A woman is tied to a metal frame with her arms high above her head. There is blood on her face because she is being tortured. The frame is lowered into the water and kept there until she is close to drowning. When the frame is raised clear of the water she coughs so hard she throws up all down her chest. Behind a one way mirror two men and two teenage boys watch.
This is a scene from The Ask And The Answer by Patrick Ness, the second book in his trilogy Chaos Walking. The first book won the 2008 Guardian Children’s Book Prize and was nominated for the Carnegie medal.
It’s not the only difficult scene in the book by any means. For example, there’s another scene in which the narrator is placed in charge of putting metal number tags on concentration camp inmates. These tags are bolted onto the leg so tightly that they cause an infection but the metal plates are coated with a medicine which fights the infection so what happens is that the infected skin starts to heal around the band, growing into it, replacing that bit of skin with the metal. The tags cannot be removed without causing the infected wound to reopen. At one point one of the guards, for no reason other than his own amusement, decides to clamp one of the tags around the neck of an inmate, causing him to collapse as his throat is constricted to the point where he cannot breathe.
The concentration camp victims are not human because it’s a science fiction novel. They’re called Spackle. But they behave exactly like humans. They live in family groups, they talk to each other. Except that they don’t talk to each other any more because the food they are given contains a chemical which prevents them from doing so. It’s described in the book as like ‘cutting their tongues out.’
Have you heard enough yet?
There’s been a lot of outrage among children’s authors about the idea that publishers have come up with of putting age-guidance on children’s books even though we all know that many books are bought for children by well-meaning adults who haven’t the time or the inclination to read them first. They just look at what it says on the cover and if the book has won a prestigious prize, well that probably seems as good a recommendation as any.
I’m going to get a lot of flack for saying this but I think some of the authors who have made a fuss about the idea of age-guidance want to forget that they are actually writing children’s books. They want to be taken seriously as literary figures and they suspect that having an age rating on their books will militate against that.
Of course that’s just speculation on my part. What I really wanted to say was that The Ask And The Answer is a powerful but harrowing book about the way that politicians impose themselves upon our society and how individuals respond to them but I won’t be recommending it to my daughter even though she really enjoys YA fiction because I think she would find it too disturbing. She’s thirty one, by the way.
Showing posts with label awards. Show all posts
Showing posts with label awards. Show all posts
Wednesday, 23 September 2009
Wednesday, 8 July 2009
Living Dangerously
Well I didn’t win the award. It was won by Shadow Forest by Mat Haig, which I’m ashamed to admit I haven’t read. But I will. It was a very well organised and rewarding event, and it was extremely enjoyable meeting the other authors.
There were just a couple of flies in the ointment. The first was the hotel which was really pretty grim. There’s a tv programme in the UK called The Hotel Inspector in which a successful hotelier goes along to failing hotels and tries to turn them round. This place ought to be next on her list in my opinion.
That was down to the local council who funded the event. The other problem was entirely my mistake. I haven’t had anything alcoholic to drink for at least eighteen months. But when I was having dinner with two of the other authors someone said, ‘Shall we have a bottle of wine?’ and I thought, ‘Why not? It is a bloody award ceremony, after all.’
I only had two glasses but the next morning I felt like Tutankhammen – very, very old, utterly desiccated and with a shocking headache. It was as if I’d never learnt to drink alcohol at all, as if I was about sixteen and starting all over again on cheap cider.
Since that was no way to start a day of delivering inspiring talks to enthusiastic children and dedicated librarians, I had to resort to more biochemical intervention. First I tried paracetamol but that had absolutely no effect. So there was only one thing for it – caffeine. For a brief instant I flirted with the idea of coffee but I knew that would have been madness. It took me so long to get off it in the first place, I couldn’t go through that again.
So it had to be tea. I had about four cups one after the other. And what a difference it made. I felt like I had amphetamine sulphate rushing through my veins. Soon I was ready to talk to anyone about anything. I was enthusiastic, I was excited, I was caffienated.
Now it’s much later and I’m back home after spending a lot of hours on trains. It’s not even nine thirty and I’m dying to go to bed but I know I won’t be able to sleep. That’s drugs, for you I suppose. When you’re an old man you just can’t cope with them. From tomorrow it’s back to clean living.
There were just a couple of flies in the ointment. The first was the hotel which was really pretty grim. There’s a tv programme in the UK called The Hotel Inspector in which a successful hotelier goes along to failing hotels and tries to turn them round. This place ought to be next on her list in my opinion.
That was down to the local council who funded the event. The other problem was entirely my mistake. I haven’t had anything alcoholic to drink for at least eighteen months. But when I was having dinner with two of the other authors someone said, ‘Shall we have a bottle of wine?’ and I thought, ‘Why not? It is a bloody award ceremony, after all.’
