First, many thanks to Jen at Writer in the Wilderness, who nominated this blog for a Beautiful Blogger Award. I'll attempt seven interesting facts about myself after sharing the jolly news that my two entries to the Fish One-Page Prize have both been shortlisted. And I almost didn't enter anything for this prize this year! Results on 30 April, yikes, but I'm happy just to have got this far. Now for the interesting facts...

1. Circa 1975, my school was on TV in a children's pop show hosted by Ed "Stewpot" Stewart called 'Give us a song' or something like that. My one and only TV appearance.


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People ask me, now and then, why I write children’s books. It’s not a question I’d ever asked myself – I never thought there had to be a reason – but the obvious answer is: because I think they’re fun, exciting, important and valuable to society. But one could say the same about adult books. Well then, the real reason is: because I love them. So the real question is: why do I love children’s books so much? After much thought, I’ve decided that there is an answer to that. I love children’s books because I happened to be brought up in Libya. Bear with me.

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By way of soothing my guilt and irritation at forgetting a much-needed appointment with my wonderful osteopath (I blame the York Festival of Writing for the amnesia, as well as the malfunctioning vertebrae) I've been thinking about how memory works in writing. You could make a powerful argument that all narrative works by using memory's neural pathways, even when it's fiction - "Fiction is the memories we don't have" - but that's not what I'm talking about. I mean using your memory as part of your process, and not just remembering things, but forgetting them.

Actually, it's York, in another sense, which got me thinking about this: in the workshop I shared with my agent Clare Alexander and another of her authors, Fiona Shaw, I mentioned that The Mathematics of Love was actually the third outing for my Peninsular War soldier Stephen Fairhurst: he first appeared in a twenty minute writing class exercise, then as the author of a set of letters in another novel, and finally got a full narrative - half a novel - to himself, the best part of a decade later. "Yes," said Clare, "the character who won't go away." I'd never really thought of it like that: with hindsight it's obvious that Stephen was important, appealing, full of potential... that he was who I should be writing. But of course it wasn't obvious at all, at the time: he just was always there. Asked by me what I should be working on for the next project, my memory kept offering him up, and forgetting (at least temporarily) all the dozens of other characters that I found/invented/overheard/imagined in that decade; characters who might please an agent or be fashionable to read or easy to write, who might get that deal... "No, write Stephen," said my memory. And sure enough, it's Stephen and Stephen's voice that the majority of readers say they love best about that book.

When it comes to researching a novel, too, I sometimes say that I use my memory as a sieve;

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I probably bought this book before I had anything much to revise or when I was too caught up in writing to pay it much heed. I wish I'd read it before I started.

Now that I'm ready to give fiction another try and have a cache of rejected short stories and novels going nowhere it's just what I'm looking for. I whipped through it, pencil in hand, over a weekend with lots of other stuff going on. Self-Editing for Fiction Writers reads like a well-written cookery book. I can't wait to start applying what the authors recommend.



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I'm feeling like Piglet after he escaped from Kanga's house: not yet my own, nice, comfortable colour again, and not at all sure what's just happened. Since rolling all the way home in the dust wasn't an option on a train from York which was so full that moving my foot to relieve my backache required carefully planning, I'm going to do my thinking aloud here. What was last weekend's Festival of Writing all about?

At the obvious level, in my case it was about giving eight hours of workshops, solo and with others, and eighteen one-to-one meetings with writers to discuss their work. Also innumerable casual encounters with: aspiring writers; agents/editors/authors; friends old and new; ducks; drinks; my books; interesting, intelligent questions; good food (they had the sense not to serve duck...); echoes of my own undergraduate days. But what was it really about, I'm asking myself, in the tone of voice that my agent (who was also there) uses when she's trying to get me to sort out my latest novel. Her next question is usually, 'What's at stake?', and now I come to think of it, that's a more interesting way to think that the usual tales of triumph and/or disaster. So what was at stake?

As a author, you're hugely dependent on the organisers of any event, just as actors are on technicians and backstage crew. Whether you're teaching or reading or just signing books, it's a kind of performance, and you can't do it well if you have to sort out glitches, or cope with muddles. At the very least you're distracted: at the worse you look like an idiot. That there were remarkably few problems in York is a tribute to the swan-like skills of the team at Writer's Workshop and York Conferences, who were paddling furiously underneath the surface (we don't seem to be able to get away from wildfowl, do we?) so that the festival as a whole could glide smoothly along in the sunshine (which no doubt they also arranged specially). It isn't always thus, as all authors know.

One aspiring writer, new to this odd world, said that she was disconcerted by the undertow (or overtone) of desperation in so many writers - even in the air of the festival itself. I know what she means, though I think on the whole it's balanced by the amount of hope (of writing better; understanding more of craft, art and industry; finding fellow-writers) which is genuinely on offer, as opposed to the delusional hopes that vanity publishers and some kinds of writing course offer.

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Friday 9th April

Today I drove for five hours to reach York University by one thirty, the designated time for registration at the 2010 Festival of Writing run by the Writer's Workshop. As I write these words, it’s late at night. I’ve already met some really interesting new people at a Literary Speed Networking session; caught up with some writer buddies; attended a workshop with Harry Bingham and the lovely Helen Corner; watched a live Authonomy session that rivalled the best of the X Factor, and drank one too many glasses of cheap Chardonnay. Actually looking at the single mattress (pvc lined?!) in my student room, the alcohol may indeed aid my night’s sleep. That is if I can ignore the geese clacking (do geese ‘clack’?? Is there even a verb to clack??) I’m rambling. But it’s allegedly mating season and they make loud lovers those geese...


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Hello friends. Things here at Bennett Towers aren't happening particularly fast of late but they are happening. I've been hard at work on the agent's editorial notes for the work-in-progress and I reckon I'm into the gloaming of this project now. I hope so, because much as I love the story, I have been working on it for almost 4 years now and am keen to start something new, particularly the sequel.

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How I went down the pub and learnt how to read again.

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I have finally finished the third draft of my novel. All is left to do is yet more spell-checking and another read-through. And then I will have to release it into the wild and send it off to agents. It feels strange, I have been working towards this and yet there is something of an anti-climax about it. I already have ideas and a big pile of research books to get through, so it’s not that I’ll have nothing to be working on. I can’t put it into words, it just feels odd. I’ve written first drafts before, but maybe because this is the only one I’ve bothered to edit that it feels different.



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