ON INSPIRATION by Emily Murdoch

Now you all know how much I loved Emily Murdoch’s debut novel, If You Find Me. If you don’t then read my review here. Well I was so pleased to be asked to host a post from Emily herself, about her inspiration.

I’m truly honored by the invitation to share this lovely blog space with all of you. Thank you so much!

And I bring with me my Pink Sparkly Dust Of Creative Inspiration.

Alchemic: any magical power or process of transmuting a common substance, usually of little value, into a substance of great value.

Like your very own words into poems, short stories and novels. 

Are you a writer? Writers write. Did you write, today?

You know how to do it. Sit down. Think. Allow what’s clearest and strongest in your heart and mind to form from the alchemy of humanity swirled with divinity, whatever that means to you. God, muse, universal consciousness, whatever you call it: tap in.  

If you feel something, someone else is feeling it. Let the feeling become clothed in words that warm both yourself and others.

Creative courage is necessary. And caution. Are you ready for the truth? The fear of looking, really looking, is a formidable foe. But the best writing is writing that goes for broke, every sentence stamped out of your heart-shaped soul. 

Fear of exposure, fear of failure, fear of your work not being up to par, or as well-executed as your hopeful, perfectionistic, writer’s (painter’s, dancer’s photographer’s, etc.) heart is a pain the artist bears. Only creating more work soothes the ache. And the creative circle rolls on.

Some of us writers fret over every word, every piece of punctuation. When you hear how writers can spend an hour taking out and putting in a comma, some of us know that perfectionistic anguish personally and want to do anything we can to avoid it, not invite it in.

The answer?

Invite it in. 

Embrace the alchemy. Start the raw materials on their golden journey.

As a writer, I’m very prolific, although I don’t share everything I write. One of my driving creative forces is the fact that life is not forever. How arrogant I’d be as an artist, to think otherwise, and in the process, squander the sacred gift of words I was entrusted with in this lifetime. 

All we have is now. 

So, write anything. Write a grocery list, and imagine the different food items, then imagine the man, woman, or child’s hand holding that list, and go from there.

Who is she? How old? What is she wearing? What was she doing before the list? Is she old enough to go to the store alone?

Now, hold out your hand. Take hers in yours. 

Let her tug you along.

SHOPPING LIST:

Bread

Butter

Eggs

Cream

Heart

Soul

Mind

Words

Dreams

Thank you Emily for such an inspirational post.

If You Find Me is available to buy now and published by Indigo.

To find out more about Emily Murdoch:

Website / Twitter 

Forbidden Friends by Anne-Marie Conway

The policeman came round early this morning, just before eight. It was awful. I had to sit in the living room and answer loads of questions about Dad. Did I know where he was? Did he say anything to me before he left? Did I remember anything that had seemed out of the ordinary? Nan sat next to me on the sofa, holding my hand as tight as she could, but it didn’t help. My stomach was in knots. I didn’t have a clue where Dad was. I hadn’t seen him since Friday after school, and that was three days ago.

Published by Usborne in May 2013

Pages – 314

Goodreads Summary
When Lizzie and Bee meet on holiday, it feels as if they were always meant to be friends. Escaping their parents and exploring, everything seems perfect in the hot summer sun. As the two girls grow closer however, strange questions rise to the surface… Is Lizzie an only child? Why has Bee’s dad disappeared? And why, as the holiday comes to an end, are the two girls forbidden from seeing each other again? Could one dark secret from the past hold the answer? Could one fateful night keep Lizzie and Bee apart…for ever?

*******

This is the first book I’ve read by Anne-Marie Conway and it most definitely won’t be last. It’s one of those stories that plays on your senses allowing  you to transport to another time. I was instantly taken back to recent holidays abroad, slathered in sun cream with a book in one hand and an ice cream in another.

Told from alternate viewpoints, the book introduces us to lovely girls Bee and Lizzie, each quite lonely in their own way, quite opposite in their characteristics, yet they still  embark on a new friendship while holidaying with their families. Bee, the reader, was my favourite, especially when  she packed her suitcase with reading material for the holiday.   As the holiday nears an end, they realise their lives are more entwined than originally thought, each struggling to understand why they are forbidden to ever see each other.

As the story progresses the mystery of the past slowly unfolds and the truth finally comes out. I was completely absorbed in the story as I waited rather impatiently to find out what happened all those years ago.

This book has some strong themes in it. It looks very closely at bullying and both girls experience it in varying degrees. They both support each other as they try to confront the people who bully them. The book also examines family relationships and how easily they can unravel. Each family was suffering due to the events that were clearly an accident.

