• Wither by Lauren DeStafano (I’ve already greedied this one up, first of a trilogy in which women die at 20 and boys at 25)
• Once a Witch by Carolyn MacCullough (Tamsin should be a powerful witch but appears to have no magic at all)
• Princess of the Midnight Ball by Jessica Day George (re-imagining of the 12 Dancing Princesses)
• Brideshead Revisted by Evelyn Waugh (I’ve never read Brideshead, shocking – I know)

But that’s not all of it. More oblongs are eagerly expected including:

• Wired by Robin Wasserman
• Crashed by Robin Wasserman (both are sequels to Skinned, which is awesome)
• Trickster’s Choice by Tamora Pierce
• Trickster’s Queen by Tamora Pierce (more in the Tortall universe in which I already have 3 other series about Alanna, Daine and Keladry respectively)

It’s not as though I’ve finished my “to read” pile which is actually more of a “to read” shelf nowadays. I think I’m going to have to have another clear out, always painful, to fit the new stuff in. And now I’m going to have to get the sequels to Wither as well. I am being sucked into a vortex of books.

Morpurgo’s stepfather, an academic, believed her too superficial and, consequently, not good for him.
“But he was wrong,” says Morpurgo. “Her books were terrific page-turners in the way no others were. I had all sorts put into my hands when I was very little – I was offered Dickens at eight – that were not suitable for boys my age at all. But with Enid Blyton, I found I could actually get into the story, and finish it. They moved fast, almost as fast as comics, and there was satisfaction to be had on every single page. Were they great literature? Of course not. But they didn’t need to be.”

This comment from Morpurgo, in the Guardian, gives me deja vu. It seems as though only a couple of weeks ago I had at this question from the other side when I said that I found Dickens very readable as a child. I also read Brave New World at eight abd although I’m sure I missed nuances I understood it.

But Enid Blyton? The only appeal was that I’d been banned from reading her. My mother, author Mary Hoffman, didn’t think much of Blyton and wouldn’t have her writing in the house. But friends had it and the school library was full of the stuff so I naturally had to see what was being forbidden. I read the Faraway Tree (limp fantasy) and several the …of Adventure series: as in Island of Adventure, Castle of Adventure, etc. But they were clearly formulaic. One child loves animals and keeps ferrets down his trousers and owls in his hat which may or may not usefully save the day if a sudden need for ferrets or owls arises. I can’t remember much more than that -except that wherever the Location of Adventure was there were always caves involved.

My mother was also anti reading scheme books and from what I hear from a friend with primary school aged children those haven’t changed much either. I think even the Village with Three Corners is still kicking around in school libraries. Who else remembers Billy Blue Hat and Roger Red Hat? And did they seriously introduce a white turbanned character later on?

25 years on (oh dear lord I am old) I still endorse the Enid Blyton ban. I’ll go further and say that formulaic lumpen children’s fiction is like junk food. You can read it, you can enjoy it, but it’s lacking essential elements of literary nutrition. Take the Rainbow Fairies series. Yes, I know little girls love them. And, no, that is not enough for me to spare them my ire. Their appeal is a mixture of peer pressure and completism. And perhaps curiosity: why is there one fairy (Gertrude?) for Gerbils while another takes on all the rest of the small rodents.

I agree with Morpurgo and disagree with Gove, that demanding children read “good” literature is a sure way to turn them off the stuff. That said, a list of 50 great books sounds like a better thing to have forced on you than Messers Blue Hat and Red Hat. Despite reading fluently my junior school wouldn’t allow me to pass on to “free reading” until I had had every single reading scheme book ticked off in my reading book. A Herculean feat when the whole school was reading their way through the things (out of order) and some simply didn’t seem to exist.

Ultimately “free reading” is the goal. You should read what you want to read. No matter who calls it dross. (Including me.) Read Harry Potter and Twilight. Read Enid Blyton and the Rainbow Fairy books. Read banned books like Forever and Speak. Read The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer (which kids at my school passed around like Lady Chatterly’s Lover to avoid parental bans). Read Huysman’s A Rebours (the book that corrupted Dorian Grey). Read Gove’s list of 50 books (if he comes up with one) and all the other lists of books to read before you die. This is how you develop a critical faculty: by reading books until you know which ones you think are good and bad and, more importantly, why you think so.

