The Memory Box is Published in Ireland

Flowers from my publisher and my family

My new novel for adults, The Memory Box has just been published in Ireland. It will be available in the UK (and as an e-book) in September. It's about Pandora, who is about to turn thirty and who has just been tested for a hereditary cancer gene, BRCA1. I have written some articles about the research and the gene, and as soon as they are published I'll post them here.

I've been the usual bundle of nerves waiting for publication date - I think it gets worse every year in fact. Here's part of  a blog I wrote in 2011.

Lots more writing and getting published blogs to come in 2013, plus lots new author interviews.

Yours in writing,

Sarah XXX

the memory box

Pre-publication Nerves (2011)

Writers at every stage of their careers are riddled with doubts and insecurities, especially around publication time. I’ve written eleven adult novels now (nine published, two out in the next two years), I’ve written four Amy Green novels, and lots of other children’s books, but I’m still horribly nervous about the reaction to each and every new book.

Seeing your new book on the shelf for the first time is terrifying, yet exhilarating. Not seeing it on the shelves when it’s supposed to be there is, of course, far worse! I’m in the very lucky position of having publishers behind me who believe in my work and do all they can to edit, market and promote my books to the very best of their ability. And in turn I try to do my part, writing articles, being interviewed by journalists on all kinds of things, visiting the bookshops to say hi to the booksellers and to sign stock, doing school events, library events, festivals.

Around publication time I generally set aside a full month to work on the publicity side of things. There is no point spending a year or longer writing and rewriting a book and then just sitting back and letting it find its own way in the market - I like to get out there and do as much as I can to help it on its way.

I know some unpublished writers look forward to the bookshop visits, the interviews, talking to school children or reading their work to adults, but many don’t. After over fifteen years writing and publishing books, I guess I’m just used to it; but publication month never gets any easier – it’s exciting, joyful, stressful and exhausting. But you have to embrace all the publicity and the marketing for what it is – part of every writer’s job. And I’m very, very grateful that people actually want to read my articles, want to interview me, want me to visit their students.

Here's to many more publication days for us all!

Children's Books to Look Forward to in 2013

A quick round up of the books I am looking forward to in 2013 for the children’s book fans out there. For some reason my picture downloader isn't behaving, apologies for the lack of book covers. I'll add them when I can. It’s looking like a good spring so far, with some strong debuts from Irish writers and some interesting picture books also.

Jan/Feb

Curse of Kings by Alex Barclay A very good historical fantasy – which I’ve just reviewed for the Irish Independent – once the review is published I will post it here. I liked it very much. The book is out in late January.

Captain Underpants Number 10 Yeah, the great Captain is back. If you child loves the Wimpy Kid, try these – they are excellent and so funny.

Queenie by Jacqueline Wilson Set in a 1950s children’s hospital, my daughter (and I) are very excited about this one.

Back to Blackbrick by Sarah Moore Fitzgerald I haven’t read this one yet, but my friend in children’s books, the lovely Kim Harte rates it highly and I look forward to reading it.

Darren Shan has about 200 Zom-B books out this year – the first in January. (It's actually 4 I think. Maybe 6.)

March/April

Bye, Bye Baby by Sheena Dempsey Conor Hackett from Walker Books says the finished edition looks ‘beautiful’ and I can’t wait to see this debut picture book from a highly talented Irish picture book maker.

Brave Beast by Chris Judge Chris is back with a fab new Beast quest.

Ask Eve by Judi Curtin A special World Book Day book featuring Judi’s much loved new character. Apparently there are not one but two new stories in this book – excellent!

Derek Landy is sneaking in a Skulduggery Pleasant 7.5: Tanith Low in the Maleficent Seven (28th March)

And Eoin Colfer’s brand new series, WARP is out on 11th April. I’m very much looking forward to reading that one.

May/June/July

Magic Ink by Steve Cole I’m a big fan of Steve’s and this looks like a great one for age 7+.

Stormbringers by Philippa Gregory The second of her historical YAs – the first was excellent.

The Moon and More by Sarah Dessen, in which Emeline struggles to balance the value of what she has against the allure of the wider world. I adore Sarah Dessen. I found this on an American website, so the publication date may be for the USA.

August/September

Patrick Ness has a new children’s novel out in Sept – title to be confirmed – I adore Patrick’s books.

Ask Amy Green: Wedding Belles – by Sarah Webb Yes, the very last in the series – book 6 – is published in September – the end of an era for me!

And there will hopefully be a brand new Judi Curtin also in September.

Happy reading!

Sarah XXX

The Most Important Advice I Can Give You About Writing

The Holy Ghosts

I was at a 40th birthday in London recently and I got talking to the band – lovely Scottish lads called The Holy Ghosts. They have been working their wee socks off, playing gigs and parties all over the UK and Europe. They’re super, their lead singer has buckets of charisma (and an amazing voice) and I know they’ll make it because a/ they’re determined b/ they’re damn good and c/ they’re putting in the hours.

I told them the story about The Beatles playing in Hamburg that I first read in Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. In the book Gladwell explains the 10,000 hours rule – how if you put in the time and work hard, success will follow.

In a nutshell The Beatles performed live in Hamburg, Germany over 1,200 times from 1960 to 1964, amassing more than 10,000 hours of playing time. According to Gladwell the hours and hours that The Beatles spent performing live shaped their talent. He quotes their biographer Philip Norman who said ‘So by the time they returned to England from Hamburg, Germany, they sounded like no one else. It was the making of them.’

Gladwell also talks about Bill Gates and how at the age of 13 in 1968 he spent over 10,000 hours programming on a high school computer.

Putting in the hours. It’s not very exciting, is it? But it’s so important. I think a lot of people starting to write don’t realise how hard writers work to get published and to stay published. How many hours they put in.

Coming up with an idea is the easy bit. Creating characters, plot . . . not so hard. Writing the first few chapters of a manuscript . . . not so difficult either. Finishing a book and then rewriting it over and over again until it’s as perfect as you can make it, that’s the hard part.

I’ve said it before but it’s worth saying again – you learn how to write by writing. By putting in the hours. At night after work, early in the morning before the kids get up, at weekends, on holidays, when you’re on top of the world, when your heart is breaking – you have to keep at it. You have to put in the hours. It’s as simple or as difficult as that.

All the very best for Christmas and 2013. Try to make some time to write over the holidays. And I’ll try to follow my own advice!

Yours in writing,

Sarah XXX

Write the Book That You Want to Write

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I’ve just finished writing the first draft of my new book for children in The Wishing Girls series. It doesn’t have an official title yet, but I’m calling it Mollie after the main character. It’s a book that I really wanted to write, and luckily my agent and editor were keen on it too. But sadly this isn’t always the case in the publishing world. Sometimes you may be gently nudged (or blatantly asked) to write a book that is outside your comfort zone.

