25dpp

Hello again world!

Perhaps I should say, ‘Dear Diary!’ as I’m convinced I’m the only person who actually reads this but I must own it’s a really great way of putting thoughts to bed, if you see what I mean.

Yesterday we had a team meeting at work. During one exercise (on team building) we all had to choose a person who had inspired us. I chose Nelson Mandela because of his great humanity and his ability to bring a great country around to what is right, despite his age and infirmity. After the meeting I went home and thought about other people who have inspired me. Like my mum Sylvia for one, a lovely lady who died way too soon and suffered far too much, then there’s this one very dear friend of mine.

This friend said a few years ago, something like, ‘ok so the kids are grown up and I want a year off!’ so she took it, buying a ticket to go travelling round the world all on her own. She could have chosen the more well-travelled safe routes but no, she decided to start in Spain and ok so that’s nice and safe… but then she went on to Guatemala in central America and other far flung and dangerous corners. She says her wanderlust derives from being the granddaughter of a gypsy, I believe it too; as I speak she is in China!

My point is, I admire her courage and her bravery, believe me some of the places she went she couldn’t even take her phone for fear of being mugged and they probably hadn’t seen a lone Englishwoman in years. I had a message from her today, she downloaded my book last week and finished it today and happily for me, she loved it! If she were a character in my book she would be young Jed, with a desire to learn about the world and to travel around it. I suppose in that case I would be Gideon, happy to stay at home and nest! But in my head I travel, I can see Devilly with its busy river ways, bustling markets and imposing castle and I can see the Green Home Forest, deep dark and mysterious. I can also see the world of Arotia with its tall cold mountains and its fields of sunflowers and grape vines (Gideon’s party wake up on the slopes of such a mountain when they arrive on Arotia.) but I personally have never felt the need to actually travel, it is nice to go away but I always enjoy coming home, being at home, having roots if you like. Maybe it’s because I don’t think I could do what my friend has done, just pick up and go. I’m not brave enough, I don’t have the nerve; she has inspired me in lots of ways, encouraging me to believe in myself being the foremost gift she has given me. If number 2 ever gets published it’ll be for her.

See you soon!

15dpp

Well hello world, (does anyone other than me read this? not that it matters, it gives my thoughts and feelings focus.)

Here we are at number 4 and I have finally checked the book sales so far, only because I have been asked a few times how many copies of ‘Prophecy’s Heir’ have been sold. Up to now, I’ve been too nervous to look. Well, after checking, the grand total so far is 16 copies of the ebook in 15 days! Is that good/bad? I don’t know. I do know however I am really pleased that some actually have been sold. I love the story and the characters, (mind you I am biased!) I can only hope the people who have brought it like them as well can tell their friends about the book and then they buy it too… 

Thinking of influences, what influenced me in the writing of Tess 1? I hear you ask.  Like I said before, a discussion with my son Simon and the story began. A memory of a gentle cartoon goose gave me Gideon, his character with his selfless, loving and caring outlook on life comes from a person close to me whom I won’t name as he would die of embarrassment!  Mayan, well she is a young lady dancer whom I met at my first Zumba class, (love Zumba!) she's graceful, full of talent, energy and great fun.  To be honest, Mayan was already a character but she didn’t have a face or a personality then when I met the young dancer, I immediately thought of Mayan. So as Mayan progressed in the story and grew, the young lady was there in my mind and became real. As for Toby, well what can I say; we all have dark times but out of the darkness we can usually find hope and purpose, if we look deeply enough. (OMG, does that mean there’s hope for him!). I have to admit though, a big influence throughout Tess 1 & 2 (which I am currently working on) is a very dear friend of mine called Gilly. I’m sure when she reads Tess 1 she will see herself in the words of both Varan and Sonal, not to mention Thaddrick.

 In the Tess Saga, friendships between siblings, parents and their children and friends are tested, time and time again just like I think they are in the real world. So far my characters have managed to prevail and I sincerely hope they continue to do so but as the characters grow I can’t tell what they will do or what will happen, blame my fingers, they type the words and sometimes even I am surprised at what appears on the page. Got to go, on earlies tomorrow!

