Sefton Super-Reads

Interesting bit of news. THE CAT KIN has been shortlisted for another award, also based in the north of England: the Sefton Super-Reads Book Award, which I believe last year was won by THE SPOOK’S APPRENTICE by Joseph Delaney, which is well known for being good. Looks like I may be getting on that northbound train twice in one month.

I love the North!

p.s. Yesterday I also noticed (possibly as a result of this shortlisting) a small boost in THE CAT KIN’s Amazon sales. Now, when you’re ranked 200,000^th or something, it only takes one purchase somewhere to bounce you up thousands of places; perhaps a cluster of ten or so sent my book soaring up to (wait for it) 13,000-somethingth. Or (to make it sound more impressive) I was now listed at number 17 – that’s right, 17 – in the children’s crime & thrillers category. Top 20, no less. Wow. And only one place behind the ex-SAS man Chris Ryan. Well, Chris, you may sell more books than me, but I bet I could take you in a fight.

13 February will ever after be Purrs Day.

No emotion please, we’re afraid of litigation

I surely have better things to do, but I was half-watching Casualty the other night. For Americans and other aliens, this is a ‘drama’ set in a hospital, sort of like ER on a tenth of the budget and a nanomole of the wit. I don’t even know who anyone is anymore, but that’s by the by. I was tired, is my excuse. Anyway. I watched this story that featured the usual medical calamities, and as usual it all ended in tears for someone. However, as the credits rolled, something got my goat – reached out and plucked it right out of the pen, ignoring its bleats of protest.

Over the end credits, the announcer intoned, ‘If you have been affected by any of the issues in tonight’s programme, please call…’ and gave a helpline number. This is not the first time I’ve seen this, nor the only programme. I’ve seen this announcement (warning? disclaimer?) on everything from documentaries to soaps, and it is beginning to get, as I mention above, my goat.

It seems that programme makers are suddenly terrified that they will be held responsible for a viewer being so ‘affected’ by one of their programmes that the viewer tops him/herself. Am I alone in finding this a) weirdly arrogant and b) insulting?

We consume fiction (read it, hear it, watch it) in order to be affected, to be moved. If it makes us laugh or cry, we can say that it has done its job. But surely very, very rarely can it cause someone to become more depressed. If anything, the reverse ought to be true. Fiction provides comfort. It is itself a form of therapy; we don’t need added helplines. Fiction dares to touch those emotions that polite society would rather forget about: grief, anger and (yes) joy too. But now anything that threatens to provoke strong feelings has to come with a public health warning. Heaven forbid that we should actually feel something.

Perhaps this explains the ghastly proliferation of ‘nothing’ programming on TV. Property shows, cookery shows, gardening shows, Lark Rise To Candleford. When you can look at the listings and say, quite literally, that there is nothing on TV tonight.

At least we still have books! Perhaps one day they will have to carry stickers: Warning. Contains Feelings.

Spot the pun

THE CAT KIN has made the shortlist for the Bolton Children’s Book Award. There, I’ve said it! It’s quite a dizzying prospect, especially considering that for a long time I had resigned myself to the fact that the book would never be published. I have to confess I didn’t know much about the Award before (I didn’t know anything at all about it); but looking at a list of past winners, and at the current shortlist, I’m impressed and overwhelmed. I’ve actually heard of every single other shortlisted book, which is remarkable in itself for me (I don’t follow the industry as closely as perhaps I should).

I don’t want to think too much about the award itself; I would rather be happy with the nomination alone. This is of course me trying to repress my violently competitive streak. But the fact is, books aren’t a competition. What does it matter to say that His Dark Materials is better than Harry Potter? Read both. We have time. A quick young reader could read the entire Bolton shortlist in a fortnight or less. But awards are undeniably great for raising books’ profiles, so they are definitely a Good Thing.

I will be sure to enjoy the award event itself – I can never say no to a free meal and hotel accommodation. More to the point, Bolton is ‘up north’ and isn’t too far from Preston, where my Mum lives and where I used to spend most of my school holidays (not as grim as it sounds… Preston is nice!). So I’ll definitely be glad to ride the train back to that part of the country, which I think of as a second (third? fourth?) home.

So that’s my news at the moment. I doubt there will be anything of interest to report on this subject till June, other than my increasingly frayed nerves. It only remains to be said: Faber and Faber, are you STILL resolved not to publish the sequel to THE CAT KIN?

Time wounds all heels

I’m toying with a new theory about heroes. It’s really more from the Eng. Lit. student side of me than the writer side, but I reckon there’s something in it. I set to wondering about the Achilles Heel. The tragic flaw of the hero that either brings about their downfall or makes life very difficult for them. With Superman it’s kryptonite; with Scarlett O’Hara it’s her futile love for Ashley Wilkes; with Achilles it’s his heel. (Or is it? More on that soon).

My theory, or proto-theory, is that the hero’s apparent main weakness is actually the source of all their strength. Rather than the thing that hinders them, it is actually what drives them to do what they do. Without their flaw, in other words, they might survive, but they wouldn’t be heroes.

Let’s start really highbrow: Superman. His weakness is kryptonite. No it isn’t. It’s not a specific enough weakness; I’m vulnerable to knives and large planks of wood, but they don’t qualify as my Achilles heel. No, Superman’s big weakness (as General Zod points out in Superman 2) is that he cares. He cares about humans. So he can be manipulated by anyone who doesn’t care, and who would kill or hurt them to get at Superman. Kal-El’s weakness is precisely what makes him Superman as opposed to just a very strong man who can fly.

