A new book!  With a new monster! 

My first book of 2016 has just been published!  The Secret of the Kelpie is a picture book retelling the story of the Scottish kelpie – the shape-shifting, child-eating water-horse.

I did the research and wrote the words, and the fiendishly talented Philip Longson did the gorgeous scary illustrations.

The Secret of the Kelpie is about a family who meet a beautiful horse by the side of a loch and realise too late that the horse is a kelpie who plans to drag them into the water, to drown them and eat them… So the littlest sister Flora has to discover the kelpie’s secret and try to save her big brothers and sisters.

I had to do lots of research to find out about the kelpie’s powers and the kelpie’s secret. And I found out that there are lots of different kelpie stories from lots of different parts of Scotland, and that kelpies in different places are different colours (white, gold, black…) and like to eat different people (children, fishermen, young women, married couples…) I discovered that some kelpies like their home comforts (one kidnapped a stone mason to build him a fireplace), that some kelpies are good at building themselves (there are bridges and churches and mills apparently built by kelpies), that some kelpies can grow bigger to fit more children on their backs and that some kelpies can be defeated by… actually, that’s a secret.

I was surprised to discover that not all kelpie stories are set by remote lochs in the Highland and Islands.  There are great kelpie stories from the east too – from Angus and Aberdeenshire for example.

But now I had far too much kelpie research for one picture book.  (Writers often end up with far more research than we need, unless we want our book to be a list, rather than a story.) But luckily, the research I did has also resulted in a MAP so that you can go on a kelpie hunt too!

My lovely publishers Floris have created an interactive map so that you can see all the locations in Scotland where kelpie stories are told, and click on the horse’s head in any location to read a snippet of the kelpie lore from that place.

So, why not find out about the kelpies nearest you, and see if you can go on a kelpie hunt during the Easter holidays or some weekend?

But if you meet a beautiful horse, be VERY VERY careful…

PS – But I have another even more exciting use for all my kelpie research, because one of the main characters in the Spellchasers trilogy (see previous blog post) is a kelpie, with a few different powers, and lots of different secrets! But you’ll have to wait til August to find out about him…

I can finally tell you all what I’ve been working on for the last three years. It’s a trilogy of adventure novels, called the Spellchasers Trilogy, and here’s the first cover:

What do you think? (The artwork is by Jordi Solano, and I think it’s fab!)

As you can see, the title of first book is:
The Beginner’s Guide to Curses

And I can reveal that the second and third titles are:
The Shapeshifter’s Guide to Running Away
and The Witch’s Guide to Magical Combat

I’ll be able to show you the covers for those soon (I hope!)

I can’t give you many details about the three novels just now, though I will almost certainly drop a few hints in the next few months. I can tell you there will be magic, and danger, and witches, and shapeshifting, and riddles, and chases, and a mysterious toad. And the story is set in Speyside, where I grew up.

The Beginner’s Guide To Curses comes out in August this year, The Shapeshifter’s Guide To Running Away will be published next spring, and The Witch’s Guide To Magical Combat will appear the autumn after that. So, they will all be out within about a year…

But if you think that’s far too long to wait, my publishers Floris Books are very kindly allowing a handful of young readers get a sneak peek of the book before it’s published, so if you’d like to read an early copy, head on over to Discover Kelpies blog, where I give a bit more info about the story, and where you can apply to get an early look at The Beginner’s Guide To Curses.

Now I’m off to finish the third book! (Just adding a bit more magic, and a bit more combat…)

I will be submitting the final draft of the first novel in my new trilogy to my editor next week. (And no, sorry, I can’t tell you the title. My publishers are going to reveal that in a burst of glitter and glory sometime soon…)

So I’ve spent this week doing some fairly odd last minute things to the book. The story is written. The words are all there. Now I’m catching daft mistakes, by double checking things I assumed were right when I wrote the first draft, and meant to check, but never quite got round to. And sometimes my assumptions are wrong.

