Yesterday evening I struggled through the wind and the rain to make my way back to Winchester train station, leaving the rest of the SCBWI-ers to their evening meal and what I'm sure was a great talk by Philip Ardagh. Here he is, soon after his arrival, surrounded by other writers. Can you see how thrilled they all are to see him? It must be great, being that popular.Winchester was everything I hoped it would be. As I hovered near the entrance two voices rang out in quick succession: Helen Moss and Jon Mayhew. It was great to meet Helen and we had a really good chinwag about our writing experiences, comparing notes on our lovely agent, Jenny. Hello, Helen, if you're reading this!
Then we settled down to listen to Meg Rosoff give a witty hour-long talk that left us both feeling so much better. Doesn't it do the soul good to know that you're not the only one who sometimes suffers? Meg commented on how we all tend to believe that 'real writers' never struggle, before revealing how - in her words - she's 'crap at stories' (hard to believe, I know) and that she aspires to one day write a novel that is more than 50,000 words. I love this about Meg, as I also seem to veer towards the 'less is more' approach! It was fascinating to hear how Sally Gardner had supplied plot solutions for A Bride's Farewell whilst the two of them walked their dogs on the heath. Meg was also very funny, revealing that she's had seven editors fall pregnant during her writing career. 'If anyone here can't get pregnant,' she told us, 'Come talk to me.'
Meg left me with two thoughts on writing which will stick with me:
1. The object is to create something that everyone thinks you've dashed off in your lunch hour. But writing can be just like digging a hole. You're shifting dirt, until you get to where you need to be.
2. If five people in a room say they don't get it, then something isn't working. I've certainly learnt this one is true during my brainstorms at WP!
After Meg's talk, I attended a session on the five basic stories. It was fascinating to speculate which of these my current manuscript satisfies:
Overcoming the Monster
The Dream Comes True
An Individual Overcoming Odds
The Loss of Something Important
The Journey
After lunch, it was time for me to hold my feedback sessions with seven different writers. I had a strict 15 minutes for each one-to-one session and a clock to make sure we didn't over-run. I hope I managed to help. I certainly found lots to say. Interestingly, the radical feedback I was most anxious about sharing went down very well with the writer who had been thinking along similair lines herself. If two people in a room...
After all that, and an industry panel, it was - phew! - time for a glass of wine. And a proper catch up. Jon Mayhew and I were able to have a really good chinwag. I knew Jon would be lovely and he was! Here we are, me all shiny-faced, just before I had to skedaddle back to London.
I must also say a quick hello to Ellen Renner, who I met earlier this year at the SAS writers retreat. It was lovely to see her again and I'm looking forward to her first novel, Castle of Shadows, being published by Orchard in January. I was lucky enough to hear an extract at our writers' retreat and all I can say is ... that woman knows how to write. And - surprise, surprise - I bumped into Julia Churchill, who I know very well from the Greenhouse Literary Agency. Odd that we didn't manage to realise we were both going to be at the same venue!
And why wasn't I stopping for the second day of the conference? Because today I need to write. After a month of grumbling about how exhausted I am, I woke up with an idea in my head for the first patch of writing and today I've managed four chapters of revisions or new writing. I'm realising that a third draft is very different to a second draft. A second draft feels a bit like throwing darts and seeing which hit the dartboard. This third draft, thanks to excellent suggestions from my agent, feels much more focussed. But I am definitely finding it difficult to judge how much time it will take. New writing is needed, but how much and how often in the manuscript? I won't really know until I'm there. But I'm on my way! Oh yes, I'm on my way. Fired up by the lovely friends I met this weekend.
I leave you with a silly photo (why do I love silly photos so?) of the SCBWI crowd taking a break. Can you spot Meg Rosoff and Jon Mayhew?
* The collective noun for a group of pheasants, apparently.
Hi Karen,
Thanks for taking part ! I hope you got lots of writing done on Sunday :O)
Margaret
It was a great weekend indeed and brilliant to catch up with you. Great news about the chapters, I love your analogy about the dart throwing! So true!
Hi Karen, it was lovely to meet you. It was a fabulous conference. I'm still feeling a little dazed with so many ideas zipping around my head - can't wait to put some of them into practice and do some serious dirt-shovelling on my manuscript, to use Meg Rosoff's analogy. I hope you had a good writing day on Sunday.
Sounds amazing! My daughter and I just read one of Sally Gardner's books and loved it (I Coriander). Perhaps next we'll be reading one of yours?