Achilles’s Achilles heel is not Achilles’ heel. Try saying that fast after a bottle of retsina. Again, like kryptonite, it’s superficial. In the Iliad, what finally gets to Achilles is the death of Patroclus. He can face any hardship or indignity, but not the grief of losing his best friend/lover. That’s what finally motivates him to get medieval (or should that be pre-Classical?) on the Trojans and whup Hector good. And it also leaves him vulnerable to Paris, who shoots only his ‘apparent’ Achilles heel: his heel.

And in Gone With The Wind, which I’m reading now, the one thing that keeps Scarlett going through grinding hardship is the very thing that makes her so foolish: her futile, selfish, doomed love for Ashley Wilkes. But she ends up being ‘heroic’ countless times as a result of this very unheroic passion.

I think there’s something in this. The best heroes have one major central flaw; and that flaw is what drives their heroism. But my essay-writing days are over, so I’m just content to float the idea for now… with all its flaws.

No way can I jump this

Annie Dalton left a comment a few weeks back on my post Laying the tracks. Fearing to lower the intellectual tone, she made reference to Indiana Jones & the Last Crusade, when Indy actually has to step out into the void, only to find that an invisible bridge takes his weight. It is, as he mutters to himself, a leap of faith. Starting a new book is very much like this.

I’m currently like Indy (minus the hat) standing on the brink of the abyss. Before me is my promising new idea, but from here it looks vast, dark and daunting, and I don’t see how I can possibly start writing when I can’t see what’s out there. On the other hand, I can’t really see what’s out there until I start. Oh, I know the basic plot, I know the major players and the big things that happen to them, but how it all links up, in ways that won’t feel contrived, is still invisible like Indiana’s bridge.

I know what I have to do. I have to start work on that first chapter, and then I’ll be able to see the bridge under me, narrow, transparent, vertigo-inducing, but there nonetheless. I know this, and it’s still a frightening prospect. What if the bridge doesn’t appear? What if it does appear but I fall off it? These are the questions that face anyone at the start of any major project, a book being just one example.

Then I remember something else. The being scared part of it is just as important as anything else. It’s the fear that concentrates the mind and helps you keep your balance. The fear is what provides the necessary thrill that makes writing so rewarding. This is why writers write and why climbers climb mountains. And why dashing if unshaven archaeologists gallop off in search of Holy Grails.

At what point do you know you’re ready? You’ll never be ready. Just step.

CAT'S PAW is here

Pashki: the ancient Egyptian art of moving like a cat.

The Cat Kin: London’s most unusual after-school club.

But the Cat Kin are not the only ones with extraordinary skills. Ben Gallagher has stumbled on a far more sinister gang, ruled over by a man with a horrific past. Deep beneath the city streets hides a deadly secret that Ben and Tiffany must uncover – but can the evil be stopped in time, even with the help of their remarkable new teacher, Geoff White? No-one can hope to emerge unscathed when cat meets polecat…

What is this? What’s going on?

Well. Rather than wait for publishers to pull their socks up, I’ve produced my own edition of the Cat Kin sequel. CAT’S PAW is bigger, faster, scarier and more exciting than THE CAT KIN, carrying on the story from where that book left off.

CAT’S PAW will some day be available in bookshops, in a different edition – I don’t know when but it will. However, if you liked THE CAT KIN, now is your chance to own the unofficial homemade version of the sequel – a guaranteed rarity as well as a thumping good read. Just pop over to my website to find out more, including how you can get your hands on a copy. Go on, you know you want to… Click on the book cover above.

Avoid turkeys this Christmas

I’m linking here to one of my favourite pages of hints and tips for writers. The Turkey City Lexicon is mainly targeted at writers of science fiction, but in actual fact many of the guidelines can be applied to any genre. For any writer, it makes hilarious – and sometimes painful – reading. We’ve all made a few of these gaffes at some point, and no doubt continue to do so.

Everyone will have their own favourites, but here are some of mine. And yes, you are right to think they are favourites because I’ve met them in person.

Signal from Fred

A comic form of the "Dischism" (q.v.) in which the author's subconscious, alarmed by the poor quality of the work, makes unwitting critical comments: "This doesn't make sense." "This is really boring." "This sounds like a bad movie." (Attr. Damon Knight)

Dennis Hopper Syndrome

A story based on some arcane bit of science or folklore, which noodles around producing random weirdness. Then a loony character-actor (usually best played by Dennis Hopper) barges into the story and baldly tells the protagonist what's going on by explaining the underlying mystery in a long bug-eyed rant. (Attr. Howard Waldrop)

The Jar of Tang

"For you see, we are all living in a jar of Tang!" or "For you see, I am a dog!" A story contrived so that the author can spring a silly surprise about its setting. Mainstay of the old Twilight Zone TV show. An entire pointless story contrived so the author can cry "Fooled you!" For instance, the story takes place in a desert of coarse orange sand surrounded by an impenetrable vitrine barrier; surprise! our heroes are microbes in a jar of Tang powdered orange drink.

But they are all my favourites… I have to stop there before I simply copy out the whole page. Enjoy it at your leisure.