For example, at the start of this week I found myself embroiled in:

The Toad Gait Scandal

One of the five main characters in this adventure is a toad. So I was checking whether toads inflate their throats when croaking (they do) when I noticed a tiny little line on a toad website about toads walking rather hopping. Which was a shock, because when I started writing this book, I assumed toads were basically warty frogs, and because I know frogs hop, I assumed toads hopped too. So in this book, my toad hops, leaps and jumps quite a lot. But at the time I noticed this awkward little line, I was dealing with croaks and throats. So I made a wee note to myself: ‘better check if toads really do walk rather than hop’

The next day, I saw the note and I thought, right, this will either take me 30 seconds or all day. If I find out that toads hop, there will be no changes required. But if I find out that toads don’t hop, I will have to go through the entire novel, all 60,000 words of it, and find every time this amphibian moves, then change the verb. And also possibly the whole page. Or whole chapter…

Because that’s the thing. Changing one word can unbalance or undermine a whole sentence, or a whole paragraph, or a whole scene. Writing a novel is like weaving a piece of fabric. If you pull on one thread, it can warp the pattern and create holes right across the loom. (And with a trilogy, it’s three times as complex…)

So, I took a deep breath, and googled how toads move.

And you can guess what happened. On several reputable wildlife and amphibian websites, I discovered that, even though frogs hop, toads walk. Yes. Go and look it up. They sort of crawl, in a sprawly fashion.

Here’s a toad I met at Jupiter Artland when I was writing the first draft. (In a wonderful cave made of purple crystals.) This toad was very helpful about posing for a photo, but didn’t move around enough for me to realise that TOADS DON’T HOP!

So, one quick assumption I made years ago about how toads move, from my basic (basically wrong…) general knowledge about frogs and toads, resulted in a whole day’s work this week.

Hence, the Toad Gait Scandal.

Other things I’ve checked this week:
Do hares make a noise when they are scared?
Do pike eat eels?
What size is a crow’s egg?
How long are the October school holidays in various council areas?
When were the prime witch-burning years in Scotland?
What’s the best way to dig up tatties?
Does ‘law’ mean ‘hill’ in Doric as well as in Scots?
None of them resulted in nearly so many changes as the Toad Gait Scandal, because most of my assumptions were correct…

But there was one other double check which resulted in even more than a day’s work, because it affected all three books of the trilogy. I had to double check a hare’s field of vision. I knew it would be wide, but I hadn’t realised how wide. It turns out that hares can see almost the whole 360 degrees around them, with just small blindspots to the front and back. Which makes them very hard to sneak up on, and meant I had to rewrite almost all my chase scenes.

Perhaps I have a blindspot about wildlife research?
Perhaps I shouldn’t jump (or indeed hop) to so many conclusions about animals without checking my facts?
Perhaps I should leave the puns alone? (Though calling that frustrating day’s work the Toad Gait Scandal did make me smile…)

So, that’s the fact checking done. Now I just need to have one more readthrough for silly typos, then the book will be ready for my editor next week. Which is very exciting. But even more exciting is that in a few months, the book will be ready for YOU!

Happy New Year!

I’m very much looking forward to 2016, because I have a few lovely new books to share with you!

It’s a bit of a mix this year: a picture book, a couple of collections and perhaps, maybe, if I get it finished in time… a novel! Here’s a sneak preview of what’s coming up (the ones I’m allowed to tell you about, anyway):

The Secret of the Kelpie – March
Every Scottish loch has its dark cold depths, and every Scottish loch has its kelpie… A retelling of the legend of the kelpie, the shapeshifting monster that lives in the water and steals children on the shores of the loch. I love kelpie stories, and this is my distillation of all the best and scariest bits of kelpie stories from all over Scotland. And it’s illustrated by the amazing Philip Longson. I’ve seen the inside illustrations, so I know that when this comes out in March, you are going to be amazed at this beautiful terrifying monster. In the meantime, here’s the cover!

The Dragon’s Hoard – September
Viking stories. But probably not the ones you know… These are my retellings of the Icelandic sagas, the stories told and written down in Iceland hundreds of years ago, the stories the Vikings told about themselves. This book (which took a LOT of research to get right) contains monsters, heroes, heroines, battles, duels, a zombie and a polar bear. Also riddles and babysitting… Cate James (who also did a lot of research!) has brought the spiky sharp bloody tales to life wonderfully, and I’m really looking forward to sharing these saga stories with readers and audiences!

