Hi guys. Welcome to my stop on The Rain by Virginia Bergin blog tour! Its called The Life Cycle of The Rain tour and each stop has different posts. My post is from Rachel Petty, Senior Commissioning Editor at Macmillan Children’s Books so read on and enjoy (don't forget to check out Julies review of The Rain HERE)
THE LIFE CYCLE OF THE RAIN
We all remember learning about the water cycle at school don’t we? How the sun heats the water, and the water evaporates and… blah blah blah. The Water Cycle was never a topic that set our school books on fire BUT maybe if Ruby Morris had paid more attention to her Geography teacher then she’d know exactly which clouds might kill her! So we’re here to educate you, because don’t forget, just one drop will kill you. From the writing process to publication, join us for a blog tour with a difference, as we learn about a FAR more interesting cycle – The Life Cycle of The Rain by Virginia Bergin.
1. The sun heats the ocean i.e. Virginia Bergin gets an excellent idea
2. Prevailing winds pick up the manuscript and deliver it to the Agent Louise Lamont
3. Pressure (also known as excitement) begins to build within the publishing cloud of Macmillan with Editor Rachel Petty
4. Virginia Bergin is as high as a cirrocumulus cloud as her book begins to form
5. Storm clouds gather over Frankfurt and Bologna – Rights
6. A downpour of marketing and publicity support
7. Take shelter in your local bookshop – Totnes Bookshop
One minute sixteen-year-old Ruby Morris is having her first proper snog with Caspar McCloud in a hot tub, and the next she’s being bundled inside the house, dripping wet, cold and in her underwear. Not cool. As she and Caspar shiver in the kitchen, it starts to rain. They turn on the radio to hear panicked voices – ‘It’s in the rain . . . it’s in the rain . . . ' That was two weeks ago, and now Ruby is totally alone. People weren’t prepared for the rain, got caught out in it, didn’t realize that you couldn’t drink water from the taps either. Even a drip of rain would infect your blood, and eat you from the inside out. Ruby knows she has to get to London to find her dad, but she just doesn’t know where to start . . . After rescuing all the neighbourhood dogs, Ruby sets off on a journey that will take her the length of the country – surviving in the only way she knows how.
Guest Post by Rachel Petty
The Rain - Pressure (also known as
excitement) begins to build within the publishing cloud of Macmillan with the Editor
and the acquisition process
I was in New York for work when I first
read The Rain (I know, fancy). I’d spent the day seeing American agents and
editors and heard about lots and lots of US YA, and to be honest, when I got
back to my hotel room that night all I really wanted to read was some good UK
YA. The submission gods were smiling on me, and there in my inbox was the exact
thing I felt like reading: a gritty, heartbreaking survival story that was
also, somehow, going to make me laugh out loud. I knew as soon as I started reading that The
Rain was special and that I had to move fast, so early
the next morning (after spending most of the night reading it) I sent it to
everyone back in the UK office and told them they had to read it STRAIGHT AWAY.
I hated not being in the office to scoot around telling everyone how great The
Rain was (which is what I normally do when I’m excited about a submission) but
I could tell that they loved it too – I got email after email saying WE MUST
BUY THIS BOOK.
When I got back to the UK I heard that the
book would be going to auction and knew I would have to do something special to
win. I love a project so I decided that I would recreate the world of the book
in its very own little snow-globe (rain-globe). We work near St Martin’s College
of Art so there’s a shop round the corner from the office which sells things
for architecture students to make models with, so I bought some tiny people,
tiny dogs, tiny trees and adhesive grass and I was GOOD TO GO.
Here it is, complete with dead person and
dog with severed leg. I added red glitter to represent the killer rain.
When Virginia came in with her agent Louise
and I presented her with the rain-globe there was a second where she looked
like she couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing. Then she noticed the dog
with the leg in its mouth and laughed, and I knew she liked it.
When we heard that we had won the auction
everyone at MCB was thrilled, and we’re still so excited for people to read the
book. It’s genuinely got one of the most refreshing, real and unique voices
I’ve ever come across, and I think it’s BRILLIANT.
Virginia Bergin learned to roller-skate with the children of eminent physicists. She grew up in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, and went on to study psychology, but ruined her own career when, dabbling in fine art at Central Saint Martins, she rediscovered creative writing. Since then she has written poetry, short stories, film and TV scripts. Most recently she has been working in online education, creating interactive courses for The Open University.
She currently lives on a council estate in Bristol and has taken to feeding the birds in between writing the sequel to The Rain.
She currently lives on a council estate in Bristol and has taken to feeding the birds in between writing the sequel to The Rain.
Twitter : @VeeBergin
Website : http://www.virginiabergin.com/
Holly @ http://heyhollyjune.blogspot.
This is such a cool post. Love it.
ReplyDeleteIsn't it!! I loved reading the guest post.
DeleteThanks for sharing - Sounds SO good, I have to read this book! :D
ReplyDeleteIt does sound awesome! I need to get a copy for myself ;)
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