Diana Wynne Jones

A few weeks back a friend told me he was reading Howl's Moving Castle to his children, and claimed the book was superior to the Harry Potter series. Well, I'm always willing to take up someone on such a challenge, so I got it out of the library....and had finished it by the next day.

It has only a marginal link to the Japanese animated movie of the same title - same idea initially, but the movie goes off in a different direction.

The book is great, full of unexplained mysteries that keep you guessing until the end, flights of fancy that keep your imagination on its toes, and a bundle of interesting characters who are very much their own selves . It has great language, no sloppy writing (not that Rowling is much given to sloppy writing either, in general), and an expectation that the young readers will keep up with the use of different words and novel ideas.

Incidentally, Howl is a punning synonym on more than one level, as are several of the names in the Moving Castle.

I was so taken with the book that I thought I'd give some of Diana Wynne Jones' other titles a go: I started with Black Maria, and intend to track down more of the books over the next few weeks. Black Maria is an altogether darker book, in which 'management' of other people is the theme - management in the sense of controlling their lives. Consequently all the men in the village have been turned into 'zombies' (they're not dead, just dead boring); the children are 'clones' (only in the sense that they seem to think and behave in the same way) and the women are so naice on the surface, but it's that kind of niceness that makes you want to scream, and it's exceptionally manipulative. And of course there's a good deal of magic going on in the background which we only gradually become party to. The magician, when he finally turns up a long way through the book, is very similar to Howl in the Moving Castle, though he also has some of his own foibles.

It's again a great page-turning read, but I'm not sure that it's outworking is quite as effective as the one in the first book I read. Nevertheless it shares the same imaginative qualities that made the first so successful, and some of the topsy-turviness.

Update: December 2019
Since I wrote this post I've worked my way through quite a few of the Wynne Jones titles - another seven in 2011 alone, and various ones in the years since. Like many prolific authors, Wynne Jones has her off days (The Pinhoe Egg) and her super hilarious days (Arthur's Goon). The Chrestomanci series varies from wonderfully imaginative to peculiar to - dare I say - tedious in places. And just when you think you've read every kind of Wynne Jones book, you discover something altogether different. Furthermore, books that appeal to one reader may be a turn-off for another, and vice versa.  Whatever the case, reading her books is great for the imagination, great for delving into worlds where the problems aren't the same old adult problems that many authors write about, and great for discovering something new around pretty much every corner. 

Archer's Goon

Continuing on with my Diana Wynne Jones phase, but having put aside the Dalemark series, of which I read the first and began the second only to find them all a bit gloomy, I've just finished Archer's Goon.  This is a neatly plotted story with a major red herring running through it for about the first two-thirds.   It also has a superb character in the concisely-spoken Goon.   It's hard to convey the way he speaks in an extract, so I'm not going to try.  Suffice to say he's one of Wynne Jones' more delightful and quirky creations. 

The Sykes are a fairly straightforward family into which the Goon suddenly interposes himself, his long legs seeming to take up most of the kitchen where he insists on sitting until Quentin (the family father) produces his 'two thousand'.   The two thousand aren't pounds or dollars, but words, and why they've been requested is a mystery that takes most of the book to solve.   Quentin's been producing them every few months after a bout of writer's block several years ago, but the words have nothing to do with writer's block. 

The other members of the family are Howard, who seems a straightforward boy on the surface but is anything but, as we eventually discover; Awful, his sister, nicknamed thus because of her propensity to scream very loudly when anything upsets her, and a young layd with an enjoyment of nastiness; and Catriona, the mother, who is the only one initially who can put the Goon in his place.   There's also Fifi, the student who's staying with them.   Fifi's role in the story seems minor at first, but she's the catalyst for some rather serious stuff later.

When I say 'serious' however, it's not to imply that this is a serious book.  It's as good-humoured and witty as Howl's Flying Castle, though equally full of strange and scary people.  Wynne Jones obviously had a thoroughly enjoyable time writing this book, and it shows through on every page.   (She doesn't seem to have had quite so enjoyable a time in working with a scriptwriter on the television version, but admitted that scriptwriting is not her field.  There's a very detailed writing-up of the television series which points out its high and low points - and gives away all the plot.  Don't read it before you've read the book.)

