Ruth Eastham's Blog, page 2

Brilliant Books Evening!

Oldham Libraries Do Themselves Proud

I was recently in Oldham for a truly marvellous event – the very first ever Brilliant Books Award Ceremony. The venue? The glittering Queen Elizabeth Hall!

The Memory Cage was shortlisted in the Key Stage 3 category alongside the wonderful Burning Secrets by Clare Chambers and Dark Lord – The Teenage Years by Jamie Thomson.

I’m delighted to say that The Memory Cage WON, joining other category winners Caryl Hart & Ed Eaves, Julia Donaldson & David Roberts, Philip Caveney and Patrick Ness.

Me giving a speech!
Image courtesy of www.timsimpsonphotography.co.uk

 

I received a beautifully designed mosaic created by a very talented group of young people from local schools. Thank you all so very much!



 

Me with my ‘Memories’ mosaic.
Image courtesy of www.timsimpsonphotography.co.uk

Find out more about the Oldham Brilliant Book Awards HERE!



 

It’s Bonfire Night!

GUNPOWDER, TREASON AND (STORY) PLOT!

Source: Microsoft Clipart

Those wonderful people at BookBuzz (the new reading programme from Booktrust) have asked me to blog on a suitably November the Fifth topic. Why did I choose a Bonfire Night party as the setting for the opening scene in The Messenger Bird?

Find out HERE!

Source: Microsoft Clipart

The Next Big Thing

So what’s next, Ruth?

A week ago, author Sarah Mussi tagged me in her post The Next Big Thing.

Today it’s my turn to answer ten questions about my Work in Progress and then tag five other writers who will tell you about their Next Big Things, next Wednesday – Oooh October 31st, Halloween!

Although I didn’t get the spooky slot, there’s a lot of spooky goings-on in the book I’m working on, so here goes…

What is the working title of your book?

At the moment my third book has at least twenty working titles, so I can’t really say! Something with CURSE or BLOOD or GOLD or VIKING in it maybe…

Where did the idea come from for the book?

A hiking trip to the glaciers of Norway.

What genre does your book fall under?

Thriller… with a dash of supernatural mythological fantasy!

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

I would leave it to the experts to run the auditions and cast the parts, but I might not complain at Johnny Depp for the part of misguided baddie, Draper! As for the main character, Jack, and his friends, Skuli and Emma – what’s needed are teenagers with attitude, and seriously fabulous acting skills of course!

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Three friends. A discovery in an ancient ice cave. A deadly chain of events begins. (That’s three, but I don’t think any of those were proper sentences!)

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

Like The Memory Cage and The Messenger Bird, my third book will be published by Scholastic. My agent is Caroline Walsh at the David Higham Literary Agency.

Launch is scheduled for May 2014!

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

I’m still writing it! Where does one draft end and the next begin?!

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

This is something pretty different to my first two books, Memory Cage and Messenger. They were both firmly realism. Here I’m delving into the supernatural and mythical fantasy as well. But one element all three have is a modern-day main plot with a historic back-story weaved in! (Oh, did I just manage to avoid that question?!)

Who or What inspired you to write this book?

Increasing talk of looming environmental disaster and apocalyptic forecasts of society breaking down. Our disconnection with nature. The need for us to find an escape into gripping storytelling!

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

An ancient curse. An isolated town cut-off. Time running out.

Want to know about The Next Big Things for writers Ellen Renner, Caroline Green, Addy Farmer, Jo Wyton and Keren David????? I know I do!

Check out their websites exactly a week from today. See you there on Halloween!

Ellen Renner

www.ellenrenner.com

Ellen is the award-winning author of CASTLE OF SHADOWS and CITY OF THIEVES, adventure stories for readers aged 9+. Her new Young Adult sequence, TRIBUTE, is an epic tale of love and revenge set in a world divided by magic. The first book, BLOOD MEMORY, will be published by Hot Key in August 2013.

Caroline Green

www.carolinegreen.net

Caroline’s first book, DARK RIDE won the RoNA Young Adult and the Waverton Good Read Awards, as well as being nominated for the Branford Boase. Her second book, CRACKS, was out this year and is already shortlisted for the Essex Book Awards.

Addy Farmer

www.addyfarmer.jimdo.com

Addy is a compulsive storyteller and writes for picture books through to teen.

Her books include GRANDAD’S BENCH and SIDDHARTHA & RINKI, and she has a poem published in the Macmillan anthology: LOOK OUT! THE TEACHERS ARE COMING!

Jo Wyton

www.jowyton.blogspot.com

Jo’s first go at a YA novel, MAGPIE, was a winner of the SCBWI Undiscovered Voices competition in 2012, and the first 4000 words of it were published in the UV anthology. Her agent is Molly Ker Hawn of The Bent Agency.

You can read about Jo’s Next Big Thing HERE!

Keren David

www.wheniwasjoe.blogspot.com

Keren’s multi-award-winning book WHEN I WAS JO, was followed by the sequel ALMOST TRUE and then the Carnegie nominated LIA’S GUIDE TO WINNING THE LOTTERY. Her just-out ANOTHER LIFE is the third in the fabulous Ty book trio.

