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On a beautiful sunny afternoon in Sydney, a couple of weeks ago, over one hundred little girls and almost as many accompanying mums and dad waited on the wharf at Circular Quay to board the MV 2000 – for a book launch. It seemed a bit surreal at the time and I was pretty overwhelmed that all of those people were there to help me launch Alice-Miranda’s latest adventure Alice-Miranda At Sea. It was quite literally, a launch on a launch! The atmosphere on board was fizzing. A smorgasbord of cakes and finger sandwiches, champagne for the grown-ups, cordial and tea of course was on offer as we sailed around the harbour taking in the sights.
After all it was billed as a ‘High Tea at Sea’. For me the cruise was about talking to the children, signing their books and smiling a lot for photographs – I couldn’t tell you where we went – other than we just happened to be passing by a P&O Liner when I was making my speech – which was timely given that we’d originally hoped to have the launch on that ship!
I know that many people say a book launch is the author’s moment in the sun, and yes it’s lovely to be recognised for your efforts but for me the launch is so much more than that. It’s an opportunity to publicly thank everyone who supports this busy ‘second career’ of mine. My family and my husband and of course everyone at Random House who work so hard to make Alice-Miranda the best she can be. I think the real reason for having a book launch though, especially when you’re a children’s author is to meet the children. To talk to the readers about Alice-Miranda, what they like? What they don’t like? Where they want her to go next?
Working in a school, I know that children love to read series’; they love to get to know the characters and feel that they can be a part of the adventures. I welcome feedback from the readers and it great to talk to them about their opinions. There’s a lot of planning that goes into a launch and I know from personal experience that they are can be met with varying shades of success. Launches are hard work but when the planets align and it all comes together they are extremely rewarding and lots of fun. So that’s why I’m already on the hunt for a suitable rooftop, preferably on a skyscraper in the Sydney CBD to launch Alice-Miranda In Manhattan.
Recently I’ve asked the readers of Alice-Miranda where they would like to see her go next. There’s a survey on her blog http://alice-miranda.blogspot.com/
Recently I met a group of children who were very familiar with my friend Alice-Miranda Highton-Smith-Kennington-Jones. It was great hearing their thoughts about this little character with whom I spend so much of my time. At this particular school, some Year 4 students, having had the first few chapters of Alice-Miranda at School read aloud to them brainstormed ideas about her. They said things like, ‘she’s very happy, she’s smart, she’s clever, she’s a good friend, she’s brave, she always looks on the bright side and she’s very determined’.
There was one response though that got me thinking – ‘she’s not quite normal’. When asked to expand on this, the young boy replied that ‘she’s always happy and she always sees the good in everything and that’s just not normal’. I would have to agree with him that these particular traits do tend to set her apart from other characters. Her ability to see the good in everyone no matter how flawed their character or abhorrent their behaviour is definitely unusual. So I asked the boy, ‘Would you like to be friends with her?’
The resounding response was yes, not just from that boy but from the whole class. I suppose that’s how I have come to think of her too – as someone I would definitely want to have as my friend – and in many ways that’s exactly what she has become.
Once I started writing her first adventure – with the unlikely plot that she takes herself off to boarding school aged seven and a quarter only to find that the Headmistress hasn’t been out of her study in over ten years, Alice-Miranda very quickly took on a life of her own.
I adore Alice-Miranda – I love writing her and I love sharing her with children. I’m not exactly sure how many adventures await Alice-Miranda and her increasing group of friends – maybe ten – maybe more. I think I’ll just have to wait and see where she wants to go next!
Alice-Miranda bubbled around in my head for a very long time before I knew exactly what to do with her. I was working as the Deputy Head of a girls’ primary school when the idea of her first appeared, so I spent quite a lot of time talking with the students about the types of characters they liked – and what made them likable. I knew in Alice-Miranda I wanted to create a character who was original, interesting and hopefully timeless.
The first thing that came to me was her name. I deliberately wanted her to have a hyphenated Christian name and for some reason Miranda was always high on my list of preferences. But ‘Miranda – something’, didn’t seem to work. So I decided to go the other way around and began putting names in front of Miranda. I think Alice was pretty much the first one I tried and from the moment I wrote it down, I knew, that was it.
