My first children's novel

I've been rather quiet on this blog for a while.  It's for a couple of reasons: first, I've been sending the first and second novels to agents and waiting for replies.  I've had several positive ones, but none positive enough: nobody has yet offered to take me on.  I've also been writing.  I've found it difficult and dispiriting writing whilst being rejected by agents.

However, last night, I finished my first children's novel.  I've got two young adult novels finished, and a third on the go, but I started this one on a family holiday with my two girls and their cousins.  Catherine's sister, Jenny, was reading them Terra, by Mitch Benn, and I was frankly a little jealous that she was getting to read to them, and I wasn't.  So I started writing something for them to read.  They're 6, 7, 8 and 10, and an idea came to me.  I wrote several chapters that week, reading them to the girls as I wrote them, and finished it off last night.  I need to send the completed version off to Jenny to read to her girls, after I've done some editing.

It was great fun to write, and I had a number of good suggestions from the girls.  I'm going to edit it (see above), tightening it up and checking that the vocabulary isn't too difficult.  It's aimed at 6-11 year olds - girls and boys - either as readers themselves, or to be read to them.  It's fairly short - around 13,500 words, or 11 chapters before editing - and hopefully nice and fast-moving.

It's called Keith, my magical, talking sword, and it's about how much trouble a magical, talking sword can be to you.  Particularly if you're only at primary school.  It's supposed to be funny (the girls laughed a lot), and it was a lot of fun to write.  It has a main character who's a girl and two friends - a boy and a girl - and I've already got at least a couple of other lined up in the same series.  I'm looking forward to approaching agents with it.

Your favourite ... character

One of the questions that I ask my readers is who their favourite character is, and why.  The answer that I expect is either "Kate" (for Hacking the Dragon) or "Lena" (for Big Brother's Little Sister), for the simple reason that they're the heroes (heroines, if you must) of their respective stories.  I know that I've invested a lot of thought and care into them, and I can get quite emotional about some of the things that happen to them, and I also know a lot about them, their background, their motivations, fears and aspirations.

The answer, however, isn't always what I expected.  J, my eldest, for instance, chose Jess and Jagruti from the two books.  Both are more minor characters, though both have an important role to play in the action.  I suspect that one of the reasons that J is interested in these characters is that they both have a bearing not only on the main characters in the books - Kate and Lena - but also both have interesting interactions and relationships with them. 

It's surprised me how much interest I have in the secondary characters in my books.  There's certainly a tier of tertiary characters who don't have much to do, and are maybe a little less developed that the primary and secondary characters, but I know an awful lot about the first and second tiers, so although I don't quite understand quite why my readers aren't as taken by heroes as I am, it's also quite pleasing that they think that these other characters are worth investing time in.

100wc and 100wcgu

J, my eldest, is at a school where they participate in the #100wc or "100 word challenge", a weekly challenge where children across the globe (and there are participants from English-speaking schools all over the place, not to mention the equivalent one for Welsh-speakers!) get to write, well, 100 words based on a prompt.

This prompt could be a phrase, a collection of words, or even a picture, and I've seen some fascinating entries by Jo and her classmates.  The challange is run by Julia Skinner, and she's collected a team of commentators who are asked to visit the entries by the children and add a comment.  Some children's entries will have garnered comments from friends, parents, classmates or teachers, whereas for others, the commentator's comment may be the only one.  The cardinal rule is to encourage the child.  Tonight, I completed my first set of comments, and it's a real privilege to be encouraging children to write.

I joined after participating in a live 100wc session with J a few weeks ago, and deciding I wanted to be more involved.  It's fun, it makes you think, and it's good critical practice.  And Julia needs more people to help out.  Read some of the entries, and if you can spare the time (about an hour a week), then get in touch.

There's also 100wcgu ("100 word challenge for grown-ups), which is an opportunity for adults to practice the discipline of writing to a very short brief.

To find out more, visit the website, or search for #100wc on Twitter: it's fun, and it helps kids.  What more do you want?