Yvonne Coppard - Diary PageMay Last week, I finished the work I was doing on ‘Bully’ (see new books page) and sent it off to the publisher. I am now waiting for the artist’s ideas for the new cover. I hope to have a publication within the next few weeks, so I am really looking forward to that. In need of a day off after all that work, I went to Covent Garden in London: watched a bit of street theatre and mooched around the streets looking for weird people or experiences for my writer’s notebook – you never know when you will be stuck for a story or character idea, and that’s when the notebook can be really useful. But I didn’t encounter any strange situations or people that day, unless you count the friends I had lunch with! We all belong to ‘The Scattered Authors Society’, a bunch of children’s writers who get round the loneliness that writers sometimes experience by keeping in touch and meeting up now and then. There’s a lot of fun, but we also support each other through those down times, too, when you think your next book will never even be finished, never mind published! Fortunately, we were all in good shape that day (as you can see from the smiles!) Clockwise, from top left on the larger picture: Me, Helena Pielichaty, Anne Cassidy, Catherine Johnson, Mary Hooper, and Celia Rees.
Check out all their websites when you have a minute – between them, they have a great crop of new books, and I only hope my next story will be as good! Soon, I’m off to Scotland, to West Dumbarton, for the opening day of the book festival there. It’s a very long way from my home in Cambridge, but it will be worth it. I always love going to Scotland; the scenery and the friendliness of all the people I meet, and their enthusiasm for books and storytelling sweeps me along. I’ll come back tired out but fizzing with new ideas. Work-wise, having finished ‘Bully’ I’m dabbling with several new ideas and a couple of old ones - books that were drafted a while ago and need re-drafting. Anyone out there who loves to re-draft their homework a second, third, fourth time? No, thought not! Books are just like homework when it comes to redrafting, only a lot longer. See my ‘work in progress’ page for one of the things I’m working on – let me know what you think (and if you have any good ideas I can pinch for my story, feel free to share…) |
