About clembeauvais

Children's author and PhD student at the university of Cambridge. The first book in my series in English, 'Sesame Seade', is out with Hodder in May 2013. I've been published in French since 2010.

Writing Slowly: Or, Investing in Research & Development

Two Fridays ago at Homerton College, we had a day-long symposium on children’s poetry. It was supposed to mix creative and academic approaches, so there was an hour-and-a-half, wonderful poetry-writing workshop by Redell Olsen, who is currently the Judith E. Wilson Poetry Fellow at Cambridge.

We sat down in the orchard, and Redell gave us a series of writing exercises. Of course it involved writing, but it also involved taking in the space around us, the noises, the smells, the feel of the grass under our legs. Despite the brevity of the writing exercises, there was a kind of enforced patience in the workshop; an awareness of the world around, before and during the writing, an attention to detail, a weighing-up of possible options.

Homerton, under the sun

Homerton, under the sun

A lot of playfulness, too. Redell encouraged us [Green Party members may skip the next sentence] to pick up a fresh sheet of paper with each new exercise, and thus make each try just that – a try – and not a finished piece. Disposable writing, but not unimportant writing. Each try brought us closer to a personal mapping of the space we were in, of the sensations that it brought, and of their possible translations into literature or poetry.

I found this workshop truly revealing. I’m not a poet and I didn’t produce anything of any particular literary merit, but it shocked me to realise how fruitful it was to be able to write slowly, with breaks and pauses, with moments of observation.

In my two jobs – academic and fiction-writing – I can’t write slowly. I mean this in all the definitions of ‘can’t’: I seem to be organically unable to; it wouldn’t be manageable anyway even if I could; and I’m not ‘allowed’ to.

I suspect my inability to write slowly comes from a lifelong cultivation of speed-writing. Writing fast puts you at a clear advantage at school and at university, and it’s an essential skill as a young academic since we have to publish so much in order to be employable.

The habit is so deeply-rooted that I can’t even remember a time when I wrote slowly. At school I always finished exams early, sometimes an hour before the end. Whether for academic or fiction-writing, I’ve never missed a deadline. You’re very happy with this productivity until the rather sinister realisation creeps in that you’re writing fast out of dutifulness or anxiety, rather than enthusiasm or passion.

Mini-me, already annoyed at being interrupted in the middle of writing.

Mini-me, already annoyed at being interrupted in the middle of writing.

Positive reinforcement: being ‘prolific’ is a compliment; publishers want you to write a lot; in academia, your list of publications is your best asset. The faster you write, the more you produce; if your work is deemed of good enough quality, and there’s a lot of it, you will elicit admiration and praise. That’s enough to prevent you from questioning whether you could write very well rather than just well if only you slowed down a bit.

Anyway, even if you do start wondering about that, it’s too late. It’s a vicious circle: the more you produce, the more you must keep producing; and if people find your work satisfactory and are simply concerned with how much of it you can produce, there is no incentive to experiment with writing other things, or writing more slowly. So you just keep going at an increasingly insane pace.

You might feel you’re plateauing at some point, and that the quality of your work is more or less always the same. But as long as it’s not actively decreasing, and that people are happy – well, you just keep writing as fast as usual, if not faster.

It gives rise to a kind of academic or literary Fordism whereby you get better and better at spotting superfluity in your own writing, and cutting down everything you spend too much time on. You become extremely efficient, sure, but the time you manage to save is never truly earned back for Research & Development, so to speak – it gets immediately reinvested in Production.

In this you are encouraged by Twitter, Facebook and tales of who got hired where thanks to how many publications. Writing is your job, so you must produce writing; if there’s no writing, you’re not a writer or a researcher.

Writing slowly, experimenting with writing, gradually becomes ‘disallowed’, simply because you stop considering it as work. It’s a free-time activity. And I, like many people, have very little free time. I have a full-time research position, but I take on too much teaching, like everyone else, so I don’t do research 100% of my work time. And then my actual free time is mostly taken up by fiction-writing, which, of course, is itself mostly taken up by checking layouts, editing, liaising with editors, checking roughs – so, not-writing. And of what little is left I need to use a lot to do fake free-time-activities which are in fact linked to my two jobs, such as reading, writing blog posts, doing school visits, etc.

Writing slowly and experimenting with writing is just something I can’t do anymore. I would love to claim that the poetry workshop changed my life for the better, that I’ve now decided to slow down and to take the time to write and to play around with different academic and literary styles, but that’s not the case at all.

I just don’t have the possibility to do so ‘right now’, because I’ve got to check layouts for a British book, edit another British book and a French one, write two YA novels (English+French), finish revising my monograph, finish the article I’m currently working on, write another 2 before the end of July (French+English), and somehow I also need to fit in writing another children’s book before the end of the summer.

So I’ll write slowly ‘when I have the time’, which is, as it is for most people, never. My investments in Research & Development dwindle and dwindle and dwindle – but the production line is going well, thank you.

