The big news is that my writing sisters, The Romaniacs, won an industry award!
Both the RNA and The Bookseller reported on the awards. Congratulations to all the winners and runners-up, who gave brilliant and heartfelt speeches.
Six of the eight Romaniacs – Sue Fortin, Catherine Miller, Jan Brigden, Laura James, Debbie Fuller-White & Vanessa Savage. Celia J Anderson & Lucie Wheeler couldn’t be at the award ceremony, but were most definitely with us in spirit.
Please click here to go to the Romaniacs page to find out what we would have said on Wednesday evening, having been presented with our certificate and star, had we not lost the power of speech … :D.
Finally, thank you to my wonderful, always supportive local radio station, Wessex FM who not only shared the story online, but aired it in the six o’clock news last night. Thank you so much, Wessex FM.
We (The Romaniacs) are working on the logistics of sharing the beautiful glass star between eight of us, but it will be on show at our upcoming Sparkle weekend, when we will be getting together to plan for the year ahead.
This coming Saturday, November 14th, 2015, I, along with an entire coastline of Dorset writers, will be at Dorchester Library and Learning Centre, for the Dorset Writers Network launch of their eBook, This Little World.
There will be publishing, writing and poetry workshops, and in the afternoon, Kate Kelly, Kathy Sharp and I, three members of Littoralis – local authors whose books are inspired by the sea -will be taking part in a discussion panel. I am looking forward to this immensely and have already sorted out my outfit … It may involve red.
Bookings for the day are being taken, and it’s a great opportunity for writers to get together, whether you’re thinking about putting pen to paper and are not sure where to start, you’re looking to refresh your current skills, or you’d like to spend the day in the company of other writers. It’s excellent value. Please see the poster below for the details.
We would love to see you there.
Contact details and me!
Books will be available for purchase, and I always have my signing pen ready, just in case …
I am thrilled, delighted and honoured to bring you the news that my third book, What Doesn’t Kill You, is the first to be published under Choc Lit’s newest imprint!
Dark Choc Lit is the new imprint for ‘… compelling, emotional, hard-hitting novels. Not your typical romance story.’
My author tag is ‘romance without the soft edges’, and with Truth or Dare? being quoted on Amazon as ‘hard-hitting‘ (wood_beez48), ‘romance but so much more‘ (Happy reader), and ‘For those who like their romance/love stories a bit tougher, then Truth or Dare? is it.‘ (Book reviews), and Follow Me Follow You,being ‘very emotionally affecting‘ (Welsh Annie) and ‘a mature romance with it’s feet set firmly in reality‘ (Shani), I feel very at home with Dark Choc Lit.
It is most definitely the home for the third in the Chesil Series, What Doesn’t Kill You,and I’d like to take this time to thank my amazing publisher for this opportunity.
So … are you ready to see the beautiful Berni Stevens cover? I have no idea how Berni does it, but she captures the essence of the entire story with her stunning covers.
Scroll down …
It’s a beauty …
The Blurb:
What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger – but how strong can one person be?
Griff Hendry knows what it is to be strong. After a turbulent past, he’s dedicated himself to saving lives, working as a coastguard along the breath-taking shores of Dorset. It’s Griff’s belief that everyone is worth saving – which is why he can’t forgive his father, Logan, for what he did.
Griff’s future is plunged into uncertainty when his wife, Evie, tells him she wants a separation. The revelation is a shock and leads Griff to question what Evie could possibly be hiding – and she isn’t the only one holding back. Griff’s troubled stepdaughter, Tess, also harbours a dark secret.
As the truth is uncovered, Griff is forced to accept that perhaps he’s never understood what real strength is.
From Dark Choc Lit – compelling, emotional, hard-hitting novels. Not your typical romance story.
Confession: Not all of the editing took place in the cave ..
Emergence … It sounds like the final part in a Veronica Roth series. It’s not, as far as I’m aware. It’s a reference to the time I’ve spent in the edits cave with my third novel, What Doesn’t Kill You, and the fact I’m out and enjoying the October sunshine.
I’m hoping to have more information about the book soon and will let you know the minute I hear. In the meantime, I’m taking full advantage of my time outside by attending a number of writing-related events, starting with the Bridport Story Slam this Tuesday 13th October 2015, at the Beach and Barnicott in Bridport. I was honoured to be a judge last year, and this time I’m returning as the MC. It’s a fantastic evening and I urge you to come along.
Each contestant has a five-minute slot in which to read aloud their short story. If the story exceeds the time limit, the reader is dinged out. I’m not in charge of the bell.
It’s not only about writing, but the performance, too.
I will be there with copies of Follow Me Follow You for sale and would be delighted to talk books and writing during the breaks. It starts at 19:30.
On Saturday 24th October 2015, I shall be at the Redbridge Central Library, Ilford, with three of my fellow ChocLiteers, talking about writing romance. It’s excellent value at £3, and here are the details.
Along with two of my Littoralis friends, Kathy Sharp and Kate Kelly, I will be presenting a panel on the advantages of being with an independent publisher. There are many events planned for that day, including writing workshops. Really worth checking out and booking in advance.
For further updates about my trips out, please go to my News and Events page.
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.
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!
