Meeting the boys of Simon Langton Grammar, Canterbury

Last year, we launched ICE SHOCK on World Book Day, at St Gregory the Great School in Oxford. This year I set off to do a mini-tour of schools in the South of England.

World Book Day is the one thing guaranteed to get us lazy authors out of bed early. Even Robert Muchamore tweeted in (mock) anguish “School event in High Wycombe tomorrow. I’ve got to get up at 7am. The HORROR!”

Started off at D’Overbroecks College in Oxford, speaking to the sixth-form English Lit and Communication& Culture students. After spending the afternoon tailoring my author presentation to their sophisticated 6th form ears, I accidentally ran the normal Powerpoint. Somehow we still ended up talking about Aristotle.

Oxford authors Tim Pears and Colin Dexter at the LANDED book launch

The next day, a launch party at Blackwell’s Oxford for my friend Tim Pears’s new novel, Landed, which has already had bags of terrific reviews.

For the last part of the week it was on to Canterbury and then Worcester to visit two more schools. Lots of fun at Simon Langton Grammar in Canterbury talking to hundreds of boys about Joshua Files. And a special privilege of spending time with the school’s writer’s group, including three young men who’ve written a 108,000 word dark fantasy novel. Very impressive INDEED.

At Christopher Whitehead Language College in Worcester I hung out over lunch with the student librarians and we talked about how to construct a story. Brilliant suggestions from the kids who created a thrilling storyline for a supernatural adventure about a girl who has to rescue her mother…from Hell!

Posing for the press at Christopher Whitehead Language College

A special thanks to the kids who patiently posed with me for the photographer from the Worcester Gazette!

And to the wonderful librarians Teresa (Simon Langton Grammar, Canterbury) and Liane and Clare (Christopher Whitehead, Worcester) for all their work to encourage and develop readers and for inviting me to your schools!

Finally, a big thanks to the lovely Punjabi students that I met on the train to Canterbury. I left my coat-belt on the train, after enjoying a nice chat with the boys. On the train back to London at the end of the day, the guys were there again. When they heard I’d lost my belt, one of them insisted on giving me his. Then spent the rest of the trip determinedly making a hole in the thick leather so that it would fit me. Thank goodness for the belt or I’d have frozen solid on the walk home!

Best question of the week: Is fiction getting too ‘fast’ and are we losing something valuable in the drive to make story openings vault us directly into action.

Also, fretting slightly about the forthcoming release of Joshua 2. I’m sure this is normal authorial angst – will it sell? will shops stock it? will they put it on promotion for long enough? or will it sink with little trace, read only by a small fraction of loyal readers who also read Joshua 1?

(Apologies for readers if you didn’t realise authors go through this – we do. Selling books is very hard work!)

So, it bring me round to the question of how readers choose books?

Well, how?

Here’s what I do:

In order of priority:

1. New Books By Authors That I Love And Who Are Considered To Be Still In Their Prime (In my case this would be books by Haruki Murakami, Kazua Ishiguro, Mario Vargas Llosa) 

2. Book By Authors That I Love But Haven’t Yet Found Or Have Been Saving Up To Read (i.e. older books by Haruki Murakami, Kazua Ishiguro, Mario Vargas Llosa, Gabriel Garcia Marquez)

3. Books By Authors That Seem Promising Possibilities To Join My A List (for example, I may have read about an author in TIME or something and decided that it’s worth trying one of his/her books.)

4. Books Written By A Friend (now that I’m a novelist, I have more of these)

5. Books That Are So Massively Talked About You’d Be Totally Out Of The Loop If You Didn’t Read Them Too (e.g. Harry Potter, The Da Vinci Code, The Name of the Rose, On Chesil Beach)

6. Books That A Good Friend Recommended Very Highly (although authors in this category usually wind up in the third category above. Right now I am considering Laura Restrepo’s Delirium, Alfredo Bryce Echenique’s A World For Julius. Failed recommendees include the tedious Javier Marias and fellow Murakami groupie, David Mitchell (the author not the comedian). Sorry, it’s probably me not being clever enough, but there you go.)

7. Young Adult Books That I Really Should Have Read Because I’m A Children’s Author But In Fact Am Only Getting Round To Now Because People Keep Asking If I’ve Read Them (such as The Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula LeGuin)

8. Books Which Take My Fancy During A Browsing Session (many are purchased but few are read…)

9. Old Favourites That I Re-read Every Few Years (e.g. ‘Numbers In The Dark’ by Italo Calvino, anything by Haruki Murakami)

10. Books That Might Help With Something I’m Working On (mainly non-fiction, books on novel structure etc, but occasionally I’ll use Murakami as a mood-setter when I’m actually writing)

So there you have it. Adverts, book reviews don’t have anything but the tiniest influence.