Depending on the market you may be asked to consider trying a vampire romance, issue based romance/popular fiction (think Jojo Moyes or Sinead Moriarty), ‘mummy porn’, a misery memoir . . . And even though your heart may not be in it, you might be tempted to give it a go. And if you do, and you can make it work, and even enjoy the experience then good on you. And let’s be honest here, maybe you really need the money and that can be a strong enough motivation in itself - many fine authors have written to pay the bills, nothing wrong with that.

But my honest opinion is this – life is too short to spend months/a year/years of your life on something that doesn’t make your heart sing. And by the time your book hits the shelves, the market may have changed.

Every book has its difficult scenes. No book is easy to write. But it’s hell of a lot easier if you actually adore the book you’re working on. If you love (or detest) the characters with a passion, if you think about the plot every waking moment of the day, if you can’t get the damn thing out of your mind, if you’re itching to get back to your desk every day to continue telling the story.

Write the book that YOU to write. If you put enough passion and enthusiasm into your writing, if you write the book your heart begs you to write, it will work. And it will get published. It’s as simple (or as difficult) as that.

Yours in writing,

Sarah XXX

How Much Planning Should You Do Before Starting a Book?

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Martina Reilly

To plot or not to plot? That is an interesting question. Over the years I have realised that it very much depends on what type of person you are.

If you are a planner – if you pack days before going away, if you know exactly where your passport is before travelling, then you’re a planner and you may need to plan your book.

If you pack the hour before leaving for the airport, if you hate planning anything weeks or months before it happens, than you’d probably think planning would kill your book’s spontaneity. And for you it might do just that.

So if you’re a planner like me – you need to plan. I’ve also interviewed a writer who is not a planner – the wonderful Martina Reilly – so you have both views.   So first, Martina’s answers:

Martina, how much planning do you do before starting a book?  

I do no planning at all. I tend to get an idea of what I'd like to explore. In my next book 'What If' I had a few things I wanted to write about. The first, a moment where a life is changed forever (a lot of my books are about such moments, I am unable to get away from that, though in this book it is very obvious what that moment is) and the second thing I wanted to write about was Alzheimers. Having experienced first hand how devastating this disease is, I wanted to write an uplifting story where Lily uses her disease to ask forgiveness from her daughter. But how do you ask for forgiveness when you can barely remember? That was the challenge and so I just dived straight in and began to write.    

Do you do any work on the characters?

  None at all. I suppose I see my characters as people I have been introduced to at a party. If I like them, I leave them in the story and get to know them over the course of nine months or so (the length of time it takes me to write a book). These characters begin to grow week by week as I find out things about them. I then go back to the start of the story and flesh them out using everything I've learned. Some characters are much easier to know than others. In the next book, there is a prickly character called Deirdre, she was a hard one to get right, but to my mind, she is the best character in the book now.

Any story boarding/plotting?  

No! Having said that, diving straight in can be a bit of a disaster sometimes. Maybe about 40,000 words in, I'll discover that the way I'm telling the story is all wrong. I might need to introduce a better/stronger plot (yikes) or I might feel that the book would be much better if it were told from a first person narrative instead of a third person narrative. I fight against it for a while until I KNOW it's not working and then I'll go back and rework. I have found though that it doesn't really hold me up as I get a renewed interest in making the book right and I fly along. The way I write is quite organic, I suppose. I like to surprise myself with the story so that way I hope the reader is surprised too. If I plotted and planned, I think I'd lose the spontaneity with which I write. I'm also a very impulsive person, so plotting and planning would drive me mental.

How much editing do you do after the first draft?

  Very little. I suppose I edit as I go so most of my books (bar three) have been published with very minor changes.

And now I’ll ask myself the very same questions:

Sarah, how much planning do you do before starting a book?

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Lots! Unlike Martina I can’t start writing a book if I haven’t thought about the characters and the plot for many weeks (even months or years in some cases). Once I have the initial idea – for example ‘a book about a young Irish girl who dreams of being a famous ballerina’ – I grab a yellow A4 notebook and I start jotting down notes. I also collect clippings from magazines and newspapers on the subject and I read extensively around the subject. All these things trigger my own plot ideas and make me more confident that I know what I’m writing about.  

Do you do any work on the characters?  

Yes. I write down everything I know or am starting to find out about the main characters – what they look like, their birthdays, their dreams, hopes, fears . . . I give them names – I love naming characters. Once I find the right name for a character they become much easier to visualise and understand.

Any story boarding/plotting?  

IMG_1862[1]

Again, yes. I go through the book scene by scene, jotting down notes about what I’d like to happen. This is all very much subject to change, it’s just a way of keeping myself going. It also means that I’m not so frightened about getting ‘stuck’ half way through the book. I always know how the book is going to end – the middle is a little more vague.

How much editing do you do after the first draft?

Again, a lot. I usually do around five or six rewrites, often more, depending on the book. Some books require more rewriting than others. Ask Amy Green: Dancing Daze didn’t require too much rewriting; The Shoestring Club, my latest adult book required quite a bit of rewriting. In fact the first draft is very different to the final book. Pretty much everything changed and I think it’s a much better book for all the thought, planning and rewriting.

So there you go, two writers, two very different approaches. Now which type of writer are you? Do you need to plan or are you happier just sitting down and writing? I’d love to know.

Yours in writing,

Sarah XXX

(And a big thank you to Martina for giving me her time)

A Map of My Writing Day

I've been writing this 'Yours in Writing' blog for many years now, and I would like to thank all of you for the fantastic feedback and regular comments both here and on Facebook and Twitter. It means a lot to me. To say thank you, I'd like to address some topics that YOU have asked me to cover. The first - and yes, probably the easiest - is my writing routine. When do I write? How many words? Computer or long hand?

Over the next few weeks I will tackle the other questions I've recently been asked - on planning books, getting published for teenagers, what editors are looking for right now and other subjects. If there is something that you would like me to cover, you only have to ask.

So - my writing routine. And thanks to Claire Hennessy for the question, a very experienced writer herself.

snoopy-good-writing-is-hard-work

Here's a map of my writing day:

7am  Rise (groggily) and get the kids to school.

8.30am  Get home and start thinking about what I have to do today.

Potter around the house avoiding work, 'tidying', opening mail, checking emails, Twitter and Facebook (terrible I know but best to get it over with early I find so I can get on with my morning! Twitter and Facebook are big distractions but also great fun and I dip in and out during the afternoon when I'm doing my emails and admin etc).

9.30  Walk - think about my current book while doing so (or that's the idea - it doesn't always work out that way - somametimes I end up chatting to my mum or a friend while walking - which is also nice!).

