My Young By Name Blog

Posted in Publishing, Reading, Writing

Why Beta Readers Make Books Better

Posted on by Debbie Young

That tongue-twister heralds news of my new flash fiction collection, Quick Change, due for launch later this month.

Cover of Quck Change flash fiction collection
Due for launch as an ebook on 21 June 2014

It’s a nerve-wracking time for any author when their precious manuscript is packed off for final editing and proofreading before publication. This week that’s what’s happening to Quick Change, the collection of flash fiction that I’ll be publishing as an ebook later this month. By the power of the internet, the final draft has zoomed across the ether to the other side of the country, for my editor Alison Jack to give it her expert treatment.

Last week it was the turn of the beta readers to read an earlier version of my manuscript. No, that doesn’t mean I’ve written my book in Greek.

What Are Beta Readers Anyway?

Beta readers are volunteers who read a manuscript prior to publication to alert the author to anything that might be improved. A great beta team will pick up inconsistencies and glitches that might spoil the flow of the story, e.g. a character whose name changes, an unbelievable  plot detail, or excessive use of the author’s favourite words.

  • One of my lovely beta readers spotted that I apparently have an obsession with recycling bins: the frequency of their appearance in this book has now been reduced. Or you could say, I’ve put out the bins.
  • Another reader pointed out that Belisha beacon should be capitalised because it’s named after the first Baron Hore-Belisha, a former British Minister of Transport. Well, did you know that? By the way, I can understand why they plumped for his second name.
  • One person alerted me to a recent change in the law that had made one scene in my book illegal. It was news to me. (And I bet that’s intrigued you – but no plot spoilers here, sorry!)

Interestingly, none of my eagle-eyed friends spotted the blind man that I had checking his watch. That anomaly only jumped out at me when I was inputting their suggested changes to the copy.  Which only goes to show that you can never have too many people checking over your work before you hit the “publish” button…

Publication Date Alert

I’ll be sending out a special newsletter to my blog subscribers nearer the launch date, Saturday 21 June, along with a free bonus story. To receive this alert, do either of these things:

  • If you don’t already subscribe to my blog,sign up here, and I’ll send your free bonus story with the next newsletter.
  • If you don’t want to join the blog subscribers list, but would like to be alerted when Quick Change is published, please add your email address here.

(If you’re already a subscriber to my blog, you don’t need to do anything – I’ll send you the newsletter anyway.)

In the next day or two, I’ll be posting here about how to find beta readers – useful for any authors reading this post, but also an interesting insight for non-authors behind the scenes of book production. In the meantime, I’d like to say a big thank you to my fabulous beta readers and editor by posting their links here:

 

Posted in Personal life

WI Fidelity – Why I’ve Joined the Women’s Institute

Posted on by Debbie Young

A post about that force to be reckoned with, the Women’s Institute, which I’ve recently joined. This post was commissioned by the Tetbury Advertiser, for which I write a monthly column.

WI logo
WI, 21st century style

As we approach the middle of 2014, I’ve been taking stock of my New Year’s Resolutions, one of which was to join the WI (Women’s Institute). I’d been mulling it over for years. I knew a lot of ladies who belonged, but few were in my immediate social group.

Until this year, the closest I’d got to joining was to buy an old WI brooch. I collect vintage enamel badges, and this one was a beauty – green, red and gold, bearing the organisation’s original motto: “For Home and Country”. This motto dates back to the year in which the WI was founded, 1915. In wartime conditions, and before women gained the right to vote, any British woman would surely have worn this badge with pride.

Nearly 100 years on, the WI has switched focus. Its current motto “Inspiring Women” is a great line, implying that its membership includes inspiring women, as well as working to inspire women.

A Modern Organisation

Until I joined, I didn’t realise just how active and pro-active the WI has become. It’s too easy to dismiss its worth with the easy, jokey shorthand of “Jam and Jerusalem”, as my own experience demonstrates.

A few Christmases ago, I was all set to add “join WI” to my resolution list when through the letterbox came a neat little folded card, efficiently announcing the dates for the new year’s meetings. Neatly printed on the back were the words for the hymn Jerusalem. Much as I love the hymn, which we sung with gusto at every hymn practice in my primary school days, I allowed that resolution to fall off my list, unfulfilled.

