Crooked Cat colleague Gill
James writes novels for children and young adults. She also writes shorts
stories and flash fiction for adults.
She is a prolific blogger and has been known to write an academic paper
now and then. She is the Network News editor for SCBWI’s Words and Pictures. http://www.wordsandpics.org/
She does have a life beyond writing--she sings the tenor part in a
choir. 
My new novel, The Tower (Crooked Cat), is the third part
of the Peace Child trilogy. The first
part, The Prophecy, was written as
part of my PhD in Creative and Critical Writing at the University of Wales,
Bangor. A PhD must always bring something new and writing for young adults was
new for me – I’d written mainly for younger children up until then. The
subtitle was “a global definition of the young adult novel”. I read in several
languages so I looked at works written in Dutch, French, German, Spanish,
Portuguese and English, and also from several different continents and
countries.
My main finding was that young adult novels
generally tell a story of growth, so are a type of Bildungsroman. My hero,
Kaleem, couldn’t be quite the political figure I’d at first thought. He’s just
a normal young man struggling to make sense of the world – albeit one where he
is has a demanding role: he has to maintain the peace between two planets.
Throughout he is haunted by the Babel prophecy.
In this final volume, the reader is offered
an explanation about the Babel prophecy and Kaleem grows in confidence. It’s
left open to possibilities at the end not because I want to write more volumes
but because young adults readers do like to make their own minds up.
In The
Prophecy Kaleem learns about his true identity. Babel finds him fighting “switch-off” – compulsory euthanasia for
an aging population that refuses to die. My blog, Rozia’s G-log links Babel
and The Tower, though you don’t have
to read it in order to understand the last volume. A supplementary problem for
Kaleem in The Tower is a financial
system that is about to collapse. Only the Zenoton can make it all work again. They
have a very different attitude to money. Ah! Maybe I should send a copy of The Tower to every major bank?
Through all three volumes there is a love interest – three in fact, but one that dominates. Only too right. That’s another frequent characteristic of the
young adult novel.
The
Peace Child trilogy is science fantasy and as
always in this genre it’s important to make sure your world is logical. I spent
months thinking this all out before I started writing. I’d sit in cafés making
copious notes and using the environment around me to ask myself questions about
what I needed to know of Kaleem’s world. I’m not sure I got it completely
right, however. It’s set in 3500 AD on Earth, now called Terrestra. The
personal communication device they all use is only a little more sophisticated
than the iPhone. I completed the first volume in 2007.
At one point I stopped liking Kaleem. He
was becoming a bit of a whinger. “Ah, poor me.
I’m not like other kids. And I have all this responsibility.” He was
seriously getting on my nerves. We had Judy Waite as a visiting writer at the
university where I lecture in creative writing. She had us writing with our
“wrong” hand - left for me as I’m
right-handed - and then lighting a candle for our characters. I know, it sounds
a bit spooky, but it did work. I now love and respect Kaleem for the sensitive,
intelligent, brave and warm-hearted young man he really is. I’ve lived with all
of the characters from Peace Child for
quite a while now and I’m really missing them.
It’s possible to read volume three without
first reading the other two. Babel
and The Tower each include a summary that
explains what has gone before. You can find excerpts of The Prophecy on my Sample
Sunday blog, and Babel will shortly be
free on Amazon. I do hope you enjoy it!
Excerpt
An excerpt from The Tower
Forgetting Rozia Day 170 Louish’s News
Well, that was fascinating!
Louish was as
dramatic as ever.
First off, she greets
me in a bright royal blue tunic covered in glittery sequins. It was an
incredible outfit. It had great pleats
in the body of it and the sleeves as well. Mind you, it really suited her. And
her make-up! I mean, I’m wearing make-up all the time now, but I try to do it
so that it doesn’t show. But Louish! Long curly eyelashes. Thick eye-liner.
Bright blue eye shadow that matched her tunic. A huge beauty spot. And lipstick
so red it almost looked as if her lips were bleeding.
Then there was all
her prodding and poking – trying to get things out of me. So much so that I
ended up telling as much about Julien as I dared.
“Well, my dear,”
she said. “You’re looking well. Any sign of any new romance?”
At that point, I felt
my cheeks burning.
“Ah, I see there
is,” she said. “Well, do not fear anything from me, sweetie. If that nutcase of a grandson of mine can’t
appreciate what is right in front of him, what’s offered to him on a plate,
well then he’s even more of a fool that I thought.”
She stroked my
hair and then gave me a huge hug. I don’t know why exactly, but that set me
off. I couldn’t hold back the tears. Was I still sad about Kaleem? Was I
pleased she accepted the idea of Julien?
Maybe she defined
it herself in the end.
She sighed. “I’m
sure he’s a fine young man, whoever he is,” she said. “But he’ll take you away
from our family I expect."
The lunch was
superb, of course. Louish is always so cheerful and she tells such funny
stories. But as we had coffee afterwards she became deadly serious.
“I want to arrange
a meeting,” she said. “A secret meeting. Between you and Razjosh.”
I couldn’t begin
to imagine what Razjosh might want with me.
“Oh?” I said.
“Yes, he wants to
discuss the whole switch-off thing with you. Making sure it becomes permanent.”
“Ah,” I replied. I
couldn’t think that that was going to be easy. He had just had such a narrow
escape from switch-off himself. “What
does Elder Frazier think?”
“He’s all for it,
my dear. In fact, he’ll be at the meeting too,” she replied. “You will agree to
it, won’t you?”
How could I not?
Louish is such a well-meaning person. I nodded.
“Great!” she said,
and beamed.
The rest of the
afternoon was lovely. We went for a walk together. She told me all about what
she and the other elders’ attachments get up to. Despite this rather heavy task
she’s landed me with, it always does me good being with her. I really can’t
believe she’s a grandmother and that her grandson is grown up.
“End and delete,” said Kaleem. That was definitely the
last time he would read Rozia’s glog. Now that his grandmother knew about the
new man in her life perhaps she would stop nagging him about getting back
together with Rozia.
Rozia. She was obviously happy with Julien. That had
been the plan. Leave her. Allow her to find someone else. There was no place
for romance in the life of a Peace Child. He’d even told her that he approved,
even made it sound as if he didn’t care.
Yet still she was producing her glog in Wordtext. She
was doing that for him, he knew. He doubted whether Julien could read Wordtext.
And every time now that he read her glog, he just hoped that she still wanted
to be with him. But she was with Julien now. Just as he had planned. No point
hoping it was otherwise. What was the point, then, of her writing this glog in
Wordtext? Was she trying to torment him?
There was certainly no point in him reading it anymore.
He sighed. What was there to look forward to now,
though?
*******************
Contact
You can find Gill at one of her many blogs
http://gilljames.blogspot.co.uk/
(about writing)
http://gillssamplesundays.blogspot.co.uk/
Samples of The Prophecy -amongst
others.
http://gillsrecommendedreads.blogspot.co.uk/
books I recommend. I only post here those very rare books that take me out of
my editing head. I will post other reviews elsewhere and I regularly review for
Armadillo Magazine and Troubador.
Her web site:
On Facebook:
and Twitter:
@gilljames
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