I’ve just finished working for The Catchpole Agency again, doing the same filtering-of-submissions as I was doing in May, which I wrote about in Blog Post 13. I really enjoyed it, and it is a great learning experience for me in seeing the other side of how stories are received by the industry. It really is idea+execution+voice, which is so vague to describe. It basically comes down to gut feeling. If the story is good, but doesn’t quite resonate with one agent, chances are it will with another. Most didn’t follow the submission guidelines on The Catchpole Agency website, which doesn’t matter as much as people might think, but also when your story is one of 550 it’s impossible to stand out, so you might as well be professional and be yourself, take it or leave it. Some people did this and it was great, like an illustrated parody-picturebook of an A-Z of Roadkill, which I loved, but just didn’t think it was quite right for The Catchpole Agency.

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I took a break from my job to go and visit some friends in Oxford, where we went to the Story Museum, which is basically my job. It’s a very child-focused tactile museum about stories for children, and we loved it. There is a dragon room curated by Cressida Cowell.

To get to Oxford, I took the Oxford Tube bus from London Victoria. This is a very nice bus that goes every 15 minutes. Their website said that there was one wheelchair space on each bus, and you don’t have to pre-book tickets, so I just turned up. The driver on the way there was very enthusiastic and got to it putting out a ramp for me, moving the backrest out of the way for me, then putting it back and shackling my powerchair to it. On my way back, the driver clearly did not remember how to move the backrest out because he got someone else to do it in Oxford, and called ahead to London so that two staff members were waiting to help me get off. Technically accessible, but in practice such a faff I’d rather get the train. Still, at least none of this is my problem!

A few weeks ago I went up to Lancashire for a wedding and rather than the hassle of booking taxis, I got there by train and tram and public bus. To my delight, everything worked out, and it was a vote for public transport. Trams are definitely the most accessible, because you don’t even need a ramp to board, and it takes no planning or assistance to travel. I still need to use a ferry one day. Maybe I’ll be able to take one to visit my friends when they move to Spain.

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The 2024 Paralympics have ended now, and I really liked how they highlighted how disabled people who are not athletes can get involved in being active, promoting Every Body Moves, a website/movement to help people find inclusive exercise activities near them. Being able to look after and move the parts of your body that you can move is important for mental health as well as physical health.

Movement is also good for the imagination. I often find that when I’m planning to write something, like a blog post, I’ll take myself outside for a bit and go around the block. I’m not a particularly active sporty person, but even I can see the benefits. I recently listened to Sophie Morgan’s memoir Driving Forwards, and in that she talks about the joy she finds in being able to drive and travel after becoming a wheelchair-user. It’s the freedom of movement thing.

I want to end Becoming Sweetwood with Sky driving home from work a few years after leaving the forest in where it all began. The tree part of her hasn’t gone away like she hoped, but she can live with it. For me, it is important to show readers that a few years after turning into a tree (becoming disabled), with adaptations, Sky can still live her life. Ending with a scene of movement is what I want, especially because she can’t walk/move for most of the novel. As I can’t drive, I had fun talking with my friend who drives an adapted car coming up with ideas for a car adapted for a tree person. It definitely has to have an open top. She has to be able to feel the wind in her leaves.




(Featured Image is a piece from Jackie Morris’ Tell Me A Dragon, 2009 which there was a copy of in the Story Museum. This image has been in my mind for over 10 years now)