Writing for adults...

This delightful comment from author Diana Wynne Jones turned up this morning in an email...

Writing for adults, you have to keep reminding them of what is going on. The poor things have given up using their brains when they read. Children you only need to tell things to once.

I had a bit splurge on reading Wynne Jones last year...and perhaps I could have done with knowing this before my friend and I collaborated on Grimhilda! - we tended to make sure people heard important things at least twice, if not three times.  But then it may be different in the theatre, where important points can be lost amongst all the hurly burly. 

Cockamamie and gallimaufry

Geraldine McCaughrean, courtesy of Oxford English Dictionary

This week, Geraldine McCaughrean won the Carnegie Medal for her novel, Where the World Ends, a book aimed at middle-grade, early secondary readers. She used her winner's speech to highlight the problems she's had directly (as have other authors) with publishers wanting to dumb down language for children. 

She warned that a new focus on “accessible” prose for younger readers will lead to “an underclass of citizens with a small but functional vocabulary: easy to manipulate and lacking in the means to reason their way out of subjugation”.

A US publisher said, for instance you use the word gallimaufry. No child is going to know what it means’. Of course they’re not. Most people don’t know what gallimaufry means, but you get it from the gist, from the context. That’s how you learn language … and who doesn’t want to come across gallimaufry?”

Classic children's writers and more modern ones, including J K Rowling, Diane Wynne Jones and Susan Creech, all offer words that are out of the experience of the children reading the books. But that's the point: they offer them these words so that the children's minds will grow.

And if they don't understand the word, then they can look it up if they can't guess its meaning from the context. Even better, with Kindle readers, you can do that as you read, something I do myself frequently, even though I'm several decades older than middle grade readers. I do it with thrillers, and classic novels, with theology and philosophy and more. None of us has every word in the language in our heads, which is why dictionaries were invented.

When it comes to writing my own books, I've shied away from soft-soaping the language, both because I agree with what McCaughrean says, and because there are words that are apt for the moment, for the sentence, for the rhythm, for the character, for the humour. Often these won't be words a child will necessarily know, but if an easier, less suitable word, is substituted, then the child will never know them.

It's as if children's publishers want to deny children the treasures of their own language.

And why cockamamie in the title? It doesn't appear in any of my books, but I recently decided to use it in the advertising of Grimhilda! the first of my children's fantasies. It's not an everyday word, but has been around a fair time, and moreover, was used for a period by children in the US as a fun word. I may not use it again, but it has a distinctness about it that makes it stand out. And that's what writing is about: using the best word for the occasion.

Reading kids' books

I read kids' books quite often, and by kids' books I don't mean those aimed at any particular age group but ones ranging from delightful full-colour picture books to books that just come in just under the young adults' age range. I've read some YA books too, but usually they're romances or gloomy apocalyptic things, and I'm not so strung out about those.

I had a real go at Diana Wynne Jones' books in 2011, when I read eight of them (they vary in quality but are always imaginative). I read a couple more earlier this year. Her books are in the same kind of fantasy genre as mine, though of course, so far, she's been considerably more successful than me in terms of a wide readership and lots of sales.

However, in the last month I've read a couple of other books I'd like to mention. The first is Speed. Speed is a word with several meanings of course, and Grant uses that ambiguity in her title and in her book. But it's also something of a speed read, because she piles on the angst and the action. I'm not sure if anyone's yet invented an equivalent of the phrase 'page-turner' for e-books, but whatever the correct phrase is, it applies to this book, which I read on my Kindle.

It's probably aimed at young teens: the hero was around 14, if I remember rightly, and proved to be a pretty tough character by the time he'd got himself through dealing with his parents dying and lying policemen and houses burning down. This book is by the Kiwi writer, Dawn Grant (although she writes under D C Grant). It's the first in a series and I wrote a brief review on Goodreads: The book races along at a great pace with the young hero gradually getting himself deeper and deeper into difficulties. Along the way there's a good deal about coping with grief as well as making the right decisions even if they may cost you your life. 

