HAPPINESS!

Hello, lovely, discerning, adorable readers! Happy Tuesday to you all.

For a writer, happiness may come in many forms. It might approach you in the guise of a good review, a result from an award shortlisting, some advance copies of your new book in the post, exciting news about book trailers, or the opportunity to do fun stuff for your publisher. Seldom will it come to you as all of the above - but I'm just lucky, I suppose!

First let me just officially tell you that Shadows on the Moon didn't win the Leeds Book Award (14-16 Category) that prize went to the lovely and adorable Bryony Pearce for Angel's Fury, which I have on my Kobo and fully intend to read once Katana #2 has been wrestled into submission. To leaven the pain of loss, the lovely organisers (hey, everyone! If you're reading this, you guys are awesome!) gave each of the shortlisted authors a sparkly pretty shiney shiiiiny - um - oh, sorry, yes, they gave us beauifully engraved crystal paperweights:

Then on Friday, the Lancashire Book of the Year Award went to the vote. Shadows didn't win, but it did come third place in the voting, behind Malorie Blackman's Boys Don't Cry. First place was taken by Chris Higgin's He's After Me which sounds very intriguing, and which I certainly intend to get my hands on now. Third place, especially in the company of such distinguished writers, is nothing to be sniffed at - plus, I still get to go to the award ceremony, where I'll be meeting the young people who voted, doing a panel event, and attenting a dinner hosted by the local university. I even bought new shoes for this. Swish, eh?

Moving onto the next bit of loveliness, a barrage of reviews for the U.S. edition of Shadows have come in over the past few days. These reviews make me glow not only because they say such lovely things, but also because they will hopefully be instrumental in getting the book into American school libraries where youngsters who can't afford a hardcover of their own will still get to read it.

Bulletin for the Centre for Children’s Books, June 2012

No sooner is Suzume’s father murdered in front of her (on false charges of treason against the Moon Prince) than her mother weds his best friend, Lord Terayama, and spirits Suzume away to a new life of luxury. Suzume’s aptitude for shadow-weaving—the ability to create illusions by manipulating light and shadow—allows her to hide her discontent and suspicion, but when she overhears Terayama’s confession of complicity in her father’s death, she realizes her own life is in danger and she must shed her old identity to remain alive. First as a kitchen drudge in Terayama’s household, then as a courtesan attempting to win the position of the Moon Prince’s Shadow Bride (an official, high-status mistress with the power to ask a royal boon), she pursues a vendetta against Terayama and her own traitorous mother. Marriott plays with the motifs of the Cinderella story in fresh new ways, recasting the classic fairy tale as revenge quest in a pseudo–ancient Japan, and her powerful exploration of familial betrayals and the personal cost of vengeance dovetails seamlessly with the more familiar fairy-tale themes of love, belonging, and multiple identities. The book also has a swoonworthy romantic hero in kind, perceptive Otieno (the youngest member of a diplomatic party from the African nation of Athazie), who recognizes Suzume in all of her guises and offers her happiness if only she can let go of her guilt and bitterness. The atmospheric writing, compelling secondary characters (including a transgender woman who becomes Suzume’s surrogate older sister), and emotional complexity of this adaptation give it broad appeal and make it a standout addition to the perennially appealing field of fairy-tale novelizations. Recommended CG

School Library Journal, June 2012

Gr 9 Up–In this spin on ‘Cinderella” set in ancient Japan, Suzume is an only child living with her parents and orphaned cousin, Aimi. The action starts immediately when royal soldiers unfairly accuse her father of being a traitor. Aimi and Suzume watch in terror as her father is killed, and Aimi is also shot as the girls flee through the woods. After her mother remarries, Suzume learns that she is a shadow weaver, “One who can weave illusions from the threads of the world.” Her skills are useful when she discovers that her stepfather had a hand in her father’s death. So begins a domino effect of twists, turns, and shocking revelations that lead to Suzume masquerading as a servant in her stepfather’s house to escape his attempts to silence her. Fleeing altogether when she believes that she has accidentally killed her mother, she embarks on a perilous attempt to avenge her family and redeem herself. Along the way she is forced to question whether hate is more valuable than love and if she can ever consider herself worthy of happiness. A rich cultural context and strong female characters make this novel reminiscent of Kristin Cashore’s Graceling (Harcourt, 2008) and Arthur Golden’s Memoirs of a Geisha (Knopf, 1998). The “Cinderella” theme is interwoven with just the right strokes, creating a magical reinterpretation that is much richer than a mere retelling. Although several hot-button issues such as self-mutilation and gender identity are dealt with in an explicit manner, the fast-moving plot, intense action, and compelling characters will pull readers through to the satisfying conclusion.–Sunnie Sette, New Haven Public Library, CT
 