Till next time… J

10DPP (10 Days Post Publishing)

Hi, so here we are at blog no 3.

                         

Last evening my hubby Nick, myself our daughter Wooze, (Sarah) and our two eldest grandchildren went to a Bonfire night event. Here in the UK the nearest weekend to Nov 5^th is usually given over to ‘Fireworks’, it’s a celebration of the thwarting of Guy Fawkes and the attempt to blow up parliament in 1605, we had a great, if cold evening. The fireworks were fantastic, the fire itself hot, the effigy of Fawkes burned beautifully and the food was good. On our return home to cocoa and toast, as Tia was hungry, again! (where she puts it all I don’t know)  and an alcoholic drink for the grownups,  Tia talked of War Horse, a film she had seen with her parents a few days earlier. I told her one of her own great, great grandfather’s had been in the Royal Horse Artillery during the First World War and been killed in Action whilst pulling cannon.

Later as I put the girls to bed Tegan, Tia’s younger sister asked about how my Grandpa had died.  I felt quite ashamed as I didn’t know more than I had already said. So instead I told her my maternal grandfather’s story. He and his men had been stuck in the town of Festobert in France, everyone around them was dead and the shells were still coming in. Hiding in a ruin behind a broken wall he went down on his knees and prayed. In the morning, in that quiet still time before anyone remembered there was a war on, he saw above his head a 6inch crucifix nailed to the wall that had given he and his men shelter. He believed then that God had heard his prayer. He brought the crucifix home and it hung over his bed until he died. It now hangs over mine. I told the girls that one day I intended to take it back to Festobert,  and I intend too.

As I lay in bed after the girlies were asleep in theirs and with Nick snoring gently beside me, thoughts of the conversation with the girls and the corruption of both of our own world wars bringing our earth to its knees made me think of my made up world, the world of Arotia. Personally, I don’t watch much TV and when I do it tends to be history, natural history or total fantasy programs, so I wondered, did I base my story, ‘The Tessellation Saga’, on us... on our own humanity, with all of our freedom of choice, our quirks and our foibles?

 I believe in magic, powerful earth magic, like the magic of Jedadiah Green, to see an animal through the birth of its young or to watch an African sunrise over the Kruger Park and see a Giraffe a Water Buffalo  and an Impala drinking within feet of each other from a lake where  crocodiles  swim so freely. (I have to thank Lewis and Francis for that!) I know our world holds as much beauty as my fantasy world. We just have to open our minds to see it.

There is a way of escape for all the Lemba’s and Darnel’s, as well as choice of future for all the Medim’s and Toby’s. Power comes from within, know who you are and believe ultimately in yourself, lastly (for today anyway) my daughter in law, Sally, told me she cried when she read Jed (Gideon’s father)’s story. How many real life Jed’s, Lemba’s and Darnel’s are out there and what can we do to help them?

As my children would say... later’s........ x

5DPP. (5 days post publishing!)

Hi again,

So, here we are at blog number 2, (I still don’t think I’ll get used to the name, Blog,  sounds too much like bog, which puts one in mind of a crappy read whilst you are still unable to move from the throne after a bad meal, if you see what I mean!!!)

Anyway...

It was Lewis’s turn,

‘Mother...,’ he gets all formal when he’s telling me what he wants me to do, he forgets I powdered his botty when he couldn’t even string two words together,  the formality is usually because of the time difference between  countries and lifestyles, me here in the U.K.  getting up at silly o’clock in the morning to get to LHR T5, and reading his emails in the evening after a snooze, dinner and a G&T or a Vodka & coke, and he, running ‘microplus’, a business  he and his fiancée Franci, started a few years ago in S.A. They get up when they wake and yes, I can feel the hot African sun as I type...  Ohh hang on...  maybe not, it’s a hot flush or a ‘tropical moment’ as my sister would say.  Anyone got any recommendations for beating them; bar a cowpat on my head in a field full of silage I’ll try anything!!!  Anyway I digress, ‘read this’ Lewis continues. So I read and find that there are some really funny blogs out there, witty, enthusiastic , clever and really just downright enjoyable. I’m really jealous. I wish I could write half as well as most of the authors he mentioned. I’m not sure how my own words will be received but here they are...

