I have the feeling if we lived in the same city we'd get into a whole lot of trouble. So let's keep it safe and stick with the My Writing Process Blog Hop.
What am I working on?
Following agent interest I'm revising my middle grade novel HOW TO LOSE A FORTUNE AND SAVE A FAMILY. When his family goes bankrupt and his chances at a scholarship are all but lost, intrepid money-maker, twelve-year-old Anthony Wish 'borrows' the key to the local manor and puts his business tips into practise...with disastrous consequences.
I am also working on MISCHIEF, a middle grade magical realism story set in a theme park town and based on the real town of Celebration in Florida.
How does my work differ from others of its genre?
I love any
middle grade story that sets kids in crazy adult situations and lets them
loose. That’s why the movie Home Alone is one of my favourites, why I love
the idea of Under the Egg by Laura Marx Fitzgerald and why I can’t wait to get my
hands on Tara Dairman’s All Four Stars.
But I tend
to think big and swashbuckling too so when my twelve-year-old wannabe businessman
gets his hands on an entire manor and turns it into a money-maker…there’s going
to be fireworks.
........................ LOTS of fireworks.
Similarly in MISCHIEF
two boys turn a whole well-to-do Florida
town upside-down when they free the mischievous Little People and face the
consequences.
Why do I
write what I do?
It may be
that growing up, typewriters continuously tapped away in our house and now I
can’t live without the sound. My mother produced poetry and articles. My father,
in post dinner spurts, created several child detective books featuring his
seven kids. He self-published. A man before his time?
I guess I’m
looking to entertain and give a laugh to middle grade readers. It’s a moment in life
rife with pranks and giggles. I remember laughing so hard the top of my head
nearly came off. I want to buy into that joy.
Laughter is
the common thread in my writing life. I may have to blame it on the Queen. As a
cub newspaper reporter who wasn’t very good at news, I was assigned ‘colour’
pieces, interviews, features. One day I got sent to the Governor General’s
house where I accidentally breached security and surprised the Queen coming out
of the bathroom in scuffed shoes and a crooked hat. Now if that won’t turn you
into a laughing fiction writer, what will?
How does
your writing process work?
At the very
beginning of this fiction writing adventure, a well-known New Zealand
children’s writer Joy Cowley told me she had the feeling I leapt into my
stories bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and with absolutely no planning.
“Who me?” I said. “Joy, that’s a terrible
thing to say.”
Of course
she was right.
Today I am
law-abiding and in control. Or pretend to be. I haul in the idea, think, plan, cook dinner with one hand, write notes with the other, use
Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat - I so love that man – and then when I can’t stand
the suspense any longer I throw it all up on the screen at 1k a day and see if
it looks like Bradley Cooper.
When it
doesn’t I start all over again. Oh, and then there are screeds and screeds of
revisions.
A New York
Times bestseller said it took her seven years to write her book. It did me good
to know that. These days I allow myself to breathe deeply and think I too can
face the eternity of getting a book published. But I’m really hoping that it
won’t.
****** I've tagged reader, writer, critiquer and editor extraordinaire Pernille Hughes for next week's blog hop. She's a contributor to a travel column in the Sunday Times (UK) and she's published in the Sunlounger anthology.She's on twitter https://twitter.com/pernillehughes Check her out on http://www.writingfromtheedgeofdistraction.blogspot.com/
That's where the party is next Monday.See you there.