Ten years? Ten YEARS since my first book was published? I may have stumbled into different space-time continuum, it's gone so fast. Forty-odd books later, here's the score so far:

Ali Sparkes

Ali Sparkes

  1. I'M NOT THE ONLY IMPOSTER. Last summer I was strolling through Hay Festival with Cathy Cassidy, beloved of LEGIONS of readers, and she confessed: 'I still think I might get found out'. So I'm not the only Imposter Syndrome sufferer. Making things up for a living sometimes feels like cheating.
  2. YOU ARE SELLING the minute you finish your manuscript. The first line of your first email to your first agent is a sales pitch so apply as much time and care to that as you did to your story. Women find this hard. We're brought up to be self-effacing. You don't have to be arrogant but make your pitch with the very female art of putting yourself in the agent's shoes. Is she ( usually a she) tired, rushed, pressured today? Probably. If so, give her a break and seduce her from the very top line.
  3. LIBRARIANS ARE GODS. They are precious and should be at the heart of every school.
  4. WE HAVE TO TWEET. Well, we don't, but our publicists like it if we do. And Facebook, of course. And all the others. I understand it but I fear that my massive online ego will one day break the internet.
  5. TEACHERS ON LAPTOPS COULD DO BETTER. A teacher doing marking while I'm presenting to their class makes me feel quite violent. Be PRESENT, teachers, as you've asked your pupils to be. Set a flippin' example.
  6. WE COPY. Yes. We do. We don't know we're doing it, but the stories we loved as a child (and even as an adult) will echo through our own whether we know it or not. You may not notice until years later, but the evidence is there. We call it 'inspiration', of course. My childhood influences were Joan Aiken , Enid Blyton and Douglas Adams. Current day influences? Andrew Norriss, Christopher Brookmyre and Toni Jordan.
  7. EDITORS DON'T GET ENOUGH CREDIT. Mine (Liz Cross and Deborah Sims at Oxford) are brilliant. We don't always agree, but the tug of war over an unruly manuscript usually results in something way, way better.
  8. OUR CHARACTERS MAKE THEIR OWN DECISIONS. You may think I'm in control of Dax Jones and his mates in the Shapeshifter series, but I'm not. Many of my author friends say the same: they start a chapter and then one of their characters wrestles it off them and does a runner. These are usually our best chapters.
  9. I WRITE WHILE I'M RUNNING. My 'Aha! THAT'S what happens next!' moments are nearly always when I'm out on a run.
  10. I DON'T APPEAR TO HAVE A YACHT. Seriously. Where IS my yacht? Children I meet are also appalled when they realise I drive a VW Beetle - not an Aston Martin. Children's authors don't usually get paid millions. That dot on my royalties statement should surely be a comma...