2011: The blog year!

My blog was viewed about 1,100 times in 2011 with people from around the world finding it including those in Egypt, Hong Kong, India, Poland and Brazil which is pretty amazing.  Either these viewers had got lost on the internet or my books have reached some far-flung places.  The majority of views were from New Zealand but Australia and the United States were not far behind.

Wow!

Bring on 2012.

Merry Christmas

Just wanting to wish everyone a fantastic Christmas and New Year and all the best for 2012.  Hopefully next year will the best ever!

Have a good one

Ella

More fans

I received this late last week and it really made my day.  Thanks Brooke.

Hi Ella,
I read Thieves a while ago but then my library didn’t have Anywhere But Here and Real Life so I asked them if they could get them for the library and they did. As soon as they got the books they put them on hold for me.
I read Anywhere But Here 2 days ago and I read Real life yesterday. As soon as I got home from school I would read them. I kept reading until I finished the books and they took me one day for each. They were amazing and I loved them.
I was just wondering if there will be a fourth book because I want to keep reading.
I kept thinking about the possibilities of what could happen next but I couldn’t work it out. I hope she meets her parents and ends up with Jake… I thought they would be good together but either way, your book are amazing and I love them soooo much   You are such a good writer.

Brooke

Overseas Book Sales

Got my royalty statement from the publishers last week (this happens every six months) and it’s weird to see the number of  books that have been sold overseas.  As the publisher only distributes to New Zealand book shops, overseas sales are listed as “Export” as opposed to ”Normal” sales.  I get hardly any royalties on these, but I wonder where they are all going and how people overseas know about my books so they can order them by contacting the publisher.  No marketing has been done, and apart from this blog, it must be word-of-mouth which is really amazing.  So thank you, to all of you who have read my book overseas.  It’s great to think my story has, somehow, reached you.

. . . see, distractions!

Distractions

Sitting down to write a story, well, if any of you have ever tried it, you know it’s not easy.  There are so many distractions.  I write usually in my office at home so there are emails to read and answer, visiting neighbours to talk to, the washing to be hung out, cups of tea to be made, more emails, the occasional tremor from Christchurch (yes – we feel them even down here in Dunedin and start worrying), more emails, the washing to be brought in, another cup of tea, emails – you get the idea.  But now there is a far bigger distraction.  It’s lambing time and we have a flock of about 40 ewes in the paddock just outside my office window doing their thing.  Except sometimes they don’t do their thing and they need help and then it’s do I run out and try to pull out the lamb (having to catch the ewe first) or do I wait a little bit longer because she doesn’t really need my help and is just taking her time but then nothing is happening so maybe she’s not lambing but then again . . .

I’ll be glad when lambing is over.

Am reading . . .

I have a sister-in-law who is a high school teacher in Edmonton and so is a wealth of knowledge about what North American teens are reading.  She put me onto The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.  Wow!  Brutal story but wow.

Helping out

One of the fun things you get to do as a writer once in a while is helping out with programmes which can get first-time writers published.  There are lots of competitions, mentor programmes and manuscript assessments offered in New Zealand and overseas and it you are pretty serious about that 70,000 words you have just finished and think they’re pretty good, it’s worthwhile to enter these competitions.  They’re helpful on your CV if you’re accepted and may just make a publisher take a little bit more interest in you.

So I had the first three chapters of about 30 novels and several pages from some poetry anthologies to read one wet, cold afternoon to pick which ones were worthy of an assessment or a mentorship.  It was a lot more enjoyable than I thought it would be and for some of the novels I wanted to read more than just the first three chapters supplied – I wanted to know what happened in the rest of the book!

But there were two things that really struck me with about two-thirds of the entries.  Firstly, a lot of them were really boring, and I mean really boring. Entrants had to also supply a little bit about themselves and some of their life stories were more interesting than their novels!  And what’s more, some of these really boring stories were more than 100,000 words long.  Whatever you do, don’t write 100,000 words about anything.  Publishers are not going to look at a novel that long – it’s too expensive to have a book that big printed so, unless you are a best-selling author, don’t do it.

Okay, apologies, that was two things in the last paragraph, but here is the second thing that really got me annoyed.  Boring starts.  My dad, when he used to teach us kids how to play card games in the caravan when it was raining on summer holidays (it happened a lot) used to always say lead with your biggest and your brightest card.  I can still remember his voice saying it, decades later.  And it’s something that applies not only to playing cards but also to novels.  Lead with your biggest and your brightest. Build your story from something exciting, something scary, something compelling or no one (let along a potential publisher) is going to get past the first chapter.

Hope this helps.  Remember, no boring stuff.

The fourth book

Got this comment from a reader called Jasmine on the blog during the weekend and instead of it being lost at the bottom of the page I thought I’d put it right at the top.  Thanks Jasmine for writing and yes, I want there to be a fourth book too!

Hi Ella
I love the Thieves series. The first one I read was Real Life because there were two copies in the library at my school and me and my friend were looking for a book there were two of so we could  see who could read it the fastest. We had no idea what the book was about and did not understand it at all!
BUT I discovered the other books in the library and read them both in like one day. Please, pretty, pretty please can you write a fourth book? If this publisher who is not saying yes is a big problem then show him\her our comments.  With this many people wanting there to be another book how can he\she say no? And there is bound to be a lot of people who don’t have computers or  have not found this website who agree with us. But yeah no pressure. Thank you for writing such good books.

Book Month fun

It has been a fun month – but then New Zealand’s Book month always is.  First up I got to be part of a panel of writers talking to high school pupils.  The kids came from throughout Dunedin and the event was held at King’s High School.  Kyle Mewburn (of Old Hu-Hu fame), Dunedin crime writer extraordinaire Vanda Symon and I answered questions such as what it is like to get a bad review, how much money do we make and where do we get our ideas from.  We answered most of the questions truthfully. (Mostly!)

The following week we got to hold workshops with groups of pupils from the schools and covered story ideas, characterisation and voice.

And finally, last Friday, it was the night to welcome the new University of Otago arts fellows.  Kyle is replacing me this year and I wish him all the best.  It was a wonderful night at the Hocken Library and great to catch up with everyone.

Phew!  Is now time to get some writing done!