10.30am  Switch off my mobile and take the phone off the hook - my writing computer does not have the internet - which is a Godsend! Sit down at my desk.

Stare into space for a while.

Stare into space some more.

10.45am  Start writing.

I write straight onto my computer (I'm a fairly fast and accurate touch typist) but I do also write a lot of early plot notes/character notes in yellow notebooks. Yes, always yellow!

1.00pm  Collect my son or if he's in after school, stay writing until 2pm.

I aim to write about 2,000 words a day - that's my natural limit. Anything more than that is a bonus but if I don't reach my target I don't beat myself up about it. I write as often as I can, every day if possible - that way it's easier to jump straight back into the story. Otherwise I have to re-read what I've been writing and it slows the process down. Sometimes I stop writing in the middle of a sentence or a thought - I find it easier to pick up the thread of the story that way. It's probaby a bit nuts, but whatever gets you through, right?

In 15 years of writing (10 of those full time) I have always written something when I've sat down at my desk. Even if I'm not feeling great or am having a horrible day/week/month I still manage to write a page or two. I have NEVER left my desk without getting something down.

In the afternoon I deal with my emails (I hate email but it's a necessary evil), answer phone calls, write my blogs (I have two, this one and one on my Amy Green website and also blog for Girls Heart Books), do my event programming and check in with my Facebook and Twitter friends. I also update my website and write any reviews, articles or other bits of writing I've been asked to do.

I also used to work three or four evenings a week, but recently I have stopped this. I'm not as productive as I used to be but it gives me more time to spend with my family.

And that, my friends, is my writing day! I am very blessed to be able to write full time and I would like to thank my readers for making it possible.

Yours in writing,

Sarah XXX

When Are You Going To Write a Proper Book?

amy5

This piece first appeared in the Sunday Independent

When are you going to write a proper book - a book for adults? It’s a question every children’s writer is asked at some stage of their career. I started out writing for children, switched to adults, and now write for both. When the inevitable question was put, I'd explain children are the most discerning audience of all, children’s books are challenging and fun to write, and any author who doesn’t try it at some stage is missing out.   I am only one of a host of authors who write for both children and adults. J K Rowling’s debut adult novel, The Casual Vacancy, a dark comedy about local politics will be published on 27th September, quite a risk for someone with such a successful track record in the children’s book world.

Roald Dahl also wrote for adults and children, as do contemporary award-winners Philip Pullman, Neil Gaiman and most recently, Philippa Gregory. The American crime writers like James Patterson are all at it; and ex-SAS man Andy McNabb has produced a popular action/adventure series for younger readers.

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Under the Hawthorne Tree was an international hit for its creator, Marita Conlon-McKenna, followed by seven further bestsellers for young readers. Her latest book for children, Love Lucie (Simon and Schuster) has just been published and she is currently working on her next adult novel, The Rose Garden. So why did she turn to adult fiction after so much success in the children’s world? “The Magdalen (Marita’s first adult novel, about the laundries for unmarried mothers) was a story I’d always wanted to tell,” she explains. “But because of the harsh subject I couldn’t write it for children or even teenagers. It was very successful and my publishers asked me to write another book for adults.”

“For me,” she continues, “the story decides the age group, not the other way around, I’m driven by story; and my publishers give me great freedom to write what I want. Irish writers don’t seem to get labelled or pigeonholed as much as other writers – they can write plays, musicals, screen plays and it’s very acceptable. In other countries they seem to like their writers to stay in their box. Irish writers are an unknown quantity, no-one knows they will do next.”

Like Marita, Wexford man, Eoin Colfer of Artemis Fowl fame always wanted to be a writer first and foremost, not a ‘children’s writer’. “I have had different stories in my head,” he says, “some suitable for kids, some for adults. I think because I have such an outlandish or maybe juvenile imagination some of my stories are definitely only for children, but recently some of the more complicated stories have been pushing themselves to the front of my brain. I also will admit to feel a little pressure (self-imposed) to write a book for grown-ups.”

Switching from writing for adults to writing for children is more usual and Judi Curtin, author of the popular Alice and Megan series did just that. Her first book Sorry, Walter was for adults but after finishing her second adult novel she wanted to write something that her daughters could read. “It was supposed to be a temporary change,” she says, “but it snowballed.” She has now written thirteen children’s books but is also exploring the adult world again. “There’s a story I’d like to tell which isn’t for children,” she says.

The Giggler Treatment, Roddy’s Doyle’s first book for younger readers was written to entertain his children. “I wrote a few pages towards the end of every working day,” he says, “and read them to them at bedtime, starting at the beginning every night.  It gradually became a book.” When asked will he continue to write for children, he says “I’m not sure.  My books for children have always been aimed at particular children - and children, I've noticed, tend to grow up and stop being children.  But if the ideas are there and, more importantly, the urge to put them on paper is there, I'll still give it a bash.”

John Boyne had never thought about writing for young readers until the idea for The Boy In the Striped Pyjamas came into his head. He says “The experience I had with that book – going into schools, getting children interested in reading – opened up my imagination in a new way and I found that I wanted to write for both audiences.” Like Roddy, he will continue to write for both audiences. “In fact I've just delivered a draft of my next adult novel to my editor. I'll be rewriting that over the next six months or so but I've just started a draft of a new children's book too.”

Master of children’s horror, Darren Shan also started out writing for adults. His first adult book, Procession of the Dead was published in 1999, a year before Cirque Du Freak (his first children’s book). “I had written a lot of first-draft books by that stage,” he says, “all of which were aimed at adults. I thought that was where my career lay, but I’d always wanted to try a children’s book. One day I had the idea for Cirque Du Freak and by the time I had finished the first draft, I had already decided to write another book for children.”

Darren now writes for both children and adults. “I’ve learnt so much about pacing and editing while working on my children’s books, which has fed back into the books I write for adults. I love the dichotomy of moving between the two worlds (adult’s and children’s publishing),” he adds, “and I would love to be able to continue doing that far into the future.”

When asked which adult writer he’d like to see writing for children, Darren immediately says “Kurt Vonnegut – he could have been a great children’s author if he had been that way inclined.” Roddy Doyle’s choice is Anne Enright. “Any book for children by Anne would be magical.” Marita Conlon McKenna suggests Marian Keyes, and John Boyne would love to see David Mitchell tackle children’s literature. “Knowing his extraordinary imagination and linguistic abilities, I think (it) would be something very special,” he says.

And finally Eoin Colfer nominates Colm Toibin. “I would love him to be forced to call me and ask for advice on pacing,” he says, “so I could churlishly hang up. It's the auld Wexford-Enniscorthy rivalry!”

Will Eoin ever get his chance? We’ll just have to wait and see.

