On Writing A Series… With Karen Saunders (Suzy P Blog Tour)

I love Suzy P so was super excited to host a stop on the Suzy P Blog tour! If you haven't read this series by Karen Saunders yet I recommend you get reading soon - they are ace!

I'll hand you over to Karen, who has stopped by to talk about writing a series...
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Photo Credit: Neil Griffithsweb

On Writing A Series… With Karen Saunders


Hiya, I’m Karen Saunders, the author of the Suzy P series. Thanks for having me here today!

Suzy P, Forever Me is the third book in the Suzy series, following on from Me, Suzy P and Suzy P and the Trouble With Three. They all feature fourteen-year-old Suzy Puttock, a girl with an embarrassing name, embarrassing family, and altogether embarrassing life. Poor Suzy’s always landing herself in scrapes and saying things she shouldn’t – this time around she’s promised her entire school she can get super-famous band The Drifting to play at their fundraiser, and she’s having to help Mum plan Dad’s surprise birthday party. To make things even worse, both events are happening on the same day… how’s Suzy going to sort out the mess she’s made this time?!

I sat down to write the third Suzy P at the end of 2013. I’m not going to lie, my deadline was pretty tight and I was feeling apprehensive about whether or not I was going to get the book written in time.

I also knew this was likely to be the last Suzy book, so I wanted to make it really good, and finish the series on a high. One of the hardest things was figuring out what the ‘theme’ of the book was going to be, the first one focuses on relationships, the second on friendships, and the third was eventually decided to be about growing up and finding yourself.

The plot took a bit of thrashing out between myself and my editor, but eventually we’d got the outline of how we wanted the story to be. It’s changed since then, although not drastically, this quite often happens when I start to write and realise that things I’ve included in the synopsis aren’t going to work in the book itself. For example, in the original synopsis, Suzy and her best friends all fell out towards the end of the story, but as I got towards writing this part I realised I didn’t want this to happen. I wanted all the friends to be pulling together and working as best they could to sort out the mess they’ve found themselves in.

It was also a bit tricky thinking of new and funny situations for Suzy to find herself in – luckily for me, not all my friends have cottoned on to the fact that if they tell me embarrassing stuff about themselves they may well find I’ve borrowed snippets of their life to put into the books! I was wondering about how to start the book when I had a conversation with a friend about something mortifying that had happened to her, and I adapted it so it could happen to Suzy – which became the basis for what happens in chapter one.

The nicest thing about writing a third book in a series like this is that all the characters feel like mates. It’s like having a catch up with old friends – you know exactly how they talk, their likes/dislikes, what they eat, wear, etc. So you can get straight on with the writing. I also really enjoy the process of deciding where to take their lives and thinking about what might have happened to them since the last book, it’s a lot of fun. This character arc has been particularly obvious with Amber, Suzy’s older sister – in the first book she was getting married, in the second she was pregnant, and in the third she’s trying to figure out how to juggle life with newborn twins.

Although the books are chronological, they can all be read as standalones too. I hope if you read one, you’ll like it enough to go and hunt out the other two! I’ve had such fun creating Suzy, her friendships and her life, I hope you enjoy reading the books as much as I’ve enjoyed writing them.

Thanks so much for having me on your blog!

--- Thanks Karen!

You can read my review for the first book, Me, Suzy P here. You can also read Suzy P's advice on Minimising Cringe aka How not to embarrass yourself ... which she kindly wrote after laughing for about an hour... here.

Suzy P, Forever Me; Suzy P and the Trouble With Three and Me, Suzy P by Karen Saunders are available to buy online and from all good bookshops. If you’d like to find out more about the books or the author, do visit Karen online at www.karensaunders.co.uk, ‘like’ her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/karensaunderswriter or follow Karen on Twitter @writingkaren. Suzy tweets too, @suzyputtock, so don’t forget to follow her, too!

Next stop on the tour is tomorrow over on  Nayu's Reading Corner 

Guest Post: The Most Important Qualities in a BFF (Since You've Been Gone Blog Tour)

I'm really excited to launch the blog tour for Since You've Been Gone by Morgan Matson.  I love her books so am so pleased to have her stop by today to talk about friendship and what it means to her...
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In my new book, Since You’ve Been Gone, there is a big focus on friendship. Friendship is hugely important to me, and I’m lucky to be friends with some of the most awesome, funny and kind people in the known universe. In thinking about what friendship means to me, and why friendship is important, I thought I would make a list of the most important qualities in a BFF (to possess yourself AND to find in others!)

1. Sense of humour
This is HUGE for me. I think my BFF is hysterically funny, and even if she doesn’t think the same about me, she laughs at my jokes, which is very kind. But we can always make each other laugh, and we get a kick out of the same shows and movies. I think this is CRUCIAL in a friendship. You don’t want to always be explaining to someone why something is funny.

2. Snack compatibility
Again, VERY important for me. My BFF is a vegetarian, so we get a lot of veggie food, but she also doesn’t care if I scarf down a burger in front of her. And we like the same movie snacks, which is crucial. We also know each other’s snack preferences, and so she knows what to bring me (and what I need to bring her) if we’re taking a trip together. The one thing she likes that I can’t get on board with is black licorice (EW) but I figure that nobody’s perfect.

3. Kindness
This is such a simple thing, but it seems to be missing from so many friendships, especially those horrible toxic drama-filled ones. It doesn’t have to be that way! You need a BFF who is going to be rooting for you, who’s on your team, who’s happy when good things happen to you and wants to celebrate with dance parties or ice cream or both.

4. Hangout time
This also seems simple, but it’s really a huge bonus if you and your BFF like to do the same stuff. My best friend and I spent more time than I can calculate wandering around New York City, getting Starbucks, and ducking into stores. Sometimes we wouldn’t even try anything on, and sometimes we spent money we REALLY didn’t have. But the actual shopping didn’t matter – it was just a way to keep talking, to keep the endless conversation going. We could have done any number of things. But liking to do the same stuff just makes hanging out for hours (crucial in any BFF-ship) so much simpler.

5. Nothing is too trivial
One of the best things about having a BFF is being able to call someone up because you’re just having too many feelings about the episode of TV you’re watching. Or because your haircut turned out horribly. Or just because you read a tabloid story about Jennifer Lawrence and are concerned. I think one of the best things about BFF-dom is having them there for the big, important stuff, but also the little trivial stuff.
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Thanks Morgan. I concur with all of these!

Since You've Been Gone is published 3 July.

Make sure you check out the rest of the tour - details are below:

Guest Post: Top 5 Favourite Hackers & Detectives (Find Me Blog Tour)

Photo Credit: Heart is Found

As part of the blog tour for her new novel - Find Me - Romily Bernard has stopped by to talk about her favourite hackers and detectives...

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My Favorite Television Hackers and Detectives

1. Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock in BBC’s SHERLOCK series.

