Blog Tour: Three Ways to Grow your Creative Writing by author Emma Read.

 

It may sound a cliché but writing is an escape.

These days, when our worlds have shrunk and our daily lives have become limited to the experiences within our own four walls and the queue at the supermarket, many people turn to writing to open the door to somewhere else.

Perhaps you’ve decided to write that book you’ve always dreamed of. Perhaps your teacher has asked you write a story as part of your home-schooling. Perhaps you’ve just read a brilliant book and want to write about what happens next.

If so, here are a few tips to get you started and keep you going – now and beyond the Lockdown…

TIP ONE

Catch your ideas

They are flighty little things and when float in they are just as liable to float right out again. Keep notebooks. Everywhere!

Write down all your ideas – be they character names, or settings in a strange world, or a magical item. I write down dreams. Not necessarily the whole, bizarre detail, usually just images or feelings that have lingered. You might find yourself struck by an idea while watching TV, or reading a news story. Or maybe by something you hear over the fence – the scratch of squirrels, the neighbours playing football, or an alien spaceship landing on the balcony (or was it just the cat?)

 

TIP TWO

Read something different

By which I mean – if you’re like me, and generally read fiction, try something like:

• Non-Fiction – e.g. How to be Extraordinary, by Rashmi Sirdeshpande
• Poetry – Like Poems to Live your Life By, Illustrated by Chris Riddell
• Comics or Graphic Novels – My current favourites are Bunny vs Monkey, by Jamie Smart, and Amulet, by Kazu Kibuishi.
• Scripts – Take a look at Dr Who, Episode One – The Woman Who Fell to Earth.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/scripts/doctor-who-series11

 

Reading outside your normal scope of media opens your mind to new ways of expressing yourself, new language and also sparks new ideas.

 

TIP THREE

Have adventures!

No, you don’t need to run away and join the circus, or take up with a gang of treasure-mad pirates. But once we are allowed out-out again, have your own adventures. Try something new, even if it feels a bit scary. As a writer, we create fantastical images and write these from our imaginations. But to make them feel real and relatable we weave our real-life experience into the words. The more experiences you have, the more you’ll be able to bring to your writing.

So, for example – your main character is running away from a dragon, and has to climb a sheer rock face to get away. The dragon comes from a picture in your mind, but the effort and nerves felt when climbing the cliff comes from that time you went on a climbing wall at the sports centre.

Or perhaps your hero has to eat a strange alien food. You can go to town describing the food, then really bring it to life by recalling a time you ate something new and unusual for the first time.

 

I hope these tips have been useful and you find yourself escaping to somewhere new and exciting. Happy writing, happy reading … happy escaping!

 

 About the Author

Emma Read is the author of Milton the Mighty, which was one of The Times’s Best Children’s Books of 2019, and the sequel, Milton the Megastar (both Chicken House Books). The MILTON series is written for younger readers and is all about finding courage, good friends, and doing amazing things – even if you’re a spider the size of a raisin! Emma lives in Bath, and never sweeps up cobwebs.

Find out more at: https://www.emmareadauthor.com/

 

Catch the other stops on the tour:

 

Thanks to Emma Read for your amazing content. Thanks to Laura Smythe PR for organising.

Blog Tour: Alfie Fleet’s Guide To The Universe by Martin Howard. Illustrated by Chris Mould.

About Alfie’s Fleet’s Guide To The Universe. 

A good funny book is gold. A great one is invaluable. Last year, I especially enjoyed The Cosmic Atlas Of Alfie Fleet where Alfie’s determination to buy his Mum a birthday present saw him embark on an adventure across the universe alongside his new friend the Professor. Its humour was woven so cleverly into the story that it was impossible to join in the adventure without laughter. Now Alfie is back, and this time he and the Professor are offering holidays to the most wonderful planets in the universe. 

As they embark on one final tour, putting everything in order before they open for buisness, Alfie and the Professor run into trouble. For starters, some of the beings on other planets are reluctant to accept that humans aren’t … well … aliens. Then there is the motely pack of cartographers, the UCC, that they meet on Planet Bewarye, led by the terrible Sir Willikin Nanbiter, that sets about trying to destroy the Unusual Travel Agency. 

A quest ensues to discover the long-lost other members of the UCC, who have the power to outvote Sir Nanbiter before his damage destroys Alfie’s dreams. 

As with the first book, the new worlds that Martin Howard and Chris Mould have created are super-imaginative. I am delighted to welcome Martin Howard (AKA Mart) back to my blog with a wonderful piece about creating new worlds. 