Clem

What’s your academic diet?

Of course, we’re all vultures of a kind, mostly feeding on previous bodies of work. But academics do have very varied diets. Which is yours? Take the test and discover what kind of scholarly gourmet you are.

1. Which thinker would you never have dinner with?

a. Judith Butler

b. Martin Heidegger

c. Harold Bloom

d. Friedrich Hegel

2. Which quotation gives you the most food for thought?

a. “The safest generalisation we can make about Western philosophy is that it is a series of footnotes to Plato.” (Alfred North Whitehead)

b. “If emotion without reason is blind, then reason without emotion is impotent.” (Peter Singer)

c. “Art is anything you can get away with.” (Marshall McLuhan)

d. “Declaration of principle, pious wish and historical violence of a speech dreaming its full self-presence, living itself as its own resumption; self-proclaimed language, auto-production of a speech declared alive, capable, Socrates said, of helping itself, a logos which believes itself to be its own father, being lifted thus above written discourse, infans (speechless) and infirm at not being able to respond when one questions it and which, since its “parent[’s help] is [always] needed” (ton patris aei deitai boithon—Phaedrus 275d) must therefore be born out of a primary gap and a primary expatriation, condemning it to wandering and blindness, to mourning.” (Jacques Derrida)

3. Which of these concepts or theoretical ingredients can you really not stomach?

a. Intersectionality

b. The animal-machine

c. The Great Conversation

d. Dialectic

4. Where do you find your favourite intellectual recipes?

a. Why, in books. Where else?

b. You listen to people that no one will listen to.

c. You have an app or two. And you follow a number of specialised blogs. You especially like those that explain things in comic form #yaybubbles

d. What recipes?

5. What are you currently cooking up?

a. A long monograph for a respectable academic press.

b. An impassioned TED Talk on how the implications of your work are both humbling and world-changing.

c. An article for an edgy online journal.

d. You’re not too sure. This morning you thought about how ‘hoovering’ could become a new concept. It would be interesting. You’re currently idly drawing a network of other concepts around it, on a napkin at a café.

Bonus question:

7. How do you like your eggs in the morning?

a. Raw.

b. Can I have tofu instead?

c. You don’t, unless they’re quails’ or ostriches’ eggs. Or Easter eggs. Anything else is b-oring.

d. Very, very scrambled.

Now count up your points! And prepare for revelations about your academic diet.

You got a majority of As.

You’re on an academic paleodiet. You’re the proud caveman of the Ivory Tower, buried under piles of yellowing paper, by the warmth of a good fire. None of those new low-fat methods, highly processed theories, interdisciplinary recipes and artificially-coloured concepts: you do things the old-fashioned way. Old recipe-book-writers knew what they were doing! And who cares if they were mostly white men. But times are changing, and for the worse: you keep grumbling that few people want to take a bite of your stuff when it contains your favourite mammoth concepts.

You got a majority of Bs

You’re an academic vegan. Endowed with supernaturally stretchable empathy, you’re always looking for the next free-range theory, the next concept not tested on animals, and you strive to create environmentally friendly versions of previous models. You’re highly suspicious of some traditional ingredients: reason, in particular, which, albeit a necessary base to your own theoretical cooking, has led astray many a philosophic chef. You mean to change the world, one homemade dish at a time. You believe in outreach, in nourishing the world: everyone should get a taste of your theories.

You got a majority of Cs

You’re an academic omnivore, with a clear preference for what others consider junk food. From media studies to children’s video games, from the science of Twitter to electro-pop-music theory, you just love that industrial flavour. Of course, you know all the cool kids (at least on Facebook), and you meet up for conferences which are so buzzwordy that they make it into the Featured page on Google news. The academic paleodieters hate you, though you sometimes pretend to them that you don’t actually have a taste for those things you study; you just find them worthy of attention, that’s all…

You got a majority of Ds

Is it molecular gastronomy? Is it Thermomix addiction? Is it simply that of someone who, erm, isn’t too sure how to cook? Difficult to say. Basic ingredients become quite unrecognisable – indeed even, some would say, unpalatable – when you’re in command. You keep inventing new implements, too. You are, however, a bit of a poet; you talk a lot about your ideas in a mouth-watering fashion before revealing them. Then you lift the cloche, and the deconstructed, disintegrated, dizzy concepts, not too sure whether they’re a wave or a particle, have a tendency to dissolve. It certainly looks, smells and tastes impressive, though.

 

Publishing Children’s Books in the UK vs. in France

I spend half of my life complaining about how difficult it is to write children’s books for the French market, and the other half complaining about how difficult it is to write children’s books for the UK market. The happy corollary to this is that I spend half of my life praising the French market, and the other half praising the UK market.

