Cherry’s Comments (group member since Jul 18, 2014)

Cherry’s comments from the Q&A with YA Author Alex Smith group.

Thanks Alex, really interesting. Could talk children's books for hours...

Alex wrote: "Okay, before we all go, Alix and Cherry, I'd love to know what your favourite books were growing up?"
Anything by William Mayne, Rosemary Sutcliff, and well, the story will tell you the rest.

Ok, lets stop now. It's been brilliant chatting Alex, thank you. Speak (or something) on Wednesday if the technology will allow it. Congratulations on a vivid engaging and thrilling book.
xx

Alex wrote: "Cherry, you asked about favourites - Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of OZ, Around the World in 80 days, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, The Never Ending Story, The Arabian Nights, Wind in th..."
hehe I'm going to send you my story about a young man finding ALL his favourite children's books in a second hand bookshop, then finding they are actually HIS copies... a kind of ghost story, but very gentle.

Alex wrote: "(I hope Haruki Murakami and David Mitchell would not be offended if I add that I think perhaps part of what I love about their work, aside from dazzling use of words, is that there is often an elem..."

I'm sure they'd be flattered

I think we should let Alex answer any remaining loose ends here and then let her go - no more questions please!

Alex wrote: "I suppose it is a necessity because there is just so much out there...so there is another difference: volume."
Yes, I often think that so called 'classics'are only that because there was nothing much else to choose from at the time. mercifully most of that category have disappeared, and the real geniuses survuve (lewis carrol!) but I remember a whole tranch of incomprehensible 'classics' at primary school the slipper and the rose springs to mind, couldnt stomach it at all!

There's that weird cross over period of Ann of Green Gables, and PollyAnna, where the book is definitely telling children (especially girls) how to behave, but somehow manage to be good stories anyway(ish!)
I love Erin the same as I loved Mary Lennox, for being such a fearsome cross patch and not bowing to anyone. Interesting that Frances H Burnett's other children are less so Sarah Crowe in the little princess who is brave but docile and the GHASTLY little lord fauntleroy!

Ah, but if you look at Breughel or even delft tiles, there are children playing with kites and hoops, skating and mucking about generally, which rather undermines that argument... though I agree; it is ridiculous how childhood is almost fetishised now. I think growing up in the 60's I had it about right, lots of childhood, next to no marketing, spending all day in the park or in the garden getting muddy following the cat around! A golden age... (sighs)great books too- apart for TSG what were your favourites growing up?

One of the things I liked (moving away from badgers...) was the rooms within rooms and all the weird and wonderful things hidden there if you had the right key.
when I was reading the underwater bit, I was pleasantly bewildered, thinking 'where is this book taking me?'but very happy to be led. There was a bit of me that wanted to wander there for ever. were you tempted to keep inventing more 'cabinets'?

Alex wrote: "We can certainly try - I'll probably look like a badger by then in my pj's(is it Skype with video?)... No no, I'll make sure I don't look like a badger."

Badgers are good! (Not got sharks on your PJs then?!) We can always NOT turn on the video, so people can just talk to you, ask a few questions?

Alex wrote: "Malini wrote: "Hi Alex,
I am doing a reading from Chapter 3 for the book launch on Wednesday. Haven't finished the book yet, but what I have read is great. Devil skein is a wonderfully odd and thre..."

Shall we try for a skype link on Wednesday? It would probably be 10pm your time, that might be a bit late?

Hi Malini, Muireann, Alix thanks for joining us - should have said hello sooner.

Alex wrote: "I've just realised I'm commenting rather than replying!"
I dont think it matters

I really liked that it wasn't at all obvious that TSG was the template, I felt like there was a ghost lodged in the story, or a palimpsest, I got these waves of familiarity tickling the edge of my brain. Gaiman achieves the same, both hs Graveyard inhabitants and your demons are very much their own people

Alex wrote: "Alix wrote: "Hi Alex.In what ways does does writing a book for children differ from writing for adults?"



Hi Alix
Well, I recently read an article about C.S.Lewis who said : ‘Where the children’s..."

Only a light touch edit on that - I work on the basis that if I'm recoiling so will a 12 year old, and I still remember bitterly a couple of books that really freaked me out as a child. Sobbing inconsolably over a book that has frightened me so badly i can't sleep isn't my idea of fun! Not that I was doing that over D&D!

We should definitely try for a skype conference some time,that's more real time, and we MIGHT be able to see each other, and speak!

By the way you seem to have to refresh the page to see what people are saying...

Ah the secret is out! I was going to ask if you'd plotted based on TSG, or just gone for it. Did you re-read TSG first?

If I can add to that, while I was reading the 1st draft I'd already thought of Ed Boxall for the cover and because of his style, when I wanted to do the trailer, animation was the obvious way to go. Just luck that I asked Greg to do Devilskein and he mentioned Nick...