As for her four surnames I thought she needed something that would immediately set her apart from other children. What if her parents both came from families where they already had hyphenated surnames? This might add to the intrigue and make readers wonder why on earth she had such a long name. Who were her parents and what did they do? And so, Highton-Smith merged with Kennington-Jones to become Alice-Miranda’s long, but mellifluous family name. Having plain names like Smith and Jones alongside Highton and Kennington seemed to give it a ‘roll off the tongue’ like quality and it didn’t take more than a few attempts before the girls would happily ask me how Alice-Miranda Highton-Smith-Kennington-Jones’s story was coming along.
When I was developing her character there were certain things I knew I wanted. She was going to be very young, well-travelled, wise beyond her years, incredibly positive, resourceful (in the way that children who come from families of vast wealth might be, if they set their mind to it), courageous and extremely talkative. I wanted her to be likable in spite of her privilege and wealth, which I worried that some readers might resent or see as spoilt. I think she’s quite naïve in many ways about her life – it’s just her life. But she has a compassionate understanding – that not everyone lives the way she and her family do.
Her best friend Millie, with whom she shares an equal number of names, is a wonderful counterbalance to Alice-Miranda. She’s a far more realistic child in many ways. But the two of them really bring out the best in each other – and I’ve come to love Millie and her cinnamon freckles almost as much as Alice-Miranda.
I’d always thought of myself as a pretty positive person until a couple of years ago when I read through a diary I’d been keeping. It struck me that it was quite possibly the greatest whinge-fest in the history of the world. That diary (and a number preceding) appeared to be the repositories of all manner of angst and worry – and self-indulgent miserablising (I know it’s not a real word, but I’m a children’s author and so am granting myself literary licence).
So while I thought of myself as the picture of positive thinking, clearly I was a living example of Newton’s Third Law – To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Except that my reactions somehow seemed to tip the scales even further against me. The person I thought I was didn’t exist within the pages of those diaries. I really didn’t like that person much at all – the one who moaned about work and housework and lack of this and that, blah, blah, blah. And that got me thinking. If I didn’t know me and stumbled upon those diaries would I want to be my friend? Probably not. Things had to change and they had to change fast – lest I be swallowed up by all those ugly thoughts.
Like Mrs Twit, who we’re led to believe wasn’t always the ugliest hag around, until her evil thoughts overtook her face and she succumbed to ugliness inside and out. No I didn’t rush out and buy a copy of The Secret but I certainly wondered how I could change my attitude/outlook/life. I wanted the person who I thought I was during the day, to match the person who wrote in those diaries in the evening. For Christmas that year one of my sisters gave me a gorgeous Tiffany & Co leather-bound journal. I decided something that beautiful deserved better than the trite I’d been spewing through the pages of my other less splendid notebooks. And so, I called it my Celebration Journal. And while I don’t write in it every single day, I have a rule, that when I do, the observation must be thankful and positive.
It didn’t take long to realise that there is much to be grateful for – every single day. When I do take a minute to re-read that journal, I can’t help but smile for the gifts and graces in my life. And while there will always be bad days, and difficult people, disappointments and losses, I can’t help but feel that I’ve become a more contented person and someone I just might like to be friends with. Maybe it was this change of perspective that helped inspire my character of Alice-Miranda – whose positivity knows no bounds!
http://alice-miranda.blogspot.com/
Is there such thing as a perfect place to write? Roald Dahl, one of my literary heroes certainly thought so. In a shed at the bottom of his garden. Virginia Woolf favoured the room in the garden concept too, while other authors seem attached to their studies. I was wondering what it would be like to have a dedicated writing space – somewhere to go every day and ponder my characters, write their lives, form their futures. Would that work for me? I really couldn’t say as I tend to be a bit of a writing nomad.
So far my stories have taken shape in all manner of places. At home I have commandeered the dining table – a mahogany double pedestal antique. But it was only when I really sat down and thought about this that I realised I write best when I have a view, and most particularly a view of the ocean. 
When I can look up and ponder the ever-changing seascape, I seem to find things inexplicably easier. My very first books were written mostly at my in law’s place overlooking the lake and ocean at Avoca Beach; I wrote my picture book, The Sound of the Sea following an inspiring afternoon fishing on South Golden Beach just north of Byron Bay, and most recently, Alice-Miranda has taken shape while staying in an apartment overlooking Town Beach at Port Macquarie.
I also like to write outside, sometimes in cafes surrounded by chatter and other times in parks and quieter spaces – but preferably by the sea, with a view. Perhaps it’s something to do with being a Piscean. Maybe one day we might move to live permanently by the ocean – who knows. But in the meantime I will enjoy taking time off work to write my books, in beautiful places by the sea.
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