He’s such an amazing Sherlock Holmes. The new adaptation is stylish, slick, and I am completely hooked. I also love how when Sherlock goes to his “mind palace” it looks like some sort of gorgeous, techie screen. Wick would be all over a computer system where you just wave your hands to go from file to file. All while wearing the perfect trench coat, of course.

2. Sonja Sohm as Kima Greggs in THE WIRE.

This series was a mic drop for me. It’s just so astonishingly good. Kima is my favorite kind of heroine. She’s cold, takes no prisoners, and is really good at her job. But it’s the softer moments, when you see Kima off the job, that make her strength so much more than bad-assery. She chooses to shut down her humanity to get the job done. She knows what she’s doing and the cost it’s going to take on her. It’s truly heroic.

3. Lisbeth Salander from THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO.

You had to be expecting this one, right? Lisbeth is violent, does not play well with others, and is one of the most honorable characters you’ll meet in Stieg Larrson’s universe. Don’t believe me? Take a closer look. Lisbeth only goes after people who have wronged her and, frequently, these people are far, far worse than she ever was. It’s a chilling code. You do not want to mess with this girl.

4. Chloe O’Brien from 24.

She’s a computer science whiz and, though she rarely gets out of the office, she can still wield weapons when needed. I love her loyalty even though, sometimes, it comes at a very high personal price. She believes in people even when they don’t believe in her.

5. Rachel Gibson from ALIAS.

Like Lisbeth, Rachel is no stranger to violence. She was recruited into an organization she thought was a black ops CIA branch. It wasn’t. And her life was never the same again. I love how she didn’t know if she could do the job at hand, but she did it anyway because the thought of not trying, not knowing if she had what it took was way worse than failure.
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Thanks Romily! I loved Rachel in Alias too, and Benedict Cumberbatch is AWESOME as Sherlock!!!

You can find Romily online on her Website, Goodreads, and Twitter.

Find Me was published 16 January.
 

Embrace the Mayham Blog Tour

I'm really pleased to be part of the Embrace the Mayham Blog Tour to help promote the release of AJ Myres wonderful Mystics & Mayham series -  Something Witchy, Something Wicked and the new novella Eternally.  The books are so much fun - I loved them!  And for the blog tour, AJ has stopped by to talk about how to be different...
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“Not Another YA Paranormal Romance!”

Yeah, I’ve heard that a lot—usually said with a groan. YA paranormal romances, despite being some of the hottest sellers in books today, get this response all the time. So, how do you make yours stand out in a crowd? It’s easy. Be Different.

When I started writing the Mystics & Mayhem series, that was the goal I had in mind. I wanted something different than what I was reading—over and over again. Seriously, it was like every book I read was the same book, the only difference being that the characters’ names had changed. I’m not saying they weren’t good books, they were just way too similar.

The one thing I kept thinking again and again was that there was plenty of tension, more than enough drama, and absolutely no humor. Also, having a teenage daughter myself, I couldn’t help but see how wimpy and whiny the female protagonists were. Young women today are not waiting on Prince Charming to come save them, nor should they be. They’re perfectly capable of taking care of themselves. I thought it was about time for those strong, capable, independent young ladies to be represented.

Which is how Ember Blaylock came into existence.

Of course, like most authors trying to write a different kind of novel, my first draft went a little overboard. My mentor and editor, Sara King’s, favorite thing to tell me in her comments, all in caps no less, was “SPIDERMAN VS SUPERMAN”. Sure, we all love Superman, but Spiderman—who gets his butt kicked more often than any superhero in history—is more accessible. He’s more…human. In trying to make Ember different, I had turned her into a demigod. All-powerful in 2.5 seconds—or chapters, anyway.

But as we painstakingly fleshed her character out, Ember’s flaws became the funniest aspects of the book. Is she powerful? Sure. Is she good at being powerful? Absolutely not. Is she whiny? Yep, just like every teenage girl. Is she wimpy? Hell no! I don’t think Em even knows how to be a wimp. She’s the jump in first, ask questions later kind of girl. Just like most of the teenage girls I’m privileged to know.

The point is, if you want to make it writing YA paranormal romances, you have to find a way to stand out. In most of the reviews of the first book in the series, Something Witchy, got on Amazon, the fact that it was different was commented on the most. Yeah, it had the drama and tension and romance fans of the genre were looking for, but it was also hilarious. That’s what made it different. That’s what you have to look at when you’re writing for the YA genre—or for any genre, really.

Therefore, my advice is this: Don’t be afraid to be different. You never know what kind of trend you might start by not following the crowd!
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Thanks AJ!

You can purchased the novels via Amazon - all the sales links are below: And make sure you check back later for my reviews:)

Kindle editions:

US:
Something Witchy
Something Wicked
Eternally

UK:
Something Witchy
Something Wicked
Eternally

also available in softcover:

US:
Something Witchy
Something Wicked

UK:
Something Witchy
Something Wicked

And if you want to know more about AJ Myers and her books, you can find her on Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads and on her website. Links are below:

https://www.facebook.com/ajmyersnovel

https://twitter.com/AJMyersNovel

http://ajmyersnovel.wix.com/mysticsandmayhem

http://www.goodreads.com/ajmyersnovel

Arclight Blog Tour

As part of the Blog Tour for the release of Arclight, Josin L. McQuein has stopped by to talk about how she came to write Arclight...
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I’m going to let you in on a secret - Arclight was not the book I intended to write.

The book I intended to write was about vampires, which have been a favorite subject of mine since I was a kid and read Bunnicula. (<-- Feel free to laugh at this; I don’t mind.) Unfortunately, I finished my vampire novel around the time that the wave caused by Twilight was cresting, and while the book did get some interest, I didn’t want to be “just another” vampire story in a sea of them. So the vampires went back in the coffin.

ZOMBIES! I thought. I’ve not seen a big zombie book in a while. I decided to turn my vampires into zombies and retool the rest of the book to fit, but I finished that version about the time that an awesome novel called The Forest of Hands and Teeth was becoming popular. I didn’t even bother to send mine out.

At this point, finishing a book that wasn’t “on-trend” had become a matter of principle.

I dragged out old notes, half-finished books that had never seen the light of day, scraps of former fanfictions, things I’d saved to floppy disk, scribbles, doodles, anything and everything I could find that I’d ever written on or about. (At this point, I had to pause and go buy a floppy drive, because really… floppy disks. Surprisingly, they still worked.) I started cutting and pasting all of these old things into a Franken-novel.

Most of what became Arclight came from my file of screenplays that I wrote in high school. I grabbed some characters from the vampire novel, and some scenes from the zombie one, and did the worst cut-and-paste job you could ever imagine. The Fade underwent a *major* change from their original appearance, which was closer to a manic swarm of space-fireflies than what you’ll see in the novel. Almost the entire cast of characters turned into teenagers.

