Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway

By Olivia Levez
So my school’s due an Ofsted.

Any minute now, any day, any unit, the door of my classroom will creak slowly open, and there’ll be that drymouthheartbeatfeelsick moment when An Inspector Calls.

A middle-aged man, or possibly a woman, will nod once, then sit in the chair which I will have made available to them, right behind the boy or girl who is most likely to be on task and hopefully has the neatest book.

And The Inspector will scrutinise every aspect of my lesson, every flaw, every missed learning opportunity, every doodled penis on every dictionary spine, every moment of mediocrity in between the crammed garbled quest for outstandingness.

So, um, Ofsted’s pretty scary.

It’s got me thinking about the fears in being a writer.

When I first made the decision to actually do something about becoming an author, I definitely had my Yellow Thinking Hat on. For any non teachers out there, this means that I was using the part of my brain that thinks in terms of optimism and positivity and hopefulness. Except thinking hats are a bit old hat now.

I took a sabbatical from school and made the decision that, after fifteen years of teaching, I was going to be:

a)     A writer

b)    An artist

Either would do. I wanted to swap my desk of marking for a lovely battered table filled with pots of paintbrushes and found objects and mood boards. I wanted to leave the busy, shovey, clamour-and-din of school corridors for a Room of One’s Own.

I imagined floating around, looking nicely arty, and a tiny bit scatty, clutching my iMac Air and wandering off to my Roald Dahlesque writing shed, complete with dog blanket on my knees and a giant rubber band ball for when I needed to Find My Muse.

I’d dash off a novel, send in a couple of chapters, get a book deal, and then live off my earnings, happily pottering/writing.

Never again would I have to Feel the Fear.

Never again would I have that feeling of someone looking over your shoulder and judging you.

Wait.

Judging you?

I was to learn, of course, that being rejected and feeling a failure is an important part of being a writer. Strengthening. Character-building. Growth mindset encouraging. And that critique groups are a gentle way to show you how much you still don’t know.

But nothing comes close to Being On Submission and waiting for your agent’s email. Thinking that maybe it could be a phone call, because probably that means A Six Figure Deal and then…*drifts into reverie of taking The Call at school, maybe in a staff meeting, and having to say “oh, so sorry, my agent, yah, just discussing the ahm deal, please excuse me for one moment…”*

Soon, I worked out that an email with an exclamation mark often meant Exciting News! whereas a straightforward, common-or-garden email came with a thoughtfully edited rejection or two.

Or three.

Or four.

Or five.

So I took to approaching my inbox like a bomb disposal engineer.

And now there are new fears:

NotSellingAnyBooksGettingBadReviewsNoOneAttendingtheLaunchNotKnowingAboutTaxNobodyLikingtheBookNotBeingAbletoWriteAnotherBookNotHaving a latformNobodyComingtoMyBookSigningTwoHundredPairsofTeenageEyes

LookingatYouSardonicallyasYouDoAReadingHavingABadNielsonRating

PeopleThinkingYouAreAPushyVileBoastySelfPromotingTweeterNotHaving

EnoughTwitterFollowersNotHavingEnoughLikesNotBeingAbleToDoEdits…

Borrowing a quote from the brilliant We Were Liars by E. Lockhart, in which the main characters write quotes on their hands, I’ve put one of them up in my classroom:

“Always do what you are afraid to do.”

So, realising that being a writer has equal terrors to being a teacher, I decided to force myself to do hideously scary things in preparation.

Fearful things I’ve made myself do:

Give assemblies about Write For Real, sharing my experiences of trying and failing to get published.

Speak at TeachMeets – horrifically terrifying events where you give micro or nano speeches, watching your name teeter on the fruit machine ‘fun’ random-name-picker.

Make myself go alone to the intriguingly named SCBWI conference that I kept hearing so much about.

Set up a writing critique group, attended by the assistant headteacher and a book group friend who I didn’t know too well.

Give a teacher training session at the Pedigoo for local teachers.

Talk, many times in Staff Briefing – literally hundreds of teachers on a Monday morning, all needing to get their lessons set up – sharing Word of the Week.

Go to my first SCBWI Friday critique session, clutching five amazing scripts that I knew I didn’t have a hope in hell of being as good as.

Skyping Melvin Burgess after my friend won him in a SCBWI raffle and agreed to swap. It was a little awkward when we were setting up, and I could see him but he couldn’t see me and, oh, eek, oh.

Weirdly, having two scary jobs rather than just the one has put them both into perspective. Now, when An Inspector Calls, I shall serenely teach on, and think, why, this is nothing.

