The Way Through the Woods

I am just typing up Kipling's familiar poem. I will, possibly, read it aloud during some creative writing workshops on the theme of trees. And I have just realised - though I must have seen it so many times before - that the poem itself uses the word "road", not "way".

Think I'll have to talk to my young writers about that word. "Road" now is petrol-fumed, tarmac-crusted and noisy. I hope their imaginations will reach beyond the A1 and M62.

Can recall finding the Carrick Roads on a map. A highly pleasurable language leap.

Not The NANOWRIMO

There's lots of attention all round the media for the eminent and glossy NaNoWriMo - see Nicola Morgan's blog - and all praise to the energy and organsiation of it. But it feels too much for me, especially as I'm in the middle of something that needs to be worked on with a bit of care, not free writing.

So I'm going to opt for a much smaller version, a sort of brisk, self-made "Not the NaNoWriMo". As it may be a bonfire of my vanities, I'm getting ready to start properly on Friday 5th November.

My intention is to keep a much sharper count of how many words actually written - no matter how few they are - and how long I've truly been working on the screen or the notebook - minutes or hours. Though I won't be posting any numbers here.

With or without a timer, but spending definite time. Keeping that butt on that seat. That pen on the page. Those eyes on the screen. 15 mins focused attention on the plot problem and more. All the sort of things I've read in those How To books and that might - after a random summer - re-establish a good working pattern. Wish me luck.

I've mentioned this over on the Scattered Authors balaclava forum if any SAS members reading this post wants or needs to come along for the write?

Why No Blog?

So, weeks have passed since my Big Publication Date, so why no blog?

Because Bloomsbury suddenly asked me to do other kinds of writing around A BOY CALLED MOUSE! For example, a Young Writer questionnaire here, a Big Issue (Wales & Scotland only)piece on my ideas for the Five Books A Child Should Read Before 11 there, a short story for Bloomsbury's 247 Writing Project (check out their site), a Story Starter for WriteAway, the signing of 250 bookplates - my mind grows dim. It was BUSY, okay?

Plus lovely times visiting Huddersfield Grammar School and Lindley Junior School c/o Sonia Benster of the Children's Bookshop and also St John of Beverley Primary School as part of Beverley Literature Festival. And a few other schools and writing projects alongside. And tidying my work-room which was neccesary although not a strictly useful task to have begun back at the start of October.

But there has been time for a bottle of champagne to drink and a big bouquet of flowers from a Near & Dear, so all has not been been suffering. . . More soon!

Today's the day! Taraaaaa!

Well, it's here! Today's the day that my novel, A Boy Called M.O.U.S.E, is officially published.

I am just so very pleased and relieved that several people who have read the book seem to like it, and that the older KS2/junior children seem keen to read it too.

No party, fireworks or champagne, though might try a couple of those later when its not such a busy week. Instead I spent the day at a very nice school over near York that had a most interesting spiral staircase and some spooky stories that made my writing shoulderblades get itchy. (Mouse also got a great reception over in schools in Huddersfield last week too.)

Morever, to my surprise, I also feel as if I've been freed up to continue with the next book in the sequence too, now.

Just a few visits to go before now and then . . .

SUDDENLY VERY BUSY!

Well, it's suddenly getting very busy here! The Journey to the Centre of the Earth adaptation is now off and away. But - hooray - I now have my set of author copies of A Boy Called Mouse, and very handsome they look. They seem to have arrived at the Amazon warehouse too, as someone's just called me to say their copy has now been dispatched.

Though I haven't had time to read my copy through yet, which I'm longing to do. Suddenly I'm writing a Mouse-related short story for the next Puffin Post. Deadline Friday! Be back soon.

So it's not only me!

Oh, Jules! At the moment, I am working most briskly on an adaptation of Journey to the Centre of the Earth, and was amused, working my way through the pages, to find a plot full of small holes, and by that I don't mean Verne's Very Bad Science.

For example, the luggage that filled a garden in Germany and a cottage on arrival in Iceland becomes small enough to fit on the back of two Icelandic horses for the cross country journey. Then, after hardly more than a hint about the kit being carried UP the volcano by a few local men (and the horses never mentioned again, munch, munch) there is no account of these helpers going back!

So is this why Hans (the strong-but-silent-man-of-all-work and guide) ropes Axel and Uncle Otto together as they descend the crater? Had the porters already fallen into the fiery crucible? Or is it a cover up? Were the porters pushed? Must avoid such ripples in the imagination and pace onwards.

