I'd like to say a huge THANK YOU to Sara Shabir, Hannah Dawson, and all the brilliant Year 6s, 5s & 4s I met when I visited Tyndale Community School this week!
Year 6 had just finished reading Tyger that morning, and I walked into their classrooms to be greeted by a thunderous round of applause – one of the nicest receptions I've ever received at a school! I was then shown some of the fantastic work they'd been doing with the book.
There was wonderful artwork and writing of all sorts: Adam debating with himself whether to tell Zadie about the tyger; persuasive speeches to turn the mob on Sir Mortimer Maldehyde; and a brilliant account of using the power of imagination to become an oak tree!
It was then a pleasure to talk to Years 6, 5 & 4 about reading, writing and books, and to answer lots of questions! I even decided to read them a little bit from the latest draft of the new book I'm working on. We didn't have enough time to answer all the questions, so if anyone from Tyndale would like to ask another question, just leave a comment in the box below.
6 comments:
is varjak still with you?
Thank you Hailey for your question! I started writing Varjak Paw a long, long time ago - back in 1997, when we first got Varjak - and sadly cats don't live that long, so he's not still with us. But I think if you put someone into a book, as I did with Varjak, it means that everyone who reads that book gets to meet them - so in that sense, he is still very much with us, and I hope you enjoy reading about his adventures!
How do you come up with the creative names for your characters please? Thank you for visiting Tyndale. I really enjoyed seeing you and getting my books signed.
Thank you so much Jemima - it was a total pleasure to visit Tyndale!
For me, character names should express something about the character, as they're often the first thing a reader will know about a character. For example, I think you can tell from the name Mortimer Maldehyde that there's probably going to be something a bit sinisiter about this character! So I think it's always worth putting some work in to make sure your characters' names are as good as they can be.
You can get inspiration from anywhere - sometimes from real life, like when I named Varjak Paw after my own cat; sometimes from something you might randomly see, like when I named some characters in Phoenix after some amazing words I saw on a soap packet! It doesn't matter where the idea comes from - the only thing that matters is that it should tell the reader something about the character. I hope that's helpful!
Good luck with your writing - and happy reading!
SF
Thanks so much for your reply. That will really inspire me for my writing. Thank you again for visiting. I am enjoying Varjak Paw at the moment. Bye.
Thank you so much Jemima - that's great to hear! Happy writing, and reading!
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