Several people have asked me to write about the differences between UK and French children’s publishing, and what it means for writers (they might have asked me this so I get it out of my system, bored as they are of hearing me going on and on about it). It’s true that the two systems are extremely different, and for someone who attempts to write children’s books for each market, and to have a writing career in both countries, it’s a bit of a schizophrenic exercise.

engfrench_0003Here are a few reasons why.

‘Literariness’ versus ‘wide appeal’

Writing in English for the UK market means, to me, a certain compromise between ‘literariness’ and ‘commercialness’. This isn’t to say that French publishers don’t care about sales – of course they do – but I have never been asked by a French publisher to make a book or book proposal more commercial. However, in the UK market, wide appeal is absolutely crucial.

This is in part because writing for the UK market means writing, potentially, for all the anglophone markets – and, hopefully, for many others. We are asked to consider not just if British kids will like the books, but also if American, Australian, South African, and also German, Spanish, Turkish, Korean and Thai kids will like them too. Foreign right sales are hugely important and it is expected that a book should be sold abroad.

In France, for most publishers, foreign right sales are a lovely bonus for a children’s writer, but they’re something to celebrate, not something you really expect.

A comparative study of French and English reactions to foreign right sales.

A comparative study of French and English reactions to foreign right sales.

Money matters

As a result, what you can expect to earn is radically different. People don’t always believe me, but the difference between a French advance and a UK advance, for a children’s writer like me, is quite literally 1 to 10. Being a full-time children’s writer in France means writing sometimes dozens of books a year and doing scores of events. Being a full-time children’s writer in the UK, in terms of income, is much, much more comfortable (though by no means ideal, I hasten to say).

Other things differ drastically. In the UK, after your first book, you generally get an advance before you’ve written the whole book. None of that in France, where you damn well write the damn whole book before pitching it to your publishers, and they might very well be like ummm… no. Sorry about the year of your life you spent writing it.

‘Faithfulness’ to publishers

Writing dozens of books a year requires having different publishers, and France is much more tolerant of this practice than Britain. Here in the UK, having more than one publisher isn’t ideal; in France, few children’s writers (at my level) have the luxury of being ‘faithful’ to one house. Of course, we’ve got a reputation for that kind of thing in matters of love too, so maybe that’s not surprising…

French author flirting with several publishers

French author flirting with several publishers

Agents

Agents are a huge difference between the UK and France. In France, literary agents basically don’t exist; sporadically, you’ll hear that ‘they’re coming now!’ but actually… they aren’t. Writers have to struggle against editors all the time to negotiate contracts, get advances, get paid. It’s a bit of a nightmare, and something I’d much rather avoid.

In the UK, the possibility of having an agent is an absolute blessing – though I fully understand that many authors prefer to fend for themselves, I relish the presence of an intermediary between me and the publishing houses.

Political content of children’s books

Another, tricky difference: ‘radical’ children’s literature and controversial nature of the books’ content. UK people don’t always believe me, but genuinely – French children’s literature is much more radical. Much more racy, much more politically incorrect, much more politically committed, much more uncomfortable.

My French books, for most of them, are unpublishable in the UK, especially my YA books, because they would have to be readjusted for adults. Similarly, younger books can have darker and scarier content. Ambiguity, especially in endings, is accepted much more easily in France.

This is not due to the fact that editors are squeamish in the UK, but rather that they are worried that the book might be boycotted, banned, blacklisted by prescriptors. There’s a constant desire to appeal to the greatest number – and to avoid at all costs upsetting the adult mediators – and this means controlling the ideological content of the books much more.

Branding and promotion

In the UK, author ‘branding’ is hugely important – and it also means that it’s less easy to move between age ranges or genres. In France, I can publish a funny picturebook one month and a YA novel about revenge porn the next. But each book will reach such different audiences, and so randomly, that I’m unlikely to be recognised in either of the two markets.

Obviously, France is a much smaller pond, too: it’s relatively easy to become well-known, at least by name, and especially now that blogs and Facebook (much more than Twitter) are so popular among writers and illustrators. Being a debut UK author means streaming through a torrent of tweets from anglophone writers around the world, and it’s quite a daunting experience.

engfrench_0001

On the other hand, being a debut author in the UK or US is celebrated – you get a press release, a launch, some attention, and a lot of help from publishers to find events. In France? it’s nothing special. You have a book out. Youpi.

In short…

Neither situation is, of course, entirely ideal, but neither situation is entirely bad either. I love the fact that, in France (and with my main publisher Sarbacane) I can write about pretty much whatever I want. In the UK, I love the fact that my books are more widely read, and that there is so much work done by the publisher to promote them and sell them abroad. I also enjoy the additional money – sure; but it comes at a cost, too: that of compromising on ‘literariness’ or on ‘what I want to write’.

This is why I’m keeping up (or trying to keep up) writing on both sides of the Channel, and so far it’s brought me many more pleasures than disappointments.

 

Why Writing Is Like Everything Else

I’ve been reading blogs on writing and on publishing for more or less eight or nine years now, and I think that one of the most important things I’ve learnt from this daily blog-reading is the following message:

Writing is, pretty much, more or less, to some degree, basically like everything else.