Booklist, May 2012

Cinderella is reimagined as 16-year-old Suzume, a young girl of noble birth living in fairy-tale Japan, who takes on various incarnations after the brutal slaying of her father and cousin by means of her stepfather Lord Terayama. In Terayama’s house, Suzume becomes his polite, sweet daughter Suzu-Chan, but she is soon exiled upon the discovery of his treachery, and during her time on the run takes on the identity of Rin, a clumsy kitchen drudge, and finally Yue, the enchanting courtesan bent on revenge against Terayama while vying to become the Moon Prince’s shadow bride—the highest concubine in the court. She pursues this last goal despite her heart, which belongs to a foreign man who shares her ability to “shadow-weave,” the power to cast illusions. Despite the fantasy plot, Marriott gets into heady, realistic territory here, touching on self-harm, sexual identity, and the deepest of sacrifices. Instead of relying on one fairy godmother, Suzume has multiple mentors, as well as multiple motivations, all of which shape her as a flawed, dramatic, and sympathetic lead. — Courtney Jones

My incoherant delight at these may have caused my editor at Candlewick Press some slight concern about my mental state. But she's used to that.

NEXT! Wonder Editor (that's the UK one) emailed me not last week but the week before to tell me that the first copies of FrostFire and the newly re-jacketed Daughter of the Flames had arrived in the office and that she was sending me some. But they did not arrive, Dear Readers! I sat in front of the post-flap each day with my tongue coming out like an excited (possibly unhousebroken) labrador puppy, desperately hoping for a parcel with the Walker logo on it. My lonely vigil was unrewarded.

On Friday I finally broke and emailed Wonder Editor asking if she was absolutely, positively SURE that she'd put the books in the post, and if perhaps they hadn't fallen down the back of the mailshute in the Walker mail room or something. Alas, Wonder Editor had, in fact, been as frighteningly efficient as always. The books therefore could only have been lost as a result of the Royal Mail's equally frightening incompetence.

Cue: Wailing, gnashing of teeth, rending of hair and general tantrum-throwing. Especially after I found out that my agent, all the way over in Wales, had gotten her copies. IT WASN'T FAIR, DEAR READERS.

But fear not, there is a happy ending to the tale. Wonder Editor packaged up another copy of each and got them in the post that very day and they arrived on Saturday morning, causing me to frolic and scamper with glee like the labrador puppy when it finally gets its rubber ball. Pictures, you demand? Oh, I am only too delighted to oblige!

The prettiest book that I think I've ever been privileged to hold in my own hands. The internal design alone makes me want to take it to bed with me and hide it under my pillow for ever. Joy!

In other news, at the end of last month I was hard at work writing a script for the trailer my publisher plan to make for FrostFire. A Lovely Young PR Lady (hereafter referred to as Lovely Lass) and I went back and forth a few times (she wrote a version, I wrote a version, then we sort of squashed them together and cut the whole thing in half) and eventually came up with something we both liked and which we thought was the right length. This then went away to get approval from the company who do the actual shooting, and luckily they thought our ideas were doable, although they reserved the right to tweak and fiddle with it as necessary.

Following that there was further scrambling as Lovely Lass was sent details for various possible actors for the roles of Luca, Arian and Frost. A pretty darn perfect Luca and Arian appeared on the scene with relatively little fuss, but for some reason Lovely Lass kept being sent tiny, skinny white girls to play the role of Frost.

You guys haven't read about Frost yet, but she describes herself as 'carthorse'-like, and at the beginning of the story she's making her living from chopping wood, hauling hay, and doing manual labour jobs. She is tall, and tough, and very, very strong. Also, she's most emphatically not white. Lovely Lass strongly suggested that they stop sending her the petite pale-skinned girls, please. Not that there's anything wrong with being petite and white - unless you're being sent out for roles which are completely wrong for you. We found the whole thing kind of strange, and I could tell that Lovely Lass was feeling a bit frazzled about it. The actress we wanted had to be out there!

The on Wednesday, a picture arrived in my inbox, and much ecstatic flailing commenced on the part of Lovely Lass and me. We had our Frost!

