2012 Review: Books, Libraries and Writing – A Year on The Edge

In the final blog post of 2012, Edge author Dave Cousins takes a look back over a few highlights from the last twelve months at the Edge.

The year started with a flurry of Edge books hitting the shelves: Sara Grant's Dark Parties, my own 15 Days Without a Head, plus Someone Else's Life and the first two titles from the Fairy Tale Twist series from Katie Dale. January also saw the first of two guest posts by Caroline Green.

As the year draws to a close, I'm sorry to have to write that our national library service is still in a perilous state. The current government seems either unaware or ambivalent to the vital role libraries play in society and has done little to stop closures and reductions in services across the country. To mark National Libraries Day in February, each of the authors at the Edge wrote a short piece in support of libraries.

March saw the publication of Illegal – the second book in Miriam Halahmy's trio of books set on Hayling Island. Author Mary Hoffman wrote: "Miriam Halahmy has pulled off a difficult trick - a second novel as good as her first."

During events we are often asked for writing tips, so in April the Edge scribes each offered a nugget of wisdom we hoped might be useful to fellow writers young and old.

Late Spring saw a trio of fine authors guesting at the Edge. We were delighted to welcome Nik Perring, Jane McLoughlin and Conrad Mason. If you missed their posts the first time around, here's a chance to catch them again.

Edge authors and the My Voice Libronauts in Warrington

The Edge Summer Tour kicked off with a trip to meet the My Voice Libronauts in Warrington. This was followed by events in Blackheath, Hounslow and Westminster. The final date saw Dave and Sara performing a double-act of live storytelling at the Edinburgh International Book Festival in August.

We are keen to have a wide variety of voices at the Edge, and were pleased to invite a quartet of book bloggers to give their perspective of teen and young adult fiction. Read what Paula from PaulaSHx, Beth from Page-Turner, Cicely from Cicley Loves Books, and Jeremy from Book Engine had to say.

September saw the publication of Another Life – the eagerly anticipated third book in Keren David's trio of urban thrillers that started with the acclaimed When I was Joe. More good news followed, with the announcement that new Young Adult imprint Strange Chemistry will be publishing Bryony Pearce's The Weight of Souls in the UK and US in August 2013.

We rounded off the year with A Night on the Edge at Foyles bookshop in London, in association with Foyles and the Youth Libraries Group, plus an impressive line-up of  award-winning guest authors: Ruth Eastham, Celia Rees and Anne Cassidy.

Paula and Bryony at the Leeds Book Awards

We are delighted that a number of books by Edge authors have been recognised with award nominations in 2012. These include: SCBWI Crystal Kite (Dark Parties, winner); Cheshire Schools Book Award (Angel's Fury, shortlisted); Leeds Books Award (Angel's Fury, winner 14-16 category  and The Truth About Celia Frost, winner 11-14 category); Anobii First Book Award (15 Days Without a Head, Dark Parties, Someone Else's Life, all shortlisted); Sefton Super Reads Award 2012 (The Truth About Celia Frost, winner); Branford Boase (Angel's Fury, nominated); Carnegie Medal 2012 (Hidden and Lia's Guide to Winning the Lottery, both nominated)

Finally, a huge thank you from everyone at the Edge for your support, for visiting the blog and leaving comments. We hope to see you again in 2013.

Happy New Year!

Writing Badly by Guest Author Conrad Mason

Hello Edge readers, and thank you to the Edge for having me! I thought I'd write about one of the most important steps I took towards becoming a published author: writing badly.

It's well known that many authors get through several 'drawer novels' before they finish one that's fit to be published. I have drawer novels too, except that none of mine are longer than a few paragraphs. I've started hundreds of stories, but for years I never got further than the first page.

The trouble was that I was so determined to write beautiful prose that I never got anywhere. If you spend a quarter of an hour crafting each sentence, how can you ever finish a 300-page book? I had no idea how the professionals did it. Presumably they had some special skill that I lacked. 

Then I read a book called How To Write A Novel by John Braine. It's got some startling pieces of advice in it, some of which I've chosen to ignore ('try not to get married or permanently entangled before your novel is finished'). But overall it's the most inspiring book about writing that I have ever read (and I include On Writing by Stephen King in that – although that's also wonderful).

Here's the epiphany bit: 'With the first draft all that matters is writing the maximum number of words.'

It felt dangerously illicit – was I really allowed to obsess over word count and throw quality out of the window? I had to find out. I set myself a goal of at least 300 words a day, every day, and I kept writing. No checking back. No obsessing over details. No stopping, no matter what. There were times I lost my way, but I just carried on, writing bad sentences and even bad scenes in the knowledge that I'd go back and fix them later. The editor part of my brain was screaming at me all the way, but I ignored it. John Braine had set me free!

Of course, what I got at the end was a mess. Half-formed characters, awful prose, plotlines going nowhere... But that didn't matter because it was 50,000 words of mess. Something that I could edit, and hone, and turn into a novel.

I think the problem before was that I had been trying to write and edit at the same time – and for me, separating those two processes made all the difference. In the first draft I allowed my ideas to come tumbling out as fast as possible, no matter how incoherent they were; then in the second draft I picked them apart and put them back together again.

So to this day, if I'm ever struggling to write well, I just write badly instead. I'd rather do that than write nothing at all.

The Demon's Watch by Conrad Mason is out now in hardback, published by David Fickling Books. 

And rather well written it is too ….

Follow @conradwrites on Twitter and see The Demon's Watch trailer at www.conrad-mason.com