Our camper van, precariously parked outside Linlithgow Palace, Scotland, last summer
As regular readers will know, one of the most frequent topics on this blog is travel, usually involving our family motorhome (posh name) / camper van (what we usually call it). But when I was giving my website a New Year makeover, it occurred to me that there’s one sort of travel that I’ve neglected to mention here – and that’s virtual travel.
Have Blog, Will Travel
No, I haven’t devised a Star-Trek style teleporter – though I’d love one of those, if I could be confident that on arrival at my destination all my molecules would be reassembled in exactly the right place. What I’m talking about is guest blogging – where I’ve hopped across the ether to write a guest post on somebody else’s blog.
Just before Christmas, for example, I managed to appear both in the USA and Greece on the same day, thanks to two blogging friends, the US author Amira Makansi and writer/musician Jessica Bell, who is based in Athens, Greece, but comes from Australia, which pleasingly allows me to squeeze another continent into this conversation.
About Amira Makansi
Amira Makansi
I met Amira via the Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), whose Self-Publishing Advice blog I edit. I was intrigued to learn that she had co-written her debut novel The Sowing with two other writers – her mother and her sister. She kindly wrote about her experience on the ALLi blog, then invited me back to hers to be interviewed about my own book, Coming To Terms With Type 1 Diabetes. You can read my interview – and lots of interesting posts by Amira and other guest bloggers – on her blog here.
Introducing Jessica Bell
Jessica Bell
Jessica Bell is another ALLi friend, a live wire with endless creative talents: she writes brilliant novels, poems and music. Though based in Athens, she also runs an annual Writers’ Retreat in Ithaca, mythical home of Odysseus and Penelope. Not quite as mythical as, say, Atlantis – it does actually still exist, as I can personally testify – I went there quite a few times in my pre-motherhood sailing days. It’s hard to imagine anywhere more peaceful or beautiful to pamper your muse. This probably makes Jess just about the coolest person I know.
One of the many other plates that Jessica spins is her blog The Alliterative Allomorph (yes, I also had to look up Allomorph in the dictionary), and every Wednesday she invites a guest blogger to sound off about any writing-related topic of their choice. Just before Christmas, she hosted a festive-themed post by me,. I realise this does not have the same topical appeal in early January, but it was great fun to write, allowing me to segue from my own frivolous, hot-off-the-virtual-press Christmas ebook to what in my opinion is the greatest ever Christmas novel – Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. There’s something about Jess’s blog that makes me want to talk about the greats, because last time I was on there, I talked about Tolstoy.
A Virtual Paper Chain
Helen Hollick
I also took part last month in a mass blogging event, known as a blog hop. This requires a number of bloggers to blog on the same theme, at the same time, and link to each other’s posts, leading readers on an ethereal tour. This one was held on 21st December, the shortest day (in the northern hemisphere, anyway), and took as its theme “Casting Light Upon the Darkness”. Historical novelist Helen Hollick kindly organised this mass blog, which meant coordinating 30 bloggers in different locations and time zones, and it was fascinating to see each author’s individual take on the subject. You can see Helen’s starting point here, but if you want to hop straight to my post, you’ll find it here.
So those were my December outings. In future, whenever I write guest posts or am interviewed on other people’s blogs, I’ll be adding links here so that you can read them in situ – and while you’re at it, you’ll gain an introduction to another great blog too!
By the way, I also regularly host or interview other author bloggers on my Off The Shelf Book Promotions website: www.otsbp.com – but more about that another day.
Follow That Blog!
If all that blog-hopping is making you dizzy, there are two simple ways that you can keep up with my online wanderings without having to remember to click on my blog every week:
sign up to receive each new post in your email inbox by clicking the “follow” button
subscribe to my new e-newsletter, which provides will give you a monthly round-up of my online activity within a single email, once a month
You’ll find instructions on how to do both of these things in the right hand column on the home page of my blog.
And finally… happy New Year, wherever you happen to be, online or in the real world!
Welcome to the Winter Solstice Blog Hop – a grand tour of 30 blog posts, published simultaneoulsly on a shared theme.
