We launched the fourth and final book in the First Aid for Fairies series last night.  In a hot and crowded hall just off the Royal Mile (there were groups from at least 6 primary schools there!) we held a launch party for Maze Running.

But what is a book launch FOR? For readers it’s a chance to eat some crisps, and get a signed copy of the book before anyone else. For the publishers it’s a chance to let booksellers and buyers know the book is out there. And for the writer it’s a chance to thank all the people involved in turning a story into a book (and for Maze Running there were lots of thanks, including publishers, agents, early readers, my kids, vets… I hope I didn’t forget anyone last night!)

So a launch is really a hello to a book. A birth day birthday party, perhaps.

But last night was not just a hello. It was a goodbye too. Because Maze Running is the last in the series, I was saying goodbye to the characters and to the series.  Which wasn’t easy.  And quite a lot of readers in the signing queue asked me to write another one PLEASE! But I can’t write another First Aid for Fairies book.  I stood up there and said to everyone: “This is the last time Helen will go on an adventure with the fabled beasts, to heal their injuries, at the solstices and equinoxes.” And while the word “last” in that sentence seems quite definitive, it might be possible to gallop a centaur through the wide gaps in the rest of the sentence…

However, several other readers in the signing queue mentioned that their favourite book of mine was Rocking Horse War, and wondered if I would write a sequel to that, now that I’m done with Helen. So that’s an idea I’m kicking about as well…

But right now, I’m not thinking about what I’m going to write next, I’m concentrating on saying hello to Maze Running, and goodbye to the fabled beasts.

So here are a few (slightly blurry) photos of the launch. Me reading to a small group of fabled beast fans, and a few favourite character pictures from Lorne Primary in Leith and Calderwood Lodge in East Renfrewshire.

Thanks to everyone who helped to launch Maze Running!

chatting to a handful of fabled beast fans

some of Lorne Primary's favourite characters

some of Calderwood Lodge Primary's favourite characters

I just looked at the very first folder for Maze Running, created when it was still called First Aid Four, and when I was working on each chapter individually, rather than in one big manuscript.

Looking at the names of the chapter files, you would think that I never sat at my own desk:

• One chapter was started in a primary school staffroom (Chap 6, Priorsford)
• Another was started in a primary school general purpose room between author events (Chap 17, Troon)
• At least three were written on long train journeys
• One was started in a train station in Lanarkshire when I on got the wrong train and was stuck in a waiting room for a couple of hours
• One quest was completed on the platform at Dundee train station
• One chapter was written in a hotel when I was doing a book festival in the North of England (Chapter 20, Durham)
• One was written in a B&B in Gairloch, in the far north west
• Another was finished in a guest house in Wigtown, in the far south west
• One was started at Meadowbank Stadium in Edinburgh
• “Chapter 11, Mitchell” suggests that I injured a dragon in the Mitchell library (quietly!)
• Three different chapters are titled “ballet” because I started them sitting on cold steps outside my daughter’s ballet class.
• And another is called “Argyll quest at ballet exam” because I wrote part of the fourth quest while my daughter was sitting a ballet exam.  (She passed.  Helen and the fabled beasts didn’t do quite as well!)

In Maze Running, I send Helen and the fabled beasts on seven different quests, missions and rescues, to the south, north and west of Scotland.  But I’ve realised that the book was written in even more places than that!

So, does this mean I spend too much time away from my desk? Am I not taking my writing seriously enough? I don’t think so, because I don’t need a desk to write – I just need my netbook, or a pen and a bit of paper.  Or I can even just scribble on my other hand, or a napkin…

Does it mean I’m only inspired to write when I’m out and about, rather than at my desk, and should get out more often? I don’t think that either! I write a lot at home too, but because I’m not transferring those files from one computer to the other, I don’t give them such detailed names.

It really just means that my three jobs – being a writer writing, being a writer talking about writing and being a mum – are all part of the same life, rather than neatly separated.  So I take whatever book I’m writing with me everywhere I go, and write it wherever I can.

It also shows that I can have really good ideas when I’m sitting outside a ballet class, or in a cold train station.  Even if I am typing with gloves on.

I write fast-moving action and set my books all over Scotland, so writing on the run and in lots of different places is probably very good for my stories. And I write for 8–12 year olds, so working out how I’m going to start the next chapter just after speaking to P5 about cliff hangers and just before speaking to P6 about chase scenes, is probably the best way to write!