See for yourself: here’s a small selection of things that writing is like.

To begin with, writing is very much like cooking. In fact, it’s so much like cooking that many different people have different views on why it’s exactly like cooking; however, others would argue it’s closer to baking, and I mean a cake, though apparently it can be much more precise than that: it’s in fact exactly like baking muffins. While you’re busy being a domestic god/dess, you might as well know that writing is also exactly like crocheting or knitting. You prefer shorter needles? No problem! Writing is pretty much like sewing too. When Rex starts yapping that it’s time for his morning walk, you can also do that productively, because writing is like walking the dog. Once you’re back, you might want to do a jigsaw puzzle, which is more or less what writing is, anyway. Don’t forget, once you’re back, to clean the floor, which, incidentally, is precisely what writing is like. You can even do it in your knickers, because writing is like walking around in your knickers. Then if the weather is still nice out, you might consider gardening; because gardening, and oh my goodness there are too many blog posts to list here, is absurdly similar to writing.

If you’re less of a domestic person and more of a multi-talented artist, here are some words of comfort. Writing is, in fact, very much like painting. However, if the blogosphere is to be believed, it’s even more like sculpting. Yes, all this vocabulary of carving out and polishing makes the analogy particularly strong: writing basically equals sculpting. Seriously, I promise you, it’s exactly like sculpting. Pottery, too, as you might have guessed. However, let’s not forget, while we’re talking about visual arts, that photography is also analogous to writing in many different ways. Sorry, what’s that? You prefer music? Well, you’re in luck: writing, as you might know, is just like singing. It’s also, to some degree, pretty much like playing the piano, though surprisingly enough it’s not like playing any other instrument, as far as my research has gone. If you’re more of a dramatic arts person, fret not, for writing is, thankfully, also like acting.

But wait, I hear you ask, what if I need some exercise in-between all these artistic activities that are exactly like writing? Fortunately, sports are the number one category of things that are like writing. In fact, sports in general are like writing. But there are also particular sports that are analogous to writing. I won’t bother you with all the literature on why writing is like running: it’s not difficult to see that many writers are constantly running, running, even running marathons. Some are also into other sports, and thanks to them I can report that swimming, dancing and skiing are also just like writing. Riding a bike is also part of the list of physical activities that are to some degree the same thing as writing. Do you prefer combat sports? Well, you might want to try judo, which happens to be a lot like writing. But some of you are more attracted to extreme sports, aren’t you – if which case, rest assured that hiking a canyon, rock-climbing, mountain-climbing, scuba-diving, and skydiving will provide much information as to what writing is like.

Boy, all of these active Duracell bunny writers are making me feel bad. Let’s go for a walk, for writing is obviously pretty much like walking. Then some stretches: yoga is a lot like writing. Yes, even in your leisure time, you can gather snippets of wisdom as to what writing is like. Fishing, for example, is like writing. Meanwhile, you might be rowing a boat, which thankfully is also like writing. Seasonal events should be taken advantage of: dressing up for Halloween appears to be pretty similar to writing. Making snowballs is so obviously like writing that it goes without saying. There is a lot of controversy around whether bowling is like writing: some say it is, but someone else says that writing is like golf, not bowling. Not sure I want to take sides in this debate, being equally bad at both. It’s also a shame I can’t drive, because apparently writing is like driving. But some people have tougher Sunday activities, and they might want to consider that the house they’re building, and their digging in the dirt, are also perfectly acceptable analogies for writing.

But of course writing is also a lot like much more romantic and sensual things. It’s like falling in love! And after this sweet event, you can gain relief from the idea that writing is like being in a relationship. This relationship entails a ton of sex, if writer-bloggers are to be believed: though Paulo Coelho himself argues that writing is like making love to a computer. It’s also like having sex with a beautiful woman. Consequences, consequences: as Mary Higgins Clark (and many others) report, writing is also like being pregnant. And after being pregnant comes having a baby, which thankfully is pretty much like writing. Don’t worry though: practicing medicine is very similar to writing, so you’ll be aroung like-minded people in the delivery room.

Feel free to share in the comments other things that writing is like. One thing’s for sure, though: blogging isn’t like writing. I don’t know how many books I could have written in the time I spent reading others’ and writing mine…

(nah, I love it, really.)

My Writing Process

Exceptionally this week, blog post on Monday rather than Wednesday. Because it’s the Rule.

Oh hurrah, a My Writing Process blog post! I have been tagged by the most ladylike Robin Stevens, whom by the way you should absolutely meet if you haven’t already, because 1) her upcoming novel is a detective-story-addict’s dream; 2) she has a lizard called Watson, and 3) she is Sesame Seade’s real-world counterpart. Also she is a lovely person and makes excellent cakes.

