The first twin arrived screaming and scrunched, as expected. The doctors, though, were not yet smiling. There was tugging and frozen expressions from the midwife and the surgeon before the second appeared; no sound, no movement. It was whisked away. They had both gone and there hadn’t been time for explanations. Tense murmurings drifted through the air from a side room in the theatre. The air was thick with questions and disinfectant. There had been nothing natural or relaxed about the event. It had been meticulously planned: a home birth with candles and low music, white noise almost. That was until the kicks slowed and she had started to feel feint….
I was asked to speak last week at Arlingtons Bar in Ipswich for a Young Adult Carers book group, run by the Suffolk Family Carers about my short story collection, My Brother Was a Kangaroo, which they had just read. They were an interesting and engaging bunch who clearly loved books. I was welcomed with some fabulous coffee and cake and we launched into conversation about short stories and favourite authors.
The building itself is beautiful. A Grade ll listed building with a fascinating past, it used to be a museum and later became a dance hall. During it’s first years, the museum had as it’s President Revd Professor John Stevens Henslow, who had been Charles Darwin’s mentor at Cambridge University. The British Association for the advancement of Science met at Ipswich and the building was admired by HRH Prince Albert, who became it’s official Patron.
The writer/researcher in me relishes these details!
We began with an ice breaker which had been organised by the staff who run the book group. The answers to their questions helped to steer the session. Most of them wanted to improve their own writing skills and to understand how a story is formed and written.
The young carers were intrigued by the different writing styles of authors: we discussed writing evolving versus meticulous planning. I am more if the former and I suggested that many crime writers fall into the latter category. They were interested to learn that Tolstoy plotted out each character in War and Peace in a chart.
This little side room was our setting for the evening. The walls were covered in old black and white photos of Paris, which we later used as inspiration for our own stories. I read them the opening story in the collection, Blood Red. I enjoy reading stories aloud and when I read my own to a group, I relive it each time. There is something magical about reading to an audience. The topic is quite gritty so I kept my eyes focused on the words rather than looking up. It was a fun evening and I think I learned a great deal from them about the power of words and the ability to escape into other worlds, especially when their own lives can be very challenging.
He had seen her the day before, drinking a late and typing on her laptop in a quiet corner of the cafe. She had worn a red beret and a black, high-necked top over blue jeans. Her legs had been crossed, her head turned away from the crowds. Today she looked sad, her typing, faster. He could see the words of an article, for a paper or a journal? Tomorrow she may be here again, maybe not. He walked over to her, sat down and read his paper next to her. Tomorrow she may not be here.
I was invited into my children’s primary school this week to talk about my books, and writing novels and short stories, and to teach some creative writing in Year 5 and 6.
It was a great experience and the children were a captive audience. They asked some intelligent questions about whether you begin a story at the beginning or in the middle, and how you weave flashbacks into a story. We discussed some of their favourite authors, Jacqueline Wilson being one of the favourites! Many of them enjoyed historical fiction and some had already written their own stories outside school and wanted to talk about the writing process and ask for advice. As a qualified teacher, going back into the classroom felt very natural, but I would recommend that writers speak to as many different audiences as possible. It gives you an opportunity to exercise your public speaking skills for events, like public readings, and it engages people in discussion about books, and encourages young minds to think outside the box.
As an author, you do get asked to speak at book groups, in schools, and in a few months I will be teaching some young adults with mental health issues about writing. Why? Because people want to know about the process, they want to discuss books and share commonalities.
This morning I spoke at a book group meeting. The members of the group had read my debut novel, Take Me to the Castle, and they invited me to come and speak. They wanted to discuss the writing process and the background to the book.
It was an interesting experience for me as an author and I learned a great deal about what readers want to know. Their questions mirrored many of the reader emails I receive. One of the most interesting questions was, what, if anything, I would have changed about the story. Many readers have said they felt devastated by the loss of one of the characters, which the book group agreed with and they had also felt the same way. This led to a discussion about what captures the heart of the reader and how we become involved in the lives of the characters. They also wanted to know if finishing a manuscript created a sense of loss for an author. My answer was a resounding, yes. It does, it really does. When you spend a few years inside the lives and minds of your characters, closing a door into their world is a bereavement of sorts, even if only fictional.
We covered many areas of publishing, editing, writing, research and whether people prefer ebooks over paperbacks. We discussed the length of the editing process and what happens at each stage of the publishing process at Random House. From an initial idea to the final product, it takes roughly a year to create a book.
They were keen to know the million dollar question (and it is one that is asked most often at literary festivals and in author interviews)….
“Where do your ideas come from?”
While it is difficult to give a tangible answer, because the answer varies from writer to writer, and from story to story, what I can say is that most writing develops from an idea. That idea is often sparked by your own experiences or feelings, or those of others. Every experience creates an image or a thought, every person reveals character traits that can be woven into a fictional character. And in the case of my short story collection, My Brother Was a Kangaroo, I said that some of the stories are purely fictional, while others find their origins in real life experiences.
We discussed the fact that many ideas evolve from a snippet of information or a scene that appears in your imagination. We discussed the creative process and the difficulty of writer’s block. There were many questions and ideas but what really resonated with me was that fact that everyone gleans different experiences from the same story.
F C MALBY 
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