Must add that, studying my notes, I feel faintly relieved that I am not the only one who repeats phrases over and over again when writing. Yours, trembling again with fear and terror, Penny

It's here! It's here!

It's here! It's here! A ring at the doorbell and there is a postman, bemused the odd woman in a dressing gown who welcomed his parcel delivery by crowing with delight. Hooray! My author copies of A BOY CALLED MOUSE have arrived!

A highly welcome event, especially after a few weeks of family emergency which was thankfully sorted out by Leeds General.

Er, what happens now? Must get my "Journey to the Centre of the Earth" adaptation completed - it's going well - and start on some proper Mouse work.

Mystery Reviewer, Aged 9

Oh dear! What a long gap since my last post. Have been busy working, visiting, holidaying, writing and also discovering Facebook which does seem to eat away at a person's time.

But - hooray! - I'm here to share what feels like the first real review of my novel A BOY CALLED MOUSE. It came on a postcard from a most kind reader aged 9. I don't want to give his name as I haven't yet checked that he wants me to post this up. But I'd like to commend him for working his way all the way through the bound copy. It is definitely not a quick read.

"A BOY CALLED MOUSE is a really interesting book. It has a really good story with lots of funny bits and peculiar parts as well. I really enjoyed it."

By the way, I'm very much hoping that "peculiar parts as well" means good things about MOUSE which is out on 4th October.

Although I've had some very positive grown-up comments, a book never feels quite real to me unless someone young has read it. Now my new novel feels as if it exists.
Thank you hugely, my mystery reviewer!

Maybe it worked?

Had a great time last week, and now I've recovered, have just had a sudden idea about an important linking scene, and suddenly Tome Two is waking up again. The relief.

Was it last week's inspiring company? The sessions, the talk, the giggles, the late nights? Certainly it all helped.

Or was it possibly the choice of at least three plentiful home-made puds (or more) twice a day for four days? Maybe both factors, and maybe also the space to think.

But something plottish has at long last clicked.

An inspiring situation.

Looking forward to a week away at Charney Manor, an old manor house in the deep grassy countryside well west of Oxford. I am hoping my stay will include some time to think and work on Tome Two. Just now I'm playing with the "voice" of the story once my two heroes meet. Do I do one chapter in one and one in another? And do I mix in third-person too? The only true answer is to try it, becuase you're thinking about the story as you write too.

My mind's been too full of other things. I've had a busy time catching up on tax returns, admin, a couple of shorter pieces of writing, and various odds and ends for an organisation I belong to. But they are all done - including putting the cover of A BOY CALLED MOUSE up on my website - so maybe my mind will be free enough to move the new story on a bit? Hope so.

There Are Cats In This Book!

Just to show that I'm not totally preoccupied with Tome One and Tome Two in this blog, I want to mention someone else's book. I came across THER ARE CATS IN THIS BOOK, a totally effective and delightful flip-the-page picture book last week when calling into the tiny but well-filled Aldersbrook Library in Wanstead.

It has a really easy but interesting use of pages and page shapes, together with three beautifully drawn cats: one red almost-kitten, one thin blue anxious cat, and one huge yellow tom-cat. Tiny, Moonpie and Andre, though the names aren't needed for the story.

There's a flip-over-flap saying "biff!" on the pillow fight spread that kept a 3 year old boy flapping and laughing so much I almost feared for the pages. Mind you, he loved it all, and so did his six year old sister, and so did several big people too!

Thank you for this great book, Viviane Schwarz.

Doing The Mental Arithmetic

For someone who still gets anxious when faced with numbers, writing often feels surprisingly like maths. Just now I am going over (again, again!) the first part of Tome Two.

All the time I am saying things to myself like "Does this add up? Does this truly make sense? Have I got this right?"

Or things like "Is this bit logical? Does it fit into the pattern of the plot? If I do x and y, will I end up with the right answer for the reader?"

Words and phrases are all very well but sometimes intense calculation (of a sort) is needed. Thank heavens I don't have to do it like a Ten Minute Test.

Penny & the Halfpenny Bridge

Hello again. I have just come back from ten days in Ireland. The first weekend we spent in Dublin, where we revisited The Winding Stair Bookshop at the north foot of the Halfpenny Bridge, once known as a famous writers cafe.