So the point of this My Writing Process blog tour is to answer three questions about One’s Writing Process, and then tag someone else. I don’t think there’s any curse if you break the chain (THIS DEAD CHILD SHALL VISIT YOU AT NIGHT) as everyone knows that you absolutely don’t need to scare authors into narcissistic self-reflectiveness; they will do it very willingly and respect whichever deadline you set them.

Here we go then:

1. What am I working on?

Not sure this question is inviting long explanations about my current research interests and/ or students’ essays I’m marking, so I’ll skip directly to fiction. I’m working on edits for a series with Bloomsbury, The Royal Babysitters and The Royal Wedding-Crashers, coming out October 2014 and April 2015. My other series, the Sesame Seade Mysteries, is finished – but I work a lot on promoting it by going to schools and meeting young readers.

I’m also working on my French books: a YA novel and a mid-grade adventure story, which no one cares about here you poor things, you are so missing out. But right now I’m pretty much done with everything I’ve been contracted to do. I’m therefore in the difficult situation of Looking For Another Contract.

2. How does my work differ from others of its genre?

The Sesame Seade Mysteries are funny and mysterious detective stories, but I’m quite proud of the fact that they don’t kill off the parents or make them inexplicably uninterested in their daughter’s whereabouts. The language also makes the series quite different from other books of the same kind that I’ve read, I think. A lot of the humour depends on the language.

God, is there any way of answering this question without sounding hugely pretentious and/or making sound like your colleagues are writing utter rubbish?

The Royal Babysitters and The Royal Wedding-Crashers are, I think, wackier than your usual funny/ adventure story for early readers. They were written to sound like I was constantly high on some kind of magical herb, but I promise I wasn’t. I’m even down to one coffee a day.

3. Why do I write what I do?

Because I’ve found a more or less happy middle between what I want to write and what publishers are willing to publish. This happy middle in France is very different to what it is in Britain. I like many things when I write fiction: I like humour, I like language, I like sarcasm, I like adventure, I like a bit of cruelty, I like political commitment. The two countries allow me to express those different likings to different degrees.

4. What’s my writing process like?

Completely erratic. I make time for it; time is never already there. Writing fiction is not my full-time job, so it comes after doing research, writing papers, marking students’ essays, supervising students, etc. And part of fiction-writing-time must be devoted to promoting books that already exist, doing school visits, replying to emails, blogging, etc. I end up writing very little.

Fiction-writing time is clearly separated from Actual Work Time by my moving to the sofa with the laptop as opposed to sitting at my desk.

I’m a planner. I make relatively strict synopses to which I generally stick. I abandon many book projects after just a few pages or chapters. I start a lot of things.

I hate editing and revising; it’s a big problem, because I also hate it in my academic work. As a result, my first drafts are often quite polished, because Writing-Me does everything she can to diminish Editing-Me’s future wrath.

I write quite fast once I get going, and I don’t get hugely attached to characters and stories any more. I’m always thinking of the next project. I’m more anxious about writing than I used to be.

Somebody or other said that there are two types of writers: those who like writing, and those who like having written. Sadly, I think I am in the latter camp. It’s not that I don’t like writing, but there’s nothing like the joy of a finished manuscript.

Julian Sedgwick, it’s your turn!

The Duchess of Cambridge’s Guide to Essay-Writing

Summer’s coming, undergradate and MPhil dissertations are due soon, and it’s time to get articles sent to journals before the August and September lethargy gives peer-readers even more excuses to take 6 months over reviewing our 7000-word pieces of genius research.

It’s also the right weather for the sempiternally worshipped Duchess of Cambridge (DoC) to properly dazzle the world with her impeccable figure and flawless sense of style, so I thought I’d corner her for an interview about how we can transfer her otherworldly sartorial perfection to our academic writing.

CB. Hello, Your Cantabrigian Highness! How was Australia?

DoC. It was ever so interesting. Among other things, I discovered that giraffes have even longer tongues than the men who watched the slow oscillation of my sister’s derriere at my wedding.

CB. Right… Tell us, pray, o eternal empress of chic – what tips from your wardrobe and attitude can we apply to academic essay- and article-writing?

DoC. Well, to begin with, we must all agree that the ideal outfit is perfectly fitted, but of a lovely bright or pastel colour.

CB. Indeed, you are not a fan of baggy tops and maxiskirts in fifty shades of browns and greys. What’s the tip here?

DoC. My dear, the ideal article is carefully trimmed to fit exactly the subject matter – no fluffy extras, no bits of fabric hanging out here and there, and rigorously no asymmetry. Be scissor-happy: as close to the body of the essay as you can be. No blurry tulle or misty gauze: use honest, clear, tangible fabrics. But to counteract this rather severe tailoring, allow yourself a generally bold, bright, youthful, sharp tone of voice. White and black are to be kept for important occasions: black for paradigm-shifting articles, and pretty, lacy white lies for academic reviews of your friends or colleagues’ latest books.

CB. All of this should be monochromatic ?

