The Diary of a Children's Author

 Today I’ve been trying to figure out an appropriate inscription my character, 10 year old Eve Akboh, could have on her late father’s headstone. The Akbohs are church-going Christians so it had to be something religious and appropriate. Here’s where, once again, the internet comes into its own.  One website, www.headstonesandmemorials.com provided a comprehensive list of 113 quotations and sayings. Number 1 was: ‘Absent from the body, present with the Lord.’ This was followed by: ‘I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.’  Others were simpler. ‘In God’s care.’ ‘Love is eternal.’ The list also included Jewish epitaphs such as: ‘Sweet in her ways, observant in her mitzvahs.’ but none from other religions.

 Another website threw up more sentimental choices. ‘Those we love don’t go away. They walk beside us everyday.’ And: ‘May the journey of your next adventure be as joy-filled as your time with us. See you soon.’  

Then, of course, there are the humorous.  Eve’s dad’s wouldn’t be funny but writers revel in displacement activities so here are a few real epitaphs I found from www.blakjak.demon.co.uk

On a grave in Nova Scotia:

Here lies

Ezekial Aikle

Age 102

The good

die young

In Ribbesford, England:

The children of Israel wanted bread

And the Lord sent them manna

Old clerk Wallace wanted a wfie

And the Devil sent him Anna

Actually, whether serious or otherwise, inscriptions on graves are costly. I remember when I had my grandma’s done three years ago, it cost about £2.50 per letter, more if you wanted it chiselled out and gilded (painted gold) inside. That’s why my grandma’s reads RIP Nan. (Joke - sorry Grandma - you know what I’m like!)  Seriously though, it does mean that in death as in life, money plays a significant factor on the type of headstone and inscription people have.

Anyway, I’ve chosen the words for Jacob Akboh’s grave so I’d better get back to my writing. Obviously you’ll have to wait until the book comes out to see what I selected…

 We had relatives from Poland over at the weekend. It was fun (if exhausting!) having tiny children around the house again. Dominik, on the left, is almost two and Zuzia almost six. The children and I communicated well enough through sign language and making appropariate sounds when nobody had a clue what the other was saying but the most embarrassing thing for me was that Dominik could speak better English than I could Polish!  My Polish pretty much begins and ends with Dzien dobri - good morning. Dominik could say good morning, good night, ‘hello’ ‘auntie’ ‘uncle’ as well as using all our names. As for Zuzia - what a star! She knew all the basics including her numbers and colours. I know children are supposed to pick up languages easily but this was really impressive.

I had bought a Polish phrase book but it didn’t help much. There were so many rules of pronunciation I felt overwhelmed. The only thing for it is to have lessons before Dominik and Zuzia visit again. I might be able to count to ten in Polish while Dominik explains the law of gravity to me in English!

Here goes:

zero

jeden

dwa

trzy

cztery

piec

szesc

siedem

osiem

dziewiec

dziesiec

  Please bear with me if the typsetting of the next few blogs seems a little weirder than normal. I’ve just had my new hard drive fitted on my computer and am now working on Windows 7 which is more sophisticated than Windows XP and has way too many gadgets to learn at once. Unfortunately my actual blog template page is coming up less sophisticated for some reason - I can’t enlarge the text or use coloured fonts, for instance. Yesterday I got into all sorts of trouble when the image consumed the text and amalgamated into one long column. Luckily my daughter was home and she responded faster than the 4th emergency service and did a neat cut and paste job for me.  Tekki I am not!  But I do want to keep blogging. Today’s blog: poetry.

I can’t remember where I read about the poetry anthology ‘Overheard on a Saltmarsh’ - poets’ favourite poems but I bought it and enjoyed it. The editor, current laureate Carol Ann Duffy, selected several contemporary poets, chose one of their poems for the collection and put the poet’s favourite poem next to it. Clever idea.

The anthology opens with a short poem by Sophie Hannah, who has now turned to crime and is doing very well from it too! 

Here’s Sophie’s poem: ‘The World is a Box’

My heart is a box of affection.

My head is a box of ideas.

My room is a box of protection.

My past is a box full of years.

The future’s a box full of after.

An egg is a box full of yolk.

My life is a box full of laughter.

And the world is a box full of folk.

Sophie Hannah chose Whole Duty of Children as her favourite poem

A child should always say whats’ true

And speak when he is spoken to,

And behave mannerly at table:

At least when he is able.

   by Robert Louis Stevenson

Overheard on a Saltmarsh ed by Carol Ann Duffy published by Picador  £5.99.

