Going Wild During National Stationery Week

Never knew people celebrated stationery with “National Stationery Week”! Growing up as a compulsive reader and a scribbler, stationery was fascinating even when I was 3 or 4. My parents recall that when they take me to the shops, the only thing I’d ever ask for was a pencil or a pen. Also according to my grandma (bless her, she told me innumerable stories), as a toddler, my favourite pastime was “Writing ABC”. I never asked for toys and stuff as a toddler.

Wherever I travel, I try and find the stationery shop in that city and look at what innovations they have – like newly shaped post-its, notebooks on keyrings, different types of notebooks – shapes, sizes, thick lines, thin lines – the myriad of stationery.

And then I find out there is a National Stationery Week in the UK. How cool is that? Here are what I’ve come up with that I should try:

  • Buy a new notebook
  • Open and write something on a notebook that has been waiting for a long time.
  • Write a few pages by long hand and decorate with color pencils and crayons
  • Send a post-card to someone for no reason

Hmm, can I get more creative than that?

How about I create the Notebook Fairy? She controls the movements of notebooks, she manages the lines on the notebooks, she decides how big the margins should be? She decides whether a notebook has to be or stitched. A Notebook Fairy to whom you can pray for the perfect notebook that never challenges you with a blank page. A notebook where every word you write is perfect!

And then notebook fairy has an army of workers – the eraser fairy and the crayon elves.  The notebook fairy has an arch-enemy – the badly-spelling-text-message devil. He hates writing anything down. He controls his world in badly formed text messages that spell cud for could and LOL for laughing.

 

Before I get carried away and write an entire novel from these characters (they are my characters, invented on the fly, as I am writing this blog), I’ll let you celebrate your stationery week with pens, pencils, notebooks, sharpeners, erasers and paper-clips

My trip to the London Book Fair 2013

London Book Fair 2013 This was my first trip to a trade fair – I had read about many before, I had looked at pictures of trade fairs and I knew what to expect.

Although a majority of the stalls were aimed at other publishers, rights agents and publicity teams to showcase each house, the content creators like authors, illustrators and translators weren’t ignored. There were events for writers and illustrators and there were special area for translators from PEN etc.

It was a great way to see how the indies competed side by side against publishing giants. The Macmillan, the Random House, HarperCollins – all having huge displays, televisions and posters, ten times the size of a small publishing house. To be fair, they had loads of imprints and companies under each and they all shared that space. But it was interesting to see how all the rights people, sales and maybe some editors too, making deals. (I didn’t actually witness a deal, but I’m an author after all and I let my imagination run its course).

Turkey was on prominent focus and then there were other countries and groups that represented their members – like one of my favourite group – the Singapore publishing team along with NBDCS. I wandered along trying to find interesting publishers, taking photos of their names, when they didn’t notice and then I came upon the Singapore contingent.

I have been published in Singapore and I was looking at new trends on display. The publishing team in the booth not only recognised me, they were happy to introduce me to their various publishers too.

Before I attended the bookfair, I asked many people whether I should carry my books and such. And predictably and correctly, everyone told me to take my business cards and not to bother with anything else. So I went there armed with a box full of business cards. As I walked through the aisles, I found some publishers having a quiet time. So I gathered courage and said hello and introduced myself. Some of them were very keen to talk to me. They asked for my books. Ugh! I didn’t bring any. I gave them my card and promised to send detailed proposals.

So the moral of the story for me was – to take some covers, some sample books or if you have a tablet, take all the digital portfolios you can- you never know who you bump into.

I attended a couple of sessions for authors – especially the one about poetry organised by BookTrust and it was a great treat. As an author, other than the events organised specifically for writers, there won’t be enough to do for 3 days. But one day in the 3 day fair calendar was a good way to dip my toe into the professional waters of publishing.

This will not still convince me to go to Bologna Children’s Book Fair just for this – unless of course I go on holiday as well around the same time or I have an event I get invited to. If you are on your own, it can get lonely very quickly.

All in all, it was a great way to spend a day – surrounded by books and people who are passionate about them.

Choosing character names

I mostly can’t start a story if I can’t get the name right. Even if I am going to change it later. The voice of the story for me is too dependent on the name. I listened to a very successful author who said, if my flow is good, I will give the character a name like ABC and continue writing.

But I can’t do that. I have to find the first name at least – especially if it is picture books. If I am writing a longer piece – then I need the last name too. Because I didn’t grow up in England, I have to research English names a lot. I can’t assume a name would be used in a specific part of the world.

