Where to Start, by Claire Fayers
An Awfully Big Blog Adventure
by Claire Fayers
2d ago
When you're starting a new book, where do you start? I ask because I recorded a podcast interview with a young reader on Saturday. We were discussing my latest book, Tapper Watson and the Quest for the Nemo Machine, and nine-year-old Jan said he found the book slow at the start but the story picked up when Tapper's space submarine arrived at Earth. This really made me think, because in my many and varied drafts I'd spend a long time bouncing the first chapter from Earth to outer space and back again. In the end, I decide if I was going have a space river filled with memories, I should lea ..read more
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HMRC and writers - if something is wrong, query it.
An Awfully Big Blog Adventure
by Anne Booth
1w ago
 This is just a very quick post, but I thought I'd share in case any other self employed writer gets in a similar situation. As writers, our income can be very sporadic. I know I should have a special savings account put aside for tax as I go along, and I want to do this from now on, but life gets in the way, cars need to be fixed etc, and so over the years I have often tended to rely on tax top-ups from eg PLR payments or my next scheduled advance.  Two days ago I received a letter from HMRC, and hopefully thought it might be a rebate. I was so shocked to find that it was the opposi ..read more
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From Back When by Joan Lennon
An Awfully Big Blog Adventure
by Joan Lennon
1w ago
One of the delights of grandparenting a toddler is rediscovering the books you read to your children when they were tiny and even that your parents read to you. The raggedy ones. The old-fashioned ones. The ones where the author wasn't quite so bothered with word count, and the illustrator had a style that wouldn't fly today. Here's a brief tribute (in no particular order) to just a few of them - lovely to see you again, old friends! A Little Old Man  written by Natalie Norton and illustrated by Will Huntington (1959) Angus and the Ducks  written and illustrated by Marjorie Flack ..read more
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Rising like the phoenix
An Awfully Big Blog Adventure
by LuWrites
1w ago
 Recovery from surgery takes time, and I've used this as excuse to spend much of this last month simply researching pieces for my patreon account, Writing the Magic, rather than writing any new fiction. I feel a bit like I've been given a second chance at life, and to celebrate, this is a post all about the magical phoenix, one of my favourite mythical creatures. According to legend, the phoenix comes from Arabia, where it lives alone in a sacred wood, surviving on nothing but pure air. There is only ever one phoenix alive in the world at any one time, though their lifespan is very ..read more
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Writing process health warning: Here Be Metaphors – by Rowena House
An Awfully Big Blog Adventure
by Rowena House
2w ago
Metaphors. They’re great, right? Our first port of call when grappling with complexity. Soz, but seriously... How can we describe something as multifaceted as our writing processes without resorting to metaphor? My favourite: writing techniques are tools in a toolbox (Stephen King) which we select at need; as we develop as writers, we build up our available toolkit. Brilliant. However... This past month I’ve been looking back at my own process/es and found King’s confident, positive toolbox metaphor more of a comfort blanket than a guiding light [soz, again] since the idea we can conf ..read more
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Hope in a Garden by Lynne Benton
An Awfully Big Blog Adventure
by Lynne Benton
2w ago
 In the spring we start to look for signs of new growth, better weather, new hope.  And where better to look than in a garden?  At the moment in England it’s a treat to see snowdrops, crocuses and daffodils pushing their way into the light, giving us hope that somehow things in this increasingly difficult world might improve. And in each of the three books I want to mention today it is a garden which signifies hope for the child who finds it. In the first book, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, written in 1865 By Lewis Carroll, Alice has fallen down a rabbit-hole into a strang ..read more
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"These bits don't matter" (Anne Rooney)
An Awfully Big Blog Adventure
by Stroppy Author
2w ago
 I loved Keren's post yesterday on making collage and how it reflects aspects of her narrative-making. I don't make actual collages (though I would love to, if it were safe to leave scissors, glue and cut up things around in a house with a toddler). Instead I make cartoons in PhotoShop based on old images and transposing my current problems and issues into them. This week I have a problem with the window installers, and spent most of Friday morning committing it to PhotoShop. (I've doctored this one to de-identify the company involved to avoid legal problems. It's just a van from the Inte ..read more
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Chaos and collage by Keren David
An Awfully Big Blog Adventure
by Keren David
3w ago
 Well! Months have gone by and I have failed you. I have thought and thought, what can I write -  what can I say -  and then the chance goes whooshing past and this blog is sadly silent on the eighth of the month. I apologise. Times are hard. I have never known such difficult days, and I am supporting a lot of people through it. It is draining and distressing,  I am not going to write about the state of the world, because it's all too much. But I did think I'd say something about my new hobby of collage (still LOVING it) and how it fits my philosophy of life. And how that ..read more
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Death and the Carnegie Medal by Paul May
An Awfully Big Blog Adventure
by Paul May
3w ago
Death has always been a presence in Carnegie Medal winning books. The third winner, Noel Streatfeild's The Circus is Coming begins like this: "Peter and Sarah were orphans. When they were babies their father and mother were killed in a railway accident, so they came to live with their aunt." This is an extreme example of how children's authors get rid of the parents to allow the children some agency. Roald Dahl did a very similar thing in James and the Giant Peach although he waited until the second paragraph to dispatch James's parents by means of an angry rhinoceros. Both Streatfeild ..read more
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A HISTORY OF MYSTERY (part 1 - picture books). by Sharon Tregenza
An Awfully Big Blog Adventure
by Sharon Tregenza
3w ago
     Mystery stories can excite, engage and encourage reluctant readers and mystery fiction is one of the most popular genres of children's literature.     When kids hunt for mystery clues they are reading the books analytically and searching for patterns. Mysteries cover a wide range of settings and subject matter, so they can be easily integrated into different countries, cultures and interests. Even the youngest child can be drawn in by a good mystery. The best books in the genre are original and exciting. Here are three of my favourites...    &n ..read more
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