Karen Ball

I have an ancient piece of wood that I drag out to place across my garden table. Not the most sophisticated of writing surfaces, but it allows my wireless mouse to work and stops the netbook from wobbling about.

Garden furniture isn't really meant for long periods of work, so take a couple of cushions out with you to avoid sore bums.

This may be the most important detail to consider. What are you going to be writing? A dreamy first draft where you're just exploring your story? An intense re-write to a deadline? A synopsis? Tackling copyedits? Some work will be able to move outside, some is more of a challenge. My inner city outside workplace enjoys the constant calls of over-excited inner city kids getting their hit of sunshine - it's not quiet. Hayfever can send your nose running and then there's the constant call of a plant that needs trimming or some washing to pin out on the line. Choose your work carefully!

After that, enjoy the sensation of a breeze through your hair, spiders crawling across your keyboard and grass tickling your toes. Writers don't get much of this in the UK - make the most of it!

Never has unagented writing talent been so openly courted by publishers! Looks like there's a way of circumnavigating the security at London Book Fair, after all. All you need is talent, time and application - so what are you waiting for?

So if you're struggling with a middle section, take some time out, give yourself a different (concrete) exercise to do with the novel, go and read some great writing guides - and possibly visit Twitter, where you will be surrounded by others wailing with author anguish. In the age of social networking, you no longer need to suffer alone. There are lots of people suffering alongside you!

There were several fabulous presentations, though the informal chats are just as important. It's all about being around peers and sharing experiences. After all, no one else knows what it's like to be on the roller coaster ride of an author's career other than another author. Take my advice - surround yourself by people who are doing the same as you.

Continuing this theme, I went away again this weekend on a writing retreat, to Torquay with three trusted friends. Oh my goodness, if you want to get some work under your belt, give yourself a shared schedule with other writers. Guilt, embarrassment and peer pressure are wonderful motivators! No way will you want to fritter away a day on Facebook.

But why do I bother with all of this? After all, these excursions involve train tickets, restaurant meals, time spent away from loved ones. Well, it helps me feel connected. It motivates me. Be it creative cross-pollination, or sharing industry notes, career discussions or simply having a laugh with friends, these things are important. Writing can be solitary. It can be agonising or ecstatic, and sometimes just boring. But none of these things really mean anything if you can't share. 

Most of all, when a deadline hoves into view, I want to feel inspired, and I get that from other people. I'm fizzing with inspiration right now, all because I got out of my office and caught a train. Who knows where the next stage in the journey will take me? Come on board!

I have interviewed several children's authors, but now I'm thrilled to feature my first interview with a picture book illustrator. I first came across Vanessa Cabban through her knitting blog, Do You Mind If I Knit. I quickly became aware of her other highly original creative pursuits, including her beautiful papier mache sculptures. I'm now determined to commission a sculpture from Vanessa should I ever have a book deal worth celebrating!

Vanessa also illustrates picture books. Truly, a Rennaissance woman! So I'm delighted to welcome her to my author blog to hear some of her words of wisdom on a topic that is truly mysterious to me and my clumsy fingers: drawing and illustrating. Vanessa's latest picture book is A Secret Worth Sharing with Walker Books and she kindly agreed to chat about it here.

The point I become involved is when the publisher sends me the finished text. I say "finished", but in my experience a text will often change as problems with the pacing or certain words become apparent as I illustrate it. Sometimes text has to be shortened too, which authors hate. In the latest book I'm working on, I came up with the concept, and then it was handed over to the author Jeanne Willis to write up, that's as far as I've ever been involved at the writing stage.

The very first thing I do when illustrating a text is establish the characters by doing lots of drawings. I like to explore the characters' personalities through drawing and thinking about them. This can take a bit of time, but it's essential, because it will make all the difference in the illustrating of the text. Authors don't give details of the characters personalities in their texts, I have to look at what the characters say and embroider a story for each of them, which I work in to the drawings of each character. When I'm illustrating a text, I don't want to "repeat" the text in the illustrations, I want to say something that relates to the text but doesn't repeat it, I must sum up the flavour of the text, but add something extra that isn't necessarily said in the text. It would be a very boring book if all the illustrations did was to copy exactly what the text was saying.

