Great Mates

Okay, so it's not exactly fresh news - it's been out for weeks now. But the Great Mates anthology edited by Barbara Else and illustrated by Philip Webb is in bookshops. And I'm very happy to say it contains my story Alaska.

Also, huge congratulations to fellow critique-group member and friend John MacKinven who just won the Lillian Ida Smith award. Go John! I'm still buzzing over that news :)

Spinning Tales

I've just come home after Spinning Tales, which was an awesome weekend conference on children's writing. My mood is best summed up as tired but inspired!

As usual when I go to one of these events I have come away reflecting on what a great bunch of people children's writers are. I don't think you could ever meet a group so generous with their time, advice, knowledge, and friendship.

Maybe it's the toughness of the industry that makes children's writers so nice?

Here's my Recipe to make a Children's Writer:

Take a measure of adversity and a ton of perserverance. Mix it up with set-backs, difficulties, and things that make you shake your head and say, "What the--? "
Add the tiniest pinch of financial reward... actually, don't stir it in, just wave it over the top of the mixture with a mocking smile.
Heat slowly in a pressure-cooker and watch the solidarity and companionship grow.
Eventually you'll find a large sense of humor has formed. But be warned - you may need to add a large dash of alcohol to really bring out the flavors.

Okay, my recipe's a bit corny, I admit it. But it really was a delicious weekend all 'round!

Cashing in on Crazy

I have to say I felt morally outraged when I learned that there is now a specialized social media ad agency working with Charlie Sheen to cash in on his crazy.

Not because I don't think he should cash in. Oh no, the poor man has a couple of porn-star girlfriends to support and the silicone bills alone must be enormous. I just think it's sad that the rot is setting in to the social media tweet-and-face-space so blatantly.

Isn't it true that when you see an ad in a magazine or on telly with some star flogging a product, you know they're being paid to do it? When you see a sports star with logos all over them, you can be pretty sure they didn't throw all the giant ticks on cos they thought it looked cool.

But when Charlie Sheen tweets that he stepped out for a supersized McCrazy meal and he was short a couple of fries, we have no idea whether he really did have a (line of) coke with his burger, or whether he's sitting hungry at home typing in what the folks at Ad.ly have told him to write to collect a big cheque.

Of course you can't police social media, that's kind of the point of it. But now we're not even bothering to pretend that the sell-out isn't rampant. If there's no way to know what's real and what isn't, then you can't believe a thing. And that's sad.

Next thing you'll be telling me Lady Gaga doesn't take her meat purse with her when she runs down to the diary for milk.

Pick 'n Mix

Pick 'n Mix is now out in shops! Very exciting, because if you turn to page 42 you'll find my story 'Stig and the Space Rats'.

W00t! It's incredible to be published in a compilation with such amazingly fantastic authors as Joy Cowley and David Hill! Not to mention my good friend Melinda of course. :)

And Jenny Cooper's illustrations are awesome! I just love her pic of my two alien pirates - totally hilarious.

It's lovely to have something else published, and to be able to hold it in my hands at long last. It has been way too long!

Nearly Almost Just-About There.

I am the Queen of unfinished manuscripts. Grovel before me, those with less than three drawers full! I am far mightier than thou when it comes to giving up half-way. Mwaha... (unfinished evil laughter).

However, that has all changed forever! Or at least, for now. Yes, I have almost finished a manuscript. Okay, you caught the word 'almost' in that sentence. I'm not actually finished. But I'm so very close. I can smell the fear coming off those two tiny words 'The End', who haven't been used for so long they've forgotten what duty they're meant to perform.

I am up to 38,000 words and I have only about 5,000 words to go. Easy! Hopefully it's long enough for it's intended audience (YA). And hopefully the critique group don't tear the story savagely to shreds. But I reckon that finishing an entire first draft is the second-best feeling in a writer's life. (Getting a story accepted for publishing, of course, is the hands-down, no-contest winner).

First drafts are easily the hardest creatures to wrestle into being. Second drafts, third drafts... even fifth and sixth drafts are like the weak, easily picked-off kids cowering behind the first-draft bully. Having a first draft nearly complete gives me such a feeling of satisfaction, it almost gets me wondering why I don't do it more often? Hmmm. Now that's a question to ponder.

A New Zealand Literary Showcase: 100 NZ Authors

Here's a list of the 100 NZ writers whose work will be published in interlitq's feature, "A New Zealand Literary Showcase: 100 NZ Writers"--to be published in February/March 2011.

Can you spot my name in the list? Very exciting!

There are some well-known authors in the list alongside me. It's kind of like getting on the door list to a fancy invite-only event and seeing celebs brush past on their way in.

Of course, interlitq has the best possible literary credentials. In Issue 12 they'll have work by Richard Reeve, Marion Jones and Elizabeth Smither. Siobhan Harvey will be a Consulting editor.