We (Kirstie from Scholastic and I) visited Borders Milton Keynes, which is a beast of a store – huge! You could spend hours there. Very interesting, intelligent questions from students at four different secondary schools in the MK area. Including two I’ve never been asked before – “How did you set about writing about Josh losing his dad?” and “Are you going to be a series writer.” (I thought for a moment the questioner had said ‘Are you going to be a serious writer?’ – a question which I’d have had no idea how to answer!

Some tour stats – 9 towns/cities, 9 bookstores, children from 23 schools, over 1000 school children…phew. Including my old primary school Beaver Road in Didsbury, Manchester. Thanks to the teachers, librarians, booksellers and children who made it all possible. Thanks also to the publicity department at Scholastic Children’s Books!

Thank goodness it was spread out…I’m a teeny bit tired now. Tomorrow it’s back to the manuscripts. Two now…the second draft of Book 2 (with helpful notes from Editor) and beginning Act 2 of Book 3.

Next stop Edinburgh Book Festival at the end of August. No rest for the wicked and luckily I’m a workaholic so I’m bloody mad for it, like.

Author Tour Report 3: Gorgeous Thing – the cover of ‘Invisible City’Originally uploaded by mgharris
My editor Elv said it best, I believe…it is a gorgeous thing. And nothing to do with me…except very indirectly as the author of the story which inspired this artistic vision of Andrew Briscombe from Scholastic.I’ve visited a school every day for the past three days of my author tour…photos to follow when I get home. A big talking point is always the cover, which the young readers adore, but also teachers including one Headteacher and an award-winning librarian…Now a couple of reviewers have been a bit sniffy about the cover, whilst being perfectly lovely about the novel itself. That’s okay…its success in attracting readers might lend the impression that it’s what such reviewers have decided is simply a ‘marketing gimmick’. Not that there’s anything wrong with that…to quote a famous Seinfeld episode…

But in fact, as I’ve discussed with almost 400 school students in the past three days…the jacket of Joshua Files is a genius tactile intrepretation of some key facets of the story.

Allow me, Umberto Eco-like, to offer a semiotic analysis of this remarkable piece of packaging:

1. ‘Invisible City’ features a mysterious ancient Mayan book whose cover is deadly to touch…hence the removable cover in dangerous-looking neon orange.
2. The J symbol denotes the Maya…in a highly subtle way. Mayan ruins impress immediately with their terraced temples of stone rising from the jungle…the parallel lines of architecture. Hence the lines of the J symbol. And when you slide the slipcover across the J, white lines appear next to the black ones…steps in shade and light.
3. The J also represents hieroglyphic writing. It is in fact a glyph – symbolizing Josh.
Umberto would have had said something much cleverer and brought in some eclectic references from art history and maybe quoted Deleuze…but, yanno.

At a school in Romiley, Stockport today, a year 11 boy showed me up for the slow-witted, former Rubiks wannabe I am. He finished the cube 60 seconds before me, in true Rubiks-kid fashion, hardly even glancing at the cube as he whooshed the pieces into place. By comparison I was staring at the cube, slowly turning it much as a caveman might handle a one-for-all TV remote.

Nice going pal, but as we say in Mexico…’Como me ves, te veras.’ (as I am, you one day will be)
Emailed from my BlackBerry®

Author Tour Report 2: School VisitsOriginally uploaded by mgharris

Copies of “Invisible City” on display in a school in Dulwich. Check out the groovy Mexican masks on the wall behind!

I’ve been doing school visits in Dulwich Hamlet Primary, St Joseph’s Primary in Headington and later today, Manchester. Before I spoke to any audiences of young readers, I wondered how I was going to modify my speaking style. Years of addressing scientists and business people might not be ideal preparation, after all. The BBC staff at go4it were really great with the kids, had them laughing and joking. And I’m conscious of the fact that I’m used to bring rather direct and serious…

I used to try to get a laugh from scientists etc. At least one, to get things going. Science humour, yanno… So anyway, I decided basically to talk to the kids as I did the scientists but without the jokes and with a bit of gentle quizzing.

Yes that’s probably a bit teacherish but they sure seem to enjoy getting the answers right and BOY are they smart. The mix of archaeology, personal journey and 2012 eschatology does seem to fascinate them, thank goodness. And out of over 500 kids seen to date, no-one has ever asked me the one question that everybody said I’d be asked…how much money do I make?

I think it’s brilliant that they aren’t asking. Not that there’s anything wrong with the question but if young people are interested in making money I’d rather point them in a stack of other directions…like starting a business.

This emailed from a train passing through Stoke-on-Trent.

Emailed from my BlackBerry®

We lost a couple of chapters but gained a new opening – a scene I’ve been wanting to write for ages. Benicio visits Josh in Oxford and takes him for an early morning spin in a Muwan, over the dreaming spires of Oxford and out to Josh’s school…yes you’ll finally find out which school Josh attends.

Meanwhile I’m getting deeper into book 3. When I visit kids in schools and libraries, I’m often asked about working titles so I might as well own up that the working title of book 3 is TIGER KIDNAP. I hope it sounds cool, action packed and intrigiung… But it also means something.

