For lack of a better title… 😛

So if you follow me on Instagram you may have seen I went to Amsterdam a few weeks ago. It was the most beautiful city I’ve ever been to, and I feel really lucky to have had the chance to wander around the streets and the canals for four days. I thought I might make a blog post about what I read while I was there and all the literary things I saw. Plus a slightly less related arty thing, because why not?

A bit of a jumble of a post – but without further ado, here’s all of the literary-related things that happened in Amsterdam.

#1 – Anne Frank Huis

(I didn’t manage to get many great photos of the outside of Anne Frank’s house sadly – this photo’s mainly the modern building neighbouring it)

We queued from two hours before the house’s opening, just to make sure we could visit, on our last day in Amsterdam. It felt incredibly surreal when we were inside – climbing the stairs Anne Frank and her family did; walking through the rooms they stayed in for so long in hiding. It was so saddening to read about the terrible things that happened to them in the place where they actually had been, years ago.

At the end of the walk around Anne Frank Huis, there’s a room with glass casing in the walls. Inside, there are loose pages from one of Anne Frank’s rewrites of her diaries, mounted on the wall. And in the middle of the room; the famous diary itself, opened on a page crammed with her writing, and a photo of herself.

It didn’t feel real to be seeing it, the original diary that’s been read by so many millions of people, right in front of me. It’s an experience I will never, ever forget: it’s both beautiful and heartbreaking to see Anne Frank’s writing get the fame she always wished for.

#2 – The ‘TFiOS Bench’

Although it wasn’t the original bench Augustus and Hazel sat on in the movie (believe it or not, that got stolen! This one’s the replacement), I dragged my family around the smaller streets of Amsterdam to find it. I figured that because when we went the first time, (yup we went twice) the street would be empty – but both times we were there, and the times we passed the street, there was always a group of people there. Taking photos of themselves on the bench, talking about the book, or writing their names or quotes on the bench. It was pretty incredible, seeing how so many people visit it. It’s like a pilgrimage for John Green fans or something.

Although we didn’t spend long there (more people kept appearing, wanting photos too!) it did feel quite special to watch the view Augustus and Hazel (fictionally) looked over in the most important scene of the film, and to read everyone’s writing on the seat. I love the plaque that’s been put on it.

#3 – Van Gogh Museum

The queue for this museum was crazy, but I don’t regret waiting such a long time to see so much of Van Gogh’s work at all. Van Gogh is one of those artists I’ve always admired but never fully appreciated, but seeing the brush strokes up close and reading about his life in the Netherlands was really incredible. My favourite part was seeing Sunflowers (not just because of Doctor Who, honestly). I actually didn’t realise it was such a large painting, and it’s ten times better up close.

Holiday Reads:

ONLY EVER YOURS by Louise O’Neill – I finally bought a copy of this at YALC, and after hearing O’Neill talk about it, I couldn’t wait to read it much longer. It was really eerie and unsettling, but it carries a really important message. And if you look at some of the events in this book, they’re not all too different from life today. And that’s terrifying.

COLORLESS TSUKURU TAZAKI AND HIS YEARS OF PILGRIMAGE by Haruki Murakami – After reading many glowing reviews of Murakami’s books, and being pulled in by the spectacular covers, I purchased this one completely at random. Emotionally taut and depressing, yet vaguely optimistic, Murakami’s writing has quickly become a favourite. I’m really looking forward to reading more of his books.

Also, the Best Purchase Ever Made:

Posable William Shakespeare figure with a book of illustrated Shakespeare puns.

Best. Three. Euros. Ever. Spent.

Earlier this week, my review of BLACK CAIRN POINT was posted – it’s definitely one of the best books I’ve read this year, and one of the best thrillers I’ve read full stop.

I was asked to join the blog tour for the book, but with my messages messing up and coming in delayed, I was wayyyy too late! However, Claire kindly offered to write a guest post for this blog for this week and I’m really excited about helping share her process of selling the book. If you’d like to check out the blog tour posts, check the banner below!