Thanks to Mart for your time and efforts. 

Creating Worlds for Alfie Fleet – a guest post by author Martin Howard. 

Hullo, hullo, hullo and a big thank you to Louise for another invitation. Book Murmuration is starting to feel like a second home. For this visit, she asked me to jot down some thoughts on building magical worlds, a fascinating subject and no one’s ever asked me about it before, so hurrah and here we go …

I’ve said before that I’m wary about dishing out writing advice, because every writer finds their own way of working, so I can only describe my own methods. For me, creating a world is a key part of the process. Settings play a big part in the plot, create atmosphere and can be as fun and funny as the characters. In fact, the worlds writers create are very much characters in their own right. And sometimes, like any other character, they just materialise in that strange, mystical idea process – an integral part of the tale and the obvious background for the story and the characters. It’s great when that happens because you can dive straight in, perhaps making a few tweaks as the book develops. Other times – such as for the new Alfie Fleet – magical worlds are born in the fiery crucible of a brainstorm. My notebooks are full of half-formed worlds that never made it and I even have a few finished chapters that took place on worlds that never made it into the book. (If anyone’s interested, I’d be happy to share one or two in a future visit.)

Inspiration can come from anywhere: half-remembered movies and books from my childhood or artwork I’ve spotted online, for example, or straight from the depths of my own imagination. Then, I’ll mix and match trying to build something original. Obviously, with some worlds – Outlandish from The Cosmic Atlas in particular – it’s fun to play with magical features and themes that are clichés of the sci-fi or fantasy genres. That’s something Terry Pratchett was famous for and it’s essential to come up with a new twist rather than just repeat the same ideas. I imagine that’s just as true for serious writers as for funny authors.

For worlds where the whole story takes place, it’s wonderful to have the luxury of introducing detail: history, cultures, languages all create textures that help hook the reader in, but the new book – Alfie Fleet’s Guide to the Universe – simplicity was key. In this book Alfie, Derek and the Professor putter through many worlds on Betsy the moped. As they spent so much time on Outlandish in their last adventure I wanted to expand their universe and give a sense of the multitude of wonders that could be found by popping through a stone circle at the Unusual Travel Agency. That meant each world had to have amazing features but couldn’t be too complicated. There was no space to properly explore cultures, societies, etc, so each planet had to be painted in broad brush strokes and bright, popping colours. They also needed to be very different from each other and – for the most part – be somewhere readers would enjoy visiting. After all, Alfie and the Professor are running a travel agency. That cut down the options. There was no point having our heroes explore icy wastelands (unless good skiing was available), or radioactive fog planets where ravenous maggot-things roam, or anywhere too bizarre because the Unusual Travel Agency wouldn’t want to run tours there. Alfie has actually worked out a scale for this. He calls it the Fleet Unusuality Scale. Worlds so unusual they score more than five are too bonkers and tend to give people a headache. Less than three and they’re so dull people might as well stay on Earth.

Getting back to my point. What was my point? Oh yes, broad brushstrokes. The planet of Nomefolch, for example, has one memorable feature: everything grows massive there, except for the people (who are rather stubby). It’s possible to climb trees all the way into space. Winspan, on the other hand, is a broken world – a hollow, half-tennis ball of a planet. This means it doesn’t have much gravity and people can fly there by strapping wings to their arms. Solstice, meanwhile, is a planet of ten-thousand islands, so it has a nautical theme. With the plot and characters also needing breathing room and a limited number of words I tried to bring a few of these worlds to vivid life while giving fly-bys of a few others. I hope this helps create the impression of a vast universe without describing each planet in minute detail. That was the plan, anyway!  

In fact, the sheer number of worlds in Alfie Fleet’s Guide to the Universe caused a fair amount of heartbreak as there are one or two – especially Winspan and Nomefolch – where I’d have liked Alfie and the Professor to have stayed longer. Creating fun, distinctive worlds and then leaving them behind after a few paragraphs was a real wrench. On the plus side, I hope the fact that I didn’t want to leave some of the world’s behind means readers will feel the same. The one bit of writing advice I will share, and which I think applies to all writers of magical, fantastic tales is that your readers should always feel homesick for your world when the story ends.

 

Catch the other posts along the blog tour: 

 

 

Thanks to Martin Howard for your wonderful blog post and to Martin and Emma Howard for arranging this blog tour. Thanks to Oxford University Press for providing me with a copy of Alfie Fleet’s Guide To The Universe. Opinions my own.

Blogmas Guest Post: An Inventor’s Guide To Christmas by author Holly Rivers.

