Amanda Fleet's Blog, page 7
June 21, 2021
First 5* book of the year...
I haven't been posting many reviews over the last however long, because a lot of books I've read have been a bit 'meh' and I don't like leaving bad reviews; I'd rather share things I've loved.
The first book I've genuinely felt like awarding 5* to is Justin Lee Anderson's novel The Lost War. In fact, I loved the book so much, I approached Justin and asked if I could interview him and he agreed - see last week's post!
The Lost War
The war is over, but something is rotten in the state of Eidyn.
With a ragged peace in place, demons burn farmlands, violent Reivers roam the wilds and plague has spread beyond the Black Meadows. The country is on its knees.
In a society that fears and shuns him, Aranok is the first magically-skilled draoidh to be named King's Envoy.
Now, charged with restoring an exiled foreign queen to her throne, he leads a group of strangers across the ravaged country. But at every step, a new mystery complicates their mission.
As bodies drop around them, new threats emerge and lies are revealed, can Aranok bring his companions together and uncover the conspiracy that threatens the kingdom?
To be honest, I wouldn't normally have read this kind of book, but I'd entered the SPFBO6 competition last year (see the review I got here for Aegyir Rises as part of the competition), and Justin's book was the overall winner, so I wanted to see what it was like.
Read more »
June 14, 2021
Author Interview with Justin Lee Anderson
I am absolutely delighted to be interviewing Justin Lee Anderson on the blog this week. Justin has just been awarded the SPFBO prize for 2020-2021, for his book The Lost War. If you've not yet checked it out, do so. It's fabulous! Having read it and loved it, I contacted Justin and asked if I could interview him, and to my delight, he said yes!First of all, congratulations on winning SPFBO6! You must be delighted. The winning book, The Lost War, is the first in your Eidyn series. Tell me more about it?
Thank you! I like the description of Lost War as a ‘twisted fantasy road trip’. It’s essentially a mystery set in a traditional fantasy world, with murder, conspiracy and monsters. I suppose it’s a bit like what would happen if Stieg Larsson played D&D. Fantasy and mystery are my two favourite genres so I sort of mashed them together.
What prompted you to write it?
Three things: I wanted to write a book about RPG characters that friends and I had played for years; I wanted to write a story set in a world based on Edinburgh’s history and mythology; and I wanted to write a political allegory. It was when I realised they were all one book that it came together.
June 7, 2021
Someone new has come into my life...
First of all, he gave me a pebble that looked like the night sky, and told me to protect it with my life.
Then he gave me a shell with a small hole in it.
The following day, he told me his name.
Finally, he told me his story.
Yes... I went away for a short break in the Hebrides and, lo and behold, a new book has sprung forth. This always happens, and sometimes the new ideas aren't really a whole new book; they just get melted into whatever is the current work in progress. But, dear readers... I have started a new notebook!
The cognoscenti among you will know that that means business. Only big ideas that have the legs to make it into a book (or series!) get a new notebook all to themselves. So, now I am attempting to write Realm #5 in a morning and Shiny New Thing in an afternoon. I swear this way madness lies, but if I don't write at least some of his story, I will be driven insane by him chittering away in my head.
When I had scenery like this, it's no great surprise that my imagination was on fire...
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May 31, 2021
Author interview with Angela Nurse
I am absolutely delighted to be interviewing Angela this week. I first met Angela a couple of years back (when we could still meet in coffee shops, before covid struck) to talk about using Scrivener for writing, and also just to have a natter. Her first book Jack In A Box is just out, so I took the time to grill her about it, and about life in general.Tell me more about your book?
Jack In A Box is book 1 in the Rowan McFarlane Mysteries. Rowan is a single mother to a teenager daughter and this is her first case as Private Detective. She was supposed to be joining her Uncle Jack’s agency when he gets murdered and this ends up being her first case.
What prompted you to write it?
I wanted to write a crime/mystery series with a female lead but not a police procedural because I wanted the main character to have more scope in their investigations and actions. I like books with characters you become invested in and I wanted to create a cast of characters around Rowan that readers would also be interested in.
