The Kids and YA Festival: #NSWWC the sour grapes version

I think for many of us at the Kids and YA Festival, at the New South Wales Writers’ Centre yesterday, the highlight was the Pitch Competition. At the beginning of the day we were able to put our names into a box and at the end of the day six names were to be selected at random and those people were allowed to pitch. What we needed to bring was a one paragraph pitch and the first page of our completed manuscript. I like many others did just that, despite the fact I’m not 100% confident that I have my head around this whole how to pitch bizzo. I found myself crossing my fingers like a four year old hopefully as each name was drawn silently willing my name to be drawn.

Unfortunately my paragraph and my first page remained unneeded, unnecessary and uninvited in my sweaty, burrito stained lap. Turns out my willpower is not so flash. When the sixth person finished there was a collective sigh. What surprised me was that it was a sigh of relief that their names hadn’t been called, what surprised me even more was that mine was a small sigh of sadness for not being picked. Apparently I have more confidence and belief in myself than I had thought. Perhaps this INFJ (introvert) is becoming an ENFJ. Stranger things have happened. So here is my pitch that I wrote without knowing how to pitch and my first page. It was quite different from those presented. The boring school teacher in me took things quite literally and the first sentence says the genre, target audience and title. I then briefly state what the heart of the story is. I shall have to think of a way to jazz it up!

Chloe Prime: Alien Space Vet is a fantasy adventure ideal for bedtime reading with middle Primary School aged confident readers. It is set on the planet Giovanus in the year 3021, but some things never change – the first day at a new school is nerve wracking, friends are the best and the worst, and nothing motivates you more than needing to go to the toilet. Join action ready Chloe Prime and her best friend, the studious Hippopotati Joshua Suza as they travel through space and school together, learning to communicate with insects, battling the academic wilderness and doing whatever it takes not to get weeed on.

Chapter One: The Night Before the Day After

BANG!

Chloe Prime poked her head out above her blankets and eyed her wardrobe suspiciously. Had it just made a noise? She watched and waited for a few minutes. Nothing. Perhaps it had all been in her imagination. A flight of fancy? She nestled back under her covers.

BANG!

Chloe pulled her covers down again and glared at her wardrobe. Honestly, this was getting ridiculous. She had to get a good night’s sleep for the first day at her new school tomorrow. This just would not do.

BANG!

Chloe vaulted out of bed and stood in front of her wardrobe in a fighting stance. Her hair reared out from her head in crazy curls, ready for action. Her legs were encased in a metallic exoskeleton, which made her look every bit like a miniature cyborg, with medusa hair, at the ready. If there was a monster in that wardrobe she was going to have at it.

‘I came here for a bedtime story and to kick butt,’ ten year old Chloe challenged her empty cupboard. ‘And I already finished my story.’

Whoosh!

Kent Prime came running into his daughter’s room closely followed by her mother. Chloe turned to see her father staring at her in shock.

I’ve just realised the title of this blog is entirely misleading. It really doesn’t have enough vitriol to truly be sour grapes. Hard to get truly bitter about a process that uses random selection and your brother’s best friend from year eight ends up winning. But I made a promise in that title so I really owe it to you to live up to it (if I don’t live up to the promise I have made the reader a certain writing teacher will kick my butt), so I’m going to give it a red hot go!

Darn that Sorting Box. Someone needs to seriously question the impartiality of that box. It clearly had an anti Ravenclaw bias! (I did the sorting hat online and that’s where it put me so I’m assuming this is a solid fact) My daughter played in a box until it broke last week and clearly it was a cousin of the Sorting Box and it used that against me. Darn you Sorting Box and all of your kind! I shall never, EVER, use a box again!!! Shakes fist.

Kids and YA Literature Festival: #NSWWC

Firstly a big thank you to Aleesah Darlison who was the Kids and YA Literature Festival director at the event I attended yesterday at the New South Wales Writers’ Centre. As always I took away many new ideas and lessons.

1) Children and YA authors all together in one place looks awfully similar to an episode of “Primary Teachers Gone Wild.”

2) I’m pretty sure if they had a cut and paste session we would have all been in. Just the vibe I got from my fellow writers from our reactions to the Keynote Speaker. Boori Monty Pryor deals with primary aged children all the time so has an animated and interactive style. He was having us hug ourselves,  raise our hands and roll around on the ground with laughter (ROFLing as the hip cats call it). It was brilliant and everybody was involved. Hence if he’d decided to do the painting activities he does with his kids with us I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have been the only one cleaning glitter out of every nook and cranny for the next month.

3) Famous writers are really, really,  really, super nice. Pamela Freeman even greeted me with a hug. (Not to name drop shameless name drop ahead I have now received hugs from not only  Pamela Freeman, but also Kate Forsyth, Jan Cornall and Walter Mason. Emily Maguire I’m coming for you next!)

4) Editors are really nice too! No really,  they are. I know that sounds weird because we’re all fairly convinced that they’re all angry, old, hermits that live in caves, away from the light, snacking on bitter pills and drinking the blood of wannabe writers just so they can wee it into their chamber pots and toss it on the dying embers of our failed manuscripts… over share? But they are nice. Zoe Walton is always so kind and so organised at every festival I have seen her at and Nicola Robinson was nice enough to shake my hand and give me a warm smile. Not one editor asked us aspiring writers to line up and bend over so that they could kick us in the pants. I kid you not.

5) Once you’re a teacher you’re always a teacher. Jacqueline Harvey uses her whiteboard to plan stories. You have done us proud Ms Harvey and we salute you. Whiteboard Marker Pride!!!

6) I want to be Catherine Jinks’ BFF. Should she ever be in the market for one I’m ready. She was so funny and so enthusiastic and so real that I think everybody hung on every word she said.

7) Burritos are a bad idea when you’re wearing pale colours. I got sauced. Bring back the rice paper rolls I say. At least when I spilled them all over myself there was very little evidence. Sure I should learn to eat with some dignity but I’m 34 and still haven’t acquired that skill.

8) I’m weird! When my name didn’t get pulled out of the “hat” for the pitch contestant I was a tad despondent not relieved. Although thoroughly pleased that my brother’s best friend from year 8 the extraordinarily talented and beautiful Ms Alison Whipp, won the contest. Novacastrian pride. I admired her so much as a kid (she’s seven years older than me so seemed so sophisticated and full of grace) so it was lovely to get the chance to do so again.

Now I shall leave you with a few memorable quotes from the festival:

“I wanted to read about heroes and heroines that looked like me.” Wai Chim

“I didn’t want to feel ashamed of who I was.” Sarah Ayoub

“Eat the story, drink the story, paint the story, dance the story, write the story.” Boori Monty Pryor

“Film is very tightly structured, for me, novels are a much more philosophical pursuit.” Isobelle Carmody

“If you were good at selling yourself you wouldn’t be a God damn writer. You’d be an actor or something.” Catherine Jinks

“Writing in Hollywood is like writing with a committee.” Wendy Orr

“I believe in loyalty.” Jacqueline Harvey

“Write a cover letter that shows you believe in your story so that the publisher will too.” Rochelle Manners

“Write a ripper of a story.” Felicity Pullman

And now I’m spent.