Don’t Mention the Jam

Old fashioned WI badge
The original slogan, nearly 100 years ago

But this year, I set aside my prejudice and joined. I knew that my author friend Sandy Osborne was coming from her home city of Bath to talk to our local group about her Bath-based novel Girl Cop (enjoyable by both men and women, I hasten to add). While visitors are allowed to attend any WI meeting without being obliged to join, I welcomed this prompt to make me sign on the dotted line.

I’m so glad I did. Joining the WI has been an eye-opener. I encountered a feisty, intelligent crowd with wide-ranging interests, energies and passions, and a refreshing curiosity. Not only is there a new, interesting topic for discussion each meeting, often with an engaging speaker from beyond the community, but there are also heaps of other activities throughout the month, from book groups to film clubs to walking parties. If I belonged to no other social group, I could easily fill my diary with stimulating activities purely from the WI. What a great way to make like-minded friends in your neighbourhood.

There are also opportunities to join other WIs for activities and to contribute to national campaigns. Last meeting included a lively discussion about organ donor policy.

I’m proud to be a member of the modern WI, which is definitely a force to be reckoned with – and if you don’t believe me, just ask Tony Blair.

PS We’ve only sung Jerusalem once, and nobody’s yet mentioned jam.

Do you belong to a WI? If so, I’d love to hear about your experience of belonging.

Although I’d never belonged to the WI before, years ago I did spend some time singing with local WI choir – read more about that little escapade here, a post from a collection of memoirs of village life:

Posted in Family, Travel

Travelling Light, Laura’s Way

Posted on by Debbie Young

A post about our latest trip in our camper van Debbie and her husband on their walk in Wales

 

Over a decade after buying our first camper van, I like to think we’ve mastered the art of travelling light. We’ve acquired all sorts of tips and tricks that I’m compiling into a little book, along with some anecdotes about our adventures, to be called Travels With My Camper Van. (I’m a bit of a one for obvious book titles, me.)

One of my top tips is not to pack bags at all. You can load some stuff straight into the cupboards before you set off – food, toiletries, books, games. Clothes can be easily transferred on their hangers from your wardrobe at home to the van’s slim wardrobe. Non-hanging items, such as pyjamas and underwear, are best stashed into cheap Ikea laundry baskets – one per person, plus a spare. During our travels, we gradually transfer clothes, as we use them, from the clean baskets to the laundry one – and that gets unpacked straight into the utility room on our return home. Laura crossing a stile

 

Or so the theory goes. We have had a few hiccups along the way. For example, we once carefully packed a weekend basket for the three of us and didn’t realise till we reached our destination, Ross-on-Wye, that we’d left the basked tidily on the bed at home. Fortunately Ross-on-Wye is well equipped with cheap clothes shops and charity shops, so we bought what we needed to remain clothed and hygienic until we returned home. (We always manage to boost the local economy wherever we go.)

Earlier this week, as it’s the half-term holiday (which means a week off school in this country), we were packing for three days and four nights away to walk the next stage of the Offa’s Dyke Path. That’s an ancient and historic footpath that traverses Wales. We’ve done about half of it so far. Laura had turned 11 a few days before, and in her enthusiasm to embark on this trip had packed her own basket before I had to ask her. This ability, like her new-found enthusiasm for making a cup of tea, is a welcome bonus of growing up.

Laura and Gordon on the path ahead

 

Only when I took out her basket on the first day of the holiday did I realise my confidence in her efficiency had been misplaced. She had packed precisely one pair of leggings, one t-shirt and a party dress. She was clearly expecting this walking holiday to be more fun than we were. Her constant companion, Heather the rabbit, who serves as ventriloquist’s dummy rather than cuddly toy these days, had packed her roller skates. WP_20140527_001

 

Still, I could hardly take either of them to task for bad packing: I had only one walking boot. Fortunately I wear the same size shoes as my husband, and he never travels with fewer than three pairs. Half term May 2014 Offa's Dyke Path - Copy

 

As he’d be the first to remind me, travelling light is all very well, but it’s possible to go too far.