I wonder where I’ll write the next book?

tools for writing on the run: netbook, notebook, napkin

It’s less than a month until the launch of Maze Running, the fourth and final book in the First Aid for Fairies series.

The fourth and FINAL book.

And right now, I’m asking myself: Why is it the final book?  This is a successful series, with lots of fans, with recognisably stunning covers, set in a world where I could easily have found dozens more adventures.  So why have I stopped?

Was I bored? (No! I love this world and these characters.)

Did my publishers say, nah, that’s enough thanks. (Not to me…)

Was I running out of readers? (Nope, not that either!)

So why, as a new-ish writer, trying to build a career as a real proper writer, have I stopped writing a successful series?

It’s a bit daft, really. I have strong characters I enjoying working with, and a formula which could repeat endlessly in different parts of Scotland, with different baddies and different magic.

But that’s really the point: I don’t want it to become a formula.  I want each of my books to be original and different, not to feel tired and samey. And while I don’t think I was anywhere near that with the First Aid series, I suspect I would have got there before I hit double figures!  So I wanted to stop while the books were getting steadily stronger and more exciting.

Some of my readers are a bit upset, even politely annoyed, that I’m ending the series here, but actually that’s quite good (sorry!) because I want to leave you wanting more.  Perhaps you’ll go on to make up your own stories set in the fabled beasts’ world. I also hope you’ll wait eagerly for whatever I write next…

Another major reason for ending the series here is that my characters kept growing up.  Because I have been very specific about each adventure’s time of year, there have been months between each book, and Helen and her friends are now all more than a year older than they were in First Aid For Fairies And Other Fabled Beasts. If I kept writing about them for another few months, and honestly reflected their lives and concerns, I wouldn’t be writing for 8-12 year olds, I’d be writing for teenagers, which I’m happy to do, but not within this series.

Also I don’t want to get too comfortable with these characters, nor do I want to tread the same paths with them again.  I know them really well, and I’ve taken several of them on tough emotional journeys, as well as dangerous quests.  I don’t want to artificially push them backwards just so we can watch them develop all over again. (Yes, Yann, I’m talking about you. And Lee and Rona, and maybe even Helen.) I want to meet and work with NEW characters.  Though I really am going to miss these ones.

I don’t want to be pigeonholed as a writer either. I want to write lots of different kinds of books (which I’ve possibly achieved already with picture books, retellings and teen novellas.)  But I want to write other novels too – my only standalone novel Rocking Horse War sometimes gets a bit lost amongst Helen’s adventures, so I want to concentrate on other ideas like that for a while.

So, sorry to all the First Aid for Fairies fans out there.  No more books about Helen healing her fabled beast friends at specific seasons of the year.

This is the end.

But I think it’s best to go out with a bang!

And here’s the cover of Maze Running. What do you think?

I’m sitting on the fence today, not sure if I’m a picture book author or a novelist. I launched my new picture book, Orange Juice Peas, at the end of April and I’m already starting to think about the launch of Maze Running in June. So I’m going to spend the month of May being a wee bit confused about who I am. Do I write books about peas, bananas, babysitters and giggling, or do I write books about monsters, magic, danger and quests?

The answer of course is that I do both, often on the same day, and that I only occasionally get confused. But why do I do both?  And is there any difference, for a writer, between them?

The main difference for me is that I spend so much time with the characters in a novel, often months, sometimes years, that I know them as well as my family and friends, and care about them almost as much too. I don’t spend nearly as long with the characters in a picture book, so however fond I am of them I don’t know them as well. In fact, I don’t really know them at all until I see their pictures. That feels like the moment I first meet them, which can be a year or so after I write the book!

Also, I don’t have to describe the characters in a picture book, or everything that they do, because the reader can see them on the page (I may have described the characters and the action in illustrator’s notes when I came up with the idea, but those notes aren’t part of the finished book.) In a novel I have to give the reader a lot more detail, because the reader has to make the pictures of the characters and the action in their mind (the very best kind of pictures, I think!)

And the words in a picture book are still a work in progress until they are married with the pictures, because the illustrations are just as much a part of the story as the text.  The cover of a novel, however,  is designed to draw you into the story, it’s not part of the story.

And why do I write both? Because I always want to find the best way to tell a story. When a “what if” pops into my head, I want to explore it in the best way for that question. If the question is about whose bottom this is, or who is going to eat what ice-cream, then it’s probably a picture book; if the question is about why someone has just kidnapped your brother and sisters to use in a magic spell, or why there’s a thieving jellyfish trying to strangle a camp full of scouts, it’s probably an adventure novel!   Also if there is only one problem to solve it’s probably a picture book, if there are lots of problems it’s probably going to take a bit longer!

