The History Girl

The Aged Ps have had a lovely week. They have been up to London to see the Bronze exhibition at the Royal Academy. I, on the other hand, have been down the road to talk to 70 children about cats and dogs. I am also full of snot.
"Wow, I am quite jealous," I say. "What was it like?"
"Well, it was all right . . ." says Mother. "The layout wasn't very good."
"But what were the bronzes like--?"
"And the labelling was so annoying. Have you heard of this 'C.E.' business?"
For a moment I mishear and think she is about to go on a rant about the Church of England and how she is glad they have not voted for women bishops because it's bad enough having women vicars, etc., etc., and so forth. But no.
"C.E.?" I say tentatively. "Do you mean Common Era?"
"Common Era," Mother sneers. "What the hell does that mean? Common with what? With whom? With the Muslims, I suppose."
"Well, I think the idea is--"
"I know what the IDEA is," Mother says. "But it's Cringe Central, if you ask me."
"Er, that would make it C.C, actually," I say.
"What?" Mother snaps.
"Nothing."
"I mean why should we change our calendar to fit in with all these multi-cultural immigrants, anyway? We are a Christian country with a Christian heritage."
"Which is why you don't go to church or believe in any of that nonsense," I point out.
"Well, yes, I know, I mean, I don't but . . . it's our culture. It's part of Our History!" Mother says.
Saying that something is part of Our History is Mother's trump card. If something is part of Our History, it is sacrosanct, indelible, cast in stone. You cannot argue with Our History.
I think about tackling her argument from a number of different standpoints. But my head is full of cotton wool, my son needs help with his Chemistry revision, I am trying to make carrot and celeriac soup, and I am struggling with some knotty plot problems in a book about chickens. I have neither the time nor the willpower.
"Yes, I expect you're right," I find myself saying.
I shall probably live to regret saying this, but at least it brings the conversation swiftly to a close.

The Next Big Thing

If you are a regular reader of my blog, you will know that I only post silly sketches about my family and our pets. However, today I am going to use it for shameless self-promotion as I was tagged to be part of an internet meme called THE NEXT BIG THING.

(Click on the red words to go to relevant links.)

The writer who tagged me is the lovely Karen Saunders, a fellow children’s writer whom I met at the Bath Children’s Literature Festival. Her own version of the meme appears here. The idea is that every Wednesday some children’s authors will post some Q & As about their books and then tag a new author to do the same the following week. It’s like a very excellent chain letter – one you actually WANT to be part of!

What is the title of your next book?

The next book to be published is called The Smug Pug. Macmillan Children’s Books are publishing it in February 2013. It’s the third and final book in my Pooch Parlour series which includes The Poodle Problem and The Dotty Dalmatian.

What is a one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Dash the dachshund is suspicious when a clever and very smug pug arrives in Crumbly-under-Edge, bringing with him a mysterious machine to help out in the pooch-pampering salon.

Where did the idea for the book come from?

The idea for the whole series came to me whilst chatting in the hairdressers. I was moaning (as I frequently do) about writer’s block.

“I can’t come up with any more stories!” I wailed.

“Why don’t you write about us?” suggested my hairdresser. “There’s always funny things going on in this place.”

“But my publishers want me to write about dogs,” I cried, “not hairdressers!”

Now, the funny thing about inspiration is that it can come from the most unlikely places or conversations. And so it was that in the car on the way home, I could not stop thinking about hairdressers and dogs (as you do). By the time I had got back to my desk, the idea for a pooch-pampering parlour had started to take root.

“What if I had a dog who could talk and who helped out in the parlour?” I thought. “And what if he was a bit of a Sherlock Holmes and liked solving mysteries . . .”

What if . . . ? What if . . . ? The cogs had started whirring and the idea for Mrs Fudge’s Pooch-Pampering Parlour was born!

What genre does your book fall under?

Young fiction for 7-10s. The Smug Pug will appeal to boys as well as girls as there’s loads of gadgets and slap-stick comedy in it. And the cover is yellow. (NOT pink, for a change . . .)

What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?

The minute I saw the illustration that Kate Daubney did for the cover, I could not get the image of Ronnie Corbett out of my head. Not sure he would accept the part of a pug, though, however much he was paid!

Julie Walters would make a lovely Mrs Fudge (the owner of the pooch parlour). Although the image of her on this link is perhaps a bit too glam! Think Mrs Weasley in Harry Potter, but with white hair . . . 

