....In an octopus's garden by the sea...

Hey you'll never guess what I've done...
This is my new home... a wendy house by the sea.
Well it's a bit bigger than this, but this is a photograph from Aldeburgh in Suffolk where I've moved to, oh and at the risk of sounding like I'm gloating and with better language than I'd normally use, it's absolutely bloomin' gorgeous! Course the weather we've been having lately has helped, but I've moved there for the winter with the excuse of writing my next book which is partly set in Suffolk (now!) and Northampton, which is the furthest place from the sea of any town in Britain (correct me if I'm wrong.)

I could end up being a whole different person, I feel different here. Now, anyone who knows me well will know I'm not a morning person, I secretly believe morning people are a different species, and much less cool than night people (like me!) but here I can see the sunrise (over the sea) from my bed (though I have to be careful not to sit up quickly or I bash my head on the sloping roof, but I just have to get up and get out there. I could be starting a whole new routine of walking and beachcombing by day, and writing at night when it's dark. No doubt I'll change my views with the weather, but hey what's new? It's a very friendly town too, with a cinema, bookshop and characters galore, I feel like I'm in heaven. I don't have broadband, so I have to go to the library to check up on emails and stuff, so there may be less posts here, but I'm sure you can live with that! I was too addcited to my t'internet anyhow.

And I'm writing loads too! I'm about half way through a very rough draft, and as someone who doesn't find it easy to talk about work in progress for fear I'll talk myself out of it, I do feel it's going well (now) It's strange how different writers write. Talking to Lucy, my MNW pal, she is so methodical and works out each bit as she goes along according to her master plan, more or less, and I think it shows in her very well-plotted plots. Me, though I have a vague outline and plan, I just write my way into the plot and the characters especially. It does mean however, now I'm half way through that I have loads to sort in the earlier stages, but I just can't get to know the characters otherwise. Anyone else do it any different?

Who Are You?

Hi
Where do you come from?
Who are you?
Why?
What?
When?
How?
These are the big questions this week.

This is a picture of a Question Mark butterfly by the way courtesy of clip art.

Now I'm not that technology minded (in case you can't tell) and fairly new to this blogging lark so with the help of random teenagers and a bit of trial and error I get by. Last we I managed to download to this site a site meter. Idle curiosity. I don't get that many comments, mostly from a few friends who've got blogs themselves and karmically think perhaps, I leave a comment on her blog she may leave one on mine and vise versa more or less. So I wonder. I'm a wondering type of person. I don't really do blogs that much unless it's connected to my world somehow.... is that how most people blog? Are there bloggees out there rather than just bloggers? Who knows?

Now I've had around 57 visitors to the site this week and OK so it might not be that many in blog land, but I can't help wondering who the hell you are. Do you come back? Do you wander in idly by accident thinking I'm another kind of site all together? How do you find it? What are you looking for? What is the meaning of life?

It would be interesting to hear from some of you. No pressure.

You see, now I know there are other people out there looking at this stuff rather than a few friends, it does alter your perception on what one should be putting on one's blog, and there I go going into proper language, trying to make a good impression, pretending I know about grammar and etiquette and stuff. I must do I've had a book published. To be a proper writer I must know about all this stuff, mustn't I?

So maybe writers shouldn't blog actually, because there are real, true, natural bloggers out there who know how to do it properly, plan what they are going to write and work out how to grab their audience. We writers can't be bothered with that. We wanna save the good stuff for our books, articles etc. Why waste a good phrase or idea on this load of shite? Because people read it and if they like what they read they might buy the book you idiot! Ah but if I put loads of effort into this when actually I should be working on the next book, like I should be doing now at this very moment, then there won't be a next book...

God I'm so wise! I'd better get back to my rough draft sharpish...

fair made up by great review

Well it may be six months since Selfish Jean hit the shelves but it's still being praised, this time on another writer's blog shameless words so I shall be shameless in freely quoting from it here.

She (I'm assuming it's a she though I don't really know) says my book "turned out to be an absolute treat." That she " read this in one sitting, which is very rare for me, as the writing had me by the neck and wouldn't let me go."

Also:
"I think the novel is a master class in how an author needs to find an original "voice" and keep it going until the end."

And:

"It was also such a delight to read a book where all of the text was crucial to the story, where I didn't feel the urge to skip ahead to escape unnecessary detail. The humour and tragedy works well together, and the writing was fresh and accessible. The way things are tied up at the end was intelligent and inspired.

"This is a short novel, only 218 pages, and I didn't want it to come to an end."

Blimey. I couldn't have written a better review of my own book!
It's great when someone really enjoys your work and seems to understand it the way it's meant and set up and that doesn't always happen. So thankyou whoever you are!

However, there was some criticism for the cover design and as many people have told me before they found the cover completely uninspiring, it's got me in a wondering mood. There seem to be two types of people: those who know what the spiral thing on the cover is and those who don't. I could explain it, and it links to the story on several levels, but I'd be interested in comments from anyone or other readers about this and the cover.

It is difficult to know if this type of cover actually has increased sales or not. On the one hand the chick-lit market is huge, despite people saying it's had its day, so people who like that sort of thing may buy it. On the other hand, many people who don't read chick-lit (including a lot of men!) have told me the cover almost put them off, but they were then pleasantly surprised by its contents, which in a way does work in my favour, because if they were expecting one type of novel and I deliver a more interesting one, then that makes them like it more perhaps. The only problem then is how many people have been put off by the cover and don't read it, when they probably would have enjoyed it? And how many chick-litters have read it and hated it because they were looking for a nice cosy romance? Who knows? All I know is my book, so far, has managed average sales for a first time novel in hardback and I'm pleased with that, considering all the competition out there, but I can't help wondering which way it would have gone, up or down, with a different cover.

Anyway, all this talk of Selfish Jean feels strange now as I'm losing myself in the world of my new novel. It was a bit of struggle at first, but I persisted and continued writing even when I wasn't really sure of the characters, but now they are really starting to live and the thing is when I get to this point, I don't want to do anything else in this world I want to stay in that world with them, so ta-ta for now!