A new initiative launched by the Scottish Book Trust will see every child in primary one at Scottish schools receive a free book. The book, What The Ladybird Heard, is written by Children’s Laureate, Julia Donaldson, and 60,000 copies of the book are being sent to classrooms throughout Scotland. The Scottish Book Trust’s campaign aims to encourage a lifelong love of reading, and they should be congratulated for a wonderful idea.
I have my own parents to thank for instilling in me a lifelong love of books, and for having always encouraged me to write, and it’s important that parents continue to do so.
When my children were growing up, we always read to them, and encouraged them to read, while trips to the library were a regular weekend activity. In saying that, they have different levels of interest in reading books – Rebecca reads all the time, Louise does so occasionally, and Andrew never reads books, not even mine! To be fair, he reads newspapers and football magazines, but books, as he tells me, are not for him.
Teachers also play an important role in encouraging children to read, and I think they do a wonderful job, though I fear too often that’s forgotten. In a week when our teachers are going on strike, it made me think again that we don’t value the men and women who we trust to educate our children as much as we should. They are professionals doing what I believe is one of the most important jobs in our society, and they should be acknowledged as such – both in our attitude towards them and also in the way they are rewarded.
I will declare a slight bias in that both my parents were teachers, so I know how hard teachers work and how important that work is. I also remember teachers who helped to feed my love of books – my English teacher in fifth year at secondary school who gave us Catch 22 to study, or my primary seven teacher who would read to us every Friday afternoon.
I still remember her reading Master of Morgana, a brilliant adventure story by Allan Campbell McLean set on the Isle of Skye. She would read a chapter every week but after a couple of weeks, I couldn’t wait to find out what happened, so I got the book out the library and finished it one weekend. That was commendable enough, but I stupidly went into school on the Monday and told everyone else how the book ended, which got me the belt for my troubles! Thankfully, it didn’t put me off reading.
I was invited to Sacred Heart Primary School in Bridgeton, Glasgow, earlier this year during their Literacy Week. The school asked a number of adults to come in to speak to pupils about their favourite book from childhood as a way of encouraging reading, and I took in Master of Morgana, and spoke about that book. It was a great experience and I left the book for the kids to finish. Hopefully, some of them will enjoy it as much as I did, and still do.
Of course, there have been a whole host of initiatives aimed at encouraging children to read. Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, for example, is working with the Scottish Government and the Scottish Book Trust to give every looked-after children in Scotland a free book every month until their fifth birthday. There are over 3,000 looked-after children in Scotland, and the initiative aims to give every one of these children their own little library while also encouraging their parents and carers to read to them.
Not content with giving us the wonderful song, Jolene, Dolly Parton is also helping get our kids to read and for that we should be thankful.
Email me at author@paulcuddihy.com or follow me on Twitter @PaulTheHunted
SHOULD books be classified along gender lines? Are there such things as ‘women’s’ books and ‘men’s’ books? I’m not convinced that there are, or that books should be labelled, marketed or advertised as such. For me, there are only books that you read and books that you don’t.
I know that some books, particularly so-called ‘chick lit’ novels, are being aimed at women and I would presume that more women buy these books than men, but I’ve been asking myself whether I, and many other men, are missing out on some very good stories.
I recently recommended Monica McInerney’s novel, The Alphabet Sisters, as one to read. I spoke about her books being a guilty pleasure of mine, mainly because they would be described as ‘women’s’ books, and I chose a lovely pink and yellow cover of the book to include in the feature. The truth is, I’m not guilty at all about reading Monica McInerney, and I would encourage you all to do so.
I thought about this issue of gender labelling again last week when I bought a copy of a new book, Watch Over Me by Daniela Sacerdoti. I’d already read the first three chapters of the book and really enjoyed them, so I’m looking forward to reading the rest of the novel.
Watch the video trailer for Watch Over Me
There has been a lot of blogging interest in the book, and one site specialising in ‘women’s’ novels had an interview with Daniela, which caught my eye. The interview was excellent publicity for the book, but it jarred with me that the book was being labelled in such a way. A good book is a good book, regardless of who writes it or reads it.
Abbie's Outlaw by Victoria Bylin, a Mills and Boon publication
The increasing popularity of ebooks will, I believe, lead to more women reading ‘men’s’ books and probably more so, men reading ‘women’s’ books. I read an article recently about Mills & Boon books. They have traditionally, and predominantly, been bought by women, but increasing ebook sales has apparently seen a rise in the number of male readers who are no longer embarrassed about reading a Mills & Boon book for the simple reason that no-one else now knows what they’re reading on their Kindle or iPad.
Many men might still be embarrassed about been seen in possession of a Mills & Boon book, or any so-called ‘women’s’ books, but take away the embarrassment, and I’m convinced many of them will start reading these books.
I have to admit that even with the discretion provided by a Kindle, I’m not sure that I’ll ever read a Mills & Boon publication, but I will continue reading other books that might be identified as ‘women’s’ books, if only in the hope that I’ll turn a page and stumble across a dramatic car chase, lots of explosions, some dead bodies and a few hard-drinking heroes who always get the girl, and then leave them before dawn.
