The Word Cloud

Another day, another triumph.

Following the Festival of Writing, Roger Hardy has been taken on by Peter Buckman of the Ampersand Agency. I know Peter well, and he's a top bloke, a top agent.

Monster congrats to Roger, and I hope he snares a monster deal sometime soon.

But congrats too to Roger and Debi (his editor of a many a year) for a different reason. This isn't Roger's first book; far from it. He's used a series of books to hone his craft, and each time he's got better, and each time he's used tough advice from Debi to get himself in shape.

If I'm honest, when we first started working with Roger, I didn't think he'd make it. And now he has. And he has done because he's gone about this in absolutely the right way - and it hasn't hurt that he's been working with one of our most gifted & generous editors. So major monster aerial congrats to all. Oh, and do read Debi's post of a year back about all these things.

Um. How to say this. It's not like I've been unfaithful. She means nothing to me. We don't have the history. We don't have the memories.

But yes. I have been - uh - elsewhere. Doing this.

The new blog won't replace this blog, or the Cloud, or anything like that. More, it's a way of creating a set of public access advice pages for non-Clouders, in a way that doesn't clog up the entire WW website.

Do take a look at what I've been up to. Feel free to comment. If you find any of the posts there useful or controversial, do feel free to blog about them, link to them, or whatver. All cyber-activity is good activity.(*)


* - except cyber warfare I suppose. I'm against that.

Massively monster congratulations to Cicely Havely, whose book Mrs Vale's Special Girls has just been taken on by Piers Blofeld at Shiel Land.

Those of you who were at the Festival on Friday night will remember Cicely's triumphant reading - and the all but unanimous audience vote which saw her win that comp.

Following that success, Cicely met Piers at the Festival. They got on very well. Cicely wanted to make some changes to her MS (following, I think, some hints from a book doctor), and Piers has just seen and fallen in love with the final manuscript. Another absolutely fantastic festival success story - and one that is another triumph for wonderful, impassioned, committed writing.

Cicely is a lovely person too, so I'm double-chuffed for her. Congrats too to Tricia Wastvedt, who was Cicely's original editor with the WW.

(Also, since we're on this theme, modestly monster congrats to me too. My crime novel has just sold in France and to Random House in the US. I've never properly sold a book in the US before, so it's exciting not merely to have a sale, but to be published by such a top class publisher. More thoughts on all that in another post. Meanwhile, um, I think I need to write crime novel #2. People seem to want it ...)

Hi folks, One of our lovely WW editors, Claire Gillman, has a book out on how to write non-fiction. Claire is a prolific non-fic writer herself and has done sterling work with our clients in the past - several of whom have gone on to get published. So here's a short guest blog from her, on the art & craft of non-fic ...

"One of the things I have loved most about being a non-fiction editor for Writers’ Workshop is seeing the sheer diversity and breadth of material that crosses my desk. There’s certainly no shortage of people who are keen to share their specialist knowledge or who want to tell their remarkable true story to a wider audience.

Both through the Writers’ Workshop and on the writing courses that I run, I meet plenty of people who want advice on writing and publishing ‘self-help’ and ‘how to’ books, either based on their expertise gained from a career or hobby, or more often prompted by a life-changing discovery, the benefits of which they then want to share with others so they too can transform their lives.

Perhaps surprisingly, life-writing (including travel and personal memoirs) makes up a large proportion of the manuscripts that I receive to critique. Whether it’s processing and describing difficult events from their own past or sharing extraordinary adventures and lives lived to the full, these projects are invariably interesting to work on. Sometimes the stories are heartbreakingly tragic although mercifully these usually have an uplifting ending.

Yet, whatever the subject, what I enjoy the most is the fact that these new writers are endlessly inventive in the ways they tell their stories: from candid diaries through reportage-style observations to absorbing creative non-fiction, employing imaginative descriptions and dialogue.

The valuable insights I gain from working closely with new writers gave me the initial ideas for what to include in my latest book, How to Write Fantastic Non-Fiction: And Get it Published, released last month by Hodder. In the book, as well as writing tips and advice on routes to publication, there are chapters on the styles of non-fiction discussed above and many others including writing for children, for magazines and newspapers, and for television and radio.

Non-fiction is a genre of writing that is often over-shadowed by its sexier cousin, fiction. Yet, the breadth of sub-genres within non-fiction mean that there is almost bound to be a suitable outlet for new writers’ talents, and the publishing opportunities are more plentiful than for fiction. In addition, new media has opened up even more ways to showcase non-fiction writing.

For some of the writers I work with, the ultimate aim is not publication. And that’s absolutely fine. For them, the process of writing – the research, the editing, the perfecting of the words, and producing the final manuscript – that is the greatest joy and the most liberating and fulfilling aspect of writing. In telling personal histories, often the author wants a story to survive in print and to be passed on to family members, and that is enough.