DoC. Well, I do like monochrome, but accessories will help you ensure it doesn’t end up being monochord. Allow yourself little deviations from the overall tone – but only where it matters. A nice little controversial quotation to top your introduction like a curly fascinator, an interesting clutch to set off a dull paragraph towards the middle of the essay.

CB. And a grand, lyrical, flashy conclusion?

DoC. My goodness, no! It would attract attention solely onto itself, to the detriment of the body of work. Conclusions should be like my shoes: very bland, distanced enough from the ground that they’re not flat, but certainly no platforms. Let the essay speak for itself and end sensibly.

CB. That’s helpful, Your Highness, but some people would accuse you of taking too few risks. Aren’t we going to end up with a rather classical style?

DoC. This is where another rule comes into play: hair should be down unless absolutely necessary. This will add unexpectedness, a sense of welcome playfulness, a certain je ne sais quoi of unpredictability. Structure and plan everything, but always leave something unprepared – something for the winds of inspiration to frolic around with.

CB. Erm what? Your hair is unprepared?

DoC. *coughs* Well, it’s prepared in a special way that makes it feel natural and unexpected when the breeze plays around with it. Think of it as your scholarly background – all that knowledge that you’ve accumulated over the years. Some of it is already present in your structure – you’re consciously integrated those sources, you know you’ll mention them at some stage. But the rest is still there, maintained, curled and trimmed by years of taking notes, rereading them, forgetting them. Not exactly unprepared, but let’s say, artistically free-floating. A flick of the wind and ta-dah! who knows which idea might come and kiss your cheek when you think you’ve got your whole argument sorted?

CB. What is it with knees? Why do you rarely show your knees?

DoC. Knees are like transitions between subparts. They do all the hard work, but they are aesthetically displeasing and lack grace. Try to conceal them whenever possible. That said, should an impolite gust of wind ruffle your skirt as you get down from an airplane, the effect can be quite alluring; use this tip sparsely, to showcase, for a brief moment, the strength of those solid hinges of yours.

CB. What can you tell us about handling our ideas?

DoC. Take inspiration from the way in which I artfully handle little Prince George to show him around to my people: from all different angles, and apparently effortlessly. It looks like a nine-month-old healthy baby isn’t at all too heavy for my impossibly delicate arms. Cultivate that style. Show all the facets of your ideas, trying to make it sound like it’s very easy to hold them for a long time in improbable positions.

CB. Is it always necessary to remind everyone of your status by constantly flashing your  tacky diamond and sapphire engagement ring?

DoC. Yes, dear. It’s called a self-citation. You’ll see when you’ve got actual work to show for your importance in the field: you’ll refer to it absolutely all the time. You’ll find, in fact, that I’m being quite restrained, only alluding to my status in one place per outfit. Of course, you can’t do that yet, because you’re a nobody who hasn’t yet done anything worthy of unsubtle allusions.

‘I refer you to my previous work in the field’

CB. Thanks for that. A final question, Your Royal Youness. People like me have days when they have pimples, or scruffy hair, or really no wish to squeeze our feet into high heels. For some of us, it’s every single day. What can we do if we really can’t follow your example, o grand guru of demure fashion?

DoC. I’m not interested in such people. I’m sure they can find their own style guide to follow. Go ask Lady Gaga, I heard she coached Slavoj Zizek.

Thank you, tabloidal deity, for granting us half an hour of your busy schedule. She has now returned to the hyperactive nothingness of her royal duties, leaving us with some hope that we shall one day find true love, in the form of a permanent and salaried position, within some academic establishment. And perhaps we will soon parade, in front of a crowd of excited journalists politely complimentary colleagues, a cuboid baby freshly delivered by an academic press.

10 Writer Quotes That Really Resonate With Me

I wanted to share with you some quotations about writing that really make my heart beat faster and my eyes fill up with tears because when I read them I think, ‘That’s it! That’s the truth! So I’m not the only one feeling all the pain of this writerly calling that I have, this passion for words that is so full of pain. At long last I feel understood.’

Here they are.

writing quote 3That is so true. Sometimes when no one else will listen (for instance when I’ve been talking about how much I love quotations that are written in wobbly blurry black writing) I bend over my piece of paper and I whisper things into its tiny little ears.

writerquote1I was saying this the other day to Wilbur (Wilbur is my butler), I was saying Wilbur, you are so lucky to be able to just go on holiday two days a year and forget about all the rest. I just can’t. I can’t. Not. Work. It’s all work work work work and no play ever. It’s hell. And all these thoughts almost always involve thinking of a sepia picture of a typewriter. writingquote8NO other way to survive. Absolutely NO WAY. Like even if I eat healthy good food all day and take walks and am rich and have no disease, there’s NO WAY NO WAY to survive if I don’t write. I just DIE for goodness’ sake, I DIE every single FLIPPING TIME. I’m so happy someone’s finally voicing this survival impossibility thing.

