In Praise of Sisters (especially mine)

I only have one sibling. She's younger than me. And wiser, braver and stronger. We're like chalk and cheese. She lives out the back of nowhere on a farm where the internet connection is non-existent. Not that it matters. It's an unnecessary luxury. She works hard, despite poor health and wearily loves the land the way only country people can. I live between the mountain and the sea, daily surfing an on-line world of art and amusement. My working world is filled with technology and words.

One of my earliest treasured memories is our father laughing as he watched us walk down the long driveway to the family home, off to do some shopping for him. Apple and orange. Bohemian me with her long hair, long skirt, wrists and ankles a-clatter with beads and bangles. My sister dressed perfectly in heels and nail-polish. I had waited half an hour while she blow-dried her hair! (it was the early eighties). But we were the best of friends. And still are.

As a child, my sister didn't read for pleasure. It was too much of a struggle. But the persistence she brings to everything and the isolation of farm life eventually led us to the same place in front of the bookshelf. Suddenly she had read everything I had to lend. Everything! Children's books too.

I always send her a copy of my latest book and she rang this week to say Jaguar Warrior had arrived. Then there was a pause. "I'm sorry but I haven't read it yet. I get so excited every time I have one of your books in my hand. I want to make it last. So I put it on the kitchen bench and look at it every day until I can't keep looking a moment longer. Then I sit down and read as slowly as I can. I want it to never end."

Imagine apologising for a comment like that!

My sister is the best and I love her heaps. Even if she decides she hates my books.

Scrolling down

Sometimes you scroll down to the end of a web page and find... treasure! Booktopia supports Australian authors and yours truly. Thanks guys.

Cyberlaunching

Today I have my fancy dress on - the one with the shiny things on the front, my coloured glass jewellery (more shiny things) and gold sandals - OK I'm not much of a fashion follower - but I do have an important job today. I'm launching a book. Not just any book. A book by a very talented Australian writer who is also a friend. A wonderful verse novel by the author of one of my favourites, Pearl Verses the World.

So drop in here to attend the cyber launch of Sally Murphy's Toppling. We're partying all day.

Today is also the release day for a book I've been looking forward to ever since I saw the cover and read the blurb. Gabrielle Wang's Little Paradise. So it's busy reading evening for me.

I'm also celebrating one more thing- keeping the bubbles inside for the moment but watch this space... Today is also the release date of my latest book Jaguar Warrior, an adventure story set at the end of the Aztec Empire. the Spanish have risen against the Aztec people and Atl must take a message for help... But why should he? Until they needed his help he was a slave imprisoned for sacrifice. Even as he runs, another warrior hunts him down. Should Atl run for help or run for his own freedom? Read the Book Chook's review here.

Tuesday Writing Tips Blog Tour

Today I am talking with Dee White as part of her Tuesday Writing Tips Blog Tour. Dee is the author of the excellent YA novel Letters to Leonardo and blogs a weekly writing tip every Tuesday at Dee Scribe Writing.

Dee: Hi Sandy, it’s great to be here. I’m wondering if you can tell me what you like to read and why?
I’m an avid reader – anything with words on it attracts my attention. I am that awful person who reads over your shoulder on the train. I can’t help it but I know it’s annoying (and rude!) so I always close my eyes to break the connection. I love words – words that tell a great story or simply sound wonderful tripping off the tongue.

My genre of choice as a reader is fantasy – of all kinds. I have a particular interest in ancient cultures. My personal favourite books are generally where fantasy and ancient cultures collide.

Dee: When you were writing the Samurai Kids books, were there any particular books you read that helped you decide what sort of stories you wanted to write? Not so much in terms of what sorts of stories I wanted to write. The book that did influence me however was Miyamoto Musashi’s The Book of Five Rings. It give me a personal insight into the life and beliefs of a master samurai swordsman and inspired the character of Mitsuka Minayoto, who appears in Samurai Kids 2: Owl Ninja. But the most important thing The Book of Five Rings gave me was a feeling of being in 17th century Japan. I was there with Musashi.

Similarly while I wrote Jaguar Warrior, my constant companion was The Broken Spears by Miguel Leon-Portilla containing translations of native accounts of the Spanish uprising. Some of the stories are beautiful poetry and others part myth, but they are all sad. The Aztec world was coming to an end.

Dee: Do you read outside your comfort zone?
Absolutely. It the biggest horizon expander I know. I make a conscious effort to do so to the point where I will often purposely choose a book that is not to my reading or writing taste. Dee: Why do you think it’s important for writers to read/ read widely? Market research, inspiration, awareness of techniques, expansion of horizons, remove personal boundaries, see through other eyes, improve writing basics, improve writing style… It’s a long list. And while reading widely is a learning process, it is also fun.