So it’s usually clear to me whether a story idea is a novel idea where I will build the pictures for the reader to see, or whether it’s a picture book idea where I build the structure for an artist to create the pictures.

So, picture books and novels look very different on the shelf, and they are quite different for the writer too. And right now I have a picture book idea AND a novel idea in my head. Which should I go and scribble down first?

picture books vs novels!

Here are all my picture books and all my novels so far. They do look quite different! Which pile looks more fun to write?

I’m just recovering from the most emotional edit I’ve ever done.
Normally edits are about reducing wordcounts, tightening language, cutting repetition, checking facts, filling in plotholes, and generally telling the story in the best way possible.
And yes, that is what I’ve just done with Maze Running. I found some silly mistakes (I sent a dragon called one name off on a quest, and brought a dragon with a different name back! It’s ok, I noticed and sorted it) and I found a few last minute plotholes (one of which I covered up, literally, with a cloak – handy things cloaks.) I replaced weak wobbly words, made sentences clearer and took out dialogue that wasn’t necessary for the story. I also made a few tweaks to answer questions from my editor. She’s excellent at noticing things which I don’t explain clearly enough, or explain far too often, or which I can’t explain because they don’t make any sense.
By the time I sent the manuscript away a few days ago, it was shorter, clearer, faster and more exciting than the draft I finished at the end of last year. So the editing went really well.
But I was miserable. Actually (and don’t tell anyone this) I was sniffing, wiping my eyes and blowing my nose a lot.
Why? I’m happy with the story and I’m excited about sharing it with people. So why was I sad and upset?
One reason is because my relationship with a book alters once it’s sent off to the printers. I always find it a bit weird reading the printed version of my novels, because I can’t change them any more. If I suddenly think of a different way to express what’s happening, I can’t do it. I have no power over the story any more. I’m not really the writer any more. Just the person who wrote it.
So the final edit is slightly terrifying, because it’s my last chance to get it right. My last chance to spot mistakes, but also my last chance to do the story and the characters justice. Once I’ve sent it away, that’s it. I can’t make it any better. So that’s why the last edit of every book is nerve-wracking.
But with Maze Running the emotional wrench was ever harder. Maze Running is the fourth and FINAL book in the First Aid series. This book is the last adventure I will write about Helen, Yann, Lavender, Rona, Sapphire, Catesby, Lee and the rest all together.
If you think you’re upset about that (and I’ve already met readers who are a little bit annoyed with me for ending the series! But I’ll explain why I made that decision in another blog post soon…) So if you think you’re upset, just imagine how upset I am. I’ve spent more than five years of my life with these characters. I know them better than most people I meet in the real world. I hear their voices in my heads. I put them in terrible situations (worse situations in this next book than any other, sorry guys) and I trust them to get back out again. I work with them, listening to their reactions, letting them guide and sometimes even change the story. And now I’m done. Now I won’t write about them ever again, not as a group, not in this way, maybe not in any way at all.
And it was my decision. I feel like I’ve left them. Which makes me feel sad, guilty and almost like I’m grieving.
I know I will read their adventures out loud at book festivals and in author events. I will read the cliff-hangers, the quests and the fights. But because I won’t be able to change one word of what’s on the page, then I won’t be writing them any more. I’ll be reading them instead.
First Aid for Fairies was my first book. I owe these characters a lot. I really enjoy being with them. And when I handed the manuscript to Floris earlier this month, I was saying good bye to them.
That’s why this edit was highly emotional, and very sad. But also very exciting. Because who knows what I’ll write (and then edit) next…

My new novella,  Drawing a Veil, is about a girl who decides to wear a headscarf to school, and her friends’ and classmates’ reaction to that decision.

I’m fascinated by the idea of choice, and how we deal with the awkward fact that if we support people’s right to make free choices, then we also have to support them when they make a choice we may not agree with.

Writing this book did make me feel uncomfortable at times, and I know it made a few of my feminist friends uncomfortable too.

So is it a good idea to write about something which makes you feel uncomfortable or challenges the comfy assumptions you don’t question often enough?

If I only wrote about decisions which I agreed with, if I only wrote stories which I felt happy and warm and cosy writing, then I probably wouldn’t write anything worth reading. (A lot of Helen’s risk-taking in the First Aid series, for example, makes me VERY nervous as a mum!)