 

About Holly Rivers and Demelza & The Spectre Detectors. 

One of my very favourite things about putting together a series of Christmas posts is inviting authors to feature on my blog. It is especially exciting, with the New Year around the corner, to invite authors whose upcoming debuts are already on my radar. Holly Rivers has been in my Twittersphere for some time and, more reccently, I was sent a proof copy of her 2020 debut. Trust me when I say you will soon hear loads of great things about Demelza & The Spectre Detectors. 

Demelza loves science and rational stuff, but she also has a very unscientific gift. She can summon ghosts. When her grandmother is kidnapped, Demelza and her friend Percy set out to solve the mystery. 

Holly has written as her protagonist, Demelza Clock herself, who has some not exactly adult-approved thoughts on how inventors can survive Christmas. The first will make you laugh into your hot chocolate … but just you wait until you get to number 10. No cheating!

Many thanks to Holly Rivers for your time and wonderful post. 

 

An Inventor’s Guide to Christmas by Demelza Clock

Written by author Holly Rivers.

 

1. Suggesting to your teacher that baby Jesus might have appreciated a soldering iron more than Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh is not a wise move (unless you want to spend the last week of term in detention.)

 

2. If you’re running low on pocket money and haven’t finished your Christmas shopping, look to your tool-box for inspiration. Who’s Grandma wouldn’t appreciate a lovely pair of earrings made from 80mm joint connector bolts?

 

3. Christingles definitely don’t make good inventing snacks.

 

4. Forget about gold rings, maids-a-milking and partridges in pear trees, what an inventor really wants for Christmas is a Nobel prize for Physics.

 

5. Always keep your inventing apparatus close at hand on Christmas day — a good quality handsaw is the perfect tool for carving turkey that’s spent one too many hours in the oven, and an electric drill can be useful for blocking out the sound of unwanted carol singers.

 

6. Scientific studies have proven that cocoa is beneficial for the brain — so eating your body-weight in chocolate coins for breakfast every day in December is perfectly reasonable behaviour. (Dipping a mince pie in your boiled egg is equally acceptable.)

 

7. Start perfecting your fake smile in November — your’e going to need it when you receive yet another pair of socks instead of the new Super Screwdriver 700 you’ve been dropping hints about all year.

 

8. Run out of wood-glue during the festive season? Don’t worry, bread sauce works just as well.

 

9. Whatever anyone says, a lab coat is appropriate attire for going to watch The Nutcracker.

 

10. If you’re inventing on Christmas day and planning on using a blowtorch in your workshop, don’t eat too many Brussels sprouts. Gassy bottoms and open flames don’t mix.

 

Demelza & The Spectre Detectors publishes in February 2020 from Chicken House Books. RRP. £6.99.

World Animal Day: Guest Post from ‘Wild Lives’ author Ben Lerwill.

About

October 4th is a very special day. It is World Animal Day – a chance for every one of us to raise awareness of the other creatures who share our planet. This is a sentiment I believe in as a vegetarian and friend to animals.

Ben Lerwill is a travel writer, whose love of wildlife comes from the amount of time he spends outdoors. Wild Lives is his first book for young people, and it tells the stories of 50 amazing animals throughout history. From the two male penguins who hatched an egg to Elsa the lioness who changed the way we think about conservation, the stories in this book prove just how much we can learn by looking at other animals.

In his guest post, Ben Lerwill talks about three of the places which informed his stories. From Tasmanian streams to the mountains and beaches right on our doorstep, he teaches us that animal encounters can be found just about anywhere in the world.

Thanks to Ben Lerwill for your time, and to Catherine Ward PR for organising.

Guest post from Wild Lives author Ben Lerwill.

Gathering together the 50 stories that make up WildLives has been enormously enjoyable, largely because it’s allowed me to bring in animals from all over the world. There’s a wolf, an orca, a giraffe, a silverback gorilla, a red-tailed hawk… we even managed to fit a giant tortoise in there!

Part of my passion for the project came from spending the past 15 years as a travel writer for different magazines and newspapers. I’m extraordinarily lucky that this has led to some unforgettable wildlife encounters, from watching penguins in Antarctica to tracking chimpanzees in East Africa. Selecting just three of the most memorable experiences is difficult – but I’ve given it a go.

 

Kakadu National Park, Australia

Few places in the world rate so highly for wildlife as Australia. I have family living out there, so it’s somewhere I’ve spent a lot of time. Where animals are concerned, the joy lies in the variety: platypuses drifting down Tasmanian streams, cassowaries high-stepping through Queensland rainforests, red kangaroos hopping across the Outback. The book’s adorable Aussie representative is Sam, a koala who survived a horrific forest fire.