And now that I've got the name-dropping out of the way, here's some more writing news. The Sunday Star Times competition closes on Friday and I kissed my little story for luck and sent it on its way today. There's nothing like the feeling of putting something in the post - whether it's off to a publisher or a competition.

It's like that feeling of anticipation I get when I'm about to check my Lotto ticket. Even though my chances of winning are lower than my chance of bumping into Johnny Depp on the street and getting invited back to his place for dessert, there's still a wonderful 'what-if' possibility that gets me dreaming.

What if I won the big one? The million-dollar Lotto win. First prize in the Sunday Star Times or the Katherine Mansfield competitions. Sticky date pudding with Johnny. Sigh.

You gotta be in it to win it. And the dream is almost... nearly... sorta... as good as the real thing.

I make it a rule not to hate anybody. Except maybe this guy...

Okay, you can't believe everything you read on the internet. I know that. That's why I don't click on ads that tell me I'm the lucky One Millionth Visitor to the Site and I've just Won an iPad. I didn't try to collect the enormous prize I'd won in the UK Postcode Lottery. My kind Nigerian friend will have to find someone else to help him collect the millions of dollars he's trying to retrieve. I don't get tempted by offers of instant wealth, a better sex life, larger body organs, or losing my belly fat NOW.

I know that a tribe of crazed serial killers/rapists aren't ravaging the women of Auckland, drugging them with free perfume samples in supermarket carparks, ambushing them on the pretense of returning $5 notes they've dropped, or sneaking onto their back seats while they're paying for their petrol.

I have multiple curses heaped on me, my family are all doomed, a pidgeon will crap on my head on the way to work tomorrow, and I will never have the slightest scrap of good luck ever again, because I DIDN'T forward your stupid chain mail on to ANY friends EVER, and I never will.

Yep, when it comes to the interweb and its bag of tricksters, I thought I was pretty jaded. But that's all changed. I just found a site that made me sit up and take notice. And not in a good way. The site, which I will refrain from linking to for fear of accidentally promoting or endorsing it, promises big things. It can even make you a successful children's writer. I quote:

"The rewards for children's story writers go far beyond most people's expectations. Once your book is published you earn royalties which keep producing income for 50 years. Having some natural writing talent is an advantage, not a requirement."

Okay, fellow children's book writers, have you stopped laughing hysterically/ sobbing pitifully/ tearing out fistfuls of hair yet?

When I'd dragged my gob-smacked gaze away from that page, I clicked on their Mystery & Suspense Writing page, and found the following delightful extract, supposedly written by Fredrick Forsyth. I have no idea whether or not this is a real quote from the real Mr Forsyth, but if it is, he now has the great honour of being the only man in the world I now officially hate. Congratulations, Mr Forsyth! Please send your name, email address and $250 in unmarked bills to my Nigerian friend to receive your award.

Now, over to you, Mr Forsyth:

"Most authors, of whom I have read about or heard them interviewed, appear to have consciously dedicated themselves to a career as a professional writer. Most seem to have a sort of compulsion, a dedication, a commitment; many disclose that only through writing can they achieve any sort of fulfillment and that if they are kept away from their writing for long, they pine.

My own case is completely and mysteriously the opposite.

I decided in January I970, with little hope of any success, to try my hand at a single, one–off novel, for no better motive than I happened to be broke. Plus, I wanted a change after 12 years in journalism.

I dashed off The Day Of The Jackal in 35 days, virtually without notes, relying on my memory and keeping the plot in my head.

So far as I was concerned, that was that. If it failed, so what. If it succeeded in making me a few pounds, so much the better. At that time I felt no compulsion to write another.

That it was published at all was due in major part to the astuteness of Harold Harris at Hutchinson Publishing.
After four prior rejections I had decided in September 1970 that, at Christmas, I would put the manuscript in a drawer and return to full-time journalism. It was a witness of Harris’s further acumen that, having read it, he suggested I sign on with Hutchinson for another two novels. Which I did, and having signed I felt obligated to fulfil the contract. Without that signature I would probably have rejoiced in the success and the royalties of 'Jackal', pocketed the latter and moved on to something else.

Because of that contract, The Odessa File and The Dogs Of War came to be written.

Over 32 years have passed since I sat down to tap out 'Jackal' on a borrowed typewriter. Yet I still cannot muster a shred of that compulsive urge to write; that committed dedication to place words on paper which, I am sure, marks the true professional novelist or writer.

I like to count myself as a professional - first, long ago in the matter of flying aeroplanes in the war. (Forsyth was the youngest RAF pilot in WWII) And again as a reporter. (He was based at the Reuters Bureau in Paris and later in Berlin.)

But as a novelist I seem destined to remain a quite damnably lucky amateur. For this reason alone, and there are others, the continuing success of my novels surprises me even while I have to note the facts. For all that, I'm still delighted with my success. I know any reader dipping into my books will find some good entertainment."
- Frederick Forsyth