Have courage and be kind

Something a little bit different today. Although this blog is about writing, it is also more generally about storytelling.
(Besides, this is my blog so I can talk about whatever the heck I want.)

So today I am going to talk about a story. A very old story. The story of Cinderella.

Or rather, Kenneth Brannagh's live action version. Having read mixed reviews, I went to see the movie with my mum last night with no other expectation than it would look pretty. (And it did - oh that blue twirling dress!)

What I wasn't expecting was such a strong moral message. 
On her death bed, Ella's mother asks her daughter to promise to have courage and be kind, two rules by which Ella strives to live, even when life deals her a pretty bad hand.
Have courage and be kind. I was surprised - and impressed. Kindness and courage are rarely associated.

Now I'm going to go a little bit personal on you.
When I was growing up, I was a bit of a goody-two-shoes, and my older sisters, dutifully doing their jobs as older sisters, teased me for it. They called me Cinderella (mostly when they got into trouble because I was crying or I'd told on them). It became an insult. Being a Cinderella was being whiny goody goody who couldn't stand up for herself.

And that's often how people view kindness. Now I'm not claiming to be as good as Cinderella, and when mice eat from my kitchen they leave droppings everywhere. But being generally nice, and usually shy, I can still appear to be a bit of a pushover. A Cinderella.

There is, in some people, a simplisitic view of what being kind or being brave is.

Some people think that being 'nice' is being a smiling warm person and having good manners, saying nice things and flattering, and avoiding conflict.
But being kind is something else entirely. 

Being kind is caring, especially about those who are more unfortunate than you are or those society deems unworthy - like Cinderella, sharing the little she has with the mice.
It's thinking of others, and sometimes putting their needs before your own - like Cinderella giving milk to the poor old lady, having lost everything herself . It's about giving, of yourself, your time, and whatever you have. It's about forgiving, like Cinderella forgives her stepmother (I won't carry on giving examples from the movie, but you get the gist). It's giving people a chance, and giving them a second chance. A chance to be kind, too.

In the same way, brashness and confidence are often mistaken for bravery. Some people think the brave ones are those who speak louder than everyone else. They think of courage and see men with swords, charging into battles.

But in the wise words of the Starks:

'Can a man still be brave if he's afraid?'
'That is the only time a man can be brave.'

Bravery is about not giving up and keeping going, even when things are tough and don't look like they're going to get any better. It's doing what you're afraid to do and daring to show the world who you truly are. It's standing up for what is right and saying no to wicked deals, even if it will cost you everything. All those fascets of bravery, Cinderella demonstrates in the movie. I wrote a post a while ago about strong female characters. To me, Kenneth Brannagh's Cinderella is strong. She's strong from within.

Now this isn't a lesson life teaches us often. I know that to appear sassy wins more hearts in the real life than being a Cinderella, and I know having a big mouth gets people's votes. I also know that 'nice guys finish last' and people don't get ahead in life but putting others first. There aren't any fairy godmothers in the real world to give good people a happy ending.
But what a sad lesson that is. And what a sad world it would be if these were the rules we lived by.

So you might scoff at Cinderella, at the twirling dresses, at love at first sight and graceful dances. You may think Cinderella's wet eyes and candid manner are twee and you may think the storyline too simplistic (I loved it all). Or you might think there was no need for a live action version of an animated classic, or even for anything straying so far from the original fairy tale.

But I, for one, am grateful that there are still people out there telling stories that teach us the importance of having courage and being kind.

'I've got a feeling we're going to need them more than usual before long.'

(Bonus points if you can tell me what book this is from. Hint: the quote doesn't refer to kindness and bravery, but to laughs.)

Some other people's thoughts

Hello world!

I have been very busy editing during the Easter holidays - you can follow my adventures on my new facebook page - but it's not left me a lot of time to post on the blog. I have lots of blacklogged ideas for posts, but it will have to wait until the weekend, when I'll (hopefully) be finished with my current round of editing.

In the meantime, though, other people have written interesting stuff.

Catherine, a fellow writer and teacher, did a survey of what 13-year-old girls in her class were reading, and she found some cool things. Mostly I noticed none of them were reading unheard-of indie authors. *cough*

Harry Bingham of the Writers' Workshop, did a timely survey of authors and what they thought of their publishers. The verdict? Grumbling but not quitting. That being said, it doesn't make you want to work with publishers (but more on that later...).

And finally, I came across this blog post debating the usefulness of book reviews in driving book sales. It uses personal experience and some stats to back up its ideas, and it's well worth a read.

As for me... well, I'm only 15 000 words away from the end, so I'll resurface with my own thoughts when that's done.

To write or be published

A while back I wrote a post about ratings on goodreads, my bottom line basically being that different people have different tastes. Someone’s trash is somebody else’s treasure (or if you’re like me, you love your trash).

More insightful, perhaps, is this quote James posted in the comments:

"It’s not the job of the artist to give the audience what the audience wants. If the audience knew what they needed, then they wouldn’t be the audience. They would be the artists. It is the job of artists to give the audience what they need." –Alan Moore


And it’s got me thinking.

