A LITTLE PRESENT FOR YOU

Hah! that got your attention. No, really, there is a present for you herein.

Two happy things happened to me today. First, I'm proud to say that my 100th follower registered on this blog. (Welcome, Suzette - but you do realise that the rules say that you have to take part in an initiation ceremony? I will let you know what we want you to do, once we've all decided behind your back, OK? Ideas, anyone?)

I almost feel like the Pied Piper with all those followers, but fear not: I have not been paid by agents and publishers to rid their letter-boxes of all unpublished authors; nor am I going to lead you a merry dance into a mountainside and leave you there. Though still as crabbit as ever, I plan to stay with you for much longer, because you are very good company and because I am waiting to hear that you have found a publisher / agent / both and that you are on your way to success. Well, you are on your way to success, we know that, but let's speed it up a bit, hey?

And second, my lovely publishers, Walker Books, sent a seriously cool screensaver as a free download to pass around amongst my teenage readers, but there's no rule that says you have to be a teenager to enjoy nasty iridescent beetles crawling across your screen, so I thought I'd share it with you.

So, if you would like it and/or if you have any offspring / friends / relatives / pupils who would like to have the latest coolness for their computer, then here 'tis. (Unless you're a Mac user, in which case I do have the file but can't see what to do with it.)

I hope you're not going to go all middle-aged on me and say you can't work out how to put it on your computer. Basically, you open the link,**** click on the download button, the thing magically saunters onto your desktop and you select "install", whereupon it asks you a couple of simple questions; then you do nothing at all for a few minutes and then beetles start crawling and smoke appears. Failing that, ask a teenager.

(****Edited to add: Er. not so basic, actually. I have just discovered that this is a TEMPORARY link and will die on about May 6th, and from then the screensaver will be available on the Walker website at www.walker.co.uk)

If you're one of those people who thinks that everything should have an educational point (what management bods apparently now call a "learning") then you can store in your adulty/parenty/teachery brain that the book features a girl who gives away way too much about herself on a social networking site and that this screensaver is not un-akin to but a million times more attractive than what appears on her computer when she unwittingly accepts the attentions of an insect-obsessed stalker. So, if I were to give any kind of message in my books, which I so absolutely wouldn't, it would be Be Safe Online, Kids.

Otherwise and preferably, just enjoy the pretty beetles.

Either the marketing people at Walker were enjoying themselves way too much or else they must quite like me because they've also provided a "viral bug" (it's not as dangerous as it sounds) which you (or a tech-savvy teenager) can put on your (their) phone and send to ... er ... someone. I think you can just right-click the pic and copy it to your desktop, then onto your phone. Or blue-tooth it. I did it so it can't be beyond the bounds of middle-aged possibility.(EDITED to add - this is now a new one, and works better: yes, I know, it just looks blank now but put it on your phone and woah!)


And if you want to know the really clever bit: when you actually put it on your phone, it dances. Yes, really.

Anyway, it was a happy day, which quite made up for the shocking weather. I know this is Britain, and that I am in the Scottish part of it, but really.

TOFFEE IS NOT A WAY TO GET PUBLISHED

The setting: a house in the heart of England.

The year: this one. This week, in fact.

The weather: snow and general unpleasantness.

The protagonist: a well-known literary agent with tooth-ache; she has spent a day last week at the dentist having a filling replaced - or actually not having it replaced because the dentist, after three injections, had told her, "I can see this is hurting you - let's leave till next week." His leaving it till next week has not helped the agent one bit.

The dramatic tension: the agent is awaiting the arrival of the day's post with unbridled anticipation. After all, the next Dan Brown / JK Rowling / Ian Rankin could be in it. They rarely are, but, like all agents, she lives very much in hope.

Lights, camera, action. The post arrives. The agent snatches it up almost before it hits the mat, and rips open the promising brown envelope. She ignores the picture of a grinning pink fairy at the corner - this could simply be a re-used envelope and she approves of recycling. She does quite a lot of it herself.