Writers - or anyone - could, for the cost of a coffee, pose enigmatically in the slanting light of one of the upper windows, knowing the famous footbridge would appear in the background of the photograph. Presumably, once snapped for posterity, they could then search for their works among the many shelves. The place had a definite if slightly faded and rambling charm. Posh it was not.

Now the premises has now been split. There is a smart restaurant upstairs with all the window tables reserved. Any impoverished writer will have to pay out somewhat more for their refreshment than once upon a time. We got a last moment early evening table, but unfortunately chatted so long that we were asked - politely, apologetically - to leave halfway through our pudddings as the 7pm table sitting had arrived. So not quite the relaxed mood of the past, although the food was good enough to think of going back. Sometime. Someone there might have been Maeve Binchy. Or not.

Downstairs The Winding Stair bookshop has risen again, piled with a splendid collection of books. I'd just finished The Secret Scripture by playwright Sebastian Barry. A sad tale, centred around an account of the early life of a woman committed to Roscommon asylum years before and full of the familiar tension between clergy and people. Although there was something about the book as a whole that didn't quite work for me, in many places the writing was quite wonderful.

Browsing throught he crowded shelves, I spotted Barry's first world war novel, A Long Long Way. The young man in the shop said it was a better book than The Secret Scripture, so I bought it on his opinion. It was - as he said - a stronger book, and just as tragic. Both - though I haven't checked this out fully - seem to have grown from Barry's own family history. Anyway, thank you, helpful independent bookshop person!

Annoyingly, when we returned via Dublin there wasn't the time to pick up some of the other titles I'd mused on during the week. Our lovely car passenger and her luggage were now all on ther way to Toronto so there'd have been no end to the books I could have fitted in.

Getting Free of the Words

One of the problems - yet another, you cry scornfully? - of being a writer is the endless chattering of words. The continual jabbering away in the head. Questions about life and general stuff, of course, but also worries about all sorts of things to do with writing visiting and events, both those to come, and those done. Then the briefs and ideas you are talking to yourself and the ones you should be talking to yourself about.

Then there's the nagging doubts about the actual writing: is it okay? does anyone read it? why is my head so empty? does anybody even know my book exists? Move from that into the constructing with and editing of words, the weighing of one phrase, word or sound against each other, one after another after another. Words. Words. I love words, but sometimes I feel as if I can never get away from them.

I tried to relax. Reading? More words. TV & screen stuff? The critic in the head keeps going, analysing all the plot options. Painting? Drawing? Working with the hands? Those make the mind even freer to keep talking.

But I've found a way, a totally brilliant way to get an hours peace. Djembe drumming! Otherwise known as African drumming! Even though I am the most feeble drummer, I just love it. One of reasons is that time spent djembe drumming is an almost totally word free zone. When I drum, there's no room for words in my head. If I stop concentrating-and-counting for a second - even to think the words "Yes, I've got it!", my rhythm is likely to go, and I'll have to work hard to get it back. Djembe drumming quiets the mind - and it's fun and it's a sociable thing. It's a very unwriterly experience.

Though there's a teeny tiny problem. I'm not good at music theory, and complex counting alarms me, so quite often I find myself muttering " "ONE and TWO and NO! and NOW" or "CHIP BUTTY, CHIP BUTTY, CHIP BUTTY" to keep a particular rhythm in my head and hands. So not quite truly wordless, but almost as good. Djembe drumming, the writer's friend.

DON'T PANIC! DON'T PANIC!

I am exhausted with worry! Late last week I read through the Uncorrected Proof of Mouse - see last post - only to discover it was indeed uncorrected and that some corrections I knew had been done with the copy editor weren't there on the page.

Panic. Sleeplessness. Guilt (Why guilt?)Why weren't the corrections there? Was it something I had/hadn't done? Should I keep quiet or . . erm .. raise the matter? I went for the latter, and was told with some gently amused patience that the "book copy" can indeed be taken from an early stage of the mansucript and that all is still progressing nicely.

There was also this Active Learning Written & Spoken Word project I've been involved in. At one level it's been truly great - seeing the same group of children, working out session by session which workshop should come next, seeing definite signs of development, getting to know some great people and children. But oh the paperwork! I have been battling with the session proformas - the downloading, the filling in with data, the observations and outcomes . . . Mercy! I'm a story-teller and my words don't fit easily into boxes.

Please let me have an easier day tomorrow . . .

DOOR WIDENING NEEDED, PERHAPS?

