The Doctor and his companions

I have just begun reading the fanthology A Target for Tommy, written by friends of Tommy Donbavand’s as a way of raising funds for him, edited by Paul Magrs and Stuart Douglas. It is quite interesting, since fan fiction is often written badly – if enthusiastically – by non-writer fans. Here we have professional writers who are also fans, writing their own fan fiction, and that is a completely different kettle of fish.

What I hadn’t done before grabbing the book, though, was to consider how much I don’t know. Barry Hutchison has a fun story early on, featuring Donna and, I presume, David Tennant. So that was fine, and I could picture them in my mind.

And then I moved on to older Doctors and their companions, and whereas many of them have been mentioned over the years, I don’t know them. Sarah Jane, obviously, but not really the others. This will be a long learning process. I am missing something like forty years of Doctor Who and his companions, and Wikipedia wasn’t as immediately forthcoming as I had hoped.

At least this way I get to see what went on inside the minds of companions, and you realise how different one Doctor is from another, despite being mostly the same. Luckily K-9 is pretty much K-9.

Highly recommended for fans of the Doctor. Or should I say for fans of the companions?

I’m guessing a lot of writers have been dying to have a go at this kind of fan fiction writing, and it’s not as if it’s all that strange either, what with there having been so many different writers involved over the years. It was never just one; either Doctor or companion or writer.

The Amnesty readings

If you feel up to the gruesome nature of what some people do to other people, you should go along to one or more of the Amnesty International readings in Charlotte Square. They are free, and they are good, but they could make you cry, as happened to one of the authors reading the other night. But then, if the people who need Amnesty’s help can put up with what’s being done to them, I reckon we can.

I’ve been to two readings this week. The first one had Dreams of Freedom as its theme, and it is also the title of a book published in association with Amnesty. It has short quotes from well known people who have been wrongly imprisoned, and it has been illustrated by famous artists, including Oliver Jeffers and Chris Riddell.

On Wednesday the authors who read to us were Dub Leffler, Debi Gliori, Michel Faber and D D Everest. They are all different people, but they all read very well, and talked about their pieces in a way to make me want to read more. To do more.

Wednesday’s writers were Nelson Mandela, Malala Yousafzai, Aung San Suu Kyi and Tenzin Gyatso (Dalai Lama). It’s easy to think we know it all, but we don’t. We need to hear more of what’s being done to people.

On Thursday the authors were Paul Magrs, Teri Terry, Priya Parmar and Cecilia Ekbäck. The pieces they read were all excedingly short, but no less powerful. The writers were Alicia Partnoy, Liao Yiwu, Enoh Meyomesse and Stephanie Ndoungo, and what strikes you again and again is how normal their behaviour has been, and still they end up incarcerated.

Amnesty in Edinburgh are asking people to sign a petition to free Atena Farghadani, who is an Iranian artist, punished for posting a cartoon on Facebook, and sentenced to 14 years. When she shook the hand of her male lawyer, they were both accused of indecent conduct. To sign you can text ATENA and your own FIRST and LAST name to 70505.

‘Freedom to feel safe.’

Sci-fi v fantasy

Yes, what’s the difference? That was one question at the event with Roy Gill and Paul Magrs yesterday. According to Paul sci-fi is something that could happen, given certain technical circumstances, while fantasy just couldn’t.

I have never seen the Imagination Lab so full before. They had to keep carry in more chairs for people to sit on. I’d been hoping to learn how on earth you should pronounce the name Magrs, and from what my elderly ears picked up, it sounded rather like the title of Paul’s book, Lost on Mars. So, Mars by Magrs.

Paul was there to talk about his Space Opera, set on Mars (and no, it couldn’t be moved to Venus just because the publisher already had one Martian book on the go). He’d been inspired by Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie books, as well as by Ray Bradbury’s sci-fi.

Apparently many authors treat writing like going to school, although I’ve never heard this before. So Paul started writing Lost on Mars on September 1st and sat at his kitchen table with his newly sharpened pencils until before Christmas, occasionally standing up.

Roy conveniently dreamed the Daemon Parallel. He’s someone who puts his ideas in a notebook, and this sat there for several years until he got desperate. The dream gave him the weird grandma, and to make her truly odd he decided she was going to want to bring her son back from the dead.

As the chair for the evening said, the two books seem quite different, but actually have a lot in common, like the grandmas. She asked them if the main characters could have been a different age than Paul and Roy made them, but they felt not. There is something about that age where they are old enough to be able to do what they need to do, but also young enough that they don’t act like adults.

According to his old diaries, Paul has wanted to be a writer since he was ten. When his school was closed due to snow, he spent the mornings writing a novel, and the afternoons writing Doctor Who episodes.

Writing was a less obvious choice for Roy, who didn’t really get it until he was about thirty. His PhD supevisor pointed out his writing was so good ‘you can get away with very little content.’

Paul read chapter five, which is where the grandma in his story has to have her artificial leg seen to. It almost seemed creepier than when reading it in the book. Roy read the meeting between the teenagers and the weird lawyer from Werewolf Parallel, and I’m not even going to mention the odd chin. (I didn’t mention it!) His daemons are all very random, and the Jenners episode stems from him getting lost in this posh shop as a small boy.