So, even though I’m an atheist, who would never cover any bit of me up to please a god I don’t believe in, I realised that if I want the right NOT to wear a headscarf, then I also have to stand up for other people’s right to wear headscarves if that’s what they want. (And of course, any girl’s, or any woman’s, right not to cover up if she doesn’t want to.)

Also I think there’s an assumption that all girls in veils or scarves are shy, unsure of themselves, hiding themselves. But when I talk to kids in schools about imagination and creativity, I see absolutely no difference in their levels of confidence or self esteem, whatever the girls are wearing on their heads. So I really wanted to write about a girl in a headscarf who stands up for herself, who takes part in an argument, a fight and a chase (because action is what I enjoy writing!)

This isn’t the first time I’ve written about subjects which make me uncomfortable or make me question my own assumptions. In both Wolf Notes and Rocking Horse War, I’ve written about hunting and hunters, even though I’ve been a strict vegetarian since I was 14.  So writing about wolves hunting deer, or girls tracking deer (poor deer are victims in a few of my books!) made me question my own reasons for being vegetarian. When I was researching wolves and how hunting led to their social networks and their intelligence, I seriously considered becoming an omnivore again, because that’s what humans evolved to be.  But after reflection, I decided my reasons for being vegetarian were more than just a long lasting fit of teenage pique, so I am still a proud veggie.

But the point is that I write about characters who believe very different things from me, and I allow those characters and their stories to make me examine my own beliefs.  I think that’s a very good thing. For the characters, for the stories and for me.

And how did spending time with Amina in Drawing a Veil change my comfy assumptions? Writing about this confident girl and her decisions made me realise that a freely taken decision to wear a headscarf can be a positive assertion of identity, rather than a passive adherence to family or religious pressure.

So – what beliefs or assumptions of yours could do with being taken out and examined by stories, characters and tough questions?

Drawing a Veil cover

I’ve chosen names for two children, and both times it was a lot easier than naming my next novel!

Titles are sometimes very easy to find. Some of my books have arrived in my head with titles almost fully formed.  I had the idea, I thought ‘oh, that could be a book!’ and by the time I’d reached for a notebook to start scribbling the idea down, I already knew what title to put on the cover.

For example, Rocking Horse War and How to Make a Heron Happy were always the titles of those books. I never considered anything else.

And the title First Aid For Fairies And Other Fabled Beasts arrived very fast too.  Though to be fair, I always expected someone (my mum, my agent, the publisher) to say, ‘don’t be daft, please come up with something shorter!’ But no-one did; everyone seemed to like it.  And it does describe the story pretty well!

However, it did leave me with a bit of a problem, which is that the title of every subsequent book in the series has to have the structure:

Something Something and other Something Somethings.  Whew.

This has posed problems for every book.  Wolf Notes as a title didn’t appear until I was about 2/3 of the way through the book. I knew I wanted ‘wolf’ or ‘fangs’ in the title, but didn’t know what else, until my husband found the phrase ‘wolf notes’, which I loved because it fitted the feel of the book. Though I have to admit that I went back through the story and changed a few bits of the plot to make the title fit perfectly.

Which poses an interesting question: do you write a different story if you already know the title?  Do you write the story to FIT the title? Is it better to wait until the end of the plot-building to come up with a title, so you aren’t pinned down by the title, or is it better to know the title at the start so you can keep the story focussed?  I’m not sure – I’ve done both, and both ways have worked for me with different books. And of course, sometimes a writer will think they know the title of a book, but the editor will disagree, so the title changes at the last minute! (In which case, can the title ever really fit the book?)

Storm Singing was a title I liked right from the start of the writing process, and I agreed it with the editor early on – we even had the tricky second part (And Other Tangled Tasks) sorted too.  So writing the book and that title went hand in hand, which meant the idea of Storm Singing was a vital part of the plot from the start.

But now I’m working on the fourth First Aid book. And this time I wrote the whole plotline with no idea what the title was going to be.  I had a few ideas, but none fitted perfectly, and the ones I liked best my editor didn’t like at all.  So I finished the story, and started to edit it, still with no idea what the title was going to be.  This felt very weird, because I had little signposts in the book to various potential titles, and I didn’t know which were going to stay in and which were going to come out.

Then only two weeks ago, I came across a phrase which was PERFECT! It fitted the story, it even added another layer which I hadn’t anticipated, and it sounded great!  And not only that, my editor likes it too.