I only had two glasses but the next morning I felt like Tutankhammen – very, very old, utterly desiccated and with a shocking headache. It was as if I’d never learnt to drink alcohol at all, as if I was about sixteen and starting all over again on cheap cider.
Since that was no way to start a day of delivering inspiring talks to enthusiastic children and dedicated librarians, I had to resort to more biochemical intervention. First I tried paracetamol but that had absolutely no effect. So there was only one thing for it – caffeine. For a brief instant I flirted with the idea of coffee but I knew that would have been madness. It took me so long to get off it in the first place, I couldn’t go through that again.
So it had to be tea. I had about four cups one after the other. And what a difference it made. I felt like I had amphetamine sulphate rushing through my veins. Soon I was ready to talk to anyone about anything. I was enthusiastic, I was excited, I was caffienated.
Now it’s much later and I’m back home after spending a lot of hours on trains. It’s not even nine thirty and I’m dying to go to bed but I know I won’t be able to sleep. That’s drugs, for you I suppose. When you’re an old man you just can’t cope with them. From tomorrow it’s back to clean living.
Friday, 3 July 2009
The Magic Spell
Have you ever heard your voice on an answering machine and cringed? Has someone every handed you a photo saying, Here’s a good one of you? And you find yourself thinking, 'That’s a good photo of me! Oh my god, what’s a bad photo like?’
Not many of us really like the way we are. But what can you do about it? Well you could have voice-training lessons or go in for radical plastic surgery, I suppose. But that sort of thing didn’t make Michael Jackson very happy, did it? Alternatively you could just shrug and forget it.
It’s exactly the same with writing, in my opinion. There’s absolutely no point in agonising about whether you writing is any good or not. Editors and publicists will tell you your latest book is terrific and with a glass of wine in your hand you will probably believe them. Then, when they drift away to talk to someone else, you remember that this is their job. They were never going to tell you anything else. Ten minutes later you overhear them say the same thing about a book that you feel from the very centre of your being is complete and utter tripe.
There are the reviewers of course, but often they seem to have their own agendas. Some of them are simply using your book as a sharpening stone for their wit. Then there are those who seem to be writing about a completely different book from the one you remember writing. I’ve read reviews praising things about my books that I have always felt were their greatest weaknesses and criticising things that I happily assumed to be their strengths.
Of course there are the readers who send you letters and emails telling you that your book made a huge difference to them. That’s always a joy to hear but it’s not necessarily a measure of worth. There are certain pop songs that cause a huge explosion of emotion in me every time I hear them because they are so inextricably bound up with events in my life. They seem like the most brilliant expressions of what was happening to me at that time. But to other people they are just nice tunes.
Finally there are award ceremonies. I’m heading up north to one later this week and I can’t deny that I’ll be pleased as Punch if my book wins and thoroughly gutted if doesn’t. But I have to remind myself that getting shortlisted or even winning an award is not a goal in itself. It’s not even a light to guide you through the darkness. How many prize-winning books have you read and thought, how could this possibly have won?
My solution is simply not to try to decide whether my books are good or bad, but just to get on and write the next one. I write, not to be liked, but because somewhere deep in my childhood everything inside my head got scrunched up like a piece of paper thrown in a litter bin. On that piece of paper was all the information about who I really am. A magic spell to make me happy and contented with myself. There’s absolutely no hope of ever finding it again. So, somehow I have to make a new spell. I keep trying and trying but whenever I get to the end of my latest attempt it never has exactly the right cadence.
Not many of us really like the way we are. But what can you do about it? Well you could have voice-training lessons or go in for radical plastic surgery, I suppose. But that sort of thing didn’t make Michael Jackson very happy, did it? Alternatively you could just shrug and forget it.
It’s exactly the same with writing, in my opinion. There’s absolutely no point in agonising about whether you writing is any good or not. Editors and publicists will tell you your latest book is terrific and with a glass of wine in your hand you will probably believe them. Then, when they drift away to talk to someone else, you remember that this is their job. They were never going to tell you anything else. Ten minutes later you overhear them say the same thing about a book that you feel from the very centre of your being is complete and utter tripe.
There are the reviewers of course, but often they seem to have their own agendas. Some of them are simply using your book as a sharpening stone for their wit. Then there are those who seem to be writing about a completely different book from the one you remember writing. I’ve read reviews praising things about my books that I have always felt were their greatest weaknesses and criticising things that I happily assumed to be their strengths.