Sarah Webb has two books out this month, Ask Amy Green: Dancing Daze for young teens (Walker Books) and The Shoestring Club for adults (Pan Macmillan).

Writing Worries - Don't Clip Your Own Wings

Apologies for the lack of recent blogs, I was helping to run the Mountains to Sea Book Festival and taking some much needed time off. I wrote the following blog in August, before I sent my new proposal to my agent. More on this at the end. For weeks now I've been worrying about a book proposal. Is it good enough? Will my agent like it? Will my publishers like it?

I've published 23 books now and it never gets any easier. The doubts are still very much there for every single book or proposal.

I worked hard on the proposal, on getting every detail right - the series title (it's a new series for girls of 9+), the title of each book, the girls' names (there are 4 main characters), the plots for each of the first 3 books, the setting; especially the setting. I started reading widely on the subjects covered in the plots and added details to my proposal.

I wrote some of the first book, then rewrote it many times until I was happy with it. Only then did I send it to my agent. She read it and gave some suggestions. I took those on board and rewrote the whole proposal again. Finally it was ready to be sent to my editors and so began the waiting game.

What happens next? My editors - if they like it - take it to an acquisitions meeting where the sales and marketing team get their say. If they all like it, and they think it will sell, then you have a book contract.

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I visited my publishers, Walker Books in London to hear the news and I waited anxiously for their verdict. I didn't have to wait long. As soon as I walked into the reception area (where some of my other Ask Amy Green books were twinkling at me from the book shelves), one of my editors said 'Everyone loved your proposal'. I was so relieved! I thought my proposal was good, my agent thought it was marvellous but you never can tell . . .

But nerves are good. In fact they are important to writers. It's what keeps us on our toes, makes us try our very hardest to produce something excellent. Nerves are like the adrenaline before a race, keeping us alive.

As writers we wear our hearts on our sleeves, outside our bodies. We are largely a highly emotional bunch and like actors, we crave an audience for our work - we need readers. We want people to say 'We love your books'.

But we also need to have confidence in what we are doing. So once we get that initial 'You're on the right track' nod, we need to take that affirmation on board and then get back to work. We need to put all those fears and doubts aside and write as if nothing else mattered.

Because if we let our writing worries consume us, we clip our own wings.

So once you get that initial nod - from your editor, or if you are not yet published, from a trusted friend - put all your worries behind you and fly. The only way to live a writing life is in the air and not stumbling along the ground.

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I'm all set to take my own advice. After proof reading The Memory Box, my next book for adults which will be out in early 2013, I'll be writing the first book in the new series. The series is called The Wishing Girls. More about that soon.

Yours in writing,

Sarah XXX

How To Contact A Writer - by Claire Hennessy

Here is a fantastic blog from my talented writer friend, Claire Hennessy. I like it so much that I'm reposting it. Do check out Claire's great website and blog here.

How To Contact a Writer by Claire Hennessy

Recently Sarah Dessen talked about getting an obnoxious email from someone when she didn’t reply to someone to help with a book report. It didn’t surprise me. Sarah Dessen obviously gets bucketloads more fan mail than, well, most of us, but this happens. It does.

Recently I had a conversation with another writer about getting sent manuscripts to read (‘tell me if it’s any good!’) from people out of the blue, and how to deal with that. This happens too. And it’s tricky in all sorts of ways.

I think there’s a lot fuzziness out there in the world about what is okay, and what is not okay, to contact an author about. And the ease of communication – social media as well as email – means it’s so much easier to get in touch, and easier to have a sense that you’re owed a response. (‘She RTed me that time! Why has she not read my manuscript and sent it to her publisher yet?!’)   I have… not necessarily the definitive guide, because every writer is different, but some things for people to consider, based a little on my own experience but also on paying attention to what many others have said about correspondence with readers.  •Some writers respond to fan mail (and by this I mean communications that are just appreciative, rather than asking for something); some don’t. Of those that respond, some will do personal responses and some will do a generic reply. Whatever they do… it’s their choice. There is no ‘rule’ that says authors must reply to all fan mail personally. I have never heard or seen any writer declare that they hated getting fan mail (or that they didn’t read and appreciate it very much) – it is almost always about time. Personal responses take time, and time is something almost everyone is short of. Neil Gaiman once spoke about how he’d become someone who ‘answered emails professionally, and wrote on the side’ – I think most people would prefer authors keep writing books.  •Fan mail tends not to be treated in a time-sensitive manner. If an author gets an email from their editor or agent with a big long list of things that need to be sorted out about their work-in-progress in the next fortnight, and one from Little Suzie wanting to know if they have any tips for her… well. (Snail mail also tends to go via a publisher, which means it can take longer to actually arrive in the author’s hands than you might expect.) Even if you do hope for a response, it is unlikely to be as super-speedy as you’d like.  •If you have a question to ask a writer – whether it’s about their books or their writing career or you’re looking for advice – do your research first. Go to their website, do a Google search, find out as much as you can that way. (There is a reason many authors’ websites have things like Frequently Asked Questions or sections on writing advice – these are things that come up over and over again.) An awful lot of people don’t bother doing this, and it’s one of the reasons why many writers do auto-responses. •Find out what the author’s policy is on communication – some may note that it takes them X amount of time to get back, or say that it’s better to get them on Twitter, or Tumblr, or something like that. Everyone does things slightly differently.  •It is never an author’s job to do your homework for you. If your teacher has said you need to get a response from a writer (whether this is a book report, an assignment on ‘becoming a writer’, etc), he/she is in the wrong. It is never anyone else’s job to do your homework for you. It is not the job of an author you’ve never met to make him or herself available for your often time-sensitive questions. (Laurie Halse Anderson has a policy on her website; Holly Lisle has a slightly snarkier page about it.) I suspect that teachers who assign things like this feel it shows students will go the extra mile if they get a response from an author – but the focus should be on what the student is doing, not how/when/what the author responds.  •Even if you’re, say, Facebook ‘friends’ with an author, it’s better to err on the side of formality/professionalism when sending a message or email – avoid acronyms and internet shorthand and all that jazz. (If there’s ongoing correspondence, take your cue from them – some writers can OMG and !!! with the best of ‘em. Others will genuinely see your ‘by d way i tink ur awesome!!!’ as indicative of a lack of respect or clued-in-ness, because the level of written-word casualness that exists online is a relatively new phenomenon and is still best avoided in most messages that are not to someone you know well.) •Do not send email attachments – some email servers will block these immediately. If you have something that can’t be placed in the body of a text – like fan art – upload it somewhere else and include a link, or ask if you can send it on.  •Do not send writers your manuscript (of a story, of a novel, of your poetry collection, whatever). More on that here. There are of course exceptions to this rule – some authors will run competitions on their blogs and invite submissions, and if you’ve been corresponding with someone for a while the rules can shift because this isn’t an initial-email-to-someone-in-their-professional-capacity situation anymore. •If you’re asking an author for advice on something personal – like maybe it’s something they’ve written about in their books – just be careful, okay? Protect yourself a little bit, just in case they are among the writers who don’t reply or maybe take ages – it doesn’t mean they don’t care or that there isn’t anyone else out there you can talk to. (Some writers love giving advice; others are very wary of it. I can see both sides of this one – it is a really, really tricky area.)  •A lot of this applies across the board. If you’re asking someone you don’t know or barely-know for a favour, there’s a really good chance that they’ll say no. You increase the chances by being kind and respectful and understanding and doing your research, but they still might say no or not reply or not reply quickly. It’s almost certainly because they’re busy doing other things, work things or life things, and not because they’re selfish terrible awful people who must go on your List Of Mortal Enemies.