So… I can now announce that the title of the fourth and final First Aid for Fairies book is:

Maze Running And Other Magical Missions!

What do you think?  Please let me know…

The start of the Year of the Dragon has made me think about dragons. Though I don’t really need to be encouraged to think about dragons – the book I’m deep in the middle of editing has seven speaking dragon parts, and any number of minor spear-carrying dragons.  But this seems like a good time to celebrate other people’s dragons too!

My favourite dragon books include:

The wonderful heartrending dragon in CS Lewis’s The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which is my earliest dragon memory.

The amazing How to Train Your Dragon series by Cressida Cowell, the funniest, cleverest, most exciting series of dragon books ever.  Though I’m not sure I’d want Toothless under my helmet.

Philip Reeves’ No Such Thing As Dragons, which is dark, spiky, tantalisingly short, and a fabulous novel for slightly older readers.

And the very similarly titled, but for much smaller people: There’s No Such Thing As A Dragon by Jack Kent.

I also love the splendidly distant dragons in Vivien French’s Flight of Dragons.

I have mixed feelings about Eragon and its sequels, partly because they are almost too big to hold, but also because I thought I’d been really original, creating a friendly female dragon, making her blue and calling her Sapphire.  Then shortly after First Aid for Fairies was published, I read Eragon, and met his friendly blue female dragon, called Saphira.  I’m very relieved about that final vowel.

I have a couple of favourite dragon reference books too (I’m not sure if you can call them non-fiction!)

My first dragon collection was A Book of Dragons, edited by Roger Lancelyn Green (though I see it has my wee brother’s name on the first page, in pencil. Perhaps I could rub that out, because he’s not getting it back now!)

And more recently, I’ve loved the wonderful tactile Dragonology books by Dr Ernest Drake (which aren’t mine either – they belong to my kids.)

And finally, my favourite dragon myths.

I’ve enjoyed telling dragon myths for years, partly because they come with inbuilt excitement (a dragon! fire! teeth!), partly because they come from all over the world, and partly because it feels right to share dragon stories when I’m doing author sessions about the novels with Sapphire in them.

My favourite dragon stories to share include:

A seven-headed Chinese dragon

A Greek dragon who kept a shepherd boy company on the hills

A Viking dragon defeated by a sheepskin

A Polish dragon, also defeated by a sheepskin (some dragons are easily fooled)

A Persian dragon who teased a horse

A Georgian dragon who was sung to sleep

And an Irish dragon who lost his tongue

(If you want to find out more about these dragons, you’ll have to ask me to come and tell you the stories!)

Dragons are universal, appearing as the monster of choice in many cultures and countries, so I’m fascinated by theories about where our dragon stories come from.  Do we need monsters for our heroes to prove themselves against? Did our ancestors need explanations for those big fossilised bones and teeth? Or maybe, just maybe, these stories are about real dragons, and they’re still out there, somewhere…

What are your favourite dragon books and stories? Please let me know!

(And here is the dragon who sits beside my computer – hand made for me by a Sapphire fan!)

Today, I had an idea for a book.  I thought “What if…?” and sudddenly there was the idea.

And because I scribbled down what happened at the time, I thought I would share it with you, because one of the questions I get asked most often is ‘where do you get your ideas from?’

I was meant to be doing boring businessy stuff (it’s the tax return deadline at the end of the month) so I thought I’d take a break from adding up numbers and make a list of the books I’d like to write next.  Not the next book (that’s First Aid 4) and not the one after that (I’ve started researching it) but what will I write after that.  I started making a list of the ideas I’d had, to see which one seemed most fun.  And as I typed an idea I’d got from one line of a previous novel, and always meant to follow up…

…it suddenly happened.

I found myself typing a line which started “what if they all…” and then a whole sentence and a question mark.

And I felt it.  I actually FELT it.  An idea.

My pulse got faster.  My hands went a little bit cold.  I sat up straighter.

I felt physically quite strange.  Like I’d been running too fast, or just started a fever, or almost fallen over an edge but just caught myself in time.

My body actually reacted to this idea.

Then the idea took off.  I stopped writing a list and started writing a book.

I started thinking of characters (and here is one answer to where do ideas come from  – one of the characters seems to have leapt directly out of a nonfiction book I got for Christmas, so if I’d been reading a different book this week, this idea would have been different.)

Once I started thinking of characters, I started hearing their voices. I heard them talk to each other, insult each other, ask each other questions. They were meeting for the first time, and they didn’t really like each other.

