The Ideas Shop Hits Navan - Sarah, Judi and Oisin

On Thursday 13th October we arrived at the Solstice Arts Centre in Navan to be greeted by the lovely Maedhbh from the library services. After tucking into tea and toast in the café with fellow Ideas Shop writers, Judi Curtin and Oisin McGann, we all set up our props and waited for the 350 school children to take their seats.

They came from all over Meath, a lovely mix of schools. As we waited nervously backstage, they spilled into the front seats, grinning, and we sneaked a few peaks through the black curtains at their faces. Waiting backstage for an event to start is scary and I’m always jingling with nerves – will I be OK, will the audience laugh at the right places, will they ask any questions? On this occasion there was nothing at all to worry about, the Meath audience were completely engaged and watched and listened eagerly from the very beginning.

We each spoke first about growing up and what inspired us to be writers. We had a Memory Box on stage – a great big wooden box filled with all our memories. For me it was books I loved as a child, my tutu and ballet shoes and ballet fuzzy felt; for Judi one of her old dolls (very unloved as she pointed out!), old books and diaries; for Oisin an art kit, books, and his special memories of driving diggers and playing in building sites. Oisin lives in Meath and he was a big hit, especially with the boys!

Next we spoke a little about how we write a book – I talked about research and the role that plays in my work, and meeting the elephants in Dublin Zoo; Judi explained how a book is like a Russian Doll, full of different parts (or dolls) that all fit together to produce a story; and Oisin drew a very fab skeleton which he covered in clothes and explained how you add things to the ‘bones’ of a story, a bit like dressing the skeleton.

And finally we al talked about how books live on through our readers – YOU! Which was followed by a lively question and answer session and a super signing.

It was a real pleasure to meet so many fantastic young readers and thanks to CBI, and most especially Maedhbh and her team for organising the event so beautifully. And look out for me, Judi and Oisin – we’ll be doing some more Ideas Shops very soon.

Sarah XXX

The New Blog is Here! Don't Miss Out - Read It Right This Second . . .

Before and after pics from the Irish Book Awards!

It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day, and I’m feeling good . . .

I’ve been reading a couple of other writers’ blogs recently and I came to the conclusion that:

a/ some people put a whole heap more effort than others into blogging

b/ some blogs are boring

c/ no-one (me included) wants to hear about what writers had for breakfast – unless they ate something mad like ostrich eggs

and c/ my own blog is starting to get very *yawn and stretch* BORING indeed!

So I asked my teen son, Sam, is my blog boring. He said ‘Yes, Mum, snoozeville.’ (And he’d only read 3 lines)

So I asked one of my teen editors who was far more polite.

‘Well . . .’ she stalled. ‘I wouldn’t say boring exactly. I’d say informative.’

Informative – not good. School is informative. The Irish Times is informative. Emails from the bank are informative. But blogs should be fun, right? You’re tuning in to be entertained, not put to sleep.

Maybe you’ve had a rotten day in school, your mum’s nagging you about homework again, and you just want something funny to read.

So there’s going to be a change around her, my friends. Starting now, I’m going to say exactly what I like, when I like and no-one can do a thing about it.

Maw-ha-ha-ha! (Evil laugh)

You will learn the secret weird and wonderful workings of my very odd mind. I mean really, who spends hours thinking about school lock downs and how cool a story that would make?

Who spends hours discussing Wimpy Kid books with a gang of third classers just for the hell of it?

I tell you, I’m so far off normal sometimes, I scare myself.

Must be all the cool children’s books I’ve read – they’re seeping into my brain and turning it into a huge glowing ball of strange ideas and concepts.

Every day I wake up thinking something like – what if there was this surfing dog, now that’s interesting. No, no, surfing hamster. No, no, a boarding school for children of spies . . . and on it goes, all day, every day . . .

But that is how all books start . . . the big WHAT IF.

And I know a whole heap of you like writing too, so in this blog I’ll try to demystify (good word, huh!) the whole writing process – and tell you how a book is written from start to finish.

- OK, honest question to teen editor number one, is this blog boring?

- No way! But I hope you don’t mind me saying this – are you OK? You sound, well, different.

- Different in a good way, or in a bad way?

- In a good way I guess.

- Most excellent, my work here is done.


Till next week, Amy Greensters. Friday is blog day so check back every Friday from now on for your weekly blog fix.

Be warned, if you like this post and leave comments it will only encourage me! The more comments, the more blogs . . . it’s in your hands, folks!

Toodle pips as Clover would say.