There’s still no Enid Blyton in my house. But I wouldn’t bother to ban it. Why give it the allure of the forbidden? The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin – there’s a novel to avoid, you’re probably not ready for it, it’s not all that great anyway, I’ll just put it on this high shelf out of your reach and leave the room…

Rhiannon (the author) replies:

Dear Rhiannon (what a lovely name!

Like you, I enjoy poetry and I won a poetry competition when I was 13 and it was one of the things that made me think about writing seriously. Congratulations on having your poem published!

There are lots of different ways to become a writer. The best way to get started is to read a lot and to write a lot. Let your imagination take you to extraordinary places and then work on writing them down so that they’re as real to other people as they are to you. Think about what you’re reading and what you’re writing. Think about what makes a character or a place exciting, interesting and worth discovering more about. Think about the kind of story you and your friends enjoy reading and talk to your friends about your ideas. Maybe you could join a book group or a writers group to share your ideas with other people.

I keep an ideas file (both electronically and in hard copy) where I write down my ideas for books. I also have a lot of notebooks so I can sketch out ideas and plans and notes. I often have lots of different stories in my head, on paper and in electronic text. You can refer back to your notes, keep different projects in different folders or notebooks and pick up and put down different ideas as you go. Don’t be afraid to put down an idea if it seems to go dead in your head. You’ll have lots of false starts and lots of ideas that you can’t yet see how to develop. As long as you’re enjoying writing and inventing stories, keep going, eventually you should find the seed of an idea which you can develop into a novel.

NaNoWriMo is a community project to help people write a lot of words. Novels tend to be 60,000+ words so you need to be able to sustain a story across a lot of words. But the more you write the better at it you’ll become. Once you’ve learned how to write multiple chapters you can hone your writing to ensure it’s expressing and achieving what you want it to.

Good luck with becoming a writer and with your poetry. Poetry is an art of its own and perhaps you’ll find a way to use your poetry in writing fiction.

I’m thinking of quitting my job and spending a year writing a book. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do. Should I follow my dream?”

Rhiannon says: Don’t quit your job! 60% of professional authors don’t make enough to support themselves on their writing income alone. Start by working on your book in evenings and weekends, set aside time to write it and get a copy of the Writers and Artists Yearbook for lists of professional contacts and submission advice. If you get a good response from agents consider approaching your employer about going part time.
Following your dream is much more possible when your bills are paid. It’s hard to manufacture inspiration when you’re fretting about the rent cheque.

I want to write a book about a vampire family in New Orleans or a game in which teenagers compete to the death.

Rhiannon says: Let me stop you there. It’s really important to know the market. Every genre of fiction has classics and current top sellers. Make a note of them. You want to write something that appeals to the same audience as these books – but don’t end up rewriting them. Even if you came across the idea independently, if it’s like something else that already exists you need to find a radical new twist or route into that kind of story to persuade a publisher to buy a book that’s too like an existing title.

Do you think it is a good or a bad idea to take real life events and people and put them in your writing?

Rhiannon says: That depends on how you use them. I’ve drawn on real life events in my writing, for example the first time I had really bad vertigo. But events and situations that involve other people can be tricky. There are events that occur in most people’s lives from the first day of school to the first really bad breakup. Drawing on your own experience adds depth to these events but if you find yourself retelling a real life situation or putting someone you know into a book stop and consider if you want to write this kind of autobiographical fiction. It exposes you – especially if one of your characters becomes a thinly veiled authorial self-insertion. Do you want to be judged on your witty/truthful/insightful retelling or real life or on your creation of situations characters who you invent who you hope will feel real to the reader. What kind of author do you want to be?

You can buy VOID from Amazon.com for just $9.99 (the equivalent of £6.40). If you buy a copy please take the time to leave a review on the Amazon.com review page.

It’s an omnibus of all three Hex titles with a brand new dedication. If you sailed on the SS RHI you’ll want a copy of VOID. There’s one small textual change – an interesting one – which I’ll write more about later.

And there’s film interest. So now’s the time to boost the signal and help the books find their new audience.

Read more about VOID on its book page on my website. Or visit the Hex trilogy page for extra content including downloads, game characters and videos.

What have you been reading recently?
Rhiannon: More Steph Swainston: The Modern World and Above the Snowline.