What can I say? My last post told you the uncorrected proofs of A Boy Called Mouse had arrived.

This post makes me feel even more boasty as I have now read from those very same uncorrected pages!

Last weekend, at The Federation of Children's Book Groupa Conference 2010, I gave a seminar - well two if you count the repeat - on the theme of Following The Mouse. (Mice do keep popping up in my books!)

And this meant that not only was I able to read from my beloved book "The Third Elephant" which is full of mice in minor but essential roles, but I was able to read a short extract from Tome One (ABCM). It was an amazing experience as this book has been a loooooooooooong time coming. but at last I feel it will truly exist. And I am so proud of it!

PROOFS AND PUDDING?

Hooray! Today I found a padded envelope on my doormat. I opened it up, half-hoping, and yes - there were two Uncorrected Proof copies of my children's novel, A BOY CALLED MOUSE.

I am so delighted. Thank you Bloomsbury! Now I shall have chocolate pudding with my lunch by way of celebration.

MORE THOUGHTS ON GETTING BACK TO THE WORK

Things are improving. The walking approach has helped. The "writing questions to my characters" and letting their answers start the engine of the plot again has helped.

However, after my various school visits, the thought of writing the whole Tome Two Task feels daunting. So daunting that I had to get my IT Expert to remove the cover of Tome One from its place as my screensaver!

So I have lately developed a sneaky, crafty approach.I have begun creeping up on the damn thing unexpectedly, so the Tome doesn't have time to grow to its full scary size.

I wander to the key-board, having left, for example, the supper simmering on the stove. I scroll down the already opened m/s. Suddenly, with a few swift strokes, I've snuck in a phrase or two, got the intended scene started after all. A few lines, and the thing has started to come to life again. Now what's that scent of burnt risotto?

GOING WALKIES!

The end of the World Book Day Travelling Circus circus is arriving, and I am longing to get back to Tome Two. I can feel this latest book lurking in my head again, ready to start speaking to me. I have 25,000 valid words there so far, but I have decided to do something different to get back into the thing. I am going to help Tome Two along by taking it for a walk each day.

Things have started well. Tome has been something that snuffled grouchily in the corner while I wetn out bringing in money. Now it has started to run about a little, show an interest in its general surroundings, make various noises of approval or delight. Yes, being almost eager again.

For example, yesterday, Tome spotted a new character in the distance. Today he raced right up to this personage, and showed me exactly how & why this new friend is needed in the plot. It all feels very promising - and in this surreal world, there's no hanging about by trees or carrying unmentionable plastic bags either.

I just hope his bark will grow loud enough to keep me walking the pavements and writing the words.

NOW JUST CLICK HERE . . .

Today I'm struggling with technology. It's such slow learning that it makes real writing seem fast. Made even worse by the fact that children of ten can probably deal with all this with speed, wit and giggles. I'm battling with transfering images from one place to another, and with nothing arriving where it should. So, as Resident IT Guru is not available, I am stuck.

Enough to make me get back to Tome Two and the To Outline or Not To Outline Question . . .

SWINGS OR ROUNDABOUTS?

So much for my hopes for almost daily blogging! Whatever happened to the last two weeks? I have spent these days whirling from one school to another, moving from one group of children to another, very much enjoying my round of World Book Day celebrations, despite some too-early-and-frosty mornings. Thank heavens for the support of my satnav:I do love pressing that "Go Home" button at the end of the day.

But even while I'm out trying to show that making stories is fun, there's always a slight tension I have to deal with: the writing! When I'm putting all my energies into visits, I find it impossible to do any proper writing work. And, annoyingly, just as I thought I'd cracked the tangle in Tome Two and was making progress. Swings or roundabouts?

But my happy news is that something exciting is coming in the post . . .

A ONCE AND FUTURE BOOK WEEK

Its World Book Day week, and I had a suitably exciting moment yesterday. I discovered that "A Boy Called Mouse" has appeared on the amazon site, giving the publication date as 4th October 2010, the very start of the UK October 2010 Book Week. Not sure if that means that Mouse will stand out or be carried along in a deluge of autumn books. With luck, the first option!

It has been a very long wait, but day by day everything inches closer. Must give some thought about how to celebrate that 4th October, as I have never arranged any publication party before for my books. However,"no cover image is yet available", so I am still longing to see the final cover design.

I have also heard back from Wise Agent, who was very encouraging about the pages of Tome Two I'd sent her. She wants to know how my two main characters meet, which may be agent-speak for "Do get a move on with the thing, Penny!"

