Here it is!

Hurrah!  I am officially published again for the second time, as Sunlounger 2 came out this weekend. Rather aptly for midsummer weekend, my story is called Midsummer Madness, a sneaky peek is available here.

And if you are interested in the whole thing- 44 lovely summery stories and even a murder for less than £3, then it is on sale on Amazon UK and Amazon US.

Off to drink fizz now...

And so it begins...

Last summer, in all the brouhaha of being included in the Sunlounger Anthology, there was much squeeing and whooping on this blog.

There are now less than ten days until Sunlounger 2 hits the ether. So three guesses where things are about to slant. I'm thinking it is only fair to give you warning. 

To kick things off, the Sunlounger website has been given a whole new look and address.
SunloungerStories can be found here. On the site, you'll find info about all the writers and their stories for both books. 

There's also a newsletter you can subscribe to, where the Sunlounger writers have written about holiday locations and travel tips. Come on, It's FREE!

The World Cup, Wimbledon, Sunlounger2, - I'm not sure June can fit anything else in.

*Launch the Confetti* My Summer 14 TBR Pile

It is summer! Hurrah! And with it comes Pimms, strawberries, sandaly-flip-floppy footwear and of course a new reading pile. This is the pile of holidays. There is also a secret pile of some non-fiction as I am in a research phase. Can you spot it? No, of course you can't. Secret, remember? I can say no more. Zip. Sworn to secrecy by... um, me.

 The Un-secret books are;

Stolen by Lucy Christopher

Getting the Girl by Markus Zusak

The Probability of Miracles by Wendy Wunder

Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan

Boyproof by Cecil Castellucci

The Travelling Tea Shop by Belinda Jones

Geek Girl by Holly Smale

Rose under fire by Elizabeth Wein

Divergent by Veronica Roth

Dare Me by Meg Abbott

On the kindle are;

Trinity by Nigel May

The Art of Keeping Faith by Anna Bloom

Red at Night by Katie McGarry

and of course as of June 21^st , there will be this one. More details to follow soon.

I'll let you know how I get on. Anyone read any of these? 

What are you reading this season?

Spring 14 Gut Reactions

Well it is another of those seasons where I feel I have raced through plenty of books and couldn’t remember that many of them. Perhaps I shouldn’t race so much. Perhaps I should read slower. But then when I sat down to write this I realised that I have really enjoyed the majority of them.

The pile looked like this:

 The additional books I read were

Moranthology by Caitlin Moran

Crash into you by Katie McGarry

Geekhood- Close Encounters of the Girl Kind by Andy Robb 

The tied Stars of the List were The Guestbook by Holly Martin, for its form (yeees, we know how I feel about form flexing) and It felt like a Kiss by Sarra Manning, because she just does great voice, and Moranthology because Moran can just say things in the most barkingly mad fashion but that makes perfect sense. If I could write in a combination of Moran and Manning, I would die happy.

Notable mentions go to;

How to get a (love) life by Rosie Blake for a great debut with laugh out loud moments.

Beautiful wedding by Jamie McGuire was good to revisit Travis and Abi’s characters. I think they are done now, but I am looking forward to the new series based on Travis’ brother Trent, starting with Beautiful Oblivion due out in July.

This song will save your life by Leila Sales and Pushing the Limits by Katie McGarry, are both current YA Contemporary. Sale’s book was interesting as it wasn’t strongly bedded in romance. The focus was staunchly on the MC’s personal development, and was refreshing for it. McGarry’s book though following a more traditional plot line, took a look at the grittier side of teen life, here foster kids and mental health. As seems to be the current trend the main and supporting characters appear across other novels too, which is always a boon if you like them.

Hannah Tinti’s The Good Thief is a proper fairytale. There are orphanages, dwarves, mousetrap factories, assassin giants, body snatchers and lost fortunes, all wrapped up in a web of lies and thievery. What more do you need?  

Carrie Fisher's Surrender the Pink - Man can she turn a phrase...

And the other stuff;

  One of these books did not give me the happy ending that I deserved.

  One of these books I never made it past the fourth chapter as I couldn’t get into the voice.

 One of these books was fine, but not as good at the writer’s other books.

Onwards then, to the Summer TBR pile!!

My Writing Process Blog Hop

The lovely Elizabeth Dunn has tagged me to take part in the My Writing Process Blog Hop.

Liz is an MG/YA writer, journalist ,reader, teacher, lovely critiquer, barking mad Kiwi mum of thousands, and lucky enough to live in Venice. You can find her post here.

