Happy New Year!
The last day of 2011. Another wonderful year - and again the result of luck and other people's efforts rather than any achievement of mine! So this is a good time to take stock and to thank the people who don't usually get the recognition that they deserve. In publishing so much goes on behind the scenes to support the writer whose name appears on the book jacket. I'm fascinated by the details of other people's working lives and it occurred to me that you might be too. So here's how it works for me.
When I finish the first draft of a novel it goes to my agent Sara Menguc. She's represented me for years (in a sense since I started because she worked for my first agent Murray Pollinger and set up on her own when he retired). She's everything you'd want in an agent - supportive and passionate, but also completely honest. If she feels a scene or an idea or a character doesn't quite work she'll say so. At this point the script goes too to a couple of Sara's overseas associates. Jan Michael sells for her in Scandinavia and Moses Cardona in the US and it's useful for me to have their perspectives before the new book goes to the publisher. Amabel Gee looks after the overseas contracts for Sara with amazing efficiency and diplomacy - she got an advance from my Greek publisher in full and on schedule at the time of the financial crisis there! - and quite often Sara asks for her opinion on a book too. This is probably the most nerve-wracking time in the publishing process. Nobody sees the book before Sara, and suddenly it's out there being read by several people at once. What if they all hate it?
Then, when my agent's team agrees that it's as good as it can be, it goes to my editor at Pan Macmillan. Julie Crisp heads up Tor UK, their fantasy and scifi imprint now, but we get on very well and I think she's a great editor, so I'm lucky that she's held onto me. She had a baby just before Christmas - welcome to Alahna - so I'm being looked after now by her lovely assistant Catherine. I like detailed edits. In these financial times editors are very busy, with more authors and less time to spend on them, but a fresh perspective is essential at this point in the process. I admire indie authors who produce great books without professional editorial input but for me it's essential.
It takes a year between delivering a script and publication and that time is spent on jacket design and to set up the marketing and promotion. In the meantime I'm looking at copy-edits and then at page proofs. I have a new person to look after the marketing and I'm delighted. Isolde is full of enthusiasm, energy and ideas. She's working with the rest of the team at Macmillan but also with my totally fantastic web designers, Roger and Jean at Cornwell Internet, to make sure readers and booksellers know that the book is out there.
2011 was the year that my publicist Helen Guthrie got married and also when she left Macmillan to move to a new post with another publisher. If you're a Simon and Schuster author fight for her - she's imaginative and supportive. Like Julie, she came to Fair Isle at her own expense to celebrate the launch of Blue Lightning! She's been replaced by Chloe Healy and although we've only met once, I already feel as if I'm in very safe hands and look forward very much to working with her in 2012. You see what I mean about being lucky?
Then the book is in the hands of the sales team - I think these men and women are the unsung heroes of the publishing world. They build relationships with booksellers and librarians and travel the country trying to get a groundswell of enthusiasm around a title. Social media works well but sometimes face to face contact is vital to build up the word of mouth buzz. One of the highlights of 2011 for me was a mini-tour of indie bookshops in East Anglia with Steve, the area rep, and I look forward to something similar in the spring. So a huge thanks to Andy Belshaw and his team for their good humour and dedication.
And now it's almost publication day. We'll wait for reviews. There'll be a launch party - in fact two: one in Newcastle in the Lit and Phil of course, and one in Goldsboro Books in London. I'll stand at the front and smile and take the credit, but I'll know that much of the success is down to luck and the people mentioned here and a whole heap more.
Posted by Ann on Saturday, December 31st 2011 @ 11:04 AM GMT [link]
Newcastle Winter Book Festival
The last weekend of November saw the Newcastle Winter Book Festival. This began in 2010 as a very modest affair in Newcastle Central Library, but it was clear even then that there was an appetite for an event to celebrate books and reading in the city. In 2011 Andy Peden-Smith of Northumbria Press took over the programming and the festival spread to other venues - the magnificent Lit & Phil and the Star and Shadow Cinema in Byker, though many events remained in the stylish City Library. The planning started ridiculously late in the day but he persuaded some big names to come along - politician Tam Dalyell, poet Liz Lochhead, Hugh Cornwell of The Stranglers, scriptwriter Michael Chaplin (whose adaptation of JUST HENRY will be ITV's Christmas blockbuster) and the fantastic local author David Almond.