The Horse of Fire – Autumn
I don’t have a cover yet, but this is a companion book to Girls Goddesses & Giants, Serpents & Werewolves and Winter Tales, so I’m sure it will have a lovely papercut horse by Francesca Greenwood on the cover! The Horse of Fire is a collection of horse stories, but it’s not pony club tales. This is filled with quests, dragons, winged horses, unicorns and centaurs. Also, horse dung…

And there might be some novels soon too. And a few fairies on the radio. But all of that will be revealed later…

The best question I’ve been asked by a young reader at a book signing this year:

“Is writing a book just like telling a big lie?”

I answered, “YES! Yes it is! It’s fantastic! And you completely get away with it, because you’ve ADMITTED you’re telling a big lie! Because that’s what ‘once upon a time’ means…”

“Making stuff up is lying,” I said cheerfully, “and I’m quite open and clear and delighted about that! So yes, writing a book is exactly like telling a big lie!”

And my answer made him happy. (Or, at least, made him go away looking thoughtful…)

But was my answer correct?

Do I really think that I’m lying when I’m writing a novel?

Because, in my heart, I believe I tell the truth in my books. I set up a system of magic, and I stick to it rigorously. I create characters, and I let them do what is right for them (which is often extremely inconvenient.) I sometimes have discussions (arguments!) with editors, when I’m fighting for what feels TRUE for that story. I might say “no, we can’t do that, because Yann would never do that, or Helen would never say that.” And my editor knows what I mean – even though these characters are just words on a page, they still have to act consistently, in a way that seems true to the reader.

So there is truth, in that long, extended, totally made up lie.

For example, at the very end of First Aid for Fairies, one of my characters does something extremely brave, essentially sacrificing himself to save his friends from a monster. I set that scene up. I sent the monster after them, I locked the door to block their exit. I created the (entirely fictional!) situation. But I couldn’t have forced the character to make that choice, to do that dangerous and brave thing. That could only happen, and could only feel true within the huge lie of the novel, because he was a character whose loyalty and bravery we already believed in.

And in the novel I’m finishing just now, I have a huge decision to make, about a choice the main character is going to make at the very end of the story. But even though I’m the writer, I’m not going to make that choice. Molly is going to make that choice, because it has to be the choice that is true to her, true to the character that I admit I’ve made up, but who has become real over the course of the three books I’ve written about her.

So, yes, a novel is a lie, but I think it’s an honest lie.

It’s also a lie that a writer puts a lot of effort into making convincing, at exactly the same time as admitting it is a big lie… (Look at this shiny cover! Look at these chapter headings! This is a story! It’s not real!) But we still need our stories to feel real, to feel true.

That’s why I do so much location research, to make my books seem real. Even if I’m writing about magic spells and monsters, I need the book to have convincing settings and characters. I need the lie to feel true, so that you the reader care about the story, care about the characters, and keep reading to find out what happens next. Because while you are reading, it feels real. Even though you know it’s not real. It’s a big lie, and you know it’s a big lie, but you still enjoy it!

If it didn’t feel real, because you know that location and you know the cave doesn’t go that deep into the earth, or the castle door doesn’t look like that, then suddenly you’d be reminded that it was a big lie, which would knock you out of the story.

So that’s why even though a novel is a big lie, and even though I ADMIT it’s a big lie, I still make sure it’s a convincing big lie…

If stories are big lies, then they are big lies that we as writers make as true as we can, and big lies that we as readers seem to need…

Right, I’m off to write another chapter of a great big huge exciting lie… What a brilliant job!

I LOVE stories about shapeshifters.

I’ve made up a few shapeshifter stories myself: Rona, the selkie in the Fabled Beast Chronicles, regularly shifts from girl to seal and back again. And Rona was the first character, apart from Helen, who got her own point of view chapters and heroic action, in Storm Singing. Those scenes were some of the most challenging I’ve ever written, because I had to imagine myself as a creature of a completely different shape, with completely different abilities. Also thinking about why and when Rona would choose to shift from one shape to another was fascinating. (It usually came down to the use of hands …)

Most of my shapeshifting knowledge and lore comes from old stories, and a remarkably high percentage of my favourite traditional tales are about shapeshifters. When I collected my favourite Scottish folktales and legends in Breaking the Spell, four out of the ten tales were about shapeshifting of some kind or another.

In Girls, Goddesses and Giants, my collection of heroine stories, my favourite baddie (who is defeated by my favourite heroine) is a shapeshifting demon.