Go ahead…Google it…

Today I wrote one of the most difficult scenes I’ve ever written. It wasn’t an action scene – they aren’t particularly easy but that’s about being focused, visualising the action and expressing it in some non-tedious, non-repetitive, ideally thrilling sort of way. No; I was writing a scene where Josh experiences some new and rather teenage emotions. One emotion piles on top of another, sometimes conflicting with each other. Getting that across without wallowing, whilst showing not telling, staying in character as Josh, I find pretty hard.

In terms of what was happening, it was sort of a childish (and for that read very non-adult) version of the brilliant scene of the newlywed’s devastating row at the end of Ian McEwan’s “On Chesil Beach”. In McEwan’s story, two newlyweds have a row which effectively ends their marriage on the night of their wedding. McEwan’s male protagonist has been – although unintentionally – badly hurt by his wife. In revenge, he lashes out in an orgy of of self-stoked, self-justifying anger. Even as he says the words which he knows will end things, he simultaneously enjoys whilst also horrified by his own actions.

I thought McEwan did an amazing job of conveying how lovers can simultaneously enjoy and suffer the process of hurting and tearing down what was between them. Not a nice fact of life but very true.

On a small scale that’s what Josh does in the scene I wrote today, which also takes place on a beach. Josh is unintentionally emotionally wounded by someone…and so he hurts them in return. He’d rather be angry than sad. So he stokes his own anger.

But what I learned from McEwan is that it’s at this point that you lose sympathy for the male character. Self-pitying, self-justifying rage – not too attractive as it turns out!

So I didn’t let Josh enjoy it. Instead, he is shocked to the point of numbness about making this person cry.

 Ah but who…?

That would be telling.

Earlier this week I joined two terrific kids named Mia and Joss to meet children’s presenter Barney Harwood at the BBC…where we recorded an episode of BBC Radio 4′s children’s magazine show, go4it.

We talked about Mexico, the Maya, UFOs, wondered what mysterious event will occur at the end of the Mayan Long Count in December 2012, and of course – talked about The Joshua Files.

You can listen again to the programme via the go4it Website.

Firstly, I have always suspected that Germans might enjoy Joshua’s adventures slightly more than British. Not to say that I’m not getting lovely feedback from British readers!

But there’s no doubt that many Germans seem to share my fascination with exotic adventure stories, going all the way back to that famous adventure writer, Karl May. And when I’ve visited the ruins in Mexico I’ve hardly ever met any British people, but mainly Germans and French. (And other North Americans of course).

If you follow this blog you may have seen that the German translator of Joshua Files, Frank Boehmert, occasionally posts a comment. (Hi Frank!).

Well all today I’ve been working with a translation of the brief video interview I recorded in the offices of Scholastic. I’ve dubbed myself into German and recut the video…I’m sending this to the media company in Germany who are going to add graphics etc to produce a book trailer for the German book trade. (Hence the long bit of title page at the end).

Here it is. What do you think? I have another day to improve it, if it’s really too bad…

I had a perfectly lovely visit to Magdalen College Junior School where just over 100 impeccably behaved, intelligent boys and I discussed codes, the ancient Maya, the 7 wonders of the ancient world, the possibility of the collapse of civilisation and the craft of writing.

I treated the boys to a snippet of a VERY early draft of the book trailer for ICE SHOCK, the sequel to INVISIBLE CITY which is out in March 2009. And then the boys tried to guess the location of the mysterious ruins near Oxford in which Josh Garcia has a dramatic encounter in ICE SHOCK…

MG with Daichi Kusonoki

And look at the lovely flowers they gave me!

Thanks to Deborah Gordon (school librarian), the staff and to all the boys. I had a great time and really enjoyed meeting you!

Let’s face it, this is surely why children’s authors write. To thrill and fascinate young minds, to meet enthusiastic young readers. I couldn’t have dreamt of a better introduction to the world of author visits to a school than I had in Cambridge earlier this week.

At King’s College School and The Perse Preparatory School I was thoroughly charmed by students from Yrs 5, 6 and 7.

The King’s Yr 7′s were thoughtful, insightful and rather knowledgeable. When one girl asked me why I called the first Joshua book ‘Invisible City’ I had to admit that it was a nod to Italo Calvino – several students (aged 11-12) had actually heard of him…

The Perse Prep Yr 5 and 6 boys were cute, full of beans and enthusiasm. They listened to my talk quietly, then burst into life when I asked for questions and suggestions of titles for Book 2! I challenged them to solve a Rubik’s cube to win an “Uncle Scrooge Adventures” comic book I’d brought in…no-one knew how to do it, quite. But I wouldn’t be surprised if a year from now, lots of them can!

Thanks to the lovely librarians at both schools. Look at the wonderful display board they made at Perse Prep! I was totally blown away.

As one young man said that day…it was IMMENSE. There’s also an article about my Cambridge schools visits on themgharris.com