Write Club

Well it’s been quite  a week.

To summarise – I have eaten one of these:

(Please don’t ask why as I’m still feeling sick at the thought so not quite ready to blog about the how and why just yet!)

Been boogying backstage at the Ealing Blues Festival:

Had some lovely reviews for Dear Dylan on  American YA websites:

Lauren’s Crammed Bookshelf

Tales of the Ravenous Reader

Carrie’s YA Bookshelf

Written 20 pages of my new YA novel.

Got a new tattoo – a shooting star with a trail of stardust around my wrist.

AND…………….TRUMPET FANFARE PLEASE!

I have set up Write Club with my friend and fellow author Sara Starbuck.

Write Club is an alternative writing group for young people aged 9-16.

It is designed to spot and develop raw writing talent – in rule-breaking, boundary-pushing ways. Think Fight Club but with pens!

We will be collaborating with some of the best writers, performance poets, editors and publishing professionals in the business and hope to provide young people from ALL backgrounds with a unique opportunity to develop their writing skills.

Write Club has been a long time in the planning so we are very excited indeed.

If you would like more information about Write Club please visit the page on this site (in the Den), or email me via my mailbox or join our group Write Club on Facebook.

Dare to Dream

At the beginning of last year my life felt as if it had been turned upside down and inside out. My then partner had been diagnosed with terminal cancer, my book deal for Dear Dylan had fallen through (not that that seemd to matter in the slightest in the light of the doctor’s diagnosis) and it was just a case of getting through each day as it came.

But today as I write this, my ex-boyfriend is sitting, a picture of health and completely cancer-free, on my sofa playing with the dog, and Dear Dylan has been nominated for an award and is getting rave reviews on both sides of the Atlantic.

My ex decided not to accept the doctor’s prognosis and embarked upon a radical lifestyle change to beat all the odds. And I decided to self-publish and be damned.

The point of this blog?

Never, ever give up on your dreams.

I was invited to write a guest blog on the subject for the fantastic YA website A Life Bound By Books. Please click here to read it.

Rock ‘n’ Roll in Richmond

The  new Young Adult novel I’m writing has a very ‘rock ‘n’ roll’ feel to it, with countless musical references and its very own playlist.

I’m a great fan of pushing boundaries when it comes to writing and I firmly believe in embracing the new technologies currently revolutionising publishing.  So it occured to me that it might be nice to actually compose some original songs for a ‘book score’. Songs that readers could download from this website once the book is out, to play along with the relevant scenes.

As luck would have it one of my best friends is a very talented musician. So yesterday we took ourselves off to possibly the most beautiful part of London – Richmond Park – and wrote ourselves a few songs.

Rock 'n' Roll and Richmond

For those of you who haven’t been to Richmond Park before it is like stepping straight into a Disney movie. Everywhere you look birds, squirrels, rabbits and deer frolic in the sunshine. It is the perfect place to go for inspiration, relaxation and getting back to nature.

It is also as it turns out, the perfect place to write songs. My friend had a cracking, poignant melody which fitted perfectly with the title of the book. So while he played the tune over and over again I came up with some lyrics to fit. And while we played and sang various woodland creatures started gathering around us to watch – see I told you it was like a Disney movie!

Richmond Groupies

Squirrels, blackbirds, pigeons all gathered round like some kind of Disney style chorus.

Do you know the Birdy Song?

It felt really magical – until I realised that they were actually after our picnic and were about to launch an attack!

Coming in for the kill

Thankfully we saw them off with a large bag of cashew nuts and managed to get the title song finished. Now I’ve just got to have a little tweak of the lyrics before Steve records it and then I’ll post it on here as a trailer for the book…