The second book was one I finished today. It starts off a bit more slowly than Speed, is aimed at a slightly younger age range, and is written by someone living here in my home town, someone I haven't met face-to-face but have corresponded on email with. I'd written to her husband on a few occasions - he writes a column in the ODT called WordWays - and it was he who introduced me to his wife and told me about her book. 

This author is called Beatrice Hale, and she's written an exciting adventure called Ice Escape. (You can see my review on Goodreads here.)  This book has two young narrators, both boys, and while initially it's a bit of a puzzle as to why the second narrator is there, it soon becomes evident that the two lads' lives will connect. 

The story is about a family embarking on a long flight together, on a flying boat. It's set in the 1920s and their adventure is meant to take them around the world. Of course, this being an adventure story things don't quite according to plan. The characters are straightforwardly-drawn, and the adventure itself is exciting enough to make you keep turning pages again. But the interesting thing is that a great deal of information about flying, and living in a perilous situation, and being rescued, and working on a fishing boat is included. There's no sense that it's there just because the writer thinks it's interesting, but because it's integral to the story. 

I probably won't write a thriller like Speed or an adventure story like Ice Escape. But each book you read shows you better how to write your own - quite apart from the sheer enjoyment involved in sharing the adventures of fictional characters. As poet Billy Collins writes in One Life to Live: 
...this is the only life I have and I never step out of it, 
except to follow a character down the alleys of a novel...

Pinhoe Egg

At 515 pages, The Pinhoe Egg is a long book, certainly by comparison with anything else I've read in Diana Wynne Jones' canon.   I work that out to around 118,000 words, which is getting into J K Rowling territory. 

This is another in the Chrestomanci series, and although it was written quite late, in 2006, it picks up pretty much from the much first book in the series, Charmed Life, which was written way back in 1977. 

I don't know whether it's because I've read quite a bit of Jones this year, or whether it's just that some of her books appeal more than others (I couldn't get past the first in the Dalemark series, for instance), but this one didn't grab me much at all.  It seemed all over the place, and there was a point at which I began to think that she'd just had it published without much revision.  The writing lacks her usual sharpness, and as the book goes on, becomes downright sloppy.   Pronouns often fail to connect to the character they're related to, and some characters, such as Joe and Marianne's father, are called one thing in some places and something else in others.  He also goes from being pleasant to ugly: beginning as a man for whom peace is the be all and end all to being presented as consistently aggressive and rather stupid.

Jones' book often have a kind of viciousness lurking under the surface (Black Maria is a prime example, or the way in which the father is so summarily killed in the first Dalemark book and then left behind, as it were, by his widow), but in this book the viciousness is surprisingly nasty.  It's not just the ongoing dispute between the Pinhoes and the Farleighs, but the fact of what they're prepared to do to each other (smallpox is just one curse they send).  Furthermore there's the locking away of all the half-seen creatures for centuries by those who should know better, and the cruel treatment of Gammer by his own sons.  In spite of Jones' explanations, these things seem to show village people with considerable suppressed hatred for each other.   I suppose it could be that their dark secrets result in them being more vicious, but it's not that clear - to me, anyway.

Chrestomanci and his tribe, of course, are all sun and light, reason and righteousness.  They're almost saintly in their ability to be right about everything, and while that's okay - we certainly need some sun and light in this book - they also become a little unbelievable at times.  Still they stand in the same vein as several of her major wizard characters: slightly unworldly, too good to be true, but able to fix everything.

I've read in some reviews that the baby griffin is regarded by readers as a delightful creature; sorry, I think he belongs in the same place as the detestable Jar Jar Binks in The Phantom Menace.   Not only is he badly realised - we can never figure out exactly how big he's supposed to be: one minute able to be carried, the next whipping around on his own and causing chaos, the next like a toddler...it goes on.   And considering that he's what comes out of the egg, he doesn't actually play any particularly important role in the book's plot.

And that's another issue: Jones' plots are often very neat and well-constructed.  This one seems all over the place.  It doesn't help that there's no main character: we swing from Joe and Marianne early in the book to Cat (who was in the first book) and back again, never quite settling in anyone place for long. 

Ah well, you can't win 'em all...!

Awesome Gang Interview

An updated version of an interview that first appeared on Awesome Gang...

Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I’m a writer, composer and pianist, as well as being a father of five and grandfather of twelve (with a thirteenth due later this year). Though born in Melbourne, Australia, I’ve lived in Dunedin, New Zealand, most of my life.
I’ve written for as long as I can remember, but only really began to be serious about it in the early 90s, when I took a course that encouraged me to write articles for magazines and newspapers. As a result I had a number of articles published, went on to write a column for a local newspaper for five years, and have been blogging incessantly ever since.
I’ve written three children’s fantasies (for Middle Grade readers) and a nonfiction book based on blog posts I wrote when I was struggling with prostate issues back in 2009.

What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
The latest book one to be published is The Disenchanted Wizard, and it was intended to be the third book in a series of children’s fantasies under the general title of Grimhilderness. In fact it's turned out to be a standalone, with little connection to the previous two books. I'm currently writing a fourth children's fantasy, which is actually going to be number three in the series.
In 2012 I co-wrote the script of a musical called Grimhilda!, and composed the music. Young audience members who attended the show asked: When is the sequel coming out?
So I turned Grimhilda! into a book, and then that was followed by another…and then another.
The original story of Grimhilda had begun way back in the 70s. So it was an idea with a long gestation!

Do you have any unusual writing habits?
Not a single one that I can think of!

What authors, or books have influenced you?
Among many other things, I’ve always been interested in fantasies. I read the Narnia stories way back, and Tolkien, of course (though I found when I read it again a few years ago that it was pretty hard going!) Diana Wynne-Jones’ stories intrigue me: her imagination is huge. I like stories that start out in the ordinary and take off into fantasy, and that’s what my books do. I’ve recently discovered Nate Wilson’s books. He has more imagination than he knows what to do with, I think!

What are you working on now?
As I mentioned above, I’m working on another book in the Grimhilderness series. It's taking some time to complete, as writing is only one of the things I do. I've spent a lot of time working out the plot, writing endless notes and early drafts. I have to get to know the characters and elements of the plot before I can sit down to produce a final draft. It involves a lot of writing, but it’s worth it. Even if I don’t think so at the time (!)

What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
This has been a process of discovery; I’m finding there are all sorts of sites and options that weren’t available when I started writing.
Most successfully, over the last several months, I've been advertising on Amazon Marketing Services. This has produced more sales than I've had any other way. 

I also use Twitter a lot, am involved in a very helpful Facebook Indie publishers page and two groups run by Brian Meeks - who focuses on the AMS ads. 

Do you have any advice for new authors?
Don’t be satisfied with the first thing you write. Be willing to be critiqued to within an inch of your life. You’ll hate it, but it’s good for you in the long run. I’ve read a number of books since the big ebook revolution and some of them are desperately in need of a firm hand, but plainly haven’t had it. Let someone else in on the book, otherwise – unless you’re a genius – you won’t be putting out your best work.
And keep on writing…

What is the best advice you have ever heard?
You can cut any piece of writing in half without losing what’s best about it. Most of us write too much.

What are you reading now?
Just finished reading The Experiment of Professor Polgas by Sarah Brownlee. Another very imaginative writer. She produces several big scenes in her book and has some strong characters.

What’s next for you as a writer?
Amongst all the other bits and pieces, I’m now close to writing a proper first draft of the new Grimhilderness book. But that will be fitted in with playing for the rehearsals of a production of The Mikado, and for young singers in Competitions next month...and so on.

If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
The Bible, because it’s a book that’s not only taught me about the Christian faith, but its words have got me through some dark nights. I’ve memorized a number of passages in it, so even if I lost it, I guess I’d still have some of it in my head. I’d take one of Dickens’ best books, such as Pickwick Papers, or Great Expectations. One of the books by Dale Ralph Davis. He’s one of the most accessible commentators on the Christian faith that I know. And perhaps The Last Battle by C S Lewis. Even though it takes a bit of time to get going, it has the greatest ending of any of the Narnia stories.

Author Websites and Profiles
Mike Crowl Website
Mike Crowl Amazon Profile
Mike Crowl Author Profile on Smashwords

Mike Crowl’s Social Media Links
Goodreads Profile
Facebook Profile
Twitter Account

The Graveyard Book

I picked up Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book while in the children's library the other day (all the best fiction is in the children's section, I sometimes think). Interestingly, the recommendation on the front cover is by Diana Wynne Jones, whose children's books I've been reading a good deal of recently. (Finished the fourth the other day, which means I've read all the Howl's Moving Castle series.)