By Friday filming was underway, taking advantage of the gorgeous sunshine; perfect for depicting my imagined country of Ruan (which is based mostly on Northern India and Tibet). I'm hoping that in the next week or so I'll get to see some footage and I'm really VERY excited. With any luck I'll be able to do a post fairly soon showing you the casting photos. I'm not sure if anyone from the publisher was there at the shoot to take still photos, but if so I'll try to get hold of them too.

Of course, this week (tomorrow, in fact!) I will be wending my way to Manchester and then on to Sheffield on a two-day field trip in order to meet and interview Cassandra Clare on her UK tour for City of Lost Souls. You all know how much I love CC's books, so getting put up overnight in a nice hotel in order to tag along with her on part of her journey is like being offered a free run at the Make Your Own Icecream Sundae Bar for me. I can't wait. There's still time to pop in a few more questions in the comments here if you have them.

As a result of the tour activity, though, I'm not going to be in the Writing Cave on Wednesday-Thursday. On Friday, I'll be posting my event report and interview with Cassandra Clare. So I'll be posting the final InCreWriMa Check In on the following Tuesday (technically not in May anymore - June 5th - but hopefully you'll forgive me). That gives you a few extra days to pack the words in, so take advantage of it!

Oh, and last but not least! There's a new interview with me up on Lost In Fiction. Check it out :)

See you on Friday, my darlings!

InCreWriMa WEEK FOUR: Check In

Hello, dear readers! You're getting this week's InCreWriMa check in a little bit early, because (just in case you forgot) I'm off to Leeds tomorrow to attend the Leeds Book Awards!  

Shadows on the Moon has been shortlisted in the 12-14 category and I'm really excited to be going. Not only is it my very first award ceremony, but I'm going to be talking to lots of the kids who read all the books and voted, and I'm hoping to meet some amazing authors, like Annabel Pitcher, Gill Lewis and Martyn Bedford (I'm not sure if all the shortlisted writers will be there, but with any luck I'll get to say hello to at least some of them).

Bearing all that in mind, I won't be around to answer comments on this much, which makes it even more important that you guys chat to each other and offer support and encouragement.

Just a quick update on my progress today! Last time I told you guys that I'd hit 47,800 words in Katana #2. Since then, I've been doing a lot of work directly on the computer in addition to scribbling in my notebook, and to be honest I've lost track of how many pages I've handwritten and how many I've just put directly onto the Word file, and how many are left to still be typed up. But I can tell you that the WIP is at 54,200 typed up words, which means my week total is 6400 words. Not as much as I was hoping for, but not bad either! I'm still steadily pushing on.

The next week is going to be tougher. Not only am I in Leeds tomorrow, but I'll also be popping off to Manchester to a Walker Books reception, and from there to meet Cassandra Clare in Sheffield and interview her (and there's still space for more questions, guys!).

On the one hand, it's going to be a lot of train journeys, which often encourages me to write. On the other hand, it's a lot of nerves and excitement, which sometimes have the opposite effect. So we'll see.

How has your week been? I open the comments to you :)

ROADTRIP WEDNESDAY (On Tuesday)

Welcome to the 130th Road Trip Wednesday! 

Art by ASummerTimeSadness

Road Trip Wednesday is a ‘Blog Carnival,’ where YA Highway's contributors post a weekly writing- or reading-related question that begs to be answered. In the comments, you can hop from destination to destination and get everybody's unique take on the topic.

We'd love for you to participate! Just answer the prompt on your own blog and leave a link - or, if you prefer, you can include your answer in the comments.


This Week's Topic: What book brings back memories?

Hmmm, yeah - as normal I wasn't able to participate in the *actual* RTW over on YA Highway, but I really liked the blog topic so I thought that I would steal it (whilst giving appropriate credit, above!).

You see, books do bring back very strong memories for me. When I look back at my thirty years on planet earth, nearly everything is sort of... watermarked by the books I was reading at the time.

I'm sure some people would find that a bit odd - but I just think it's a sign of how incredibly important books have always been to me, and how much I've learned and grown due to the books I've read. I'm a different person because of the stories contained within me. Each and every one of them - whether I loved or loathed it - has made some kind of imprint inside me, channeling the waters of my emotions and creativity in different ways.