Still, a good time was had by all – and the fact that we’d packed so little made the task of unpacking afterwards even less irksome. Like mother, like daughter – ever the optimists.

sheep in the fields

If you enjoyed this post, you’ll like this one about Laura’s earlier packing triumph: How to Pack for the Summer Holidays

And this one about my husband’s attitude to packing for a scientific field study course: Travelling Light

Plus another cautionary tale for travellers – be careful who you sit next to on the plane: Flight of Fancy

Posted in Family, Type 1 diabetes, Writing

Sharing the Love of Books on BBC Radio Gloucestershire

Posted on by Debbie Young

A post about my most recent appearance on BBC Radio Gloucestershire, including a link to enable you to hear the show if you missed it

Debbie Young at BBC Radio Glos studio
Photo credit: BBC Radio Glos receptionist!

“Every Saturday we like to talk live to an interesting guest between 1pm and 2pm” said an email from BBC Radio Gloucestershire that popped up in my inbox last Thursday, inviting me to appear on Manpreet Mellhi’s show last weekend.

I’ve blogged previously about my appearance on this regional BBC radio programme, and it’s always been a pleasure to be asked.The presenters are pleasant, genuine and passionate about the local community, and the station is highly regarded.

My answer to this latest invitation had of course to be “yes please!”

And so it came about that late morning saw me heading north in my car, through glorious sunny Cotswold lanes, with my satnav pointed in the direction of the Gloucester city centre studio, having spent part of Friday mulling over the stimulating list of questions sent in advance by the programme’s researchers. Pet hates, personal philosophy, favourite place in Gloucstershire – answers to all of these and more were requested, to help Manpreet, whom I’d never met before, prepare for our live on-air chat.

A Technical Hitch

So far, so good – until, with five minutes to spare, and a couple of minutes way from the BBC studios, my satnav switched itself off without warning, leaving me floundering as to which way I should be heading. Naturally, this had to be right at the point where one-way systems and the no-stopping zones kicked in, making it tricky to pull over and solve the problem.

Making split-second decisions, I veered off into the first side-street I could find with a safe place to stop and to give my satnav a firm rebuke. Using about the only technical piece of knowledge that I have about motoring, I realised that the problem was a blown fuse in the cigar lighter, into which the satnav lead is plugged. Fortunately, the only repair I’m capable of making to a car is to change a fuse, and I happened to have a couple of suitable sized fuses in the glove compartment. (Just as well there were a couple, as the first one blew straight away too.) Trying not to look at the clock, I plugged in the second replacement fuse, snapped the cover back on the fuse box, and fired up the satnav again. I reached the studio seconds before I was due to arrive, heart pounding, adrenalin still flowing.

Luckily for me, I was welcomed by a calm and sympathetic member of staff who plied me with a much-needed glass of water in the waiting area while the on-the-hour news report ran its course, and one of the station’s reporters, Joanna Durrant, stopped to catch up on each other’s news. (By chance, she’d been reporting that morning on a farming issue from a field near the village in which I live!)

“On Air”

Then I was welcomed by Manpreet herself into the cool, air-conditioned, sound-proofed studios, where all was calm. I started my interview with a big smile, triggered by the introductory music they’d chosen for me: the theme from “Murder, She Wrote”!

Cover of "Coming To Terms With Type 1 Diabte
Now out in ebook – paperback to be published later this year

Manpreet is an avid reader and we had a wide-ranging chat about books and the nature of reading, about favourite childhood books and the importance of also reading outside your comfort zone. While we had heaps in common – including a deep respect for the wisdom of independent bookshop staff – there were also new things to share. She was particularly taken by the idea of flash fiction, which she’d not come across before, and in how self-publishing is democratising the publishing process for authors. Manpreet also took an interest in my book about Type 1 diabetes, and I appreciated the opportunity to raise her listeners’ awareness of what it is and how it affects everyday life for those with the misfortune to contract it (like my husband and our daughter).

