I’ve been in website jail. It’s taken a little while to sort out, but I am once again free to blog!
I was victim to over a thousand spam or non-existent subscribers, and as my last blog went out, so did three thousand emails, of which hundreds pinged back. This action put my website host on alert, and quite rightly, they put the site on lock-down.
In order to gain back control, I had to delete the dead or spam email addresses and install a captcha code box to prevent robot subscribers. I spent a lot of hours copying, pasting and deleting these addresses in order to remove them from my database, and once I let my provider know I’d complied with their request, my site was unblocked.
So, lesson learned. On the off-chance my code box doesn’t pick up all the spammers, I will delete the addresses that ping back as and when they occur. The reason I didn’t do this before? Fear of the unknown. Well, now I know, and despite being a lengthy process, it turned out to be reasonably simple thing to fix.
What I wanted to tell you, whilst I was in website jail, was that both my Choc Lit novels, Truth or Dare?, and Follow Me Follow You, are in the Amazon summer sale, each 99p to download, here. If you’ve read and enjoyed them, please do recommend them to a fellow reader. Thanks.
It’s All About The Digging: Minecraft and Research.
The Main Stage. MineCon 2015
I spent a hectic, exhausting, fantastic weekend in London, at MineCon – the Minecraft Convention.
Minecraft is one of the most widely played games in the world, and seventy-three countries were represented at the convention.
My children play Minecraft on various platforms, including their laptops and the Xbox, and are huge fans of YouTubers – in this case people who have made a name for themselves making films centred on the game.
Ten thousand tickets only went on sale. The competition was fierce. The event was sold out in minutes. Whilst my daughter and I sat in a car park in Plymouth, eating our sandwiches before attending a Paloma Faith gig, Gajitman was at home, poised at the PC, waiting for the first batch of tickets to be released.
At six-fifteen, I received a text to say he had secured five tickets – one for me, two for our children and two for our children’s friends. My teen was absolutely delighted and couldn’t wait to phone her mate to tell him the good news.
So, having achieved what at first seemed like the impossible, we found ourselves at the ExCel Centre in London for a weekend of gaming, workshops, panels and meeting the young (to me) YouTubers.
This is exactly the sort of thing my new hero, Ash Carrington, would do, and so I found the research invaluable, especially as I learned how Minecraft is now being used as an educational tool and as a way to help build real life communities.
While the children played Minecraft tournaments and carried out virtual building and mining, I did some digging of my own and was impressed and motivated by what I learned.
In conjunction with one another, the creators of Minecraft, Mojang, and UN-Habitat are using the mining and building game to encourage young people to design urban spaces, which are then built in real life. I think the Block By Block initiative is fascinating. Please take the time to check out the site for more info.
This is the sort of project with which Ash, a well-known TV presenter, would be involved, carrying out his work anonymously, and I have returned home full of ideas as to how to develop his character.
On a personal level, it was an absolute joy to see the pleasure and excitement on the children’s faces. I say children, but they are young adults, who paid for their own tickets, carried their own rucksacks, and planned their two days to take full advantage of everything on offer.
The icing on the cake for them was a private meet and greet with a group of Minecraft YouTubers known as The Pack. The equivalent for me would be a chat with Kate Bush, Paloma Faith, Jodi Picoult … you get the idea. YouTubers are today’s celebrities in the world of tech.
YouTubers Squid & Stampy
It was an honour to accompany the four young adults, and their energy was infectious. Something I will remember, and something Ash will teach my new heroine, Jo …
At school, I tried really hard to succeed at History. My brother enjoyed his history lessons, and my mum could name all the Kings and Queens of England, but I struggled with the political concepts and I was rubbish at deciphering documents.
I can recall snippets here and there – the Versailles Peace Treaty, the League of Nations, NATO, David Lloyd George (not to be confused with Harold Lloyd, whose TV shows were being rerun back in the eighties, when I was studying for O level History), and World War Two, but to me, it was simply a list of names, dates and figures.
Recently, I’ve learned more about the past by listening to those who have lived it, than I did sitting in class at school.
