I’m often asked at author events whether my own children give me ideas or help me write my books.
And the answer is no, they don’t give me ideas (if they have good ideas, I hope they’ll write those ideas themselves!) but I often have ideas when I’m with them. In fact two of my picture books and all my novels were inspired in some way by my two girls.
They are hugely helpful in lots of other ways too. They read kids’ books, then recommend the ones they really like to me. (And they put some kids’ books down after just a few pages too, and seeing what books don’t grab them is just as useful to a writer…)
They are very useful at suggesting character names: they get credit for Roxburgh the selkie in Storm Singing, for example, and I brainstormed a few of the dragons in Maze Running with them too.
They let me read them early drafts of all my books, and reading out loud to them is a great way of gauging whether the book is working. Sometimes I scribble in the margin “this bit is boring” because I can see them losing interest. Then I ruthlessly edit that bit before it gets anywhere near paying readers!
As they are getting older, they have even started proof-reading my manuscripts on paper. My 9 year old read Maze Running with a red pen, and made some very helpful comments and criticisms.
But the main thing they do is show enthusiasm for stories. They get angry with me when I’m cruel to characters or put them in difficult situations. And if they get all excited about a story, then I know I’m on the right track.
When I was writing the animal tales for Barefoot many months ago, my younger daughter enjoyed my version of the tortoise story so much that she retold it on the living room carpet, as I was reading it out, with playmobil figures. So here is the wonderful tree, inside the circle of hungry animals (not all the animals are from Africa, to be fair, she did adapt it a bit!) The Tortoise’s Gift brought to life.
And when I’ve just burnt tea because I was scribbling down a ‘what if’ and I know I’ll be up past midnight trying to meet a deadline, then seeing my words inspire this sort of play makes it all worthwhile.
So yes, my kids do help. But not always in the way you’d think!

The Tortoise’s Gift, by the power of playmobil

At the Edinburgh Book Festival earlier this week, I was sitting at a signing table looking at a long line of First Aid For Fairies fans (I knew they were fans, because most of them were cuddling a stack of slightly dog-eared books) and I had to think of something personal, interesting and appropriate to write in each book.
Because Maze Running is the last of the series, I asked most of the readers “Who’s your favourite character?” so that I could write in their book: “Thanks for coming on x’s last adventure.”
I’ve been asking that question in all the events I’ve done this summer, and I’ve been surprised to discover that pretty much every character has fans. In a line of readers there will almost certainly be Helen fans, Yann fans, Sapphire fans, Rona fans, Lavender fans, Catesby fans… There might be fewer Sylvie, Lee, Serena and Tangaroa fans, because they don’t appear in as many books. But even so, I think almost every character in the series is somebody’s favourite. At the Maze Running launch, I even met a boy whose favourite character was the Master of the Maze!
And I’ve met, or seen pictures of, children dressed as various First Aid For Fairies characters for World Book Day (I’ve met Helen, Lee, Lavender and Rona, but I wonder if there have been any others? Any phoenixes? Any centaurs? In fact, I hereby promise to send a free signed book to the first person who can prove they’ve successfully dressed up as Yann!)
I have my own favourite characters too. But I wonder whether I like my characters for the same reasons readers do?
Do some readers like Lavender or Rona because they like the idea of being a fairy or a selkie? Do some readers like Sapphire because all dragons are cool? (As well being as fiery hot…) So now my signing queues could get even longer, because I might start asking not just: “Who’s your favourite character?” but also: “Why?”
As a writer, I like my characters for lots of different reasons. For example, a particular character might be very useful when I’m writing the story: Sapphire is incredibly handy as transport, Yann is great for kicking doors in, Lavender is very easy to injure (sorry), Sylvie can be relied on to disagree with pretty much anyone. And there wouldn’t be a First Aid for Fairies series at all without Helen to be our guide in that world, or all those nasty baddies making the adventures necessary.
But I don’t just use my characters to push the story along, I enjoy their company too. So my truly favourite characters are the ones whose voices I can hear in my head, who seem to come alive as I write and who surprise me by doing things I don’t expect. For that reason, Yann is my absolute favourite because he argues with me all the time (I can sometimes actually hear him shout at me) and I’m also very fond of Lee, because I never quite trust (or understand) his motives or indeed his world, which is a very interesting position for a writer. And outside the First Aid For Fairies series, I love Emmie in Rocking Horse War, who changed that entire story by putting her hands on her hips and giving me a cheeky smile.
So, who are your favourite fabled beast characters, and why? And do you think writers and readers like characters for different reasons?