Gaiman's book starts out rather nastily, with the murders of three members of a family, but then takes a twist and has the surviving toddler heading off into the local graveyard, where he's adopted by a couple of ghosts, and gets as his guardian someone who's neither alive nor a ghost...

For the first few chapters the book seems episodic, as though Gaiman was offering us a set of short stories on a theme. Gradually, however, all these episodes coalesce into a superb climax. This isn't a story for fainthearted children (though there seem to be few of those around these days): it's grim in more than one place, and some of the things that happen aren't pleasant. (Don't read it to children who are prone to nightmares.) Gaiman has never been a writer to avoid the unpleasant; it's even apparent in his adult books. (Stardust, perhaps the least grim of his adult stories, still has some exceptionally nasty characters).

Gaiman is a wonderfully imaginative writer, stylish in his use of language (he expects children to keep up, and only in one place explains something for the uninitiated) and is able to create worlds that extend the mind. This is a thoroughly enjoyable read, with splashes of humour to leaven the nasty bits.

Cart and Cwidder

Carrying on with my Diana Wynne Jones reading phase, I finished the first (as in first published) of the Dalemark Quartet series last night. Like most of Jones' series, these books weren't written consecutively, but over a period of years. In this case, some twenty years. The one I've just read comes second in chronological order, but was the first written. Taking into account the fact that C S Lewis also wrote some Narnia series 'out of chronological order' I don't think this matters much, and for me it's better to read the books as they were produced, since this is how the author initially conceived them.

That aside, this is a different kind of story to the more magical ones that I've read previously (the 3 in the Howl's Castle series, and Black Maria.) There is magic in it - the climax is brought about by it, in fact - but in general this is mostly more of adventure yarn than a magical story. Like the other Jones books, it delves into human nature and personality more than many children's stories - into the 'why' of how people behave, and whether that's always for the best.

Here the main character is named Moril: he's a boy of about ten or eleven, the third and youngest child of a couple of travelling performers. The father is the showman, full of bluff and stories and the old songs; the mother is quieter, but not at all a wallflower, and extraordinarily decisive when the chance is there to be seized. The older brother is a composer of 'new' songs, but more retiring in his demeanour - or so it seems. And the sister - the middle child - takes after her father: capable of facing an audience and having them eat out of her hand but not so good when it comes to saving her skin, or that of her younger brother.

The family is travelling in their cart (something like a covered wagon) with all their worldly goods, which include some very valuable musical instruments - the cwidder of the title is one such. Incidentally, cwidder seems to be a made-up word (as several of the words in the book are), though it has a kind of Welsh ring about it, especially in regard to the spelling. Jones tells us, in the glossary, that it's similar to a lute, but with some features of the acoustic guitar. (Her glossary appears to be authoritative, but is as much fiction as the rest of the book.)

Though it isn't obvious to the two younger children, there is more going on at each performance by the family as they come to each town - and after - than meets the eye. The consequences of all this provide a nasty shock for the reader about a third of the way through the book. Not long after, the three children - along with a fourth who's been picked up by the father earlier on - are on their own. Their struggles to get to the North (the 'safe' part of the country) from the dangerous South, and to provide for themselves, form the remainder of the book.

Moril matures considerably during the course of the book: he's a dreamer, but instead of that being a disadvantage, his father knows that it's a gift. Moril still has to discover how it's a gift, and playing the large cwidder is part of that discovery. Part of Jones' skill as a writer is to show that while Moril uses his gift for the benefit of those he's with, and to save the people of the North from an invasion, he doesn't use his gift truthfully. On page 167 Moril realises the following: If you stood up and told the truth in the wrong way, it was not true any longer, though it might be as powerful as ever. It's to Moril's credit that he not only learns from his exhilerating but wrongly handled experience, but understands that he is still immature, and needs someone to keep teaching him.