Accidental Friends

My YA book ‘Accidental Friends’ was mentioned in a blog last week. Go me!  It was written by fellow children’s writer Catherine Johnson on the An Awfully Big Blog Adventure forum (a subsidiary of the Scattered Authors’ Society). While I was delighted to read Catherine singing my book’s praises: ‘it is funny and thrilling and features totally engaging and a very different group of 16 year olds whose lives collide’ I was less delighted with the reason she’d chosen to mention it. Accidental Friends was one of her five books that ‘Went Under The Radar.’ Less delighted because it’s so true, it did! Catherine mentions that it ’should have been stellar.’ At the time of writing, I mistakenly thought so too. I even thought it would be the title that would elevate me alongside the likes of Sophie McKenzie, Kevin Brooks etc but alas, no. While it got great reviews, 3 shortlistings and remains one of the best books I’ve ever written, for some reason it didn’t take off.  Even though it only came out in 2008 and remains topical (especially to those of you awaiting your GCSE results this month)  I rarely see it in the shops now.  My recent sales figures showed that it has sold less than 100 copies in the previous 6 months, putting it in danger of becoming out of print soon. It looks in danger of becoming the first of my thirty titles not to make by its advance. Ouch!  Still, I’ve long since stopped feeling peeved and frustrated at low sales; its a waste of energy. I just get my head down and carry on. What else can I do?

To read Catherine’s piece go to: www.awfullybigblogadventure.blogspot.com/

 On this day in 1942, FC Start played Flakelf at football in what became known as The Match of Death. FC Start, made up of players from Dynamo Kiev, were ordered by the Gestapo at half time not to beat the German side ‘or you will be shot.’. They disobeyed that order. After the match, the players’ names were traced from the poster advertising the game and those who didn’t escape in time were arrested. Korotykh was betrayed by his own sister and shot the day after his arrest. Others were sent to the notorious Siretz prison camp. The legendary goalie Kolya and forwards Klimenko and Kuzmenko were  shot ‘at random’ in a line up a few months later.  Whenever I read about footballers as ‘heroes’ I think of FC Start and what being a hero really means. 

To read more, Andy Dougan’s Defending the Honour of Kiev is the definitive version. To read a children’s book on the same subject, look no further than Girls FC and Nika’s story in What’s Ukrainian for Football?’

the Match of Death poster

Andy Dougan

                                                                   And so a new season begins, the World Cup but a memory to be forgotten as quickly as possible (unless you’re Spanish). The sun shone down on Meadow Lane in Nottingham, home of Notts County. Newly promoted and hoping to announce their presence in League One with a quick three points, they were soon given a reality check. Maybe they were overwhelmed by the sight of so many away fans (Town brought over 3,000 - almost a third of the total) and hteir big flag. Whatever it was, County were too slow out of the blocks and Town too quick. The new signing, Joey Gudjonsson, was terrific in the first half and made sure nothing got further than our midfield when County attacked. Town scored twice in quick succession in the first half and should have had more as they cut through the Magpies’ defence. In the second half, County were a little more sprightly, especially after they made their substitutions but they still couldn’t compete.  As the Town fans cruelly pointed out when Pilkington scored the third: ‘We’re just too good for you.’ 

Away fans, I’ve noticed, are a different breed from the rest. They are by definition more ardent, more informed, more passionate  than those who only attend the home games. Within that group are the uber fans, usually lads in their early twenties. They are the ones who chant the loudest, know all the words to all the songs and whose dads, a few rows away, are most likely to be the ones with their tops off, waving them round in the air whatever the weather. The uber fans know the history of their opposition, too. Lee Hughes, County’s hero of last season was given a hard time. Every contact he had with the ball was booed. Every opportunity they had to chant:  ‘Lee Hughes is a murderer’ taken. It is occasions like this when football is at its darkest, when the stadium is at its most gladitorial. Lee Hughes is not a murderer - but he did kill someone in a hit and run accident and served time in jail for it. Since his release he has shown remorse and instigated several fund raising events for charity.  Of course, none of that washes with the hard core of away fans (not just Town’s - every teams’).  I wonder what it’s like, week in, week out, to be Lee Hughes? To be reminded of his crime by hundreds of away fans?  I wonder what his two little girls think when they come to watch their dad play and hear those strangers chanting about him? I wonder what it’s like for the victim’s family, seeing Hughes’ name in the sports pages?  I wondered about those things as I watched the match yesterday. That’s why I’m a writer.

Anyway, that was my Saturday. How was yours?

 Meet 9 year old Tabinda Shah. She’s excited because the Parrs are having a Halloween party (officially a team-building exercise) at Sweet Peas, her mum and dad’s garden centre. She’s less excited by her dad’s blinkered attitude to her football. Why can’t he see that she’s just not that good? Why does he have to interfere all the time? If he was less pushy she might be able ot tell him how she really feels every time a ball comes near her head instead of putting on a brave face…

Published by Walker Books £4.99

OUT NOW

When computers go bad...

 Not a good day yesterday. My computer had been making weird clicking noises over the weekend but it seemed OK when I wrote in the morning. Disaster struck in the afternoon when the clicking re-commenced followed by the blue wall of death. This is when Windows sends a message of doom. Mine was: ‘Windows is shutting down to prevent further damage to your computer as your files have been corrupted.’  

I didn’t panic too much at that point. My hard drive has been corrupted before and I’ve always managed to get my files back. This time it doesn’t look as if I can though. Computer Guy says No, he thinks everything has been wiped. Everything. Now you’d think an experienced writer would have the common sense to save stuff on to a memory stick at least, right?  You’d think…

So it’s back to my laptop until a new hard drive arrives. Meanwhile I wait until I have confirmation that all my files - i.e. all my books, all my school notes, all my unfinished stories have been lost forever. LOL!!