One of the things that illustrators have to contend with and get around is often the piling up of several disparate factors in a scene. The first spread has the scene set in woodland, but there is also mention of the sun. The way I resolved this was to set the scene with the sun in the sky, in the previous two spreads, and then plunge in to the woodland on the first spread, where the sun is seen in the light glinting through the leaves. This is a perfect example of not illustrating a text in such a way that the words are being copied in pictures, but taking the illustrations to a level where they compliment and enhance the text, and make for a book that is visually interesting.

The four horizontal panels is a device that is used in all the mole books, and it is a way to express actions. It also helps to break up the pages of full spreads that run through the book. I think of it in terms of a film, if a whole film was conducted without any close ups or change of viewpoint, it would become quite tedious to look at.

I approached Walker Books with some images of my work, and was asked for an interview to show my portfolio. There were a few people who crowded round the table, and to be honest, most of them looked thoroughly bored and openly disinterested, EXCEPT for one person alone, Vanessa Clarke, who commissioned me to work on two books I wrote. To this day, I am very thankful that Vanessa Clarke was at that interview; if she hadn't been there I wouldn't be working with Walker Books today. 

My experience of working with Walker Books, (who are highly respected, and every author and illustrator wants to work with them), is one where, as a team, we are all striving to produce the best book possible. We all work very hard, and I like this. My best books are the ones I have created with Walker. They never have to encourage me to work harder as I am very passionate about giving my utmost to create a good book. I can honestly say that I love working with the team at Walker Books. I have been working with Julia Thompson and Denise Johnstone Burt for many years, and I hope it carries on that way for a long time.

Before the recession hit, everything I did outside of book illustration was a hobby. When the recession came along, and started to devastate the publishing industry, I was still getting work as an illustrator, but it was reduced. Whilst this led to a period of great worry, it made me reassess things, I needed to find another avenue to make a living rather than relying solely on illustration, I needed to diversify! I had always wanted to take the sculpture to a level other than it being a hobby but had never had the time to do it, and for the first time, I had the time to do this. I also found a certain freedom in making the sculptures, I wasn't part of a team when making them, it was all my own decision, and I enjoyed this. I actually enjoy working in a team of people when making my books, infact a team is essential to the success of a book, but having a taste of the opposite (working entirely on my own), was also enjoyable. I've found that my background as a commercial artist has worked particularly well with regard to doing commissions, my lack of ego makes me want to do the best I can for a client, I am never thinking about what I want, other than wanting to do the best I can for them. 

The jewellery is something I have secretly been working on for many years, in different forms. It started with some very intricate beaded pieces, then developed to very sculptural crochet works. At the moment I am integrating my papier mache work in to my jewellery, with some interesting results. A necklace I made for Fliss, of blog Joshy and Belle, where she was very descriptive of what she wanted, has actually led to a new direction in my jewellery. I like to think this is proof that laying the ego aside, and being open to suggestion can lead to very interesting developments in work. Fliss commissioned me to make a necklace even though I had no track record of making a necklace like the one I made for her, she was absolutely determined I could do it, had absolute faith in me, so I have to say that is all thanks to Fliss that my jewellery has taken the new path it has taken.

With regards to my illustration work, I use paper and watercolour paints, two very traditional mediums. I've been asked about working on a computer, but I find that the pencil and watercolours serve me well enough. Maybe if I was exposed to drawing on the computer I would get hooked. I find that there is nothing quite like the simple pencil and brush to work with.

With regards to the sculptures and jewellery, I use a glorious mishmash of materials, but the main components are lots of different types of paper according to the stage I'm at in a sculpture, and I'm increasingly using clay, then out come the fabrics, paints, and embroidery threads. I don't like using found objects or props in my work, I like to make every component. For instance If there is a chair or umbrella or tiny lamp, I have to make it, it all has to have my stamp on it. Once I received a comment on my blog asking where I'd managed to find the spade the Hare I made, was leaning on, that gave me great pleasure, because I made it myself, and the lady had thought the handle was real wood, isn't that marvellous!

This mug was a gift from the Undiscovered Voices 2012 writers. There was one each for the four members of the organising committee. It really is the small things in life that count. For me, this mug sums up quite how deserving our latest collection of writers are. As they sat at the centre of a quite remarkable storm, they remembered to do something to say thank you. 

And yes, it has been a perfect storm. The third Undiscovered Voices Anthology has taken off in a remarkable manner. This innovation always managed to change careers and lives since its inception. The difference now is that people are watching, and cheering from the outset. If ever author or illustrator success could be engineered from the sheer force of industry goodwill, then it will be over the coming months.

