Cat and The Dreamer Launch Day!!

I'm not sure what else to say apart from I hope you like it!


As well as jumping around and popping the Champagne corks here, I'm having a chat to the lovely Gwen at Fulfilling Dreams.


You can buy Cat and The Dreamer on Kindle, (and Kindle US), Nook and at Vagabondage Press


..

Origins blogfest

Click the logo to find out about Origins and join up!

When did my writing dream begin?

Um... a long, long time ago. In fact, I can't remember a time when I didn't write, or want to be a writer. I know, I know... everyone says that - I am a cliche monster!

But did it begin with my re-telling of Snow White and Rose Red, aged about 7? Or the way I interpretted a primary school project to mean 'write a fictional account of life as a Victorian scullery maid'.

Or with my first 'novel' about a girl who discovers that her cousin is the lead singer of a boy band, when I was about 14?

Or with the first cheque, for £10, that arrived in the post, along with the magazine my short story was published in? (I reproduced that story here, if you're interested.)

All I know for certain is, I couldn't not write. I remember spending quite a lot of my time lying on my bed and writing. In the days of the tape player, I had a copied tape with Guns n' Roses on one side and Poison on the other. When it finished, I'd just turn it over. For months, that's all I listened too. Then it changed to Meatloaf and Alice Cooper.

I wish I'd kept these early stories, but I went through periods - every year or so - of throwing them out. I wasn't embarrassed by writing, but I understood that it wasn't something any of my friends did... it wasn't cool.

When I was 14, having just finished the above mentioned boy band novel whose title I can't remember, I told my careers adviser I wanted to be a writer. She started talking about journalism, and when I said, "No, a fiction writer", she said that wasn't a proper job. Which, though she may deny it now, was something my mum said too.

I'm glad I didn't listen.

I'll tumble 4 ya blogfest

Click here to find out all about it

So, this blogfest asks: who was your 80s crush? Click the link under the logo to find out about it and/or scroll down to the bottom of this post to join in. Or you could just leave a comment below and tell just me... I won't tell anyone else, honest!



To be honest, there were a few pin ups on my bedroom wall in the 80s. Johnny Depp (who would be still there, if I wasn't married - can't see Hubby wanting to wake up to Mr Depp every morning), River Phoenix, that guy from Curiosity Killed the Cat.




But my major, all-encompassing and absolute crush was...
 
the incredible and very beautiful Morten Harket



For the purposes of this blogfest, I'm supposed to justify why, but - really - do I have to? Look at him. He's gorgeous. His hair, his eyes, his voice  his tasteful selection of scarves. I thought he was perfect then, and I still do now.

I'm not allowed to embed the video I wanted to, but it's here: The Sun Always Shines on TV. This was the very first time I'd seen a-ha - they were on Top of the Pops,  and the next day at school everyone was talking about them.

Sadly, Wham! became more popular amongst my friends, but I was loyal until the end. I'd forgotten how beautiful their videos were - a true band, probably a bit overlooked, and one of the best things to come out of the 80s.



Here's Hunting High and Low, and Stay On These Roads, just because I want to.

I think this has been my favourite post EVER!!

So, now, who was your 80s crush?

Here's the Linky to all the other participants. Please go and check them out.

Cat and The Dreamer cover - and an open request

Ta daa!! My first ever book cover!

I'd never considered what the cover would look like, but I'm really happy with it. It's interesting to see how someone else has interpreted the story.

And now for the request...

I've left it a bit late, I know - but until very early this morning, I hadn't seen the cover, or had information about marketing.

I'm wondering whether anyone would like to interview me on their blog, and/or review the novella. I've never organised any kind of blog tour, so I'm not sure how to go about it. What I don't want to do is contact people directly so that they felt obliged to say yes. I understand that a lot of people don't review or host other people.

The actual release day is 14 February - a week today... eeek! - which I know is the date of a couple of blog-fests, so I'm happy to shift around to accomodate other committments.

If you'd like to help me out, please email me through the email on my blogger profile. If you can't, please don't worry, I won't hold it against you :-)

I have such lovely blogger friends...

... because I have been awarded not one, not two, but three awards! (The rest of this post might get confusing.)

