10 Things is an excellent young adult novel, which deals with serious issues, but is full of humour and insight into a whole range of topics - everyday family relationships, the minefield of teenage social life and love, and ludicrously pretentious student drama among them. It also has plenty to say about school life - including the fabled rite of passage that is 'muck up day' - and that's hardly surprising, because it's written by none other than Bernard O'Keeffe, ex-SPS English teacher and former 8th Form Undermaster. He was kind enough to answer some of the book blog's questions.
Hello there, Mr O'Keeffe! How are you enjoying retirement?
It's great. I tend not to see it not so much as retirement but as having moved on to other things.
Indeed. But do you miss anything about teaching, or SPS, or Paulines in general?
I've been surprised by how little I've missed teaching. What has surprised me, looking back on thirty three years in the classroom, is that I managed to do it (and get away with it) for so long. It's an extraordinary job - demanding in so many ways - and it's only when you stop that you fully realise it. I have sometimes missed the daily banter with Paulines and colleagues, but my voice has enjoyed the rest.
Let's talk about 10 Things. The novel is written from Ruby's point of view: how did you go about finding her voice? What made you decide to choose a female protagonist?
Finding a voice is really difficult, but it's a little easier when it's a first-person narrator. My real worry was whether I should even be trying to write in the voice of a seventeen-year-old girl in the first place. Maybe I wanted to avoid the accusation that I was writing from personal experience, something that happened a lot with my first novel, No Regrets. What you discover, though, is that, regardless of age, gender and circumstance you are always, at some level, drawing on what you've experienced. In the case of 10 Things I did consider making the narrator a teenage boy but I thought the family dynamics would be far more interesting if it were a girl. Have I ever been a seventeen-year-old girl? No, but that doesn't mean you can't try to imagine what it's like to be one. I knew it was a risk, but that's what writers do, I suppose. Have I got away with it? I don't know, but when someone (a woman) said that I show 'an unsettling understanding of the young female psyche' I was pleased beyond words. It was that word 'unsettling' that did it.
The story's based around the list that Ruby's father leaves her. Did you always have the same idea about the ten things that would be on the list, or were there any you changed your mind about? Did the story come from the list, or did the list evolve to suit the story?
The list kept changing. I wanted to avoid the clichéd 'bucket list' things and I wanted it to fit in with the story, which made it quite tricky and which might also explain why the list is as it is. One thing I wanted to do was avoid giving the list 'upfront' so that the items are revealed as Ruby manages, or doesn't manage, to do them.
Were there any scenes or ideas you originally wanted to include, but changed your mind about?
Loads. And it all came back to the list. I could give you some of the rejected scenes, but I think I'd rather keep them to myself and leave it to your imagination.
One of the things I liked best about the novel is the characters round the edge: Ruby’s the central focus, but there are lots of interesting individuals whose lives we glimpse in less detail - her brother Josh, for instance, or her friends Tom and Cath. R J Palacio, who wrote Wonder, went on to write sequels looking at the story from the perspectives of different characters: have you considered doing that with 10 Things?
I'm really glad you say that about the characters round the edge, because I wanted there to be other stories going on in the novel. I don't think I'd do a sequel from other characters' perspectives but it might be interesting to see how Ruby gets on at University.
As well as being extremely moving (and entertaining), the novel is very honest about serious issues - bereavement, depression - and very open about what it feels like to experience them. It’s also highly accurate about how clueless everyone can be, despite their best intentions, when it comes to dealing with someone who’s going through these experiences. How can we get better at that?
I was conscious that I was writing a novel rather than a self-help book or a textbook on mental health, and I was trying to show that it's really difficult to know what's the best thing to do. I also wanted to show that everyone's experience is different and that needs to be recognised. How can we get better? I don't know. Talking about it is obviously a good starting point but it's sometimes difficult to know what to say and although mental health is far less stigmatised than it was many are still uncomfortable. There's also a danger of talking too much about it or of having a tick-box approach. Maybe we should talk about mental health in the same way that we talk about physical health. As Ruby says - 'if I'd broken my leg everyone would ask how I did it and offer to help with my crutches'.
As a genre, 'young adult' (YA) novels used to be patronised a lot. I remember teachers having quite a heated discussion at an exam board meeting about whether Keith Gray's YA novel The Ostrich Boys (also about bereavement) was ‘appropriate’ as a GCSE text. By ‘appropriate’, they seemed to mean ‘challenging enough in style and content'. What made you decide to write one?
10 Things started life as an adult novel. I had the idea of a girl finding a bucket list left for her by a parent who is no longer around. But when I started to write it I realised that a bucket list covers the whole of a life and this presented all kinds of problems. So I asked myself the question - what would happen if the list covered a shorter period of time? What would happen, for example, if it became a 'school bucket list'? This would give me the chance to focus on a significant time in everyone's life - their last year at school - and maybe write the YA novel I had always wanted to. What is a YA novel? I'm not sure. A novel with a teenage central character? Perhaps. A novel which deals with the issues that face young people? Perhaps. A novel that is deliberately 'watered down' in style and content? Definitely not. I think YA is more of a marketing term than a literary genre.
On your website, you note that 70% of YA readers are actually adults: have you read any YA novels you’d particularly recommend? Or are there YA novelists whose work you’ve particularly enjoyed?
John Green, David Levithan, Holly Bourne
Some writers and artists have a regular routine that helps them ‘get creative’. There was even a blog about it (Mason Currey's Daily Routines, which became his book Daily Rituals). Do you have a regular writing routine?
Nothing helps me 'get creative' - it's a matter of turning up at the desk each day with no expectation of a muse's arrival. Pinned to the wall above my desk is a German word - 'sitzfleisch' . Literally translated, it means 'sitting meat' or 'sitting flesh' - in other words, a term for one's backside. It does, though, have other connotations. To have 'sitzfleisch' means the ability to sit still for the long periods of time required to be truly productive - it means the stamina to see a project through to the end.
What are you working on now?
I've just completed a crime novel - the first of a series, I hope, and set in Barnes.
What advice would you give to any Paulines contemplating a career as a writer?
Turn up at the desk each day. Sitzfleisch.
Our next post is our leavers' post - if you had to make a list for teachers of 10 things they should do before leaving school, what would be on it?
1. Turn off your computer
2. Lock your classroom
3. Hand in your keys
Wise words and practical advice from BJO'K! Our thanks to him for generously taking the time to answer the blog's questions. 10 Things To Do Before Leaving School is available from all good bookshops, and if you'd like to find out more about it, or discover Mr O'Keeffe's thoughts on YA novels, Sally Rooney's Normal People, Robert Frost or the Rolling Stones, you can find out more on his blog here. Happy reading!
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