And The Tale of Tam Linn, a retelling of my favourite Scottish fairy tale, illustrated by the magically talented Philip Longson, is also about shapeshifting – a boy who is stolen by the fairies, and then turned into lots of different Scottish animals (stag, wolf, wildcat…) to try to prevent a girl from rescuing him.

Now, I’ve followed the logic of that path, and written a whole collection of shapeshifters.

Serpents & Werewolves is a collection of fifteen of my favourite shapeshifter stories… illustrated by Francesca Greenwood’s stunning silhouettes. There’s a frog, who doesn’t get kissed, and a dragon, who does. There are several werewolves: a goodie werewolf (sort of), some baddie werewolves (definitely), and a werewolf cub, who was great fun to write. There are escaping fish and diving birds and tricky foxes, a very large serpent and a very tiny caterpillar, and all of them change shape as the story goes on…

As with all the collections I write, some of these stories are ones I’ve loved and told for years. But some of them are new discoveries for me, as I researched shapeshifting tales, looking for stories that I wanted to get to know, from lots of different places, about lots of different animals.

And I found, as always, that researching and writing a book threw up more questions than answers:

Why does almost every culture in the world have stories about people changing into animals, and animals changing into people?

Why do we want (or need) to imagine something human in animals, and something animal in humans?

Why do we like to imagine ourselves with the strengths (and weaknesses) of animals?

Is it shapeshifting a superpower or a curse?

At a logical level (because I like my magic logical…) if you shift into something much bigger or much smaller than your human self, where does the extra bulk come from, or go to?

And what animal or bird what would I like to turn into… ?

My fascination with shapeshifting hasn’t ended yet! I’m still asking those questions, and I’m still writing about shapeshifters…

I can’t give too much away just yet, but in the trilogy of novels I’m working on, the main character is a slightly reluctant shapeshifter… So right now I am having great fun writing about creatures much smaller and much faster than I usually do.

So, there are more shapeshifters to come!

And if you want a wee taste of the stories in Serpents and Werewolves, here is a sample put online by my publishers….

One of the weirder things about being a writer is the long delay between writing a book and the publication of the book. I have completely finished writing the words for at least (counting on my fingers) five books that won’t be out for months or even years, because they are still being illustrated or edited or just sitting waiting patiently in a queue to be published.

That means that when I finally launch a book, and chat to readers about that book, it might be a couple of years since I finished writing it. (And yes, I do reread my books before publication, so I don’t sound like I’ve forgotten them!)

It also means that there can be long gaps between new books, which makes it look like I’ve stopped writing (I haven’t), or lots of books at once, which makes it look like I’m suddenly churning books out (I’m not! I am just writing sort of steadily, most of the time…)

My most recent book (The Tale of Tam Linn, still one of the most beautiful books I’ve ever held in my hands) came out last year, and I’ve had a bit of a lull at the start of this year, but it’s all about to heat up again. I have quite a few books appearing on shelves in the next year or so, and I’m really excited about all of them.

So, here’s what next. Ranging from a book so nearly ready that we’ve actually got a cover, to a novel that I’ve not even started yet…

Serpents & Werewolves, Stories of Animal Shapeshifters from Around the World.
Another collection of my favourite myths and legends, this time about shapeshifters. There are serpents and werewolves, but also dragons and swans and frogs…
This book is very nearly ready (look, we have a cover already!) and it will be published on the 10th of September 2015.

I’m also working on another collection of stories in the same series (along with Girls Goddesses and Giants, and Winter’s Tales). Wild Horses, Wings and Warriors (still a provisional title) will be a collection of horse myths and legends. No pony club stories, but lots of thundering hooves and battles! And perhaps a centaur.

But there’s more! Next spring there will be another Kelpies Traditional Tale picture book, illustrated by the amazing Philip Longson, who also illustrated The Tale of Tam Linn. I am so happy to be working with Philip again, and I can’t wait to see what he does with the monster in this story…

And even more… VIKINGS this time.
The lovely Cate James and I, who worked together on Breaking the Spell, have another Frances Lincoln collaboration on the way.The Dragon’s Hoard is a collection of Viking sagas. There will be dragons, battles, boats and swords. And a swan. Also a zombie. (I didn’t expect the zombie.) I’ve finished the words, and Cate is working hard on the pictures, so this should be out in autumn 2016.