Not this week though, as I'm out four days of five and one evening at a local Battle of the Books. No time for owt that's truly writerly at all.

Happy travelling wherever you roam, all you visiting authors!

THE STEPHEN KING THING

How does he do it? How does Stephen King manage to get to the end of his writing day, shake off the horrors he's created and go pleasantly among his friends and family? Does he laugh cheerfully as he tucks into the contents of his stewpot? Does he feel peaceful when walking beside a lake? And does he go to bed without checking inside under the bed and in every wardrobe?

How do such writers move from one horrific scene to another and still gather merrily at the fireside without severe drink taken? Or do they take the dog for long, long walks of an evening? Must go back to his great book On Writing and read for some reassurance.

Sometimes - like just now- it's stupidly hard living with and through a story you care about. The feelings that you're writing tend to stick around a bit, a looming shadow of angst, even though it's all "made up stuff". Guess it's all that drawing from the deep well.

I've recently been battling with an anguished section of Tome Two when all may be lost for my young protagonists. So yesterday, when Lad Home Here suddenly appeared in my workroom to ask a small but important question, I was almostready to leap at his throat. I think I did not speak to him at all kindly. Luckily, he understands. He says.

However, when I'd finished for the day, I still had to stay hidden, pottering with wretched admin, while my heart beat went back to normal and my adrenaline calmed. Is this a healthy state? Writing can feel like a very Jekyll & Hyde type existence.

Even Roald Dahl makes me wonder. How did he feel after writing about that disgusting beard in The Twits? Did he scoff his afternoon tea of scones with cream and jam without any single qualm in the stomach area?

MENDED . . OR NOT?

A most satisfactory morning, as I did find my writing-not-admin head once more, and managed to mend those last minute edits. Sent my corrections off before lunch, and heard this afternoon from my hard-working editor that the Boy Called Mouse manuscript has now Gone To Production. Sounds rather grand. Should I look out my mink wrap and sit on the chaise longue sipping pink champagne now?

The email problem continues though. Great Author sent back a brief email to say that a simple message without attachments had reached him. So swiflty I re-sent the original, and . . . silence! Oh dear!

Spent the afternoon happily working on with my revision of Tome Two - at least what I've done on it so far - until I reached that painful point where new plot meets old plot with a loud crunching sound. Back to a few hours of Big Thinking. Without champagne.

I'M LATE! I'M LATE!

Feeling like the White Rabbit here. So little time, so much that seems to be still undone. Have been whizzing about for the last week or so, opening a school library, going on an arts course, visiting a school miles away, having people to stay - both big and small - and doing assorted admin in between, though not enough of it.

And now this! Over the last while, I've been putting together a Book Quiz for an imminent local schools event. (No, not the KidsLitQuiz.) Today was going to be my last day on it. I gave the wording a final check, both questions and answers, which included taking out a favourite question because I wasn't totally sure the answer was in the text as well as in the film, and of course that particular book had run away and hidden itself, as they do! Yep, I checked that the grammar was as simple and clear as possible, the answers straighforward, everything nice and tidy. Ta-da!

I had actually ended up doing this final five minutes of tidying up for most of the day, so imagine my huge relief as I sent the quiz-carrying email off to the Great Author & Designated Questionmaster.

Groan! Before I had even reached for the big thick pencil to make big thick marks on my shortened To Do List, the wretched email bounced back. It seems that Great Author's email address no longer exists, not in that form. So back on my shelf the task goes, quivering and unfinished, the To Do List as smug and as full of itself as ever.

Even sadder, I have heard that A BOY CALLED MOUSE is unfinished too. My excellent editor has found that the proofs need a few last tweaks so the text sits happily on all the pages. Time to get my own editing hat on again. Hope I can work out all the answers this time.

STEPPING BACK IN TIME

Shopping malls and modern architecture just don't make my typing fingers itch. I prefer musing on old atmospheric places and about things that might have happened in the past. These plots have a special advantage in that my child characters don't have to go to school.

Last week I was in London, meeting my agent and a couple of publishers, but did some indulging in settings. I almost wore my feet out striding to the Dickens House Museum in Doughty Street on Thursday's cold wet afternoon. The small poorly-lit rooms held displays about Dickens life, manuscripts and publications among oddments of Dickensian furniture. It was not the most astonishing experience, but I did enjoy the original basement kitchen windows from which Dicken's idler servants could gaze up at the various feet passing along the pavement, even though the room is now a library. I also liked the reconstructed period washroom, and the waste-paper basket overflowing with faux crumpled drafts. Small sights that help the writing mind to do its own time-travelling. I also came away with an 1843 London map, showing the size of the city at that time, the northern fringes then edged by Regents Park Cannal.

