Pensieves and Post-its

‘It is called a Pensieve’ said Dumbledore, ‘I sometimes find, and I am sure you know the feeling, that I simply have too many thoughts and memories crammed into my mind.’

‘Er.’ Said Harry, who couldn’t truthfully say that he had ever felt anything of the sort.

I’m with Dumbledore on this one. Far too many thoughts…

For some months now I have been ignoring an increasing large problem in my writing. I was ignoring it for several reasons. Firstly, I had a hard choice to make, and secondly whichever way I chose would result in the need for a drastic re-write… boo L

What started out as a novel for 9-11 year olds was now twice the length it should be for a book in that range, and far heavier too (theme wise, not weight wise! Although actually…) So clearly the book was heading into YA territory. Which would have been fine except that my main character was all of twelve years old and acting every year of it. Which just doesn’t work (no matter how much you stick your head in the sand and pretend it will all be okay!)

After something  of a stern telling off, and some subsequent words of advice over at my favourite writers' stomping ground, I was faced with this choice: age up or simplify down.

I could either cut down the story and simplify it for the intended 9-11 year old age group, or go with the flow and bump up the age of my main characters.

So how to decide? Did I embark on a reading spree and study more books of the same genre? Share my writing and ask for advice? Borrow Dumbledore’s Pensieve? Ah, I wish.

I did the next best thing – spent my bus money on some Rowntrees Randoms and walked home. Which was a good three miles.  Which meant a good 50 minutes thinking time. Luckily it’s not a very busy route so I don’t think more than three people witnessed me arguing with myself. 

By the time I got home I’d figured out where the story was really heading, and it wasn’t a place for 9 year old readers. Or 12 year old characters. No matter how much I love them.

I think I finally understand the pain of killing your darlings. It sucks.

I am dreading re-writing the first four chapters, mostly because that was the one section I thought was pretty much complete! Now they’re lining the cat’s litter tray.

Oh well. You live and learn.

So back to Dumbledore and his Pensieve and how to tackle the re-write. I may not be able to pour my thoughts out into a bowl, but I do have the next best thing.

Yep, you guesses it.

Post it notes!!!

A few months back I had the slight mishap of losing a character, so I mapped out my plot in multi-coloured post-its on the wall.

As you do.

It turned out to be quite handy, so there they have stayed. As I started rewriting, things have started changing. Turns out my 15 year old is far more impatient than she was at 13, so things are moving at a quicker pace, and occasionally in a different order. God bless re-adhesive sticky notes.

Well that's all from me this week, as I now have a couple of newly unruly teenagers to tend to!

Enjoy the sunshine while it lasts everyone!

bye for now,

Laura

And breathe...

Lets not leave the week on a rant shall we? C'mon, if these guys can work things out there's hope for all of us!

Peace and love everyone, have a good weekend!

L xxx

It's my blog and I'll rant if I want to

It’s not often I get political, mostly ‘cause I’m a wuss and fear the backlash, but this one has really got my back up.

Writers on Twitter will no doubt have seen the kafuffle that kicked off after GP Taylor announced on BBC Breakfast yesterday, that he thought some kind of book censorship should be introduced for children’s’ and teen books.

Okay first of all, this is a completely dead argument. You might want to do some research before you say such silly things on tv. How would anyone enforce this certification? Who would decide what is suitable for what age range? I can’t even be bothered to list the problems with this, as they are both boring and obvious.

Not only is the argument dead, it has been dead a long time. When I was seventeen I had this debate in my Media Studies class, with regards to age certification of music and books. This was when I was seventeen. That’s a whopping fourteen years ago*. Certification is not the way forward Mr Taylor, it is a huge step back.

*Edit - ahem - make that thirteen years ago. Apparently ranting has aged me a year in a day...

Jus to infuriate me even more, another argument that never fails to make my toes curl was made…

‘Back when I was a kid, books were about having adventures and drinking ginger beer…’

Okay, now I’m sure back in her day, when the world was all sunshine and lollipops Enid Blyton’s writing was much more relatable to her target audience, but here’s my point:

Enid Blyton wrote the majority of her work from 1940 – 1960…  Now I’m going to make a really crazy assumption here, try and stay with me… what if, just what if ...the world has changed since then? I know, I know, clearly I’ve had too much sugar this afternoon to be making such wild assumptions…

I digress – this wasn’t supposed to turn into an Enid bashing, I actually enjoyed her stories a lot when I was a kid, but please lets stop using her as the benchmark of suitability against which all children’s fiction should be judged. It makes me want to punch things.

