Evie Wyld is Booktrust's third online writer in residence.

  • Meet the readers

    Posted Friday May 29th 2009
    by Patrick Ness

    Writing books is – in so many, many ways – an odd profession. 

    By its very nature, it attracts those of us who are perfectly happy spending months, if not years, talking to pretty much no one but the cat. Long days in front of the computer or with the notepad or in the library, happily beavering away, speaking possibly 100 words aloud in an 8-hour-period.

    And then when the book comes out, there are suddenly – if you’re lucky – quite a lot of people who suddenly want to talk to you very, very much, at great length, repeatedly.

    They’re called your readers, and if you’re afraid of them, you might be in the wrong line of work. True, the literary world has its fair share of difficult recluses (Salinger, of course, Pynchon, Jeffrey Archer whenever he’s banged up), but let’s face it, neither you nor I are JD Salinger or Thomas Pynchon. You might be Jeffrey Archer, but then you’d probably lie about it.

    For the rest of us, it’s a necessary part of the gig, and frankly, I – a fairly shy person who’s extremely suited to a self-directed solo job – enjoy it to a surprising…

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  • We love your books, don't write any more.

    Posted Monday May 18th 2009
    by Patrick Ness

    You might have noticed that there’s been a bit longer of a time lag between this entry and last, for which my most effusive apologies. The cause is one of those things that you don’t dare complain about for fear of it never happening again, but is actually an issue for writers: all the wonderful fruits that publishing brings start to take up rather a lot of time.

    I have a good friend who’s a very successful author (far more so than me), and he warned me early on with my first published book:  'The second you publish a book, you’ll find you have absolutely no time to write any more.'

    I laughed, thinking he was saying it from a point of view of success which I’d never reach.

    Well, I haven’t reached it, but it turns out he was right anyway. In a big way.

    I want to stress right here, right now that THIS IS NOT A COMPLAINT! Truthfully, if it was, it would be like saying, 'My wallet gets so heavy with all this money ...' and you could rightfully chuck me out a window (or to use the proper vocabulary: defenestrate me – sounds dirty, but…

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  • The day it comes out.

    Posted Tuesday May 5th 2009
    by Patrick Ness

    Yesterday was the official publication date for my new book, The Ask and the Answer. A big, big day, but an oddly quiet one.

    I started writing it almost two years ago, taking a year to get it into shape and then another year through the editing and publishing process. There are, as you might imagine, a couple dozen milestones along the way, each of which feels pretty good: Finishing the first draft, finishing the final draft (many months later), getting a cover designed, finding out the number of pages (which, to me, is an item of unseemly curiosity; I’m always dying to know).

    And, the best day for me, holding a final hardcover in my hands. This is the day I really feel like an author. Nothing can beat holding a final, published book in your hands, every word of which has been written by you. There it is, an inarguable, concrete fact, with heft and weight and physical presence.

    Books to me are more than just things to read anyway; I love books, as I’ve written about before, for the feeling of the pages, the design of the cover, the fonts, the board under the sleeve. I…

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