When your writing needs a Retreat...Part 1

The last few days, I've been on retreat - writing retreat.

A couple of ex-Cloudie friends, Moira (aka Maddie Please - The Summer of Second Chances; Come Away with me; A Year of New Adventures; The Mini Break) and Jane, set up A Place to Write some years ago, organising writing days and retreats. I decided last year to book into their Spring Writing Retreat in wonderful Weobley, partly because Mr Squidge is going off on a boys week later this year (windsurfing in Greece, Coronavirus permitting) and I thought if he can go away for a week, then so can I.

It has been totally worth it.

I drove down to Weobley on the Tuesday morning. Apart from half an hour spent in stationary traffic on the M42 because of an accident, and one wrong turn where the A44 morphs into another minor A road without any obvious signage, it was a good run. The flooding near Worcester was a sight to behold; muddy brown water, stretching as far as the eye could see on either side of the road. Although I've seen flooding around the Soar at home, this was a whole different level of flooding to what I'm used to.

Jane and Moira made me feel most welcome when I arrived, and I met Kirsten and Isabel, my lovely fellow retreatees. (Is that a word? If not, it is now!)

The Throne, where we were staying, is a magnificent sprawling 15th century house, and - when the heating was working (it wasn't on Monday night, apparently, so all the stoves were lit on Tuesday morning until the lovely Richard came to sort the heating out) it was the toastiest 400-year old house I've ever stayed in.

The Throne

Moira took me up the (first) wobbly staircase to my room - I knew it was mine because look what was on the door;

In fact, every retreatee who'd been published had their book cover on their bedroom door...and those that hadn't been published - yet - had made-up ones.

And my room itself? Well, take a look at this:

Glorious, isn't it? I could only climb into bed from one side though, because the floor sloped and one side had to be propped up on blocks to keep the bed level.

We don't think it's the EXACT bed that King Charles I slept in, but apparently he stayed a night in the house after the Battle of Naseby...

Then it was a quick tour of the rest of the house. I haven't got photos of everything that caught my attention, but here's a flavour...

The door to a bedroom...

And the bedroom itself

The modern kitchen extension against one of the
older parts of the house

The mantelpiece was as tall as me

Just one of the cosy writing nooks...

Beautiful bedroom beams

A lot of bare ceiling and cobwebs over the
bathroom 'pods'!

And some of the unplastered wattle inside the house.

I missed out the Goldilocks room (three metal-framed single beds in a shared room) and the rooms where folk were already in and unpacked...and the graffiti cut into a beam in the entrance hall.

Then it was back through my room, down the second staircase, and into the kitchen again. Yes, I did say second staircase, and yes, I did say through my room; I had two doors! I decided the edges of some of the stairs on this staircase had been nibbled by giant mice, they were so wibbly... 

After lunch - homemade spicy soup, delish - we all wandered off to various nooks to set up and get writing. Here's where I based myself.

The entrance hall

I remember reading somewhere that yellow is an energetic colour, good for creativity, and it certainly seemed to work; by the time we ate dinner that first evening, I had 2K words down on Tilda 4. Because let's face it - I was on a writing retreat - I needed to get some writing done! I decided to focus on bashing out new ideas rather than edit Tilda 3, and it was so good to be able to do that, knowing I'd be fed, watered, and very comfortable for the next few days.

The sun painting pictures on the other side of my nook

Wednesday morning, I got up much earlier than I would have done at home because a heavy vehicle passed by at 5am, so I only dozed thereafter. A few more hundred words after breakfast but before the workshop, and then the 'Day Girls' (some of the members of Jane's writing group) arrived and we cracked on. Here we all are, ready to work hard round the dining table...

L to R; Ann, Gill, Kirsten, Sue, Isabel, Jane, Moira

The workshops were run by the very lovely Isabel Costello (Paris Mon Amour, and The Literary Sofa blog), and focused on Inspiration in the first, and Motivation and Resilience in the second. I'm going to blog separately about the workshops in Parts 2 & 3 of Weobley, because I need time to digest and think about what I got from them before I share them with you. Suffice to say at this point that they were thought-provoking, fun, and very, very useful.

After lunch, it was free writing time again. I set up this time in the beautiful contemporary kitchen, and managed another thousand or so words before dinner.

And that was the pattern for the following day, too. Wake early, breakfast, writing, workshop, lunch, writing (and a quick walk around Weobley, taking in all the history and black-and-white-buildings. There might even be a blog post all about gravestones, because I found some gorgeous and surprising ones in the churchyard), dinner and conversation before early to bed.