I was surprised how much I enjoyed this book and it will definitely be one I will be recommending. Ideal for the 9 to 12 age bracket, especially children dealing with friendship issues. Honestly a good summer holiday read.

YA From My Youth by Alexia Casale

As part of The Bone Dragon blog tour, I’m pleased to welcome debut author Alexia Casale.

I am so excited to be part of this brilliant project: so excited I started writing immediately and only then realised how difficult it was going to be. There are just too many books that I want to talk about… and many aren’t YA to anyone except me!

To me, Great Expectations is a YA book, partly because in my head I always compact the timeline as if the adult sections happens when he’s about 17-18 and partly because it was a story I kept coming back to as a teenager. Anne Tyler’s Celestial Navigation was even more important to me as a teenager. It haunted me, opening up my reading and writing horizons: this was the book that made me realise I wanted to write about psychological issues and that, to do so, I needed to study Social Sciences rather than English or Classics at Uni. LP Hartley’s The Go-Between confirmed these thoughts, so those two books changed the course of my life. 

Meanwhile, there were a raft of children’s and YA books that meant a lot to me for a short, intense period of time: The Secret Garden, Ronia the Robber’s Daughter, Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising, Pullman’s The Ruby in the Smoke, SE Hinton’s The Outsiders, Ursula Le Guin’s Wizard of Earthsea, the Harry Potter series… There are so many recent books I wish I’d known about as a teenager: somehow YA seemed to pass me by and, like many people, I went straight from children’s classics to adult novels. In any case, I think a lot of adult books could easily be counted as YA and vice versa: many are written for people of a certain minimum level of maturity, rather than for a specific age group. That was certainly the case with The Bone Dragon. 

After a certain point, it all starts to run together, which is what I found so difficult about this post and why I had to mention The Go-Between and Celestial Navigation. Those are the key books of my YA years… Picking books from that period that are actually YA was really hard. In the end I chose books that have stayed with me. I’m a very slow reader so I rarely re-read anything: I would love to but there are so many books I’d never read at all if I did! Anyway, these are a handful of the ones I dip in and out of for comfort or nostalgia. They’re not necessarily my favourites, but they were each important in their own way.

Diana Wynne Jones: especially Howl’s Moving Castle & Deep Secret

Howl’s Moving Castle is about a fire demon, a cursed witch-in-denial, and a wizard who is just impossible. Deep Secret is largely set at a sci-fi/fantasy convention and is peopled by characters who are thoroughly difficult. It’s so hard to pick only two of DWJ’s books: almost all are wonderful and she remains one of my favourite writers. She’s funny, imaginative, and she can ‘draw’ a believable, complex character with amazingly few words. It’s so easy to love the people in her books: I am still amazed at how effortlessly she engages me. As a writer, I would love to learn this trick. Part of it is that she plays very skilfully with stereotypes and archetypes… something I’m hoping to write an article on later this year.

Georgette Heyer: The Reluctant Widow

Historical mystery romance, often unfairly dismissed merely as ‘period romance’ when the historical detail is actually very well done. Out of all of Heyer’s books, this has my favourite cast of characters. The ‘villain’ is particularly fine. But there’s also murder, a treasure hunt, espionage, a secret passage, sibling rivalry and a crumbling estate. I first read this during a particularly miserable bit of my teens and it was just what I needed. Sometimes that is as important as the content of a book. 

Ellis Peters: Death Mask

When his father is killed in an accident at an archeological site, Crispin is set to live with the mother he hardly remembers. Some of this light murder mystery is very dated, but I never had a problem looking past that to the fact that the teenage protagonist was very like me in many ways: occupied with very different concerns from his peers. An isolated, independent, only child, Crispin spends much of his time reading and disappearing off on his own affairs. But most importantly, with Crispin what’s on the outside doesn’t match what’s was on the inside at all… some of which is purposeful and some of which isn’t. I a lot of my teens trying to figure out why no one seemed to see who I was and why people were always misunderstanding me. It took me ages to work out that often my behaviour didn’t match up to emotions in quite the same way as most other people’s. Once I twigged, I started learning how to ‘translate’ myself so people could get to know me. In the meantime, it was huge comfort to see that I wasn’t the only person in the world to have that problem. Plus I loved that Crispin could read Greek and Latin classics in the original: I figured I would know how to talk to a boy like that, whereas I still don’t know how to talk to boys who like football and fast cars.