Sarah XXX

How I Write a Book - Step 1 - Ideas

Hi Amy Greensters,
I was posting this blog to my other website - www.sarahwebb.ie and I thought I'd share snippets of it with you guys too!
It's about how I write a book from start to finish. So if you're interested in writing, or in how I write my books, read on.

I’ve just realised I haven’t really blogged about how I write a book from start to finish – from the very first idea to the actual final manuscript. So using the book I’ve just finished, Ask Amy Green: Party Drama-rama (Amy 4) I’ll try to explain how I do this. It might take a couple of weeks as I’m talking details people! ‘Cos I’m that kinda gal. Now first the disclaimer:

Every writer writes in a very, very different way. This is just the way I do it. And I’m certainly not suggesting it will work for everyone. It doesn’t even work for me sometimes! So take everything I say with a large sea rock of salt!

1/ The Initial Idea
This is the number one question I get asked at events and in schools – ‘Where do you get your ideas?’

And it’s a very hard one to answer. If I’m talking to younger readers and writers of say under 14 I tend to tell them about my crazy, mad thought-filled mind and how it never rests and is always spewing up ideas. Like today – I was stuck at home with the kids (snowed in) and thinking about how that might feel if it happened for more than a week – how would we cope. Then – being a writer – I thought, hey, that’s an interesting one for a book. It could be a/ a comedy about a family muddling through and being resourceful and learning to work together after practically killing each other or b/ a Hunger Games type dystopian teen novel where the family really do kill each other – I’d have to throw in some sort of reality tv show then maybe or c/ a romance where 2 neighbouring families are thrown together – maybe a widow and a single mum – and they bond over show shovels. See, my mind works in mysterious ways and there is always, always something cool to write about.

Where was I? Ah yes, ideas. And the idea for Amy 4 in particular.

For me, largely the characters come first. In the case of Amy 4 I already knew all the main characters – Amy, Clover, her crazy 17 year old aunt, Mills, Amy’s best friend, Sylvie, her mum, Art, her Dad, Dave, her step dad and so on.

Before I think about plot, I tend to do a lot of work on the characters. For Amy 4 I had a new character to concentrate on, Bailey Otis. He has a small walk on part in Amy 3 but I needed to flesh him out a lot more. So I grabbed my character note book and started writing pages and pages – what I knew about him – from where he was born, to his childhood, his parents, schools, music he likes, talents, hates, likes etc etc.

Once I’ve got the main characters firmly in my head I think about the plot and the setting.

Plot

Plot is an interesting one. Some writers – especially crime writers apparently – start with plot. But I do have an idea of the type of thing I’d like to write about before I put pen to paper. It tends to swirl around in my head, picking up momentum and speed, before forming into anything coherent.

I knew I wanted to make Amy Green a problem solver. I also knew I wanted to give her an older side kick who could drive and had a job and some money. Clover was originally going to be 21 until my very wise friend, Liz, said that that was way too grown up and younger was better. So I made her 17 instead which worked much better – thanks, Liz!

Once I decided to make Clover a journalist, and an agony aunt for teens, I found my ‘in’ to the problem solving. Basically Amy is brilliant at solving other people’s problems, but not so hot with her own problems.

So then I had my premise and my characters, and I just had to fill in the plot. Which has never been hard with the Amy books as my characters have a lot to say and live very eventful lives!

But basically – ideas come from everywhere – keep your eyes open and one will bite you on the nose. Now, I wonder if that family getting snowed in idea would actually work? Or a teen novel about a Lockdown in a school . . . my son’s school had a Lockdown drill recently, a new one on me, but common now in the US . . . now that’s an interesting one . . .

Meet Sarah in September 2009

Books 2009 Festival - Dublin City Centre

Sarah will be hosting a Magic Writing Workshop for all those interested in writing in the Shaw Room at the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin at 1.30 on Sat 19th Sept. She will also talk about how she came up with the idea for Amy Green and answer questions on writing. Numbers are limited so do book asap if you'd like to join her! Age 9+
Check out the details here: www.bookevents.ieHere is the booking link: http://www.bookevents.ie/event-details.php?prod=SarahWebb

Sarah will also be appearing at the Mountains to Sea Festival in Dun Laoghaire on Sunday 13th September in Dun Laoghaire Park. The Books in the Park event starts at 1.00. Sarah will be on at around 3. Other authors include Marita Conlon-McKenna, Joe O'Brien and Oisin McGann. Check out www.mountainstosea.ie for details Admission free! No booking needed.