Of course there are the readers who send you letters and emails telling you that your book made a huge difference to them. That’s always a joy to hear but it’s not necessarily a measure of worth. There are certain pop songs that cause a huge explosion of emotion in me every time I hear them because they are so inextricably bound up with events in my life. They seem like the most brilliant expressions of what was happening to me at that time. But to other people they are just nice tunes.
Finally there are award ceremonies. I’m heading up north to one later this week and I can’t deny that I’ll be pleased as Punch if my book wins and thoroughly gutted if doesn’t. But I have to remind myself that getting shortlisted or even winning an award is not a goal in itself. It’s not even a light to guide you through the darkness. How many prize-winning books have you read and thought, how could this possibly have won?
My solution is simply not to try to decide whether my books are good or bad, but just to get on and write the next one. I write, not to be liked, but because somewhere deep in my childhood everything inside my head got scrunched up like a piece of paper thrown in a litter bin. On that piece of paper was all the information about who I really am. A magic spell to make me happy and contented with myself. There’s absolutely no hope of ever finding it again. So, somehow I have to make a new spell. I keep trying and trying but whenever I get to the end of my latest attempt it never has exactly the right cadence.
Thursday, 14 May 2009
The Tuscany Syndrome
The Haunting Of Nathaniel Wolfe has now been shortlisted for two awards, the Calderdale Children’s Book of the Year and the Hounslow Junior Book Award. That’s very gratifying but it also feels slightly weird and distanced, if I’m honest, because the follow up, Nathaniel Wolfe and the Bodysnatchers, has already been published.
What’s more I’ve finished a new book in a different series which is due for publication next year; I’m currently working on the second book in that new series; and I already have a very strong idea for another book when I’ve finished this one. So that makes me almost four books away from the one that is currently attracting attention.
That’s what publishing is like, of course. There’s always an enormous delay between finishing your manuscript and seeing it published. As a result, by the time readers are asking you about a book, you’re struggling to remember the plot. Even the names of the characters escape you. At a meeting with my editor recently I couldn’t even remember the title of one of my books
The fact is that once a book is finished you’ve moved on emotionally. You’ve been carrying all this stuff around in your head for months and you simply had to get it down on paper. Otherwise it was threatening to consume you. Once that’s done, you heave a great big sigh of relief and forget all about it. At least that’s what it’s like for me.
After the completion of a novel there’s usually a period of tranquil satisfaction – what I call the Tuscany Syndrome. You feel like you’re on holiday in Italy sitting beside a shimmering pool with a glass of red wine next to your deck chair. In a little while you might go for a walk to the little church down the road that is absolutely full of Renaissance masterpieces. But maybe you’ll just have another swim first. Or even a little snooze.
Exactly how long that feeling lasts depends on the kind of person you are. For some it might be six months; for me it’s about a week. Then I wake up one morning feeling as if I’ve forgotten to do something incredibly important like pay the mortgage or send off my accounts to the Inland Revenue, and I realise it’s started all over again: I’m beginning to worry about what I will write next.
The anxiety phase usually lasts about a fortnight before it turns to outright panic. Although I’m a reasonably prolific author I have an absolute terror of discovering that there’s nothing left in the attic of my imagination: I’ve written all the books I’m ever going to write and I’m nothing but a dried up husk. I’ve had this fear for the last twenty five years but each time it descends I am completely convinced that finally it’s for real. Then all of a sudden I get a new idea and I’m back on the merry go round once more.
I have an friend who produces a book about every six years. Slow down Brian, she keeps telling me. Spend more time in Tuscany! But just when I’m starting to believe she might be right, an ominous shadow spreads over the swimming pool. I look up to see an airplane blocking out the sun. Even from down here I can make out the livery of a low-cost airline. It’s an omen. Reluctantly, I get to my feet, pick up my towel and head back to my villa to start packing. The holiday is over. There’s work to be done.
What’s more I’ve finished a new book in a different series which is due for publication next year; I’m currently working on the second book in that new series; and I already have a very strong idea for another book when I’ve finished this one. So that makes me almost four books away from the one that is currently attracting attention.
That’s what publishing is like, of course. There’s always an enormous delay between finishing your manuscript and seeing it published. As a result, by the time readers are asking you about a book, you’re struggling to remember the plot. Even the names of the characters escape you. At a meeting with my editor recently I couldn’t even remember the title of one of my books
The fact is that once a book is finished you’ve moved on emotionally. You’ve been carrying all this stuff around in your head for months and you simply had to get it down on paper. Otherwise it was threatening to consume you. Once that’s done, you heave a great big sigh of relief and forget all about it. At least that’s what it’s like for me.
After the completion of a novel there’s usually a period of tranquil satisfaction – what I call the Tuscany Syndrome. You feel like you’re on holiday in Italy sitting beside a shimmering pool with a glass of red wine next to your deck chair. In a little while you might go for a walk to the little church down the road that is absolutely full of Renaissance masterpieces. But maybe you’ll just have another swim first. Or even a little snooze.