I enjoyed the festival because it was different. There was one themed day - Saturday was Crime on Tyne - but the rest was a mix of artists and writers, locals and guests. I've appeared at a number of Literature Festivals and each has its own flavour. I hope NWBF will remain individual, quirky, passionate and fun. Plans for 2012 (and 2013) are already underway.
My favourite event of 2011 was Liz Carling's reading of The Habit of Silence in the Lit & Phil. It was the last gig of the festival to be held there, and so already there was a party atmosphere, a conceptual sigh of relief that nothing major had gone wrong. An intimate audience, wine, late afternoon and already dark outside. Liz turned an ordinary story into a spell-binding, spine-tingling experience. Everyone present felt they'd been part of something very special.
Now it's nearly Christmas. The first draft of my new Shetland book (working title DEAD WATER) is with my agent. There'll be a busy year ahead, beginning with the launch of THE GLASS ROOM in February, so this is an opportunity for a break from work, a time to spend with family and friends. I send everyone my very best wishes of the season and hope that your stockings will be packed with wonderful books.
Posted by Ann on Wednesday, December 14th 2011 @ 10:59 AM GMT [link]
Murder Squad
More than ten years ago seven crime writers living and writing in the the north of England came together to form Murder Squad. It was the idea of the wonderful Margaret Murphy, who went on to chair the Crime Writers Association. She was getting good reviews, but sales were disappointing and in publishing, the marketing budget tends to follow success. So she decided it was vital to promote her own work and thought that it would be much easier to do that collectively than as an individual. I was delighted to join the group and my fellow squaddies have become great friends.
We produced a brochure, contacted libraries, bookshops and festivals and travelled all over the country to talk to readers. We published an anthology of short stories. Our careers have moved on since the group was formed - Cath Staincliffe developed work in TV and radio, devising Blue Murder, starring Caroline Quentin, for ITV, Martin Edwards changed the settings of his books from Liverpool to the Lake District, Chaz Brenchley developed a series of fantasy novels and John Baker stopped publishing altogether. But still we remain friends and most of us still feel that Murder Squad has an important role in our writing lives.
So where do we go from here? Well, exciting things are happening. Margaret has just signed a two book deal with Constable. She's been collaborating with forensic scientist Prof Dave Barclay, so you can expect a thriller with a truly authentic flavour. The pair will publish under the name A D Garrett. Cath has a couple of very exciting projects in development - secret at the moment but I'll tell you as soon as I can! And we have two new members to replace John and Stuart Pawson, who has decided to retire (though his fabulous Charlie Priest books are still available). Kate Ellis writes contemporary novels with a historical storyline. One series is set in Devon and one in a very spooky York. And Chris Simms has been described by the Guardian as one of the best of the new generation of crime writers.
We've come together again to promote our latest short story anthology, Best Eaten Cold. The launch was at Lingham's Bookshop in Heswall. It seemed fitting that the title should be taken from one of Stuart's stories and very unfortunate that a motorway pile-up prevented him from being there with us. Martin and I will be appearing at the Newcastle Winter Book Festival next weekend (24th-27th November). Martin will be hosting one of his hugely popular murder mysteries and I'll be back in the Lit and Phil library to talk about Vera and to hear one of of my stories from Best Eaten Cold read by actress Elizabeth Carling. Elizabeth is famous for Watching, Goodnight Sweetheart and has more recently played a lead role in the ITV adaptation of The Crow Trap. She was quite brilliant as a bereaved mother and I can't wait to hear her read The Habit of Silence, a Vera story set in the Lit and Phil. It promises to be a very special event. Do come along to meet us both.
