A Break For Lunch

I know it's still quite early but I've stopped work to have a little lunch. It's not my fault I've stopped early, honestly - I'm going to lay the blame for that on my gorgeous wife, Vicky (sorry lovely).

Vicky has been busy working in the library this morning but she's having an early lunch as she will be leading a Rhymetime session at another library this afternoon. As soon as Vicky said she was having her lunch my tummy started to rumble and I had to stop for lunch too...

Today's lunch is a chicken and coleslaw buttie... YUM!

This morning I've been busy writing - hoping to get Chapter Two and Three of my latest book finished. That might sound odd to you but it isn't really (not in my mind anyway)... I have been messing with Chapter Two and Three for a little while, as well as writing other bits from later in the story (quite chaotic I know). I was a bit restless and at a loss for how the book/story was going to start though and this was stopping me from really getting on with it properly. Last week, however, the beginning of the book came to me. I wrote the first chapter - asked Vicky what she thought (she loved it - YAY!) and now I'm on with the rest of the book.

I can't tell you much about it right now - in fact, I'm not going to tell you anything about it right now other than that he story contains lots of mystery, humour, strange characters and even stranger goings on.

I will tell you about it soon though....

That's it... lunch is over... time to get back to work.

P.S. I was going to tell you about our day out yesterday but all of the pictures are on Vicky's phone so that will have to wait until later...

Time for Breakfast

Yes, it's time for breakfast - or possibly mid morning break... I'm not quite sure. Whatever time it is, I've just made coffee and cheese on toast. Ok, so it's not really nice cheese on toast - it's toast with cheese squares leftover from Sunday's barbecue but it will do...

I've made a good start on writing this morning and have finished the first draft of Chapter 1. I've been writing this story for a little while now but didn't have a beginning. That might sound odd but I sometimes find that I don't know quite where a story is going to start. Rather than letting this stop me writing as it can easily do, I try and just get on with it and get some writing done.

In schools I visit children often say they struggle with a beginning for their story so they sit there starting at the paper - they've been told that they need a really good beginning that will grab the reader and get them interested in reading the rest of the story - Quite a daunting task...

This idea of grabbing the reader's interest can easily halt the writing process so I try to encourage children to just start writing what they know... perhaps they have a piece of dialogue or a part of a scene in their heads but they don't know where it will fit in the story... "That's good!" I say. "Write it down and see what happens. You can worry about the beginning later."

It's all well and good saying this but I know myself that I feel restless if I haven't got the beginning sorted so it's a real weight of my mind knowing that I know where the story I am writing starts. 


That's it for now... coffee break over... on with the story. 

The End

There's something very satisfying about typing those two words...

THE END

You spend hours, days, weeks, months and even years working on a story, struggling over beginnings, middles and endings, determined to get the words just right. 
You write and you re-write. 
You edit and you tweak. 
You draft and then re-draft. 
You curse it for being so troublesome and you nurse it like the fragile creature it is... but eventually the time comes when you know you have to let it out into the world for someone else to read. 


I've not been working on a huge novel recently - I've been working on a picture book, and even though there's not many words in a picture book, writing them is not as easy as some people might think. The story that I've just finished has been stomping and roaring around in my head for a little while but I've finally finished it. My lovely fiancée, Vicky, has given it a final read and offered her much valued thoughts - the very last tweaks have been made and it's now been sent to my agent.  


I could now just sit with fingers crossed to await her thoughts on it... Sometimes my agent offers suggestions that might improve the story - and that's great... I tweak it some more. Sometimes the story goes straight to a publisher... if they like it, they too offer their thoughts and even more tweaks can be made.... so even though I think the story is finished... it's only THE END for now... more work will be needed.


So yes, I could sit with fingers crossed, but all of the above takes time - days... weeks... even months. So instead, I'm going to get on with writing something else... A bigger book... a darker book...


It's hard to write when you cross your fingers - so if you're not too busy, could you please cross your fingers for me.

Getting Inspiration

When I visit schools and libraries I spend my time telling stories and sharing my love of books, reading and writing - the idea behind this is to let the children know that reading and writing is fun. I also spend a lot of time answering lots questions about myself and writing - among other things this helps show that I'm human (for most of the time) and helps satisfies their curiosity about writers and writing. Questions range from - 

• What's your favourite colour?
• Where do you do your writing?

to things like 

• Where do you get your inspiration?   

The first two are easy.... the inspiration question often isn't so easy. Quite often what the poser of the question means is a combination of -

• Where do you get your ideas?

and 

• Where do the words that you write actually come from?

I have answers for all of these - some more satisfying than others. But every time i get asked the questions I always wish I had a better answer... the problem is, it's difficult to say where all ideas and words come from without simply saying Out Of My Head...

I've had a book idea rattling round inside my head for a little while now - I know characters and settings and bits of plot and conversation etc but I didn't quite have the words to start the story... and to be honest it was starting to get a little frustrating. 

This morning, however, whilst carefully putting our wedding invitations into the postbox round the corner, the opening words came to me. I don't know what triggered these words off - there was certainly no one around that resembled the character that I'm writing about, nor was there a building similar in any way to the one in the story... but the words still came to me. Perhaps they came because I wasn't looking for them - Who knows?

All I can say is that I'm glad they are here... It now means that I can start the story at a good place. The beginning. Always a good place to start I think...