One of the reasons I am so annoyed by this is that I actually really like GP Taylor’s books, he’s a great children’s writer and I can’t help but feel let down that he has come out with this claptrap. But that’s my personal issue, I will try and get passed it.

As for judging the suitability of books for kids, how’s this for an idea…  

If your kids are still young enough that you are choosing their books for them, take the time to do a little research. Look online. Read reviews. Read the books themselves. Visit the library, or you know, just ask in the books shops themselves.

If you’re 9 year old son is scared of his own shadow, then maybe don’t buy him anything by Darren Shan. On the other hand if he’s spending the weekend playing Grand Theft Auto and whatever shoot-em-up game is currently doing the rounds, then a little bit of teen horror might be more appropriate.

And if you’re kids are old enough to pick their own books, well I just said it. They are old enough to choose for themselves.

Patrick Ness put it perfectly yesterday:

‘Children are great self-censors: they know what they can read and they know what they want to read’

Yes. Yes they do.

He also said a whole lot of other lovely sensible things which you can read here.

The whole thing winds me up no end, because quite frankly all that is needed for this entire problem to go away is an ounce of common sense.

Thank you, I’m here all week!

The Long Walk

Busy week this week – On Wednesday morning I walked all the way from Cirencester to Swindon on a sponsored walk. For those of you who don’t know the area it’s a good 16 miles!

We started at Ciren at 5:30am (otherwise known as ridiculous o’clock). The first 6 miles were pretty easy, if rather muddy, going. We arrived in Cricklade looking like we’d spent the weekend at Glastonbury, but I was quite surprised that after only 4 hours sleep, and 2 and a half hours walking, I wasn’t tired at all.

The second leg was not so easy. Though it was easier going underfoot (we were blessed with actual paths now) our brief stop was enough for my body to remember that it would really rather be sleeping. By the time we got to Shaw my legs were no longer my friends and quite frankly I could have slept quite happily in the dirt.

I did save a drowning butterfly along the way though, so, you know, not a wasted trip.

We got to work at 11:30, and after a rather extended lunch break, some of us even managed to do some work in the afternoon (or at least pretend quite convincingly).

This was all to raise money for a local charity ABC (Affected By Cancer). So far we’ve raised a good £1000 and counting.  

Job well done, team.

Start at Reading next year?

PS I haven't been slacking off on the writing, oh no, quite the opposite! Update to follow next week...

My time at Hogwarts

Gosh, two weeks of silence… well sadly I did not get to stay at Hogwarts, though I tried my best! Returning to the real world has been pretty depressing – once you’ve run down Diagon Alley, Swindon high street just ‘aint the same.

Sadly most of the best photos (i.e. all the ones with me posing!) were taken on other people’s cameras, so will have to post them another time. In the meantime though, here’s a little bit of magic for your Friday afternoon

The cupboard under the stairs

'Harry was used to spiders, because the cupboard under the stairs was full of them, and that was where he slept.'

The Great Hall! My sister got overly excited at this point of the tour and we may have ended up re-creating the infamous ‘Troll in the dungeon!’ scene… complete with dead faint at the end… (and I wonder why they wouldn’t let me stay…)

  

The Gryffindor common room - how gutted was I that those stairs didn’t actually go anywhere!

The boys dorm – actually felt a bit naughty being in there! Not sure girls are allowed…

Dumbledore’s pensieve… Cannot stress how badly I need one of these at the moment!

This was actually the greatest optical illusion of the day – a corridor in the Leaky Cauldron – actually only goes back about three feet! That door at the end is tiny!

  

Diagon flippin’ Alley! The cobblestones are very uneven. Think twice before you decide to run the length of it.

We all had our pictures taken outside out favourite shops. Annoyingly these pictures are on my sister’s camera! My picture was outside Flourish & Blotts, naturally!

Magic is Might at the Ministry…

I also paid a visit to the Dursleys…



Hello? Social services calling…



I feel a little context is needed for what happened next… It was the end of a long day, I was tired, probably over excited, and already wishing that I never had to go home…

Throughout the tour they had been playing music from the films, and as I was making my way through a corridor full of the most amazing tiny models I have ever seen, surrounded by some stunning artwork, over the sound system came Patrick Doyle’s Hogwarts Hymn (from the Goblet of Fire… where Cedric dies… anyone see where this is going?)  