My contribution is a short story written especially for the event: Fear of the Dark, which you can read in full below. Then, after the end of the story, you’ll find links to the other 29 posts. Enjoy!
FEAR OF THE DARK
A Short Story for the Winter Solstice
Hitting the “speaker” button on my mobile, I flung it down on my desk, as if physically distancing myself from my sister Kate’s voice would protect me from giving in to her. But I knew it was already a lost cause.
“I wouldn’t have asked you if our usual sitter hadn’t come down with the lurgy, but you know the rule – I can’t have her in contact with the kids until 48 hours after she last threw up, and I can’t sentence the whole family to a sickly Christmas just because of you.”
And so it was that I found myself heading out of town earlier this evening, down unlit country lanes, on the winter solstice, the worst night of the year for anyone who, like me, is afraid of the dark. Kate’s years of legal training were not in vain. She can argue that black is white and people will believe her.
But even if it had been broad daylight, I was still not ready to go back to Kate’s, just six months after last summer’s tragedy.
Well, ok, so it isn’t really a tragedy when a 92 year old woman dies. I’m only allowed to use that word very sparingly at work when I’m writing up the obituaries, and my editor would definitely blue-pencil it in this case. But it certainly was traumatic, most of all for me, because I found her. And the 92 year old woman in question was my lovely Great Aunt Sophie.
It was Midsummer’s Eve and we were all out at Kate’s huge place in the country to celebrate her husband Tom’s 40th birthday. Normally this would be a treat for me, escaping from the confines of my poky city-centre flat to soak up fancy food and drink at their expense. Tom’s family owns a posh car dealership, and what with Kate’s lawyer’s wages too, they’re loaded. For this party, they’d pushed the boat out even more than usual, because they were also celebrating Kate’s promotion to partner at her legal firm. It felt more like a wedding than a birthday bash, and, as ever, I felt like the bridesmaid, never the bride. But I’m not complaining – I could get used to prosecco.
Relatives were invited to come during the day, with friends and work colleagues piling over in the evening. After family games for all ages in the afternoon, there followed a buffet, then dancing to a live band in a marquee in the garden. The finale was a professional firework display, with the pyrotechnics let off from the stable yard giving everyone a fine view from the vast terrace. (It was a good thing there were never any horses in the stables, only Tom’s family’s collection of vintage cars.)
Great Aunt Sophie was at the daytime celebrations of course, as she had been at every family party that I remembered. She’d even been at our house on the night that I was born, and loved to tell me of the first time she saw me, just minutes after I was born. Apparently I had rosy pink cheeks, the loudest of cries and two big tears in the corners of my scrunched up little eyes.
Great Aunt Sophie was so much a part of my life that I couldn’t imagine ever being without her, even though I knew that eventually we must part. Whenever I’d been away from home for long, such as when I went off to university for three years, I’d keep a little bottle of her favourite perfume in my handbag, so that I could get a quick hit of her summery, flowery aura whenever I was missing her. But she showed no sign of giving up the ghost on the day of Kate and Tom’s party, beating us all hollow at cards and charades. She claimed to be unimpressed by Tom’s milestone birthday.
“Forty? That’s nothing! I’m in my 93rd year, I’ll have you know! That’s you twice over, young Tom, plus your Zoe and Archie too.”
Zoe and Archie are Tom and Kate’s kids, aged ten and three.
Zoe was particularly impressed.
“So you’re me nine times over, plus an Archie,” she gasped. “No wonder you get so tired, Auntie Sophie.”
Sure enough, Great Aunt Sophie was flagging by the time the evening guests arrived, and she pottered off contentedly to bed around 8pm, shrugging off sympathetic looks as she made herself her usual bedtime mug of cocoa.
“I’ll have the last laugh on you, my dears. I’ll be fresh as a daisy at dawn while you’re all out for the count nursing sore heads.”
I chinked my prosecco glass against her mug, suspecting from my already spinning head that she’d be proven right.