I can remember the book I read before bed the day that I found out about the Royal Literary Fund grant. The book I read on the bus-ride home when I lost my job. The book I shoved into my bag the night I was rushed to hospital. The book I had just finished reading when I got the call telling me my first book was going to be published. The books I got for Christmas the year my father had his first heart attack.

But when I initially saw this topic, the book that immediately sprung to mind wasn't from any of those traumatic or wonderful events. It was Mistress Masham's Repose, by T. H. White - an enchanting little book that tells the story of plucky, mistreated orphan Maria, and her adventures once she finds her way to the tiny, forgotten island of Mistress Masham's Repose (which sits at the centre of the ornamental lake on her family's vast, neglected estate) and meets the people who live there.

When I think about Mistress Masham's Repose, I remember a gloriously sunny, yet slightly frosty morning. I remember how the buttery rays of sunlight streamed through the leaded windows of The Highbridge Cafe in Lincoln, and gleamed off the polished wood of the tiny table where I sat all on my own. I had a cup of tea in one hand and the book in the other, and a plate of homemade scones with honey in front of me, gently steaming because they were fresh out of the oven.

The cafe was bustling around me. Customers, waiters and waitresses moved by. I was on the top floor of this lovely old building, and out of the window I could look down on the swans drifting along on the deep, glossy green of the river, and shoppers scurrying from store to store. I remember how, in the midst of all that noise and movement I felt utterly serene and peaceful. 

I had just turned nineteen and I had finally managed to conquer one of my major fears in life - travelling places on my own. 

Oh, I hadn't gone far! Only to my hometown train station and then on to this rather lovely market town just under two hours journey away. For most people it wouldn't have seemed like anything at all. But up until that point I'd always been terrified of going anywhere - especially new places - alone. I was especially fightened of trains. I used to be convinced that I'd accidentally go past my stop, or miss a connecting train, and inevitably get stranded somewhere miles from home with no idea what to do. This conviction was unshakeable and paralysing. 

In my new job as a civil servant I had recently been sent on a training course which required me to travel by train to a large city quite a long way from home, and I'd found the experience so scary (even with another trainee going along with me!) that I'd ended up having a stress nosebleed on the way there. That was the last straw, and I decided that I wasn't going to be ruled by this irrational fear anymore. 

Part of the problem came from my family. It was widely acknowledged that I was (whisper) terribly clever, you know. But I wasn't supposed to have any common sense at all. Everyone from my little brother to my great aunt believed that I was one of those dreamy creative types: scatty, flaky, and not to be trusted to look after myself. 

I knew that if I said I was going to hop on a train and go to a random destination somewhere (and there was no way around telling, because I lived at home, and they all expected to know what I was doing all the time) just to see if I could, my father would start ordering me to call him on my mobile phone periodically to assure him that I hadn't fallen off the platform or been kidnapped, and probably telling me that if I wanted to go somewhere he could always drive me. My mother would enlist my sister's help to remind me of all the times I'd gotten lost as a child and persuade me it would be better to wait for one of them to be free to go along too, just in case. My brother would laugh in my face and say 'Yeah, right'.

Which seems like an absolutely ludicrous amount of fuss to me now, looking back. But it was what happened *any time* that I tried to go anywhere or do anything by myself. 

My family were genuinely concerned. Their concern had a basis, because when I was younger I did quite often get lost, and even when I was at school I was always getting beaten up and tripped and injured. But unfortunately their concern made all my own insecurities worse. This terror of going anywhere by myself was basically (underneath all that ancient history) about the fact that I didn't trust myself. I expected to mess up as a matter of course - to forget vital details, get lost, or just plain freak out. I expected to trip, or get pushed, or possibly even attacked, wherever I went.

I had no faith in my own ability to cope with anything.

You're a reasonably clever, averagely competent young woman, I said to myself sternly. You can do whatever you set your mind to. You are going to get over this.

I waited until my parents went on holiday - leaving me alone in the house for a week. Frankly, they were scared to even do that, and left me a list of instructions as long as my arm, just in case. But I found that week of solitude invigorating. On the Friday, which I'd booked as annual leave from work, I gathered up my courage, went to the train station, picked a destination, and went. 

And nothing bad happened. In fact, once I'd gotten over shakily checking that I was on the right train for the twentieth time, it was *fun*.

I got to Lincoln, and spent a wonderful day wandering around the place by myself, basking in the sun, climbing the hill, poking into the shops, eating a solitary lunch - during which I read my book - and then I successfully got myself home again. 