And so for the Blog Hop questions;

What am I working on? I've just finished the first draft - what I call my Vomit draft- of a full length ChickLit story. To date, the Women's Fiction I've written has been short stories between 650 words and 7000 words, so I wanted to see if I could actually spin out 100k words. And so I am letting that rest for a week or two before I start to strip it into something resembling a first draft and then we'll see if it has any scope to take further. In the meantime, I'm plotting something else, also Women's Fiction. So the cork-board is out and the index cards are charged and ready. I'm also considering trying this project out using Scrivener. Any tips anyone?

How does my work differ from others in the genre?  Ha! I don't know that it does, on the basis that I haven't read every book in the whole genre. What I have is my own voice and the way I see things. I can only really write the story I have, in the way that I have. I've tried projects before where I was deliberately trying to write the opposite to everything else I'd read and it tied me up in knots.

Why do I write what I do?  This one is difficult for me, as in my head I'm new to Women's Fiction. I started out writing for Children, then onto YA. As a side-line I write grown-up short travel stories which for some reason I didn't link with my bigger dream of writing novels.  Then I won a place in Belinda Jones' Sunlounger Anthology on a whim submission (full story here)

and it was only then that I thought that maybe this was where my writing voice is suited to. I'm still working it out, so we'll wait and see.     As to why I write, the answer is simple; I have all these little voices nattering in my head and I have to get them out. I love the dialogues and then I have to find settings for them. Batty but true.

How does my writing process work?  Yeah, still trying to work that one out too. I wrote a 75k word YA story, then promptly forgot how I did it, which had me floundering for a while. Now I write side notes on what I am doing, so I'll remember another time. Daft, yes, but forgetting is awful.

Currently, having recently acknowledged that I am a Planner not a Pantster, it looks roughly like this;

1)    Have the idea. Write it in notebook. Chat to myself about it in my daily entry in 750words.com. This should go on for some days if the idea is really going to get its claws in.

2)     Keep writing about the idea. This is more of a discussion with myself about how it could work, and brainstorming lots of ideas. I am not allowed to write dialogue at this point (some always slides in, but I tell myself I'm just illustrating a point, Ba-ha-ha!) because I am supposed to be working towards The Plot.

3)    Force myself to do an extra couple of days of The Brainstorming, as it still throws up more stuff and whittles out more.

4)    Get the board and the index cards out and stick a load up there. Then I see that there are loads of gaps, and I need more Chat. I go back to points 2/3. I try to add at least 2 cards a day to the board, until I have about 38ish. (This is all in Blake Snyder's Save the Cat, by the way)

5)    Don the writing boots on, and write every day, following The Path of The Plot. This is currently working at 2k a day. I get time off at the weekend to write other stuff, but only if I have reached my quota of 10k a week. I start using the 750words.com site, so I know I have to pitch up and write the first load of words and once I am in it, the remaining words just get bashed out. If I am faffing, I set the timer for 45 minutes, because it doesn’t sound as long as an hour and I am easily deluded.

That's it. That's My Writing Process. At the moment.

 Oh and I write wearing a pink plastic tiara, but everyone does that, right?

I'm tagging my Lovely Critique Partner Fairview for next week's blog hop post.
She writes US-based YA contemporary romance and award winning short stories. We met some three years ago via Maggie Stiefvater's Critiquing Love Connection, clicked and have have never looked back.

Catch her here  or at www.viewfromfairview.blogspot.com on the next stage of the Blog hop next Monday. 

Partytime!

Today I found myself in the realms of Writerdom, hobnobbing with the proper published, at the combined launch party for Belinda Jones' The Travelling Tea Shop and Sunlounger 2.

We took over Trader Vic's at the Hilton for some hours, and filled it with writers and bloggers of Women's Fiction. And cocktails. And amazing cupcakes.



Now, we saw at the last Sunlounger party that I am clearly not David Bailey's lovechild and my photographic skills are second to all, but here are a couple that give a smidge of the action.

Belinda Jones, Anna-Lou Wetherley, Laurey Buckland

Laurey Buckland, Jess Bickerton, Cress McLaughlin, Holly Martin, Lisa Dickinson

My throat is sore from chatting, there was lots of hugging and squeeing with people who I feel I've met before, but only know from t'internet, and I did plenty of Fangirling. But the thing that I brought home mostly, was how lovely this set of writers are. It doesn't feel like there is competition between them, as of course, they can't write the books fast enough to lay claim the market, and so everyone is supportive. Even of aspiring types like me. And to top it all off , there is this vast network of bloggers out there, who love the industry, support it and just want to see more coming their way.

Totally having the feels about the world of Women's Fiction today. And cocktails. And amazing cupcakes.

Incoming bloghop

I've been tagged for the My Writing Process blog hop and will be posting on Monday 26th May. I get to tag others when I am done, to post on the following Monday (2nd of June). Would any of you like to be tagged?

 Let me know, let me know...