Next day I awoke at 8.47am, according to the clock ticking away annoyingly loudly on the bedside table in the guest room. Trying to remember exactly when and how I got to bed the night before, I staggered out onto the landing, kicking aside my discarded clothes on the floor, to search for orange juice, my preferred hangover remedy of choice. It was a glorious bright day already, with sun streaming in through the tall stained glass window that dominates the staircase, scattering coloured shadows across the pale parquet floor. I had to turn my head away from its glare, and as I did so, I caught sight at the far end of the corridor of a white heap, crumpled at the foot of the full-length mirror on the wall. Oh God, I thought, someone’s been sick in bed in the night and dumped their sheets there for Kate to wash – charming!
But then, my eyes adjusting to the shadows, I realised that it wasn’t a soiled sheet at all, but a pristine cotton nightdress – and contained within it was the frail body of my Great Aunt Sophie. I ran towards it, thinking I’d help her to her feet after a fall, but before I even reached her I realised she was beyond my help.
Even so, I reached out hopefully to touch the smooth, papery skin on the back of her hand, as familiar as the taut flesh on my own. Worn smooth as old silk by her age, exuding her favourite night-scented stock hand cream, its raised veins were still.
I only realised I had screamed out loud when I saw Tom behind me, reflected in the mirror, standing over us both. He’d staggered out of his and Kate’s room, looking nauseous.
“Christ,she looks how I feel!” he began. “I thought Sophie was on tea and cocoa, but maybe it was her who drank that litre bottle of sherry?”
Kate bustled along from their bedroom, hastily tying the belt of her scarlet kimono.
“Tom, you moron, she’s not drunk, she’s bloody dead!”
Tom’s face turned ashen. He must be mortified, I thought – no that’s the wrong word, change it to gutted.
A more appropriate choice, it turned out, as straight away he dashed to the bathroom to be noisily, violently sick.
I never saw Great Aunt Sophie again.
After the funeral was over – I have to report that the post-mortem decided it was natural causes, by the way – normal life carried on for us all, except Great Aunt Sophie, of course. The only difference for me, apart from Sophie’s excruciating absence, was that I began to find excuses to avoid going back to Kate’s house. I couldn’t bear to see again the place where my beloved aunt had died. Until tonight, I thought Kate had understood. She had at least been letting me off the hook.
Of course, I knew I’d have to go there some time. I tried to bring my objective journalistic judgement into play. Surely I wasn’t going to let the inevitable death of one old lady cut me off from the rest of my family? But why did it have to be tonight, of all nights? The longest, darkest night, which I usually spend at home with all the lights on, the telly on full blast, trying to distract me from my fear of being alone in the dark.
I don’t know why the dark upsets me so, but I can’t remember a time when it didn’t. I always slept with a nightlight on in my childhood bedroom, swapping it for a brighter one after Kate had moved into her own room. I even took my nightlight away with me to university.
Although as a local paper reporter, I’m positively penniless compared to Kate, I’m still happy to spend a sizable chunk of money on my electricity bill every month, just so that I can keep all my lights on. I once went to stay with an environmentally-minded friend who only ever lit up the room she was actually in, turning the lights off and on obsessively wherever she went around her house. If I had to do that in the winter, I think I’d die. Either that, or I’d have to move into a bedsit, so I had only one room to worry about.
I think in a former life I must have been something like a swallow. I need light and warmth to thrive, and I long to fly south as soon as the nights draw in each winter. Then I’d only return when the nights are only as long as the time I need to sleep.
Fear of the dark dominates my life. Although the power never goes off in the city, I keep a wind-up torch and candles in every room, in a place where I know I can put my hand on them, just in case we’re ever plunged unexpectedly into blackness.
What would happen if I had to spend time in the dark? I don’t know, because I’ve never had the courage to find out.
When I got to Kate and Tom’s this evening, my heart was still pounding from driving through dark lanes with no street lighting. How do people live out in the sticks like this, with only the moon and stars to brighten the night? I’d had to drive the last three miles with the map-reading light on in my car to compensate. When I reached their house, I pulled my car up as close to their front door as I could. Thankfully, their security light came on just after I swung the car door open. My foot crunched down on the gravel, sounding for all the world as if I’d stepped on a pile of light bulbs. I nearly jumped out of my skin.