Maze Running signing queue at Edinburgh Book Festival 2012

I’m not long back from the most memorable and fun Maze Running event I’ve done yet.
I do thoroughly enjoy chatting to kids about books in libraries and bookshops, but the kind of event I love doing most is taking books and readers out into the real world, to talk about research, inspiration and imagination in the legendary locations where I actually set my adventures.
And yesterday, I climbed to the top of Dunadd, a rocky hillfort in Kilmartin Glen in Argyll, and read an ambush scene involving minotaurs, dragons, wolves, swords, axes, mice and some very odd rope, to more than thirty people in the bright sunshine, including a mix of readers from 6 year old girls to 13 year old boys.
It was wonderful! There is a tiny natural amphitheatre right at the top of the hill: a curve of Iron Age (I think) wall where I put my books and bottle of water, facing a slope of grassy hillside where all the readers and their parents sat. We were just above the carved footprint where Scottish kings were crowned many years ago, the footprint which was at the heart of the magic which drew me to set a scene at Dunadd.
And the audience were all fantastic! Dunnadd is, in the nicest possible way, in the middle of nowhere. Everyone had had to drive a significant distance to get there (one family had driven for at least 90 minutes to attend the event), everyone had to wear sensible outdoor clothes, and listen to a health and safety talk at the bottom, then climb up a rocky steep path to get to the top. So they were REALLY keen. That’s the best kind of audience!
Some of them even brought their dragons. A head count would have suggested five dragons, but as the orange one was two-headed, there were really four different cuddly or plastic dragons at the top of the hill. And someone brought a large white unicorn, which given the rescue scene at the start of Maze Running, was very appropriate!
So, surrounded by the sunlight and the rocks, with everyone having a view of the wonderful Scottish landscape all around us, I read the start of the quest on Dunadd, pausing a couple of times to point out that the dragon was parked just behind the lady from Kilmartin House Museum, then to say that the minotaur was holding his blackhandled axe in amongst the parents at the back and that the grey-legged faun was being nasty to a mouse where I was standing. It’s amazing to read a scene out loud exactly where I imagined it happening. It brings the characters and action to life, in a way which is almost magical.
Then I encouraged the children to imagine their own quests and adventures on Dunadd. We had a few dragon ambushes, some very sneaky treasure hunting, and a really unusual way of hiding a centaur. Everyone’s imaginations were sparking in the sunshine!
Then I told a myth which had come over to Scotland from Ireland, just like the kings of Dalriada who were crowned on Dunadd. I chose that myth because it allowed me to stab the wee boy reclining on the grass slope at the front with a particularly nasty spear.
But my favourite moment was when I described how the silent ambush tactic used by the minotaur was inspired by a snake I had seen on Dunadd on one of my research visits. When I said “snake” everyone in the audience jerked backwards, half stood up, or checked the grass under their bottoms, and they all looked extremely worried for a moment. (The adults looked much more worried than the kids!) So I had to say that I knew what kind of snake it was, and it was NOT poisonous, and anyway, we had seen it way over on the other side of the hill LAST YEAR.
No-one had worried about a fictional minotaur in their midst or a dragon behind them, but almost everyone reacted very speedily to a passing mention of an innocent snake! That’s something which never happens in a bookshop.
In previous years I’ve read from First Aid for Fairies at Tam Linn’s Well, Wolf Notes outside Dunvegan Castle, and Storm Singing in Smoo Cave, all of which were wonderful locations, but I think reading from Maze Running on Dunadd was my favourite outdoor event so far. Partly because of the incredible weather, partly because of the snake reaction, but mostly because of the huge effort all the readers made to get there and the wonderful dragons and ideas they brought with them.
Books. Hills. Kids. Stories. I have the BEST job in the world!

Maze Running event on Dunadd

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

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 quite excited! My tenth book (ten books, in four years!) will be published this week. Orange Juice Peas is about a little girl called Jessie, her big brother Ben and a very messy teatime. And it has wonderful bright cheery pictures by Lizzie Wells.

Even though Orange Juice Peas isn’t in the shops yet (it should be available at the weekend) I already have a copy which I’ve sneakily read to a few groups of children.

Reading a new picture book out loud to children for the first time is a strange experience.  It’s not the same as reading a carefully selected cliffhanger extract from a novel to 9 year olds.  Reading a whole picture book to group of 5 year olds, especially for the first time, feels quite risky.  What if they won’t sit quiet and listen?  What if they get bored and wander off, or start picking their noses, or asking to go to the toilet, or poking the child sitting beside them?  What if they don’t like it?  (These are very small children, remember, and if they don’t like something they might not be polite about it!)

So I get quite nervous the first few times I read a picture book to an audience. It’s my first chance to see if the story works.  I do read a book out loud to myself when I’m drafting it, and to my own kids when I think it’s finished. But the book doesn’t feel real until I read it to kids I don’t know, to see what they think, to see how they react, and to find out the most important thing: will they laugh at the right bits?

I’m delighted to say that yes, the couple of times I’ve read Orange Juice Peas to kids – in Selkirk and in Falkirk – they have laughed. At the bits I hoped they’d find funny, and at other bits as well!