This book takes a little longer to grab hold of you, compared to the others I've read. It seems too down-to-earth at first, and not fantastical enough - and there's less of Jones' wit and humour. It'll be interesting to see what the rest of the Quartet is like (though they'll have to wait, as I'm now reading another book that was recommended to me by the same people who enthused about Jones - The Theif, by Megan Whalen Turner.)

Enchanted Glass

I read one of Diana Wynne Jones' last books, Enchanted Glass, over the last few days.  It zips along at a great pace, has the usual bunch of strange characters, and oddball events, and is infused with magic as being a normal state of life. 

Interestingly, in this book, magic is seen almost like it was a kind of faith: two of the characters go through a stage of repudiating it in their teens and then coming back to it later.   But also curiously, the Gran of one of the young characters, Aidan, has insisted that he go to church on Sundays while she is in charge of him (and she's seen in retrospect as a positive character in the story) - she has no time for those godless people who don't go to church.  This little detail is just mentioned in passing, but it's something that I haven't seen come up in any of Jones' other stories. 

Like C S Lewis in That Hideous Strength, Jones brings some of the old mythic British characters into her story: Titania, Oberon, Puck, and Oberon's 'first wife', Queen Mab.   The countryside in this story is full of magic, and is accepted as normal by the circle in which the main characters live. 

Andrew, who's inherited his grandfather's 'field of care' early in the story, is an absent-minded Professor...according to some other characters.  In fact, he's anything but, yet he's certainly forgotten a great deal of what he learned as a child from his magical grandfather.   A runaway, Aiden, turns up at the house, and also seems to only be half aware of his magical powers.  The story shuttles back and forth between these two with aplomb, in a way that only a highly experienced author could manage.  The characters, like those in several other books by Jones that take place in the modern world, work with computers and cell phones and the like while equally being at home with panes of glass that reveal more than just what's on the other side of the door or window, or with invisible boundaries that, when crossed, give you a particular shudder, and so on. 

There are some moments when the story falters a little - the climax seemed a bit rushed to me, but that may have been because I was trying to read it in the intervals between performing on stage in The Mousetrap.  Otherwise this is another superb entry in the Jones canon.

Rosanne Higgins interviews me....

Back in December last year, I interviewed Rosanne Higgins about her books. Recently she returned the complement. You can see the original interview on her blog, but with her permission I'm reproducing it here.

Rosanne: Hi Mike, thanks for joining me. You are a musician, a composer, and, occasionally, an actor.  What made you want to write children’s books?

Me: I’ve been a writer for at least as long as I’ve been a musician, so writing is nothing new. It’s just taken me a long time to get to the point of publishing books.

In the past all the books I’ve written (but not necessarily finished) have been for adults, with one exception. However, there have been some children’s short stories in the past, at least a couple of which have been published. The first children’s book I completed (Grimhilda!) was based on a musical a friend and I had written a couple of years earlier. I thought it had some ‘life’ beyond the theatrical version, and that’s proved to be the case.

How do you balance your writing with your other creative pursuits?

It can be a bit of a juggling act, but usually it’s a matter of which creative venture needs priority. A deadline helps, but at the moment I have deadlines in two different areas, one musical and one writing. It’s not unusual for two things to be running along together: they just have to give each other elbow room.

You have referred to The Mumbersons and the Blood Secret as a sequel of sorts to your first children’s book, Grimhilda!.  Please explain what you meant by that.

In terms of the ‘sequel of sorts’ I mean that only two of the characters from the earlier book appear (though Grimhilda is mentioned several times). In other words, it’s a story about a new lot of characters who have some connections to what happened in the previous book.

You mentioned that Grimhilda! was adapted from a musical that you wrote. What motivated you to write The Mumbersons and the Blood Secret?

I’d had a sequel in mind for Grimhilda! when we produced the musical, partly because some of the cast talked about what happened next and were enthusiastic about me writing another musical. However, the idea I had in mind didn’t seem to work as a musical, or as something that could be done on stage. And I enjoyed the freedom a book version gave me to let things happen that would have been far too complicated to put in a script.

Do you foresee a third book in the Grimhilda series? 

I’ve since written a draft of a third story which will probably be described as a prequel: it’ll take place some twenty years before the events in Grimhilda! and will again only have a couple of characters in common with the first book. But it will (probably) also explain how something that was rather curious in Grimhilda! actually came about.