And We’re Clear…

As ever, I was impressed by how simple these professionals make it look to guide lively, wide-ranging conversations, within very precise time constraints, interspersing scheduled interruptions such as time checks, weather reports, news bulletins and alerts for later programmes – all while talking naturally and with as much warmth as if you were just sharing a cup of coffee with an old friend. By the end of our appointed hour – just the middle hour of Manpreet’s three-hour broadcast marathon – I was exhausted! But I left the studio with a smile and a skip back out into the sunshine, and when my satnav went haywire again on the way home, I didn’t care – I just enjoyed the scenic journey home in the sunshine, feeling grateful as ever to live in such a wonderful part of the country, served by our fine national broadcasting station.

 

Listen To The Interview Here

UK residents may catch the programme on the BBC’s iPlayer catch-up service till the end of this Friday, but thanks to kind help of the station’s staff, I am also able to share the broadcast with you here via an .MP3 file, preserved here for posterity.

Thanks again to Manpreet, Zoe, Gemma, Joanna and team for their hospitality and help, and to BBC Radio Gloucestershire for their kind permission to share the recording via my website.

Posted in Publishing, Writing

My May Column for the Tetbury Advertiser

Posted on by Debbie Young

Having just written my June column for the Tetbury Advertiser, I’ve just realised that I hadn’t yet posted up on my blog my column for last month. So here it is, for the record – and apologies to regular readers for any repetition, as I’ve covered some of the same ground in previous posts. More new stuff coming soon!

Cover of "Opening Up To Indie Authors"
My latest book (well, half of it – Dan Holloway wrote the other half!)

I welcome the arrival of May with a sigh of relief, as it heralds the completion of project that has preoccupied me since November: the launch of a new book, which I’ve co-authored with the writer and poet Dan Holloway. It’s called Opening Up To Indie Authors, and its purpose is to build better relationships between self-published authors and the traditional book trade.

Tetbury’s own book trade, in the shape of Yellow-Lighted Bookshop proprietor Hereward Corbett, gets an honorary mention in the book, whose launch has taken me far beyond Tetbury. At the start of the school holidays, we pointed our camper van east, as I’d been invited to speak at the Cambridge Literary Festival. The venue for my talk was the exotically-named Divinity Lightfoot room in St John’s College. I thought Divinity Lightfoot would make a great name for a Bond girl, so I was slightly disappointed to discover it’s actually just the name of a lecture room in the College’s School of Divinity.

Photo of Dan Holloway, Orna Ross and Debbie Young on the Kobo stand at the London Book Fair
Launching the new book at the London Book Fair

Two days later, I was taking the stage at the London Book Fair, officially launching the book, along with Dan and our editor Orna Ross, founder of the Alliance of Independent Authors. (I’m Commissioning Editor of that organisation’s blog.) I admit it was a very small stage – more of a window-box, as one reporter put it – but it was exciting all the same. The huge scale of the Fair made me wonder afresh how any bookstore proprietor chooses which books to stock. I also admire Hereward Corbett’s knack for so often bringing to give talks in Tetbury authors who are on the cusp of becoming bestsellers or have just had their book chosen as BBC Radio 4’s Book of the Week.

Back to More Books

Then it was back home to collect a big box of books from the library. Just what our house needs, more books… Fortunately for the state of my overcrowded bookshelves, these books will soon be on their way out again, destined to be thrust into the hands of random strangers.

Photo of Debbie Young with her chosen book for World Book Night 2014Well, not quite random strangers – but, as part of the World Book Night initiative, I’ll be giving them to adults who don’t normally read books, to encourage them to enjoy reading. It’s a bit like the World Book Day event for children, but for grown-ups. World Book Night kicked off in 2011, and, to my delight, I’ve been a designated book giver every year. Being able to give away free books, paid for by The Reading Agency, makes you feel like Father Christmas, and recipients are always grateful , especially when they realise there’s no catch. To volunteer for next year’s event, visit http://www.worldbooknight.org.

On the Run from Books

HU5K logoAfter that, I’ll be moving on to a much less bookish project: rounding up runners for the next HU5K Run. This takes place on Saturday 14th June on a mostly flat stretch of the Cotswold Way, starting and finishing at Hawkesbury Upton. If you’re interested in taking part, you’ll find full details on the website: www.hu5k.org. Funnily enough, I’ve got quite a few books about running …