For me, the best bit about being a Writers’ Workshop editor is the delight of seeing the transformation in new writers as they develop greater confidence and pleasure in their improving skills. And when one of your authors gets an agent or a non-fiction publishing deal, well that’s just the icing on the cake."

Claire Gillman /www.clairegillman.com

Dear Cloudlings, Just thought I would shine a little light on your day and let you know about a fab 6 week online course 'How to Write a Novel' run by those lovely people at the Writers' Workshop... oh that's us! It starts on 4th June and the course tutor is our very own Jessica Ruston, prize-winning and best-selling author. So if any of you feel the need of a little direction, inspiration or just downright encouragement have a look at the course details on http://www.writersworkshop.co.uk/howtowrite_6.aspdo , or to find out more about how the courses run in general go to http://www.writersworkshop.co.uk/tour1.asp

The Cloud

Well, it's happened. Waterstones has been sold. The purchaser is a Russian billionaire. The purchase price is £53 million (and still conditional on shareholder approvals). You can read the announcement here.

If you do click through to that announcement, you'll see how relentlessly negative the sales data is for HMV and Waterstones. That's a little bit of recession. Mostly though, it's the crashing tide of e-books and e-music. Heck of a time to be buying a book chain!

Good news though in all this. The new MD is going to be James Daunt - an outstanding indie bookseller, who knows & loves books, who values them as beautiful physical objects, who doesn't believe in buying books from publishers 1-page Advance Information sheets.

Daunt will have a massive job on his hands - and most certainly will need to oversee large closures or store reductions - but there could be no one better than him to do it. Let's wish him luck.

I've been a pro author for more than ten years now without ever having won anything for my endeavour, so it was a pleasure to go along to the Orwell Awards yesterday and help collect the Best Book gong.

Admittedly, the prize was awarded to my late father - the book in question is The Rule of Law - and I was there to support my mother who received it on his behalf. It was quite a moving occasion for us, of course. Mum made a good, punchy, well-received speech and everyone was generous in honouring Dad's book. Dad would have been really chuffed. It was a very nice event.

One curious thought, though. Supposing George Orwell were alive today and wrote 1984 - a dystopian sci-fi book with political overtones. Would a leading literary agent take him seriously? Or would the book end up in the fantasy/sci-fi ghetto? And Animal Farm - a book about talking pigs - would that sell today? Or would it be forced into some Young Adult sub-category? Interesting questions. I'm not sure I know the answer.

As an occasional feast for Clouders, I'm going to run a 'blog exchange' series, in which I post a blog from someone else in the blogosphere, plus my comment on their post, plus (if they like) their comment on my comment.

Our guest blogger today is Rachel Power. Her blog is The Rachel Papers. And our subject is the controversial book ROOM, by Emma Donoghue. Take a look at what we've started - then get stuck in yourself. Tell us why we're wrong. Or right. Or anything.


First, Rachel's initial blog:

Have any of you read Emma Donoghue ’s Room?

The difficulty with talking about this book is that there’s almost no way of doing so without giving away key plot points.

Nevertheless, I can say that I can’t remember the last time I read a book that had me so gripped, and affected me so physically! At one stage I was reading in the bath and was so utterly compelled to keep reading, the water went completely cold around me and I didn't even notice.

I had some small misgivings — perhaps only to be discussed with those who have also read the book, in the comments, with a ‘spoiler alert’ — but they didn't take away from its overall impact.

The main reason I am mentioning the book here, though, is because I think it’s a great example of a novel written by someone who has used their access to a child's way of talking and seeing the world as material for writing.

Some of us have more access to our ‘child selves’ than others — or at least memory of what it was like to be young — and I’m not trying to suggest that you cannot understand or write from a child’s perspective unless you have kids… but it sure does help.

The authenticity of this book’s five-year-old narrator’s voice — with it’s cute grammatical errors and limited perspective — suggests close observation of her children.

I also felt great admiration for the 'Ma' character, who shows such remarkable creativity and discipline in raising and educating her child, under the most horrific and potentially damaging circumstances. And at the same time, this focus and need for routine that he requires has been her saviour.

Admittedly there were moments when I felt frustrated by the five-year-old narrative — not the character himself, who remains loveable throughout (quite a feat in itself), but the way his viewpoint kept you at a distance from the central horrors of the story.

But then I realised that this avoids the sensationalism that its theme could easily have exploited, and that this book is much more about the force of the parent–child bond. It raises all sorts of questions about the nature of freedom and about a child's needs. Also their capacity for fierce love and courage.

Next Harry's comment:
Well, what a book! More than that, what an audacious concept. To take the true-life Joseph Fritzl story and fictionalise it – what a tasteless, ill-judged act that could have been.