Some highlights of the evening for me:

To Everything (Turn, Turn, Turn)
There is a season (Turn, Turn, Turn)
And a time to every purpose, under Heaven

Sounds obvious, but sometimes easy to forget as you're packing up your bag. 

Ah yes, your bag. Get a really decent one for lugging all this stuff about in! I bought a leather satchel from The Cambridge Satchel Company. The good news is that this is tax deductible.

I've found a netbook much easier to lug about than a heavy laptop. Two years ago I received an Eee PC 1008HA for Christmas and it has been used every day of my life since. Literally.

Just so that you're not clicking away on an annoying little box on your keyboard when moving about a document.

Sounds crazy, but I am thinking of tracking down a compact extension lead when I'm travelling. Too often, I've found that hotel rooms have few plugs in inaccessible places and I've ended up stretched across the corner of a bed, just in order to be able to type. If you have any recommendations, let me know.

That's it from me! All you or I need to do now is allow our words of gold to pour forth. Do you have any venues you can recommend for writing, or would you add anything else to the list of essential equipment for a writing foray?

What does a writer do when she's between deadlines? Relax, that's what! For the past six weeks I've had the rare writer privilege of a break between commitments. It's been glorious and I've had lots of fun. I've sewn, I've knitted, I've met friends, I've gone away, I've exercised and I've had my weekends free. Oh, the luxury of 48 hours in which to do nothing but please myself! 

A couple of weeks ago I went to see David Nicholls at Book Slam give his last ever reading from One Day. A few days later, I caught the train to the Cambridge Literary Festival to join fellow author, Helen Moss*, for a day of literary entertainment and thinking. (Oh, and eating. And maybe a bit of drinking.) 

This year I've had the great honour of being on the organising committee for Undiscovered Voices 2012, along with Sara O'Connor, Sara Grant and Elizabeth Galloway. The planning started long ago, way back in 2009 when we'd meet regularly to discuss how the third anthology would work. Fast forward a year to an autumnal evening and our eight judges - including editors, agents, a bookseller and a literary scout - had gathered to decide on the 2012 Undiscovered Voices long list.

Want to know what happens on an Undiscovered Voices judging evening? Well, we could be sure from the out set that not everyone would agree. To begin, there was pleasant chat over refreshments, whilst everyone probably secretly yearned to get stuck into the nitty gritty of the selection process. Finally, people settled into their chairs clutching reams of paper. Everyone present knew which extracts had made them passionate and which they could see potential in. 

Sara Grant proceeded to do a highly professional and admirable job of steering the conversation. I and others made sure people's glasses remained filled and that extracts were easily on hand should judges need to refresh their memories. 

Then I sat back and watched, whilst keeping my lip firmly buttoned. (I wasn't allowed to influence the judges' decisions.) What did I witness? Voices raised? For sure. Arms flung into  the air? Certainly. Cries of incredulity or frowns of bemusement? Sometimes. But the one thing that made a very big impact on me was the passion. Not once did I hear an agent or an editor talk cynically about 'market demands', 'list requirements' or even 'trends'. Never, ever did I hear an extract dismissed because it wasn't working hard enough. If judges were discussing a piece of writing, it was because someone in the room liked it. If the corners of a diamond were a bit rough, I heard editors enthusiastically agree about how those corners could be smoothed. 

These were professionals engaging with a writer's craft and talent and bringing their own craft and talent to the table. I lapped it up. As we locked up the building at the end of the night, and made our way home by the amber glow of street lights, I marvelled at something new that Undiscovered Voices had done. It had reminded me that in these sometimes exhausted, sometimes trying and sometimes cynical times the professionals at the heart of our industry are there because they believe in and engage with story. For one blessed night, no one present had to answer to anyone other than themselves for what they wanted to see progress. No one had to consider a marketing strategy, or author promotability (they didn't know who the authors were!) or past sales figures. They just had to think about which stories they liked - and, let me tell you, there was a lot this panel of judges liked.

I'd always known that Undiscovered Voices helped authors' careers. I hadn't realized it helped editors, agents, booksellers and literary scouts shine their brightest, too. When authors struggle to achieve publication, it's an often-heard gripe that the powers-that-be are wilfully slamming doors in their faces. On the evidence of Undiscovered Voices, that simply isn't true. Undiscovered Voices is helping careers all over again. And we haven't even got to launch night yet...