Not compared to an email with no exclamation mark.

Blogging 101 and Taking it to the Next Level

The bloggers' workshops at YALC were at the top of my list for tips and of course, to meet the bloggers.
The first workshop had Andrew Hall (The Pewter Wolf), Laura (Sisterspooky) and the always lovely Michelle Toy (Tales of Yesterday) answering thoughtful questions posed by the wondrously coated Andy Robb (@ThatAndyBloke).
Advice included Andrew's "be constructive. Be kind" when reviewing any book, and "the fifty page rule" advocated by Laura, who uses this rule with any book when deciding if she wants to read on.
So, how do these enormously successful bloggers (each of whom have won UKYA Blogger Awards in 2015) make themselves visible online?

Top Tips

• Tweet publishers and authors and link to your blog
• Make your blog unique
• Include some personal posts, so that it's not all about books
• If you really don't like a book you've been asked to review, either link it with a blogger who might enjoy it, or write a topic post instead. (All of the bloggers were firm about not posting negative reviews.)
• Blogger language learnt: "Recs" = recommended reads; "TBR" = to be read. 

Best of all, I finally got to meet Michelle Toy, who I first met very briefly at the UKYA Extravaganza in Birmingham. Always warm and welcoming, she had thoughtfully made us goody bags packed with useful blogging advice, how to write a review, and TWO FREE BOOKS!

Inside I found the beautiful, shimmery SEED by Lisa Heathfield, which I had already read before, but now I can gift it to someone else to enjoy. Published by Egmont, it is the dark intense tale of a girl born in a closed cult community, which I read in one sitting.

And I was delighted to find THE IT GIRL by Katy Birchall, also pub'd by Egmont, which  I've been itching to read.

Chelley Toy and me, taken by Sally AKA The Dark Dictator

Next Level Blogging featured another stellar panel of bloggers, namely:

Jim of YAYeahYeah and Teens on Moon Lane fame

Viv Dacosta from the venerable  Serendipity Reviews which is on the Guardian's Top Ten Book Bloggers list

Lucy Powrie teen blogger and creator of #ukyachat and Queen of Contemporary

Once again, Andy Robb led the questions...

So what defines a good blog?

Jim: "Enthusiasm"

Viv: "Being unique. Being specific to an author."

And how do you think of new content?

Viv gets her ideas first thing in the morning, whereas Jim bounces ideas off the blogger community. Lucy, however, likes lists, which she calls her "ideas bank".

What is your USP as a blogger?

Lucy: "Being personal. Always being yourself."

Viv: "As I writer myself, my posts often focus on the writing process. I'm a SCBWI member, and many of my readers want to know how to write, tips on the writing process..."

Jim: "Author interviews."

Does a blog full of 4 or 5* ratings look false?

Viv: "I detest the Goodreads rating system."

Jim: "I no longer write negative reviews to avoid being snarky."

Extra Tips?

• Tweet pictures
• Buy your own blog space - don't just use Blogspot (Oops!)
• Make guest posts specific - Viv says one of her most visited guest posts was Abi Elphinstone's The Art of Rejection
• Be constructive (this came up again and again)
• Write "mini-recs" - this fab advice came from Jim, if you don't have time to write full reviews
• Tweet at different time zones
• Use social media managers like Hootsuite to schedule your tweets

And finally?

What came across hugely from both workshops was the wonderful sense of community that bloggers enjoy, described as "hugely supportive" and "a second family". Each of the bloggers was so passionate about books, authors, reading, and promotion of all things bookish. As a newbie author I was thrilled to finally meet them in person, and delighted when Viv from Serendipity, Sally The Dark Dictator and Chelley Toy of Tales of Yesterday agreed to review my debut book THE ISLAND!

A Pair of Chillers

Birdy by Jess Vallance, pub’d by HotKey Books

This was the first book I bought at YALC because I’d seen the cover through twitter, and I’m a sucker for swirly ink-blots.

Straight away the narrative voice gripped me, in a slightly disturbing way. There was something out of kilter, something left unsaid – a sense of corner-of-your-eye creepiness, that reminded me of Ishiguro’s harrowing tale, Never Let Me Go. This book also brought to mind another sneakingly unsettling narrator – Engleby by Sebastian Faulks. Oh, and there’s a touch of the crowing The Talented Mr Ripley (Patricia Highsmith) too.

So, now to the story.

This is meticulously well-plotted, with each new reveal at just the right moment, so that when the final scene happens you have to blink and immediately turn back to try to pin-point when exactly things started changing. But you can’t. Because it’s all handled with such subtlety and deftness. As a writer tackling final edits for my debut novel, I’m massively impressed (and just a tad jealous!)