 (This blog first appeared on Claire's website)

What's In a Name? Why Titles Matter

Book titles matter. They must be memorable, intriguing and above all, they must say something about your book or story. Think of Wuthering Heights, Bleak House, Pride and Prejudice, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, War Horse . . .

Name titles are also good – when the name is perfectly chosen of course - Matilda, Skulduggery Pleasant, Charlotte’s Web, Judy Moody, Artemis Fowl, Huckleberry Finn . . .

But how do you find the right title for your book or story? And how do you know that it is the right title?

I’ll try to explain using some of my own titles.

Always the Bridesmaid was a strong title – it describes the main character’s situation and it’s short and easy to remember.

When the Boys are Away is another good title – it’s about Meg and what she gets up to when her boyfriend, a professional sailor, is away. Both these titles are for adults – I write for both adults and younger readers.

The Loving Kind/Anything for Love/Some Kind of Wonderful – I’m not so keen on these titles – again all novels for adults. They don’t say much about the individual stories or characters – in fact they are pretty much interchangeable – and they’re a bit vague, a bit lazy really. In retrospect, I should have tried harder! But coming up with a good title isn’t easy, especially with deadlines looming.

Ask Amy Green – I love this as a series title. It’s simple and it has a nice ring to it. Amy is my Everygirl, an average 13 year old girl that readers can identify with I hope, so I gave her a name that I love (my daughter is called Amy) and a surname that lots of girls have – Green. She’s an agony aunt and likes to solve problems, so I though that ‘Ask’ was appropriate – as in you can ask her anything and she will try to help.

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I also like the individual book titles very much – especially Boy Trouble, Summer Secrets, Bridesmaid Blitz and Dancing Daze (out in September) – which each give a good flavour of what the book is about. I’m not so hot on Love and Other Drama-ramas – and boy did we have trouble with that title! It was originally to be called Party Drama-ramas but as the book changed, the title had to change too. I would have liked to get more of Bailey’s story into the title (the book is largely about his struggle to find his place in the world), but it was really difficult.

I quite liked Mystery Male as a title, but it wasn’t quite right. Other titles we tried were Dates and Other Drama-Ramas (too like Cathy Hopkins great Mates, Dates series), Double Drama-rama (too vague), Dublin Drama-rama (again a bit vague). So we decided on Love and Other Drama-ramas which we were all happy with (my editors, Annalie and Gill help me with titles if I’m stuck). And the book is about love – family and romantic - and the problems it can cause, so it does fit nicely.

So, in short, make your title simple, memorable and make it say something about your book. When I’ve cracked it 100% myself, I’ll let you know!

What’s YOUR favourite book title and why? I’d be most interested to know.

Yours in books,

Sarah XXX

(A version of this post first appeared on the Girls Heart Books blog)

Katie Taylor, Marilyn Monroe and Writing

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I think Katie Taylor is wonderful. A strong, confident, hard-working woman who has inspired girls to excel in sport and to follow their dreams. I was most interested to read an interview with her in Irish Tatler magazine (July 2012) where she said this: “I get days where I’m not in the mood for training, but I think those are the days that are the most important really. There are days when it’s easy to go training, you want to do training. But the days when you’re not in the mood, they’re the days that really make a difference, I think, and they’re the days that are going to win you those competitions.”

Wise words, and great advice for writers too. Are you prepared to write even when you feel under the weather? Will you sit at your desk even when your heart isn’t in it? Will you start typing even when you’ve already put in a long day at work and you’d much prefer to be on the sofa eating biscuits and watching Come Dine With Me? The truth is, most if not all writers find it difficult to settle at their desk sometimes, I know I do! There are so many distractions, Facebook, Twitter, telly, radio, the phone, friends, family . . . the list is endless. But if you really want to write a book you have to have discipline. You have to get on with it. No excuses.

There are thousands of other writers out there, all itching to get published. If they are prepared to write when they’d rather not be writing, they have an advantage over you. They have the passion to see it through; they have the will power to say no to things, to write regardless of all the other things going on in their lives.

How badly do you want it? Badly enough to make sacrifices? To write no matter what? One of my favourite quotes about getting published isn’t by a writer, it isn’t even about writing – it’s from Marilyn Monroe. She once said: “I wasn’t the smartest. I wasn’t the prettiest. I just wanted it more than anyone else.”

Do YOU want it more than anyone else? Well, do you?

Yours in writing,

Write a Cover Letter That Will Get You Published

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I was at Listowel Writers' Week recently, gathering information for all you lovely blog readers. And can I just say a big thank you to everyone in the last month who has contacted me to say how useful this blog and my website are to them. I'm glad my small words of encouragement are hitting the mark. And remember - keep the writing faith and never give up!

Back to Listowel - I attended a most interesting panel session on Getting Published, chaired by writing.ie's

Vanessa O'Loughlin

,

Simon Trewin

, head of the book department at United Agents in London, Irish agent,

Faith O'Grady

, Ciara Doorley, Editorial Director of

Hachette Ireland

and John Walsh from

Doie Press

. Among the topics discussed (many of which I've covered in this blog over the years) was covering letters and how to write them.

Faith gets 50 to 70 submissions a week and says that the cover letter is vital. She reads the submissions with the best cover letter first and incidentally she also said that she much prefers postal submissions . Even after many years of being an agent she still finds her post bag exciting. She said that the covering letter is your calling card - you must spend time on getting it right.

You must put your 1/2 line pitch (covered in this previous blog) in the covering letter. You should also explain (briefly) setting, characters and dramatic conflict. Keep this 'book' bit to one paragraph she suggested.

Edit your covering letter carefully. Both Simon and Faith agreed that it is perfectly acceptable to contact several agents at the same time as long as you are transparent about it. Simon suggested 'If you write like a particular writer, send it to their agent.'

It can take 3 to 4 months for agents to get back to you, so be patient and keep writing in the meantime.

