Amber's 1st Pamp

I don’t think you know but by now I’ve written about twenty three pamphlets (pamp) of fiction at around 20,000 words in length, novella. They’re little books which are stapled together instead of having a spine. They look great, handy-sized ( A5) and tidy.

 Yesterday my neighbour, 11 year old Amber (she calls her dad The Crumpet Manager), said she’d been writing, and she wanted to follow in my footsteps by producing her 1^st pamp. So far she’s got 12 pieces of flash fiction she started in school last year and she plans to release them in an anthology. We talked all day about pamp and I gave her all my insider tips and techniques. She later wrote all evening, doing 12 different character bios for her stories. She has agreed to be my recruit and I’ve agreed to be her mentor.

 Mostly we talked about the front and the back matter at the beginning and end of pamp. I think these two sections of a book are very important. If I’m skimming through and over books I have no intention of reading, I’ll always read the front and the back matter first, before any italics I can find. We talked about sleeve design, stickers, signing and numbering, 2^nd editions, illustrations, forewords, afterwords, and loads of interesting other stuff. It was a truly fantastic day being in such close contact with a young keen eager child who already is good with word. I gave her absolutely everything I had to know and didn’t hold back on a single thing. People were jealous of our conversation as we discussed pamp, pamp and pamp!

 I read her an old story called Nanny’s Cooker and she loved it. She’s promised me a copy of her 1^st pamp in return. I can’t wait to see how creative and talented she is.