Posted by Ann on Saturday, November 19th 2011 @ 10:02 AM GMT [link]
Filling the gaps
I'm just back from Shetland, where I spent a week in Whalsay and a week in Fair Isle. In my last diary entry I spoke about the importance of concentration and of saving research until the skeleton of the story has been constructed. That's when I fill in the gaps. My time in Shetland gave me the opportunity to carry out some of that research. I had an afternoon with Ian Best, who builds beautiful traditional Shetland boats. Sitting in his croft house in Fair Isle he described the method of choosing the wood, cutting and drying it, before steaming the planks to make them pliable and then clinking them together using copper nails. Ian's wife Lise is a writer and she understood just the detail I'd need to bring the scene to life - the sound of the nails being hammered through the wood, the wood shavings trapped in clothing. I could have read about the process - these days almost anything is available on-line - but it wouldn't have brought the scene in the boat shed to life.
Before Shetland I had a couple of weeks of touring to promote the paperback of Silent Voices. There were visits to lovely indie bookshops in Holt, Cambridge and Ely and to the very grand new library in Norwich. It was a great opportunity to meet readers and discuss my books. At these events there's always a variety of responses to plot and character. Reading is a subjective business. People bring their own histories, experience and imagination to the books. This is a creative process and authors should leave space in the narrative for readers to build their own fictional worlds.
After East Anglia there was Richmond and an enjoyable evening in conversation with Peter Robinson, then it was down to the south west for an event in Exeter Library and to the very pleasant Appledore Book Festival. Appledore is a real community event, with local people providing soup and cream teas in the church hall for charity. It was the first of October, but there was a heat wave in North Devon, and the town was quite idyllic.
I'm hoping for more time to work on the new Shetland book in the next few weeks, but on October 25th there's a very special event in Aberdeen. I'll be working again with the brilliant forensic scientists, Lorna Dawson, Dave Barclay and James Grieves, and the event is to raise funds for a great charity. If you're interested, do check out the details on the events page of my website. It'd be great to see you there!
Posted by Ann on Tuesday, October 18th 2011 @ 04:41 PM GMT [link]
On telling stories
I don't talk much in my diary about the process of writing. Someone once described it as being like riding the wall of death on a motor bike: fine until you think about it. And we're all natural story-tellers. Anyone who can tell a joke or recount an anecdote or keep a child amused does more or less what I do. I just have to do it for longer. This week though, I've been chatting to readers at the Ripon Book Festival and the Berwick Book Group about the writing process, and because I had a wonderful, uninterrupted week of writing at St Hilda's I'd already been thinking about it. Just hope I don't fall off that bike!
I begin with a scene or a character. Usually it's a scene, like the opening of a film, just as the credits are running. In SILENT VOICES it's Vera in a swimming pool, struggling to lose weight on the advice of her doctor. When the dreaded aqua aerobics class begins she escapes to the steam room, and there, of course, she finds a body. At that point I don't know anything else about the story. I don't even know to whom the body belongs. The victim only gets an identity as I describe her. And from that point I write as if I were a reader. I want to know what happens next. There's usually a theme to the book, or a running motif. Because I don't plan in advance, I need something to hold the story together and to give it some cohesion. In SILENT VOICES there's water. We start in a swimming pool and the climax builds as the rain comes and the landscape is drowning under floods.
Readers are interested in research, and some new writers are frightened off the genre because they think they need to know everything about DNA and the criminal justice system and that will mean months of hard work before they start on the story. Not true of course. I follow the great John Mortimer's advice - write the book first and do the research after. It seems counter-intuitive, but this really is the best way. Once you've written the story you realise where the gaps in your knowledge lie. If you do the research first, you come across all sorts of interesting facts, which might be fascinating but which will slow down the plot and throw the structure out of balance. But it's SO tempting to include them. I once asked a friend who worked for the police about checking forensic details. 'Watch THE BILL,' he said. 'They usually get it right.' So I did and I was very disappointed when ITV pulled the show.
So what's the most important skill for a crime-writer? Concentration, I think. It's the ability to create a fictitious world and hold it in your head, so when you describe the characters and the place it's like writing from memory and not from imagination. I spent a week at St Hilda's College in the run-up to the Crime and Mystery Conference. My indulgent time, when I can focus on the writing. I was three quarters the way through my new Shetland novel. Sitting in my room, with its view of an Oxford garden, in my head I was in Shetland. At one point I stopped for coffee and glanced out of the window expecting to see grey water and small white croft houses. I had completely forgotten where I was.