And still more. I’m also writing novels. Probably three novels. Possibly a trilogy. Likely to be set in the North East of Scotland. But whatever happens with all those probablies and possiblies and likelies, there will definitely be magic and danger.

So, that’s what’s next. I’d better get back to writing the books for 2017 and 2018…

Writers often talk about hearing their characters’ voices in their heads, but last week I heard Ciaran Bain’s voice in my ears, through headphones, along with his scary uncle Malcolm… because I spent a day in a recording studio, watching (and listening) as the RNIB in Glasgow started the process of making an audio book of Mind Blind.

As part of the Adapt-ability Audiobook project, run by Publishing Scotland and partly funded by Skills Development Scotland, Mind Blind was chosen to be made into a talking book by the experts at the RNIB studios in Glasgow, and part of the project was that the writer and editor were allowed to watch while the audio book was recorded.

And it was a fascinating experience. I was in awe of the skill of Kris Wallace, the producer, and Cameron Mowat, the actor narrating the story. It was also very weird to hear words that I’d written being read, so seriously and dramatically.

It didn’t sound exactly the way I expected. There are scenes – the kidnap scene, the first time Ciaran and Lucy meet – which I read out to classes and book festival audiences quite regularly, and I read them in a rhythm that has become familiar to my ears. So hearing Cameron read those scenes in another way was both weird and refreshing.

And Cameron added something new to each of the scenes and chapters. He often added a drama or a darkness or an emotion or a danger that I wasn’t even aware I’d written! Listening to him read the scene where one of the characters dies was incredible – I actually felt scared hearing my own words. And the first time I heard Cameron’s deeper growlier Glasgow gangster voice for Uncle Malcolm was quite a shock.

In a strange way, hearing someone use their training, skills and talents to tell my story, was like writing picture books (though there are fewer fights in my picture books.) One of the greatest privileges of writing picture books is sending my words away, then seeing the illustrator’s pictures come back. A picture book is not just words with a few pictures stuck on the page to make it pretty. In a picture book the pictures tell the story, the pictures add another layer of creativity, another artist’s view of the story. And watching Kris and listening to Cameron, I realised that their skill and experience, and their interpretation of Mind Blind, was using the sound of the spoken word to add another layer to the story. Just like pictures in a picture book.

But listening to Cameron read my words, and stop and start and test out different stresses and emphases, and watching Kris rewind and rerecord again and again, I realised that I don’t always think about whether what I write can be read out loud easily.

the scarily talented (and scary, when the story requires it…) Cameron Mowat

I frequently read my books out loud as I’m editing them, but mainly to look for clunky phrasing, clichés and repeated words, not to see if it’s possible to read that whole sentence in one breath without tripping over those clashing words.

So as Cameron was reading, I kept saying: “Sorry, I should have cut that sentence in two,” or “Oops, I should have put a few more commas in there,” or “My fault! I should have used italics to make the emphasis clearer… “

I do consider the ‘read-out-loud-ability’ of picture books (because I’m imagining an adult with a child on their knee, reading and rereading and rereading, and I want to make that repetition as fun and easy as possible) but I don’t think the same way about the text of a teen novel (because I’m mostly imagining it being read in messy bedrooms, inside someone’s head…) So I did find myself apologising occasionally for ridiculously long stream of consciousness sentences with no obvious opportunity for a reader to take a break or breath. (But even so, if that’s how the characters need to talk and how the story needs to be told, that’s how I’ll write it next time as well. Though I might consider more commas and fewer inadvertent tongue twisters!)

Apparently the Mind Blind audio book is going to be unusual, because it will be narrated by two people. I wrote the book with chapters from Ciaran’s point of view and in his voice, but also with chapters from Lucy’s point of view and in her voice, so half the audio book will be narrated by Kirsty Eila McIntyre. I wasn’t able to listen to her days in the studio, unfortunately, but I am very keen to hear what she’s added to Lucy!

One final thing that has come out of being in the studio last week – I heard a throwaway comment that the producer made to the actor about one of the minor characters and how that character’s voice should sound, which made me think “aha!” because it confirmed the potential of a direction I’d been considering for a sequel. (Along the lines of ‘oh, if you like that character, it’s probably time I did something horrible to them….’ )

And I’m now absolutely sure that when I’m getting closer to writing the sequel, Cameron and Kirsty’s voices will be the ones I hear in my head!