You have 10 grandchildren and one foster grandchild.  Have they read your books?  If so, what did they think of them?

Strangely I don’t think any of my grandchildren have read the books! They are all readers (at least those who are of an age are) but it’s mostly been their parents who've read them. I think it’s probably not entirely unusual that family members are so close to you they can’t see you as someone separate: a person who writes books. However a number of the grandchildren did come to the musical, and enjoyed it, so I’ll have to do a bit of promotion amongst them in terms of the books… Thanks for the reminder!

What are the challenges unique to writing children’s books in your opinion?

I think everything has to keep moving; you can’t have too much reflection on what’s happening, or too much description of things that aren’t immediately related to the action. On the other hand, someone did comment that The Blood Secret didn’t seem to have any breathing places as the book headed towards its climax. It’s a tricky balance.

I’ve just been reading more of Diana Wynne Jones’ books. She wrote a large number of fantasy stories, with lots of magic and big events. She was a highly successful author of books for children, and yet the books vary enormously in pacing. The one I read most recently had a rather long patch towards the end when things went rather slowly and then suddenly, all of a rush, everything was sorted out and the book was over. Even one of J K Rowling’s books ˗ I think it was the last ˗ had a long stretch in it where very little seemed to be happening. They tightened this up considerably in the movie. I’m not sure that children worry too much about these things; maybe it’s adult readers who do. (I think adults should read children’s books regularly; I certainly do.)

I have noticed that your blog covers a wide variety of topics, some are about writing, some are religious in nature and some are observations.  What motivates you to write your blog?

As I said earlier, I’ve written since I was young, and it seems part and parcel of my nature to record what I think about things. Before blogging came along I used to do it in exercise books or in diaries or journals on the computer. Blogging just became a way of making these things more public! I wrote a weeklycolumn for a local newspaper back in the 90s, for five years, and in it I was free to write on anything I fancied. I guess the blogging is an extension of that. For me, blogs that keep on hammering away at the same subject week in and week out get a bit uninteresting after a while, just the same as newspaper columns that are focused only on one thing. I like variety!

Do you find social media to be more useful in marketing or in helping you to learn more about the self publishing universe?

I don’t know that I’ve made a distinction like that between them. I tend to read anything and everything that’s going when I’m first learning about something. Social media’s certainly been helpful in discerning what’s useful in terms of marketing ˗ though you have to sift between what are often opposing viewpoints. Equally there’s a heap of information about self-publishing out there: some of it is excellent, some rubbish, some marginally informative and so on. It’s the nature of the Internet. But it often points you to books that are of value: I’ve discovered several books about self-publishing/marketing, and these have probably been more helpful because they’re more focused. Deb Vanasse’s book What Every Author Should Know is one I’ve read recently that I found very good all round.

If you could ask any question on social media about self publishing and get an honest answer, what would it be?

“How can I guarantee that my books will sell very well?” I’m sure I’d get plenty of honest answers, but I don’t think I’ll get one that will guarantee sales!

I would ask “How many books have you sold?” There are so many of us out there and I think it would help to have a better understanding of the goals (in terms of sales) that other authors set for themselves and the timeline they set for achieving them.

With e-books by relatively unknown authors, the secret seems to be perseverance: keep on reminding people about the books through social media. But don’t do it in a way that makes it sound like you’re insisting on a sale, or like you’re advertising. Make it part of the overall conversation. Encourage people to help your books to sell by word of mouth. An endorsement from someone who’s enjoyed your books to one or more of their friends is still one of the best ways of getting the books known, even better than good reviews.

I was pleased this morning to find a tweet from a friend saying: My daughter is again reading Grimhilda, by @mcrowl. She thinks it’s ‘awesome’.  That sort of publicity is invaluable, because it’s sincere.

Well, judging by your reviews on Amazon, others find Grimhilda! awesome as well! I really enjoyed The Mumbersons and the Blood Secret and I look forward to reading Grimhilda! (I agree with you that adults should read children’s books, and I do!). Mike, thanks again for taking the time to share your thoughts with me. I wish you success in all of your endeavours!