FAQ FRIDAY #1: Why (and how) did you become a children's author?

Because, well, erm...what else was I going to do?

Hello. Happy Friday! I hope you’ve had a brilliant week so far.

This is the first post in my FAQ Friday series, in which, every Friday – what a coincidence! – I’ll be posting my answer to one of the questions that I am frequently asked. These are the questions asked by kids, teachers and librarians when I visit schools, and by fellow humans generally when they find out that I’m a children’s author.

Today’s question is one that I’m asked more frequently than almost any other, with the exception of ‘Where do you get your ideas from?’ and, perhaps, ‘Are you rich?’ (which is invariably asked by kids who are contemplating careers as YouTubers and, prudently, just want to make sure that they don’t have a better option, earnings-wise).

And that question is ‘Why (and how) did you become an author?’.

Now, if I’m going to answer this honestly – honesty being the core point of my Substack – I’m going to have to give you more than my simple, stock answer, which is: ‘Because I love books (and by writing them)!’. That answer is truthful, but every children’s author would likely say the same, so it tells you very little that’s specific to me. Yet, fear not: I have a long (really long), awfully honest answer.

So, here it is, in timeline-form, starting at the very beginning of my journey:

October, 1988: To my surprise, I am pulled out of a woman I subsequently learn is my mother, a little bit yellow, fairly anxious and utterly useless. I have no idea what to do with my life. I cry.

Summer, 1995:  A little less yellow, and bored in my bedroom, I try to hurdle a folding-chair. I fail, and break my wrist. Embarrassed, I explain to my parents that I stood on the chair to reach a high-shelf and I fell when it folded up on me. They believe me (obviously). I go to an event at Chichester library, where Ronda Armitage draws and colours the ginger cat from The Lighthouse Keeper series on my cast. After my cast comes off, I keep it for years, and every so often – for some reason – smell it. I recoil every time. 

1999: We study metaphors in English. I pen a poem in which I write, ‘nothing blossoms on the Tree of Hope.’ It is accompanied by my depressing drawing of a barren tree, which I hope will really hammer home my message. No investigation is launched into my mental health (probably because I’m an obviously happy, healthy sprog). Instead, my school sends me on a poetry course, because, I assume, they see great potential in me and my writing. It occurs to me twenty-five years later that the real reason may be because they thought my poetry was pathetic, and they could do no more to help me.

2003 – 2005: I write a ‘newspaper’ full of ridiculous and fictitious articles about, and to entertain, my mates. I call it ‘Friends Forever’. Fortunately, they find it amusing, and none of them abandon me.

c.2004: After impressing her YET AGAIN with something I’ve written, my lovely English teacher stops me in a corridor during lunch break to tell me that I should consider writing as a career. This may be a hint to organise something related to writing for Year 10 Work Experience. I thank her for her praise and advice, then rush off to play football on the field without giving it another thought.

Summer, 2004: No longer yellow, but increasingly anxious, and with no idea what to do with my life, the prospect of Work Experience looms over me. Eventually, I opt for a week at the school where my mum is a teacher. I learn that 10-year-olds have no qualms about telling me to fuck off. I spend the second week ‘working’ at Arundel Castle Cricket Foundation, alongside a few friends. This is perfectly timed to coincide with a match between the M.C.C. and the touring West Indies. We carry the players’ kit bags from the coach to the pavilion, practise our cricket in the indoor nets, and operate the mini score board whilst eating chips from one of the hospitality vans. It is a four-day week for us, as we take a day off in order to play in and win our school’s County Cup Final. I enjoy myself thoroughly, and learn nothing about the world of work.

2007: I can’t remember how, but I weasel out of Year 12 Work Experience – because I have no idea what to do with my life.

2007 – 2008: After finishing my A-Levels, I take a gap year and find employment at an ASK Italian restaurant, where I start to learn about the world of work and that many members of the general public are exceptionally rude. After six months of saving up, I get on a plane to escape them. I write a private journal and a public blog whilst travelling around India, Nepal, Australia and New Zealand, before heading to Exeter Uni to study History.

2008 – 2011: I study hard, don’t socialise enough, attain a First, and have no idea what I want to do with my life. Like many of my fellow history graduates, I apply to do the law conversion course. Unlike many of my fellow history graduates, I pull out immediately before it begins – because although I have no idea what to do with my life, I know that I’d rather have no idea what to do with my life than spend my life doing law. I decide I might want to give teaching a go, because, seven years earlier, I quite enjoyed being told by kids to fuck off. My decision is made too late to apply for that academic year. My parents are really pleased with me and my life choices.

2011 – 2012: My unintended second gap-year. I put my history degree to good use working as a barman in a country pub, where the owner repeatedly calls me Andy. In return, I repeatedly call him Giles. His actual name is Charles. Giles is the owner of the pub down the road. Somehow, I remain employed.

Ahead of applying to study teaching, I boost my CV by gaining qualifications in coaching football and cricket. I use my creative writing skills to document in great detail the practical sessions I am meant to have completed but haven’t. I also volunteer once or twice a week at my old primary school. This time, the children don’t swear at me; instead, I swear at the children (accidentally) after I make a mistake. Luckily, I’m able to blame it on them.* They get caned by the headteacher.**

* I’m not, and I don’t.

** This is also not true.

Autumn, 2012: I embark upon my PGCE, during which I learn that it’s wrong to swear in front of children. Ahead of our first, eight-week placement, everyone is desperate to avoid being placed on the Isle of Wight. I get placed on the Isle of Wight. The school is small, with mixed year groups, in a particularly deprived village. The teaching staff are lovely, but exhausted. The children are (generally) lovely, but exhausting. I do very little teaching.

