Lian Tanner's Blog, page 9

New bookplates!

I’ve been wanting some new bookplates for a while, mainly because the two lots I’ve got are for specific trilogies. And I wanted something more general that would encompass everything I’m writing, which now includes picture books (and other secret projects).

So I commissioned Sher Rill Ng, the artist who did the brilliant covers for the Rogues trilogy, to design something. And this is what she came up with.

 

Isn’t it beautiful? I’m going to order them today, so it’ll be a while before they are available. But if you’d like one (or two or three), leave a message on this post, and I’ll be in touch.

If you’re not a follower of my Facebook page, you might not know that my new website is live. (Actually, given how miserly Facebook is these days about distributing posts, you might not know even if you do follow my page.) The new site has been in the works for about a year, designed by the very patient Jin Wang, who specialises in author sites. It took so long because I changed my mind endless times about what I wanted it to look like, and because I wanted to be able to do all the updating myself, which I suspect meant a lot of extra work for Jin.

It’s still not quite finished – I think the main thing now is to get the blog/newsletter subscriptions linked to the free story. That should happen this week. If you’re already a subscriber, your story should arrive in an email.

You don’t get quite the same effect on a phone, so if you haven’t already, check it out on a tablet/laptop/desktop.

The post New bookplates! appeared first on Lian Tanner.

How do you write a bestseller?

Does anyone actually know the answer to this? I suspect not – if they did, they’d all be doing it and we’d be awash with bestsellers.

But I’m asking the question because I’m off to the Tamar Valley Writers Festival this week, and this is the title of a panel I’m on. When I first saw it, I blinked and thought, what on earth am I going to say? I’ve got a bit more of an idea about it now, but mostly it boils down to ‘no one knows’.

Some people think there’s a formula, but they’re usually people who have never actually written anything. Some people think it’s up to the publishers – if they push the book hard enough, it’ll become a bestseller. (It’s often disgruntled authors who think this. ‘If only they’d pushed my book harder …’) But there are any number of stories about publishers who have thrown their weight (and their money) behind a book only to have it die a lonely death.

There’s a lot of luck involved, in my opinion. If your book was due to come out on September 12, 2001, you didn’t have a hope, no matter how wonderful it was. And you might be writing about something that is really topical, only to have the world change around you, so that by the time your book comes out, no one is interested.

A successful book captures the zeitgeist – the spirit of the times – in some way. There were quite a few marvellous books about kids and magic before Harry Potter. But somehow, JK Rowling hit exactly the right moment, with exactly the right story.

I suspect that some of the bestsellers from twenty years ago would hardly make a mark now. Mightn’t even get past the slush pile. And some of today’s bestsellers would have been thrown out the door if they were submitted back then.

I’m not saying this is always the case – there are probably books that will always capture an audience. But fashions change, and books change with them, thank heavens. E.g. Charles Kingsley’s ‘The Water Babies’, which was once a popular children’s story, and now seems pompous and didactic (though I love that cover).

How do you write a bestseller?

Does anyone actually know the answer to this? I suspect not – if they did, they’d all be doing it and we’d be awash with bestsellers.

But I’m asking the question because I’m off to the Tamar Valley Writers Festival this week, and this is the title of a panel I’m on. When I first saw it, I blinked and thought, what on earth am I going to say? I’ve got a bit more of an idea about it now, but mostly it boils down to ‘no one knows’.

Some people think there’s a formula, but they’re usually people who have never actually written anything. Some people think it’s up to the publishers – if they push the book hard enough, it’ll become a bestseller. (It’s often disgruntled authors who think this. ‘If only they’d pushed my book harder …’) But there are any number of stories about publishers who have thrown their weight (and their money) behind a book only to have it die a lonely death.

There’s a lot of luck involved, in my opinion. If your book was due to come out on September 12, 2001, you didn’t have a hope, no matter how wonderful it was. And you might be writing about something that is really topical, only to have the world change around you, so that by the time your book comes out, no one is interested.

A successful book captures the zeitgeist – the spirit of the times – in some way. There were quite a few marvellous books about kids and magic before Harry Potter. But somehow, JK Rowling hit exactly the right moment, with exactly the right story.

I suspect that some of the bestsellers from twenty years ago would hardly make a mark now. Mightn’t even get past the slush pile. And some of today’s bestsellers would have been thrown out the door if they were submitted back then.

I’m not saying this is always the case – there are probably books that will always capture an audience. But fashions change, and books change with them, thank heavens. E.g. Charles Kingsley’s ‘The Water Babies’, which was once a popular children’s story, and now seems pompous and didactic (though I love that cover).

