Emma Newman's Blog, page 20

A guided tour

I've been meaning to write about the picture at the top of this blog for months. Between writing books, having my debut novel published (yay!), writing a short story every week for the Split Worlds and making costume for the SFX Weekender ball (this Saturday!) I've not had a spare moment. Really.

So, some of you will recall that this blog used to be called "Post-Apocalyptic Publishing" and had a picture of a road stretching towards a dark horizon with a bolt of lightning striking most dramatically. Both the picture and the name suited when the blog was started. It was a very dark time. I was recovering from severe post-natal depression and wondering whether to give up on getting 20 Years Later published – hell, I was wondering about giving up on writing all together.

Back then I knew nothing about blogging, had never been on Twitter or Facebook and nobody except my husband, a few friends and the agents and publishers who'd thus far rejected me had read my stuff. Here we are over two years later with lots of lovely shiny books with my name on the covers and I know my way around a bit better. I came to see this as my little tiny nook in the gigantic interweb. A place which over the years had drawn some wonderful people who I subsequently became friends with, worked with and you know, it's all much better.

So the dark, apocalyptic stuff had to go – not least because the current series I'm writing is quirky urban fantasy with nary an apocalyptic wasteland in sight. Well, not yet anyway.

A couple of the objects need no explanation

Yup, there's my debut short story anthology and debut novel in the middle and it makes me happy. To the right you can see a lovely tea pot and cup, yup, that's because of the tea thing. I have to confess however that it's my Mum's tea pot, as I wanted something particularly fine for your eyes. It's pretty, isn't it?

The rest is a little obscure, let's go left to right. You see that brilliant blue shape? That's a hat made of silk and is the only one of its kind in the world.

The blue storytelling hat

Just over three years ago I did a course which involved a storytelling module. It was great; we had to memorise an old story which appealed to us and we had to make a hat to wear whilst telling it to the group. That's the hat I made and I love it. It's very, very silly – no way I would wear it walking down the street, even though it is lovely and warm as the silk is lined with thick wool fabric. It's my favourite colour too, but the main reason it was picked for the picture is because it reminds me of storytelling, of taking people to other places. That's what it's all about for me. It's also the fact I made it, and now I'm sewing lots of clothes again, that might be more relevant than I anticipated when making the picture.

The weird little castle made of sand

The glittery sparkles pressed into the sand don't come across in the picture, which is a shame. It sits on my writing desk – I'm looking at it now – and the reason this is special to me is that I bought it when I went to San Francisco for the summer between my first and second year at university. I love its fantastical design, but I also like the fact it reminds me how big a deal it was for me to go and do a summer school course on the other side of the world. It demanded a whole lot of bravery and yeah, I guess I'm proud of that.

The stone lighthouse

This is one of my most treasured possessions, and is also right in front of me now, next to my computer monitor. It's a heavy souvenir made from the serpentine rock of the Lizard peninsula in Cornwall. I've already told you about why Cornwall is so important to me but this lighthouse isn't just a tiny pit of rock from the place. It was bought by my late paternal grandfather and was used as a doorstop in his house all through my childhood. He passed away over twelve years ago and I still miss him every day. He was an amazing man, one of the most influential people in my childhood and I don't think I could love a person more than I loved – love – him. Rest well Grandad.

The puffin

Ahhhh, puffins. They're my favourite bird and I had a friend at uni who was slightly obsessed with them. I won't go into details, as frankly, it's hard to explain, but those of you who knew me then will know why that little fellow is there and what "BLUUUUU" means.

The box of dice

That states, for all to see, just how geeky I am. Yes. I'm a role player. And if that isn't enough, those three D6 spilling out onto the books are positioned to show three ones, which is a crit success in GURPS, the system my favourite game in the world uses. Sadly the one dot doesn't show so well on the clear dice. Hey ho.

Now, roleplaying is so important to me, and there's so much to say about it, I'm going to leave it for another post. For now, suffice to say that it's my favourite hobby.

The large marble

Not only is it beautiful, that marble reminds me that I've always been this way – looking for imaginary worlds and taking myself away from this one as much as possible. It was something I always did as a kid; pick up a marble and look deep inside it, imagining a different place caught there. I still do it, the only difference now is that I get to take you guys with me.

