Awards Aftermath!

Well, I’ve just about come back down to earth following the YoungMinds Book Award and it has been an amazing week.

First Amazing Thing to Have Come Out of Winning a Book Award:

Literary agents contact you – and get back to you within days not months!

Second Amazing Thing

Your teenage son, who is usually far too cool to express any kind of excitement about his mum, is genuinely gob-smacked and utters the immortal words, “I’m well proud of you!”

Third Amazing Thing

You get a ton of requests to come and run workshops in schools – which I absolutely LOVE doing by the way so please email me if you’d like me to come to your school…

Fourth Amazing Thing

You feel vindicated for all of the times you felt like knocking the writing on the head but didn’t.

Fifth Amazing Thing

You know that no matter what happens in the future, one of your books was awarded first prize by a panel made up of your target readers and writers whom you hugely respect. It doesn’t get any better than that.

Sixth Amazing Thing

You sign up with an American literary agent who lives in Paris and eat your body weight in pain au chocolat in celebration….

Dear Dylan Wins 2010 YoungMinds Book Award!

Well, having said I had no chance of winning – I won! Still feeling a little speechless so I hope this blog won’t end up being one long blank…

Giving my acceptance speech

In summary, Dear Dylan’s journey to award winning status goes something like this:

• After running countless workshops for young people I decide to make the transition from adult to young adult fiction and I decide to write fiction that will hopefully help young readers with the various issues they face growing up.
• I decide to take a creative gamble and write a book entirely in emails, both for the challenge it presents and because I felt it would be a form that would resonate with young readers.
• I finish the book and send it out to agents.
• It gets rejected.
• The general consensus seems to be that the email format won’t work.
• Then I hear that a publisher is starting a new YA list and looking for writers.
• I send it to the commissioning editor and she offers me a book deal within a week saying how refreshing it was to receive something a different, and how fed up she was with agents sending ‘safe’ submissions.
• I feel very happy and celebrate with red wine, chocolate and a blast of Bruce Springsteen.
• The publisher asks me if I will write a book about a teen wag that they can publish before Dear Dylan as they feel this will be more commercial.
• I drown my sorrows with red wine, chocolate and Bruce Springsteen’s album, Nebraska.
• The publisher then offers me far less money than they originally had.
• I tell them to sling their book deal.
• I indulge in more red wine, chocolate and Springsteen’s Darkness on the Edge of Town.
• I decide my career as a writer is over.
• But I still have a burning passion to write.
• I decide to self publish Dear Dylan.
• I see an article about the YoungMinds Book Award and I think, I’m self-published they won’t touch my book with a barge pole.
• I play Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Thunder Road’ and decide to send my book off anyway.
• I get a thank you email from YoungMinds – Dear Dylan has been entered for the competition.
• I jump around for a bit.
• I get another email from YoungMinds – Dear Dylan has been long-listed.
• I go to the toilet at work and I cry with joy.
• A couple of months pass and I get another email from YoungMinds – Dear Dylan has been short-listed.
• I ring my dad and we both cry. And say ‘Jesus!’ A lot!
• I drink some red wine, eat a box of Ferrero Rocher and play ‘Glory Days’.
• I read in The Bookseller that the publisher I had my book deal with has gone bust, owing authors thousands of pounds in unpaid advances.
• I go to the YoungMind Book Awards.
• I am convinced I won’t win.
• I don’t even prepare the opening line for a speech.
• A gold envelope is opened.
• My name is called out.
• I think I’ve come sixth!
• I get on to the stage and see an award trophy with my name and book title engraved upon it.
• I try really hard not to cry.
• I fail.
• I think about all of the things I went through as a teenager.
• I think that now I really will be able to help other teens going through similar experiences.
• I am about as happy and as proud as I think I’ll ever be.

Trying really hard not to cry!

Next time I will blog about YoungMinds and the excellent work that they do. Their annual lecture before the Book Award was inspiring and if you are looking for a charity to support I would throughly recommend them.

Young Minds Book Award

Tonight I’m going to my very first book awards as a short-listed author. 

The fact that it is for the organisation Young Minds makes it even more special to me. One of the main reasons I started writing novels for young people was because I wanted to explore the issues and pressures that they face through my fiction in the hope that it might help.

The Young Minds Book Award is all about fiction that helps young readers deal with the pressures of growing up. For my first YA novel DEAR DYLAN to be short-listed is a real honour.

When I run writing workshops for young people I like to focus a lot on confidence building. When I was younger I really struggled with a lack of confidence when it came to my writing – to the point where I actually dropped out of university because I didn’t think I could compete against people from such wealthy and well-connected backgrounds.

It took me years to find the courage and drive needed to overcome my self doubt and pursue my dream. Now I am a published author and have a career in publishing as an editor I am proud of the fact that I grew up on a council estate and got where I am through hard work alone. And I love being able to go into schools and tell the least confident of kids, ‘if I can do it then so can you.’

I am up against some formidable writing talent tonight so I think it’s very unlikely that I will win. But in my mind I’ve won already just by being on the same shortlist as them. If I could time-travel back to tell my eighteen-year-old self I’m sure she’d never believe me!

And to any aspiring young writer reading this who might be having a crisis of confidence -NEVER GIVE UP ON YOUR DREAM COS YOU DON’T KNOW WHERE IT MIGHT LEAD!

Back in the Blogging Saddle

Well, I’m hoping that blogging is just like riding a bike and you never forget how to do it – however long you leave it!

Being a single parent (and ordinary human being!) sometimes real life takes over and demands that your writing life takes a back seat for a while.

It happened a couple of years ago when my former partner was diagnosed with cancer and it happened again this year when I realised that it was time for a brand new start. In a brand new location.

At the risk of alienating any readers currently embroiled in lengthy house moving chains I decided to move on a Thursday, googled a map of possible locations on the Friday, went to check out one of the places (that I’d never been to before) on the Saturday and we had moved there three weeks later!

It was crazy and rash but sometimes you need to shake life up a little.

My son and I had been through so much over the past couple of years we both felt all London-ed out. So now we are settling into country life in a cottage in a village. And so far we have loved every minute of it.

Max checking out the new view

THREE THINGS I HAVE LEARNT ABOUT COUNTRY LIFE SO FAR

1. Buses come about once a day -  and nonece a day on Sundays!
2. You can actually see the stars – and the night sky is black not orange.
3. When complete strangers talk to you it doesn’t mean they are angry or mad – or both.
4. Pubs have these great things called ‘lock-ins’.
5. Houses have fireplaces that still work and haven’t been filled with nasty dried flower arrangements.

My dog Max is loving it too, although he got a shock the first time I took him to our local woods and he saw deer for the first time. He looked at me all dazed and bemused, as if to say, ‘those are some mighty scary squirrels’!

Anyway, now life is returning to normal, the writer in me is itching to be set free (she’s currently trapped in one of the packing boxes from the move) and it’s a good job too because next week I have a book awards to go to – FOR WHICH DEAR DYLAN HAS ACTUALLY BEEN SHORT-LISTED! I also have a brand new YA novel to find a publishing home for and a brand new idea that is burning to get written.

Back soon – I promise!