Firstly I was awarded the Liebster Award by Joanne @ A Certain Book. I've already explained to Joanne that I've recently receieved this award, so I'm not going to pass it on, because I passed it on last time. The award is a lovely idea in that you pass it to people who have less than 200 followers. I found this difficult, because there aren't very many blogs that I follow which have less than 200 - they're all just too darn successful! I hope you don't mind Joanne, but I really appreciate it.

Rachel Mary Bean @ Writing on the Wall and Michelle Gregory @ beautiful chaos both awarded me these two lovely awards. Because they both came together, I'm going to pass them on together, as I don't know whether they have different criteria. All I know is that both Rachel and Mary shared ten random things about themselves, and there doesn't seem to be a limit on the number of followers like the Liebster, so I've got a lot more choice.


10 Random Facts About Me (which I may have shared before)!

1) I'm going to be a bridesmaid for my sister in June - technically I'm the Maid of Honour, but I prefer the term bridesmaid.


2) I can't ride a bike.

3) I'm not much better at swimming.

4) I own a pair of boots and a skirt that are almost twenty years old, and I still wear them regularly because they are both in good working order and reasonably - surprisingly - fashionable most of the time.

5) My mum, who hated the fact she didn't have a middle name, failed to give me one.

6) I am tone deaf.

7) I love music.

8) My hubby is a musician. (You may notice those last three could have been one, but I'm struggling to find ten facts. I'm not altogether sure I'm that interesting!)

9) My living room is bright orange, my dining room is bright yellow, my kitchen is bright green.

10) I'm a huge fan of Doctor Who. The Doctor I grew up with was Peter Davison, who is almost always forgotten in TV documentaries about the series. He was the guy who wore cricket whites.

Phew! I'm done. And now, here are my nominations. I'm not sure how many I'm allowed to choose, so I'll pick a few at random. As always with these awards, I wish I could nominate all of you, but it gets really tiring on my eyes - I've decided to choose people I haven't awarded in the past! Yeah, okay... I know that's a really poor excuse to not have everyone on the list!

Melissa Ann Goodwin - Writer on the Road

Patsy Collins
Julie @ What Else is Possible?
M Pax @ Wistful Nebulae

The random sounds that make up words

When I was little, I liked to say my name out loud, over and over - because eventually it sounded foreign and unfamiliar. Even words we use all the time, like the can sound really peculiar the more times you say it.

That's the feeling I'm having with the latest round of Cat and the Dreamer edits. The more I consider whether that word, the comma is correct, the more removed I feel from the text, until - after reading the sentence over and over - it makes no sense. Argh!

I hope this is just my perception and it will all make total sense when it's finally finished. But it does spookily echo a dream I had the other night - my first sentence was gobbledygook, and I when my eyes focused on the text, I'd misspelled 'stuck', among others, and I woke up in a complete panic.

(On a related note: I spell-checked this post because I wasn't sure how to spell gobbledygook. The spell-checker had that word, but doesn't know spookily! How strange!)

Just me?

Time for another insecure post. Click the logo and it'll take you to Alex's original post about it, and give you the opportunity to sign up  - although I can't believe there is anyone who doesn't at least know about this blog hop by now.

This month's insecurity was inspired by a post I read recently here. I've been thinking for a while now that I'm the only person in the world ever who's not writing YA fantasy. But now I know I'm not the only one... there's two of us!

(This was a scheduled post, I had it all written and done days ago, but I've just had my attention drawn - by someone reading an old post - to the fact that I've written something similiar to this before. I must prepare better next time!)

Anyway...

Since I discovered how much fun blog hops and challenges can be, and I've started to follow more and more people because of them, I realised that almost all of the people I follow - and a lot of the people who follow me - are YA writers. And I'm not. Not by a long shot. In fact, what I'm starting to wonder  is whether people think that I am.

What I mostly write about is the psychology of my characters - how they react to things around them, how they react to the things that happen to them. Hmm, okay, that doesn't sound as exciting as I was hoping. Mostly there's a dead body - is that more exciting? Sometimes the dead body is right in front of them, sometimes it's in the past, sometimes it's in the process of becoming dead.

It's not that I don't love all the YA writers I follow - I think your blogs are fantastic, and obviously, first and foremost, you are writers, with exactly the same issues and problems with the process of writing that I have. But it does seem, a bit like the post I linked to above, that the reason YA writers are so prolific is that no one is reading anything else at the moment.