It was a strange experience. Once things started clicking into place, the changes got easier. All of those bits and pieces that hadn’t worked in their original stories, suddenly did when they were put together. There was nothing wrong with them; they simply hadn’t been in the right place, and that’s my point. Just because something isn’t planned, that doesn’t mean it can’t turn out better than you ever imagined.

No, Arclight wasn’t the book I intended to write, but if not for the ones I thought I wanted to write, I never would have had the source material for the book that worked. It’s easy to look at the things that don’t achieve the results we want and call them failures or wastes of time, but each one was a step in the right direction. The discarded novels and unfinished stories weren’t mistakes, and my timing with the vampire novel and the zombies wasn’t as bad as I had feared. Things were just misplaced and out of order.

If you’re working toward something, don’t assume you should give up because your route takes an unconventional turn or requires a few more steps than someone else’s did. So what if you travel a different road? You get to see more of the scenery, and at some point, you’ll be happy you did.
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Thanks Josin!

Arclight was published 12 August. And you can check out the rest of the tour at these stops:

Tips on How to Thinly Disguise Your Own Life as Fiction (Guest Post from Candy Harper

Today the lovely, and very funny Candy Harper has stopped by to give some writing tips. Her new book, Have a Little Faith has just been released so if you haven't grabbed yourself a copy do so now! It is so funny! 

I shall pass you over to Candy...
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Tips on How to Thinly Disguise Your Own Life as Fiction

Pick out the best bits of your life story
There might be someone who can make lying around watching Homes Under the Hammer whilst picking the dead skin off your feet sound interesting, but if it’s not you, then you’re going to have to be careful about selecting the parts of your life that will make a good story. As a rule of thumb, anything that made you dribble (through laughing, crying, lust or rage) is a good place to start.

Mix the truth with some stuff you made up
Brown Owl told me that liars never prosper. She lied. Firstly, because I made a fair few quid by selling those ‘diamond’ bracelets to the other Brownies and secondly, because real life is better if you tweak it a bit. So feel free to make things funnier, more exciting and generally more compelling by adding whatever you think is necessary to the truth.

Be a puppet-master
Make people you know do stuff they’ve never done. I don’t mean you should get your granny drunk and take her to the dog racing (although, let’s not rule things out until we’ve been expressly forbidden to do them). I mean that if you base your characters very loosely on people you know well, then you’ll have a good idea of how they’ll react to the situations in your story, no matter how crazy those situations might be. Sometimes it’s easier to create a convincingly well-rounded character if you’ve got a convincingly well-rounded real person in your head. However, take note of the next tip . . .

Don’t put recognisable people in your story
People are funny about you using them in your book. First, they say how cool it would be, and then when you include that hilarious little story about their constipation, or mention how they ruined your childhood, they suddenly change their minds. If you’re going to base characters on people you actually know then it might be an idea to change their looks and maybe even their gender. Definitely get rid of that distinctive Alvin and the Chipmunks tattoo. And always change the name. Unless of course they happen to be called Mrs Barnfield and they once robbed you of your rightful role as the fairy godmother just because ‘Fairies are supposed to be kind’ and Mrs Barnfield couldn’t accept that maybe karate chopping Prince Charming was the greatest kindness any fairy godmother could do Cinderella. In that case, Mrs BARNFIELD will just have to accept that having her name and her crimes against children in print is the price she pays for being a dream-smashing old witch.

Don’t just use the events
Clever old you! You’ve been preparing to be a writer your whole life. Not only have you been doing stuff that might be book-fodder and you’ve also been feeling stuff. You might find yourself writing about something that you’ve never done, like jumping out of a plane, but you can probably remember what it was like the first time you jumped into a swimming pool. Use the emotions you have experienced to help bring life to your story.

Check how much money you’ve got saved for therapy
It’s hard to write about bad things that have happened to you. People who use their own difficult experiences to inform their writing often create deeply moving stories. And sometimes they end up crying so much that they just make papier mache. Your life is one of the greatest resources you have as a writer, but just be aware of what delving into your own history can stir up. I was shaken to the core when I uncovered repressed memories of wearing a puff-ball skirt. I’m slowly rebuilding my life.
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Thanks Candy!

Check back tomorrow for my review of Have a Little Faith. 

Night School: Fracture Blog Tour

I am super excited to be taking part in the Blog Tour for Night School: Fracture, the third book in CJ Daughtery's brilliant series. To say I'm a fan is a bit of an understatement - I love this series! And CJ has written a short story especially for the tour!

The story is set during the Winter Ball, so time wise it fits in with book two in the series, and is written from Carter’s point of view of what happens that night.

The first part of the story is below:

‘Where the bloody hell is that shoe? Waste of sodding time …’

Grumbling to himself, Carter crouched down to search the back of his wardrobe, throwing out trainers, boots and a scarf he didn’t recognise before finally emerging a minute later, black dress shoes firmly in one hand.

His tuxedo jacket hung from the back of the wardrobe door, black as his mood.

The idea of going to the winter ball right now, given all that was happening, seemed patently absurd. Isabelle should have cancelled it.

The possibility of some sort of an attack was too high. And after what happened at the summer ball …

He sighed. The party was happening and there was no getting out of it.

He dressed quickly, clipping the cuffs of his crisp, white shirt with the cufflinks Bob Ellison had given to him on his sixteenth birthday – or rather, passed on. Made of silver with a faceted garnet stone at the centre, they’d once belonged to his father. But Carter had long since given up examining the cold metal for any connection to his dead parents. There was nothing there.

They were just cufflinks.

He stood in front of the mirror, knotting his black tie with the expert ease of familiarity. For a moment he studied himself, seeing the irritation in his dark eyes. The tight set of his full mouth.

He clenched and unclenched his hands, trying to force himself to relax.

It was nearly nine o’clock. He’d put this off for as long as he could.

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The sound of the party hit him at the top of the stairs. In the great hall, a string orchestra played a lively waltz. The roar of conversation rose above the music like a wave cresting over a beach.

Squaring his shoulders, Carter walked into the crowds.

He would show his face, hang out with Jules for a bit then leave when no one was looking. That was enough.

To carry on reading this exclusive story you need to pop over to the Atom Blog tomorrow. And you can see where to find the rest of the stops on the banner below:
 
And if you haven't already checked out the trailer - you can do here - and make sure you follow the link at the end. There is a secret treat...

Winning and Losing (Scissors, Sisters and Manic Panics Blog Tour)

Photo credit: Paula Broome Photograhy

I'm really please to be part of Elle Phillip's Blog Tour for Scissors, Sisters and Manic Panics.  Today she has stopped by to talk about winning and losing...
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Winning and losing

In my new book Scissors, Sisters and Manic Panics my heroine, Sadie Nathanson is absolutely determined to win the Thames Gateway Junior Apprentice Hairdresser (or Barber) of the Year Award. Although you’ve got to admire her spirit and determination she realises at various moments that she’s more-or-less sacrificed everything in order to give herself the best possible chance to reach that goal. I’m not going to spoil things for you and tell you whether or not she succeeds(!) but her actions do pose the question – what happens when you don’t win? Is it really the end of the world?