Violet Needham: The Black Riders series & The Woods of Windri

I loved the independence of Needham’s characters: children and teenagers managing their own lives and taking responsibility for their choices on the adult stage. Although the books have dated in many ways, her wonderful stories haven’t, particularly as regards the complexities of loyalty and conviction. 

Tolkein: The Lord of the Rings & The Silmarillion

I went through a huge classic epics phase in the middle of my teens, and coming to The Silmarillion felt like looking at a blueprint for using character and narrative archetypes myself. Whatever you think of The Lord of The Rings as a complete work, the world-building is fantastic. As a writer, it made me think about what I did want to build in my imagination and what I wanted to talk to readers about. For a while, I thought I might want to do my own Tolkien thing, but the more I thought about it, the more I realised I wasn’t interested in putting such a vast creation down on paper: I wanted to leave more space for readers to world-build. That was such an important realisation about my own goals as a writer. The other thing I love about Tolkien’s work is the scope of the narrative. Learning to recognise and admire it while recognising that my work was going to be very different helped shape my understanding of how to go about fulfilling my writing ambitions. My favourite aspect is what Tolkien has to stay about civilisations changing and, sometimes, fading: for me, these bits are especially powerful considering his experiences as a young man during WWI. Plus the story of the Black Riders and the Gollum and the Ring are just terrifying: so brilliantly done. It may well be these stories that first showed me how important the history behind the story you want to tell is.

Geoffrey Trease: Cue for Treason

The start of my love of historical fiction, cemented by Georgette Heyer’s books and Josephine Tey’s wonderful Daughter of Time. How can you not love a book about a Shakespearean theatre company where what happens on stage mirrors the lives of the characters? Full of drama, plots, secrets and romance, it’s a great story that brings many aspects of the period brilliantly to life. And it has a fantastic heroine who is more than equal to the boys (as it should be).

Thank you Alexia for adding even more books to my TBR list!

The Bone Dragon is published this month by Faber and Faber.

To find out more about Alexia Casale:

Website / Twitter / Facebook

Waiting on Wednesday (11) - The Weight of Souls by Bryony Pearce

Waiting On Wednesday is a weekly event, started by Jill at Breaking The Spine, highlighting future book releases everyone is waiting on!

I’m really looking forward to The Weight of Souls by Bryony Pearce, which will be published by Strange Chemistry in August.  I read the author’s debut book, Angel Fury back in 2011 and enjoyed it. I can’t wait to read this one now!

Book Summary

Sixteen year old Taylor Oh is cursed: if she is touched by the ghost of a murder victim then they pass a mark beneath her skin. She has three weeks to find their murderer and pass the mark to them – letting justice take place and sending them into the Darkness. And if she doesn’t make it in time? The Darkness will come for her…
She spends her life trying to avoid ghosts, make it through school where she’s bullied by popular Justin and his cronies, keep her one remaining friend, and persuade her father that this is real and that she’s not going crazy.
But then Justin is murdered and everything gets a whole lot worse. Justin doesn’t know who killed him, so there’s no obvious person for Taylor to go after. The clues she has lead her to the V Club, a vicious secret society at her school where no one is allowed to leave… and where Justin was dared to do the stunt which led to his death.
Can she find out who was responsible for his murder before the Darkness comes for her? Can she put aside her hatred for her former bully to truly help him?
And what happens if she starts to fall for him.

Aldo Moon and the Ghost at Gravewood Hall by Alex Woolf

‘It was a dark and stormy night I began. The skies were racked with thunder that rolled in waves across the valley. Lightning forked through the dismal clouds and lit up the trees in brief, angry flashes.’

Actually, it was a beautiful evening. The only celestial illumination was provided by the moon, which shone through wisps of London fog, falling silkily on our rug. But that didn’t seem right for my story, which was to be in the gothic tradition and so required a more violent kind of weather.

Published by Scribo February 2013

240 pages

Summary from Hive.co.uk

Introducing Aldo Moon: abandoned at birth, raised at the Foundlings Hospital in London, then adopted by the well-to-do Carter family at the age of seven. The young psychic detective is always on the outside. Flamboyant, eccentric and a touch wild, Aldo has the ability to pick up 'ripples in the ether', which he uses to investigate intrigue and mystery in Victorian England. He is accompanied on his many adventures by the intrepid Nathan Carter, the story's narrator, and the prim arch-sceptic Lily Morelle. In this, their first case, the trio investigate the mysterious nightly noises at a rotting country house in the dead of winter. With the help of his companions, Aldo gradually uncovers a gripping, sinister secret at Gravewood Hall.