When they were young(er) Paul read and liked Doctor Who. Roy liked Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising, and he’s a big fan of Diana Wynne Jones. Paul, on the other hand, was quite old when he discovered these books. And I didn’t totally grasp his tale of exchanging letters in verse with some dinner ladies…

But it’s all fine, and I made it out nice and early to have my copy of Lost on Mars signed. My Daemons had already been done.

Lost on Mars

I have never been this fond of a sunbed ever before. And I just know that either something bad will happen to Toaster, or he will be turned rogue.

The story of Lost on Mars could be straight out of Doctor Who, without the Doctor. This is not so strange, really, as Paul Magrs has written some Whovian books as well. The first in a trilogy, Lost on Mars left me feeling very scared, but determined to find out what happens next. I’m quite certain I know more than Lora, the main character, even though she’s excellent heroine material. And that makes me more scared still.

Life on Mars is harsh, and we meet third generation Lora and her family – and Toaster – as they try to survive as settlers on the Martian prairie. The setting is very American West, and mixed with the science fiction aspect of space travel it also reminded me of Chaos Walking.

When too many people have Disappeared, and Lora suspects the Martians (yes, they exist) will come for her and the others as well, she takes her family on a journey to find somewhere new and safer to live. She’s only 14, but she shoulders her duties like an adult.

The travelling is hard, and often bad, but arriving is worse. What is the City Inside? There is no way you can guess the direction this will go. I simply hope for good after the bad.

The Ninnies

It’s gross. There is no other word for it. Well, nightmarish, perhaps. The kind of stuff you see at night and hope will be gone when you wake up.

And I wonder if Paul Magrs could possibly have imagined how we’d be talking about our food in 2013, when he came up with the idea for The Ninnies, or even when his book was published last year?

I’ll give you one clue. It’s not horse. But you will go off your food.

When I began reading this (as an ebook) I had no idea where it was set. I only realised it was close to home, reading about the ‘crisps’ and the crisp factory as my train sped past the very place. It mainly happens in ‘the Stockport Road’ and this is not a good reflection on that town.

So, you witness some outlandish creatures grabbing your dad and driving off with him. Your pregnant mum thinks the two of you have been abandoned. You have weird neighbours and you meet an unusual girl who introduces you to some very moreish crisps.

People are going missing all over the place. Those neighbours know something. Your new friend is happy for an adventure looking into these disappearances. And what’s going on at the zoo?

It’s yuck everywhere, but this will probably appeal to non-crisp-eating boys, and maybe girls. Described as a YA fantasy, it is quite realistic. Really. Apart from the fantastical elements, which are no longer as far-fetched as they were.

If you think I’m skirting around the whole issue, you are correct. There is only so much I can subject you to.

Writing for children

I can’t believe it’s almost five years since my Arvon course. It was one of those things I very much wanted to do, but felt I couldn’t use up funds while there was no money coming in. But I felt it so very strongly that in the end I signed up anyway, when there was just the one place left at Lumb Bank.

Of course, I didn’t do writing for children. Mine was a sort of non-fiction, general course, which suited me just fine. I see that in this year’s programme they have something for people wanting to get started on blogs and other online writing.

In 2007 I think they offered one, possibly two, weeks for hopeful children’s writers. This year I was impressed to see they do four, and that’s before I discovered it’s actually six weeks. Three of writing for children, two for young adults and one for young people. That’s a lot. It must be due to popular demand, and why wouldn’t people want to come and spend a week in the company of real children’s authors tutoring a group of likeminded budding writers?

I heard about Arvon when Caroline Lawrence reported on having just taught at one of their centres. And I believe she had previously done one of their courses herself. That seems to be the way it is. Lots of current authors have been, and many are now taking up tutoring as the next step.

Just look at who you could rub shoulders with in a kitchen in some beautiful countryside setting; Julia Golding and Marcus Sedgwick, with Mary Hoffman as the midweek special. Or there’s Malachy Doyle and Polly Dunbar, with guest star Anthony Browne. It’s not everywhere you get to hobnob with Children’s Laureates, ex- or otherwise. The two MBs, Malorie Blackman and Melvin Burgess, with Aussie special Simmone Howell. Now that one would be really interesting!

You could have Joan Lennon and Paul Magrs, with yet another Laureate, Julia Donaldson. Martyn Bedford with Celia Rees, and Bali Rai doing the star turn. And finally Gillian Cross and Steve Voake, with guest dramatist Christopher William Hill.

If laureates are your thing, there is always the hope of a week with Carol Ann Duffy, but then you really have to be good. At poetry, I mean. That one is decided on the quality of your poems. Which is not going to be me.

Plus any other kind of writing. All with people who know their stuff. It isn’t cheap, but there are schemes for financial assistance. No internet, and you have to cook your own dinner in groups, so better hope for budding writers who can peel potatoes.

(We had our own laureate connection – on wall, above – during my week. That’s as well as the house having belonged to a former Poet Laureate.)