What have you been writing recently?
Rhiannon: Nothing significant but thoughts are percolating.

What else have you been doing?
Rhiannon: I attended an inspirational and thought-provoking conference: Women + Leadership, hosted by Oxford Brookes University. I’ve also been revising my school visits and preparing a new set of creative writing workshops.

What would you like to ask your readers today?
Rhiannon: What would you like a writer’s workshop to include?

What have you been reading recently?
Rhiannon replies: I’ve just finished two novels by Steph Swainston: In The Year of Our War and No Present Like Time. They’re urban fantasy – a sort of cross between Joan D. Vinge’s Catspaw and Steven Brust’s Taltos series. I acquired them at a friendly bookswap and liked them so much I’ve just ordered the next two from Amazon. I’ve also read a detective story Why Shoot a Butler by Georgette Heyer, a YA novel The Devil you Know by Leonie Norrington (which I’ll be reviewing for Armadillo) and Seaworld, real world fiction by Ursula Le Guin.

What have you been writing recently?
Rhiannon replies: I’m still working on SPIN, but haven’t written words because I was in a field without computers over the August bank holiday.

Why were you in a field?
Rhiannon replies: I was at the Reading Festival – listening to bands and dodging rain showers.

Thomas asks: What inspires you?
Rhiannon replies: Unusual situations. They inspire me to come up with stories about them. Children in unusual situations are an example of this. Celebrity children, gifted children, independent children. But I’m inspired by everywhere I go and whatever I do. Recently at the Reading Festival I wondered if I wanted to write a novel about a music festival in space and sketched out the first chapter in my head.

Sarah asks: How do you get into the right frame of mind for what you’re writing?
Rhiannon replies: Reading books in the right sort of area helps… as long as they are not too close to my own ideas. Listening to music is sometimes helpful. The weather is also surprisingly relevant. I find it difficult to write about frozen winters on a hot sunny day and vice versa.

Sarah asks: Which is harder: plot or characterisation?
Rhiannon replies: I don’t find either more difficult than the other. There are different challenges. Plots come quickly for me because my head is stuffed with ideas. Characterisation sometimes comes more slowly as I get to know a character. But later on in the book I have to do a lot of work on making a plot work out the way it should, while characterisation gets easier as I go on.

Sarah asks: Have you ever been tempted to write something that stars your cat?
Rhiannon replies: No. Recently I was reading Palace Without Chairs in which a (fictional) writer character says that to write about a fictional cat would feel untrue to his own real cat. For me, while I can write happily about fictional cats (Rameses in Ghost of a Chance for example) I wouldn’t want to write about my own cat.

Thomas asks: What age did you start writing? And what was your first ever story?
Rhiannon replies: I started writing at 7. My story began like this “The night the old priestess died the soldjers souljers soljars solljeers solders ….” until I gave up in frustration.

I’ve been collecting Draegaera books since the 1990s and had almost a complete matching set. Unfortunately the cover design has changed with this latest book and I will have to resign myself to non-matching editions from here on. One reason I didn’t get this book last year was that I was waiting for the paperback. For a time I bought the hardbacks as they came out but I’m trying to fit more books on my shelves and hardbacks take up too much space. Another reason is that I feel this series has severely dropped off in quality. From the puff quote on the back, Cory Doctorow disagrees with me to the extent that I wonder if he was reading a different book.

The problem is that the early books in the series were so very good. In Taltos we met Vlad Taltos, a human assassin working the mean streets of Adrilankha who gets mixed up with the high nobility of Draegaera. In Jhereg we found out more about Vlad’s job and the complicated politics of assassinations. In Yendi we learned about the twisting turning machinations of politicians and sorcerers. In Teckla the scope of the plot expanded to urban unrest and Vlad’s marital troubles. Since then we have followed Vlad through plots involving the highest people in the land, the Enchantress of Dzur Mountain, the Empress, the Gods and other beings who oppose the Gods. Vlad now has a price on his head and a Great Weapon on his belt.