When Kate let me in, I realised she must have been feeling guilty about dragging me out here, as she’d crammed the coffee table full of upmarket snacks – olives, pistachios, kettle chips,Belgian chocolates – alongside a newly-opened bottle of Rioja on the hearth. She knows Rioja is my absolute favourite, even better than prosecco in the winter.
“I can’t drink that, I’ve got to drive home later,” I objected ungratefully, already worrying that those lanes would be even darker after midnight.
“Don’t be stupid, you must stay here, I’ve got the guest room ready,” said Kate.
I thought it better not to tell her that I wasn’t prepared to go upstairs. After all, that’s where the childrens’ bedrooms were. What kind of babysitter was I?
Kate chucked a couple more logs on the blazing open fire before tipping about a third of the bottle of Rioja into one of those big balloon glasses, the comforting sort that sit nicely in your hand in pubs, the kind they give you to make you drink more. I glanced around the room, scanning for candles. There were plenty of big fancy scented ones with multiple wicks in glass jars, the sort that cost about as much as a standard lamp. I felt in my pocket to reassure myself that I’d got matches and my smallest torch to hand.
“We’ve got a taxi booked for half past midnight, so we’ll see you about one,” said Kate, wrapping a crimson pashmina about her shoulders. “But feel free to go to bed before we get back if you want to. That would be fine.”
I scowled. There was no way I was going upstairs. There were shadows and dark corners, and no light switch within reach before you got there. I picked up the Sky remote to distract myself. My self-hypnosis would begin the minute they went out the door.
A slight figure in pink Barbie pyjamas appeared in the living room doorway.
“Hello, Emma,” said Zoe, who recently dropped the Auntie title on the basis that she’s nearly a teenager. (Nearly? She’s 10 – she must be as bad at maths as Kate.) I hadn’t seen her for a few months, and for a moment I was startled by how similar she is to Kate – same long-lashed green eyes, same fine dark hair, falling in shiny waves to her shoulders, which, just like Kate, she shrugs in a particular way when she’s restless or bored. In fact, I always think of Kate as being about 10, as that was how old she was when I first became aware of ages. I must have been about 5. Archie is much more like me: straight lighter hair, pale blue eyes, serious look. Sometimes, when we’re all out together – which has happened much less often lately – people assume he’s mine and that only Zoe is Kate’s. It’s funny how these genes seem to side-step through family trees sometimes, mannerisms and ways of speaking too.
“Archie’s in bed already, because he’s been a bit zonked since having his latest cold ,” Zoe was saying. “I’m off to bed too now, night night.”
She came over to give me and her mum a kiss.
“Please will you tuck me in before you go out, Mum?”
So much for the nearly-teenager.
I awoke, shivering on the sofa, just as the ten o’clock news was finishing. The log fire had dwindled to ash and barely a spark. Hauling myself up off the sofa, I shuffled over to the fireplace to add a handful of kindling then chucked on a couple of logs. The logs weighed much less than I expected from the look of them; they’d probably been stacked in the stables to dry since last winter. What luxury to have so much space. Soon sparks were crackling like gun shot in the grate, popping out of the dried ivy clinging to the bark. I jumped at every tiny explosion.
Turning my stiff back to the fire to warm it, I admonished myself that I still hadn’t adjusted my office chair as I’d meant to. I always seemed too engrossed in bashing out my latest news story to remember to sit with the health-and-safety-approved posture.
It was only while I was surveying the room with a rapidly warming bottom, like some lordly Victorian gentleman, that I remembered that Kate and Tom didn’t bother with curtains in their house. All around me, in every wall, were large, black windows, with views of nothing but the darkest of nights. Why did they need so many windows, for heaven’s sake? I could see one wherever I turned. And I really didn’t want to look.