The post How do you write a bestseller? appeared first on Lian Tanner.

Brand new Keepers story

Well I haven’t had much interest in my mysterious video competition – a couple of queries but no more. So maybe it won’t happen. Maybe I’ll have to find some other way of giving away books.

Competition

My author copies of Secret Guardians arrived last week – a whole box of them! Which makes me think I should have a competition, and give some of them away.

I saw a hilarious video a couple of days ago for Felice Arena’s new book, Fearless Frederic, where a whole bunch of his fellow writers spoke in very bad French to promote the book. And it got me thinking. Maybe I could get clips for a video and run a competition at the same time.

The competition would go something like this: to enter you would have to send in a black-and-white video clip of about five seconds. A mysterious video clip, of you or someone else saying, ‘Secret Guardians’. Or ‘The Harshman is back’ or ‘What about that chicken?’ The more mysterious the better. If you wanted to add some words, you could. Both adults and children are welcome to enter.

I would choose the winners (not sure how many – depends on how many entries I get), and put the best clips together into one video, which I would then use to promote the book.

What do you think? Interested?

Byron Bay and Sydney

One of my favourite things to do is stand up in front of an audience and tell stories. It satisfies my occasional hankering for acting, and also the bit of me that likes showing off.

So last week I got to do a LOT of it.

Byron Bay Writers Festival has to be one of the best festivals in Australia. The setting is so beautiful, and the whole thing feels very relaxed – though I suspect quite a few people are pedalling very hard behind the scenes.

The schools festival comes first, with three days of authors touring around in pairs, talking to large numbers of kids. Each time, several kids came up to me afterwards and asked, ‘Was the story about the dynamite true?’ And yes, it was.

I was paired with Matt Stanton, author of the Funny Kid series. And he really is funny, both in his books, and in his presentations. Plus he’s nice, which is always a bonus when you’re spending a few days with someone.

On the Friday, I was on a panel with Matt and Oliver Phommavanh (another funny writer), talking about whether children’s stories should always have a happy ending.

 

On Saturday, I went whale watching! It was excellent timing, because we were right in the middle of humpback whale migration season. We saw a baby whale who hadn’t quite worked out how to use its tail yet, and was being guided along by its very patient mother, and a whole bunch of adult whales who swam right up to the boat and dived underneath us and stuck their heads out of the water to have a look at us, and generally spent about forty-five minutes watching us as closely as we were watching them.

It was amazingly wonderful. Even the bloke who owned the boat and had been doing trips like this for eight years was jumping up and down with excitement.

After Byron Bay, I went to Sydney for a couple of days to visit bookshops and talk in schools. That was fun, too. It’s always a delight visiting booksellers, most of whom are so passionate about what they do.

I’ll be in Sydney again for Book Week. In the meantime, I’m writing talks, writing workshops and sowing tomatoes. And the Book That Wants To Be Written Next is gradually becoming clearer in my mind.

The trouble with possibilities

This post was supposed to go up a few weeks ago – in fact I thought it had gone up. But when I went to look for it, it had disappeared. I’ve just realised that instead of clicking on ‘new post’, I clicked on ‘new page’. So I’m going to repost it, because it’s still relevant. Here it is:

For a while now, I’ve thought I knew what I was going to write when I finished the Rogues trilogy. I’ve even talked about it as the Book That Wants to Be Written Next. But as that time gets closer, I get less certain.

The thought of finishing the Rogues delights me, partly because it’s always nice finishing something, and partly because I’ve been working on it for three years now, and coming to the end of it opens up so many possibilities. Plus I’m bursting with ideas – here are the early notebooks for some of them. They’re all interesting, they’ve all got potential, they’re all begging to be written.

Which creates an unexpected problem. How do I decide which one it’s going to be?

I’ve been worrying about it for the last couple of weeks, turning it over and over in my mind. But yesterday I remembered something really important: I can’t make this sort of decision by rational thinking.

I’ve been in this situation before, though probably not with such an embarrassment of choices. And whenever I try to push one of those choices to the front, because that’s the one I think I want to write, I end up in a mess.

It’s a bit like a small theatre company trying to put on a play that the director loves and everyone else hates. The director (my thinking self) is wildly keen, and pushes ahead believing that everything is going to be all right. But the actors and designers and everyone else (my creative self, my subconscious self – in other words, all the really important bits) are sulking and going slow, and after a while the whole thing creaks to a halt. Or crashes dramatically. Or goes up in flames after a bit of late-night sabotage.

