It’s not brain surgery, but it’s close

One of the lovely things about writing books, and especially children’s books, is the enormous good will you receive from virtually everyone. I can think of few other professions where you can ask for help and it is so eagerly given. Imagine an accountant coming to you, asking for some help in putting together their figures - short shrift I would imagine. Not as a writer. For a scene in The Trouble with Sauce I needed some technical information on brain surgery: parts of the brain and implements used, so I turned to Adam, a psychiatrist friend. His eagerness to help was a treat: he did some research and even consulted his colleagues at the hospital where he works. They were all fascinated and equally enthusiastic. On being given the outline of the plot, the child psychiatric specialist gave it a thumbs up in appealing to boys.

The net result was sitting with Adam in the cafe beside the El Alamein fountain in Kings Cross being presented with a delicious array of new words. We giggled over the names of the implements: Raney Clip, Cottoniod Sponges and the splendid Caspar Vertebral Body Distractor. What fun I could have with a ‘body distractor’! It sounds like a surgical belly dancer who seductively arouses and distracts the body while the brain is hacked into. There is also a host of different ‘ronguers’: pituitary, Ruskin (a rhyming rongeur perhaps?) and trimline. However, the perfect implement for Trouble was the wonderfully descriptive Brain Retractor. It was even more thrilling when I looked up pictures of it. (See below). 

I was like a child in a toy shop who thinks he knows all the toys there were, suddenly then discovers a whole new section to play with.

Final breakthrough achieved

The point when you first reach the end of novel you’re writing is like breakthrough on a tunnel. It may just be dirty hole that lets through light but at least now you can walk through from end to end. The start of the tunnel is in much better shape than the end. The tunnel boring machine that is my mind’s imagination has chugged along at its lumbering pace, breaking a few cutting heads on the way. At the rear, the editing and polishing side of the mind works much faster and has almost caught up.

...and even a title!

I have achieved breakthrough on The Trouble with Sauce (yes I have finally decided on a name...I think) it’s a significant moment: the book now exists, it is a physical thing in the real world. Unfortunately the tunnel that is my book is far too long. It’s 30,000 words and it needs to be 25,000. The tunnel has come out at the right place but obviously there are a few more twist and turns than there should be if readers are to charge through at the required pace.

I’m now in the ‘it’s not good enough’ worrying stage. I run up and down my tunnel polishing, clarifying and adding enriching detail, all the while trying to reduce its length. 

I think I’m more concerned about how the editors will receive this book than any previous book. It might be because nobody else had read it. I may have gone completely off the quirky scale, the characters may not be defined enough. The list of things that I think need to be better grows every time I look at it. This could be a good thing. It could be a commitment to quality (...mmm I think I must still be in advertising mode with that phrase) but a nagging doubt remains.

Future decided...sort of

It’s finally been revealed that ABC Books will now be a partnership between ABC and Harper Collins after nearly a year of negotiations. Belinda at the ABC says this has good potential for authors. I will have to hope they don’t opt for a cull on the quirkier, not so stellar sales end of the writing roster. I got a good sense of position on the ‘importance scale’ with the announcement. ‘Key authors’ were phoned directly to be reassured about their contracts. The rest were emailed on the day of the announcement. I didn’t get the call. I didn’t even get the email! How lowly is that? This blog is rapidly becoming the literary equivalent of ‘My Life on the D List’.

Still I have a contract, I’ve been paid my advance and work is steaming ahead on the cover. However uncertain the future for authors (key or otherwise) is, the employees at ABC Books are doing it tougher. They know they don’t have jobs at the ABC after May, but are yet to find out if they have jobs at Harper Collins. Nice.