It was such a luxury to be catered for. Jane and Moira shared the cooking between them, and in addition to the lovely homemade soup on the first day, we were treated to homemade cakes, quiche, curry, fish pie, and Chinese. We were plied with wine too - but only once the writing had been done. Who was it who said 'write drunk, edit sober'? Afraid that doesn't work for me, personally... The kettle was always on, and if you got peckish in between meals you could always help yourself to fruit from the bowl, or suck on a mint. I can't thank them both enough.

It was a brilliantly productive, relaxed, inspiring time.

Did I really need a retreat to get my writing done? I know I'm perfectly capable of writing without, but now, having done it, I think I did need it. My writing time is often fitted around other things and/or other people... For two and a half days, I could allow myself to focus on writing and pretty much nothing else. And I got a lot done in that time. Bearing in mind that two mornings were spent in workshops, I still managed to get 5K words down before I came home. I'd never have got that far in my normal weekly routine.

The retreat's not just about writing though...it's the conversation around the dinner table. Granted, a lot of the time it was about writing, but about experiences in the world of writing more than what we were writing about. We chatted about families, about ourselves, about the things we like to do outside of writing, about Coronavirus (can't avoid the blessed subject at the moment) and memories related to food - particularly after the Wednesday evening raspberry trifles...

In fact, d'you know what the last few days reminded me of? The best of the Word Cloud. Those days when we came together in one community as writers of all levels and experiences - chatting on the home page, sharing news of progress made and setbacks suffered, having a go at writing short pieces like we used to in the monthly comps... Yes. It was like a mini-Cloud experience.

Writing's such a lonely thing to do, most of the time, maybe I needed that support and encouragement, that time with like-minded people, to refresh both myself and my writing spirit.

Let's hope I can hang onto the positive vibes and continue to make good progress as the normal routine of life begins to make itself felt again.

(Huge thanks to my fellow retreatees and to the Day Girls for making it such a positive experience.)

A Milestone for Tilda 3 - and Car Park Capers

You've heard of A Tale of Two Cities? This is A Blog in Two Halves...

This morning, I finished the first handwritten edit of Tilda 3.

What does that mean, I hear you ask? It means that Tilda 3 has moved from the first s****y draft in a notebook, past the first s****y draft on computer, and is now a paper copy full of multicoloured scribbles. It's still as far from a proper, finished novel as you can get, but my read through has helped me to see where the novel needs expanding, and how the mahoosive climax can be written so it's all Tilda's fault...

It also means that, when I head off to Weobley next week, to spend four days at a Writing Retreat run by two wonderful ex-cloudie friends - Jayne and Moira - I am in a position to either start typing up all the edits to Tilda 3 OR crack on with the first s****y draft on computer of Tilda 4. This fourth adventure for Tilda is going to start in a dark place... and involves Issrayan dragons.

Nuff said.

And the Car Park Capers?

Yesterday, Mr Squidge and I went to Leicester. We don't go often - we're not into big name shopping and we can get most of what we need in the town centre at home, but I had to pick up the new Paschal candle and palm crosses for church from the cathedral shop, and he wanted to visit Nada, a zero waste store. I also had to begin the process of applying for my e-Visa for India (I'm off to Trichy again, mid-April, in case I hadn't already mentioned it), so we planned to drop by Belgrave Gate and a particular travel agent's on the way home.

Anyhow, we checked where we could plug Sparky in to charge while we mooched, and headed off to the car park.

Now, finding the recharging points in any car park is a bit of an art. They are normally on the ground floor, well signposted and have green parking bays. We drove around all three - extensive - floors in the Highcross Rooftop Car Park and couldn't see a single one. Now, we didn't really need to charge - we'd have got home again quite comfortably - but we thought we'd do it anyway, as keeping the battery topped up is better than letting it run low.

We ended up pressing the 'Help' button. "I'll get my colleague to talk to you," the nice lady on the other end of the intercom said. Five minutes later, with no more contact from the disembodied voice, we were about to park up and not bother charging. Then said colleague appeared in person - and directed us from the sunny rooftop, back down onto the first level, to 'the dark new bit.' That didn't sound particularly attractive, as dark bits in car parks aren't very safe, but off we went.

We drove round the roof twice, trying to find the way out (signposting really isn't this car park's strong point - the exit was a very narrow ramp, hidden behind a wall with a teeny tiny sign) and followed the instructions back to the first level. Even there, we couldn't find 'the dark bit'. Then - Alleluia! - a green charge point sign. And another, pointing the way to - yup, The Dark Bit.