Reviewed by K. M. Lockwood

The story is told by Nathan Carter about the crime –solving exploits of his adopted brother, Aldo Moon – in the manner of Dr Watson writing about Sherlock Holmes. The narrator directly addresses the reader and uses deliberately old-fashioned vocabulary to match the Victorian era in which it is set. 

Along with uncovering the central mystery, the reader will learn about 19th century servants, divorce law and inheritance. The author clearly knows a great deal about the Victorian era and he contrasts scientific attitudes with more spiritual ideas through the different characters and events. The conflict between rationalist and psychic points of view is as relevant now as it was in the 19th century – and in this story, there is both deductive reasoning and apparently supernatural activity.

Alex Woolf has made an interesting mash-up of a traditional crime thriller and something more eerie. The result will suit the reader who seeks something like Wilkie Collins or Dickens. It is full of gruesome revelations set in a richly detailed, claustrophobic world. 

I should warn buyers that the title and the publisher’s summary suggest a relatively young readership. The cover, by David Proctor, which is very attractive with its unusual scrawly typeface and striking Gothic artwork, also looks suitable for the 9+ market .But some of the themes and scenes are definitely YA and could upset a more sensitive reader.

You will enjoy this if you are a confident reader fond of complex historical mysteries with a touch of the macabre.

The Big Break with D.J. McCune

I’m pleased to welcome debut author D. J. McCune, author of Death and Co, published by Hot Key Books this May, to talk about her big break into the publishing world.

1) I would love to know a little about your writing journey. What did you do before writing books?

I always loved writing stories even as a kid but it’s only in the last three years I started to get serious about it. Jobwise I was a TEFL teacher in Japan, a chalet girl in Switzerland, a residential social worker in a children’s home and a teacher. Working abroad helps you get ideas for books and learn more about what makes people tick – plus most of my working life has been spent with teenagers so it’s natural that I write about and for them. I’m able to observe them on a daily basis!

2) Your debut book, Death & Co. has just been published. How did you spend publication day?

It was a really strange day – the day that everything happens and nothing happens. I spent most of the afternoon  mooching about, not really settling to anything but enjoying the congratulations – including a beautiful bunch of flowers from my publisher Hot Key. I have lots of publicity type events over the next few weeks but publication day itself was quiet – the calm before the storm!

3) How does it feel to finally have your name on a book?

It’s brilliant! Only someone who’s a lifelong book lover can understand what it feels like to see your name on a gorgeous book cover. It’s a long journey – in fact I call my blog Notebook to Novel because when I started it I was an unpublished writer and it charts the ups and downs of getting from the scribble stage to the finished book.

4) Death & Co. is the first book in the series. How many will be in the series altogether?

There will be at least 3. Hot Key acquired it as a trilogy but in my head there were always more books. There are so many characters and I find the Luman world so fascinating I could just write and write about it! J 

5) Can you tell us a little bit about the book for my readers who have yet to set eyes on such a delight?

Death & Co is about Adam Mortson, a 15 year old boy who longs for a normal life – but can’t have it. He’s from a family of Lumen, humans who guide the souls of the dead into the afterlife. The book is really about Adam’s struggle to balance the demands of two very different worlds – the Luman world and his life at school where he hangs out with his geeky mates and struggles to pass exams and get his first girlfriend. He’s trying to live two lives at once without feeling totally comfortable in either the Luman world or the ‘normal’ world. Most people can identify with that at some point in their lives – feeling like you’re playing a game where you don’t actually know the rules! Adam isn’t a conventional teen / YA hero – he’s more of a geeky anti-hero than a slick romantic lead – but he has his own charm.

6) Where did you get your inspiration from for it?

Odd as it sounds – I was writing an email to a friend! I had a rotten cold and started writing, ‘I feel like death.’ Somehow this didn’t seem strong enough to convey my suffering so I wrote, ‘I feel like death’s ailing granny.’ When I wrote those words I felt a kind of mental PING; something around the idea of death having a family. I started writing Death & Co. there and then – and the rest is history J

7) How long did it take you to write?

I’m very much a ‘fits and starts’ writer by nature – I wrote for a couple of months, then took a few months off, then started writing again to finish the book. I’m not always the most disciplined person and I was working full time – plus I was pregnant and renovating a house! I used to sit and write in rare quiet moments – lunchtime at work, late at night; whenever I could squeeze it in really.

8) What was your first reaction when you found out your book was to be published?

Satisfaction – and huge excitement obviously. I’d had a good feeling about the book but it’s different to anything else I’ve read so it was always going to be a gamble for publishers (and publishers are notoriously risk averse!)  My lovely agent Gillie Russell had a good vibe from Hot Key Books – she just felt that Emily Thomas my editor ‘got’ the book right from the start – and she was right. 