Without giving too much away, Birdy is the story of a friendship between two girls, one lonely and alone, the other bubbly, bold and energetic. It’s a friendship that dramatically changes their lives, but darkens into obsession and possession.

And how it darkens!

Killer line: “I was going to have to break the news to her gently.”

Envy moments: That den. That egg chair.

Once you reach the end, it all comes together; the swirly ink-blots make beautiful sense, and you blink with surprise to see that the sun’s still out.

Because that’s the sort of book it is.

If you like this, you’ll like…

Single White Female Seeks Same, by John Lutz.

When I read the acknowledgements (am I the only writer who always does this first?) I was interested to see a mention of James Dawson  (also of Hot Key) as I read this book straight after reading Dawson’s beautifully tattooed Under My Skin.

Again, bought because I couldn’t resist the gorgeous cover, and have managed to get hold of one of the freebie posters at YALC for my classroom wall. And the edges are PINK.

Under My Skin was a treat to read , just because I love Dawson’s teenage girl voice so much. He balances bitchiness, humour and horror in equal measures, and it’s very fresh and lively.

This is about a girl who gets her heart’s desire when she gets a demon tattoo – a sort of tattoo salon Doctor Faustus. I loved the make-over she gets when her tattoo possesses her, and the scenes with the school’s unholy trinity Melanora are very authentic.

This is the third Dawson I’ve read (after Say Her Name and Hollow Pike) and just as much gory fun. After seeing the author’s lively hosting of the Sex panel at YALC – clad in Daenerys Stormborn body suit and “modesty dragon” – Dawson’s writing similarly switches from serious, saucy to outrageous – but is always entertaining.

Fabulous as Daenerys

Killer line: “There was no vegetable on earth her mother couldn’t over-boil.”

Envy moments: Those boots. That Satanville hair-cut.

If you like this, you’ll like…

Needful Things by Stephen King

Frozen Charlotte by Alex Bell

  James Dawson: "It's easy to write as a 16 year old teenage girl. Inside I am a 16 year old teenage girl!"

Under My Skin by Zoe Markham

Chlo is a girl with a big problem: she was brought back to life by her scientist father and now lives with a regime of hard-core skincare, stomach injections, and enough foundation to cover the entire cast of TOWIE.

Because Chlo is, well, a zombie. If she doesn’t top herself up with protein every few hours, if she misses an injection, if she lets herself be seen in public, then the secret government department responsible for Project Rise (a sinister scheme to raise soldiers from the dead) will find out she exists. And that will mean the end of her secret life and the death of her father; it will mean her mother died for nothing.

Did I mention that Chlo only has enough life-giving serum for a few months? So whilst she hides away in the attic, surrounded by heaters for her poor cold flesh, and immersed in Jane Eyre (there are lovely nods to Gothic literature in this book) her dad spends day and night in his basement laboratory, working frantically on making more.

This is high concept stuff, and I read “Under My Skin” in a gallop one sunny afternoon in my caravan – although an attic-y book-nook would have been far more suitable (I was very envious of Chlo’s ). The tale is especially good at conveying the claustrophobic atmosphere of Chlo’s world in the first third of the book, before she puts her foot down and demands to be allowed to go to school. It deals with teenage angst very cleverly and equates Chlo’s situation to every young person’s desire to break away from parental control. Only here, of course, the restraints which Chlo’s dad impose on her are a matter of life and death. Or should I say, undeath.

I found the boarding school sections a little stereotypical in parts, although the portrayal of toxic friends like psycho bitch Emily was perhaps fitting in a book about monsters. (Micro-quibble – if they’re that posh, I think they’d play lacrosse, not hockey.) But Daz is a fab Hot Guy for Chlo, who doesn’t seem to mind her stuffing herself with battered sausages every time she sees  him. Those chip-shop scenes made me laugh out loud btw, and were a lovely antidote to all the dark shadowy passages in Chlo and her father’s cottage hide-away.

Some key cinematic moments:

·        That scene when Daz takes his top off

·        That scene where Chlo is caught in the rain *shudders*

·        That scene at the school disco

This is the first book in a series, and I was disappointed when I got to 85% on my Kindle and realised that I wouldn’t get to see the denouement. But I will definitely be getting the sequel. I mean I’ve just got to know what happens to Chlo when…and then she… (cut for spoilers!)

This is less Frankenstein and more In The Flesh – which was one of my favourite TV series in the last two years.