Now, the reason for the darkness became apparent as we drove towards the charge pod points. The lights were on motion sensors. So this newer part of the car park was being environmental with reduced lighting for most of the time because - let's face it - all it would've been doing otherwise was shining on empty, stationary vehicles.

We plugged in, and it took a while to download the app to enable charging - different suppliers have different apps you need to sign up to, which results in lots of faff when you start using a new supplier anywhere. I spent the time admiring the artwork... They were very keen to get the environmental message over, weren't they?

After all that, can you believe we didn't get much of a charge? It took so long to download the app, the charge point didn't let us draw any more power because it didn't think we were signed up to it.

But at least we know where we can go in future. And we both got the shopping we needed, had a lovely lunch in The Globe pub, and a mooch around the city centre in the sunshine. On balance, a good day.

How to market your books - and yourself, as a writer

I've been forced recently to question whether I do enough to market my own books; I've had some really disappointing sales figures.

It got me thinking, and I was challenged to take a look at what I already do, marketing-wise, to see whether I can improve things. So...

Blogging.

I blog, and not as often as I used to, I'll admit.

There are two reasons for that. The first is that over the last twelve, possibly eighteen months, I've been in a bit of a funk. Life has felt like a huge effort - my world seems to have shrunk and I've been pretty down at times. I believe I am peri-menopausal (sorry fellas, if you're reading!) which has affected my mood, confidence, concentration, and motivation. Quite frankly on occasions I've just wanted to shut the world out and curl up in a ball until I feel better. Another reason is that the Squidgelings are both at uni now, and I have found it extremely hard to adapt to them not being at home, as well as coping with issues they have had while they're away. Maybe I should've pushed myself to still share my life and writing, but I simply couldn't.

At least the blog's still here, and it's still the first place people come to, to find out about me and what I write. I like writing posts - and I hope you enjoy reading them, even if there haven't been as many of late.

Website.

I do have one. But set up after the Scribbles 'because authors need a website', I never really saw the need for it after establishing a blog - and it's horribly out of date. I used a freebie website thing to set it up, but the problem was that I didn't find it easy to use or make changes to. I was also using it so infrequently, I'd forget how to do things or the templates would have been updated and I didn't have a clue. I've said before I'm a bit of a numpty when it comes to IT - I'd rather not do it than make a mess.

I did look at getting one set up for me, but the cost was prohibitive, especially if I wanted to transfer all my Scribbles over to a new domain/host/whatever it's called. I will work on it in the future, but even with some lovely advice available from BInk, it's literally all double-dutch to me.

Facebook.

I'm on it. As myself, not as 'Author', and I'll admit to being very careful here about posting marketing information. Mainly cos facebook take offence if you sell on an undesignated page, but also because facebook for me is about more than selling. It's friendship and keeping in touch, and I don't want to jeopardise friendships by seeming to ram my books down people's throats. Of course I share when I've got a new book out or a cover reveal, but I don't do it to gain sales - I do it to share my excitement.

In all of my social media, I'm genuinely me, and that's something that seems to be really valuable when...

Selling the books.

The vast majority of sales for my novels are direct sales - it's relationships that sell books in my experience. People will buy once they've met me, but if they see my books as being written by an unknown author, they don't tend to take a punt without some knowledge under their belt or a recommendation. That's where catchy blurb/eyecatching cover becomes important too.

In the vast ocean of books on Amazon, my novels are mere amoeba and have to fight extra hard for attention. Especially when it's probably not children - my target market - doing the searching for suitable reading materials, but their parents and grandparents. Ditto on a bookstore shelf; most bookstores have children's titles limited to the big names or popular formula series that children love to read.

My novels have proven to have crossover appeal (instead of middle-grade, they need an 'anyone over 9 years' tag!) but labelling them as children's books can put adults off buying them for themselves.

And the price...I've said it before and I'll say it again - selling children's books is hard. An unknown author, whose books are twice the price of a known author (I know, there's also economy of scale to consider) is unlikely to get chosen. But a lot of the time the price is out of my control...

So relationship is really important for my sales figures.

Reviews.

I do get some lovely comments from readers. I also get some lovely reviews, but not very many. That said, I'm not very good at asking for feedback. All my books are listed on Goodreads and I've done giveaways; I've had one review as a result. One. From several, multiple copy giveaways.

Book reviewers like to have ARC's (Advance Reader Copies), and I'd be happy to send some out - but who do you ask? Children? Adult readers? Book bloggers? (The latter are really hard to get featured by, and I've not seen many for children's books.) The latter tend to focus on big names...

Author events.