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

It’s being published by Macmillan Children’s Books. Macmillan have published all my young fiction titles. My agent is Hilary Delamere at The Agency.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

The first complete draft of a new series takes between six months and a year. I scribble loads of notes to start with, churn it over in my mind obsessively and write at least five drafts before I show it to my editor, then she suggests improvements and I write another draft! By the time it is published, it has gone through many changes. And it is always better for having been thoroughly edited.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

I was a bit stumped when it came to thinking what other books I would compare my series to, so I asked my editor how she would answer this question. She said, “Your books are like Andy Stanton’s Mr Gum books in terms of writing style, and the content is like The Great Hamster Massacre or the Cat Conspiracy books by Katie Davies.”

I was pretty pleased with those comparisons! I hope readers will agree . . . Basically, the books are comedies with a mystery-solving twist, and are aimed at animal lovers.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

The idea for the whole series came from the hairdressers, as I have explained, and is a sort of The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency in a pooch parlour! But the individual characters came from all over the place. Mrs Fudge is a little bit like an English version of Mma Ramotswe from The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency and she is a lot like my wonderful Grandma who passed away a couple of years ago. She was a great cake-baker and tea-drinker and a very kind and patient grandmother. She also had snow-white hair and was round and cuddly!

Pippa Peppercorn is a little bit like me when I was 10 and a little bit like Pippi Longstocking and a little bit like my daughter when she was 10.

Smug the pug is inspired by a very old book called The Incredible Adventures of Professor Branestawm, which I loved to read when I was young.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

I hope the characters will make you laugh out loud! And I know that anyone who sees Clare Elsom’s beautiful inside illustrations will be tickled by them. 

Next up, I’m tagging the fantastic writers Michelle Robinson, who blogs here, has a website here and tweets @MicheRobinson and the marvellous Chris D’Lacey of The Fire Within fame. He has a website here and blogs here and tweets @chrisdlacey.

Have fun hopping from blog to blog to check out all the authors involved in The Next Big Thing. Once you start, you can't stop!

The Very Important Birthday

Mother is back on form, having been finally assured by her doctor that she may resume "normal activities". I am thinking that most people would take that to mean resuming an exercise regime or going back to eating habits formerly proscribed by the doctor during the period of illness. I don't know. What I do know is that "normal activities" for Mother comprise resuming badgering her family with phone calls delivered in an obstreperous tone with Dad on the other end to maximise the effects of stereophonic insanity.
To bastardise Jeanette Winterson's latest book title: "Why be normal when you could derive enormous pleasure from driving your family round the bend?"

"Yfather and I sat on the M11 for two hours last night," she informs me. "I've said it before and I'll say it again -" [sharp intake of breath] " - there are too many people in this country."
"It wasn't that bad, dear," Dad pipes up on the other line. "We spent a lovely time listening to our Italian CD."
"Harrumph," says Mother. "We could have done that at home in comfort instead of being stuck in a traffic jam of immigrants--"
"What were you doing on the M11?" I ask, more to cut Mother off at the chase than because I need to know the answer.
"We went to see y'sister, didn't we?" snaps Mother. "She's 40 now, you know."
"Yes, I did know," I say.
"Well," sniffs Mother. "Everyone seems to have forgotten that I have a Very Important Birthday coming up soon."
She pauses.
I pause too before saying, "Oh?"
Mother's Very Important Birthday is not until August 2013. My poor sister has literally only just celebrated hers. But of course, this is nothing compared to what Mother is building up to.
"I," says Mother, "I . . . shall be SEVENTY."
Pause again.
I had forgotten that getting older was a competitive event on a par with entering an Olympic heptathlon.
"So you shall," I say.
"Well, I hope you're going to make a fuss of me," says Mother. "No one ever makes a fuss of me on my birthday."
Perhaps that's because by the time the nine month gestation period between the announcing of the event and its actual occurrence has elapsed, any enthusiasm we may have had about a celebration has worn so thin you could use it as cling film to wrap the party food in. And even if we do throw our all into a knees-up or a special present, it is generally met with comments along the lines of, "Well, I didn't think much of the meal/present/party/guests."
"Are you still there?" asks Mother.
"Yes, dear. I'm still here," says Dad.
"I meant y'daughter!" Mother says. "Is y'daughter still there? It's gone very quiet."
"Yes, I'm still here," I say.
"So are you going to make a fuss of me or not?"
"Am I going to make a fuss of you in nine months time when you turn seventy?" I ask.
"Well, if you're going to put it like that . . ."
"She didn't mean anything by it," says Dad.
"Yes she did. Everyone else gets spoilt on their birthday. What about me . . . "
I put the phone down gently on the table and let Mother and Dad talk to each other for a bit while I start jotting down ideas of how to survive the next nine months.
Maybe I should join the traffic jam of immigrants on the M11.