Monday brought another step back in time when I led a Storytelling Training Day at the Workhouse you can see above, at Southwell, Nottinghamshire. Great people and great stories! But the style of the architecture - separate yards for each category of male and female inhabitant, the outdoor privies, many windows a little too high to see the world outside, painted brick and plaster walls - all reminded me of the dour four-storied school I once attended, and that you can still find in thankfully modified use today.

You see, the past lives on longer than one thinks.

AND SCURRYING AND . . . COLLAPSING!

Grrr! Just when you think you're on top of it all, along comes the spanner and drops straight into the works. Thursday night brought some horrid, shivery, fluey two-hot-water bottle bug that suddenly reminded me that you can still have malaria after getting back from India. (India? You can read about it on the "Awfully Big Blog Adventure"and more beside. Even though I have so much to do just now, it was a case of aching fingers quadruply-crossed under the duvet as I slowly recovered.

Only got up late today, but I have started re-reading Solutions for Novelists: Secrets of A Master Editor by Sol Stein. An excellent book - if such books help you with your work - that speaks about the secrets behind "readable" writing. Candy Gourlay, an exciting new children's writer, has even got Solutions as one of her blog sponsors - how,I ask?

Because if there's one thing I want, it is that my books will be easy to read. That's not easy as in boring reading schemes but as in books where the story is told in a clear, interesting, rhythmic and pacey way, with occasional words and phrases that surprise or delight or intrigue a young reader. A story that can't help but be un-put-downable.

Is that too much to ask? Maybe the fever's still got me . . .

LOPING AND SCURRYING

This morning I definitely feel true Gemini mode. I should be, and want to be, wrangling the plot of Tome Two into shape. There's something in it that keeps niggling me, and I can't work out what the problem is.

For that I need to have deep reflective energies - a slow but determined loping along, watching out for the ideas that come to me.

Instead - and annoyingly - I'm in scurrying mode. As I'm going down to London for some of next week, I'm trying to sort out train timetables, and arrange meetings, and work out how much time it takes to get from A to B. It has to be done now, because many publishing people aren't in their offices on Fridays, and next Monday is too late for any sensible planning.

I'll be scurrying for real next week, but my imagination is scurrying now: what to take, what to say, will I fit in the Dickens Museum in Doughty Street this time or not, who will I know at the Watts & Wayland Hay's Galleria party? None of this helps today's main thing. Get back to the basic plot wrangling, girl. Slow down, slow down. Start loping.

TIME WITH PATRICK & PETER

It's Saturday already. This Year Of Mouse blog's been sitting rather shamefully silent for almost a week. Where did the days go?

Part of the week was taken up with an initial meeting of an Active Learning Written and Spoken Word project at Morley Library where - despite the icy morning - teachers, librarians and a variety of writers spent a day together,

This first training day was brilliant. It was led by lecturer and storyteller Patrick Ryan, who I'd first heard years ago as one of the Company of Storytellers, and it was as good as I'd hoped. He mixed tales, riddles and story activities with theories of learning and the universality of narrative.

I was paired with a very nice young primary teacher, and we enjoyed chatting about what might work for the project's classroom visits. I feel much more excited - happily! - than I thought I'd be about this initiative and it was great to be working with other people again. As a "Book Week Visitor" I'm often out there in the school hall working alone. Good to mix with the other writers too. I'll tel you more as it happens.

So it wasn't until yesterday I had time to muse on the Mouse illustrations. They were drawn by Peter Bailey, and were just wonderful and dramatic, with the first image and the final image cleverly "bookending" one aspect of the plot.

I'd already seen Peter Bailey's work in the poet Tony Mitton's "Plum" anthology and in Philip Pullman's "I was a Rat" and welcomed the hint of Ardizzone in the dramatically "lit" black and white pen drawings. I spent a special afternoon looming through the nine pictures, and my responses are now waiting in an editorial in-box.

Spent today working on two short texts - one new, one a revision - for early reader books, hoping that the series editor and consultant will like one or other. Why not both? Because they rarely take two stories by the same author in one of the sets.

