The first of the first drafts

The whole family was down with sore throats and colds today. I was desperately trying to resolve a few final things with Tales of Terror from the Tunnel's Mouth so that I can send it off on Monday.

My books go through several stages once they have been assembled into a book-like entity. The very first stage is something that is in a constant state of flux, widening and contracting, bubbling up in one section and buttoning down in another. This is a kind of plate-spinning exercise - trying to keep all the component parts up and working and looking like a single creation.

This stage results in the first draft. Actually it is more like the pre-first draft, because it is a draft that will never leave my writing room. This draft is for me - a draft for me to see just how many problems I have shied away from resolving over the preceding months. It is a way of making those problems more tangible and that makes them easier to solve somehow.

I go through this draft making notes and then refer back to the copy on my hard drive and make another version. This draft is the real first draft, because it is the first I am willing to let anyone else see. This draft is read by my wife who is hopefully going to tell me if there is something that simply does not make sense and whilst she would feel awkward telling me something I had written was rubbish - she tells me a lot by what she chooses to pick out for praise. She is also very good at spotting spelling mistakes.

I then use these observations to go back and produce another draft - the first draft to leave the house. It is this draft - a draft that is hopefully true to the sense of what I want the book to be and as free from mistakes as I can make it - that will go to my publisher and agent. This draft is really the true start of the book as a book and not as a file on my computer.

Bats in the attic

I read an interview with the TV writer Paul Abbot today which, as well as telling me about his extraordinary early life and extended family, also mentioned visiting a hypnotist to get him to stop coming up with ideas. I don't know whether he was joking or not, but I think there is something underpinning it that I relate to.

It is seen as such an objectively good thing to come up with lots of ideas - particularly by those who find it difficult - that no one really talks about the problems. And there are problems.

There is no point to have loads of ideas you are not in a position to act upon. Ideas can be incredibly distracting. I have loads racing round my head at any given time and a lot of the discipline of writing (or illustration or cartooning or painting) is to shut the extraneous ideas out.

Part of why I started writing was in order to fix some of the ideas I had buzzing round in my head. Why was I plotting stories and inventing characters and coming up with dialogue on the train and as I fell asleep at night? It was all a bit crazy. Calling myself a writer seemed to validate this behaviour.

The trick to working - and knowing this does not in any way mean that I have perfected the practice - is to grab every good idea and use it then and there. Only then do you find out whether it really was so good after all. If you don't they flap around in your head like bats in the attic.

Back in the studio briefly

I went into the studio today for a brief visit. John was in and doing some new work on his laptop. He's been doing a lot of really interesting stuff lately - I hope one day to actually grab some and put it on the blog.

I didn't actually do much. I am going to reorganise in the studio once I get my (overdue) book off to Bloomsbury.


And I realised today that the UKLA Children's Book Award is being announced at the weekend. I am guessing that as I have heard nothing, that it ain't going to be me.

Brazil

I went to London today to meet Mimi Liang from the British School in Rio who is over in the UK for a while. We met for lunch and discussed what I might do with the students when I come over to Brazil in September/October. After talking about the possibility of the trip for so long, it was nice to be discussing it all in very concrete terms and nice to finally put a face to the emails.

Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror is being published by Rocco in Brazil and they have brought their schedule forward to accommodate my visit, so I am hoping to meet up with them and maybe do some work for the Portuguese edition while I'm over there. It is all very exciting. I have never been south of the equator before!

A bit of a blur

An absolutely crazy day today. My son and I seemed to be cycling all over town in downpour after downpour. He had his induction day for his new school today and we cycled over to register him for that. Then I had to cycle back in a thunderstorm and pick him up and we cycled over to the Kirkham's house where Lisa kindly gave us toasted teacakes and the children hung out together before we got back on our bikes and headed off to his Grade 3 piano exam.

After the exam - when at least it had stopped raining - we cycled back into the centre of Cambridge to meet my wife and we all ate out before heading back to the school for the parents' bit of the induction where we were shown a video of children saying how much they liked the school and then we all got to ask questions. It was exhausting and must have been doubly so for my son who had also had the stress of being thrown into a new environment with lots of new people.

Inevitably it all brings back memories of starting secondary school in Newcastle-upon-Tyne many, many years ago (the same school, weirdly as Peter Kirkham, though not at the same time), and not many of those memories are happy ones. Having had a very good early school experience with very good teachers, I found school from eleven onward a bit of a shock to the system. I think I only ever felt really in control in the art room or when I was writing stories. Everything else was a bit of a blur.

Not much has changed actually.

More young musicians

I had a very different kind of musical experience today as we went to watch my son take part in the annual concert organised by his piano teacher, Anne Marsh-Penton. It is held in Churchill College chapel and is a really inspirational show of young musical talent. It is a tribute to Anne's teaching ability and the incredible ability of children to absorb, enjoy and perform music. It is hugely inspiring.

These are some of the amazing John Piper stained glass windows from Churchill College chapel.

The Kaves

I went to The Junction here in Cambridge last night to see Liam Parker play in his band The Kaves. I have known Liam since he was a baby and it was a real treat to see him playing lead guitar up there on stage. Check out the link to their MySpace site and have a listen.

The crowd was a bit small and seemed to consist almost exclusively of teenage girls (plus a couple of old-timers like myself). Liam is the son of very good friends of ours - Kate and Carl Parker - and it was great to see them too. Kate used to share a studio with my wife next door to one the one I rented in Shoreditch many years ago.

I had a conversation with Kate over the top of the earlier band, the sound so loud that I could here one in every fifteen words Kate said. I got an early idea of what it must be like to be ninety and deaf and just nodding with a stupid grin on your face to questions you haven't really heard properly. We escaped with their friend Mark for some relative peace and a chat. I really am officially too old for this kind of thing.