I looked up to see that I had lagged behind (again) so jogged down the rest of the corridor, turned a corner and was faced with this.

I did what any life-long Potter nerd would do.

I, um...cried.

Yep. Actual tears. And then I laughed, and then I made the tour guide take a picture of my whole family outside Hogwarts while the tears were fresh on my face! (Grrr – again I do not have this photo!)

I have to confess that these last few pictures are not mine – my memory card was full by then, I sent my brother off on photo duty whilst I gazed in wonder until I had to be asked to leave!

On the way home I knew how Harry must have felt going back to the Dursleys every summer.

Was pretty much the best day of my life!

All you Potter fans, go, go! You will not be dissapointed! Though you may become completely dissillussioned with your own hum-drum lives.

Bye for now!

Laura

I’M GOING TO HOGWARTS!!!!!

I had a lovely sensible post all line up for today, but it’s been bumped because I’m far too excited to talk about sensible things!

Firstly, if you are not aware of the extent of my Harry Potter obsession take a look here, then, if you are brave enough, come back for the rest of this post.

I’ve loved Harry a long time. A good twelve years and counting! Not only was I one of those fruitcakes who camped out till midnight to get the latest book, on more than one occasion I was first in line!

My sister and I have had endless conversations on our imaginary lives at Hogwarts. I would have been a Ravenclaw, Jo fears she’d have been a Hufflepuff. My Patronus would have been an elephant (awesome for stomping on Dementors, less effective at delivering stealth messages…) Jo’s Patronus was a hedgehog – curling up into a ball at the first sign of danger and having to be rolled into battle like a prickly bowling ball.

Neither of us fancied becoming an animagus – I always thought it sounded too much like hard work, and what if at the end of it all you turned into was a slug?

We both agreed that we’d have got into as much trouble as Harry though – how could you live in a castle full of secret passageways and not go exploring at two in the morning?

Well, after all these years of dreaming, we are finally off to Hogwarts!

Tomorrow I shall be boarding a train (sadly not the Hogwarts Express) and heading to the Leavesden studios for the Harry Potter tour! Quite frankly it’s taking all my willpower right now not to run around the office waving a wand and shouting EXPECTO PATRONUM at fellow employees!

If I get my own way, I will stay there forever. I  wonder if work will allow me to conduct business via Owl Post…

I think perhaps I will be forced to leave at some point though, so will be around next week to report back (and of course post about a thousand photos!)

Well that’s it. I’m off to pick my sister up from the station before we head off home to embark on a Harry Potter movie marathon!

Have a good weekend Muggles!

Life contemplation, Lefty style

Well this is it. My last post as a Twenty-Nine year old!

Any attempts to let this birthday slide by quietly were scuppered this morning when I walked into work to find my desk covered (and I mean covered) in banners, balloons and glitter.

People I don’t even know are currently wishing me a happy birthday as they pass by my desk! (It’s actually not till Tuesday folks!)

So for this week’s post I thought maybe I should contemplate the milestone that is turning 30.

You know, assess my life so far, decide what I want for the future do some soul searching and bare my feeling to you all…

Yeah… needless to say I got no further than three lines into that before I abandoned it in favour of Hollyoaks and half a packet of chocolate buttons…

Turns out my desk this morning sums it all up better than I ever could. Glitter, sparkles and lovely surprises. (Oh and a card that quotes Shakespeare. Well done people!)

Who cares where my life is heading? Who cares where it’s been? So long as there is birthday cake all is right with the world (There is cake, right? Someone has remembered cake? Mum?)

I have a week off work now to lounge about and enjoy myself (you know the usual - reading, writing, watching America's Next Top Model...) but my real birthday treat isn't until the 16th June, where I will be heading off to the Harry Potter studio tours!

Yep. This is what real grown-ups do on their birthdays!

Am quite ridiculously excited about this - have been dreaming of running amok in Diagon Alley since I was seventeen! I promise pictures and stories galore when I get back (unless of course I just decide to live there forever...)

In other news, I had a lovely message yesterday telling me I had been nominated for a Versatile Blogger award!

Watch this space for my own nominations – and thank you very much for the nomination Amy!

Hope you all have a fantastic Jubilee weekend, and I will catch up with you in a week!

Laura

PS – Don’t forget Race for Life is on the 9^th – you can still sponsor me here! Thanks!