Also, some of them went “aww” at the right bit near the end too.  And some of them tried to count the peas on the pages where the editor, designer and I had spent hours checking the numbers of peas (so Sally and Helena, that was totally worthwhile!)

Now I am ready to take this book out into the world, because it seems to work. (Phew.) And that’s something you can never be sure of, whether it’s your first book, your third book, your tenth or your hundredth, until you actually know what the readers think of it!

Orange Juice Peas

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…

The winner of the Set the Scene competition, to suggest a location for the fourth and final First Aid for Fairies book, is:

EMILY WRIGHT!

She suggested the gorgeous Traquair House and (this is what won it for her) Traquair House Maze….

Today I met Emily at the maze to present her prize, with various photographers and journalists there taking pictures and interviewing her.

Emily was fabulous. Really calm, patient and great at answering questions.

But it was one of the weirdest photo calls I’ve ever done…

Because we were presenting the prize in the maze. So a nice man showed my publisher the quick way to the middle, then he went off and left us.

But all the journalists and photographers turned up at different times, and once we’d taken the first journalist into the middle, all the press who arrived later got lost on their way in! We were in the middle getting our photo taken (which is my least favourite bit of being an author) and we kept hearing footsteps wandering around a few hedges away, so we’d have to shout: “Are you here for the photocall? Are you lost? Do you need us to come and find you?” The lady from Borders TV managed to fit herself and her camera through a little hole in the hedge, which was very impressive.

So it was quite spooky and very dramatic doing an interview in the middle of these high hedges, with lost people all around, and with my publisher shouting instructions like “left, no the next left, oh you’ve gone too far, go back…”

Then everyone else went away, leaving me and Emily in the middle of the maze on our own, so they could get a nice picture from high up on the terrace of Traquair House. They left us. In the maze. On our own.

And I wasn’t the one who’d been shown the way in or out!

So, has it taken me til this evening to escape?

No, it’s ok – they came to get us out eventually, but the feeling of being stuck in there was pretty good practice for imagining Helen and Yann trapped in there… which I should probably go off and write now!

So well done Emily, and well done the brilliant runners up, from Inverkip, Tain, Ullapool and Falkirk. And well done too to the other 250 kids who entered. It was very hard to choose a winner, because all the ideas were fabulous. I wish I could write a book about every single one of them. But I can’t, or not this year anyway! But you all have great imaginations and you all know your suggested locations really well, so why you don’t set an adventure there yourself and let me see what you come up with!

Here are some photos of me and Emily at the maze!

And please notice, I managed this whole blog without using the word “amazing” at any point. I wonder if the local press will be as be restrained.

Lari and Emily posing completely naturally

Lari being interviewed by an intrepid BBC reporter who found his way in

We escaped! And doesn't the maze look wonderful?

My writing is not a solitary occupation. I do imagine and scribble and type the stories on my own. But I often do it in busy noisy sociable places. Not sitting-in-a-café-nibbling-cake or gazing-at-inspiring-art sort of places. Even though that was what I’d hoped a writer’s life was like, I never seem to have time!

No, I do lots of writing on trains and buses on the way to book festivals or school visits. And I do a lot of writing outside my kids’ afterschool classes (I was writing a story about dancing giants outside my daughter’s ballet class recently, and I swear the cute little girls in the hall were making more noise than the giants in my head). So I’m often writing surrounded by people and noise.

And I like to involve other people in my writing. I work closely with various editors, and they sometimes point out plot problems and suggest solutions. (I then come up with my own completely different solutions, just to show that I’m my own person, but I always fix the problem.)

But all writers have to work with their editors. I often involve other people too. My own kids have been involved in brainstorming titles and character names (often at bus stops.) And I sometimes read whatever I’ve been writing on the train to whatever children I’m visiting: What do you think? I’ll ask. And I will listen to what they say, often scribbling it down on the ms. But what I’m really looking for is whether they gasp at the right bits… (because then I know it’s working!)

I’ve had research help from readers too: a class in Inverkip Primary did lots of selkie research for Storm Singing.

But this year, I’ve taken involving others in my writing a bit further. This year my publishers Floris ran a competition for readers to suggest a location for the fourth and final First Aid book. (I had already used most of the bits of Scotland that I knew, and I was hoping for new and exciting ideas.) So we offered as the prize the promise that whatever location won would definitely be in the finished book.

That promise was a HUGE risk!

What if everyone had suggested impossible, boring or clichéd places? What if I’d committed myself to setting the book in a supermarket car park?

I was putting the whole future of the book into the hands of the readers.

But I needn’t have worried. We got hundreds of ideas, and they were all FANTASTIC! I could write a lifetime’s worth of adventures based on all those wonderful locations.

So what location won? I’m not telling. Not yet. We’ll announce it on Wednesday. So watch this space!