But topping the list, for me, are the saltwater crocodiles of Kakadu, a magically expansive national park in the Northern Territory. Five or six years ago, I joined an early morning sailing along the park’s Yellow Water Billabong. Our small boat was the only vessel out. The day was warm and still, with egrets in the shallows and eagles overhead. Then the crocs appeared. The sight of ton-weight dinosaurs basking in the mud, slithering into the water and swishing their thick, tree-trunk tails within feet of the boat was impossibly thrilling.

 

Skomer Island, Pembrokeshire

I’m an ardent believer in the fact that you don’t have to venture outside of the UK for a fantastic travel experience. We live in a truly spectacular part of the world – for proof, you need only look at the peaks of Snowdonia, the coast of County Antrim, the islands of Scotland or the hills of the Peak District. Our wildlife is fantastic too, whether you’re spotting otters in Shetland or snorkelling with seals in Scilly. And the birdlife, of course, can be sensational.

For me, the seabird nesting season is my birdwatching highlight of the year. I’ve gone in search of puffins everywhere from Orkney to Northern Ireland, but my all-time highlight was a two-night trip to Skomer Island, off the coast of Pembrokeshire. It’s a birdlife bonanza – not just puffins, but huge numbers of guillemots, razorbills, fulmars and gannets too. Watching them all circling above the waves, on a small, high-cliffed island miles from the mainland, is truly special. At night, meanwhile, Skomer gets taken over by more than half a million Manx shearwater – which is as mind-boggling as it sounds.

 

Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda       

Most wildlife-centred trips to Uganda focus on the mountain gorillas in the brilliantly named Bwindi Impenetrable Forest. Mine certainly did, and I found the experience of seeing a troop up close almost overwhelming. However, a trip further north to Queen Elizabeth National Park has also seared itself into my memory. This was, I think, mainly because I had almost no expectations, so was rather giddy to find a wildlife reserve not only packed with animals but low on other visitors.

The park’s Kazinga Channel is a long, wide waterway, where the banks were alive with elephants, warthogs and great honking pods of hippos. The real highlight came on one early-morning game drive, however, when we spotted a herd of panicked deer skittering over the plains in the distance. Minutes later, we crested a hill to see the cause of the commotion – a stunning leopardess, no more than ten metres away, her spotted coat glowing in the dawn light.

No leopards feature in WildLives, but we’ve made space for a tiger and two lions – because no animal book would be complete without a few big cats.

 

Wild Lives by Ben Lerwill, illustrated by Sarah Walsh, is out now, published by Nosy Crow £16.99 hardback.

 

 

Blog Tour: Alice Oseman shares her experience of illustrating a story for the Proud anthology.

Blog Tour: Alice Oseman shares her experience of illustrating a story for the Proud anthology.

Alice Oseman on Illustrating ‘Penguins’

While I’ve been drawing my own characters and comics for years, I’d never tried illustrating someone else’s story until Proud. I was so excited to be invited to illustrate one of the many incredible stories in Juno Dawson’s LGBTQ+ anthology and was even more excited to discover I’d be illustrating Simon James Green’s story, ‘Penguins’, having read and loved Simon’s Noah Can’t Even duology.

The first thing I did was read Simon’s story without thinking too much about how I’d illustrate it. I, of course, loved it! After that, I read it again, this time much more carefully, thinking about which parts would make a good illustration and what sorts of images could properly express the feelings of the story. It’s such a sweet, romantic, adorkable story that I quickly decided that I had to draw the two main characters, Cam and Aaron, and I knew that would suit my own strengths too, as my artwork is mostly characters and cartoons.

I spent a couple of days trying out some sketches. I highlighted the parts of the story that revealed little bits about the boys’ physical appearances, but mostly I was left to my imagination, so I tried to capture their personalities – Cam’s awkwardness and Aaron’s shyness!

After that, I sketched out a couple of composition ideas. I knew I wanted to create a comic page, as that’s what I love drawing above all things, and I had decided that I wanted to draw the kiss at the end of the story, as that was my favourite part, and I suspected would be many readers’ favourite part.

Once I’d decided on my final composition, I got to work drawing it with my graphics tablet into Photoshop. I spent a few days working on it and I’m so happy with the result. And it’s incredibly exciting to see my illustration in a book!

A huge thanks to Alice Oseman for your time and for sharing your sketches.

Many thanks to Charlie from Stripes Publishing for arranging this opportunity as part of a promotional blog tour.