That day taught me two very important things:

One: I could look after myself as well as anyone.

Two: I valued my own company and enjoyed doing things by myself.

The confidence and self reliance that developed from those realisations changed me. It didn't happen all at once, but within a few years I had gone from being the kind of person who got stress nosebleeds (and possibly hyperventilated) when she had to get on a train to go to a training course, to the kind of person who loved exploring new places and meeting new people, and who jumped at the chance to go travelling, especially alone. Eventually it sank in, not just for my family, but for me, that I wasn't helpless, flaky or lacking in common sense anymore. I probably never had been. Resourcefulness, focus and common sense have no reason to manifest if you never go looking for them,

So when I think about Mistress Masham's Repose, I think about strong, determined Maria and how she changed her life. I think about that seemingly insignificant day which was the start of this amazing journey of exploration, not just of the world, but of myself. I think about realising that the picture other people have of you, even the people who love you most, isn't necessarily the whole one. How sometimes what other people tell you about yourself is actually about them, not you at all. And I think about sunlight and scones, and swans on the river. But most especially I think about long, solitary train journeys where I watch the countryside slide away and scribble in my notebook and smile.

InCreWriMa WEEK 3: Check In

Happy Thursday, my lovelies. Have you checked out yesterday's surprise post about how I'm going to meet Cassandra Clare on her UK City of Lost Souls Book Tour yet? If not, hasten hither. Then come back and let's chat about the last week in the Word Mines.

So! It's our third International Creative Writing May check in, which means we've all technically been beavering away for two weeks now. How is it going in your notebook/laptop/papyrus scroll over there? Did you have an awesome seven days, a terrible seven days, or a so-so seven days? Did you hit your target, miss it, adjust it? Let's hear all about it in the comments, and remember - talk to each other as well as to me! We're all friends in our wordliness here.

My progress this past week has been thus:

Thursday and Friday I got my six new pages in as planned - in fact, I wrote slightly more than that on both days, and found myself on Friday (12th of May) with a total count of sixty-five and a half handwritten pages. My target was fifty-four. I also handed in my edits on The Night Itself and was well-satisfied with my week's efforts.

I had Saturday off and went to see Avengers Assemble. Which, by the way, made me feel as if I'd sat in a darkened cinema for over two hours having someone repeatedly poke my eyes with explosions. AND IT WAS TOTALLY WORTH IT. Seriously, Tom Hiddleston alone was worth it. Go see it! This is such a great year for geeky films so far.

Then on Sunday something didn't feel quite right. I was a bit achy and headachey and couldn't focus no matter how much caffeine I ingested. So instead of writing new pages I wrote up some notes, but not half as many as I wanted to.

Monday I felt worse. All my joints had gone painful and stiff and I kept hurting myself - I accidentally punched a bookcase, stabbed myself in the finger with a needle, gouged my arm with a planting stake and poured boiling water on my foot *just in the morning*. I'm reluctant to say I had a bug, because I think every time I blog about being ill more germs are attracted to me, but let's say I wasn't exactly in a writing mood. I tried! St Jude knows I tried. But no matter how long I stared at the computer and notebook, no words came out.

Tuesday felt slightly better, but for some reason my notebook looked a bit intimidating to me. I wrote some new stuff directly into my computer instead (about three pages, which is roughly equivalent of six notebook pages) and then typed up some more notes.

Wednesday was briefly, if gloriously sunny. I snatched every spare minute to sit in the sun and, as normally happens when I can sit in the sun, I hit my six pages easily.

So my full week's progress has brought me to 47,800 words typed up - which, if Katana #2 turns out the same length as The Night Itself in first draft, would mean I was about 65% of the way through. We'll say no more about that. I don't want to jinx myself and end up writing another 130,000 word long first draft. I also have seventeen and a half pages of notes still to type up, which means, counting the three pages I typed straight onto the computer as six notebook pages, my current InCreWriMa total is:

Eighty-three notebook pages. My target for this date was seventy-eight pages. VICTORY!

In other news: think I'm going to need a new notebook.

CITY OF LOST SOULS UK BOOK TOUR!

Hello, Dear Readers! I come to you with an unprecedented Wednesday post in order to squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!

Ahem. I beg your pardon. In order to tell you about the UK Book Tour of Cassandra Clare's latest Mortal Instruments novel City of Lost Souls - which I am going to be part of!