So I’m trying really hard to stop thinking, and to remain in a state of openness, with some mild curiosity around the edges. And to trust that the book that really wants to be written will climb to the top of the pile and announce itself in unmistakable tones. Plus a few trumpets to catch my attention.

It’s surprisingly hard not to think too much.

Added today: I was talking about this to a friend who works with computers, and his experience was exactly the same. ‘I’ve learnt to trust my stomach,’ he said. ‘If someone offers me a project, I always let it sit for a couple of days until the answer comes to me. It’s much more reliable than my brain.’

So I thought this was a creative problem, but it’s not. It’s a ‘how to make good decisions’ problem. Staying with uncertainty and doubts for a while, being willing to tolerate not knowing, instead of rushing after certainty.

(And two weeks after I wrote the original post, I still don’t know what I’m going to write next, though the pile has narrowed itself down a bit.)

Endings

I have a tendency to rush my endings. I’ve known about it for a while, but it’s hard to get past it because once the book gets to a certain point, the momentum picks up and everything’s driving forward and I LIKE it going fast because it’s nice and dramatic and I don’t want anything to slow it down.

However.

I sent the latest draft of Book 3 (Haunted Warriors) to Peter Matheson this week. He’s my first reader, and reads all my books before they go to the publisher – has done right from the beginning, starting with Museum of Thieves. I have great trust in him – he’s a dramaturg by trade, which gives him a keen eye for the shape of the story, amongst other things.

And when we spoke on the phone, he said I’d rushed the ending.

Ha.

So this week I’m going to look at it again. Because as Peter pointed out, there are some things/characters near the end that really shouldn’t be rushed because they are so important, and it wouldn’t hurt to spend a bit more time on them.

But the good news is, the book is almost finished. By which I mean not finished, exactly, because there’s still the whole editing process to go through with my publisher, and that always takes a while. But almost finished enough to send to my agent, who will send it to the publisher. And that’s always a major milestone.

Particularly considering that it’s not due until October 1.

I’m a bit astonished at being so far ahead of schedule. I think it must be because I took more care over my initial plotting. I usually get to the point with my plots where they seem good enough and I’m impatient to start writing. Which invariably means that the first draft is full of enormous holes, and things that don’t make sense, and scenes that end up getting cut entirely.

But with this book I actually kept going with the plot until I’d fixed most of the holes. So although my first draft was still a mess, it wasn’t nearly as much of a mess as usual.

Hmm, must remember this for the next book. Whatever it might be.

Secret projects

I always like to have a secret project or two on the go. Something with no contract, no expectations. Something I can muck around with when the book gets overwhelming, or when I’ve got a bit of spare time.

Friday before last, I finished a draft of Rogues Book 3, Haunted Warriors, and wanted to take a bit of time away from it so it could cook. So for the last week, I’ve been working on Secret Project #3.

(Actually, I suppose it’s Secret Project #2 now. Secret Project #1 was the picture book, Ella and the Ocean, and that’s not a secret anymore, so everything has moved up one place.)

I hadn’t looked at this particular project for quite a while, so it was nice to discover that I was further along with it than I’d thought. In fact, I had a whole finished draft. But my first drafts are always pretty sketchy, so I spent last week opening things up a bit and making the people more real.

Now of course I want to keep going with it, because it’s nearly done. But I’ll go back to Haunted Warriors, because I do want to see how it reads, after a week away from it. And how Duckling and Pummel are getting along. And the chicken …

Incidentally, Rogues Book 2, Secret Guardians, has just gone to the printer!

 

Starting with Lord Rump

I’m going to the Byron Bay Writers Festival at the beginning of August. There’s a primary school program before the festival proper, so I’m spending a bit of time this morning (and this week) working on my presentation.

One of the things I had a lot of fun with when I talked about The Hidden Series was getting audiences to make up a group story in the middle of my talk.

So I’ve been trying to work out how I can do that with The Rogues, too. And I think I’ve solved it.

The trick is to begin with one of my inspirations and see where else it might go. So with The Hidden Series, I started off telling kids the same story my father told me, about his cousin Norman who ran away from home at the age of sixteen and stowed away on a ship going to the Antarctic.

With this new trilogy, I’m going to start with Lord Rump. He was inspired by a conman I met in Spain many many years ago – a charming, well-dressed elderly gentleman who very successfully fooled me out of some money.

At the moment, the talk is also encompassing the Paris catacombs, the time I was arrested for busking, and the miniature spiders that live among the rocks on kunanyi/Mount Wellington.

Now I just have to get the timing right.