Then I thought about names, because I can’t get to know characters until they have names.  But names are tough. Every name has to mean something. And all the names I wanted for these characters were great for them, but didn’t work in a cast of characters.  My first attempt all had Ss in them.  Every name started with S, ended with S or had S in the middle. Reading the book out loud would have sounded like snakes telling stories.  Then my next attempt had all the names ending in A.  That wasn’t any better. So I got distracted by looking up lists of names on the internet

Then I had to stop, to be a mum, and take my daughter up to her sports club. So I got a fresh notebook and a pen, and I scribbled all the way up the road and through the park.

By this time, I was seeing the characters, not just hearing them. Maybe getting out into the fresh air helped.  I could see a boy with long damp hair, a woman with a shivering animal in her arms.  Wooden desks, and a large creature with a stony face in the corner…

So now I have a first scene, I have a problem to be solved, I have characters I already feel a connection to.   I don’t have time to WRITE it yet, but never mind. It’s there. I’m excited about it, and I’ll write it soon!

So THAT is how I get ideas.  When I should be doing something else. From the magic words ‘What if…’ From passing thoughts I had when I was editing other books.  And from whatever is around me or rattling round my head at the time.

The fact that I had such a strong reaction to this idea, and got so involved with the characters and the story, gives me confidence that it’s a strong idea.  I have ideas every day, I scribble dozens down when I’m listening to the radio, or chatting, or reading, or cooking. But very few of them become books. But I think this one will.  I do hope so…

My new year’s resolution for 2012 isn’t to run more often, or spend less time at the computer and more time with real people (though I should do both of those too) it’s to learn to love ebooks.

That’s not going to be easy for me, for several reasons.

Firstly, I love books. Real actual paper books. I love sharing them with small kids on my knee. I love putting them in coat pockets, or carting rucksacks full of them about. I love piling them up, putting them on shelves, lending them to friends. I love opening a new book.  I love READING BOOKS.  Books, real books, are where I’ve spent many of my happiest hours, for most of my life. I love books.  And I love that what I write becomes real books.

I love bookshops too. Real bookshops.  Staffed by real booksellers, with a real understanding of books and bookbuyers.  Shops where you can find a book you didn’t even know you wanted to read.  And I love that my books sit on shelves in those shops, and get browsed, recommended and bought, in those bookshops.

Also I’m not a fan of new technology. I’m never at the cutting edge of anything digital.  I have the oldest phone in my family (even my kids have fancier ones).  I like to see a new thing work in the hands of other people for a while before I accept that it might be a good thing.  I’m not actually a technophobe. Once someone can persuade me it’s useful and not going to bite me, I get to grips with it eventually. I have a netbook which I love, and an ipod which I couldn’t live without.  But I don’t have an ereader. I thought about asking Santa for one, and then changed my mind and gave Santa a list of books about mazes, dragons, hares, and Scottish history instead. I love my new pile of books. I’m not jealous of all the people who got Kindles. I can read my books in the bath.

I worry about the effect ebooks will have on real books, and real booksellers.  And I don’t trust new technology anyway, not until it becomes slightly older technology.

But…

BUT…

BUT…

People read ebooks. Kids, lots of kids, got ebook readers for Christmas.

So if I want people to meet and care about my characters, to join in the adventures I’ve imagined, to be excited by the dangers and challenges I’ve created, if I want people to read my STORIES, then I have to share those stories in the way readers want to read them.

If you want ebooks, then that’s how my characters will have to come and find you.

So this coming year, I will try to understand ebooks.  I will accept them.  I will even learn to love them.  Next time I see someone reading a Kindle, I will ask them if I can give it a cuddle.  Because I need to learn to embrace ebooks.  Not for me, I think I’ll probably stick with my teetering piles of books, but for my stories, my characters, my readers.

Because however you want to get your stories, that’s how writers should to give you your stories.

So, please let me know what you think of ebooks: Did you get an ereader for Christmas? Do you think children’s books should be on screen or on paper? Do you enjoy books as much on a screen? And can real books survive?

But in the meantime, here’s my New Year’s resolution for 2012: cuddling ebooks.

And in honour of this, I can now announce that all my novels are available in ebook form.  And First Aid for Fairies and Other Fabled Beasts, the first in the series, is on Amazon’s 12 Days of Kindle until 6^th Jan at only 99p.

See, I’m promoting ebooks already.  Getting off to a great start.  Now, I need to find an ebook reader to cuddle.  You’ve been warned…