The knight

Okay, I have a thing about knights. Always have, always will, but this one sits on my desk doing an important job; he reminds me to stand up for myself.

A while ago I got screwed over by someone, and I don't want to go into the details in a public place. I got hurt, but ultimately, I let that happen because I didn't protect myself, and let someone take advantage of me.

When I was licking my wounds I spotted that handsome fellow in a shop and bought him to remind myself to be my own knight when I needed to defend myself. To act honourably, chivalrously, you know, all the things the real knights weren't really like! So he's there to remind me to watch for those old patterns, to remain vigilant for self-doubt and insecurity that can lead me to making bad decisions and trusting the wrong people.

What would be in your picture?

I'd love to know what things you'd pick to go in an equivalent picture for you, and why. And if you have any questions about those objects, feel free to ask!

How Writing Can be The Scariest Thing, Ever – by Rebecca Emin

Today is the official launch day for a book called "New Beginnings" by Rebecca Emin. Rebecca and I have had stories published in the same anthologies and been in each other's writing communities online for some time now, and she's a very friendly and supportive writer. I'd like to give her a warm welcome to Em's Place and a hearty congratulations!

Rebecca Emin

I always used to say "One day I'll write a book." I got there eventually, but in the time before I actually started writing regularly, it didn't occur to me that I would have to show people my efforts in order to work on them. I don't think it really dawned on me until I had finished my rambling, hopeless, first draft and looked into what to do next. The general consensus was edit, edit, edit, and then get beta readers and/or an editor involved.

Yikes!

It took me a lot of edits and many, many months before I felt ready to show people my manuscript. My beta readers were helpful and feedback from children in the target age group was fantastic, but I did wonder if everyone was "being nice" to avoid hurting my feelings. After more rounds of editing and rewriting, I hired an editor to give the book a proper going over. I felt sick while I waited to get it back. I was expecting her to say, "There's no plot," or, "Give up and delete it," or something like that but her edits helped me to develop the story even more.

Finally the day came when I clicked 'send' on the email to Grimoire Books, an imprint of Punked Books. I spent quite a bit of time in the coming weeks wondering what I would do when I got the rejection back from them.

A few weeks later, when I was checking my emails, their email popped up in my inbox. I opened it up and instead of seeing the words I had expected in front of me, it said they would like to publish my book.

I have never known shock like it; I started shaking. I called my husband and my Mum and shook violently until I remembered my first aid training from years ago and had a cup of sweet tea. Amazingly that worked and I stopped shaking, and the news began to sink in.

The worry doesn't stop there though. After further edits and loads of emails going back and forth the book was finally ready to be published and the next fear is that people out there who I don't know at all are going to read it and some of them are going to hate it. It's absolutely terrifying, but I think the day I lose my fear is going to be the day my writing stops being anything near readable. Constantly striving to be a better writer and developing your writing can only be a good thing.

I have received some very encouraging feedback for New Beginnings so far. I would love to know what your readers think of it!

Thank you for having me here on your blog, Emma.

My pleasure Rebecca, and I can relate! Guys, here's where you can find Rebecca out there in the wilds of Internet Land:

Rebecca's blog, Ramblings of a Rusty Writer

Rebecca's Facebook Page

On Twitter

New Beginnings on Amazon.co.uk

New Beginnings on Amazon.com

Tales From the Split Worlds: The Woman in Pinstripe

I felt the urge to bring the latest Split Worlds story home this week, I have no idea why. In case you haven't come across it before, for the last 12 weeks I've been releasing an urban fantasy short story every Tuesday. They're part of a year and a day of stories up to the release of the first Split Worlds novel in November 2012 (runs off screaming).

They're not serialised, so you can dip in and out where you like. Usually they're hosted at a different blog each week, but like I said, this week, I'm hosting. You can find all the stories so far here.

As with all of the stories, there's an audio version if you'd prefer to listen to me reading it. I have even attempted a Lancashire accent. I apologise to everyone from and living in Lancashire, including the paternal side of my family.

