I think my visit to the New North Academy in Islington was one of the best I've ever had. I met some brilliant readers and writers from Year 6, and fantastic teachers like Fiona Gunn-Stokes and Alexander Hall. They showed me the excellent work they'd been doing on Phoenix as well as Varjak Paw. It was really inspiring to see all the enthusiasm for books out there!
It was amazing afterwards to find messages on my site like this:
Dear SF SAID, you have visited new north academy and I was one of the pupils. So far I have written 5 MINI SHORT STORIES because you have inspired me to do so. I have learnt a lot from you and I will cherish your visit. I hope you write another Varjak one of my ideas was varjak having a twin called varjak Claw and he could be bad. That could be a special edition . I really wish you would use some ideas in your books such as Holly and Varjak getting married! Thanks again
The thing that inspired me was you talked to us that you had 91 rejections but you stile wrote books you talked to us about to never give up .
ReplyDeleteThanh you
mohamed
Dear Mohamed,
DeleteThank you for your great comment! I'm glad you found the visit inspiring. I really do believe that perseverance is the most important quality in doing anything - so whatever you want to do, keep trying to improve and never give up!
With best wishes,
SF
thank you for visiting our school you really inspired me to not give up my dreams and keep on trying your books were outstanding
ReplyDeletethank you
dalia
Thank you for your fantastic welcome, Dalia, and for all your kind words! Good luck following your dreams!
DeleteAll the best,
SF
You inspired me because you helped me with my Maths,English,Science
ReplyDeleteThank you
mohamed
That is amazing to hear - thank you so much, Mohamed! Good luck with your Maths, English, Science - and everything else that you do!
DeleteWith best wishes,
SF
You really helped me .You made me more confident and it was amazing to see you it was incredible
ReplyDeleteThank you, Dalia - that is a brilliant thing to hear, and really means a lot to me. Good luck again!
Deleteshanicegrima 14 of march
ReplyDeletei like your vist and i am reading varjak paw of shanice
Thank you so much for your lovely comment, Shanice - I hope you enjoy reading Varjak Paw!
DeleteHi. My name is Sonya and I was one of the first people to meet you when you came to New North Academy. I would like to thank you for visiting our school and also thank you for inspiring me to write a scfi story. To be honest I wasn't a big fan of science fiction but because of Phoenix I enjoy reading scfi. I'm looking forward to your new book Tyger and I'm sure it's going to be amazing as all your other books.
ReplyDeleteHi Sonya, thank you so much for that amazing comment! I'm really glad you enjoyed Phoenix, and that it inspired you to read & write sci-fi. There are lots of fantastic sci-fi books out there; I hope you'll enjoy discovering them... And I hope you'll enjoy TYGER too, when it's finished!
DeleteWith best wishes,
SF
PS: Thanks again for the fantastic welcome, it was so brilliant to meet you all!
DeleteHi it's Sonya again. Just to to let you know before the holiday we wrote our own science fiction inspired by Phoenix. Like I previously mentioned I wasn't a fan of science fiction but I ended up getting a Level 5 for writing one. So thank you so much for inspiring me.
DeleteHi Sonya! Thanks for letting me know, that is FANTASTIC! Congratulations!!!
DeleteHello SF, my name is Ali and in school (Not new north academy) my class love your books we've been reading varjak paw and the outlaw varjak paw. Everyone in my class is asking if your releasing a new varjak paw book so please tell me.
ReplyDeleteFrom Ali
Hello Ali, thank you for your comment! I will write a third Varjak Paw book one day; I wrote a bit about my idea for it here.
DeleteIn the meantime, I hope you'll try my new book Phoenix. It's not a Varjak Paw book, but I hope that if you enjoyed Varjak, you'll enjoy it too; many of the underlying themes are similar!
It was so inspiring when you came because a writer has to keep going and even if you get rejected a few times. To say the true I would of gave up on my first time writing a story.
ReplyDeletefrom Sarah[ new north academy]
Hi Sarah, thank you so much for your kind comment! Perseverance can definitely take you a long way, so whatever you want to do, I think it's really important to keep going and not give up!
DeleteHi! I was a Year 3 student in 2014, when you came to our school. I really wanted to meet you, seeing as I had read your first novel a couple of years earlier. I'm actually trying to write my first book as we speak: It isn't really going to plan, but 91 times!?!?!?!?!? That is 90 too many times. I think you are a amazing writer.
ReplyDeleteYours, Aidain {NNA}
Hi Aidain,
DeleteThank you so much for your comment, and your kind words! To be fair, those 90 rejections were across 3 books - my first one was rejected 40 times, as was my second, and Varjak Paw was then rejected 10 times before I finally found a publisher! So I think perseverance definitely pays off.
It's brilliant to hear that you're writing your first book right now - good luck with it! If it's helpful, I've done a few writing tips on this blog - you can find them all here.
With best wishes,
SF Said