Ever since we read Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw at school when I was about 14, I’ve had a thing about not looking out of windows after dark. I have a vivid memory of terrifying scenes in which the dismissed, disgraced servants come back to press their faces against the chill glass at night, sinister with some unspoken threat. I cannot think of anything more frightening. I’m not even sure now whether I’ve misremembered the story, but I daren’t re-read it to check, in case it makes my fear worse, not better.
I cupped my hands round my eyes, attempting to create the effect of a horse’s blinkers, screening myself from the threat of the dark windows. I tried concentrating on the telly, but was distracted by my pulse thundering too loud in my ears. I rummaged in my pocket for my matches and stooped down to light an exotic-looking, five-wicked candle in the fireplace. I didn’t like to calculate the cost of each minute’s burning of those five little flames, I just needed all the light that I could get.
Slumping back on the sofa, gazing unseeingly at Kate’s huge television screen, I tried some deep breathing exercises to calm my nerves. The sound of my pulse was just receding when there came another noise – the creaking of a door. I gave a little shriek and looked around, before realising, to my relief, that it was upstairs. It was probably just Zoe going to the loo or getting a glass of water, rather than a burglar or a ghost down by me. I tried to attend to the panel game that was just starting up Channel 4, and to ignore the glass of Rioja tempting me to take Dutch courage. Zoe’s bedroom door creaked again as she pattered back across the parqueted landing to her room.
Then just before the start of Round 3, a noisy coughing started upstairs. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, hoping the noise would quickly abate. The cough was shrill, definitely Archie, not Zoe.
His big sister will sort him out, I told myself, hopefully. They don’t need me upstairs. I’m not going upstairs, anyway. I’m staying by this bright and cosy fire.
As the intense jasmine scent of the candle started to weave its way down into my lungs, a little spluttery cough of my own brought me to my senses. Kate may be my sister, I suddenly thought, but she’s also a lawyer. I daren’t let her son die of neglect just because I’m too afraid to go upstairs.
On impulse, I knocked back half the glass of Rioja. There was still time for it to wear off before I had to drive. Then I seized a pale woollen shawl that was lying artistically draped across the rocking chair and wrapped it tightly around my shoulders, symbolic armour against the dark. Cautiously I crossed hall to the foot of the dark oak stairs and began to climb them carefully.
Please stop coughing, please stop coughing, I urged Archie at every tread. Don’t make me come all the way up there.
I proceeded as quietly as I could, as if silent passage might reduce any risk lurking in the shadows.
Archie went on coughing.
Having reached the dog-leg half-landing, I hesitated for a moment, deciding whether to continue. The higher I went, the darker it got. I couldn’t believe Kate hadn’t left the landing light on. Weren’t unlit stairs a tripping hazard? It wasn’t as if Kate couldn’t afford the bill.
Archie’s coughing was becoming shriller, tighter, grating on my nerves.
At least he’s still breathing, I comforted myself. No real harm done yet. But what was Zoe thinking? Why wasn’t she in there helping her poor little brother?
A tiny streak of moonlight glinted down through the skylight, and as I reached the top of the stairs and turned left towards the children’s bedrooms, I stood stock still. For there, at the far end, who should I see but Great Aunt Sophie, standing in the spot where she had died? Shrouded in white, she stared back at me. Her long pale hair had come adrift from her habitual bun and streamed down her shoulders, thicker and lusher than I’d ever seen it in life.
Who was it that said “Death becomes her?” And why do such random thoughts spring into our brains at the least helpful time?
I didn’t know I’d screamed until Zoe flung open her bedroom door and flicked on the hall light switch, casting a full 100 watts upon me – and on Great Aunt Sophie. Except it wasn’t Great Aunt Sophie at all, but me, staring at myself in the full-length mirror like a frightened rabbit caught in car headlights.
Then I realised that Archie had stopped coughing.
Tearing into his room, with Zoe right behind me, I snapped on the light switch on the wall (no nightlights in this house, cruel mother that Kate is) and dropped to my knees at the side of his tiny bed. Archie’s is the sort of bed that you pull out to make a bit bigger as your child grows. It reminds me of a child-sized coffin. Archie’s eyes were closed, his cheeks pale, his body still, and sticking out of his mouth was a small plastic toy zebra. I grabbed it quick, flung it across the room, and, seizing him by the shoulders, I began to shake him.