Vlad is no longer the insouciant assassin and sarcastic courtier with no responsibilities and a knack for trouble I first admired. He’s grimmer, glummer, carries the weight of the world on his shoulders and seems to have lost interest in narrating his own adventures. Once he investigated dodgy happenings, created complex spells of courcery and witchcraft, matched wits with his betters and hatched plots of his own. Now the events of his life, world-shaking as they are, have been rendered much more mundane. In Dzur he went out to dinner and annoyed various people. In Jhegaala he tried to find some relations, failed, and annoyed various people along the way.

Now in Iorich, his friend Aliera is in prison for something everyone knows she is guilty of but is almost certainly not the real reason for her arrest. It takes Vlad almost the entire book to establish that this is the case and that although his various noble friends feel sick about it no one is doing anything about it for political reasons. Vlad wanders around Adrilankha easily avoiding the hundreds of people who have cause to wish him ill dead. He drops in on his old friends and makes sarcastic comments. He spends two days following someone and then realises this isn’t a good use of his time and stops. Eventually he comes up with a plan and invites various important people to be involved (their unexciting roles are basically to keep various other people busy at the critical time) but the critical details are not narrated. This is a far cry from the excitement of Jhereg in which Vlad had to ask everyone he knew for help, explained all the details and even then the reader wasn’t sure if it would work.

In Iorich there’s never a sense of danger. Even when Vlad gets beaten up it’s not as exciting as when he was beaten up in Yendi because he doesn’t know why, doesn’t care about it and his life isn’t in danger. If his life had been in danger he could have easily escaped by drawing his sword: one of the 17 Great Weapons which can destroy souls, save you from having your own soul eaten, slay Gods and kill other beings even more powerful than Gods. Despite all these advantages, Vlad isn’t totally happy with his sword because he’d like to have a conversation with it and doesn’t know how. (I can think of at least 5 characters who could teach him how but this option doesn’t appear to have occurred to Vlad.)

The life seems to have gone out of this series. Even the dialogue is flat where once it was sparkling. It may be deeply significant, especially if you’ve read the other books in the series and can guess what some of the people Vlad speaks to are feeling and thinking. But it’s not lively, doesn’t further the plot and doesn’t seem to get Vlad or the reader anywhere. Vlad barely bothers with the Iorich advocate he has hired and when he does he doesn’t say much of significance because he’s wary of the advocate witnessing against him. This does not make for a thrilling plot.

Eventually someone is conveniently stabbed and all the politics get sorted out – at least enough to accomplish the main purpose of Vlad’s mission, although no one is precisely elated about it. Job done. Another Taltos story completed.

These novels are my addiction. I can’t help caring about Vlad, about his ex-wife Cawti, the Enchantress of Dzur Mountain, Kiera the thief, Kragar the Jhereg boss, Daymar the Hawklord, Aliera and her cousin Morrolan, and the host of characters who have passed through the pages of the series so far. I’d have lied to meet The Demon again (who isn’t a Demon) and the Necromancer (who is) and the Demon Goddess Vera (opinions vary) – although I wouldn’t cross the street to meet Telnan after spending far too many hours in his company in Dzur.

But where were these people in Iorich? They all seemed to be drinking wine or eating cheese or off somewhere with Sir Not Appearing in This Book. Where was Mario? Since he’s every inch an assassin and turned up in the last book when we weren’t looking for him and weren’t bothered about him, why wasn’t he in this one when his lover was in danger of execution? What about Khaavren who is expected to show up in the next book, might he be interested in a political conspiracy? Isn’t his job to unravel this kind of stuff? For that matter where are the villains who spent the entire book off stage being sneaky behind the scene?

It’s not too late for this series to pick up again. After all, there are still a number of books to go. But we need to see Vlad fighting for something, or against something, or doing something more than just existing and fretting about his problems. Pull up your socks, Vlad, draw your Great Weapon and do something!

This is the current tally of things I can do while reading:

• Have a bath
• Do the washing up
• Walk along a street (remembering to pause and look at roads)
• Cook dinner
• Weed the patio
• Knitting

What can you do while simultaneously reading a book?

I follow several different advice sites and “Ask InsertNameHere” columns, most of which have forum systems for giving your own advice. Often when I should be writing I spend my time explaining to strangers on the internet how they should act around cranky relations, annoying colleagues and other people’s children. But although I do occasionally post under the category advice for writers on my blog, I’m never quite sure that it’s the right thing to do.