Out falls a manuscript. There is no return SAE. This is a bad sign. Her inbuilt "unprofessional author" alert is beginning to beep. Though worse things have happened: there was the time when ... But wait - there is something else in the brown envelope. She shakes it onto the floor, not sure whether to be wary or intrigued.

Two Werther's Originals fall to the carpet. (Point of information for anyone lucky enough to have been born after 1979 or so: these are toffees, very old-fashioned, and the source of arcane amusement in post-toffee Britain, especially in educated circles. I once stayed in a hotel where a Werther's Original was placed seductively on my pillow each night, to which the only sensible reaction was, "What the hell am I supposed to do with that? Get out of bed and clean my teeth afterwards, or stand here freezing in my bare feet while I eat it first?" A very recent visit to Wikipedia elicited some fascinating and detailed information about the different varieties of Werther's Originals which apparently exist but suffice it to say that I entirely agree that these sweets recall "a halcyon age of innocence, nuclear families and good old-fashioned sweets." None of this, however, is likely to help either author or agent.)

The question: does the agent think to herself, "Well, that was a kind thought. After all, the generous and attempting-but-failing-to-be-innovative author was not to know that a) I have severe toothache and b) I HATE Werther's Originals. So, I will now settle in my armchair by the wood-burning stove, with a peppermint tea and warmed oil of cloves, and forget the pain by immersing myself in what may well be a stunning debut of obvious shining literary and commercial merit by a new author with the whole reading world at his finger-tips."?

The answer: No.

The denouement: The agent places the manuscript unread in the pile of fuel for her wood-burning stove. (I told you she was into recycling.) After all, it's the snowiest day the UK has apparently had for eighteen years, we're in the middle of a British winter that is giving two fingers to global-warming and she's not one to waste a genuinely useful bit of fuel.

The message: don't do it, people. Don't even be tempted. That kind of wacky innovative approach went out around the same time as Werther's Originals on the first occasion, and whereas Werther's Originals (sugar-free version in biodegradable wrappers) have come back, this hasn't.

The really sad thing: that could have been a great submission consisting of perfect covering letter / succinct and compelling synopsis / glitteringly lucid sample. It probably wasn't, if the author had to disguise it with Werther's Originals, but in theory it might have been. You may think the agent should have read it if she'd really cared. But why, if the author didn't care enough to be professional? The agent has many, many submissions which the author thought good enough not to need to be supported by toffee. You can be witty, dynamic, different, extraordinary, unique, fabulous, but you can't send toffee in the post and expect to be taken seriously. Or taken at all.

The quite amazing thing: even chocolate would not have helped. Ask your dentist.

BOOTS AND BATS: METHOD-WRITING, LEVEL 1

Today, we're going to look at my patent technique of method-writing. This means not actually writing at all but instead preparing by getting into the role and mind-set of a writer. After all, an athlete has to do all that training and buy the lycra and snazzy running shoes (which is the only reason they can run so ridiculously fast, trust me), so an author in training must behave in all ways like a professional author. In fact, being an author is very much like being an athlete, although you would not know that to look at most of us. But in our minds, oh! How sculpturously we are honed and toned! We are veritable Greek heroes of mentally muscular perfection. And we have terrific imaginations, too.

The first, and almost certainly most important, aspect of method-writing, is developing a full range of Work Avoidance Strategies (henceforward: WAS). I am delighted to tell you that you have already passed Level 1 of this technique, because you are reading this blog, and reading blogs (as well as writing blogs and posting eulogistic comments on them) is the important first stage.

Now, although I am not normally one to boast, I am officially ranked World Number One at WAS. I have won medals in all categories, not only in the standard classes of coffee-drinking, blogging, attention to emails (I won the Butch Cassidy Award for being fastest answerer in the west), shopping, and suddenly remembering phonecalls I have to make, but I have also, I am proud to say, won the Nobel Prize for Innovation in Work Avoidance Strategies after my propensity to vacuum behind the fridge on a daily basis. (I was given a supplementary citation after I took the dead mouse I found there to the vet, thus avoiding work for another hour while I waited for the vet to call my psychotherapist.)

