Exciting and inspiring – enjoying the day as a shortlisted author

Thank you very much to Chicken House for choosing 'The Firefly Cage' as the winner of this year's The Times / Chicken House Children's Fiction Competition.

It definitely has not yet sunk in at all that my book was chosen as the winner and I expect normal reality to resume sometime soon.

Being involved in the competition has been a pleasure. Thanks to all those involved in the organisation and the judging.

A big thank you and congratulations also to all the short-listed authors (Janine Barnett-Phillips, Tracy Darnton, Julie Mee and Jamie Smith) who have been on this journey with me and to whom I wish every future success.

Writing quotes - great for sharing

Some of my favourite authors seems to be inspired to put into words what they love about writing and wanted to share a couple.

"I hadn’t found profound happiness and intellectual stimulation in the act of writing, then I would long ago have abandoned the whole adventure. The fact is that I love doing it and am never happier than when embedded with a complex narrative, slowly revealing itself over great gulps of time" - Rose Tremain

And the second from Meg Rosoff, recently he laureate of the 2016 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award 

“I think that writing comes from a very deep place, from the unconscious. I imagine it to be a great big dark place from which you sometimes can cross a bridge to the conscious mind. Writers spend a big part of their lives in that dark place and get more and more used to crossing that bridge”.

And the final one I was reminded of the other day - it's an oldie but a goodie

 "Writing is easy. All you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead." - Gene Fowler.

And it never gets any easier does it.