James Catchpole said he’ll get round to looking at Alice in Wheelchairland by the end of the month, so now I’ve been trying to distract myself by coming up with a new story idea. I say to myself “Come on, you’re a creative person!” Part of me wants to be melodramatic and consider my life as hanging in the balance, but a larger part of me knows I don’t need to be anxious, because Alice in Wheelchairland is good! I just have to be patient and know that my life doesn’t revolve around one idea. I know that even if an author finds an agent, the book might still be rejected by all the publishers, so don’t put all your eggs in one basket!

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I have become deeply interested in migratory birds, specially House or Sand Martins. A few years ago, I learned about a ‘marlet,’ a mythical bird in English heraldry that has no feet. It is a bird like a swift or a martin, that is always flying and never lands. At the time I heard about it I thought that someone should write one in a book. Now it strikes me that I want to be an author and I can write one. I love the metaphor of migration and also restlessness found in a martlet.

I have also become deeply interested in flooding in cities. I think because I can see the Thames from my flat, and I’m near another river which goes into the Thames, so water has been on my mind. I’ve looked at the flood risk map of London and sure enough, I’m in the flood risk zone. Not that I’m worried about it, but it has got me thinking about the beauty of water and flooded cities, obviously a destructive and scary reality but a great setting for a children’s book.

In a children’s book, anything can sound wonderous if the author writes it that way. That is the difference between fantasy and horror after all. Wonder and worry are two sides of the same coin. But what if it’s bad? But what if it’s good?

Thinking about water, I’ve become fixated on the part of the Studio Ghibli film Spirited Away (2001) when the whole world floods and Chihiro eats on the balcony of the bathhouse whilst watching the train go along flooded tracks beneath her. I like to eat looking out of my own balcony at the train tracks beneath and imagine what London would look like flooded.

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Last week I read the news that in his first day in office as President of the USA, Donald Trump immediately backed the country out of climate change agreements and said he was going to crack down on migration. If I’m honest, climate change is one of the deepest things that worries me in the world. It affects everything, too many things for me to write about now. And what can I do about it? How can I creatively respond, in a way that brings hope? I saw that writing a book on climate change and migration was the only thing I can do in response. Reality makes me angry, so I’m going to imagine a better future.

Flooding and sea level rise are a given reality in a warming world. But what if it was okay? What would it be like for a child growing up in a world where their baseline has shifted, and their reality was normal? And what if the sky was filled with migratory birds?

I don’t know what the story will be yet, or when I will write it. I’m still focused on Alice in Wheelchairland, but one day I will turn my attention to martins and a flooded world.
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(Featured Image is a screencap of Chihiro walking on the train tracks in Spirited Away (2001))