I believe it was in recognition of this talent that yesterday I was given the wherewithal to take my excellence to a new level. It's all the fault of Vanessa Robertson, whom those of you who read the Fidra Blog will know. She and her husband, Malcolm, own the Children's Bookshop in Edinburgh, which is within spitting distance of my house, should I wish to spit on it, which I absolutely don't. (Vanessa is even scarier than I am, I'll have her know.) Anyway, recently, Vanessa and I were chatting about blogs (chatting about blogs is a very good Level 1 WAS which you can all try at home at any time, by the way) and she asked me how my stats were. I thought this was a bit of a personal question, but she quickly explained. My eyes lit up. This sounded very cool. So I tried to install a stat counter myself and was doing fine (it had taken at least half an hour when I should have been working, so this was good - bit like a warm-up for an athlete) but then I came to the word html and freaked, as I always do. Anyone who doesn't freak at the word html has Klingon blood. (By the way, did you know that there are more people in the world who speak Klingon than there are who speak Gallic? Also, that in the Klingon language Klingon language is tlhIngan Hol? It's amazing how educational a quick WAS-related trip to Wikipedia can be.))

"Don't worry," said Vanessa last Friday, when I told her about my dismal failure to install a stat counter. "Malcolm can do it. Come to the shop at 11.30 on Monday." Malcolm? I'd met Malcolm before and he seemed very normal. Surely the Klingons had not got him too?

Anyway, I had to wait the whole weekend in nail-biting anticipation of what I just knew was going to be the dreamiest new WAS toy ever. How could I work with that kind of excitement going on? I wouldn't be able to call myself a real author if I could block out such anticipation. It would be like waiting to hear whether I'd won the Carnegie Medal (not something I have ever experienced, but I have an imagination and day-dreaming is merely a Level 3 WAS).

Anyway. Yesterday came, as expected, and I went along to the shop and there was Malcolm, who showed remarkably few signs of Klingon blood. And ten minutes later there was my stat counter, on my blog. Malcolm showed me amazing things I could discover about you. Like which part of the world you are from. And how many seconds you looked at each page - yes, I know two of you only stayed three seconds and it hurt me, it really did. Have a heart, for goodness' sake - I'm a human being with human feelings. And remember, I know where you live. Or not exactly, I hasten to add, and I suppose "USA" is quite a big place - but I will search for you. (Actually, one person stayed zero seconds - how does that work?)

I can see which pages you looked at first and which were the most popular pages. And I can even see which words you put into the search engine to find my blog. Three people actually searched on "turquoise boots" - no, mine are not for sale, not for ready money or any other kind of money, not on ebay or anywhere.

Vanessa spoiled it all. Just when we were getting along so nicely AND I'd given her and Malcolm the second ever batch of my delicious new invention, Brain Bars(TM) (shameless plug alert: see my main website for Brain Cake(TM), as described in Know Your Brain). "I wonder if anyone searched on crabbit old bat?" she said.

"Don't be silly," I said. "You wouldn't find my blog if you searched for crabbit old bat."

Well, I regret to say that I just tried it (under the lame excuse of a WAS). And you do. It's the first (and second) result in Google. Mind you, the Fidra blog is third ...

Do I really have to go down in history as the first crabbit old bat on Google? Or could I achieve fame as the owner of these gorgeous turquoise boots, which are mine, all mine?


Is there a serious point to this post? Er, no. Except that you might want to consider the words of that other great time-waster, William Henry Davies, who wrote, "What is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare?" You have to take your hat off to those guys back in the old days: think how much better their writing would have been if they'd had stat counters instead of just having to rely on having something boring to stare at, like scenery or something. Amazing.

Hmmm, looking at those boots a bit more closely, I think they're a bit dirty. Better go and clean them.