However when choosing a name, these are my considerations:

a)    The name should be memorable, but should not sound artificial.

b)   The name should provide the opportunity for nicknames, shortening and even taunts. If I want to put the character through misery, the name should lend itself to it.

c)    The name should sound like the person. This is the hardest to find. I like to match thin characters with last names like Beany and bullies with names that can be made fun of like Bottomley.

d)   The name should not be too much of a caricature. I want the writing to show humour and the name to add to it. For example, if I think a character is too smooth, I wouldn’t call him Roger Smoothie, but Cal Butter or something.

e)    Unless there is a purpose, I prefer character names to be of maximum two to three syllables.

f)     If there are other ways to link the names to the story and plot, I’d pick those names. For example, historic precedence, a name in the buried treasure etc. Then names that are too modern like Madison won’t work if I want the name to be linked to something that happened 100s of years ago.

g)    I try and pick characters with different starting alphabets – especially for the main protagonist and his friend or the antagonist. I don’t want to keep reading Ben and Bob all the way through the book. It does get confusing especially for younger kids to separate them out.

h)   I borrow variations of names from people I know. I do that to birthdays and other quirks too.

i)     I also worry about pronunciation, not just for my readers. I have to be able to read the book aloud and if I can pronounce it, then I would not be able to talk about these characters.

Sometimes I do make the mistake of choosing or making up a name that is hard to say aloud, because I am just writing the first draft. Then when I start revising and start reading it in my head and aloud, I realize the mistake and go back and change the names.

Although I spend a lot of time looking at names, I don’t spend enough time writing their character study. Somehow I want the story to evolve and fill in those gaps. I know that will involve a lot of editing, but that’s an area I struggle. I can describe characters and use motifs to showcase their characteristics. But I cannot do a character chart that many novelists do. That part of my brain is squashed under a big blob of reluctance.

Here are some wonderful links I found when you are researching names.

Name Finder

http://www.surnamedb.com/

http://www.ssa.gov/oact/babynames/decades/names1920s.html

http://nameberry.com/blog/category/name-advice/choosing-the-right-names

Names with history

http://www.houseofnames.com/

http://search.ancestry.co.uk/search/

http://www.surnamedb.com/

Some of the name choices for my books:

gola_web

In “Where is Gola’s Home?”, I had to choose an Indian name that might suit the lead character, a yak. In the same story, I have a vulture which is called Muri.

adollopofgheeIn “A Dollop of Ghee and a Pot of Wisdom”, I chose Veera – meaning Brave for the prince and Suku for the prince’s friend, which is a short form of Sukumar – translating to a nice person or boy.

How do you choose character names? Do you have other links to share? Leave a note in the comments box.

Do you go to other writers’ events?

Award ceremonies, book festivals, book fairs – do you go to these? As a writer who is not on the circuit, these events could  be considered gawking, fantasizing, maybe checking out the competition. Not sure what to think.

I have been to a couple of book festivals. More as a book lover than as a writer I should say. When I attend events in the festivals that are meant for children’s books – the audience is filled with kids and their parents and the events are targeted at the audience. Why do I go? Because I want to hear the successful authors talk? Do I want to know what works? What type of questions are they asked?

I am not sure why I went. I did do some non-fiction and current affair book events. And I looked around the bookshops, collected some free pens, bags and moped around hoping one day my book will be out here.

Award festivals – that’s another thing. I have not been to any except the booker talk, the day before the awards were announced. I have now booked tickets to the Red House Children’s awards. I remember last year thinking that I live so close Southbank and still  missed the event. So this time I have tickets and I have some good friends to come with me.

But how will I feel when I get there? Will I use it to network? Lots of bloggers and writers and maybe publishers might be around. But will I fret over whether if my book will ever be published or if I will get an agent or will I be good enough to be nominated?

Sometimes I do wonder if successful writers did ever attend these things? Did they know the industry at all? Were they so good at their craft that their agent did all their networking for them? Is it really important to network? Can I not use that time just to write more or better?

Other times I think I want to be part of this culture of books. I want to read good books and talk about them. I want to spot famous authors in the crowd and be proud to have been there in the same room.

After a long think I think I know why I go. Because I want to be part of the book industry. I want to know what’s going on. For me at least, it is not enough just to write. I love the craft as much as the industry. I love reading the research about digital vs print. I want to know about mergers and acquisitions. I want to know about companies that are expanding, growing, changing gears.

Writing might be a lonely thing to do. But the purpose of writing is to make something that belongs to you, belong to the rest of the world. To let the world embrace what once belonged to you.

And I want to see the world that can take magical things such as books and float them into the skies. I want to be part of the industry, the people, the passionate crew of editors, publishers, rights managers, agents who make the stuff made out of dream dust.

Do you go to events? Why? What do you feel when you watch someone perform? Listen to someone talk to their audience?