Blog Tour: The Boy Who Flew by Fleur Hitchcock.

Aithan Wilde is a dreamer and an inventor. He would rather work for a scientist or an inventor who is always reaching to see what might be possible than settle down and take what his grandmother would call a respectable job. 

When his inventor friend Mr Chen is murdered, Aithan must find the flying machine they were building. There are other people looking for it too, and a reward is offered for the first person to build a machine capable of staying in the air. 

This a story with twists and turns. It is set in a gloriously creepy past. Think cobbled streets and fear of knowledge and gentlemen with guns. Fleur Hitchcock has never shied away from the horror of murder, and this book is no exception. This is perfect for readers who like a bit of gore with their crime fiction. 

I was given a chance to ask Fleur Hitchcock a question, and I was curious to know what inspired the machines in her story. I am delighted to share her answer with you. Thank you, Fleur H for your time and for the insight into your work. 

Guest Post by author Fleur Hitchcock. 

We had some odd books in our house. Not really picture books, but books with pictures. We had a book of early aeroplanes. Huge and incomprehensible to a child, but somehow very pretty. 

We had a book of Rowland Emmett cartoons, and many books of Heath Robinson, and we had Professor Branestawn. I think I was always interested in the drawings – rather than the engineering, but found myself drawn towards the inventions themselves, and the possibilities that they offered, the promises they made.  I kept this up by reading Tintin and then immersing myself in DC comics – Batman’s utility belt was soooo exciting.

And gradually as I moved further into words I began to understand the descriptions of the machines imagined, and sought them out in books, from the Alethiometer of His Dark Materials to the Time Turner in Harry Potter, I found the doors that these machines opened a little dangerous, and infinitely thrilling.

It happened that in my non-book life, I ran a gallery, where I sold automata – mechanical toys – and was, some years ago, commissioned to research ancient invention.  I discovered ancient civilisations were much more technologically advanced than I had realised.  The Middle East was full of time pieces and automated statues and sculpture. Heron of Alexandria invented a machine that could roll onto a stage, play out several scenes with puppets and roll off again.  It was run entirely by sand, and he did this in 10 AD.  There were all the awful machines of war, used by the Greeks and the Romans.  There were the complicated stone door mechanisms of the Egyptians, and clever ways of getting water up from the sand into cities.  I found that the Chinese invented tonnes of things, compasses, gunpowder and they really messed around with the possibilities of flight.  Some of it rather horribly as punishment, and some of it for the advancement of humankind.

I found out that everyone, ever has seen new invention as both threatening, and exciting, and that people always wanted to own it, or fear it.  This makes inventions in stories very useful and the catalysts for advance and intrigue.  There’s this whole thing about what is possible and what is impossible. And I found that I really wanted to use that in stories myself – after all, as Arthur C Clarke said: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”.   So – invention? Or magic? They may be one and the same thing. And stories allow a person to blur that boundary – and take huge leaps into the unknown.

 

 

Blog Tour: A Witch Come True by James Nicol.

The Magic Of Maps – author James Nicol talks about the importance of maps in The Apprentice Witch trilogy 

Maps, maps, maps! Who doesn’t love a good map?

When I was a child we had a set of The Lord of The Rings in our house, they were kept on the very important bookshelf alongside a very old bible (we weren’t an especially religious household) some photo albums and some other “leather” bound classics I think my mum and stepdad had bought from a door to door salesman!

I loved those Lord of the Rings books so much, even though I hadn’t (and still haven’t!) read any of them. What I loved about those books was the beautiful maps inside of them, all in black and red ink, they folded out to three times larger than the book themselves and I loved to poor over the map and imagine the places named on it, Mordor, Khand and Near Harad. Imagining my own stories and people that might live in those places. That was always much more exciting and fun than delving into the books for me – and that should have been a clue really!

I also loved drawing and making my own maps as a child, often treasure ones inspired by The Goonies, I loved drawing rivers and hills and forests and again my imagination would burst with the stories that perhaps unfurled in these imagined places. I used tea and coffee to stain them and to make them looked aged and I remember being over the moon when my nana actually shoved one in the oven to make it look really distressed (but don’t try that at home though folks!)

So when I started to write my stories as a young child and teenager I was always thinking about the world they were set in, drawing little snippets of maps or building layouts to give the characters a real place to inhabit, a place to be, a place to live! But this was always on the grand scale – rather like Lord of the Rings.