And Donoghue’s Room is not seedy, not exploitative. What’s more, Rachel, I think you’re right about the voice. This for example: ‘I choose Meltedy Spoon with the white all blobby on his handle when he leaned on the pan of boiling pasta by accident. Ma doesn’t like Meltedy Spoon but he’s my favourite because he’s not the same.’

No question, that’s beautifully done. ‘Meltedy’, not Melty, or Melted, or even meltedy. And the imprecision of ‘the white all blobby’ (Jack’s phrase) but the precision of Ma’s ‘pan of boiling pasta’. The personification of the spoon. But above all that achingly touching phrase, ‘because he’s not the same’.

And yet, I ended up not liking the book, and here’s why. If you take a subject of such darkness to write about it is your responsibility as an author – as a human – to honour the darkness. To follow the logic of your own storyline unflinchingly to where it leads.

But it seems to me (and I want to avoid spoilers) that Room evades every hard question. At the end of the book, everyone’s fine. It was a bit weird adjusting, but only a bit. Jack and Ma had some difficult moments, but give them a few weeks and it’s all over.

The book seemed like a Disney version of the truth, like wishful thinking. Do we honestly think that a pair who had undergone what Ma and Jack had undergone would not be severely scarred by their ordeal? Of course not. We know that people who suffer much less trauma are permanently injured. Donoghue’s faultlessly appealing telling lifts her over and away from the painful question of what is actually being told. I think if you write about Fritzl, you need to deal with Fritzl. Donoghue writes beautifully – and I don’t for a second begrudge her success – but it’s not a book I’d recommend myself.

And finally, Rachel's comment on my comment:
I agree that if Donoghue had been writing a non-fiction book about Fritzl, then she would have had certain clear responsibilities. But surely as a fiction writer, as long as she is not directly harming or exploiting anyone, her main responsibility is to her story; and to fulfilling her own intentions as best she can.

I suspect what compelled Donoghue to write Room was curiosity about how a mother might manage in such extreme circumstances. After all, alongside the more horrific and traumatic elements of these stories is the question of how a person might cope with the boredom and banality of long days in captivity without going mad. For a mother, this would mean the trials of dealing with the day-to-day needs of your children in the most deficient of circumstances.

Like you, Harry, I initially had similar misgivings about Jack’s innocent viewpoint keeping us at arm’s length from the true awfulness of his and Ma's circumstances. But I concluded that this was one of the book’s main themes: a mother’s instinct to protect, and the limits of her power to do so. For Jack, their world, though at times confusing, was also comforting in its confines; it was all Jack knew. And therein lies the kind of questions I think Donoghue was seeking to explore.

Besides, on the matter of darkness, I don’t know if you can get much grimmer than the image of a naive boy hiding in a cupboard and counting the number of times the bed squeaks as his captor–father rapes his young mother.

I agree the book hits some false notes in its second half, particularly the response of Ma’s family, which at times seems too casual and careless. And it’s true that we don’t get a full sense of Ma’s suffering, but again I think Donoghue is more interested in looking at the impact of the inevitable disruption to the intensity of the mother–child bond.

There are plenty of other, often much more sensationalist, sources out there if you're looking to rub your nose in the sickening reality of these real-life cases. But Donoghue was perhaps trying for something more poignant with her novel.

I think the fact that we’re debating these questions is enough of a reason to recommend Room as a gripping and thought-provoking read.   

To Ruth Mazet, whose Horse Talk is being acquired by the equine publishers, JA Allen. Congratulations to her - it's been a heck of a journey - and to Jane Struthers who was the WW dynamo on the project. Equine champers all round.

Oh, and if you like crime novels and you haven't yet seen my blog on crime reviewing, then don't you think it's time you did?

OK folks, I have a crazy plan - and I want YOU to be involved.

Here's the deal. I thought it would be fun to start a crime blog. (It'll be linked to the WW site, so you won't have to leave home to find it.) It'll be a review site: we'll aim to review every crime novel that comes out in the UK.

I'll be one of the reviewers. I've got a DCI / forensics expert to be a reviewer. I'm rounding up a couple of other crime writing professionals as well. But the heart of the site will be you: passionate writers who also love reading crime fiction.

If you're interested, just say so in the comments below and I'll get in touch directly. We'll aim to launch, I would guess, in 6-8 weeks. The site might look a teeny bit like this -  but I might change the look. You never know.

If you're interested in doing some reviews for us, then the deal would be:

• every now and then we send you books to review
• you read em
• you say what you think in a blog post on the site

That's it. You'd be properly credited, of course. You wouldn't have to do more books than you wanted. You'd get the books free and could keep em afterwards.

Um. Any questions? Any interest?