I’m at the wonderful phase of book writing – the beginning – when a whole new world, new characters and new scenarios are evolving. I’ve almost completed my research, but I have enough at this stage to start getting the first draft down. One of the characters in the book is named Nell. She grew up in the Channel Island of Jersey during WW2. With my history of … history, I needed to research this period of time and a friend of mine who, like Nell, grew up in Jersey, has been kind enough to talk me through her memories.
Spread over a few get-togethers, we chatted for several hours. Not only was I touched by my friend’s willingness to talk about her life, I am now better educated and have a higher regard for those things I tend to take for granted. To sit with a person who lived through the rationing, faced starvation, had no means of heat, and no form of communicating with the outside world, has made modern history real, and I wonder if I’d have learned more at fifteen if I’d had the honour of being taught by the people who were there. That’s not to say the teacher wasn’t doing her job – she was highly regarded and I liked her, but hearing the stories told first hand, and listening to the personal accounts have affected me more and given me a greater insight than I ever gained trying to absorb dates, times and document captions from a sheet of paper.
Or is it that now I’m older and have a history of my own, I understand more the value of life?
Today, we ChocLiteers are celebrating Choc Lit’s sixth birthday!
Choc Lit publish books ‘with romance at the heart’, so six is a very special number, as not only does it represent the Lover card in Tarot, but six is the symbol of Venus, the goddess of love.
When my children turned six it meant lots of little people running through our house, paper cups daringly filled to the rim with lemonade, tiny triangular sandwiches the adults ended up eating, and a zillion orange fingerprints on the woodwork, for which the eating of Wotsits was blamed.
I see no reason why partying in this way should cease …
So, put your Wotsit on the table, raise your glass of lemonade, and join me in wishing Choc Lit a very happy sixth birthday. And here’s to another wonderful six years of love and romance.
Who’s for a game of Twister?
Be sure to follow the Choc Lit blog, Facebook page and Twitter feed (#ChocLitparty) for birthday treats.
In celebration of the e-launch day for Alison May’s brand new romantic comedy, Midsummer Dreams, I’m posting today on the theme of all things dream-related. Be sure to check out Alison’s blog today, and see how many other dream-related posts you can find floating in the midsummer air.
I had a dream…
These are almost the lyrics to a song by the first band with whom I fell in love. (And yes, I have just watched the video, I did sing along, and I did come over all emotional.) I was ten years old when my friend introduced me to ABBA.She played Mamma Mia on her cassette player. You know the sort of machine? You had to set up the skinny microphone, balance it precariously on its Y stand, place it next to the radio, and press down the play and record buttons together to tape the Top 40 … One of those.
A long, long time ago …
With ABBA, it was love at first hearing, and for the next few Christmasses, I was guaranteed the newest album and accompanying poster. I knew every word of every song – even the B sides to the singles. I painstakingly handwrote the lyrics, lifting the arm on my record player to pause the song while I copied down the next couple of phrases.
I’d sit at my desk, staring through my window, listening to Abba, singing along, imagining I was on stage performing Fernando and Super Trouper, and I’d dream of meeting Benny, Bjorn, Agnetha and Frida.
Alas, I never met the four people who dominated the walls of my bedroom, but I have been on stage singing their songs, and enjoyed every moment of living that particular dream.
I had a nightmare…
… finding jeans that fit the small of my back.
My dream for the future…
That my children live happy, healthy and fulfilling lives, and that they know their dreams can come true. As Walt Disney said; All our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them.
Four people. Four messy lives. One party that changes everything … Emily is obsessed with ending her father’s new relationship – but is blind to the fact that her own is far from perfect. Dominic has spent so long making other people happy that he’s hardly noticed he’s not happy himself. Helen has loved the same man, unrequitedly, for ten years. Now she may have to face up to the fact that he will never be hers. Alex has always played the field. But when he finally meets a girl he wants to commit to, she is just out of his reach. At a midsummer wedding party, the bonds that tie the four friends together begin to unravel and show them that, sometimes, the sensible choice is not always the right one.