Dee: Can you tell me about a book you have read that has had a great impact on something you have written?
Something along those lines is happening to me right now. It began with The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman and continued on to his Coraline and Other Stories. After that I took a jump to Edgar Allan Poe and that’s what I am reading at the moment. I have always been drawn to stories of darkness. I couldn’t write horror genre – I am too much of a scaredy-cat for that. But like Luke Skywalker, I can feel the dark side calling although I never quite worked that fascination into my writing. Until now. Inspired by Gaiman and Poe, I have an exciting new idea that I am keen to begin writing.

Dee: As a writer and thoroughly busy person, how do you find time to read?
I read very, very fast. As a teen, I read War and Peace in a weekend when my sister dared me to - so I've been in speed-read training since then. I can finish an average YA novel in an hour. But when a book really hooks me, I slow down quite a lot.

Thank you for dropping by Dee. I’ll be following closely along the blog tour to learn a few more tips. For anyone else interested, here is the schedule:

2nd February 2010 Claire Saxby http://letshavewords.blogspot.com/ Writing Picture Books - Leaving room for the illustrator.

9th February 2010 Dee White http://deescribewriting.wordpress.com/ Reviewing ‘There Was an Old Sailor’ Reviewing vs Editing skills.

16th February 2010 Sandy Fussell http://www.sandyfussell.blogspot.com/ Writers Need to be avid free range readers

23rd February 2010 Robyn Opie http://www.robynopie.blogspot/. How to make your story longer – adding layers.

2nd March 2010 Angela Sunde http://www.angelasunde.blogspot.com/ More about Point of View – head hopping.

Dee: Do you have a tip for writers about what they should be reading to enhance their own writing skills?
I call it free range reading. Writers need to read all over the place. It's a bit messy and unstructured but it's fun and it will help improve not only your writing technique but the scope of your ideas. Read within your own writing genre, read what appeals to you as a reader, read what your target readers are reading, read non-fiction that catches your eye. Anything and everything. Perhaps the most important point is to read outside your comfort zone.

Children's Book Covers

I've heard it said a million times: You can't judge a book by its cover. But we do. Myself included. And right now, I'm glad we sometimes do - because I've seen the cover for Jaguar Warrior and it's wonderful.

Going out on a limb, I'll even say it's the sort of cover that boys would walk from one side of the library to the other, just to look at. There's lots of embossing and gold bling but the real focus is the eyes. They seem to glow.

So I started to think about covers I've particularly liked and how I wished I had a book with them all in it. I found this one on the Internet - Children's Book Covers: Great Book Jacket and Cover Design by Alan Powers. It covers 100 years of book covers - featuring authors and illustrators predominantly working in the UK and the USA including Edward Lear, Randolph Caldecott, Beatrix Potter, Kenneth Grahame, Arthur Ransome, Jean de Brunhoff, Maurice Sendak and Raymond Briggs - over 400 works through to Harry Potter and Lemony Snicket.

So what I want to know now is : where is the Australian version? and what's your favourite book cover?

The Questions Kids Ask #1

No questions are off limits during my school visits. Question time is my favourite part of any session. So often, in answering a question, I learn something about myself and my writing process. Often it's something I already knew - I just didn't give it enough thought before.

Question #1: If you could go back into any one of your books, what one thing would you change?

This is a particularly pertinent question for me. My first five books were released in an 18 month time frame. It was a quick, steep learning curve.

I would change the names of the Samurai Kids. All of them, except Yoshi.

When I first decided to write their story, I received a lot of confused feedback about the names. Too many. Too exotic. No kid will ever remember them all. So I compromised. I chose names that sounded familiar and were easily pronounced. However with the exception of Yoshi, whose name I found in a Nintendo game, none of the names are (to my knowledge) traditional Japanese names.

Sensei Ki-yaga was originally called Ki-Yoda - nothing Japanese about either of those. But the latter was deemed a little close to another wise master who was rather deft with a sword and unusual terms of phrase. (And yes, I am a huge Star Wars fan!)

When I began to do school visits and festivals - I found out that my readers had no trouble with the character names. Adults might not be able to remember six Japanese names but kids could have remembered fifty six. I have learned my lesson. Since then all my character names have been culturally correct. In Polar Boy many of the names have meanings that gave clues about the role or traits of the particular character.

In Samurai Kids only the horse, Uma, has a name with meaning. It means - horse! I couldn't think of any other name. With the Kids I didn't want to tie their names to their spirit guides. But even then I made a mistake. A young reader from NZ who had lived in Japan wrote to tell me I had spelled Nezume's name wrong - Nezumi the Rat. Eeek! (no pun intended). I must have somehow retained the sound of the name in my head - and liked it. I then obliviously attached it to the boy whose spirit guide was The Long-Tailed Rat.

I still try to find names which are easy to say aloud. My next book, Jaguar Warrior (March 2010) is set at the end of the Aztec Empire. It was a time when names were wonderfully complex combinations of z, x p and t. But my characters are simply called Atl (water) and Citlali (moon), known as Lali. More recently I have been researching Korean words and names...