A brief aside…

People have asked me whether the characters in these stories will be in the novels (it's a five book series). Some of them will be, yes. The Split Worlds is an urban fantasy setting, one I've been developing for over two years, so I have a lot of things that won't fit in the books that I can play with in the stories. I'm also seeding some of the plots for the book series in these tales too – it's my hope that someone who has read all these stories will read the book and feel a secret glee at knowing the back story to an obscure reference, a character's past dealings or even just feel more at home in the Split Worlds.

Without further ado, here is the latest story.

The Woman in Pinstripe

Charlie puffed his way up the hill, for the first time in years he was excited about the day ahead. He felt like a wax-jacketed steam train panting plumes of breath into the winter morning air.

"I'm depending on you son," his father had said earlier. "You've got to stop that suit showing up and talking big money." He felt like someone from a film, someone with a mission.

A few minutes after reaching his look-out point, Charlie lifted the binoculars to watch a black car winding its way down the hill on the other side of the valley. It was a BMW, its big city shine spattered by country mud. He watched as it slowed for a sharp corner, held his breath as it drove over the tacks where the road straightened, the punctured tyres bringing the car to a stop. He punched the air, then pulled out his mobile, texting; "BMW on south road stopped."

"Good lad, meeting about to start." Dad texted back.

Mission accomplished, Charlie unwrapped a toffee. He chewed as he watched the man get out, inspect the tyres and pull out his mobile, but there was no signal down there. By the time he made it up the steep hill and down the other side to the nook Fernbridge sat in, the meeting would be over and the decision about the land stalled for another month.

A flash of silver to his left made Charlie freeze mid-chew and swing the binoculars round. He glimpsed a Mercedes on the eastern road. Sweat prickled under his collar. Which one was the company rep? It slowed to go over the small humpbacked bridge but then stopped before it reached the tacks he'd laid. He watched, toffee wedged in the roof of his mouth as a woman in pinstripe got out and looked at the tarmac. How could she have seen them?

He didn't expect her to just get back in the car and drive on. He zoomed in as best he could, thinking he could make out the nails rolling out of the way of the tyres. The toffee broke free, slipped down his throat the wrong way and his spying was interrupted by a brief choking fit. By the time he recovered the car had passed the first defence.

There was a back-up plan; he jumped onto his mountain bike and hurtled down the hill, through the trees to where the Land Rover was parked. He skidded to a stop, chucked the bike into the trailer and drove out of the layby to block the narrow road. He cut the engine and leaped out, the sound of a distant car getting louder as he lifted the bonnet and sabotaged the engine.

He heard the Mercedes stop, got his hands as filthy as he could and then peered round. "Sorry love," he said to her as she got out. "It's buggered. Just conked out, nearly crashed I did."

She looked at her watch, he guessed she was in her late fifties but with her slick suit and neatly tied back auburn hair she didn't look like any of the doughy middle aged women in the village. "What's wrong with it?"

"Not sure," he shrugged as she came round to look. "Know about engines do you then?" he asked sarcastically.

"I'm going to be late," she muttered, slipping off her jacket and draping it on a nearby branch. She looked him up and down as she rolled up her sleeves and then rooted around under the bonnet. "Seems I know more about engines than you do," she said. "Try it now."

Slowly, hiding his panic, he climbed back in and it started first time. She dropped the bonnet shut and wiped her hands with a handkerchief. As she put her jacket back on and went back to her car, he set about bodging his manoeuvre as much as possible. By the time she was behind the wheel he'd "accidentally" tipped the trailer into the ditch, twisted dangerously on its coupling.

"You idiot," she yelled, getting back out. "For God's sake get back in and put it in first gear."

"Why, what you-"

"Do it! I'm going to be late!"

He watched in the mirrors as he put it in gear, she was moving round to the back of the trailer. It was ex-military and weighed half a ton. "What are you going to do?" he said to her reflection.

She seemed to fumble for a moment, then winced and looked at her finger. "Silly cow," he muttered, seeing the blood drip from the gash. But she didn't look angry, instead she was focusing on the trailer again and then crouched down out of sight.

"Go forwards!"