Cassie is going to be doing various events all across the UK, and at each one a YA book blogger (yes, apparently I'm close enough to count) will get to meet her SQUUUUUUUUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!

Huh? Oh, sorry. Yes I get to meet Cassandra Clare and do a short interview with her - on behalf of you, her lovely fans.

This is my stop:

 An Evening with Cassandra Clare: Sheffield

Date: Thursday 31st May, 5.30 p.m.

Location: Library Theatre, Surrey Street, Sheffield, S1 1XZ

Tickets: £3, or £2 for under 18s and NUS cardholders, available from Waterstones Orchard Square, Sheffield. To book call 0114 272 8971. 

For more information visit Waterstones.com

Now, on each tour stop Cassandra will be concentrating on one particular set of characters. And I - O Glory of Glories - have been assigned Jace and Clary.

*Manfully holds back yet another squee*

*Lies down for a minute*

Okay, I'm back.

That's right, I've been assigned the Big Kahuna Ship of the Mortal Instruments, everyone's favourite angelic blonde and redhead couple: JACE AND CLARY.

And I didn't even need to blackmail or threaten or bribe anyone or ANYTHING! How cool is that?

This is how it works:

1. You ask me the questions about Jace and Clary
2. I ask Cassandra Clare the questions about Jace and Clary
3. I give you the skinny on Jace and Clary
4. PROFIT!

How could it possibly go wrong?

Well, except for the high likelihood of me fangirling myself into hyperventilation and having to be carried from the room with my skirt over my head while Ms Clare phones her agent, publisher and attorney to ensure I'm never allowed with five hundred yards of her again.

*Nervous laughter*

BUT APART FROM THAT NOTHING CAN GO WRONG.

So now it's all down to you, Cassandra Clare fans. What burning questions do you have about Jace, Clary, and their relationship that you would give *anything* to corner Cassie and ask? What simply *must* you know? Tell me in the comments, and I will be your Mortal Instruments related messenger!

And if you would like to get in some questions about Alec and Magnus? Visit My Favourite Books and post a question there.

Are you intrigued by Maia and Jordan? You can ask about them at The Overflowing Library.

But what if you ship Isabelle and Simon instead? Well, there's a place for you at Wondrous Reads.

Perhaps you eschew all these couples and are fascinated by Sebastian? Appropriately enough, you can indulge your curiosity at Dark Readers.

THERE ARE NO STANDING OVATIONS

Some authors I admire (for example, Kristin Cashore, here) have recently talked about mistakes they've made in their work, and have examined how that makes them feel going forward with their storytelling. I've done a lot of talking about this - the idea that we can't overcome prejudice unless we're willing to admit fault - and I'm encouraged to see other writers discussing it too.

But as I was reading Kristin's article, which is basically about having done something wrong and then being called on it, a thought struck me. There's a flipside to this issue, and I've never really seen it addressed. I thought I'd talk about it here, for the benefit of aspiring and newly published and (maybe) slightly longer-term published writers who have faced or will face it in their careers.  

What do you do when you've done something (or everything) RIGHT...and no one cares?

With Shadows on the Moon coming out in the U.S. in April, and with all the ongoing discussions about race, sexuality and portrayals of disability that have been going on in the YA community, I've been asked many questions about my decision to embrace diversity as much as I can. One question that comes up again and again is: How do you cope with worries about getting it wrong? Aren't you scared?

Of course I give them my heartfelt answer about stepping out of the Good Person Bubble. I tell them that in my experience, mentally admitting that you can and will get things wrong really does lift a weight from your shoulders, and makes you feel incredibly free on both a creative and personal level.

But for many authors there's an awareness that can sit on your shoulders with a weight nearly equal to that Good Person Bubble. This is the knowledge that you will agonise over your portrayals of diverse characters, of people who have disabilities, mental illnesses, or who are not cis-gendered or straight, and take what feels like enormous risks in order to be truthful and real, and after all your work and your care and your joyful realisation that you got it as right as anyone could...

No one will notice.

The vast majority of people simply will not care.

We've had so much fuss over the colour of Rue and Cinna and Finnick's skins in the adaptions of The Hunger Games books. On one side of the thing you have heaps of praise for Suzanne Collins for including side characters who aren't white, and on the other, people panicking at the mere idea that a character they like might not have pale skin and Caucasian characteristics (like them, presumably) in the movie. But the general reaction to both the books and the films was one of surprise and trepidation, as if no one could quite figure out how to handle books where significant characters might be of any other race than white. As if The Hunger Games Trilogy was somehow groundbreaking in that respect.