“Archie, Archie, for God’s sake, breathe!”
After what seemed like hours, Archie stirred slightly and took a noisy deep gasp. Once he’d puffed it out, he resumed his normal steady breathing, tinged with a snuffly baby snore.
As I lay him gently down on his side, he didn’t even open his eyes. Hoping that my vigorous shaking hadn’t dislocated any bones, I was relieved to see him settle immediately into the easy sleep of a small, untroubled if slightly nasally-challenged child.
Zoe, meanwhile, calmly collected the toy zebra from the other side of the room, gave it a token wipe on her pyjamas, and stood it up neatly beside its twin on the gangplank of Archie’s Noah’s Ark.
“I don’t know why you’re making such a drama out of it, Emma,” said Zoe. “Anyone would think you were scared of the dark.”
I emitted a false little laugh and hoped it fooled her.
“Haha. Back to bed now, Zoe, or your mum will be cross with you.”
“No, she’ll be cross with you, Auntie Emma,” replied Zoe firmly.
Forgetting her near-teenage status one more, Zoe trotted obediently back to bed.
After I’d made sure there were no other choking hazards within Archie’s reach, I pulled his door to not quite closed, to be on the safe side, and turned back to stare at myself in the mirror. With Kate’s pale shawl around me and the shadows cast across my face by the moonlight, I really did look a lot like Great Aunt Sophie. As I stood there smiling at my reflection, I felt strangely comforted. Maybe she wasn’t as far away as I had thought.
As I pottered slowly back down the stairs, I began to wonder what my children will look like, when I get round to having them. Will they get any of Sophie’s genes, and mine, or will they turn out like Kate or Mum or Dad? I guess I’ll just have to wait and see.
I finished the Rioja while I was busy writing in the shorthand pad that I always keep in my satchel a garden centre shopping list. I was planning the scented plants I’m going to put in my window boxes this spring: narcissus, wallflowers, hyacinths, and Great Aunt Sophie’s favourite, of course, night-scented stock. When the days are at their longest, I’ll be sitting on my balcony, a glass of something cool and refreshing in my hand. I’m, looking forward to gazing out to the views beyond the city, breathing in the perfumes of the flowers of long summer nights.
The scrunch of car tyres on gravel alerted me to Kate and Tom’s arrival. Kate thought I didn’t notice her fall off one of her designer heels as she emerged from the cab, but I’d seen them through one of the big picture windows in the lounge.
“Kate, had you ever noticed how much I look like Great Aunt Sophie?” I said casually when she came in, hoping that she would agree.
Kate gave me that knowing look that only big sisters can pull off.
“Of course you bloody do, have you only just noticed? Now get to bed, you look knackered.”
“Okay.”
I heaved myself up from the comfortable wallowing position that I’d sunk into on the soft leather sofa, and gave her a light goodnight kiss, though not so light that it didn’t leave a Rioja-coloured mark on her cheek.
“Thanks for having me,” I said, unnecessarily, and trotted off upstairs, not forgetting on the way past the children’s room to give Great Aunt Sophie a little wave in the mirror.
The theme of the blog hop is throwing light amidst the darkness, and it’s down to each author to interpret this brief however they wish. They might unravel a mystery, reveal a little-known fact, or share a short story with darkness and light at its heart – or anything else that takes their fancy.
Whatever the blogger’s take on the theme, you can be sure each post will brighten up this longest, darkest night for us all. (Unless, of course, you’re reading this from the southern hemisphere, in which case you’re enjoying your longest day!)
Huge thanks to the tireless historical novelist Helen Hollick inspiring and organising us all.
And now, pour yourself a drop of your favourite midwinter tipple, sit back and enjoy the journey…. And when it’s over, take heart, for after tomorrow, the nights will start drawing out again!
Happy Winter Solstice!