I do a fair few of these in schools, for groups, or at fairs. I normally hope to cover my table fee, if nothing else - but schools can be tricky as they may not want you to sell direct. Most of the money I make as an author comes from events where I'm giving a talk or running a creative writing session and charge a fee - any books sold on top are usually a bonus.

Guest blogs.

I don't do this very often, but sometimes I write blogs for other sites. This widens my reach, but doesn't necessarily convert to sales.



Looking at all of that, I think I market myself more than my books - but I market myself in order to sell my books. Does that matter? It gets sales...but maybe I need to backtrack a step.

Why did I start writing books in the first place? To give readers good stories. Did I want to be rich and famous? No - I wanted to encourage children to read. So maybe, just maybe, I need to not be so worried about the marketing? Having said that, I'll ask for more reviews. I'll blog more. I'll take another look at the website and attend more author events if life allows me to. I might even blow my own trumpet a bit more.

Oh, and I'll be sure to hand out some of my new business cards...

How to run a writing workshop - for children

Delighted to be guest blogging over at The Writer's Cookbook today, with my top tips for running a writing workshop for children.

Check it out here: The Writer's Cookbook

Will be interested to see what those of you who also run workshops for children would add to my list... Feel free to comment so we can all learn!

The laptop's retiring...

We're not sure how long we've had our laptop for. We guess well over ten years.

The soon-to-be-retired laptop, back in 2013!

It still operates in a fashion - the memory is almost full in spite of us deleting as much as we can, it runs an antiquated Word 2003, and has slow internet access. It's also got some sticky/broken buttons.

To be fair, it doesn't really bother me that much. I've often said I'm a bit of a technophobe, so I stick with what I'm used to. Hence the very old version of Word I use; I want to write, rather than faff about with settings in an unfamiliar programme. And I use the laptop a lot. Mainly because the main computer is difficult to work at because of my varifocals, but also cos the programmes look different to what I'm used to. I'm getting used to them, though...

Which is a good thing, because this Valentine's Day, I didn't get roses or chocolates. I got a new laptop.

Mr Squidge and I have been talking about umm'ing and aah'ing about replacing it for a while, and with me off on a writing retreat in early March to begin Tilda 4, it seemed like a good time to do it; new laptop, new book kind of thing.

Will it help me write any better? Don't know yet - I've got to get to grips with a whole new Word programme first.

Keep your fingers crossed for me - and for Tilda!

An author visit with added sock

Yesterday I was at Stamford High School for my first author visit of 2020; I'd been asked back three years after my first visit, to speak to Year 7 about writing and to run a short exercise on creative writing.

It was a glorious drive over the hills to Stamford - spring green in the fields nearer to Leicestershire, (though that was probably grass - the ground's still far too wet in places to plough and plant yet) and a deep red in Lincolnshire, (must be drier higher up) with the road undulating up and down like tarmacked waves. I always drive with music when I'm on my own - my CD of choice yesterday was a compilation by Fat Boy Slim, and as 'Bird of Prey' began to play, I saw not one, but two buzzards. Gosh, but they are HUGE!

I had no problem finding a place to park in Stamford, and stood watching what I think was a red kite soaring over the park. It had a deep red-brown underside and forked tail, anyway. The walk up to the school was a bit blustery, but I stopped off at St Martin's Church on the way up the hill. Last time I visited the school I sat on the church steps to eat pizza for lunch - this time, the church was open so I popped inside. It's a beautiful and peaceful building, with some really beautiful stained glass and monuments.

As to the visit itself...I had lunch with Miss S, who'd organised the visit, and a couple of other staff members. (Worth mentioning the conveyor belt to take the trays of plates away...could've played with that for a while!) And then we went to the library to meet the Book Club.

Now I've received little gifts in the past from students, but the Book Club showered me with things they'd made. The girls had been encouraged to read the Scribbles to find out a bit about me before I visited, so there were plenty of links to books, liquorice and socks!

little books (including a teensy tiny one!), origami, bracelet, cherryade,
beginnings of stories, envelopes, fortune teller and sock!

And to prove that the sock I was given fitted, here it is on my foot:

We had squash and biscuits and lots of questions, then it was time to head down to the hall (a different one to last time) to meet the whole year group. A fair few girls were presented with their merit badges before we began, then I was introduced.

I did the usual 'this is me, how I got into writing and how I go about writing' talk, then we got creative. Last time, I used my paint samples to inspire; this time I decided to use a character to spark ideas. At this point, I must credit the lovely Julie Cohen, because I attended her character workshop at York some years ago, and used some of the ideas from that but simplified them for the girls.