Exactly how long that feeling lasts depends on the kind of person you are. For some it might be six months; for me it’s about a week. Then I wake up one morning feeling as if I’ve forgotten to do something incredibly important like pay the mortgage or send off my accounts to the Inland Revenue, and I realise it’s started all over again: I’m beginning to worry about what I will write next.
The anxiety phase usually lasts about a fortnight before it turns to outright panic. Although I’m a reasonably prolific author I have an absolute terror of discovering that there’s nothing left in the attic of my imagination: I’ve written all the books I’m ever going to write and I’m nothing but a dried up husk. I’ve had this fear for the last twenty five years but each time it descends I am completely convinced that finally it’s for real. Then all of a sudden I get a new idea and I’m back on the merry go round once more.
I have an friend who produces a book about every six years. Slow down Brian, she keeps telling me. Spend more time in Tuscany! But just when I’m starting to believe she might be right, an ominous shadow spreads over the swimming pool. I look up to see an airplane blocking out the sun. Even from down here I can make out the livery of a low-cost airline. It’s an omen. Reluctantly, I get to my feet, pick up my towel and head back to my villa to start packing. The holiday is over. There’s work to be done.
Wednesday, 26 November 2008
Voices In The Dark
I have just heard that The Haunting Of Nathaniel Wolfe has been shortlisted for the Calderdale Children’s Book Of The Year Award, 2009. As you can imagine, I’m very pleased.
I don’t suppose any author writes in order to win awards. Most of us, I think, just do it because we’re driven to. We don’t have any choice in the matter. No doubt some people are more calculating than others. (That sounds like a criticism but it’s not meant to be. All art involves some element of calculation, after all.) But speaking personally, I never make up my mind to write a particular kind of book in advance, I just respond to whatever is obsessing me at the moment. It’s like scratching an itch.
Does that sound ridiculous, or pretentious? I hope not. The fact is that my books are all about myself – even if the hero of the story is a fourteen year old girl, even if it’s set in an imaginary word. It’s all been extrapolated from my own experience then encrytpted on my own personal Enigma Machine.
Nevertheless, it cheers one up enormously to hear that a book has been placed on the shortlist for an award. Because it means that I’ve found an area of experience that has meaning and resonance for other people. It’s like wandering about in a dark cave underground and then suddenly hearing voices.
Writing can be a very solitary business. During my working day I’m on my own for ten hours at a stretch.I’m not expecting anyone to feel sorry for me. I arranged it like that because I don’t really believe there’s any alternative.
What about writing groups, you may ask? Well, it’s true that they offer a degree of mutual support but they also present an enormous distraction. The process of writing requires that you download the contents of your mind onto a blank page, then arrange and rearrange the elements of that download to create the best and most satisfying order. I believe that’s best done in solitude.
But the intensity of that solitude makes it all the nicer when you come in from the cold every now and again, and stand there blinking in the unaccustomed light as people shake you by the hand and say, ‘Well done! Good piece of work.’
I don’t suppose any author writes in order to win awards. Most of us, I think, just do it because we’re driven to. We don’t have any choice in the matter. No doubt some people are more calculating than others. (That sounds like a criticism but it’s not meant to be. All art involves some element of calculation, after all.) But speaking personally, I never make up my mind to write a particular kind of book in advance, I just respond to whatever is obsessing me at the moment. It’s like scratching an itch.
Does that sound ridiculous, or pretentious? I hope not. The fact is that my books are all about myself – even if the hero of the story is a fourteen year old girl, even if it’s set in an imaginary word. It’s all been extrapolated from my own experience then encrytpted on my own personal Enigma Machine.
Nevertheless, it cheers one up enormously to hear that a book has been placed on the shortlist for an award. Because it means that I’ve found an area of experience that has meaning and resonance for other people. It’s like wandering about in a dark cave underground and then suddenly hearing voices.
Writing can be a very solitary business. During my working day I’m on my own for ten hours at a stretch.I’m not expecting anyone to feel sorry for me. I arranged it like that because I don’t really believe there’s any alternative.
What about writing groups, you may ask? Well, it’s true that they offer a degree of mutual support but they also present an enormous distraction. The process of writing requires that you download the contents of your mind onto a blank page, then arrange and rearrange the elements of that download to create the best and most satisfying order. I believe that’s best done in solitude.
But the intensity of that solitude makes it all the nicer when you come in from the cold every now and again, and stand there blinking in the unaccustomed light as people shake you by the hand and say, ‘Well done! Good piece of work.’
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