Today, I know without a doubt I sold one ebook, I was at work in T5 and an officer was looking at facebook on her iphone (I must add she was on a break at the time) and she happened to see a picture of me dressed as a dead schoolgirl, (A Halloween outing with a couple of friends, I must say I  have never noticed before just how skinny my legs are!) and posted next to the picture was a link with a review for Tessellation Saga, Prophecy’s Heir. I commented it was my book and after looking at the blurb she downloaded it, paying the 3.86GBP asked without hesitation. I very nearly burst into tears on the spot.  Ok so I’ll not make a million anytime soon but the feeling of satisfaction that I achieved, someone other than my family had read my stuff , enjoyed it and influenced another person enough into buying a copy was absolutely amazing. I was on a high all day. So just to confuse the issue, tonight’s tipple of choice was a really, no, a really nice Merlot! 

‘Mum, you’ve got to write a Blog’.

‘Mum, you’ve got to write a Blog’.

A ‘Blog, what’s that?’ I reply and as the eyes roll backwards into my eldest daughters head she explains it’s a sort of diary. So this is it, my thoughts and feelings on The Tessellation Saga, Prophecy’s Heir.  It’s just been published on Amazon as an ebook and I’m as nervous as a kitten, will people like it? Will they come to love the characters (well some of them anyway, could anyone love Toby?) as much as I do? Will they even be able to make it through to the end?  Like the title, the book is a long one. Well, to begin with it was just called ‘Work in Progress.’ It began like this…

My nephew Max had written a book for a competition and as he knows I read avidly he asked me to read it. I did and liked it so I told him so. We discussed his book for a while and he suggested I write my own.  You would have thought that I came home and immediately began to write but being a busy wife and mother and working shifts at London Heathrow’s Terminal 5, full time too, time itself isn’t always a commodity I have a lot of. Anyway a few days later I found myself ‘bookless’ something that never happens… I have bookshelves in every room in my house, even in the loo! I also raided my son’s room to see if he had anything new but again was disappointed, so rather than chew my nails I sat with him and told him what Max (my nephew) had said. We then began a discussion of what would make a good book. So really from the notes I jotted down as he and I talked, ‘Work in Progress’ began.

I always knew the hero was going to be called Gideon; I’ve always liked the name and have a dear memory of a cartoon goose on the TV called Gideon, it made my daughter Derry, cry every time she watched it. Wicked mother, I hear you say, but she cried when the short cartoon finished and because she wanted more.  The chapter where Gideon was born was actually the first chapter I wrote. When it was finished I sent a text to my son Simon and told him that Gideon had arrived, (silly really, anyone reading the text would have thought the baby real.) Then, ‘OK’ I thought, ‘how come a woodsman just happened to be nearby in a large forest when the young girl and her unborn baby lay dying.’ So the chapter about Jedadiah Green happened along, Blue, the wolf, was at first incidental as I happen to like wolves. Then the chapter about, why the young girl, (Gideon’s mother) was running wildly through a storm lashed forest with silk slippers on her feet and in fear of her life from soldiers? So that’s when I wrote the chapter about Lydia’s father King Gath.   Do you see where I’m going? Tess 1, as a work in progress was exactly that from the start, because I almost wrote the first part backwards!  Toby came to be initially because again, I liked the name. My daughter was expecting at the time and Tobias was ‘on the list’ for a boy. I hasten to add when her son arrived he was called Hendry; the name Tobias, or Toby had a very different feel by then! Strange isn’t it how one can be influenced by a few words on a page.

Got to go, need to do the ironing!