When I started work on what was to become The Apprentice Witch Trilogy I had a clear idea of this small island Kingdom and the neighbouring Kingdoms across the sea. Hylund, Dannis, Grunea, Veersalnd and The Uris.  That was all fixed in my head from the outset. As the edits and different versions of the story evolved over the months and years of writing, so too did the maps, settings came and went, Arianwyn moved from a tumbledown cottage outside of Lull into the Spellorium (a location that has become a favourite with readers I’m thrilled to say!) and the story became steadily more focused on the odd little town on the edge of the Great Wood that surrounded it, my world was becoming less epic it seemed.

The original world map for The Apprentice Witch – the Four Kingdoms names didn’t change at all through the various edits and versions of the original story.  The shape of Hylund was inspired by a real island but I now have no idea which one!   

  

The Original Map of Lull and the surrounding area, Lull was loosely based on the town of Middleham in the Yorkshire Dales, the market place captivated me and seemed perfect for the town I was slowly creating in my imagination. You can even just about see the reference to Arianwyn’s cottage, ‘Kettle Cottage’ – her initial home in Lull before I created the Spellorium which is on Kettle Lane.

Then I realised that one vital map was missing.

Lull!

I needed a map of the town. A Place I was writing about more and more but couldn’t always see clearly in my mind, where was the Spellorium in relation to the Blue Ox, how would Arianwyn get to the Great Wood, where was the river and many other questions. So I drew a scrappy map and pinned this to the noticeboard over my desk and like magic, Lull was a real place, full of homes, businesses, people and most importantly stories!

When it was revealed that the map of Lull was going to be included in A Witch Alone I was over the moon! But I had one evening to pull my scrappy sketch into something that could be translated into a suitable illustration (by brilliant illustrator, David Wardle) to make the print deadline. What he did to turn my scribble into the beautiful illustration is nothing short of magic and I loved it. But having the map feature in the book presented the challenge of having the map “proof read” – i.e does it reflect accurately in the story? Yikes!

Well I’m pleased to say that with the exception of a moving telephone box (I blame vandalism!) and a small pond that had to be magicked up, everything was spot on!

 

Never in a million years when I was drawing those maps as a small child or pawing over the middle earth map did I ever imagine a book I had written would contain a map of a world I had created. If I could go back in time and tell myself that as a ten-year-old I would, I’d love to see the look on my face!

It is so clear to me now that it was the map that helped to keep my story centred, gave it a heart and focused our attention not on the magic of the story but the people that fill it, their lives. It was the key to creating a place that readers have said they want to go and live in – and as an author what more could you ask for than that!

James Nicol. 

 

Many thanks to James Nicol for your time and wonderful guest post. This is a tremendous insight into how you use maps to develop your work. 

A Witch Come True by James Nicol is out now in paperback (£6.99, Chicken House). 

Find out more at www.chickenhousebooks.com and https://www.jamesnicolbooks.com/.

 

 

 

Guest Post: Blogger Charlotte Burns talks about her decision to get a dog for Christmas.

In the last of my blogger guest posts is Charlotte from Charlotte Somewhere, talking about her decision to get a dog for Christmas. 

Charlotte has kept us all hooked to Twitter this autumn with her ridiculously cute pictures, from the day-old puppies through to first visits and videos of dumpling-sized puppies toddling around their basket. It has also been interesting to hear how the decision to get a dog – sorry, Dexter, another dog – has given Charlotte’s family memories to share.  

I was delighted when Charlotte agreed to share her thoughts as part of my Blogmas. Thanks to Charlotte for your time and for keeping me up to date on the latest fluffy pictures. 

A dog is not just for Christmas by Charlotte Burns

A Dog Is Not Just For Christmas…

But I’m getting one anyway. We’ve all seen the adverts at this time of year, urging people not to get a dog as a Christmas present without considering the consequences. The statistics telling us how many of these dogs end up in shelters when the initial excitement wears off.

Dexter

I’m getting a puppy. He’s not going to be here by Christmas, but it will be soon after. I know what I’m in for: we already have a cocker spaniel who we adopted at 17 months old. Dexter. He’s a love. He changed our lives when he arrived, but now I don’t remember what it was like to be without him. We’re well prepared for life with a dog.

Recently a friend of ours had puppies (well, she didn’t, her dog did). They’re related to Dexter (his brother is the father and the friend also owns Dexter’s mum – are you still with me?) They were the cutest balls of fluff you ever did see. I wanted one. We’d never discussed getting another dog, but when I suggested it to Husband, he thought it was a good idea too. We did maths and talked about it, and did all the sensible things before settling on getting one.