Along with Dan, another trainee teacher, I lodge Monday to Friday in the attic of a family house in Ryde. We feel fairly unwelcome, and confined to our rooms: when we need to use the kitchen, we do so AS QUICKLY AND AS QUIETLY AS POSSIBLE.

Each Friday, we vacate the attic, pack up the car in the morning, travel to school, spend the day in a state of shock until home time, then catch the ferry back to Portsmouth. On Sundays, I pack up the car in the early afternoon, drive to Portsmouth, pick up Dan, catch the ferry, travel to the house, and re-inhabit the attic. There are certain days I don’t mind during this 8-week period, but I come to quite dislike Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays.

Thankfully, teacher training rekindles my love of children’s literature. Our English tutor at university reads us a picture book at the start of every session. Oliver Jeffers’s The Heart and the Bottle moves me, and Mo Willems’s Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus makes me laugh.

Spring term, 2013: During a new placement, I fall in love with the school I’m in: lovely kids, excellent staff, and an incredible, inspiring headteacher, James. I ask James whether he’ll have me for my final 12-week placement. He agrees.

I begin my placement, assigned to Year 3/4. By now, I’m on my way to becoming a teacher… and a total wreck! I have insomnia, a severe case of imposter syndrome, and ever-increasing anxiety. I know that I’m out of my depth, will never be cut out for teaching, and start to become plagued by an all-too-familiar feeling that – you’ve guessed it – I have no idea what to do with my life. I plough on with applying for jobs, regardless.

A maternity-cover position comes up – at the school of my placement, in the exact class that I’m teaching. I apply for it, somehow nail the interview and teaching session, and am awarded the job.

A week or two later, I have a full mental breakdown. I call in sick to school – a wise decision, as the idea of pulling out into the oncoming traffic of the dual-carriageway I have to cross on my commute has entered my mind increasingly frequently in recent times – and spend the next four days with my head in my hands, literally pulling my hair out, wondering how I’m going to escape how I’m feeling. My GP signs me off for two weeks with depression and anxiety, and I start medication and do a bit of CBT. The medication helps a bit. The CBT makes me feel even more pathetic.

Feeling marginally better, but knowing deep down that there’s no chance I’ll finish my PGCE, I return to school, where, with A LOT of support and kindness from James and other staff, I just about make it through another couple of weeks. Then, during a lesson observation (which I later learn would have been graded ‘Good with outstanding features’) I can’t shake the feeling that it’s an unmitigated disaster, that everyone knows I’m a fraud who’s out of my depth and drowning. Spiralling into panic, I rush out of the classroom. Not knowing where else to go, I head to James’s office, where, mortified, I sob uncontrollably. He remains patient and kind, and although he doesn’t show it in the moment, I just know he’s delighted that I’ll be on the official payroll for the next academic year.

My name does not make it onto the official payroll for the next academic year. With six weeks of placement left, and after a run-in with a particularly uncooperative photocopier AND Ofsted, I realise that I might not want to give teaching a go, so quit.

Feeling very yellow, very anxious and very useless once again, I have no idea what to do with my life. I cry. A lot.

June, 2013: Whilst recovering, and trying to think of something I can do with my life, I begin to write. It’s fun. It’s healing. It makes me feel a little bit more like myself again. Out of somewhere (my muddled brain, I suppose) comes a rhyming story about a lonely troll. I send it to a beloved aunt – my beloved aunt – who knows a bit about writing, and ask her if it’s any good. I’m encouraged when she tells me it isn’t shit, even though it’s shit.

She also tells me:

• to read a TON of books of the sort I think I want to write, and make notes on them.

• to identify authors I like and admire, and visit their websites for their advice for authors.

• that assessing writing is subjective, and writers face constant rejection.

• that writers by default are full of self-doubt, but need to believe in themselves enough to keep trying no matter what.

I still possess the entrance code to the university library, and head straight there to attack the kids’…         book section. I haul as many as I can off the shelves and begin to type out their texts so that I have a record of them to refer back to. The more picture books I read, the more I believe, ‘I could write these’.

I think I finally have an idea of what to do with my life.

July, 2013: I begin to submit my work to agents. My search for an agent goes incredibly well – until I get my first response from one. They do not want to work with me.

August, 2013: I am a functioning human once more, and get a job as a barman at Brasserie Blanc. I am repeatedly called Simon. Not once am I called Andy.

August – October, 2013: I read more books. I write more stories. I send them off to agents. I receive further rejections, but encouraging ones.

16 October, 2013: I have the following exchange on Twitter:

I follow the submission instructions TO. THE. LETTER. I receive a reply from Sallyanne HALF-AN-HOUR later, saying that she likes my style, I made her laugh, and that she’ll have a proper read and be in touch the following day.

The following day, Sallyanne gets in touch. We arrange a meeting for 28^th October 2013.

28^th October, 2013: The meeting with Sallyanne goes well. We agree to work together. Suddenly, I have an agent. I am a writer! I am a barman! I am a living cliché!

November, 2013: Sallyanne submits my texts to publishers. At work, I respond to any questions from colleagues with, ‘Speak to my agent about it.’

April, 2014: I receive my first EVER offer from a publisher (Simon & Schuster) for I Don’t Know What to Call My Cat!

August, 2014: I sign the contract, followed by a second a few months later for You Must Bring a Hat.

August, 2014 – June, 2016: I twiddle my thumbs whilst I wait for my first book to be published.

30^th June, 2016: You Must Bring a Hat is released. I am a published author!

So, there we have it. I finally discovered that writing is what I want to do with my life. The only question now is whether writing is what I should continue to do with my life. But that’s a topic for a different post.

If you’ve read this far – thank you. That really was a looonnnnnnng answer! But I told you it would be. I’m awfully honest like that.

Simon x

P.S.

In case you’re interested, next week I’ll be answering: ‘How do you handle moments when inspiration seems hard to find?’

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