Go to any childrens’ party these days and you will witness children WINNING. All of them. There is a moment in your life when you are simply unable to bare the disappointment of losing at ANYTHING. Children of a certain age become fiercely competitive – they have to be first at everything, and to some extent parents these days pander to this and just let them go right ahead and win. It’s perfectly understandable – who wants a room full of crying children who’ve just ‘lost’ at musical statues? Much better to give everybody a sweetie when they’re ‘out’ and tell them they’re a winner. But of course this is just prolonging the inevitable. As soon as a child sets foot in the gates of a school, it is most likely that they will get their first taste of ‘not winning’ – losing even. And this is just the beginning of a long path where you fail and you pick yourself up and you start again.

There are places I’ve worked where sitting in the chair the longest counts for more than any amount of inspiration or original ideas. These are industries where reliability and ‘doing your job according to the rules’ are very important. It’s quite difficult to ‘lose’ in these places. At best they can be extremely cosy areas to work in. At worst – they can be dull.

If you work in a creative industry then it’s much more extreme. It’s the best of times and the worst of times, and it’s a sad fact that, unless you are blessed by good fortune, you will ‘lose’ many times over if you want to write, act, sing, dance or play music. But is losing such a negative thing? Or is the old adage ‘What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’ a truism?

As far as I’m concerned the path to success in a creative industry is not straightforward and it’s also not for the faint-hearted. Self-belief is key, as is energy and enthusiasm for what you’re doing. After a set-back; getting right back up, dusting yourself down and counting your blessings keep you in the game. And a memory of ‘recovering from failure’ is the most important lesson of all. A friend of mine who recently won a BAFTA - often judged as the pinnacle of many creative careers - spent much of her thirties on the phone to me weeping about various career failures. In fact we wept in unison! But she worked her way to success and now, whenever she has a set-back, the knowledge that she has that ability is enough to keep her going.

So perhaps winning isn’t about the end result at all:
If you are knocked down but find it in yourself to come back for more then you are truly successful.
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Thanks Ellie!

Make sure you check out the rest of the tour - details are below! 

And make sure you have a go at her hair-quiz: http://girlswholikewords.polldaddy.com/s/ssmp-quiz 

Guest Post: Just Saying (Half Lives Blog Tour)

Photo: Faye Thomas

I'm really pleased to be part of the Blog Tour for Sara Grant's new novel, Half Lives.  She's kindly stopped by to talk about the Just Sayings...

Just Saying

My new teen novel Half Lives is two tangled stories of survival. Icie is a typical teenager, until disaster strikes. Her only hope of survival is escaping to a top-secret mountain bunker. Hundreds of years later, 18-year-old Beckett leads a cult that worships a sacred mountain. But Beckett and his beliefs are under attack. Icie and Beckett must fight to survive. They are separated by time but connected by a dangerous secret that both must protect at any cost.

While writing Half Lives, I had great fun playing around with platitudes. We all say them from time to time. “Everything happens for a reason.” “Time heals all wounds.” ‘Platitude’ is defined as a trite remark often uttered as if it were fresh or profound. In Half Lives, these types of sayings have been twisted – at times to the point of nonsensical – and are part of a sacred text used by the cult in Beckett’s story.

‘Just Sayings’ in Half Lives are the cult’s term for scripture. Here are a few “Just Sayings”*:

‘Destiny is a choice, not an option.’ – Just Saying 103
‘Some things are just not meant to be.’ – Just Saying 23
‘Everything happens for a reason. You just may never know what it is.’ Just Saying 76
‘What you fear most sometimes happens and it’s worse than you could ever imagine.’ – Just Saying 187

The blog Award-winning Blather came up with a list of common platitudes – http://writerzim.com/2012/10/13/a-list-of-platitudes/. I’m not sure how helpful platitudes really are. Does everything really happen for a reason? Or do we just make the best of a bad situation?

I read once that you can go a day without water but not a rationalization. I wonder how long you could go without a platitude.

I mean, I’m just saying that knowledge is power and what doesn’t kill me makes me stronger…

About Sara Grant

Sara is an author of fiction for teens and younger readers and freelance editor of series fiction. She has worked on twelve different series and edited nearly 100 books. Dark Parties, her first young adult novel, won the SCBWI Crystal Kite Award for Europe. Her new novel for teens – titled Half Lives – is an apocalyptic thriller. She also writes – Magic Trix – a fun, magical series for younger readers.

Sara was born and raised in a small town in the Midwestern United States. She graduated from Indiana University with degrees in journalism and psychology, and later she earned a master’s degree in creative and life writing at Goldsmiths College, University of London. She lives in London. www.sara-grant.com @authorsaragrant

* When I first started writing Half Lives, I noticed people adding ‘I’m just saying’ right after they said a ‘truth’ they thought wouldn’t be well accepted.

Those shoes are an interesting choice with that dress. I’m just saying!

It’s as if bookending the ‘truthful’ observation with this phrase somehow inoculates it from being rude. It doesn’t. I thought it was the perfect phrase – a just (as in fair, moral) saying – for my cult’s scripture.
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Thanks Sara!

Half Lives is available to buy now.

Don't forget to check out the rest of the blog tour this week - you can see all of the stop dates on the banner below:

Cherokee’s Literary Heroines (Finding Cherokee Brown Blog Tour)

As part of the Blog Tour for Finding Cherokee Brown, Siobhan Curham has stopped by with Cherokee's Literary Heroines!
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Cherokee’s Literary Heroines

Finding Cherokee Brown is about a teenage girl who decides to write a book about her life in the hope that it will make her become the type of heroine she loves to read about – and in so doing, help her stand up to her bullies. Here are some of her favourite literary heroines, some of whom feature in the book, some of whom I’d imagine she’d love – and the reasons why . . .

Anne Frank

Anne Frank is a major influence upon Cherokee. In the novel she talks about how reading Anne Frank’s diary was the first time she realised the power of books to really make you stop and think about life. And it is this that indirectly leads her to start writing her own book. In one scene, near the beginning of the book, Cherokee is having a terrible time being taunted by the school bullies and she thinks to herself: ‘Don’t let them beat you, Anne Frank wouldn’t let them beat her. She didn’t even let the Nazis beat her. Not where it counted, in her head.’ This is a crucial turning point for Cherokee and shows how much strength and inspiration she draws from her literary heroine, Anne Frank.

Laura Ingalls Wilder

Little House on the Prairie is another of Cherokee’s favourite books, and its author Laura Ingalls Wilder another literary inspiration. She loves the sense of freedom and adventure Laura Ingalls Wilder writes about. At one point in the book, when Cherokee is describing how awful her first day at high school was, she refers to Little House on the Prairie, saying: ‘I’d been sitting in our classroom, faking smiles like I had a twitch, while thinking, Oh God, why couldn’t I have been born in 1867 to a pioneer family in the American Midwest and only have to worry about making it through the next winter rather than seven long years at high school?’ The irony is that she will discover later on that her roots aren’t all that far from Wilder’s at all.

Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games

At the start of Finding Cherokee Brown, Cherokee dreams of becoming a ‘kickass literary heroine’. Although she doesn’t refer to The Hunger Games, I’m sure she would love Katniss for her courage and incredible hunting skills, and I’m sure reading about Katniss would be a real inspiration to her.

Lisbeth Salander from The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

Although this book is for adults, if Cherokee read it I’m sure she would be rooting for Lisbeth and would really admire her for the way in which she fights back against her attacker. When Cherokee gets her new haircut I did have an image of Lisbeth Salander in mind when I was writing the description.
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Thanks Siobhan!

I think Katniss Everdeen is awesome enough to be everyones literary heroine, right?

Make sure to check out the rest of the tour - see my sidebar for details:)

Infinite Sky Blog Tour

I am really pleased to be part of the UK blog tour for C J Flood's novel Infinite Sky.  For today's stop we have an exclusive snippet from Trick's point of view...
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I do a lot of freewriting to try and work out what the story is when I’m writing. It isn’t always the best prose, but it helps to work out what each character wants, and to find the natural points of conflict between characters. It’s a lot rougher than the stuff that makes it into the novel, but I hope you get the idea of what I am trying to do. Here is a little bit of writing from Trick Delaney’s point of view. Trick is Iris’s friend/love interest in Infinite Sky. He is an Irish Traveller with a history of bare knuckle boxing, but he tells Iris that he is desperate to give this up.

Work with me da’s not so bad. We have a laugh. People like him, he talks a lot, nothing like what he is at home. They call me little Paddy or Paddy’s boy. They reckon we’ve got the same eyes. He’s alright at home at the minute. Ma’s happy.

I like most of the lads at work. We eat our sandwiches together. They’re all older than me, and they read The Star and The Sport and they turn them round to show us the pictures.

Afterwards, me and Da go down the tip to see what people have thrown away. Sometimes he lets me come in the pub with him, gets me half a shandy and we share a bag of beef and onion crisps. He never drinks whiskey in there. Not while I’m there anyway. He knows I’d tell Ma if he did. Even now I’m working with him.

She knows I go out at night sometimes, she hears me leave. I thought she knew, but wasn’t sure, and then the other night she caught me, one hand still on the caravan door.

“You’re a good person, Patrick, aren’t you?” she whispered to me, from the dark of the living room, and I froze where I was, cool air giving me goosepimples.

I turned to her, and nodded, thinking she meant I should stop disobeying me da, take my flip flops off, and come inside, but she checked my eyes then, the way she does, one then the other, searching, and she smiled at me, just a tiny curl of the lips up at each side.

“We brought you up right,” she said, pulling her dressing gown tight around her, and standing up to go to bed. “Didn’t we?”

I jumped out the caravan then, I was so relieved. Still, I shut the door as quietly as ever, even though she knew all about it, and Dad wasn’t back from the pub.

She trusts me, but she doesn’t know about Iris. I’m not sure what she’d say about that. She’s always asking what I get up to, and I want to tell her, but I can’t quite make myself.

I will though. Next time she asks me, I’ll just say it. See what she says.

Tell her she hasn’t anything to worry about.

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Thanks C J!

Make sure to check out the rest of the tour - details are below.

Why I Write For Young Adults (Prey Blog Tour)

As part of the blog tour for The Prey, Andrew Fukuda's second book in his brilliant The Hunt Series, he has stopped buy to talk about why he writes for young adults...
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Why (and a little of how) I write for young adults

It’s been said that there are generally two ways to write a YA novel: (1) voraciously read and learn the ropes of the YA genre, then pen a YA novel along specific subgenre conventions; or (2) write from the heart and be told (sometimes with wide-eyed disbelief) that you’ve written a YA novel.

There’s also a lesser-known third category, one which I’ll title (rather cumbersomely) the teens-make-for-great-protagonists category. Authors are always on the lookout for great protagonists, and teenagers typically come prepackaged with all kinds of awesomeness. I mean, think about the average teen. Filled with vulnerability and curiosity during a roller-coaster chapter of life, on a journey of self-identity and world-discovery while being assailed by hormones and peer pressure. That’s a topsy-turvy milieu. That’s horizons being discovered, that’s depths of the heart being plumbed. That’s grist for the mill. That’s a protagonist who sucks you in.

Of course, writing with a teenage protagonist is not always easy. Most YA authors are many years (if not decades!) removed from adolescence. To get the voice, the outlook, the persona of teenagers, right (and to avoid trying too hard) you need to reach deep into the memory banks. And because memory lane is not always pleasant, this journey back in time can be painful.

My adolescence was the best of times, it was the worst of times (Dickens was writing about high school, right?). Like most, my teenage years swung like a pendulum between the extremes of self-discovery and self-forfeiture, the latter of which happened whenever I was peer-squeezed into one of those false molds bandied about. Over the past couple of years as I’ve worked on The Hunt series, I’ve had to dredge up some pretty painful high school memories. But in the end I think it helped to flesh out Gene. He is, after all, the epitome of teenage angst – wanting to fit in and be accepted, to find his place even in a world wrought with uncertainty and rejection. By digging deep into my memories, I was able to flesh out a more layered and conflicted protagonist, and brought a level of authenticity to his world.

So why do I write young adult novels? In short, because young adults make for such fascinating protagonists. And the journey backwards and inwards makes the writing process ultimately worthwhile for the author as well, one which Socrates would approve. The life examined…
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Thanks Andrew!

You can read my review for the first book in the series here.

The Prey was published 31 January 2013.

Sangu Mandanna’s Top Ten Couples That Don’t Actually Exist

Joining us today is Sangu Mandanna - author of The Lost Girl.  She has stopped by to talk about her Top 10 Couples (that don't actually exist)...
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‘Top Ten Couples That Don’t Actually Exist’

The Lost Girl is about all kinds of love. It’s about the love between a parent and a child, between a creator and a creation, between you and the person you’ve lost, between friends. It’s also about the other kind of love, the one that makes your heart beat faster and your skin go all tingly, the one that makes you blurt the most embarrassing things because you can’t help it and endure all kinds of difficulties because the alternative would be to leave the other person and you can’t do that.

I love stories about love. All kinds of love but, I have to admit, I do like stories about the swoony, heart-melting kind a little more. I particularly love the characters involved. If these characters are great and the chemistry is there, I’m sold. Some of my favourites involve YA books, some adult. My top ten?

1. Lochan and Maya from Tabitha Suzuma’s Forbidden
Forbidden is the story of a boy and a girl who fall in love. And also happen to be brother and sister. It doesn’t get any more star-crossed than this and the book is so beautifully written, the characters feel intensely real and, in spite of knowing perfectly well that the idea is just wrong, I wanted Lochan and Maya to be together. (And oh, what a bawl-fest this is!)