Over to Claire!

Banging your head off the wall: a guide to getting published

So there I was, proudly grinning down at my laptop screen.  Finished.  I had written a novel.  Go me! Now, what to do with it?

Well, I had two options:

1. Leave it languishing on my laptop and tell no one.
2. Try to get it published.

I’d spent way too much effort on the thing just to feel a sense of internal pride and know that I’d done it. But, in all honesty, the idea of trying to get it published was frankly terrifying. Firstly, because I’d no idea how to go about getting published, and secondly… what if people said it was crap?

So I hummed and hawed and procrastinated, and then suddenly decided I was being a big fat wuss and started investigating. The first thing I did was a bit of market research to answer that key question: was my labour of love, in fact, a pile of steaming poop? I was too chicken to send it out blind, so I got a couple of pals to read it.  The response?  Oh, it’s really good! (With a hint too much surprise for my liking!) Now, that’s all well and good, but these were my pals.  They had to say nice things.  The trick is to find someone you can trust to tell you the truth. However heart-wrenching it may be.  What’s a girl to do?

I sent it to my mum.

When she said it was okay (note: ‘okay’, not the ‘incredible’, ‘brilliant’ and ‘awesome’ I’d had from my mates) then I figured it was good enough to take the next terrifying step: send it to strangers.

I did a bit of digging (good old Google!) and found that while I could self-publish, getting any interest in an unknown novel by an unknown novelist was nigh on impossible.  Yes, there are people who manage this, but it sure ain’t the norm. Another possible route was to send my novel off to smaller, independent publishers (the big ones don’t accept “unsolicited manuscripts” for the most part), but I was scared off by talk of enormous slush piles and miniscule odds.  No, the route forward seemed to be to try and get an agent.  But, numerous websites warned me, most agents already have full books and will only take something on if they’re sure they can sell it, so expect a lot of rejections.

Thick skin duly donned, I chose my opening volley.  I read somewhere online that it’s a good idea to pick maybe ten agents that you think you’d like to represent you and send off queries to them all.  You then create a spreadsheet (excellent, I like spreadsheets!) and record their responses.  There are a few possibilities:

Form rejection – a big fat no so emphatic they didn’t even bother to write it personally, just copied and pasted it in.

Personal rejection – again, still no, but they at least took the time to say why it wasn’t for them, which is a start!

A request for more – ooh! They like it! They want to read the whole thing!

Offer of representation – OH MY GOD THEY WANT ME!

Wisdom has it that if all you get in your first round of ten are form rejections, your novel, that you have slaved over and loved and, possibly, wept over, isn’t as good as you thought it was, no matter what your mum says.

Or, you might just have gotten unlucky.

When I sent out my first feelers for Ferryman, my first novel, I got two requests for more.  Yay me! Cue much excitement.  Alas, after reading the finished manuscript, both agents decided it wasn’t for them.

Pants.

What I possibly should have done at this point is go back to the novel and try and improve it – they were kind enough to give me feedback after all – or try again with another ten agents.  Nah, I decided, to hell with it. I’ll just write another book and see how that goes.

Hmmm.  Possibly not the smartest way forward.  In fact, I wrote EIGHT books before I landed an agent.  That’s right, eight.  Approximately 600,000 words.  It would have been much easier to just work on Ferryman and make it better… but it’s too late now!

Who cared, though? I had an agent! They would help me make my novel(s) sparkle, and then sell it for loads and loads of money!

Or… not.  Next lesson: charlatans! You see, I had no idea that someone who said they were an agent, might not actually be an agent.  Who would? She had a website, and a plan for how to put me forward.  She wasn’t going to charge me anything for her services (note: you NEVER EVER give an agent money up front.  EVER!) So I signed a contract with her, and we got to work making my stuff ship shape.  Then funny things started happening.  Oh, she had good contacts with this small publisher.  They were new so couldn’t offer an advance, but they wouldn’t charge me anything.  Okay.  Oh the cover?  Yes, it’s coming, it’s coming.  Oh, now.  Things have changed, they need a little bit of money up front…

ABORT! ABORT!