Then we involved S. And, if you know anything at all about S, you’ll know that’s when the chaos started. We chose our puppy via a facetime call. Then S started to think about names. We had to veto Voldemort (“but mummy we can call him the Dark Lord for short”). We also vetoed Buckbeak. Eventually we narrowed the choice to two names we all liked (except for Dexter, who has zero interest in the puppy’s existence). And we let S chose.

He enrolled the assistance of a very carefully crafted Goblet of Dog Names which contained only one name. And he revealed it very dramatically over Sunday lunch but throwing the paper into the air and announcing…

‘THE DOG’S NAME IS GOING TO BE … NEVILLE.’

Here he is.

Neville

Blogger guest post: Cora from Tea Party Princess tackles the Christmas shake-up

Christmas shake-up Q&A:

What is the Christmas shake-up Q&A? Basically, it is a little game I devised where participants mix things from different books to create a festive situation. So clothes from three books to make a party outfit or objects from one book gifted to a character from another. 

Today’s answers come from Cora from Tea Party Princess.

Cora is one of those lovely people who cheers everyone on. She’s also a brilliant person to consult on creative projects – from writing to blogging, her advice always improves my work. 

I adore Cora’s blog. It mixes all things bookish with lifestyle content, something which I think book bloggers generally could be more open to. This Christmas, she has written fantasy shopping lists and to-do posts and book and film reviews. 

Thanks to Cora for your time. 

Gift an object from book to a character from another and explain why. 
I would give Cassandra from I Capture the Castle a One Line a Day five year journal, so that every day she could write something new and watch how she changes from year to year.

You’re hosting a Christmas party – pick your fictional guests and explain why you put them together. 

I’d keep it intimate, inviting only a few, and we’d drink cocktails and just talk about anything and everything. I think they’d all have some stories and despite being so different, and from different times and worlds, I think they’d get on famously.
Abi from Gilded Cage by Vic James

Hadley from Fashionistas by Sarra Manning

Daisy from Royals by Rachel Hawkins

Mary from Following Ophelia by Sophia Bennett

Sasha from Floored

If you could try a Christmas tradition from any story, what would it be? 

While not a tradition, I’d love to try Kayla’s Christmas when she first visits Snow Crystal in Sleigh Bells In The Snow by Sarah Morgan. Staying in a cabin in the woods, with a hot tub on deck and starry skies above? It sounds heavenly.

Pick the setting from one book and a celebration from another. Why would you host that celebration in that setting? 

I’d take the private club from Royals by Rachel Hawkins, and bring the characters from The Fallen Children by David Owen there. Mostly because they deserve a freaking break, somewhere to be themselves and not be afraid of what other people would do to them.

If you could wish for resolutions from three books for 2019, what would they be? 

I can’t think of resolutions from books, but these are my three inspired by books: 

1. Be there when people need it, inspired by Heartstopper by Alice Oseman
2. Learn more about dinosaurs, inspired by The Extinction Trials by SM Wilson
3. Speak out against sexism, inspired by The Exact Opposite of Okay by Laura Steven

Make up a Christmas ball outfit with clothes and accessories from different books.

Sorrow’s dress from A State of Sorrow by Melinda Salisbury, Lexi’s shoes from Clean by Juno Dawson, Eelyn’s hair style from Sky In The Deep by Adrienne Young, Feyre’s crown from A Court of Frost and Starlight by Sarah J Maa. I would be a dressed like a princess for a day.

Author Q&A: HS Norup – author of The Missing Barbegazi.

Author Q&A: HS Norup, author of The Missing Barbegazi, talks about mountains, fairytales and Christmas traditions.

The moutains which inspired H S Norup’s writing 

HS Norup 

The Missing Barbegazi is one of my middle-grade hits of 2018. It is the story of a friendship between a girl and a mythical, fairylike creature which lives in the mountains. The story is about family, friendship and trust and it is set in the days shortly after Christmas. If you are looking for a magical story to read in the build-up to Christmas, I can’t reccomend this enough. 

I was delighted when author HS Norup agreed to answer some questions about her work, about the snowy landscape which inspired her setting and about fairytales in general. It is a pleasure to share her answers. Thank you Helle for your time. 

Q: Barbegazi are mythical creatures who come out at first snowfall but are rarely sighted by humans. Did you want to write about Barbegazi, or did these creatures fit into your story?

A: When I began writing THE MISSING BARBEGAZI, I had never heard of barbegazi. I wanted to tell the story of an eleven-year-old girl, Tessa, who was desperate to win a ski race. A story set entirely in the real world without any magic or mythical creatures. But I had not written more than one chapter before Tessa met a strange furry creature in the snow. After some research, I discovered that the creature Tessa had encountered was a barbegazi. And everything about them fit perfectly into the story.