Take the Tour
Helen Hollick : A little light relief concerning those dark reviews! Plus a Giveaway Prize
Click the image to visit the book’s page on Amazon
This time last year, I had the honour of having one of my short stories, The Reason Why We Eat Turkey at Christmas, featured on the Mumsnet Advent Calendar.
Mumsnet, for those of you unfamiliar with it, is a highly-regarded, well-read parenting website. Dads are by no means banned from it, though some may be intimidated by the name.
Mine wasn’t a children’s story (though older children may enjoy it), because the calendar was aimed at parents – and what parent doesn’t love an advent calendar, big kids that we all are?
But in this age of the e-reader, another fun festive trend is emerging to get us in the mood for Christmas: the rise of the special Christmas e-books. These are usually short stories rather than full-length novels, because who has time to read much when there’s Christmas shopping to be done? Nor the budget to buy them – so these e-books are usually priced low, designed to provide an affordable treat that offers light relief from the stresses of Christmas preparations. Speaking as one who has yet to write a single Christmas card, post a parcel or finish my shopping, it’s a service made to measure for me. I’ve just enjoyed two very different such stories by my friends Joanne Phillips and Andrew Peters.
On finishing Andrew’s book, it dawned on me that here was a bandwagon (or perhaps I should say sleigh) on which I, as a self-publishing author, ought to jump. So last night I entered the fray, and hey presto, via the digital magic of Amazon, I’ve conjured up a new Kindle e-book of my Mumsnet Christmas story, under the new, snappier title of The Owl and The Turkey. As its original name suggests, it is a fun, frivolous and ever so slightly silly fable that suggests the real reason that we eat turkey for Christmas. The tale begins when a young Queen, bored of wild boar, despatches her Royal Huntsmen on a quest to find the medieval answer to fast food. No birds were harmed in the writing of this book, which is suitable for vegetarians of all ages.
The Owl and the Turkey is now for sale on Kindle at just 77p/99c here.
And while you’re reading it, I’d better make a start on those Christmas cards….
COMING SOON:
While we’re in wintry mood, make a mental note to come back to this site on Saturday, when I’ll be taking part in a special feature about the winter solstice, with links to fun and fascinating contributions from 30 other writers, kindly choreographed by my friend the historical novelist Helen Hollick.
With Helen Hollick at the launch of “Sell Your Books!”
I’ve been tagged in “The Next Big Thing”.
This isa blog hop in which one blogger answers a series of questions about their work in progress before nominating other bloggers to whom they’d like to pass the baton. It’s a bit like a chain letter, only very much nicer!
I’ve been tagged by historical novelist Helen Hollick, whose books take pride of place on my mum’s bookshelf. Helen was a special guest at the recent launch party for my first book,Sell Your Books!, kindly hosted by my publisher SilverWood Books – the company that also publishes Helen’s many novels. Sell Your Books! – my Previous Big Thing, so to speak – is a book promotion handbook to help self-published and indie authors to (yes, you’ve guessed it) sell their books. Published less than a month ago, my book has already received some terrific reviews on Amazon.
“Every indie author should have one!” says Helen Hollick.
But now I need to tell you about my NEXT big thing by answering the ten set questions…
1) What is the working title of your next book?
Until this morning, it was going to be called Forever Young, but then I discovered there are already at least five books on the market with the same title, so it’s time to think again. (Book promotion tip: it’s always worth doing a search on Amazon before deciding on your final title.) So now I’m thinking it will be called Young By Name, for obvious reasons.
2) Where did the idea come from for your book?
My online friend, Laura Zera
As well as writing a book promotion blog for Off The Shelf Book Promotions to supplement the advice in Sell Your Books!, I’ve been penning this personal blog, YoungByName, for nearly three years. I’ve put my heart and soul into over 200 blog posts and received some lovely feedback from readers. But blog posts are a bit like newspapers: today’s news is tomorrow’s fish and chip wrapper. Old blog posts slip away into the sunset as new posts are added. When one of my regular readers Laura Zera told me recently that I ought to preserve them in a book, not least so that my daughter can read them when she grows up, I decided that she was right. So I’m going for it!