It’s a meaty, angsty, Gothic-y read which teen fans of Day of the Dead, Warm Bodies, and yes, even Twilight, will love to get their teeth into.

Not literally of course.

****

The National Curriculum Does Not "Damage" Children's Creative Writing

Just read something that made me angry...


The thing is, children love experimenting with new words (we call them Wow Words in our school) and take delight in trying to shoe-horn them into their writing. And somewhere, at some stage, they must learn to use simple, compound, complex sentences, and yes, longer and longer ones (sometimes including parenthesis or "comma sandwich") all without losing control of that ("let's make it even longer! Let's be like Dickens!) multi-clausal sentence.

And it's fun. And they learn. And the writing's awful, of course it is.
But that doesn't matter. 
Because they're not aiming to produce writing that will be noticed on a slush-pile. They're learning the rules. And experimenting. And having fun.
Just like learning a foreign language, the writing's going to be pretty bizarre at times (our year sevens have been trying to fit our latest Word of the Week "transmogrification" into their work this week!), but it has to go through an "awful" stage before it gets better. It's like anything that's part of the creative process. I mean, Picasso wouldn't have produced his pared back genius abstractions without first learning by producing a whole lot of flowery, fussy, over-detailed drawings, right?
So.
Let all children over-embellish; excitedly, enthusiastically and entertainingly (whoop, a list of three!) shovel in as many Wow Words as they want; let them clutter their writing with adverbs, adjectives and all manner of hellish intensifiers; let them experiment. Let them explore.
Let them sing.
Badly.
But. It. Doesn't. Matter.
Because one day, that one child who is destined to become a writer (as in claw themselves out of the slush-pile, make it their life's obsession until they've got their first book deal), they will join SCBWI, form a critique group, maybe scrape enough pennies to do an MA in creative writing.
And they'll read Stephen King's "On Writing" and realise that, gosh yes, "the road to hell is paved with adverbs", and they'll pare back all that silly floweriness,
and they'll write.
And write.
And write.
And all the over-zealous teachers and all the National Curriculum criteria in the world never did them a jot of harm.
I know because it happened to me.

Authors For Nepal

Ebay help-line for earthquake victims...

It has just been announced that a second earthquake has hit Kathmandu, killing dozens and injuring more than a thousand.

Many authors are offering a whole host of services, from critiques to retreats to naming a character in their next book - all in aid of the recent earthquake disaster victims in Nepal. To quote Kathy Evans in her blog:

"They are amazing and resilient  people but they are living in devastation. They need water and sanitation. They need to clear up. They need our help. They need your money.

You can give to the charity that my daughter worked for last year, HVP Nepal.

You can give to the Disasters Emergency Committee"

So please help by bidding here:

Wish I'd Written... Only Ever Yours by Louise O' Neill

Only Ever Yours is the most unsettling book I’ve read for a long time. So I had to immediately gift it to my friends. I needed someone to talk to about it.

Set in the disturbing world of an all-girls’ school where the pupils are trained to become the perfect Companions for men, this seems at first to be yet another dystopian set-up.

It is not.

It. Is. Not.

This is pure scathing satire, ripping into our society of relentless adverts and media pressure to look, feel and act a certain way. Girls should be thin. Girls should be hairless. Girls should be pretty. Girls should find a hot guy. Girls should aspire to be on telly.

The awful thing is, I found myself buying into the petty competitiveness of frieda, isabel and megan’s world (lower case intentional – no female’s name is capitalised). All the details of their outfits (chosen and futuristically fitted onto them every morning) are described straight from Elle magazine. Oh to have a messy side-plait!

The clever thing is: not only does it tear girls’ worlds into shreds “with a scalpel” to quote Jeanette Winterson, it also reads as a scathing commentary on many YA books.

Yes, there’s a dystopian setting, but it’s subverted and feels far too real.

Yes, there’s a hot guy, brilliantly named Darwin Goldsmith, but any romance set up is twisted and revealed to be shallow and hopeless.

Yes, there’s a beautiful female protagonist, but is she feisty and rebellious? Is she heck. frieda is passive, helpless, bitchy, and broken. And her ending is one of the most shocking I’ve read.

Brilliant. Brutal. Unrelenting to the final page, this book is as pitiless as 1984; bleaker than The Handmaid’s Tale.

And any Companion over forty?

Oh, they get sent to the pyre.

Ranks with Caitlin Moran's How to Be a Woman as a must-buy for anyone who has daughters or nieces, and for anyone who thinks that Feminism is a dirty word.

Louise O' Neill