Best of luck with writing your own perfect cover letter!

Yours in writing,

Sarah XXX

What Agents are Looking For + How to Write a Killer Pitch

Last week I gave a workshop on writing popular fiction and I asked a highly respected literary agent for some information. What are you looking for at the moment? I asked her. 'There's no definitive answer,' she said. 'But I am looking for something that stands out from the crowd, and the writing must be exceptional.' She explained that although her agency works with writers on their proposals/books, it is an expensive process if you can't be sure of a good outcome. So good writing is more important than ever. 'The writing has to be fresh, individual and clever,' she added. 'They must own their book and write with conviction.' 

She does not follow trends as they change so quickly. She also said 'What every writer must remember is that the agent has to sell it on to a editor, and the editor has to sell it on to sales and marketing. So if there isn't a 1 or 2 sentence pitch, it probably isn't going to work.'

Interesting, I thought. Very interesting.

I went away and thought long and hard about this. It's a difficult thing to do. I tried describing some of my own books in 1 or 2 lines:

Ask Amy Green: Dancing Daze (out in Sept) is about a talented young Irish dancer who moves to Budapest at fifteen to study ballet at the famous Budapest Ballet Academy. When her dreams turn sour, can Amy and Clover help save her ballet career?

Ask Amy Green (the series) is about a thirteen year old agony aunt, Amy Green, and her crazy seventeen year old aunt, Clover. Together they right all kinds of teenage wrongs, but when to comes to solving their own problems things aren't quite as simple.

When the Boys are Away (one of my books for adults) is about a young mum, Meg and what she gets up to when her partner, a professional sailor is away. The pitch is also in the title pretty much - it's one of my best titles, it says exactly what the book is about, which is really important. But that's a blog for another day.

Can you describe your book in 1 or 2 sentences? It's not easy but it's worth spending time on a killer 1 or 2 line pitch if you want to catch an agent or publisher's eye.

Yours in writing,

Sarah XXX

(With sincere thanks to the agent who so kindly gave me her time!)

My Writer's Manifesto - from the archives

(This was first posted in 2010) According to my Oxford Concise a manifesto is ‘a public declaration of a policy and aims’.

I’m currently planning a tour in October for 3 teen/tween writers – 3 days, 3 cities, 3 remarkable writers – title yet to be decided, but we have some pretty nifty names already. The writers involved are Judi Curtin, writer of the fab Alice and Megan series, Sophia Bennett, writer of the equally fab Threads series set in the London fashion world, and moi!

And I came up with a tongue in cheek manifesto:

No vampires No werewolves No boys that go bump in the night

Real girls Real drama Really amazing stories straight from the heart

We all write books for age 9/10+ with characters who are in their early teens. We all deal with real life issues – family drama, friendship problems, bullying – hence the no vampires, no werewolves bit.

So it got me thinking – maybe I should have my own writing manifesto, a Writer's Manifesto. A ‘public declaration’ of my writing intentions.

So here goes:

I guess my most important aim is to entertain.

The first commandment of popular fiction of any kind or for any age is (as the lovely Claudia Carroll once said): Thou shalt not bore. Quite right too.

Second aim – to say something.

I know this sounds a little vague but sometimes I read books that don’t actually say anything. They just potter along, telling a nice story, but don’t really going anywhere. I think books should have something solid rooted at the heart of them – a theme if you like. Sometimes that theme doesn’t make itself fully known until you finish the 1st or 2nd or even the 3rd draft, but it’s often bubbling away under the surface of your words, slowly rising to the surface. For example in the first Amy Green book I wanted to tell readers that it’s OK to be yourself. In fact it’s pretty darn cool to be yourself. It’s a theme that runs through all the Amy Green books.

My third aim is to write with passion and with confidence.

I’ve been writing for many years now and I’ve started to understand what both of these things really mean and how important they are. Write without passion and you’re doomed. The confidence bit – that can be learned over time. But if you can write with both passion and confidence – then you might just have a pretty good book on your hands.

So there you have it – three aims for my own personal manifesto.

What are your aims when you write?

Do you have a writing manifesto?

Yours in writing,

Sarah XXX

Recommended Books About Writing

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I've been editing for the last two weeks so apologies for the lack of blogs. I taught a writing workshop yesterday and this is the list I gave the writers at the end of the class (along with other notes that I'll post at a later stage). I love good books about writing and here are some of my favourites. I'd advise every anyone interested in writing to invest in and read Stephen King's book, it's excellent. Yours in writing,

Sarah X

On Writing by Stephen King Inspiring and full of good advice.

From Pitch to Publication by Carole Blake Invaluable guide to getting published from an experience agent.

The Right to Write by Julia Cameron One of the best books about being a writer and living a writer’s life I’ve ever found. Succinct, direct and truthful, a book I come back to over and over again if I’m in need of a little writerly pick me up.

Write Away by Elizabeth George Excellent if you want to write crime.

See Jane Write by Sarah Mlynowski and Farrin Jacobs Tips on writing fiction for a female audience – American book – useful if you are interested in writing popular fiction.

Writing for Success by Patricia O’Reilly Sensible advice with a useful Irish slant.

Write a Book in a Year by Jacinta McDevitt Another great Irish book – I think it’s out of print, but you might find a copy in the library.

How Not to Write a Novel by Howard Mittelmark and Sandra Newman Funny, light humored book about how to avoid common writing pitfalls.

The Forest for the Trees: An Editor’s Advice to Writers by Betsy Lerner (American) A fascinating book described as ‘a riveting safari through the wilds of a writer’s brain.’ Ever wondered what exactly editors think about when faced with a manuscript, then this is the book for you!

Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott More memoir than writing guide, but very entertaining.

Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg How to ‘free the writer within’. Some interesting thoughts and ideas about writing.

This Is How It Starts - The Story of a Book Deal

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I’m currently reading This Is How It Ends by Kathleen MacMahon and I’m engrossed. Fantastic characters, immersive plot, strong writing – a real treat. It’s the kind of book that once you start, you just can’t put down and I’m already looking forward to getting back to Addie and Brunos’ tale this evening. It’s set in Dublin and is a love story with a difference. The main characters are thirty-eight and fifty and have the battle scars to prove it. It reminds me in a way of The Bridges of Madison County, another love story with a seam of melancholy running through it. I re-watched the film recently and I was struck by the simplicity and timelessness of the story. This Is How It Ends is very much set at a particular time (just before Obama was elected), but MacMahon's writing has the same classic feel to it.