It's really not.

There are books out there with truly diverse main characters. Books that give lead roles to people of colour, and people of diverse sexualities and gender presentations, and where characters with disabilities are allowed to not only exist but be heroes. And yet, in the ongoing discussions about race and diversity in YA, those books - the books that apparently answer everyone involved's prayers! - won't be mentioned. Because barely anyone's heard of them.

I feel honestly baffled by this. Everyone and their eccentric uncle Phineas is crying out for diverse books, begging for them, weeping over the lack of them...but if you provide one, it will skate under the radar and the crying, begging and weeping will continue unabated.

I can think of a few authors who write truly diverse books who enjoy brilliant sales - but in every case those writers had to build up their careers over decades and decades, moving agonisingly slowly from newbie to small-time midlist to respectable midlist to a top-selling to bestselling author. Some of those authors, if you look at their publication credits, have massive gaps in their careers during which they gave up and did something else for a while because the lack of response to their work either made their publishers drop them, or discouraged them so much they lost the will to keep on writing. I wonder how many others there have been who started out with the best of intentions and gave up two or three or four books in, feeling that, no matter how many concerned articles were written about the need for diverse YA, there was simply no real market for it.

At a certain point, as a writer who has dedicated so much passion and care to creating books that leave you with a satisfied conscience, you might find yourself looking at your royalty statement, and then looking at the Children's New York Times Bestseller's list and counting up the books with all-white, all-straight, all-able-bodied and all-neurotypical casts - or worse, casts where any characters who don't conform to this are confined to stereotypical side characters - and you will probably feel despair.

I'm not overstating there. It is despair: cold, creeping, whispering and wailing at the corners of your awareness. You will ask yourself, 'If I had written a book like that, a so-called 'normal' book, a book that conformed...would I be a bestseller now? Would I be able to afford a pension, and a mortgage on a nice house? Would I have fans all over the world and a movie deal? In writing diverse books...did I make a huge mistake?'

I know this is likely to happen, because it happened to me. Sometimes, when I see the hype machine grinding away for one of those Hot, Hot, Hot New Novels, or read about a huge deal for a debut novellist, or see a book come out and immediately hit that bestseller list like a canonball and then sit there at the top for weeks - and I can see that yet again any concerns about diversity have been brushed aside in order to create an apparently oh-so-appealing vision of reality where straight, white, able-bodied neurotypical people have all the agency and all the adventures and all the darn fun - I STILL feel that cold, creeping sensation. I still hear the whispering and wailing too.

The sad truth is that on ninety-nine out of one hundred occasions, writing brave, rich, diverse books will not result in any of the stuff you dream about.

It won't result in fantastic, Twilight/Hunger Games level sales figures.

It won't result in movie deals.

It won't result in critical acclaim and glowing reviews.

Why? Because the vast majority of people who read your books (I'm including EVERYONE in this, from young readers to professional reviewers) are so used to the skewed vision of reality which has been blasted at them by society and the media all their lives - and continues to be blasted at them everytime they turn on the TV, watch a film, walk by a billboard - that they WILL NOT NOTICE. They'll flinch from or skim over the descriptions of racially diverse characters, block out the gay ones, imagine the hero with the walking stick as able bodied. Or worse, they'll frown over these diverse characters, label the book 'weird' because it makes them uncomfortable for no reason they can really adequately explain, and put it down. And move onto yet another bestselling book filled with that familiar 'perfect' cast that contains a couple of stereotypical 'minority' side characters and the version of the world that they are used to.

Realising that is so, so disheartening. 

But let me put my arm around you, Diverse Authors. Let me give you a warm hug and a plate of chocolate cake and a mug of coffee and explain the realisation I finally came to about this.

The reason there are no standing ovations for authors who take that risk and write those diverse books, is that much as we YA authors do write with a particular awareness of our audience, ultimately you don't spend hours of your life sweating away over your notebook and keyboard for anyone other than yourself.

When you chose to embrace diversity and create stories which include rich, beautiful, realistic casts of characters, you do that firstly and primarily for you. Because you know deep down that your book is better, stronger, more truthful that way. Because it makes your heart sing, and your brain smile, and your fingers fly.