 

Guest Blog: Paula Rawsthorne

YOU HAVE TO BE IN IT TO WIN IT!

Today Paula Rawsthorne extols the virtues of writing competitions.

Paula is the author of The Truth about Celia Frost. A gripping, thought-provoking  thriller for Young Adults that has won the Leeds Book Award (11-14 category) and The Sefton Super Reads Award 2012 and was named by The Independent Newspaper as one of the best books for teens in 2011.

I’m a fan of writing competitions.  I believe that entering reputable competitions can be extremely worthwhile whether you’ve got your work ready to send off to agents or you’re just sitting with your pen poised, waiting for inspiration.  Competitions can be the route to publication which is often overlooked.  They can have a positive impact on your writing life or, as in my case, they could quite simply be life- changing.

I hadn’t even considered that I might be able to write stories until I gave up work to be at home with my children.  One afternoon, out of the blue, I felt compelled to sit down and write a tale.  The buzz I got from the whole process made me determined to pursue writing, however, soon after, I had another baby and tiredness meant I could hardly string a sentence (spoken or written)

 I was in desperate need of motivation and it came one night, in the form of a BBC 1 announcer.  He announced a national short story competition.  The BBC wanted modern versions of The Canterbury Tales.  There was a word count, a theme and a deadline.  It felt like he was talking directly to me.  He might as well have said, “Hey you, Paula Rawsthorne!  Stop slobbing on the sofa and get writing!”  And I did.  I was all fired up and I wrote a comedy inspired by the tragedy that is ‘The Pardoner’s Tale.’

I posted it to the BBC and was gobsmacked when it was a winner.  I got to go in the BBC studios with the actor Bill Nighy as he recorded my story for Radio 4.  I got to go out for the evening with the wonderful man (that wasn’t part of the prize, that was just Bill Nighy being lovely and kind).  It was a fabulous experience and a massive confidence boost that spurred me on to keep writing.

Again, when I came to writing my first novel, The Truth about Celia Frost, it was a competition which gave me my big break.

The Society of Children’s Writers and Illustrators – British Isles (SCBWI-BI) were running a competition called Undiscovered Voices.  You could enter if you were an unagented member and had written a novel for children which hadn’t yet been published.   The judging panel comprised of high calibre agents and publishers and the prize was priceless – to have your excerpt published in an anthology which would be sent to every agent and publisher in the U.K!  So, even though the chances were slim, I knew that ‘you had to be in it to win it’.  I figured that even if I didn’t get anywhere, it was still a wonderful opportunity to get my work read by people in the industry.

So I sent off the first two chapters and blurb for my thriller and hoped beyond hope.  The day I got a phone call telling me I was one of the twelve winners will be forever etched in my memory (and that of my kids as I screamed the house down).  SCBWI held a wonderful launch party at Foyles in London for the Undiscovered Voices Anthology.  The event was packed to the rafters with agents and publishers.  However, even luckier for me and a few other winners, agents on the judging panel had already contacted us and signed us up.  Having agents actually calling you was the stuff of dreams and only made possible by entering this amazing competition.

Subsequently Usborne offered me a two book deal and The Truth about Celia Frost was published in August 2011 with my new novel due out in spring 2013.  One of the many great consequences of entering Undiscovered Voices is my involvement with other SCBWI writers and the formation of The Edge group which was founded by Dark Parties author, and super SCBWI organiser, Sara Grant.

 So you see, I have more reason than most to be a fan of competitions.  However, if you’re at the stage were your work is ready to send out to an agent or publication, I’m not advocating entering competitions instead of doing this but rather, as well as.  Remember to be selective. Don’t just enter any old competition. Look who’s running it, who’s judging it and the prize. 

And if you’re writing and need a goal and inspiration then competitions are definitely for you.

It’s easy to talk yourself out of it.  I hear people say that competitions are a waste of time as there’ll be hundreds of entries and they won’t stand a chance – well, if you want to be published we all know it’s a highly competitive field and you have to grab good opportunities even if the chances seem small.

Even if you don’t win you haven’t wasted your time.  You would have honed your skills.  You can redraft your story/ poem and recycle it.  You can be inspired by one aspect of it and work it into a whole new piece.  You can save favourite characters, who can appear in future stories- nothing is wasted.

Some people are put-off because a remit of a competition may involve writing in a genre or style that they’ve never tried before – but I see this as a great chance to get out of your comfort zone and find out what else you’re capable of.  For example, my friend was convinced that short stories were her strong point.  It was only after entering and winning poetry competitions that she realised her talent for this form.

There are tangible advantages to entering reputable writing competitions.  They provide you with a goal.  They are motivating, they spark off ideas by providing a theme, they stop procrastination by imposing a deadline and they can force you to choose each word carefully by having a word count (editing is an essential skill to develop)

So, if you think I might have a point, be pro active about it.  Find a good competition and go for it!

 

Paula’s eagerly awaited new thriller, BLOOD TRACKS,

will be published by Usborne in spring 2013.

You can find out more about Paula and her books at:

www.celiafrost.co.uk

The Edge group can be found HERE



You may want to check out:

The Times/Chicken House Children’s Fiction Competition

Undiscovered Voices

British SCBWI

BBC Writers’ Room