writingquote7OH GOD don’t you hate it when you’re writing in your dreams and someone removes the pen you’re holding in reality which is the pen you’re writing with in your dreams? It completely ruins everything you’re writing in your dreams and your dream book doesn’t get written. Then you’re late on your dream deadline and your dream editor gets so furious! I had to pay back a whole dream advance like that last time because the boyfriend had removed my pen from my hand (‘It was going to stain your pyjamas’ SURE). Such a shame you don’t ever get a dream pen and all this dream writing is conditional on your holding a real pen THANK YOU UNCONSCIOUS.

writing quote 4I think he doesn’t mean really bleeding, I think it’s a metaphor of some kind, but it’s so true because when you write it hurts so much it really feels exactly like someone’s cut your veins open and all the blood is gushing out. It really hurts physically like that. It does. But it’s nothing at the same time, nothing. We endure it, we have to.  Seriously, it’s nothing. Don’t worry. It’s nothing. Ouch… o the pain.

writing quote 5That really strikes a chord with me. I know people who are not writers and it must be strange not to feel desperate all the time. It’s funny to think that we’re the ones who have this burden, this calling, this thing in us that makes us so desperate… Why us? I hope it stops one day because there’s so much despair, but at the same time I don’t want it to stop because I wouldn’t be a writer anymore… Oh I just don’t know.

writing-quote2I like the definition of courage that’s implied in there, because some people would say that courage is, like, jumping into a house on fire, or facing up to someone who’s a horrible racist and misogynist, or finally breaking up with a partner who emotionally manipulates you, but no one ever, ever mentions the courage that you need in those moments when you have to write in a way that scares you a little.

writingquote10YESSS!!! I mean, YESSSS!!! The sheer number of people I meet who will just tell you offhandedly, ‘Writers’ idea notebooks aren’t important to them’. It’s extraordinary, it’s like you can’t have a normal conversation with anyone without them bringing up that topic. And the effort it takes to convince them otherwise! Next time I’ll just give them this picture and they’ll understand with the broken glass and fishnet wire that we mean it.

writingquote9I hate those simultaneous yet contradictory delusions. They happen all the time, for instance if I’m tweeting ‘Difficult day with characterisation #amwriting’ and no one retweets or replies, and I think ‘Is that because 1) they don’t care 2) they haven’t seen the tweet 3) they never have this problem with characterisation 4) they’re scared of admitting they have the same problem 5)…’ At least this quote reminds me I’m not alone.

writing-quote6This one is my top number one favourite of all. I couldn’t agree more. Break-ups, deaths, illnesses, genocides, sun death – there are things out there that sound like they could cause agony of a kind or another. But to me, nothing, nothing can ever be equally agonising as the knowledge that I have a story in me that isn’t told. It’s the Platonic idea of agony; everything else is a replica.

I hope you’ve felt inspired too. I’m glad we’re all suffering together, though I still think I suffer a little more.

Book Giveaway Results, and other news

Yes, yes, I know, I’m one day late for the results of the Book Giveaway for Scam on the Cam! sorrysorry. I’ve been really busy with revisions to an article. And the Cambridge Literary Festival, which was this weekend and was aweeeesome. Awesome like this (thank you Sabine and Caitlin for the pictures!):

Learning to draw Claude with Alex T. Smith!

I'll replace Alex T. Smith one day clearly

I’ll replace Alex T. Smith one day clearly

And giving a (sold-out!) talk to lots of children and their parents about Sesame! (let me reassure you, the parents were very well-behaved). The children were completely made of amazingness. Quite a few of them had read the first one or two Sesame books and were asking for more, which is probably a good sign. They invented a brilliant Boat Race mystery involving tying an umbrella to a boat to slow it down, and poisoning rowers with potatoes. Maybe they then put it into practice and that’s why Cambridge lost that same afternoon. Hmm…

Pied Piper Sunday

Pied Piper Sunday

And meeting many other cool authors, including The Dark Lord himself, Jamie Thompson. Here we are posing with our name cakes. I’ve changed, I know. And he looks a lot like me.

BkinTXnIMAA8J2E.jpg largeAnyway, it was a lot of fun and it was also extremely exhausting.

The good news is, too, that Scam on the Cam is beginning to be reviewed here and there and also there and readers generally seem to agree that the book isn’t completely toxic and may help facial gymnastics in the sense of lifting the zygomatic bones (the zygomatic bones are the bits of cheek that go up when you laugh, or something like that, I’m not a doctor, I mean I am, but not one that knows about bodies.)

So you see, happy winner of the BOOK GIVEAWAY whose name I shall give below, you’re a really lucky sort of person today!

Let’s see. I wrote down all the names of the sports-events-crashers:

P1050859Then I put them inside the book at a strategic place (if you read it you’ll know why)

P1050860And I shook the book!

SHAKE SHAKE

SHAKE SHAKE

(dearly hoping only one paper would fall out first)

Well two did.