Meanwhile, it's back to working on Tome Two, struggling to get the storyline straightened out. . . Hope you're having a productive weekend too.

LOOKING BUT NOT LOOKING.

Today, in a pile of snow-belated post, came copies of the art work for Mouse: a group of black & white drawings that will go into the finished book.

I am quietly but wildly excited and have glimpsed the pictures. Though the editor had mentioned the book might have illustrations, I wasn't totally sure this would happen. I half expected to see the new version of the cover, but it wasn't. It was a set of seven full page illustrations.

Now the next bit may sound a bit odd and masochistic. Having previously opened up envelopes full of illustrated versions of my mostly early reader stories, I have developed a useful rule: do not on any account hurry to send off your comments. Take your time. At least a day or two. Get to know them.

So, once I've slipped the sheets out of their envelope, I look quickly through the images, noting that some I already love, and that some are not exactly as I saw the character or scene. Yet.

It takes time to become used to viewing ideas that have been in your head and heart for months suddenly re-interpreted by someone else. It's rather like the jolt I felt when I saw actors working on a script of mine, because they took the words and characters and re-made them as they saw them. Don't rush, Penny. Don't jump.

So the set of precious images is resting on top of my filing cabinet, like a kind of clever secret. I will certainly sneak in and look at them a couple more times tonight. Get to know them and wagt they are saying. Tomorrow I should be able to think calmly about them, and that's when it's time to think about replying.

Slowly.

USEFUL WORDS

The list is getting longer. Read all those articles about improving your website. Read that book about voice work. Prepare that storytelling workshop. Reply to those 25 lovely letters from two schools in Wales . . .

Ruffling through cuttings & cards from my last year's diary (the almost obsolete deskfax format)I came across a useful reminder for me, for writers everywhere, and maybe for other people too.

Here it is THE MAIN THING IS TO KEEP THE MAIN THING THE MAIN THING.

In other words, whatever you do, make sure your writing time comes first. Just wish I'd noted down who said it.

Just off to join an online celebration. Here's wishing a Happy First Birthday to HELP! I NEED A PUBLISHER!, Nicola Morgan's great writing blog. Go search and have fun.

Then back to at least thirty minutes on the main thing.

PATIENCE IS A VIRTUE

Pitter, patter! Yes, here it comes, a little late and out of breath, making tiny prints in the snow. The Year of Mouse has arrived.

Hello! I'm a children's writer and this blog will be my story of the year of Mouse. Apart from facing the writing page daily, there are three things a writer needs. Determination, cussedness and patience. Especially patience.

Rather more than a year ago an editor fell in love - as she kindly said - with my manuscript. A Boy Called Mouse. (Actually more than one editor did, so that was a complicated time. Thank heaven for agents!)

Now if my life had been a fairy tale, or I was a celeb with a ghost writer at my elbow, my book might have been thrust into little fingers everywhere within three months. That's not how it happens.

That's when I learned that books fit seasons of the year. Think of those blue-sea-and-sky covers calling out to summer readers. Now Mouse isn't a bright and cheerful tale. It is dark and dramatic and slightly Dickensian. So no summer-time Mouse. On the other hand, the Mouse plot doesn't have much snow. Or Father Christmases. QED, Mouse must be an autumn book. 2009? I mumbled.

Er, no. Too tight a fit for all the pre-publication work, and the publishing schedule was already full. Plus there was a certain general slowing of world finance. And they wanted to make the book really special. So, sensibly, Mouse was moved to autumn. 2010! It seemed ages away back then. See what I mean about patience?

But now 2010 has come. How do I deal with it? How am I supposed to manage this year? How do I do this? Do I have to become some kind of Mouse publicity person, or sit gladly in authorial seclusion, eating chocolates, while my helpful publishers do it all for me? Annd how will I fit in all things Mouse-ish with my usual line of work: early readers, oddments for anthologies, school & library visits and so on. How does one actually start to tell other people about one's wonderful new novel? "I can't help noticing that you've also got Weetabix in your trolley. By the way, If you are looking for a terrific new book for your kids . . ." etc etc.

Even worse, how do I keep my mind on the draft of my next novel, known as Tome Two, which is scaring me no end (and not in a good way) when my mind goes into a flutter whenever I think of the Mouse book actually arriving at some future date?

Follow this blog and discover what it's really like being a children's author. Just you and me, okay? And Mouse. Pitter, patter, pitter, patter.