Email me at author@paulcuddihy.com or follow me on Twitter @PaulTheHunted
Elmore Leonard's '10 Rules of Writing'
Elmore Leonard famously published his ’10 Rules of Writing’, and they are wise words indeed. I can’t say that I follow them all, but there are certainly a few that are always in my head when I’m writing. I came across them recently in a newspaper article which, inspired by those rules, decided to ask a number of other writers for their own dos and don’t of writing.
So, in the same vein, I have decided to offer my own top ten tips for writing. Some of them are obvious, some of them are personal, but none of them will guarantee publication.
You can also check out the link at the end of this blog for other writers’ top tips.
1. Write
It seems obvious, and if you do this, then the other nine points don’t really matter, but you need to write. That’s what writers do! Try to get in the habit of writing every day. It’s up to you whether you want to set yourself a daily word count or just write and see how much you get done, but if you try and get into the discipline of writing, you’ll be amazed at how much you actually produce. And some of it might actually be quite good!
2. Read
If you want to be a writer, it’s really important to read. A lot. I always remind myself that anything I’m reading has been deemed good enough to be published. That doesn’t mean that everything published is good; some books are excellent and you aspire to produce something of that quality; other books are not good, and they should inspire you to write because you know you can do better.
3. Enjoy what you’re writing
If you’re not enjoying what you’re writing, then the chances are no-one else will enjoy reading it. If you’re going to spend your own time writing, and if you’re writing a novel, that’s a lot of time, you need to be enjoying what you’re doing. You won’t enjoy everything you write, or necessarily have a great experience every time you write, but if the story doesn’t captivate you or maintain your interest, throw it away and start writing about something else.
4. Write about what you know
… unless you don’t know very much, or what you do know is boring, in which case write about anything you like. I’m guessing that JK Rowling isn’t a wizard, and JRR Tolkien wasn’t a hobbit who resided in Middle Earth, so both of them in their own hugely successful way, prove that you can write about anything, so long as you do it well. My dad wrote a book once – it was a crime novel of sorts set in the 1930s. I blame the influence of television and trashy American police shows. He had been a maths teacher and told brilliant and funny stories about the classroom and the staffroom. If he put them down on paper, he’d have a great book.
5. Read what you’ve written aloud
This is one of the best ways to judge whether what you’ve written sounds right and has a natural flow to it. This is especially true of dialogue. It’s also a great way of spotting mistakes that might otherwise remain undetected. Just be prepared for strange looks from anyone else in your house who’ll worry that you’re talking to yourself.
6. Don’t get Sky+
Sky+ is one of the best inventions ever, and also one of the biggest enemies of the writer. With Sky+ there is now always something you can watch on television. It just means that you have to be even more disciplined in your writing. And keep the Internet turned off as well. Emails and Facebook and Twitter are horribly addictive and very distracting. Incidentally, I love Sky+.
7. Don’t re-write until you’ve finished a first draft
Re-writing was always one of my biggest mistakes when I used to try writing a novel. I’d spend so much time trying to make my first few chapters perfect that I’d lose interest in what I was doing since it felt like it would take forever to finish the manuscript. Now, after putting a plan together for the structure of the book, I just keep writing until I’ve got a first draft. Then I start editing it. I also write freehand before I type anything into the computer, and the advantage of that is that when I am typing, I’m giving my story a first edit as I correct any mistakes I spot in what I’ve scribbled down on paper.
8. Live your life
The American writer, Richard Ford, whose work I absolutely love, offered, as one of his tips, the advice not to have children. I disagree. Absolutely. Children are not a distraction. It might just mean that you have to work harder at finding the time to write around family life, but you can do it. And when all’s said and done, a book’s just a book, but your children are the greatest blessing you will ever have. And if you only ever achieve one thing in life to be proud of, it would be in having children who grown up to be adults who you like. You can keep your Booker Prize!
9. Don’t moan about it
I’m not trying to decry writing, or writers, but it always strikes me that, if you can make your living from writing, then that’s got to be just about the best job in the world. And even if your writing is not your primary source of income, it’s still a great thing to do; if anyone pays you for your words, that’s just a bonus. It never fails to amaze me when I hear journalists at Scottish football grounds moaning about some aspect of their job – they’re getting paid to watch football, for goodness sake! How good is that? The same goes for writers – don’t moan about your working life. It’s great. Get over it. I thought of this last week when my teenage son came in from work. He’d spent the day pulling down ceilings in an old building and was covered in dirt and dust; he looked like one of Dick Van Dyke’s chimney sweep pals from Mary Poppins. I couldn’t imagine telling him not to complain about his work and that he had it easy compared to writers! Writing’s great, and everyone who does it for a living would do it anyway as a hobby. It’s not a real job!
10. Write
Just in case you’ve forgotten already – WRITE!!!
You can email me at author@paulcuddihy.com or ‘tweet’ me @PaulThe Hunted
There’s a brilliant new website about football memories to help raise awareness about dementia. You should take part.
This is my favourite moment of my time working at Celtic Football Club. Click HERE
Go to http://www.footballmemories.org.uk/ and tell your story.