 

Q: Aside from the Barbegazi, do you have any favourite stories set in snowy landscapes? What is it you love about these stories?

A: Snow is magical! I still get excited every winter when I see the first snowflakes floating down, and there’s nothing quite like waking up to a newborn glittering world after a night of snowfall. In a novel, the dangers of snow and cold weather immediately raises the stakes. A landscape covered in snow can become a character in its own right and influence the story through the opposition or help it gives the protagonist, as is the case in THE DARK IS RISING by Susan Cooper. Other favourite stories that are set in the snow includes: C.S. Lewis’s THE LION THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE, Philip Pullman’s NORTHERN LIGHTS, Sinéad O’Hart’s THE EYE OF THE NORTH, Vashti Hardy’s BRIGHTSTORM, Piers Torday’s THERE MAY BE A CASTLE, and Katherine Rundell’s THE WOLF WILDER.

 

Q: Mountains play a huge part in your story. Why did you choose this setting?

A: I love the mountains and find them immensely fascinating—perhaps because I grew up by the sea in a flat country. From afar, the mountains present this beautiful, serene panorama, but up close they are wild and unforgiving. Add snow, and the mountains become both more beautiful and more dangerous. I have a deep respect for these dangers, especially avalanches, and they played a role in the story even before I discovered the avalanche-surfing barbegazi.

 

Q: You write about a world which is very like ours, except for the magical creatures who live in the mountains. What drew you to magical realism and how do you think fantasy elements help us to tell a story?

A: I have always loved reading magical realism and low fantasy stories. The idea that there might be magical or otherworldly creatures around us is both enticing and scary. I can’t go for a walk in the forest without secretly looking for fairies and I’m still afraid of the dark—my imagination often runs wild. I think fantasy elements can help us create story worlds that are fresh and interesting. At the same time, the presence of fantasy elements signals to the reader that this is a pretend world, which they can safely explore along with the protagonist.

 

Q: Family plays a huge part in The Missing Barbegazi. Tell us a little about how the two main characters fit into their families.

A: Tessa and Gawion are tweens (although Gawion is 154 years old) and both are part of loving families, but with very different family structures. Tessa’s parents are divorced, but she and her mum lives in the same house as her grandmother (and until recently her grandfather) and near other relatives, so she has a wide family network around her. Gawion’s family lives in complete isolations, far from other barbegazi, so they are a very close-knit family, and Gawion’s twin sister is his only friend. It’s important for the plot that they are isolated, but it’s also a situation I know well and wanted to describe. Whenever we, as a family, have moved to a new country, we have experienced 6-12 months of being each other’s only friends, and, since we left Denmark a long time ago, we have not had any family network to depend on. All family structures have positive and negative sides, and it’s important to show diversity without judgement in children’s fiction.

 

Q: Your story is set in the days after Christmas – the days when the presents have been unwrapped and the crackers have been pulled. Was there a reason you set your story after Christmas, and not during the festivities?

A: There are a couple of reasons I didn’t include the Christmas festivities, but the main reason is that it would have distracted from the story I wanted to tell. Tessa’s grandfather died shortly before Christmas, and the family is grieving, so I can’t imagine their Christmas was a jolly affair. Also, for many of the locals in a skiing resort, the week between Christmas and New Year’s, is the busiest week of the whole year. Tessa’s mum and Uncle Harry were both working over Christmas, catering to the needs of guests instead of their own families, but I’m sure Aunt Annie took good care of Tessa, Felix and Oma.

 

Q: Fun: Favourite cracker joke? Best Christmas jumper?

A: We have neither Christmas cracker jokes nor jumpers in Denmark, so I can’t really answer these questions, but we have other fun traditions. We celebrate on Christmas Eve. For dessert we always have Risalamande, a kind of rice pudding with almond slivers and one whole almond. Whoever finds the whole almond receives a small gift, but the fun lies in hiding the almond if you have found it or pretending to have found it if you haven’t. After dinner and before opening presents, we all dance around the Christmas tree, singing first psalms then jolly songs, usually ending with the whole family chasing each other around the house.

 

Q: Which animal would you have on the front of a Christmas card?

A: Mountain goats! We sometimes see them in the snow, springing around the steepest mountain sides, defying gravity. They’re more interesting than reindeer and deserve to be on Christmas cards.

 

Many thanks to HS Norup for taking the time to answer my questions. The Missing Barbegazi is available from Pushkin Press.