3) What genre does your book fall under?
To be honest, I’m not entirely sure. Some posts are sheer humour, recounting funny things that have happened to me. Others are travelogues. Many are nostalgic bits of family history and memories from my childhood. So that I can get my marketing right, I’m going to have to invest some time in trawling through publishing websites till I hit upon a category that really fits. This will dictate the cover design, blurb, and so on.
4) Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
My late English teacher, friend and mentor Joe Campbell, who was a New Yorker, said that the actress Juliet Stevenson always reminded him of me but I think she’d need to put on a couple of stone, like Renee Zellweger in Bridget Jones, to play the part convincingly. A cross between the national treasures Tamsin Greig and Miranda Hart would be good: intelligence and ready wit under an outer wrapper of social awkwardness. Miranda in glasses and flat shoes but with her hair curled would be about right. For my daughter, Ramona Marquez, the little girl in the BBC TV series Outnumbered, with her hair straightened, would be fine. For my husband, it could be whoever who played the hero in Dr Finlay’s Casebook or Robert Carlyle in Hamish Macbeth to get the accent right. (“Och, no!” I hear him cry. He’d probably nominate a heart-throb such as Johnny Depp. Well, I could live with that!)
5) What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
“These whimsical, witty, moving and memorable observations of family life, written by a Londoner transplanted into the English countryside, are presented in bite-size chunks for perfect bedtime reading.” (With apologies for the excess of adjectives.)
Team SilverWood with me at my book launch
6) Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
If I had the time and energy to master the technical processes and to organise the necessary professional services such as jacket design and proofreading, I’d do it all myself to save money. But to preserve my time for writing and book promotion, I’m planning to use the services of assisted publishing company SilverWood Books to self-publish. That way, I’ll be confident of a slickly produced, beautiful book that will look at home in any high street bookshop. Yes, it will cost me more, but I think the results will boost sales and so justify the investment.
7) How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
I’m aiming at doing a book for each calendar year of blog posts, so the answer to that is a year to write the original blog posts. I’ll now need to spend a few days organising and subediting the posts before I send the manuscript to SilverWood.
8) What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
Any collections of essays or articles by bloggers or newspaper columnists that people are happy to buy to re-read at their leisure in paperback. The best of these are by masters of the art such as Clive James, Alan Coren or dare I suggest Jeremy Clarkson for those who find his views palatable? Among the younger generation, the actor Michael Simkins, junior doctor Max Pemberton and the wonderful Caitlin Moran are good examples. All completely different personalities, obviously, but each is entertaining and engaging in his or her own way.
9) Who or what inspired you to write this book?
I’ve always written and always liked to make quips about things going on around me, and the invention of the blog provided the right format for me to set all these thoughts down easily in one place. In my hectic daily schedule, in which I juggle different jobs, family life and volunteering, there is no shortage of ideas for new blog posts!
10) What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
There is a serious thread that runs through it about living with Type 1 diabetes – a serious condition that affects both my husband and my daughter. As with my first book, I’ll be donating a percentage of my royalties to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (www.jdrf.org.uk) to help fund research into a cure. Behind my flippancy lies this serious, purposeful undertone.
And now it’s time for me to pass on the baton to these writers whose Next Thing is definitely going to be BIG!
Laura Zera – a wonderful Canadian writer living in Seattle, who I first discovered via her compelling blog, before reading her terrific travelogue about Africa. Like mine, Laura’s next big thing is going to be in a completely different genre to her previous book. Over to you, Laura!
Lucienne Boyce – like Helen Hollick, she’s a historical novelist published by SilverWood Books. She was invited to read her debut novel, To The Fair Land, at the prestigious Cheltenham Festival of Literature this year, and she’s now working on her second novel – but I’ll leave it to Lucienne to tell you all about it!
Sophie E Tallis – a local teacher who has just published her first book, White Mountain, but I have a feeling she has many more Big Things ahead of her!
Thanks again to the lovely Helen Hollick for tagging me – it’s been a pleasure and a privilege, Helen!