Wednesday saw the removal of my wrist cast, which in itself was enough cause for celebration, but when I returned home from hospital, I found a message from the wonderful people at the Official Jodi Picoult UK Fanpage informing me I’d won tickets to Jodi Picoult and Samantha van Leer’s evening at the Times building, London.
I’m a HUGE Jodi Picoult fan. This is not a secret. Her books inspired me to write issue-driven novels. Mine have strong elements of romance, with the happy ever after or hopeful ending, but they are issue-driven.
I was not going to turn down this superb opportunity to attend a Jodi Picoult evening, but the event was the next day.
Cue major excitement and blind panic.
Cue Gajitman, the hero of the hour, insisting I should go and he would take care of everything on the home front.
Trains, although a little tricky trying to book one all the way home that didn’t take seven hours, were sorted, the schedule for the next day was set, and I went to bed keen to get some sleep ready for my big adventure.
The day was hectic, with train cancellations, bus transfers, and the journey taking almost twice as long as anticipated, but everything – all of it – was worth it. I met some wonderful people – a lovely lady who was travelling the same journey as me – we chatted all the way to Waterloo, fellow Jodi Picoult fans (Hi Helen), who were as thrilled and excited as me to be at The Times event, and Jodi Picoult, her charming daughter, Samantha van Leer, and a handsome Prince Oliver, who were funny, delightful and engaging.
Jodi Picoult and her daughter, Samantha van Leer.
I met Jodi Picoult three years ago on her Lone Wolf tour when I ended up on the stage howling like a wolf, as detailed in the blog I wrote at the time, here.
Yesterday, it was the mother and daughter team promoting their second co-written book, Off The Page, a follow-up to Between The Lines, with assistance from Prince Oliver, a character fresh out of the pages of the books.
After the introduction, readings were given, the first by Samantha, the second by Prince Oliver, then the audience was invited to participate in a Q&A session.
A question was asked about research, and that’s something about which I used to speculate when I was a brand spanking new writer. I remember thinking specifically about Jodi Picoult books, packed as they are with hard-hitting and sensitive issues, and wondering how a writer gained access to experts.
Jodi explained she writes about issues that keep her awake at night, then finds the experts in that field and emails them requesting their assistance, explaining she is writing a book. She arranges to meet for an interview, which she records, and/or requests to shadow them to get a feel for their role. Their help is acknowledged in the published books.
Seven years on from starting my first novel, I’ve found that people are very generous with their time and knowledge and are happy to help a writer in need, for which I will always be grateful, and I offer thanks and if they allow, an acknowledgement in the book, too. My family and friends were my first port of call. There’s a vast amount of skill and experience within both groups, but if they’re not able to help, the chances are they’ll know someone who can. I’ve yet to approach an expert without a friendly letter or Facebook message of introduction from a mutual acquaintance, but should that time come, I know it’s okay to do so.
People were interested to learn about the writing process when co-authoring a book. Jodi and Samantha explained they literally sat side-by-side when writing the books and were often ‘on the same page’, but that didn’t stop heated debate or discussion on the occasions they were approaching the story from different angles. It was then Jodi realised her daughter was indeed a writer, that her ideas were great, and valid, and had every right to be considered. (I’ve paraphrased here, but this was my understanding.)
Samantha was thirteen when she had the idea for Between The Lines, and the book was written over the course of two to three summers, with the writers working eight hours per day. I think I’m right in saying the second book was written in a similar way.
I posed the final question of the evening, asking if when writing her adult books Jodi ever ran plot problems past Samantha, and Jodi cited an occasion where a dark scene had caused her problems. Samantha took it on and it was resolved. This made me smile as it’s something I do with my daughter, who has an instinct for asking the questions that will lead me to a revelation or realisation.
What I enjoyed most about last night was the mother/daughter dynamic on the stage – completely natural, with a dose of gentle ribbing, perfect synchronicity and flow of conversation, and an obvious love for one another.
Wonderful.
Thank you so much to The Times, the Official Jodi Picoult UK Fanpage, and to Prince Oliver, Samantha van Leer, and Jodi Picoult for a warm, friendly and thoroughly entertaining and inspiring evening.