Eighty-seven girls got to work - and eighty-seven new characters were created. The hardest bit of the entire session wasn't getting them involved, it was getting my voice to carry. The hall was large, and my voice is still affected by this coughing virus I've had. (Six weeks and counting, but yes I've had it checked and my chest is clear...) There were some lovely ideas shared; Caleb, the slight ten year old boy who wore an oversized red sweatshirt. The object of importance which was the key to the character's heart. (Imagine, an actual key to your heart.) A cat as a character - which meant the student had to think about how to convey dialogue when it came to the character 'speaking'. Quite a few of the girls went above and beyond what I'd set them to do, and the pantsers got to work creating whole storylines...

It never ceases to amaze me how, when students are given free rein in writing sessions, so many of them can pick up an idea and run with it, without internal censoring or second guessing themselves. There's a freedom that I don't think our educational system allows students to have, which a visit like mine can allow - at least for a short time.

I really enjoyed myself - and I think the vast majority of the girls did, too. I hope that some of them will keep on writing, and one day I'll be reading their stories!

With thanks to Miss S for inviting me, to the Book Club for asking the best questions and for all my gifts, and for the whole of Year 7 for engaging so well in the workshop.

When writing's exciting

For most of the time, writing can feel like an uphill slog. You simply have to keep your bum in the seat and your pen in your hand (or fingers on the keyboard, depending on how you work).

Yes, there are occasions when I can legitimately NOT write, because I'm giving a talk, attending a book fair, or perhaps a workshop fro my own benefit; that's all still part of being an author, but it's not writing.

But most of the time, you're actually writing. And ultimately, it's a grind to get the story down, to create something that a publisher's going to want to publish and readers are going to want to read.

During that process, any author will tell you that they recognise certain stages. Here are mine:

1. Enthusiasm.

Particularly relevant to the early stages of working out a story, when ideas seem ten-a-penny and you can't get the notes down quickly enough. Notebooks are strewn around the house, with weird jottings like 'Name change!' or 'find out about cheesemaking' which make you wonder if you were suffering from temporary insanity. But you don't stop - you trust they'll all make sense at some point and be vitally important to the story you're creating. (Beware - this stage can also develop into 'Researchitis', when you get so bogged down in finding out facts to use in your story, you forget about the actual story...)

2. Hard work.

Thrashing it out. 'Growing' the story. Asking yourself questions until you're absolutely certain of this character's motivation or the time of day in that scene. Seeing the story develop into something you've got a real hope with. This probably covers my notebook version, when I'm working the story out in a general sense, and the 'shitty first draft on computer' stage too. It'll also carry me along quite comfortably to a little over half way through the 'first proper write up' on computer, where I'm beginning to edit fairly closely to produce a decently presented and structured version of the novel. Then...

3. The stall. 

You reach a point where, whichever way you turn, you can't see how to make the darn story work. All those great ideas you had seem really stupid now, and you need to fix them. But every resolution you think of churns up a new issue somewhere else, and the story begins to morph into a massively complex beast and you can't tame it. So you stop. Or feel discouraged. Or wonder how on earth you ever thought writing this novel was going to be a good idea. (And also the point where I'm most likely to give up on a story, though it's not happened that often. If I do give up, I hate that the story has 'beaten' me.)

4. Excitement.

I have to force myself back to it, ignore the stall. I'll go over what I've already written, editing the obvious things, but essentially familiarising myself with the story again. When I reach the point where I'm writing new stuff, I've probably rewritten or tweaked a fair proportion of what was already down and causing me issues. I'll have spotted plot holes and stunted dialogue or inconsistencies, made notes on how to address them, and the excitement begins to build as I continue. It's all becoming clearer in my head, the writing's flowing, and I'm then at a point where - quite suddenly - the momentum of the story is carrying me along, and I can feel the pressure mounting and my character's are doing their best to make things right but things are going wrong and there seems no way out for them and then - POW!

5. The Finishing.

There's a resolution. Everything's not necessarily finished, but the story ties up in a logical place and it feels - finally - complete. Like a real story at long last.

6. The proper edit.

The simple (hah!) act of going over the whole story and polishing it until it's glowing.

At the moment, I'm working on Tilda 3, and I'm at the fourth stage. In fact, I'm only taking time off from it now to tell that I've reached it because I'm SO excited! It's getting very Jason and the Argonauts, and Tilda's right in the middle of the action, heading full tilt towards a climax of GIGANTIC proportions.

It might still be a few weeks before I reach the fifth stage, but it feels close. A lot closer than when I was stuck at stage 3, anyway.

For now, I'll keep writing...

No, that's not Tilda - that's Jason!