Yesterday’s blog elicited a lorry load of responses, most of the outraged, indignant kind! While most were from kids, I was glad to see a few from adults too, and one from a teacher!! As I said, in my experience the vast majority of teachers are very open-minded and great to their kids. But you’ll always find those who are stuck in their ways or who never cared much about the job to begin with. That’s just the way life is. There are jobsworths everywhere, and we just have to endure them -- but we don’t always have to dance to their tune!!!

Wrote another 12-plus pages of the new book. I’m enjoying it more than I thought. There isn’t a huge amount of action in the early stages (although I wrote a VERY creepy chapter today!), and I was worried it might drag a bit, but so far it’s flowing ultra smoothly, the characters telling me what they want to say. In a way, I sometimes find chatty, actionless scenes easier to write than the fast-paced, action-packed ones. You need to describe things in much more detail when there’s fighting going on, or people dashing about the place. Action scenes might be the quickest part of a book to read, but they often take the longest to write!!!

My only worry so far is the race angle. I’m tackling the thorny problem of racism in this book. I’ve done that before, obliquely, in The Saga, but this is more of a direct confrontation. I’ve seen a lot more racism around me in recent years, particularly since 9/11 and the bombings in London. It worries me, the way people are giving in to fear, hatred and suspicion, and even though the new series is fantastical, I want to deal with some real-life issues in it. The problem with writing about racism, though, is that it’s ugly. It involves the use of nasty, derogatory words, words which taken out of context could prove very hurtful. It’s a delicate balancing act -- to accurately portray racists, you need to let their racist colours show, but by doing that you can insult certain readers. At the moment I’m tackling it head on, letting characters speak as they wish, going along with the casual viciousness and ignorance which lies at the heart of every racist. But I suspect I might have to tinker with it in later drafts -- not dilute it down, but make it more palatable. Then again, I dunno. My gut instinct says that if you start being too polite about racism, you risk not driving your point across. Sometimes you have to be blunt to be clear.

Oh well, I have plenty of time to work on it. The point I wanted to make here was that, as I often say when offering advice about writing, you shouldn’t worry about getting things right first time round. Writing is often a voyage of discovery. You figure things out as you stumble along, and if you make mistakes, you can go back and correct them later. You’re better off writing and making those mistakes, than sitting at your desk, thinking too much and worrying. Stories will lead you where they need to go. If you let them.