2. Lou and Will from Jojo Moyes’ Me Before You
Another one that compelled me to contribute to Kleenex’s profits. Will is crippled and doesn’t really want to live; super-cautious Lou becomes his carer and starts to discover how to live. Somehow this book is gritty, sweet, realistic and sexy all at once. Lou’s transformation over the course of the book is incredible, and it’s all down to Will, and the ending… oh, the ending.

3. Sloane and Rhys from Courtney Summers’ This Is Not A Test
Apart from the fact that there’s something so appealing about watching two scared, passionate teenagers getting together in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, what sets Sloane and Rhys apart is a) the fact that when they get together it feels believable, b) the sizzling attraction turns gradually, and sweetly, into something more, and c) Rhys is just so very sexy. Instead of spending the entire book thinking omg please don’t be eaten by a zombie (though I did think that a lot), I spent the book thinking kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss…

4. Harry and Hermione from JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series
I know. I know. They’re not a couple. But I spent seven books rooting for them! She was the only one who always stuck by him, no matter what. Even now, I still think their friendship/almost-love story is the strongest relationship in the entire series. And that’s saying something.

5. Gemma and Ty from Lucy Christopher’s Stolen
It is so completely wrong that these two are even on this list. No matter how kind, sincere and ultimately redeemable Ty is, he is Gemma’s kidnapper. And when she grows attached to him, it’s obviously Stockholm Syndrome, not true love. But it’s a mark of how powerful this book is that, even knowing all these things and knowing that in real life I would never think this is a good idea, I almost – almost – wanted Gemma to be with him.

6. Millie and Hugh from Jill Mansell’s Millie’s Fling
This book is sweet and funny, indulgent chick lit at its finest. And while there’s nothing exceptionally special about Millie, Hugh or their love story, I never grow tired of reading about them.

7. Donna and the Frenchman from Daphne du Maurier’s Frenchman’s Creek
Far too overlooked and underrated, Frenchman’s Creek is one of my favourite books of all time. The writing is beautiful, the water and moors and atmosphere of Cornwall just leaps off the page, and the romance… Donna is unhappily married, with two children she dearly loves, and the Frenchman is a pirate who also happens to sketch birds in his spare time. Their love story is thrilling and heartbreaking. (Yes, another weepy! There seems to be a theme here…)

8. Emma and Mr Knightley from ITV’s adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma
Confession: I’ve never read Emma. So I’m going purely on the ITV version of the book with Kate Beckinsale. Emma and Mr Knightley are just perfect together.

9. Sam and Grace from Maggie Stiefvater’s Shiver
Boy meets girl. They fall in love. Only the boy turns into a wolf when it gets too cold and will, one day, turn into a wolf forever. Sam and Grace’s relationship is developed and described so intricately and with such detail that you feel like you’re a part of them. And the book has one of the most wonderful endings ever.

10. Daisy and Edmond from Meg Rosoff’s How I Live Now
I don’t even know what I can say about Daisy and Edmond. This book – and their love story – is spectacular and utterly heart-wrenching. I can’t even describe it. Go get hold of a copy now.

There you have it. What do you like of the list? Agree or violently disagree with any of my choices? Who would you pick?
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Thanks Sangu!

I definitely agree with Sloane and Rhys!!!  And Lochan and Maya *sobs*. I'd have to add Rose and Dimitri (from Richelle Mead's Vampire Academy series). And...hmm...I think I really need to give this some serious thought! :D

The Lost Girl is available to buy now.

You can find out more information about the book and the author at her website.

Minimising Cringe: A Suzy P Guide (Me, Suzy P Blog Tour)

To celebrate the release of the hilarious Me, Suzy P by Karen Saunders we have the one and only Suzy P with us today.  When I was asked what I would like her to talk about?  Well, lets just say one thing came to mind...
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Minimising Cringe: A Suzy P Guide

Hi, I’m Suzy Puttock, star of the new book Me, Suzy P by Karen Saunders. I’m constantly doing stupidly embarrassing things that make me want to die of shame. It keeps my mates entertained though, and my boyfriend, too. The book’s all about me and my friends, and what happened when I got a huge crush on someone who wasn’t my boyfriend. Irk. Humiliation CENTRAL.

When I was told you guys wanted my guide on how not to embarrass yourself, I laughed for about an hour.

For real.

It took a very long time compose myself, because I couldn’t believe you were actually serious. I am possibly the worst possible person in the entire universe to be giving such advice.

Why? Because I embarrass myself constantly. Daily. Minutely, on particularly horrific occasions. To be honest, half the time I think it would be better if I just stayed in bed and never came out. But even then, I’d probably still find a way to humiliate myself.

Do you embarrass yourself all the time, too? Please say it’s not just me. If you also suffer with regular bouts of embarrassment-itis, here are some things that just might help (but I’m not making any promises).

1. Do not, under any circumstances, let your parents land you with a ridiculous name that rhymes with a part of your bottom. You might not get much say in this, what with being teeny tiny when your name is allocated, but seriously, I’d look into getting your name changed by deed poll if you ever get stuck with something like Puttock (yeah, I know, I know, it rhymes with buttock, haha, I’ve only heard it about eighty million times). Having said that, my big sister Amber’s going to become Mrs Mycock when she gets hitched. I’m pretty sure that’s even worse.

2. Don’t run. Ever. I mean it. Even when you’re horribly late, which I am, a lot. Running makes you out of breath, blotchy, and often leads to falling over. Embarrassmentamundo.

3. Disown any younger brothers and sisters, or get them adopted out. In my experience you will become their main target for practical jokes, fart cushions and anything mean they feel like revealing about you to any passing random. They are nothing but a liability.

4. Be careful when you eat in public. There’s a zillion ways you can embarrass yourself when there’s food and drink about. Spilling it. Dropping it down yourself (you can guarantee it will be on something brand new and it will stain). Laughing mid-mouthful and starting to choke. Choking and spitting said food out. It makes me shudder just thinking about the possibilities.

5. Don’t let people talk you into doing things you don’t want to do, or wearing things you don’t want to wear. Like, for example, being a bridesmaid at your crazy big sister’s wedding, where you have to put on an utterly disgusting dress. People will take photos and the evidence will haunt you for all eternity. No good can come of it. Trust me. 

Good luck!

Me, Suzy P is available to buy from all good bookshops, online and is also available as an e-book.

Come visit Karen Saunders online, at www.karensaunders.co.uk, ‘like’ me on Facebook at www.facebook/karensaunderswriter , or follow me on Twitter: @writingkaren. There are also tweets from Suzy Puttock @suzyputtock– so do follow her too.

Look forward to seeing you around!
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Thanks Suzy! Thanks Karen!

