SSWAG crit session

Yesterday, January 11th, was the first SSWAG meeting of the new year. SSWAG is Seven Stories Writers and Artists Group. We are a group of writers and artists writing and illustrating children's books. We started at the end of a CLL (Centre for Lifelong Learning) course on writing for children. We are based at Seven Stories which is the Centre for the Children's Book in the Ouseburn Valley, Tyneside.
We alternate Writers and artists at our monthly meetings. This time, my work, Uncle Uriel's Legacy was one of the works being critted. As well as the usual: does it make sense? could you follow the story? would you want to read more? - questions, I had two specific ones:

1. I started out thinking I was writing a book for teenagers/ young adults, but now I'm not sure. Is the writing, especially in the Book of Daniel, too demanding? Should I be aiming at adults?
2. The story is told in two voices: Just Soh's Story - a third person narrative told from the point of view of Soh (Sophrosnia Ecklethwight) - and the Book of Daniel, narrated in the first person by Daniel. I wanted to consider whether these narratives should alternate chronologically: 11/11/18 Soh, 11/11/18 Daniel, 25/11/18 Soh and so on... Or should I tell Soh's complete story, then Daniel's, then the third part where they meet?

The SSWAGgers were extremely complimentary about the writing. I do wonder sometimes whether we are too kind. The consensus seemed to be that the target age wasn't a problem. It could appeal to both adults and literate teenagers. It's not for the spoon-fed, but does that matter?

On the question of how to deliver the two narratives, I'm inclining toward the alternating version, though I will probably write it one story then another. In fact, it's actually the case that I'm writing it higgledy-piggledy. I have written much of the third, joint, part and bits from all over of the other two, but from the planning point of view, I'm going section 1 -10 Soh, section 11 - 20 Daniel, 21- 30 joint. This probably makes no sense to anyone but me. You'll see.

British Library Newspapers - my first visit

I felt very grown up getting the tube to Colindale to the British Library Newspaper Reading Rooms. A serious researcher! You have to check in your bags and are only allowed to write in pencil. Unfortunately, I didn't know there was a 45 minute wait to get your microfilmed or bound copies of old newspapers - what to do? Back downstairs to get the latest Ian Rankin out of my bag. Oops now I'm the naughty schoolgirl reading a thriller in these hallowed halls. (Readers wishing to follow the naughty schoolgirl thread will have to wait for my Sub-missive blog)
I was looking at the Workers Dreadnought on microfilm. Arghh! the microfilm reader was hard to operate. It flew out of its spool, curls of film everywhere. It's not just new technology I'm crap at. I ended up winding the film on by hand. When it came to closing time and I tried to rewind, it flew out again and I shame-facedly had to confess to the librarian that I bruk it.
I wish the paper had been in one of the bound volumes. They're huge and very exciting. You imagine Dumbldore will be at the next table consulting old spells.
I'll know better next time.

Workers Dreadnought Jan 4th 1919

These are my notes from the newspaper library:
Down with the military service acts
The Brave Fight of the Conscientious Objectors
J H Hudson, Labour candidate for Eccles, in a message from prison:
Conscription is "a massive iron door erected by Capital in the road of the Worker's march towards his emancipation... The thousand men in prison feel themselves as a wedge holding firm twixt door and jamb."
This is after the Armistice. The COs are still in prison.
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2,000 workers at Newcastle on December 12th protested against the inadequacy of 29s unemployment 'donation', and demanded current rates of wages during unemployment.

Catching the moment of conception

on (date) I started writing 'Uncle Uriel's Legacy'. I can be sure of the date. It was part of another fictional blog - just a notion, at this stage. Somehow I knew it would grow into something. So I started a log - initially in a hardback A5 notebook. I thought it would be interesting to track the growth of an idea into a finished novel.
This year, one of my resolutions was to set up and continue a blog, as a step to my own writing site. So I decided to convert the Uriel log into a blog. So this is it.
I will be posting the written entries into a 'backblog' and tagging them for topics, such as character and plot development, research, etc, as well as labels for each major character.