It’s true. I have been plastered all weekend, and will continue on this course until June.
No wine was consumed …
As a person with rheumatoid arthritis, I’ve had many operations to alleviate pain, fix, replace or remove damage caused by the aggressive disease. My hands and arms are the most affected areas, but RA attacks many joints, including feet, ankles, knees and jaws.
Following wrist surgery two weeks ago, I’m now in a lightweight cast, up to my elbow, and will remain in it for five weeks. It’s comfortable, it’s usable, and it’s
Ulnar head replacement surgery Dec 2013
protecting my joint while it heals. I say joint, but I actually don’t have a wrist joint anymore. It was replaced in December 2013, and that replacement was removed in the last operation, the surgeon filling the space with soft tissue.
I am constantly amazed by the work of my orthopaedic consultant and his team, and I’m extremely fortunate to have their skills available to me.
My blue cast is comfortable, unlikely to give me concussion at night should I lose control of my arm, and, most importantly, on my left hand, which means as a right-hander, I can brush my teeth.
I’ve used my recovery time well, reading, which has been so enjoyable, and planning book 4. The plans are still in my head, but pretty soon the big sheet of paper and the marker pens will be OUT!
My thanks to Sharon Booth for inviting me to take part in the Sisterhood of the World Bloggers Award. Sharon is a wonderful, supportive writing friend whose debut novel, There Must Be An Angel, is available now.
Here are the questions Sharon set:
What is your earliest memory?
I remember being fascinated by those tall, plastic ashtrays that had a push-down feature to dispose of the ash. I was about three, maybe four, and our next door neighbour had two ‒ a red one and a black one.
What was your favourite Christmas present?
I’ve had quite a few over the years. I’ve had quite a few years. I think every present is lovely. I’m very lucky in that Gajitman is an expert wrapper and I always receive exquisitely presented gifts. New pens, notebooks and tokens of love are my favourite.
Who would you like to go on a date with? (Excluding current partners/spouses)
Michael J Fox, Johnny Depp, Steve Backshall …
Which film would you choose if you could only ever watch one again?
The Sound of Music. It contains every aspect of life I enjoy ‒ music, singing, romance, children, intrigue ‒ it’s packed with emotion and always makes me cry.
What are you most proud of?
How caring and thoughtful my children are.
Which woman in history do you most admire?
Kate Bush. She is a pioneer in music and has been a huge inspiration in my life. It’s unnerving to think the seventies and eighties are recent history and within my lifetime …
Which book do you wish you’d written?
My Sister’s Keeper, Jodi Picoult. It was the first I’d read of Jodi Picoult’s, and the ending caught me completely off-guard. It was one of the first books that left my crying, the first being Love and Devotion, by Erica James. My writing has been influenced by both authors.
What one thing do you think would surprise other people about you?
That I’m shy and retiring.
It’s not true, but it would surprise people.
You’ve had an unexpected windfall of one thousand pounds. What would you spend it on?
I’d spend some on my family and the rest on attending a writing course or retreat.
Who is your secret crush?
I don’t have a secret crush ‒ they are all well-documented. 🙂
As I’m expecting to be in plaster at the time of posting this blog, I will refrain from tagging others, but thank you for inviting me to take part, Sharon.
This is the current title of my third completed novel, now under submission with my publisher. It’s issue-based women’s fiction with a strong romantic element. It’s romance without the soft edges.
As the third in the Chesil Beach series, it sees a cameo from Olivia DeVere and Frank Paveley, from Follow Me Follow You, the return of Chesil Beach, and a few trips out to Portland Bill.
It explores a variety of dark issues, but I hope the reader finds it ultimately uplifting.
Here are a few location shots to set the scene.
Portland Bill LighthousePulpit Rock A character within its own right.View from the lighthouse.The hero’s choice of transport.Portland, in the distance.
I have emerged from my writing cave, having completed book 3, currently titled, What Doesn’t Kill You, and I’m over at Romanics HQ today, chatting about how I approached this novel differently to the first two. The post can be read here.