First Love (Burning Bright Blog Tour)

Today we have the lovely Sophie McKenzie with us.  To celebrate the release of the second book in her Flynn Series - Burning Bright - she has stopped by to talk about first love...
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First Love

The first time we do anything it’s almost always a bigger, stronger, more intense experience than the times that follow. That’s why we often feel first times so deeply and remember them so clearly. Which makes it strange, to me, that adults are so often dismissive of first love. Grown-ups sometimes seem to think that when the two people involved are young, their feelings are somehow less powerful. I think the opposite is often true. When you are young, you rarely have the reference points and resources that help you to put emotional highs and lows in any kind of context. Everything is heightened – the joy and the pain – precisely because it is fresh and new.

In my Flynn series, River and Flynn fall deeply in love with each other. This isn’t always an easy experience for either of them. All the books are written from River’s point of view and basically provide a record of her obsession with Flynn – how she learns to live with her strong feelings and their consequences. Falling Fast shows them coming together and gradually learning to understand each other. In Burning Bright, the focus is on Flynn’s anger and the impact on River of his outbursts.

Although I was never in a relationship quite like River and Flynn’s as a teenager, I do remember how intense my emotions often were back then. Everything in both Falling Fast and Burning Bright is imagined, but my own experiences definitely inform the books, as do stories I have heard other adults tell about their teenage love lives.

I have been asked if I would ever write a book – or part of one – from Flynn’s point of view. I’ve also been asked, sometimes reproachfully, why I refer to the books as ‘the Flynn series’. The answer to the first question is ‘no, definitely not’, because the whole point of the stories is to explore River’s experiences. Flynn is always seen entirely from her point of view. Sometimes she sees him clearly; sometimes she imagines things that reveal more about her than Flynn himself. This is also why I refer to the stories as ‘the Flynn series’: they are about her experience of him. About first love - and all its hopes and fears.
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Thanks Sophie!

Falling Fast and Burning Bright are available to buy now.

You can read my reviews for them here

Film casting the Irresistible boys (Irresistible Blog Tour)

Today we have Liz Bankes, who has stopped by to talk about who she'd cast as the male leads in her novel Irresistible. I shall pass you over...

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Film casting the Irresistible boys

It's been a bit of a chore doing this book – I mean, I just had to spend an evening searching for pictures of hot men to play Jamie and Dan in my imaginary film-casting. HOW AWFUL.

Sexy, rich and bored, Jamie hangs around his parents’ castle causing trouble, especially for Mia.

Played by Freddie Stroma

So this guy was in Harry Potter. HOW DID I MISS THIS? So if you google him there are plenty of pictures of him in shirts, dressed up all posh and Jamie-like, but I accidentally typed ‘shirtless’ instead. 

So he has the right look for Jamie, but I’d need to know if he is good at being blunt and sarcastic and for that I’d have to meet him. So if we could arrange that please?

Funny, lovely Dan is brightening up Mia’s summer as they work together in the restaurant of Radleigh Castle.

Played by one of McFly

McFly are lovely. I feel a bit like they are my friends, which they could be if you count ‘people I talk to in my head and follow on Twitter’ as friends. Dan is funny, optimistic and loves life. I could see him in McFly. As for which one he looks most like, you’ll have to read it and decide for yourself!

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Thanks Liz!

Irresistible is available to buy now as an ebook and will be published in paperback April 2013.

Don't forget to check out the rest of the tour!  The next stop is over at Stepping Out of The Page tomorrow.

Guest Post: Betrayal Blog Tour

Gregg Olson has stopped by today as part of his UK Blog Tour to talk about the inspiration behind his novel Betrayal. Before I hand you over, here's a little info about Gregg:

Gregg Olsen has a huge readership in the US and beyond and has been compared to Joseph Wambaugh and James Patterson. He is the author of eight true crime books including Cruel Deception and Starvation Heights. His fiction includes Heart of Ice, and Closer than Blood which charted on both the New York Times and USA Todaybestseller lists on publication. The Bone Box was number one on the US’s list of best-selling e books on publication in April. He also contributed a short story to Killer Year, an anthology edited by Lee Child.

Betrayal is the second book in his YA,  Empty Coffin Series.

I shall now hand you over to Gregg...
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Foxy Knoxy taught me a lesson and shaped the storyline of Betrayal, the second volume in the Empty Coffin series.

You know who I’m talking about, don’t you?

The Amanda Knox story captivated me from the minute I first learned of it. The story of a girl who’d purportedly did the unthinkable resonated with me for a number reasons. I’m the father of young women and I could imagine my girls going off to study abroad and being caught up in something terrible. I’m from Seattle and so is Amanda.

And, probably more than any other reason, I am a true crime writer.

I have to admit that as the story was presented by the international media (“Foxy Knoxy”) it seemed to have all the things that make people want to know more. That’s the litmus test for any true crime tale. Readers simply have an insatiable need for information about the central figure.

To put it more directly, people want the dirt.

I fell into that. I viewed Amanda as a kind of scurrilous tramp who surely must have stabbed Meredith Kercher to death that night in Perugia. She was cold and uncaring as they come. Remember how she cuddled up to Raffaele Sollecito at the crime scene? How she did a cartwheel while waiting to be questioned? How she’d written about her sexual escapades like it was a first draft of Fifty Shades of Play?

As the story went on and as more details came to light, it became clear that while Amanda might be a tacky person, a sleazy girl, a b**** even, she might not have been a killer after all. In fact, as we would learn later – long after – she might not even have been a slut, or anything of the sort.

Amanda Knox might have just been a girl in the wrong place at the right time.

The media and my bias shaped how I viewed her. I regret that. I think a lot of people do. That’s not to say we know what happened the night Meredith was brutally killed. But because of the mix of media circus and poor police work, we probably won’t ever know.

I used a little of the Knox story in Betrayal. It isn’t a carbon copy of what occurred in Perugia, of course. My story takes place in Port Gamble, Washington, USA. My victim is a foreign exchange student from London named Olivia Grant. She’s not the one dragged through the media mud, however. You’ll have to read the book to see who that is, and the outcome.

It’s a mystery, right?

So, I’m afraid, is the truth when it comes to the identity of who killed Meredith Kercher.
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Thanks Gregg!

You can find out more about the Empty Coffin Series by vising www.emptycoffinseries.com - including a trailer and a sneak peek at the first few chapters of Betrayal!

The next stop on the tour is tomorrow over at Daisy Chain Book Reviews.

Betrayal is available to buy now.

Five Things I’ve Learned About Writing (Neptune's Tears Blog Tour)

As part of the blog tour for her novel Neptune's Tears, Susan Waggoner has kindly stopped by to tell us about the five things she has learned about writing...
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Five Things I’ve Learned About Writing

I wanted to write before I could read. From the minute I understood that the black squiggles below the pictures were telling the story, I wanted to be the person in charge of the squiggles. If you’ve ever felt the same way, here are five things I’ve learned about writing between that day and this,

1. Don’t wait, write.
Writers, especially new writers, often wait for brilliance to strike before putting a single sentence on paper. They believe at the right moment, the story will flow perfectly onto the page. But writing is more of a skill than a talent. Just like ballet dancers, no writer gets on her toes the first time round, but puts in long hours at the practice bar. If you wait for brilliance to strike, writing will become more and more intimidating, and you will you never acquire the skills you need. So grab it, do it, and face the blank page every day.

