Some great feedback

My last post was about feeling rather nervous about having adults read my 2 novels, and since then a few offered, and I've had some really, really positive feedback.  Some great feedback and questions on my first novel, Hacking the Dragon, raising some questions which I expected to come up, and which I hope to discuss with an agent and/or editor, when I find them.  Thanks very much, Stephen!  The best compliment he paid me was to want to know what happened to the characters - and the society - next.  The next best was to want to read the second novel, Big Brother's Little Sister, which he's now doing.  A very different read, in a different world, with different problems.

Another friend is currently reading BB'sLS, as is his 13 year-old daughter.  I've just got the first comments from her: she particularly liked the characterisation, which is very gratifying, as it's an area I worked hard on this time round, particularly.

Huge thanks to Sylvie, and to everyone else who's reading it.  I look forward to your thoughts!

Big Brother's Little Sister - revision finished

It's done!  I took advantage of a quiet couple of days with the rest of the family away to complete the first revision of my second YA novel, Big Brother's Little Sister.  It's written for a slightly older audience than Hacking the Dragon, and at a little over 117,000 words, it's a lot longer too (Hacking the Dragon is currently around 65,000).  The main difference, though, is that it's a lot darker.

The themes they have in common is that they both have strong female protagonists, and in both cases, there's only so much help they can get from the adults in their lives to resolve the major problems that arise in their lives.  Pretty much everything else is different, though, including the worlds which Lena (Big Brother's Little Sister) and Kate (Hacking the Dragon) live.  Lena's world is technologically very similar to ours, though the political milieu is more right-wing, whereas in Kate's world, there are computer systems running people's houses and most adults have the Chip, a direct brain interface which, well, can cause problems.  That said, computer systems feature heavily in both - I'm keen to encourage characters (and my readers!) to engage with technology, whether they're boys or girls.

Now I need to decide what to do with it.  Hacking the Dragon is currently seeking an agent, but I've not got that far with Big Brother's Little Sister yet.  I think I need to find a few friendly readers to get their views, and to decide whether J, my eldest, is going to be happy with the darker outlook presented by this novel.  I think she'll be fine, but I suspect we'll spend quite a lot of time talking about the more adult themes that the book presents.

More later, but for now, it's time for a cup of tea (and maybe that chocolate éclair that's sitting in the fridge downstairs).

Favourite authors: Melissa Scott

The Womens Room UK is a great organisation which seeks to help the media in the UK find female experts on all sorts of topics, and was founded as a reaction to the under-representation of women's voices in the media.  It's a great group of people, and has a very active following on Twitter at @TheWomensRoomUK.  Today, they asked people to name their favourite female authors, and I chose Melissa Scott.

I can't remember when I first came across Scott, but I think the first of her books I read was Trouble and her Friends.  I hesitate to pigeon-hole her work, but it's broadly science fiction, and often has an element of cyberpunk.  It's also always refreshing, but what really stands out for me is the positive LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans) characters that she introduces.  A number of the books explore issues of gender and sexuality, but mostly, the characters are just, well, there, and the question of their sexuality, in particular, is incidental: it's just part of who they are.  There are times when this - or their gender - may be relevant to the main plot, but often it's not.  To give an example, I've just re-read The Shapes of Their Hearts, where one of the characters, Traese, is a woman living on her own with sporadic, but non-physical contact with another woman.  Is there a longing there for a deeper relationship?  She (Traese) also speculates briefly on whether two or more of the other (male) characters may be more than partners in the professional sense, but this feels like an honest and unforced reflection which fits effortlessly into the story.

I also like the fact that Scott's main characters are often female, and as the protagonists in both of my novels (Hacking the Dragon and Big Brother's Little Sister) are girls, I wanted to nominate her because her writing was part of what spurred me on to write books for my daughters.  She's exactly the sort of writer that I hope they'll grow up to read when they're a little older.

Whilst writing this, I've discovered that Scott has her own Twitter account at @blueterraplane, so go and have a look/follow.