What are you working on at the moment? Are there already plans for the next book after this one?
Read more »May 24, 2021
Plastic Free updates
I've not posted about this for a while, but I've been trying to reduce how much plastic I use/buy wherever possible. I thought it was perhaps time to update you on how I'm getting on.
Wins:We try to buy our fruit and vegetables loose (or in paper bags). This is usually a win, but sometimes either the loose fruit/veg is awful or just not available.
We use loose tea, though since we started that, a couple of companies have stopped using plastic in their teabags. I'm not sure we'll rush back to teabags though. We're quite used to the loose tea now.
We use Who Gives A Crap toilet paper and have been hugely impressed so far. You can get £5 off your first order if you use this link. As well as being plastic-free, the company donates 50% of its profits to water-sanitation projects around the world, which is amazing.
Solid shampoo. This was a complete fail the first time around. My hair felt like straw. But I switched to a new product, by grüum, and my hair feels amazing! It's the only solid shampoo that has actually worked well for me. Again, if you fancy £5 off your first order with them, use this link. They do a range of shampoos and conditioners, as well as a number of other products (not all of the other products are plastic-free). I got a trial bar back in January and I would say it will last me another three months or so, so they really are worth it. I've ordered a conditioner bar and will report back on how well that works.
Mixed:Wooden toothbrush. It's fine, except (like so many things in life) it's designed for a man not a woman. I find the brush-head too big in my mouth and consequently don't feel as if it's getting to my back teeth well enough. Next time around, I think I will order the child's size and see if that's any better.
Plastic-free toothpaste tablets. These are okay, but I feel as if I need two of them to get a decent clean, rather than just one (which makes them twice as expensive). I may try another brand and see if they're any better.
Trying soon:I'm going to try Ocean Saver cleaning product tablets soon and re-use the plastic spray bottles I already have. I'll let you know how I get on.
We're replacing plastic pan-cleaners with these knitted hemp ones. Not sure how well they'll work, but I'm prepared to give it a whirl (and knit my own if they work well).
Fails:There's still too much of our food that's pre-packed in plastic and I don't know how to reduce some of it. The best I can manage at the moment is to check if the plastic is recyclable, though that isn't necessarily actually happening, even if you put it all in the correct recycling bins.
PPE. My Dad is in a care-home and in order to visit him, I have to take a lateral flow test (LOTS of single-use plastic), wear gloves (non-recyclable), a mask (ditto) and an utterly pointless apron (even the care-home staff think these are pointless as only parts of you are covered. Again, it's single-use and not recyclable). I'm hopeful that eventually I will be able to visit Dad without needing to do all of this, but until then, I take the test and wear the PPE and feel sick to my stomach about all the waste.
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May 17, 2021
Back in The Realm...
Genuinely what my head feels like!Nope. No one will be surprised at this news."Book #10" - the book I'd almost finished the first draft of just before New Year - is on the back-burner. I started going back through it after "Invasion" was launched and had to check a couple of things with an historian. The things I was checking were okay, but in the course of the conversation, I realised something else in the book (a major plot point...) wouldn't work. It was around the brother of the main character being in the army and stationed at Fort George. Except, he wouldn't have been stationed there, according to the historian (who knows about these things). That, coupled with a) another minor niggle with the plot and b) an overwhelming desire to be back with Aeron and Faran and... well. As I said. No one will be surprised to know I'm currently drafting a 5th book in the Guardians of The Realm series. 😁
I know... I know!! About a year ago I said I wouldn't be writing any more Realm books. But they just won't let me go. The characters keep chattering in my ear when I'm trying to concentrate on something else. They're like Siren Songs, calling me to the rocks so that I can dash my brains out.