2. Don’t be afraid of dead ends.
Although some people have an idea for a story that they love, they are often reluctant to write it down, as they are afraid that it won’t work out. Then they will have used up their idea and wasted a lot of time. First of all, an idea is never “used up.” You can always come back to it later, or change it to make it better. If you try to put it on paper and it doesn’t work out, you may have exposed a flaw in the story that needs to be corrected. This isn’t a failure. There are certain features in any story that you only notice when you start writing it. Many times, in the middle of a project, I’ve thought “Gosh, why did I decide to put this in? It just doesn’t fit!” or decided, when I was finished, “Well, I’m certainly not going to do that again.” You may lose interest in your idea or discover that it doesn’t have the potential you thought it did, or you may set it aside and come back to it when you have more experience. Whatever it is, you’ve moved forward as a writer.

3. Ignore people who tell you to “write what you know.”
This is the worst advice I’ve ever heard. If everyone followed it, there’d be no Alice in Wonderland, no Narnia or The Time Traveller’s Wife. Who would want to live in such a world? Who would want to write only about things they already know? Everything can be researched, so if your story takes place in a different world altogether, prepare to put some study time in. Beyond that, though, it’s your imagination and your ability to enter that distant world that will make your story a success.

4. Keep a notebook.
I don’t mean a writer’s notebook, I mean a reader’s notebook. In mine, I write down the title and author of every book I read and jot down my feelings and reactions as I go. What did the writer do that made me want to keep reading? Were certain writing challenges handled in a way I can learn from? I keep notes on books I don’t like as well. What irritated me or made me want to set the book aside? If there are magic moments in a book, I go back over the passage and try to figure out how the writer turned words into images and made them seem like real life. Leafing though my notebook, I find a map of where I’ve been as a reader as well as a writer. But the looking back is mostly for fun. The real value lies in the process of observing myself as a reader, then thinking about what I’ve read and pinpointing why some books work and some don’t.

5. Develop other interests and friends.
There is nothing more boring than a book about a writer writing about writing, so make sure you develop other interests and talents. What would you be if you didn’t want to write? Veterinarian? Tennis pro? Interior designer? Don’t leave these interests behind! Pursue them through volunteer work, part time jobs, or any way you can. It’s also important to have friends whose dreams are different from your own. You will learn things from them your own life cannot teach you, and be able to share experiences you would not otherwise have. Having a range of people in your life and developing as many of your own interests as possible will keep you open to the world and fill you with ideas and insights that will keep your creative spark burning far into the future.
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Thanks Susan!

You can check out the next stop on the tour tomorrow over with the Bookbabblers.

Neptune's Tears is published now.

Ordinary Magic Blog Tour

As part of a blog tour for the release of her novel, Ordinary Magic, Caitlen Rubino-Bradway has stopped by today to talk about world building...
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Blog for A Backwards Story — World building

Hello everyone! I first want to thank Sammee for hosting me, and letting me talk a bit about my book, Ordinary Magic. It’s the story of Abby Hale, a 12yo girl who lives in a world were magic is simply an everyday thing. But not for her, because Abby soon learns that she’s an ord — one of a small sect of the population that can’t do magic, and that are looked down upon by the people who can. As you can probably guess, this causes her problems.

Have you ever heard the quote “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”? I’d heard it long before I placed it, but it’s by Arthur C. Clarke, and it was in the back of my mind all while I was writing Ordinary Magic. He probably didn’t mean it this way, but I kept thinking about it in reverse — that if advanced technology was indistinguishable from magic, then magic could be indistinguishable from technology. That you could have a fantasy world that ran on magic, and felt very much like our contemporary world.

The reason it kept jostling around my head was because of Abby. Abby Hale is twelve years old, the youngest of five, and a recently discovered ord. Abby is the one telling the story; it’s first person pov, so we see everything through her eyes, hear it through her voice. And Abby’s voice is not that of a ye-old-fantasy child. Her voice is that of a modern girl, someone who lives in a world very much like ours.

Fortunately, Patricia Wrede was there for me. I don’t think I’ve ever thanked her properly. It probably would be kind of weird, seeing as I don’t know her personally, though I do adore Dealing with Dragons. But I would not have been able to handle all the world building in Ordinary Magic — juggling with what I knew about Abby with what I wanted for her world — if it wasn’t for Wrede’s fantastic and exhaustive questions on the SFWA website. (http://www.sfwa.org/2009/08/fantasy-worldbuilding-questions/) Without those questions forcing me to think about (more or less) every aspect of Abby’s world, the writing probably would’ve gone a lot rougher and Abby’s world would make even less sense than it does now.

I discovered Wrede’s questions pretty early on, while I was still toying with the idea of writing Ordinary Magic. So when I decided to take the leap, one of the very first things I did was sit down with every single one of those questions (or at least, every one that applied) and tried to fill them out in as much detail as possible. Trade routes, tidal changes, religious influences. It took me several days, but it was absolutely worth it. If anyone’s considering writing fantasy, I’d urge you to at least take a look. It helped me to get everything settled in my head, even if it didn’t end up making it into the book.

Which, to be honest, a lot didn’t. Because of Abby. I totally blame her. I mean, I love her, but I blame her. I’m just imagining this world — Abby actually lives there, and while she has many fine qualities and I adore her, she has a tendency to take things for granted. A lot of things. Especially when they’re things that she deals with in her everyday life, which caused trouble because the story is from Abby’s pov. Case in point, Abby’s Dad. He has a small shop on the back of their house where he weaves magic carpets, which took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out. Abby didn’t mention it, because to her that was just something her dad did. It was obvious, so why should she mention it? To be honest, prying things out of Abby was the most difficult part of the world building. Especially when she caused me problems with my editor, who called me on not explaining enough about the world Abby lived in.

Having gone through this, I’d have to say that world building has to be one of the trickiest things about writing fantasy, at least for me. How much do you show? How much do you need to show? How much can you ask your audience to accept, and how do you know when it’s too much? How do you make it feel real even if everyone’s flying around on magic carpets and taking classes with minotaurs? Why is it some authors can make it look effortless, and how to I get to be more like them? It’s been my first go at this, so I can’t say how well it worked out — that’s for my readers to judge for themselves. But I am happy how it turned out.

Thanks again to Sammee, and please check out Ordinary Magic, in UK bookstores tomorrow.
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Thanks Caitlen!

You can find Caitlen on Facebook and Twiiter.

Ordinary Magic is published 13 September 2012.