“The crones have got me my first national interview,” I told Cheryl, swaggering in a comical fashion in order to hide my real excitement.

“Oh my God!” she said, clapping her hands together. “That’s fantastic!” She hugged me. “What in?”

“The Ealing Leader,” I told her.

“Oh.” I felt her arms go limp. “That’s not really…national as such, is it?”

“Well, ‘national’ is just an expression we use in the industry to mean ‘major’.

“No, I’m pretty sure it means ‘national’.


Read Full Post

A day off today, thank the Lord. Nothing special but I need to use up some days before the end of March, as I can only take five days over to the next holiday year. Still, always nice to have a bloody Monday off!

Had quite a leisurely morning - I am however utterly delighted by Jill Weekes' review of Thorn in the Flesh which you can find on her blog dated 2 March. Jill has also been kind enough to put a similar five-star review on Amazon though of course they're not stocking it, Gawd bless 'em ... (you'll need to click through to full post for links!)

Read Full Post

With St. Patrick’s Day just around the corner, you can be sure I’m excited and already getting ready for my favorite day of the year! This year St. Paddy’s day will be celebrated on March 15th, rather than the usual date of March 17th. This is to avoid it falling on the Holy Week of the Catholic Church. The last time this happened was in 1940 to avoid it falling on Palm Sunday. So the year 2008 is a special year, indeed! And even if you’re not Irish, it’s a wonderful excuse to let go and have some fun! So put on your green and dance your own Irish jig, if you like. There’s no better time than St. Patrick’s Day to infuse your day with some good old fashion fun! Soon I’ll be out and about creating my own mischief, leaving copies of Laura and the Leprechauns hidden throughout Orange and Los Angeles County—so be on the lookout! Just check at www.bookcrossing.com for where I’ve left my clues.
All my best,

Amber

www.chrysalispress.com

I'm sure this is usual for writers; you reach a point of real progress with a story and you begin to lust after a place of retreat, somewhere you can hide away with your notebooks and just... think, read, write. I don't mean a cottage in the woods or the wilderness (although the Coach House at Gwydir? Bliss!). Just a room would suit me. Or a garden shed, as long as it had a few home comforts. Hmm. Milly Molly Mandy's jam pantry would suit.

Read Full Post

When you ask a writer “Where do you get your ideas from?” you may as well ask “Where do you get your dreams from?”

Writing can perhaps be seen as a type of lucid dreaming that the dreamer bothers to record. In lucid dreaming, the dreamer seems to have some control over the dream content. We writers also like to believe we are in control of the material we produce. There’s more to it than that, of course. As writers, we actively seek out the dreams that fuel our fiction, sometimes even inducing them with our own preferred stimulant or ritual, or combination of multiples of the above.

The American writer and writing professor Louis Gallo shared his own particular method for dream inducement with me in an email: “I crave dreams and have studied them for years, mainly the symbolic and archetypal elements. So I try to induce them. I find this concoction to work: a glass of RED wine, a large greenish banana, a piece of ephedra (this is what gives the really vivid dreams) and about half a mg of Ativan, the latter for getting to sleep.”

Read Full Post

Ye gods, sound the trumpets and wave the ruddy flags as, by George, I've done the bloody rewrite!! Yes. The Gifting is now completely rewritten and I believe I can give myself the ruddy evening off. Hell, I deserve it.

Naturally, I'll have to do the read-through and correct the no-doubt numerous errors, plus redo the timeline, create a new character profile for Annyeke and do a battles timeline, but at least I have something nearer the beast as I think it should be to actually work with. Sorry, you'll need to forgive the split infinitive. I can't be arsed to rewrite it. Ho ho. It is funny how some novels have to be chipped away at like sculptures before you get to what's inside ...

Read Full Post

News about books from Vulpes Libris.

Stories include:

Harrowing piece from The Guardian about a reconstructed diary from the Warsaw Ghetto

More about Willesden Herald Competition story

Harry Potter fails to top poll

Roger Morris on "Learned Helplessness of Writers"

David Isaacs on Sex scenes

Emma Darwin about Writing Forums

New Writers Bursary opportunity

For more on these and other stories, read full post...






Read Full Post

Dear Kitty

That’s it. I give up.

I don’t mean in that pretend way people ‘give up’, hoping love will find them whilst they’re absorbed in a bit of cross stitch or something.

Well, okay, maybe a bit.

Arg, actually, no! I really have given up! An attractive postman just delivered my mail and I didn’t feel a thing. He looked a bit like Jude Law. Not a flicker! He might as well have been Christopher Biggins.

So. Relationships just aren’t for me. I’ve had pain (lots of) and joy (sparing amounts) and madness (predominantly) but I’ve seen scant proof that its possible to be in love without spending a large portion of your time trying to develop mind-reading skills and the rest sponging mascara off your pillow with a damp flannel.

So, that’s it. I’ve given up. I sincerely, most definitely have.

Don’t even try and change my mind.

Singlegirl, Scotland




Read Full Post

I haven't posted for a while because I have been travelling but now I am settled for a few days and so I thought I would post a quick update. First, it is my opinion, given recent experience, that giving up coffee is a bad idea. I drink one cup a day, real coffee, none of that instant stuff. Last week I decided that perhaps it was affecting my sleep and so I stopped drinking it. On Coffee-Free Day Two I was due to fly to Ireland and a) I got the flight time wrong and nearly missed the flight and b) left my mobile phone on the train to the airport. I would like to point out that I never, ever do either of these things. I am normally very careful to check the flight times and to make sure I haven't dropped anything when getting off public transport. I blame it on the coffee withdrawal. I was too calm. See what happens?

Ok, back to writing talk....

Read Full Post

Lord H and I had great fun attempting to change my watch from 30 on the date button to a 1 today. Yes, it is a team effort - Lord H provides the brains and I provide the tea. We were surprised however when the watch started fighting back and giving us the days of the week in Italian. Hmm, it's never done that before. Do you think it's trying to tell me something? I wasn't even aware my watch could speak Italian and I'm very impressed, as I certainly can't. Anyway, we wrestled it to the ground and persuaded it to return to its native tongue, so it's now saying it's Saturday 1st. Hurrah!...

Read Full Post