It turned out, the “agent” was also the “publisher” – hiding under a different name.  I don’t know if she started off with good intentions and got into trouble because she didn’t know what she was doing, or if she was just a big, evil scammer… but beware!  There are websites like Firstwriter where you can see reviews of agents and check that they have actually a) made sales and b) paid money to authors.  Luckily, at this juncture, I landed a real agent, from a real agency, so all was well.

What happened next?  Well, said agent had lots of shmoozy boozy lunches and wooed some publishers…. And voila! A book deal!  No, a three book deal (of which Black Cairn Point – PLUG ALERT! PLUG ALERT! – is book number three)!  And so now, here I sit.  I have three books with my name on them.  I even have a book with (I’m assured) my name on it in Chinese!!! I am, officially, an author. As we say in Scotland, ya dancer!

Thanks for the awesome guest post, Claire! BLACK CAIRN POINT is out now in bookstores, published by Hot Key Books. If you read one book this year, make it this one!

I’m so excited to be sharing this post with you today! The Self Esteem Team is a group of three awesome women who provide talks and advice to teenagers about a range of issues that affect teenagers lives.

 They’ve just released their first book – a guide to all sorts of things teenagers are asking – and I was lucky enough to be asked if I’d like to join its blog tour! Natasha Devon is a journalist and one third of the team. She’s here today to talk feminism and empowerment! Whoop!

What Does Feminism/Empowerment Mean to Women Today?

By Natasha Devon of the Self-Esteem Team

Feminism is and always has been about choice. Women should be in charge of their own destinies, have the same rights and opportunities as men and respect the choices made by their fellow woman. (I realise of course this is all completely obvious to anyone with a gram of sense, but you’d be surprised how often my job (as a journalist and TV pundit) necessitates repeating the above)

Having choices isn’t to be confused with ‘having it all’ – in my opinion that’s a dangerous and tiresome myth. There’s enough pressure on women already to emulate a terrifyingly narrow and prescriptive idea of ‘perfection’ without throwing an expectation that we’ll be ‘brilliant at everything’ into the mix.

The teens we work with often tell me that at some point during the past decade, their understanding of feminism’s slogan shifted from ‘you can do anything you want!’ to ‘you must do everything!’. Young women (indeed, all young people) are currently feeling the pressure to attain straight A*s, to keep up the appearance of an awesome social life on the web and to look fantastic for their proms. In the terrifying global hierarchy created by social media, nothing short of ‘the best’ will do.

Emily Pankhurst wouldn’t approve (probably. We can’t ask her). There’s little advantage in women in developed countries having more opportunity than ever before if we’re going to tie ourselves in knots, constantly worrying that we aren’t getting it right.

The best type of feminism isn’t about hating men, but about loving yourself. It’s about valuing yourself enough to know that you can do anything you set your mind to, but you don’t have to succeed the first (or even the seventh) time. It’s about knowing that neither your dress size nor your bank balance defines who you are. It’s about forgiving yourself, learning from your mistakes and having the confidence to celebrate your triumphs. It’s about recognising that you are unique and marvellous but, perhaps even more crucially, so is everyone else.

Increasingly, we are recognising that people of all genders need to be included in the feminist dialogue. Gender politics is now being discussed in school assemblies, not just in exclusive female-only clubs.

Whatever your sexuality, orientation or gender identity, you will face challenges in your life. I hope the future of feminism will be less about firing 140-character insults across the no-man’s land of the Twittersphere (or, as Ricky Gervais puts it ‘shouting in a bin’) and more about creating a mutually supportive culture where everyone is given the opportunity to flourish.

Thank you, Natasha, for the great guest post! The Self Esteem Team’s Guide to Sex, Drugs & WTFs?!! is out this month.