P1050861So I guess I could have been mean and picked one of the two, but you know what? I’m feeling generous today. Irene and Claire, you’ve both won a copy of Scam on the Cam! I hope this fills you with intense joy. Email me your addresses at clementinemel at hotmail dot com and it will be in the post soon!

But for the unlucky of you who didn’t get picked: the great Jim at YA Yeah Yeah is running a giveaway for the THREE Sesame books! All the details are to be found there.

Happy reading everyone!

Clem x

Scam on the Cam: out today!

It’s today!

Happy Birthday, Scam on the Cam!

Welcome to the world, Scam on the Cam!

This weekend is the Boat Race but you don’t need to watch it – because you can curl up in bed with tea and read Scam on the Cam, which features a much more exciting Boat Race. Honestly – even Trenton Oldfield’s Boat Race disturbance is nothing next to Sesame’s.

Do you want a free copy? Take part in the BOOK GIVEAWAY! (at the moment there’s like 3 people. They’re lovely people, sure, but do you want to let them win that easily? No! So add your comment!) The blog post also says everything there needs to be said about Scam on the Cam.

Do you want a print of Sarah’s brilliant illustrations? Head there!

If you want to read about Sarah’s point of view on the books and mine, read the interview posted on the BookBag website yesterday…

…and if you want to know what I would do in a zombie apocalypse, read Tatum Flynn’s brilliant ‘Here Be Dragons’ interview – I was lucky enough to be the first interviewee on her list!

… finally, here are some very recent reviews of the Sesame books: Book 1, Book 2, Book 3

Additionally, I will be on BBC radio Cambridgeshire this afternoon at 4.05 to talk about the books and the Cambridge Literary Festival.

I think that’s all for now! I hope you all enjoy Scam on the Cam. Just a reminder that the books can be read in any order – but that you can start with Sleuth on Skates if you prefer, of course!

bisous to all!

Clemx

Seven Days Till Scam on the Cam!

Scam on the Cam, the third volume in the Sesame Seade series, is coming out in just one week!

Best cover so far? I think so.

Best cover so far? I think so.

I can’t believe it’s already almost the end. I would cry if I were a bit of a crybaby, which I’m not. But also, it’s not really the end – it’s just the apéritif. Because more and more people all over the world are now reading the Sesame books!

And so many kids – so, so, so many kids. It’s brilliant to see that so many of them love the books, and they tell you they do, and when you ask them why they do, they say things like: ‘Because… because… I don’t know’ and when you ask them which bit they prefer they say ‘I like the moment when… well, I like how… oh, I don’t know’. Which is, I’m sure you’ll agree, the best possible review one can get.

“I don’t care about your narcissistic dribble! What’s the book about?”

It all begins when Sesame, Gemma and Toby find an authentic pirate chest on the banks of the river Cam. Could it have anything to do with the fact that a mysterious illness seems to be striking, one after the other, the rowers of the Cambridge University Rowing Team, just a week before the Oxford/ Cambridge Boat Race? (hint: it does).

Sesame is faced with more problems than one, since her precious sidekick Gemma appears to have fallen in love with the deplorable Julius Hawthorne. As for Toby, he’s more interested in collecting frogs. And the pirates always seem to turn up just at the wrong time… Will Sesame solve this tricky mystery? (hint: she will)

Here are some other important facts about Scam on the Cam:

  • It’s about the Boat Race, but it’s ten times more gripping than the actual Boat Race. No, make that a hundred times. You can read it while other people are watching the race, and laugh and laugh and laugh and say that they’re missing out.
  • It’s my favourite of the three, and also Sarah’s favourite of the three. And a few bloggers have hinted that it was also their favourite.
  • Something terrible happens to Sesame’s Phone4Kidz phone.
  • We meet a real French pirate.
  • There are many animals, including the usual (cats, ducks, parents), but also new ones (frogs, fishes, rowers).
  • It’s the last one for now!

Conclusion: this is what you should do now: go into your local bookstore and say “AHEM AHEM! I can see there’s [delete as applicable] only three/ one/ no copies of the Sesame Seade Mysteries in here!” and when the bookseller says, “The sesame seed mysteries? Maybe that’s in the cookery-book department,” you reply “Certainly not! it belongs here. It’s written by Clementine erm… Clementine ermm… Beaver? Beavis? Bovine? Well, something like that. Look it up!”. Then you order quite a few, for your nephew, your goddaughter, your great-aunt and your neighbour, and one for yourself.

And you'll end up with this rather pretty array of Sesame books

And you’ll end up with this rather pretty array of Sesame books

ALTERNATIVELY, you take part in this…

_____________________________________________________________________

BOOK GIVEAWAY!

_____________________________________________________________________

In order to win a copy of Scam on the Cam, leave me a comment on this blog answering this little question:

Which big sport event would you most like to gatecrash spectacularly? and how would you make your big entrance?

Results in 2 weeks’ time!