A lot of advice to writers I read is about getting published (see my toolkit to know what I mean). From what I understand, publishers are very timorous. They buy what they know will sell. So if I want to be published, I need to write what sells. And I understand that. I don’t think studying the market is a cynical way of writing. After all, why should anybody take a financial risk on my behalf? How can I expect to be read if I don’t write something people want to read? Good writing takes into account the audience and how the reader will be gripped – even my nine-year-olds learn this. Fine. Don’t write shite and expect others to read it.

But I don’t think it’s that simple.  I recently read this interview with a literary author whose book, Even the Dogs, I had just read – the book is depressing and certainly literary, but also very clever, in a way I will never be able to write. The part of the interview that struck me was this:

"When I started writing Even the Dogs I decided to ignore any concerns about readers who might not buy into what I was trying to do: to write the book as I wanted to write it, and wait to see what happened."

Of course, as a literary writer he is allowed, even expected, to be experimental. The kind of writing he admires is ‘barely readable’ (his own words). I am writing genre fiction, as mass market as it gets: YA. Not quite comparable. Yet I do think there is something true there.

Yes, I would love to be published. And I have studied pace and points of view and all of those good tips and techniques to make my writing better. As good as I can possibly make it.

But I spend my weekends and holidays writing because I love it. I love Lacie and Rowan and Meuriaden and Faerie more than publishing. And if getting published meant that the changes I was required to make corrupted the core of my book and its message – and it might well be that my current plot/ characters/ story are unmarketable at present without massive changes – then I’d rather carry on as I am now: an amateur holiday-time writer.
I'm not saying there is always a dichotomy (unlike my title suggests), and still hope for a bright future for my book. But if it doesn't turn out like that, at least I have written the book I wanted to write. If I find out it’s not publishable, well… tough.

In the meantime, I’ll carry on trying to make it as close as possible to what I want it to be.

After party

So...

Thank you to everyone who came and in particular all those who commented. 39 comments! Ok, so about half of them are my replies, but still. I am deeply moved that so many people took the time to come.

Now there's two more things that have come out of this party.
1. I need to make a page about writing resources.
2. We have a winner! I forgot to mention it again, but as I had previously said, I have picked a commenter at random (using the random number generator on Excel... At least I've remembered one thing from statistics lessons at uni). This lucky winner will get not only to read a never-before-seen chapter, but also have their own guest blog here.

And the winner is...

Clara!!!

Congratulations Clara (or maybe commiserations?) Really looking forward to your post - I hope you're up for it!

Happy Birthday to me!

Welcome, welcome!

Come on in and make yourself at home.

Cake? Glass of champagne? Are you sitting comfortably? Is the music ok?

All right, fine, I need to calm down.

Welcome to my blog’s virtual birthday party. The idea is that you leave comments and I reply or you reply to each other. So get commenting!

Here are some of the things you might want to have a look at:
• What the book is about
• Who the characters are - or take this test to find out which character you are the most like!
• Perhaps you’d like to learn more about the world in the library
• Or you want to have a sneak peak at what I’m writing by reading some excerpts
• Or maybe you want to start a debate and argue on one of my opinion posts.

Whatever you choose, feel free to comment on any post, even old ones.

There is also a Q&A post, so if you have any questions for me, you can leave them there and I’ll answer them.

Just remember to be nice and cordial to each other, even if you think this is all pants and why on earth any adult in their right mind would write a story about fairies.

Have fun!

Q&A

This is the place for you to ask any questions you want answered during the amazing fantabulous Virtual Party! Or anytime, really.

For the love of numbers

And so a year has passed. A year since my big coming out. And what a year it has been:

• 43 posts
• 80 comments (including my responses)
• 1854 page views (nearly 50% more if you ask blogger rather than google analytics, but it can inflate the number of page views because it includes bots)
• 680 sessions
• 327 users (people)

Now if you know a lot about blogging, you’ll probably think all these numbers are pathetically small. But to me it’s a big deal. 1854 page views! Considering only people I know visit this blog, it feels like a lot. When I wrote the first post, I didn’t even know if anyone would bother to come and read it. I didn’t know if people were going to make fun of it.
So thank you to everyone who has come, even just once. Thank you to all those people who come discreetly, but then tell me they think it’s great I’m doing a blog. Thank you to those who comment, even on the French version (which is on hold for the time being). Thank you for the feedback.

Of course, the really important numbers are the ones about my book.
2014 is:
• 25,000 words of brand new (or completely rewritten) material
• 5 new chapters and 7 new scenes
• Over 82, 000 words of edits
And many, many words cut out (I haven’t counted those).

The book is currently about 130,000 words long and I have about 50k left to heavily edit before I do a final editing for style. The current plan is to finish this summer. If you’re interested in beta-reading the book, or part of it, especially for the writing (no further rounds of editing that will affect plot or characters), then do get in touch!

Thank you to everyone who has supported me this year, be it through kind words or by pushing me to write a little bit more. I feel I can finally see the end at the light of the tunnel.