9) Were you given any good writing advice that you would like to share with my readers?

Less advice and more what I’ve picked up along the way. Follow the idea wherever it takes you. Don’t edit at the start – jut get it down (every time I get stuck writing it’s because I’m trying to be too clever and get it all down pat first time). Let your characters lead the way. Write as often as you can. And if you’re serious about being a writer – persevere. If you quit at the first hurdle you’ll never see your name on a book cover.

10) Did you find it easy to get an agent?

Actually yes – but there was a bit of serendipity in the whole thing. I attended a writing class in the town where I live and my tutor Bernie McGill was impressed with some writing I showed her. She asked her agency if they could recommend a good agent for teen fiction – and by a quirk of fate they had just taken on my agent Gillie Russell. I sent her a sample… and the rest is history. (If you read my blog you’ll see this took place over a period of months, not overnight. Agents really are busy, busy people – plus I broke all the rules by sending my sample chapters before I had finished the book!)

11) Who is the one person that cheered you on and supported you through your writing?

It’s really tough picking only one person. Bernie and Gillie were both heroes but picking one with a gun to my head I would have to say my husband Colm. He’s a journalist and academic and he understands how tough it is to work on massive projects and put yourself out there with your work under scrutiny. He was always supportive, even when I was writing during dinner or late at night, usually singing along (badly) to my music playlist…

12) What are you working on at the moment?

I’m working on the sequel to Death & Co. – part 2 of the trilogy. I’m really enjoying getting to know the characters more – and revealing a whole lot more about the Luman world. Book 1 was just the tip of the iceberg. Book 2 gives a lot more insight into the quirks of Luman life, especially for the female characters – but you’ll also get to read about Coming of Age for male Lumen – and it’s pretty painful! It’s also nice to see Adam getting slightly better at the whole romance thing. Let’s face it – he can’t get any worse.

Book Summary

Adam is a Luman, and it runs in the family. Escorting the dead from life into light, Adam must act as guide to those taken before their time. As his older brothers fall into their fate however, Adam clings to his life as a normal kid - one who likes girls, hates the Head and has a pile of homework to get through by Monday morning. When Adam gets a terrible premonition he realises that he must make a devastating choice, risking his life, his family and his destiny

To find out more about D.J. McCune:

Facebook / Twitter / Hot Key Books

There are two comps running through Movellas at the minute, one creative writing (on afterlife theme) and a brilliant one for graphic artists - looking for the official Death & Co artist (prize is a MacBook Air with complete Adobe Creative suite!!!). All details on the FB page

Top Ten Tuesday - Favorite Book Covers Of Books I Have Read

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme organised by The Broke and The Bookish. This week’s topic is favourite book covers of books that I’ve read. I have struggled to limit myself to ten!

1) Die For Me by Amy Plum

I fell in love with cover before I even knew what the book was about! It’s my all time favourite cover. I’ve really enjoyed this series and I still have the final book to read. I’ll be sad when it finishes.

2) Wintercraft by Jenna Burtenshaw

There is something utterly magical about this cover. A series I’ve really enjoyed and still Book 3 to read.

3)Winter Wonderland by Belinda Jones

 

Sadly I loved the cover more than I loved the book. I was attracted to the snow globe with it’s miniature world inside it.

4) Witch Song by Amber Argylle

I fell in love with the cover before I bought the book. I wanted it so badly, I bought the US version and had it imported.

5) The Apothecary’s Daughter by Charlotte Betts

This photo doesn’t do this cover justice. Up close, it reminds me of one of those old sweet shops with all the little jars full of tasty goodies.

6) Tiger’s Curse by Colleen Houck

Another series I fell in love with when I saw the cover first. A brilliant series which I’ve nearly finished. All the covers are stunning, but this is by far my favourite.

7) The Double Shadow by Sally Gardner

I love this old fashioned black and white print. I wanted it as a poster but never managed to find one.

8) Starters by Lissa Price

I just loved the whole design of this cover. I can’t wait to see what the sequel looks like. It’s something about the two halves of the face that attracts me to it.

9) Broken by A.E Rought.

What a stunning cover for the modern retelling of Frankenstein. Just gorgeous.

10) Ruined by Paula Morris

I bought this book based on the cover and loved it. Set in New Orleans during Mardi Gras, I was completely sold.

This was  really hard one to do. I could just keep adding awesome covers to this post, but it states ten so I’m stopping there.