Over the weekend I read an interview with the writer, a journalist in RTE. In the interview (an excellent piece by Róisín Ingle of the Irish Times) she explained that it wasn’t her first book. She has been writing for eight years now, and had wanted to write a book since she was ten. As Mary Lavin’s granddaughter (the Irish short story writer), she felt the legacy held her back. “I spent a lot of time thinking about writing,” she says in the Irish Times, “but I had to find my own voice. I think if I were doing it ten years ago I might have been trying to impress others. In my family people wouldn’t just be delighted that you had written a book: they would be saying, ‘But is it any good?’ ”

But eventually she decided to put her misgivings and doubts aside. She wrote a novel, The Sixth Victim which landed her an agent, Marianne Gunn O’Connor (via Cormac Kinsella, a well connected literary publicist who recommended her to MacMahon). Gunn O'Connor is highly respected and also represents Cecelia Ahern and many other internationally successful writers. The book was never published although it came close.

MacMahon says in the Irish Times “At the time, Marianne was very disappointed and I was very relieved. Because I thought, Oh no, I am going to have to tell people I am writing now. I was looking around the newsroom in terror. It felt like I was going to have to stand up and take off all my clothes.”

But MacMahon tried again. She wrote a second book and once again sent it to her agent. This time things were a little different. Little, Brown paid £600,000 for a two book deal at last year’s London Book Fair (the deal of the Fair) and the rest is history.

There’s a lesson here for all writers. You get knocked back and you get back up again. You get rejected and you fight back with something even stronger. You try again (multiply by however many times it takes) and you get published. It does happen. Kathleen MacMahon is living proof. Her first book was rejected so she wrote a better book, it’s as simple as that. Her ‘better book’ happens to be an exceptional piece of work and now she has a glowing career ahead of her as a writer.

As Samuel Beckett once said: Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.

Yours in writing,

Sarah XXX

Ode to a Bookshop and a Very Special Bookseller

I was saddened to hear last week that one of my favourite bookshops in the whole world, The Exchange Bookshop in Dalkey, South County Dublin has just closed. The lovely owner, Michael has decided to retire and it’s uncertain as to what will happen to the shop. Will it become yet another coffee shop or restaurant; will another enterprising (and brave) bookseller take it over? We will have to wait and see. In the meantime I wanted to celebrate the shop and what it meant to me as a child and as a teenager growing up in Dalkey. When I was younger Dalkey village had a small children’s library that was housed in the Town Hall. Once a week special green wooden shelves would be rolled out and we’d be taken there to pick our books. Unfortunately there wasn’t much of a range and, as I became a more confident reader, I craved more choice. So Mum took me to The Exchange Bookshop and we looked through the second hand books together, searching for novels that would be suitable for a young teenager.

Gradually Mum allowed me to rummage on my own, and I managed to unearth some gems that she might not have ‘approved’ of had she know the contents, Flowers in the Attic example which I devoured, staying up all night to finish it, racing through each page like a teenager possessed. Michael in the shop did sometimes question the ‘suitability’ of the books I picked, but to his credit never stopped me buying them.

James Herbert, Stephen King, The Outsiders by S E Hinton, books about possession, haunting, vampires – this was my staple reading diet as a teenager (YA or teen fiction was only in its infancy in those days and many of the books were far too ‘worthy’ for my strangely blood-thirsty teen taste). They were interspersed by Maeve Binchy, American teen novels (Sweet Valley High), Judy Blume and the classics, but only ones concerning love and relationships, especially doomed relationships, most notably Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, Jane Austen. Darkness and light, black and pink.

From the age of about eleven I read passionately and voraciously and The Exchange provided much of my story fuel. Unusually it sold both new and second hand books and had a special ‘exchange’ system (hence the name) whereby you could bring back books you’d read and ‘swap’ them for other books. And yes, I admit I ‘exchanged’ many of my mum and dads’ books for Stephen King novels.

Without The Exchange I would not have read so many books as a teenager, it’s as simple as that. And those books – both black and pink - made me the writer that I am today. So I owe a lot to Michael and his wonderful bookshop, as do many other readers (and writers) I suspect. And I wish him all the very best in the future. Maybe now he’ll have time to read himself for a change!

Today, on Shakespeare’s birthday and leading up to World Book Night later, I give thanks for Michael and all the other amazingly hard working and booking loving folk who power the bookshops of Ireland. Booksellers, I salute you! I’m proud to be an ex-member (and hopefully a future member in years to come) of your fold.

Yours in books,

Sarah XXX

Write a Story That Matters

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I've just finished reading The Beginner's Goodbye by Anne Tyler, one of my favourite writers. I was struck (as always) by her wonderfully simple yet evocative language. She's a genius with verbs; makes them work. She paints pictures with her words:

'I tilted my face up and squinted against the sunlight to follow the arc of the spray, which sashayed left, sashayed right, like a young girl swishing her skirts as she walked.'

Her sentences have the power to make you gasp. And you can tell that she's mad about her main character, Aaron despite his glaring flaws.

It's a masterful book and it got me thinking about fiction and why writers write.

I have a great fondness for first novels. Writers throw everything into their first book - passion, joy, heartache; hopes, dreams, failings - it's all there in one heady mix. With a first book you have years to craft your sentences. Once you are a published writer deadlines sneak into the writing equation.

You also think about your readers - will they like your new book? Your editor - what will she/he think? Reviewers - if you are lucky enough to get reviewed. The page is never fresh.

But there is nothing jaded or knowing about The Beginner's Goodbye. Anne Tyler is telling the story that she wants to tell in the her own peerless way. She is writing for herself, telling a tale that she just has to share. And that is how we should all write - telling the story that we just have to tell, regardless of readers/editors/deadlines. We need to get back to the voice of our 1st book and reclaim the joy that we felt, the sheer wonder at creating a fictional world and living, breathing characters.

It is not enough to write a story that you like. If you had three months to live what would you want to tell people? Write that book - a book that matters.

Yours in writing,

Sarah XXX

How to Write a Bestseller – The Secret Ingredient

Last weekend I spoke at the Waterford Writers’ Festival. The subject of the panel discussion was How to Write a Bestseller. The chair of the session, the very able Vanessa O’Loughlin from www.writing.ie asked us to consider the key elements of fiction writing and what makes a bestselling novel: character, dialogue, plot, making your book stand out. Also on the panel were fellow popular fiction writers Monica McInerney, Sinead Moriarty and Niamh Greene. It got me thinking about the nature of the ‘bestseller’. A ‘bestseller’ is simply a book that sells a lot of copies, a book that has thousands of happy readers, all actively recommending it to their friends and family, and on Facebook and Twitter (which I think is the way most bestsellers are created – by word of mouth).

So I thought I’d jot down some of the things that came up during the panel discussion in case they are useful. And at the very end I’ll let you in on the secret – how to write a bestseller – as yes, there is a secret!

