Up, up and away!

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Nah, it's a butterfly.

It wouldn't take a barrage of psychological testing to work out that I draw inspiration from many sources. My muse seems to wear different guises depending upon his or her mood.

Many writers talk about listening for 'the voice' and then following the thread to see where it takes you. I assume that's a pretty good definition of a pantser when it comes to novels.

I don't often write children's fiction because I tend to see it as having an added layer of requirements in terms of understanding your audience, as well as using appropriate language and situations for the age group that you think you're writing for.

And I'm fussy about titles too, since I like the title to be in some way indicative of the flavour of the book. Scars & Stripes, for example, is both comedic and dramatic - a coming-of-age story about an adventure that purports to be one thing and is revealed to be something else. Clever, huh?

However, Superhero Club is something of a departure for me. To start with, the lead character is a girl, she's a pre-teen (I have a feeling I just made that word up), she has a dysfunctional mum, and both she and her mum are obese. But the muse knows best.

School days in literature is such an evocative time, reminding us of the emotionally charged atmosphere of discovery, insecurity and vulnerability. My heroine, Jo - because that's what she is - lives her life on the margins and the book opens with her last one-to-one session with a counsellor.

Here's the blurb, which is in American English as the ebook is coming out through US-based Musa Publishing.  

Twelve year-old Jo has never fit in at school, what with being overweight and over-sensitive. Since Dad moved out, Mom forgets who's who in the whole mother-daughter relationship. Jo has one ambition in life: to be normal. Not gifted, or gorgeous, or even particularly popular. Just normal. 

When Jo's counselor offers her a lifeline, there's a bunch of other misfits sharing the rope. Group sessions could help them to help each other, but Chris doesn't like speaking and Alistair's a self-confessed geek. Like Stevie, the joker, says, “Oh yeah, right bunch of bloody superheroes we are!”

Sometimes the most heroic thing is to trust a group of strangers, who also have a lot at stake. Jo may find the unlikeliest of friends, and a way to transform her life from the inside. The Superhero Club could give her all that in the blink of an eye. Well, maybe a double-blink!

Tagline: You only find out you're a butterfly if you spread your wings.

Obviously, I'd love the book to do well. What writer wouldn't wish that for her or his work? But, more importantly than that, my goal is for the book to reach an audience where it can perhaps make a bit of a difference. If you know of any review sites or approaches for an ebook of this kind, please leave me a comment.

Superhero Club is out on the 9th of November:

http://musapublishing.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=439

Which books about childhood really chimed with you?

Reining in Free Rein

There’s much talk about ‘Plotters’ and ‘Pantsers’ and I think I know who started this talk. I’m not naming names in case I get it wrong and I end up looking uninformed and stupid. Not a good look on the best of days. But, just like the awkward line-up in PE, I don't think I fit into either team.

Can I be somewhere-in-the-middle please? Because although there is NO WAY on earth that I am ever going to be able to formulate a plan, much less write one down and stick to it, I would likewise be very scared to Fly by the seat of my Pants (as the latter label infers). I'd be an OCD Pantser and require some kind of safety net; a parachute maybe. I’m not fond of heights, lifts or flying - having only JUST been able to stomach the occasional aeronautical dream, so long as they’re lucid and I’m in total control of course.

Which, you’d think, would make me more of a Plotter.  But no. In fact at the start of every English essay at school, I’d always leave a half-page gap at the beginning of my work where I could write my ‘Plan’ AFTER I’d written the story. Little did I know this was the start of my Synopsis training. Also I don’t like being tied down. (No sniggering at the back please). I don’t like restrictions of any sort to be honest, and I don’t like HAVING to stick to a plan – okay, I know it’d be different if I was, say an Architect or a Surgeon, but I’m not - anyway, restrictions just make me more rebellious and desirous to buck the trend. And trends are so ‘last season’ aren’t they?
I put it down to a cautious childhood where I had to conform to everything and where having an imagination was neither allowed nor tolerated. Freud could’ve based a whole new dissertation on my childhood, but I won’t go into that.

So if I’m a Somewhere In The Middle-type person, would that make me a ‘Potter’ or a ‘Plantser’? Hmmm… I’m getting definite Alan Tichmarsh-ian whiffs now. You see, I know precisely HOW I want to start and I know exactly WHERE I want it to end, but other than that, I give free rein to characters and any situation they decide to place themselves in. And if they’re silly enough to get themselves into a tight squeeze, well then they can jolly well get themselves out, can’t they? And it’s so much fun seeing how they do it.

Of course I know how far I will allow a character to go. Before the whole thing starts teetering like a pyramid of baked beans, I mean.  For instance I wouldn’t launch my lovely delicate female lead from the relative safety of a leafy London suburb to the wilds of Minnesota on a drug-hustle or anything. And equally I wouldn’t kill off my mysterious, brooding hero simply because he won’t get round to fancying aforementioned female lead and has his wandering eyes set on Denise at the Bookies instead.

So I rein in the absurd. After I’ve seen what it looks like written down of course. Have you ever done that? Written something so far-fetched simply because you CAN (a bit like God creating the Duck-Billed-Platypus -what was all THAT about? Thank goodness He also invented the 'delete' button).

Athough having said all this, if I find myself halfway round Sainsbury’s, realise I’ve forgotten my shopping list and I’ve merely been running on autopilot as far as the soft cheeses, then I have been known to flee and leave the half-filled trolley in a blind panic at not knowing which aisle I need next.

Luckily my characters have no such qualms. They’re made of sterner stuff; crammed full of promise and endless possibilities.