Read more »May 10, 2021
Keeping track of characters
In discussions with other writers, we've talked about how to keep track of characters. There are actually two main aspects for me: the names I've used, and what those characters are like. There's a brilliant cartoon by Tom Gauld: The Indecisive Novelist, where the characters from a book are discussing their name changes:
Taken from: https://myjetpack.tumblr.com/post/64666677399/my-book-of-cartoons-youre-all-just-jealous-of-myNo copyright infringement intended
That cartoon can touch a nerve with many of us! So how do we keep track of the myriad of characters that appear in our books?
Read more »May 3, 2021
The census rabbit hole!
A few weeks ago I had disappeared down a map-rabbit-hole. This weekend past, I disappeared down the census rabbit-hole. Find My Past had free online access to the census data up to 1911 census over the bank holiday weekend. You needed to register (free) but then could start building a family tree. Clicking on various 'hints' took you to more census data that you could then add to your tree.In the past, someone had done my father's family tree, going back a few generations. After burrowing around in the census data over the weekend, it became quite clear that the information at the very top of the tree was wrong!
Read more »April 26, 2021
Busy brains and morning mindfulness
Whenever I have a lot going on, my brain switches into "too busy to focus" mode. I know I have a gazillion things to do and that time is tight, so I need to be focused, and yet somehow I get nothing done.Even while drafting this, I have broken off to tweak something on the description for Aegyir Rises, answer a message on Facebook, fiddle with something else, and check my royalties (someone is currently inhaling Aegyir Rises on Kindle, if my sudden spike in Kindle Unlimited Pages Read tally is anything to go by... thank you, whoever you are! Hope you enjoy it enough to read the rest of the series.)
Busy brain.
Alongside all that, last week I was helping my mum sort out some things and we found a load of old photos taken by my great uncle, which led to us chatting about him, and now my brain is also interested in doing more research on him. And other members of my family.
Busy brain.
I've been doing a 5-day Ad Challenge (now ended) which means I've been setting up lots of Amazon Ads. Something else to keep looking at (even though I know I won't be doing anything with them for a while and certainly not right this second).
Busy brain...
And I haven't even mentioned book #10 or writing. Or all of the other books I have swirling around my head, demanding to be written.
Read more »April 19, 2021
Writing and mental health
I'm know I'm not alone in having my mental health shredded by lock down, but in many ways it's surprised me. I'm not known for being a party animal. In fact, my "lock down life" is incredibly similar to my "pre-lock down life". The only differences are not being able to see my Dad in his care home, and missing my knitting group. I maybe had one coffee-date with a friend a month, pre-lock down. You'd think I would be able to take this pandemic in my stride.Turns out that although I'm still as antisocial as I've always been, something about lock down is currently taking my generally more-buoyant-than-drowning disposition and demolishing it. I'm struggling to write (which is really not like me. Normally I have more ideas and desire to write than I have hours in the day). The smallest thing is liable to make me cry. My joie de vivre is gone, leaving nary a trace.
And yet all the signs are good. Vaccination in the UK is going well. I've had my first jab. By the end of the week, both of my parents and my husband will have had their second jabs. The country is slowly emerging from lock down. More people are allowed to meet up, albeit outdoors (at least in Scotland). The weather is sunny.
None of that seems to be filtering through to my emotions.
I'm trying to write my way out of it. Not my books... they currently lie outside my grasp and trying to write them is more frustrating than healing. No, I'm trying to journal, or write to process my thoughts and feelings.
I keep a daily diary where I record how my day has gone. That can often be quite dry and factual, in all truth. But I also have a separate notebook where I just write. It started out as "Morning Pages" and on occasion I still do morning pages. In fact, I should probably go back to doing them regularly. However, these are more "any time I'm feeling low pages" which could be any time of the day.
It's essentially a process to clear my head. I can't change anything that is currently dragging me down. I need to learn to accept that. Just the act of putting it all down on paper seems to help though.
The requirements are simple - a notebook, a writing implement (more often than not a pencil) and some time. Sometimes I write for a few minutes. Other times I'm still in full flow half an hour later. Generally I feel more sanguine afterwards.
How are you coping? What solutions do you turn to? Drop me a note in the comments?
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No spam, I promise.