(You’ll be able to hear them soon too – I’m not sure when the audio book comes out, but I’m sure I’ll mention it when it does. And thanks so much to Publishing Scotland, Skills Development Scotland and the RNIB for this brilliant project!)

I love to see stories written by school pupils after my adventure-writing workshops, but it’s also really special to see stories or poems or plays or pictures from kids who have read the books rather than met me at an author session. Because what they’ve created hasn’t been inspired by me bouncing up and down like a daft thing in a classroom, but by the words I write on the page.

So I was delighted to receive this poem, inspired by the Fabled Beast Chronicles, from Virginia Curtis, age 10, who lives in the Cheviots:

Wing beats slow and steady,
My selkie friend asks are you ready.
Centaur cantering along behind,
Minotaur shouts this world is mine!

Fairy flys up to me,
Says, look over there, it’s him we seek!
Fawns, urisks attack and scare us,
Dragon roars I’m not a bus!

We are flying away,
We are all shouting, Hip,hip,hooray!
Wolf-person howls in the distance,
Which monster will stricke next? Giant ants?

Isn’t that fantastic!

My favourite line in the poem is probably ‘Dragon roars I’m not a bus’ because to be honest, I did sometimes use Sapphire the dragon as a handy mode of transport, and also because I am REALLY missing Sapphire as I write my new adventure, because without her, it’s much harder to get my characters around!

But I also really love the line ‘Which monster will strike next? Giant ants?’ I’m not considering a giant ant as a baddie at the moment, but for as long as I’m writing there will always be another monster and an other adventure, so that’s a brilliant line to end on.

I love seeing art or words inspired by my books, because it allows me to discover how readers see the characters. I know who the characters are in my head, and that’s what I try to put down on paper, but when readers read the books, the characters and stories come to life in a different way inside their heads. Stories about the characters (or haikus, or floorplans for selkies’ houses, or wanted posters for the minotaur – I’ve seen them all) are a great way for me to discover how readers experience the characters.

That’s why I love reading poems from readers, and all the other wonderful things readers send me!

Thanks so much to Virginia for letting me put her fabulous poem on the blog. (Please keep writing!)

So, the kids are back to school. It’s the start of another writing year!

I don’t have many books being published this year, but I am working on quite a few books for the next couple of years. (Being a writer is not about instant gratification.)

I don’t have a novel coming out in 2015 (sorry!) mostly because I moved house (twice…) in 2013, then spent a fair chunk of 2014 campaigning in the Independence referendum. But I am working on an adventure novel right now, and I hope there will be exciting news about that sometime in 2015.

The next thing I’ll be doing for the novel is work out how to get my characters home after a shoreline battle, so that they can have an argument and answer a riddle.

I do have one book coming out in the autumn of 2015 though – a collection of shapeshifter stories (werewolves, snakes, hawks, foxes, caterpillars…) These are the old stories that inspire the magic and characters and action in my novels. I’m sure this book will be gorgeous because it’s being published by the same people who worked with me on Girls Goddesses and Giants, and on Winter’s Tales.

The next thing I’ll be doing for this collection is a very careful edit of a story about a frog.

I’m also working on another collection which I’m very excited about – retellings of stories from the Viking sagas, with dragons and warriors and magic and polar bears. It’s been a real challenge to find the right stories (I read a lot of sagas in 2014…) The best thing about this book is working with one of my favourite artists, Cate James, who illustrated the wonderful Breaking the Spell. These Vikings are going to look fantastic!

The next thing I’ll be doing for this collection is whittle down the very long list of stories I’ve found, to focus on the absolutely best ones for the book. Oh, and have a cup of tea with Cate.

And I’m also very excited about a picture book I’m working on – another Traditional Tales retelling for Floris books, likely to be out in 2016. The Tale of Tam Linn is such a gloriously beautiful book, so I hope we can do something just as special with the kelpie tale I’m working on right now.

The next thing I’ll be doing for this picture book is read every single word out loud, to make sure it works in the air as well as on the page.

I have several other books on the go too, and I’m sure I’ll be able to tell you about them soon!

I hope you all have a creative and story-filled 2015! I’m off to meet some deadlines…