Occasionally one us may get a heartfelt letter from a fan or a librarian or teacher saying how much the effort we put into diversity meant to them. Or we might get listed for a diversity-specific award. One of our books might do really well. And each and every one of those things is a marvellous validation of the effort that goes into our work. But the best validation, and the only one which will make you feel warm again and banish the weeping and wailing from your ears is the knowledge, that you've written what YOU believed in.

Not for the sake of recognition from peers, not for universal acclaim from review journals, not even for a lightning-leap up the bestsellers list and a movie deal, but for the sake of your own soul.

If you have that, then those years of struggle which are most likely ahead of you while you work your way up from newbie to small-time midlist to respectable midlist to top-seller to bestseller (while still rightly appearing arduous from down there at the bottom) will no longer seem impossible. 

Don't look for standing ovations. It's entirely possible you will never get them. Look instead for fulfilment and satisfaction within your craft and within yourself as a person. Those things, once attained, will keep you warm for a long, long time.

InCreWriMa Week 2: CHECK IN

Happy Thursday, Dear Readers - and Happy 300th post on The Zoë-Trope!

*Sets Free The Winged Monkeys of Celebration* Aw, look at their little leathery wings going. How cute. Fly, my pretties! Spread unicorn sparkles and terror everywhere you pass!

Isn't it perfect that my 300th post here should be the International Creative Writing May check in? This whole thing is about bringing writers together, encouraging us all to have run being creative, and sharing our achievements. And that's what this blog has always been about, too! Ah, I love it when a (not-really) plan comes together.

(BTW, excitement may cause me to make more random film references than normal. I apologise in advance).

So today we check in after one full week of InCreWriMa. How did you do? Did it drag as slowly as the last Man of Steel remake, or slip past swiftly like the one about the genius playboy billionaire in a metal suit? Did you hit your target? Fly lightyears beyond it? Miss it by miles? Get all your week's writing done in one day and then chill while the rest of us suckers were slaving away? Have you had to readjust your goal, perhaps. Please, share everything in the comments! And I urge you not to respond only to this post and to what I'm saying BUT TO EACH OTHER as well.

Talk to each other, guys! Offer advice, congratulations, commiserations, make friends. That's all part of the fun.

I will start off by talking about how my week went. Well, on Thursday last week I fully intended to begin properly by writing my full day's target of six pages (you may or may not remember that my target was to write six pages a day, six days a week this month - I hoped to get those pages typed up each day as well). But then I got into a Twitter discussion which spawned this inescapable inspiration for a blog post - which evolved into BLOGGERS vs. AUTHORS. So I basically spent all Thursday researching, writing and revising that. And I can't exactly regret it - it got nearly 1,500 hits the day it went up!

No big deal, I thought. I'll just write an extra two pages on Friday, then squeeze a couple in on Saturday (normally my day off) and with another two extra on Sunday, I'll have caught up!

Fate was listening. Fate laughed at me, and pointed and mocked. As a result of which, after writing my eight pages on Friday, that night a third round of edits on The Night Itself appeared in my inbox. To be fair, my editor had warned me they were coming - I just forgot about it.

After facepalming a few times, until the refreshing tingling sensation in my skin did away with the urge to faint, I made a new plan. I would write my six pages in the morning, and work on the revisions each day as soon as those six pages were done. That would mean I wouldn't have much (if any) time to type up my six pages like I'd intended to do every day, but that didn't really matter - it would just make it a bit more difficult to track my actual word count progress. And my goal this month wasn't about amounts of words written as it was about moving the story forward.

How did that work out for me?

Um...can you spell AMAZING?

It's been fantastic! Knowing that my goal wasn't an unspecified 'as many words as possible (hurry up, write MOAR!)' has really seemed to free me up. Even on days when I've been taking care of my dad, I've still felt OK to sit down, write half a page, get up and do observations, sit down and write half a page, get up and check meds, sit down... I've managed to hit target every single day, and without stressing out about it. And then in afternoon, after my dad's treatment is complete and I'm back in my Writing Cave, I can switch my brain into edit mode without any sense that I'm tearing myself away from my WIP, because I know I've taken my characters a step further on their journey already.

What's more? You guys, several times when I've been writing in my notebook I've completely 'zoned' and ended up exceeding my target but a LOT. I worked out that by this stage in InCreWriMa - seven days in - I should have written thirty-six pages. I've actually got forty-one!

I really hope that next week goes as well.

All right now, your turn. Tell all in the comments!