First of all: Character

We all agreed that creating big, interesting, real, lovable yet flawed characters is the key to writing good popular fiction. Monica McInerney said she creates her characters before plot; for Sinead Moriarty it’s the other way around. But when it comes to characters, you have to think BIG. (I covered this very topic during the 8 Week Write a Book course on this blog).

Monica writes warm, funny family dramas; Sinead’s books tend to have an issue at the centre – breast cancer, anorexia, breakdown of a family unit – and she takes her research very seriously indeed.

Research

Sinead said something very interesting – she said that you can write about anything as long as you do your research, which she finds very freeing. You keep reading until you know your subject backwards, she said. One of her books, Pieces of My Heart (about an anorexic teenager and her family’s struggle to help her get well again) took a lot of research and after the first draft she had to go back and unpick the chapters that were too research heavy and rewrite them. She was very honest and open about this, which I think was helpful for people to hear. Rewriting is a topic that came up a lot. More about that in a second.

But next: Dialogue

Niamh Greene talked about dialogue and how important it is to get it right. She reads out her dialogue and works on it until it’s perfect. I talked about how each character has to have their own way of speaking in a book, their own voice. If you are unsure about how to approach dialogue, read some of the masters - Roddy Doyle, Marian Keyes, Anne Tyler.

Plot

I explained how important it is to select a subject/setting that you really, really want to write about. It has to be something that fascinates you and that you’re dying to tell your readers about - eg zoo keeping (my latest novel, The Shoestring Club has a zoo keeper in it), the life of a young ballerina (Ask Amy Green: Dancing Daze – now that research – in Budapest – was such fun!).

I always say there are two types of people, the planners and the seat of the pant-ers. Planners know where their passport is weeks before travelling, seat of the pant-ers don’t. If you’re a planner, you may need to plan your book. I’m a planner and I make detailed plot notes for every scene of every book. Now, often these change once I start writing, but I need the plot notes to start a book in the first place – it’s like my safely net in case I get stuck along the way. A book takes a long time to write, and you need all the help you can get!

Monica is not a planner, her books evolve as she writes; Sinead is a planner. We are all different writers, just as we are all different people.

Theme

I talked about theme, about how your book has to say something. At the heart of The Shoestring Club is a family secret and the book is about how a buried secret can have devastating consequences.

Julia, the main character, blames herself for her mother’s death – this is at the heart of every mistake she makes in life. And until she comes to terms with this, she will never live a full life.

What’s your book about? Can you tell me in a few lines? If not, you need to work on your book’s theme. And this doesn’t always come easy. Sometimes the theme won’t be clear to you until after your first or second draft.

Rewriting

The difference between a published novel and an unpublished novel - the rewrites. Simple as that. Your first draft is just a starting point. Keep working on it until it's a perfect as you can make it. Again, see my Write a Book Course for more on this.

Motivation

You have to want to write more than anything in the world. If you don’t have this overwhelming drive and passion, there’s no point in writing. Marilyn Munroe once said:

‘I wasn’t the prettiest, I wasn’t the most talented, I simply wanted it more than anyone else.’

Do you want to get published more than anyone else?

Because that’s the secret. Motivation, tenacity, drive. And the willingness to be honest, to cut a vein and bleed all over the page; to write about things that scare you, upset you, terrify you. You have to dig deep. It has to hurt. If it doesn’t, there’s no point writing. Unless you have to write, unless you have a burning need to tell people about something that means everything to you, don’t bother.

I’ll leave you with these final words from Pablo Neruda:

‘For me writing is like breathing. I could not live without breathing and I could not live without writing.’

Yours in writing,

Sarah XXX

My Predictions for the 2012 CBI/'Bisto' Award Shortlist

My Predictions for the 2012 Children's Books Ireland ('Bisto') Award Shortlist

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Last year was a good year for children’s books written and illustrated by Irish authors and illustrators (the award is given to books published in 2011), with some exciting new names joining established ones. There were less 'Irish' picture books published last year (after a stellar year in 2010 – culminating in Chris Haughton’s win for A Bit Lost), but it was a strong year for teen novels, with Ger Meade’s Flick a notable debut. Ger has six young children, so the fact that she’s writing at all astounds me!

This list is my own personal opinion, and it’s just for fun. Let’s see how many I get ‘right’! The actual shortlist will be announced on 20th March.

1/ A Greyhound of a Girl by Roddy Doyle – my prediction for overall winner One of my favourite books of the year – lyrical and touching, with fantastic characters.

2/ Spirit of the Titanic by Nicola Pierce – my prediction for the Eilís Dillon Award (or Ger Meade’s Flick – depending on the judges’ tastes) – a very strong historical novel about a young boy and the Titanic. May also get the Children’s Choice Award.

3/ Marshall Armstrong is New to This School by David Mackintosh – Honour Award for Illustration – my favourite picture book of the year – it deserves the overall award and I’d love to see it win. The dark horse of the awards!

4/ Bruised by Siobhan Parkinson – Honour Award for Fiction – a beautifully written teen novel.

5/ Flick by Ger Meade – possible Eilís Dillon Award or Special Judges' Award – full of drama and emotion, it’s impossible not to be impressed by this debut novel.

6/ My Dad is Ten by Mark O’Sullivan – another strong, gritty teen novel.

7/ Stuck by Oliver Jeffers – it’s Oliver, what more can I say?

8/ No One But You Illustrated by P J Lynch – stunning illustrations from one of Ireland’s finest artists.

9/ Maitriosce by Siobhan Parkinson – I haven’t read this one but I believe it’s great and there tends to be at least one book in Irish on the shortlist. Or Dordán, which my friend, Liz says is the best book she's read all year in any language!

10/ The Lonely Beast by Chris Judge (another possible contender for the Eilís Dillon) – another new talent on the Irish picture book scene. Winner of the Irish Book Awards (Junior Section) last year.

Also might be shortlisted:

The Horse Girl by Mary Finn – Beautifully written historical fiction. Into the Grey by Celine Kiernan – A ghost story so unnerving I have to admit I didn’t finish it! Arthur Quinn and the World Serpent by Alan Early -  A good action adventure story, with 1 or 2 cracking scenes towards the end. The Butterfly Heart by Paula Leyden – Beautifully written story set in Africa. Sally Go Round the Stars Illustrated by Steve McCarthy – A book of Irish and international nursery rhymes that I compiled it with Claire Ranson. The illustrations are mighty! Steve deserves a nomination but he’s up against some tough competition.

Deserve to be shortlisted but will probably not be shortlisted: Palace of the Damned by Darren Shan – one of his best yet – wonderful sense of place and vivid, muscular writing. I would love to see Darren on the shortlist one day. Skulduggery Pleasant Death Bringer by Derek Landy – funny, smart and BIG. Eva’s Holiday by Judi Curtin – again, one of her best yet – warm and engaging. 

For more on the Award see here.