“When you are 14 you have the spirit of a little Joan of Arc.” The Maid of Orleans was just a teenager herself when she rallied French resistance during the Hundred Years War and it is no surprise that five hundred years later the young people of France invoked her spirit when their country was… Continue reading How children fought the Nazis
If it wasn’t for the army, I wouldn’t be writing this. Which isn’t as dramatic as it sounds. My dad was a soldier, my mum the daughter of a soldier, they met on an army base. I had two grandads in the army, a great-grandad too. My grandads fought in the Second World War, France,… Continue reading The need to remember – looking for the beginnings of Hide and Seek
I turned 50 last month (gulp!) and the older I get the more I realise how much I don’t know. When I began researching the Acrobats of Agra - as a history fanatic I love the research part of writing a book - I’d never heard of Lakshmibai, the Rani of Jhansi. Yet within India… Continue reading Finding a hero for all in India’s history
It is the question I get more than any other, from children and in particular adults. ‘Where do your ideas come from?’ It’s one just about every writer is asked and I suspect many dread. ‘Tell us your inspiration…’ The questioner may be expecting, or hoping for, an answer that begins along the lines of “it… Continue reading Here’s an idea – remembering where your story came from
So my next book, the Acrobats of Agra, the tale of three children and a tiger caught up in the Indian Rebellion of 1857, is once again back with my publishers, Everything With Words. And it’s not been easy getting it there. I’ve had a dose of second-book syndrome – and it’s taken rewrites and… Continue reading Learning lessons and new ideas – why writing is not like journalism
He counted us all out and he counted us all back again. Over 50 of us, all shapes, all sizes and plenty of ages, some raring to go, others striving to quell rising anxiety, herded on to the 15.15 CalMac ferry from Lochaline across the Sound of Mull. Half an hour later, as we watched… Continue reading Taking the plunge – a sea swim to remember
Waiting for the first review of my first novel for children brought another first; a turbulent mix of anxiety, glass-drained pessimism, glass-overflowing optimism and trying to get on with writing the next one while attempting to ignore the elephant sitting in the corner trumpeting “you’re rubbish and you know you are.” Then one morning it… Continue reading If you’re sitting comfortably
Robin Scott-Elliot 