When I write my next diary piece I'll be in Shetland for real, filling in the gaps of my research. Before that there's a tour of independent booksellers in East Anglia and events in Exter and Appledore. I hope to see some of you there!
Posted by Ann on Saturday, September 10th 2011 @ 10:16 AM GMT [link]
The return of Vera
At the end of July ITV announced the recommission of VERA - great news and thanks to all of you who watched series 1. This wasn't so much of a surprise to people living locally who had already spotted the cast and crew out on location in various parts of Tyneside and Northumberland. Filming of four new two hour dramas began in the middle of last month. Three of the programmes will be original stories and one will be an adaptation of my novel SILENT VOICES. It's become something of a tradition to take the writers around the region before they start the scripts, so I met them a few months ago. I'm very excited by the plotlines and the development in the relationships that they've come up with. It's great to have Paul Rutman, who led the writing for last season, working on two of the scripts. I have a real sense that the new series will be even stronger than the last.
I visited the set last week. The action was taking place in the old Swan Hunter building on the Tyne at Wallsend. This provides the production offices and the interior shots of Kimmerston Police Station. Again I was surprised by the size of the team involved. This a major operation, not just for the people on set - the directors, the camera and sound people, costume and make-up artists, people looking after script continuity and props - but for those who are very much behind the scenes. There are the designers, the location managers, the office staff and the accountant. And it seems that holding everything together is the line producer, Margaret Mitchell. Producer Elaine Collins has creative control of the project. She supervises the scripts and the casting and the editing. She chooses the directors. I know that she'll be true to my characters and to the landscape where they're set. Margaret has a role that is less glamorous but equally essential to the project. She does the sums and works out the schedules. Elaine has the vision and Margaret makes it happen in a practical way. They make a wonderful team. It was great to see so many familiar faces working on VERA 2, a sign that people had enjoyed their experience the first time round and that they'd been glad to come back. It was just like catching up with a bunch of old friends.
In February Vera Stanhope will return in her more usual form, as a character in my latest novel, THE GLASS ROOM. This is set in a writers' retreat, a fortified farmhouse on the Northumberland coast. Vera goes in search of one of her hippy neighbours, who has disappeared from home. It's easy enough to track Joanna down to the Writers' House, where aspiring authors attend workshops and develop their writing skills. It's more complicated when a body is discovered and Joanna is found with a knife in her hand...
Very soon I'll be off on my own writer's retreat, to St Hilda's College Oxford. I'll be there for five days before the annual crime and mystery conference begins. And I can't wait! Just hope that there are no bodies to disturb the flow...
Posted by Ann on Thursday, August 4th 2011 @ 03:18 PM GMT [link]
North of the Border - just
Most of my forays to Scotland take me a long way north. I jump onto a train to Aberdeen to get a ferry to Shetland. Or if time is tight, I get on a train to Edinburgh and fly to Shetland. But on a Friday in June I took a very short and pretty drive across the border to Melrose for the Borders Book Festival. There are grander and more famous Book Festivals, but none, I think, that look after their authors quite so well.
It started with the accommodation. I followed my sat nav to Fauhope House, a beautiful country house just across the river from Harmony Hall, where the Festival is housed in a National Trust property and gardens. In Fauhope I was greeted by Sheila with the offer of tea in the drawing room and an umbrella to take with me for the walk to the Hall.
Then there were the volunteers, all of whom were friendly, helpful and willing to make tea or pour wine at the drop of a hat. I wasn't on until 9.15 - almost my bedtime - and supper was provided. Not sandwiches in the Green Room here, but a freshly cooked three course dinner in a very grand dining room, with lovely company.
And the Festival even provided an audience! Although Michael Parkinson and Rory Bremner were performing that evening too, sixty people turned up in my tent to listen to me talk about Vera and Silent Voices in conversation with Roland Gulliver. I had a little queue in the book tent too!
So I had a wonderful time and I hope to return.
Posted by Ann on Wednesday, June 29th 2011 @ 02:33 PM GMT [link]
