Anita on her website.

Ten-Minute Blog Break - 18th November

Diversity is a word that gets bandied around a lot, and I hope we can agree that diversity in children's books is generally a good thing. But moving from that concept to actually bringing more diverse books to the market seems to be a tougher job.

K.M. Lockwood takes on the diversity question this week, in a blog post that starts with dressing up and ends with the challenge of trying to write a character who sits outside of your own cultural experience. This is something I've been tackling in my own writing (with much trepidation), and K.M.'s post has made me think and reflect more than anything else I've read this week.

The checklist that Kate Peridot uses to evaluate her picture book ideas is immensely useful for pinning down what makes a story work. But it also strikes me as a little controversial in its focus on the commercial appeal of an idea over its creative merits. How do you choose which ideas to develop and which to put aside?

There are more picture book happenings at Story Snug, where Catherine Friess is interviewing SCBWI US illustrator Hazel Mitchell. Hazel talks about her process and the inspiration for her illustration work on Imani's Moon by (fellow Scoobie) JaNay Brown-Wood.

A lot has happened in Larisa Villar Hauser's life since we last checked in with her. In particular, her self-published book has gone out into the world and been received pretty well. Read Larisa's insightful blog for her reflections about launch week.

NaNoWriMo is motivating for sure, but also a big ask in terms of commitment. Those seeking a somewhat gentler November may appreciate Julie Day's approach, which focuses on good process rather than strict word count.

Show don't tell - this simple mantra hides a multitude of complexity, especially for a novice writer struggling with character, dialogue, structure and everything else in-between. Thankfully, Dr Vanessa Harbour has put on her teacher's hat for a succinct and illuminating post that explains when to show and when not to. Thanks, Doc!

Nick.

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A SCBWI member since 2009, Nick Cross is an Undiscovered Voices winner who currently writes children's short fiction for Stew Magazine.

Nick's most recent blog is all about the reasons Why You Should Support Stew Magazine, in their Kickstarter campaign.