Kidnaps & Wombats
LAURA MARLIN MYSTERY RESEARCH
Blue lagoon, Antigua
I’m frequently trying to convince people that, as an occupation, writing is harder than wrestling alligators. It’s also one of the worst paid professions on earth. Forget what you’ve read about how JK Rowling lives in a castle and travels by Rolls Royce. The average children’s author earns 2,500 pounds a year. Yes, really.
However, the reason I love it so much is that it does have plenty of compensations. Take research. If you’re African like me and live in a cold country where you spend a lot of time clutching hot water bottles, you spend a great deal of time dreaming up plots set in sunny places.
With that in mind, I packed my bags in November and set off to Antigua, a Caribbean Island boasting 365 beaches, to research the second book in my new mystery series: Kidnap in the Caribbean: a Laura Marlin Mystery. Naturally I was working far too hard to spend time lying on the beach, but it was bliss. Sun-drenched days with friendly people, lots of fresh coconut milk, and turquoise lagoons as warm as bath water. I stayed at the Verandah for seven nights and Carlisle Bay for three nights and can’t recommend either highly enough.
Sunset at Carlisle Bay
The first book in my Laura Marlin series comes out in August 2010 and is called Dead Man’s Cove. It is set in St Ives, Cornwall, one of my favourite places in the world, and is about an 11-year-old girl who idolizes a fictional detective. When she is sent to stay with her mysterious uncle, events take a scary turn.
Also out this year is the paperback of Elephant’s Tale, which will be launched in conjunction with an amazing competition. Watch this space. Check my diary page for dates of appearances. I’ll be doing the Hay, Edinburgh, Shrewsbury and Essex children’s book festivals in 2010.
WHITE GIRAFFE MOVIE UPDATE
I get a lot of letters asking when The White Giraffe is going to be made into a movie. The short answer is: I don’t know. Walden Media, the company that made Narnia and Charlotte’s Web, was developing it, but that was before the credit crunch took a bite out of Hollywood. Now we’re looking for a new home for it. I’ll keep you posted.
THE GRASS IS NOT ALWAYS GREENER
Most days I’m fortunate enough to have a short distance commute from the bedroom to the study, but this morning it was six degrees and snowing when I left the house at 6.10am for a school visit in Farnham, Surrey. Anyone living in the Northern hemisphere this winter will know that it has been insanely cold since mid-December. In some ways, it has been magical. For instance, we had a proper white Christmas. Now, however, most people – including me – are well and truly ready for spring and everywhere you go, people are wishing they were in Australia or Africa. To which I say: “Be careful what you wish for.”
There’s a Crowded House song that contains the lyric: “Everywhere you go, always take the weather.” Doubtless the singer was referring to the Australian sunshine, but when I went to Australia and Africa a little over a year ago – at the height of their summer, I managed to take the English rain. For five weeks, it was my constant companion.
First stop, Cape Town. Weather: Incessant drizzle with a light Arctic breeze
Second stop, Johannesburg: Overcast with rare outbreaks of sunshine, heavy downpours, temperature cool to freezing.
Third stop, Sydney: As above
Fourth stop: Tallebudgera Valley, Gold Coast: A tree-demolishing cyclone, followed by days of high winds and thunderstorms with fizzing split tongues of purple lightning. Terrifying but beautiful.
Fourth stop: Byron Bay: Four days of torrential rain
Fifth stop: Melbourne: Overcast with patchy sun and drizzle. Cold at night.
Final stop: London: Blazing sunshine
Moral of the story: The grass is not always greener. At least, it was a lot greener due to the epic quantity of rain (I took floods to parts of Australia that had been in drought for six years), but the sky is not always bluer, put it that way. Everywhere I went I had locals saying to me: “How on earth do you live in England with that awful weather?” And I’d go: “Yeah, like you can talk.”
WOMBATS: THE CREATURE THAT DARWIN FORGOT
The loveable wombat
Speaking of Australia, what is it with the Wombat? I mean, how on earth did it survive evolution? It has no legs. It has four stumps which it uses to manoevre its beer-barrel-shaped body between its bed and its food supply but nothing that might allow it to outrun or even outwalk a predator. It has very small eyes which seem incapable of focusing on anything except its next meal. In fact, the one at the Healesville Sanctuary near Melbourne was so shortsighted it actually climbed into the trough to crunch up its biscuits. While guzzling, it was challenged by a small bird (see picture). Instead of putting up a fight, it retreated to its bed to sulk, emerging only to scratch its butt against a tree.
This, I’m told, is the reason the wombat has survived down the ages – its thick skin. Now that makes perfect sense. Human beings – especially politicians, bankers and beauty queens - have been surviving that way for centuries.
LEOPARD UPDATE
Lastly, but most importantly, an update on Leda, Rhea and Roxanni, the three leopards I helped the Born Free Foundation rehome from a zoo in Cyprus to Born Free’s wonderful sanctuary at Shamwari Game Reserve in South Africa. They’re thriving. They love their new home and spend a lot of time basking in the sun and wrestling with one another. The most noticeable thing is how relaxed they are. They’ve thrown off the shackles of their old life, a nightmare of concrete, people throwing things and pounding music from a theme park and found peace in the African bush and freedom.
If you’d like to support Born Free’s work with the leopards and help build a new African sanctuary for endangered animals, donate to www.lastleopardfund.com