One reason is that very few people ever take my advice. I can’t tell you how many times a friend or friend-of-a-friend has asked me for advice on getting published only to ignore everything I’ve suggested. (The most often ignored advice is: “Don’t write a 100,000 word novel and then submit it. Submit a 15,000 word draft and see if anyone actually *wants* more.”) Nowadays I save my professional advice for my writers group, who are tough enough to cope with the occasional scathing critique (“someone hit by three crossbow bolts would not shake it off easily”), and for the teenagers who ask questions at schools and book fairs who have done me the courtesy of showing up and asking a question.

Another reason I don’t write a lot of advice is that there’s heaps of it already out there. Last year the Guardian asked every prominent author they could find for their ten rules for writing. There are books like How NOT to Write a Novel and blogs like Write to Be Published and The Stroppy Author’s Guide to Publishing. Just google for “advice for writers” and you’ll find 96 pages of results.

With so much advice on offer you have to wonder how useful it is. Much of it comes uncontextualised: “write what you know”, “don’t write in the second person”, “don’t write about vampires” – TELL ME WHY! Sometimes it’s just plain wrong: “pay to get your text edited before submitting it”, “design your own cover”, “don’t bother submitting to professional publishers” – NO, NO, NO! A substantial portion of online advice comes from unpublished, pre-published or independent authors with experience in self-publishing and self-promotion – but little to no experience of professional publication.  Go to an indie author for advice on alternative avenues of publication: eBooks, internet, self publication and small presses. But for advice on publication by an established publishing company go to a pro author – or better yet, a professional agent, one who won’t charge you a readers fee. (And there I go, giving advice.)

Advice doesn’t exist in a vacuum – consider the credentials of your potential mentor. I’ve been asked to give advice about graphic novels, travel writing and poetry: genres in which my only experience is as a consumer. (Not that I mean to discount the experience of the reader: reading widely in a genre is a fine basis for critique.) I’ve been given advice by people who don’t have a clue what they’re talking about: “you should write a book like Harry Potter” or “my life would make a fantastic story – write about me!”

Some authors don’t give advice. Philip Pullman’s response to the Guardian’s request for tips was: “My main rule is to say no to things like this, which tempt me away from my proper work”. Careful readers will notice the stealth advice in that statement.

Most authors with an online presence give some sort of advice in their blogs, FAQs or other web pages. Advice posts are easy to write – you don’t get to be a pro author without picking up at least one tip or trick along the way. That means they’re an easy way to add content to your site – and marketing folk will often recommend creating a blog and posting up some advice to demonstrate you have an online existence. (Yes, I have been guilty of this when my blog was looking very empty.)

I asked some professional authors why they gave advice and the answers were enlightening:

• “I think it’s the teacher in me”
• “[it's] a great way to procrastinate”
• “if you’ve found something that works, it’s tempting to think you’ve discovered the right way, and perhaps the only way, to do it”
• “I get quite a few emails asking for advice – particularly from teen writers – so it’s useful to be able to refer them to a page on my blog”
• “[I] see it as a kind of ‘pro bono’ payback for all the times other writers have helped me when I wanted to know something”
• “because I hate to see people slogging away re-inventing the wheel”
• “I have absolutely no idea but I’m always grateful for whatever I can get. Especially if it’s free…”
• “it can be very fulfilling to help a writer ‘break in’”
• “there are writing techniques, rather than ‘rules’, just as there are techniques for music or art – and there’s a world of difference between breaking them through ignorance or with intent”

And, perhaps the most compelling reason of all, “people ask”.

The authors I asked responded with noticable humility. One author I asked said “I always stress however that it’s based on my experiences so don’t treat what I say as gospel – the industry changes and editors all have their own opinions”. Another commented: “I give writing advice… but always present it as slightly eccentric and ‘what works for me’”. Another successful author said: “I always feel slightly ludicrous giving advice, I don’t know that much myself…”.

Advice given with the best of intent can be wrong. Celia Rees replied: “For every rule given, there’s someone who has broken it and gone on to sell millions. Even the vampire thing – sure, they are going to throw every Stephenie Meyer lookalike straight in the bin, but if someone came up with another twist, that could be a different thing. The only rule is… there are no rules.”

And I’m 40,000 words into a novel I haven’t submitted yet because I want to make sure I get it right. Rules were made for breaking.