He expected nothing but creaking from the coupling, but the Land Rover surged ahead so fast he stalled it. When he looked again she was marching back to her car, the trailer aligned and on the road behind him.

"What the b-"

She beeped the horn and he drove on, taking a short cut across the farm to beat her to the village hall. Once he was back in signal range he texted his father. "Incoming."

He slipped in at the back, seeing Trevor the Traitor on his feet and his father glowering on the other side of the room.

"In two years that old bridge will be lying in the river, there's no money to repair it," Trevor was saying. "The young people are moving away, and if we let Dennis and his bloody Historical Society continue to hold us back, in two generations there's not going to be a village here."

"Rubbish!" Dad shouted.

"If the land held by the village trust is sold at the same time as mine," Trevor continued, "it'll be snapped up for a good price. Dig your heels in and you'll make it worthless."

"But who will buy it?" A woman called from the back.

Dad pointed at Trevor. "He don't care, he'll sell up and move to Chester."

Trevor ignored him. "I want to sell to an adventure holiday company. Any minute now their rep'll be here to explain why this is the best thing that could ever happen to this village, but only if you sell the land bordering the river, including the bridge."

"They'll pull it down and fill the place with louts!" Dad yelled.

"Yes, they'll pull that rusting heap down," Trevor said. "English Heritage don't want it, the National Trust aren't interested. And don't tell me you're waiting to hear from the Lottery people, because I know for a fact they won't touch it."

The door opened and Dad sat down, his legs giving way at the sight of the slick city suit and briefcase. The woman scanned the room and then walked slowly down the aisle to the front of the hall, the clip of her shoes ringing out in the silence.

"Is this the meeting regarding the sale of land held by the village trust?" she asked. The committee chairman nodded as she set the case down and adjusted the makeshift bandage on her hand.

"Are you from the holiday company?" Trevor asked.

"No. I'm here to represent the head of Coferrum Inc. I understand there's some land for sale, possibly two lots, including a nineteenth century iron bridge."

"That's right. What do you want to build on it?" The Chairman asked.

"I'm authorised to offer two hundred thousand pounds for each plot, plus an extra one hundred thousand to secure ownership of the bridge. And to answer your question Mr Chairman, we might want to build a small visitors centre, once the bridge is fully restored."

"That's far more than the others have offered, what's the catch?" Dad asked as Trevor grinned and rubbed his hands.

"It's a bad offer if you don't want to keep the bridge," she said. "And I suppose it means there won't be any kayaking."

The cheer in the hall made Charlie's ears ring, but he wasn't joining in, still thinking about how she'd managed to get there. But then he saw his Dad, smiling for the first time since the land went up for sale and decided he couldn't have seen the tacks roll away at that distance, she'd just been lucky. Maybe the trailer hadn't been as far into the ditch as he'd thought. Charlie called for three cheers. Whatever had happened that morning, he'd never tell a soul about it.

 

—-

I hope you enjoyed the story, I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments (really, I would!). If you would like to find out more about the Split Worlds project, it's all here: www.splitworlds.com. If you would like to host a story over the coming year, either let me know in the comments or contact me here.

I almost didn't write this…

I've been putting off writing this for several weeks now. I wrote before Christmas about a photo shoot for a national magazine for a feature on success through social media. Well, the magazine was published a week or so later, and they kindly sent me a pdf of the article for me to share with you guys.

Note that I didn't for quite some time.

Why I kept quiet about it

Well, in short, I almost threw up in the middle of the supermarket when my husband and I found it. I'm not joking; it was an intense and very unpleasant physical reaction. A five second glance at the feature made me think the following things:

1: Oh my God I look awful

2: Do I honestly look like that?

3: If I look like that, I never want to leave the house again

4: This clearly means I'm more shallow and vain than I previously thought

5: I hate myself

Not a good start. It didn't help that I had a dental appointment straight after, so I was pretty nervy anyway. By the time I got to the waiting room I'd made myself look at the article again and saw that the errors I'd corrected with the journalist (ones she said were down to the editor changing her copy) were still in there and that the "Emma's Podcasting Guide" box bore no resemblance whatsoever to the tips I gave in the interview – and were in fact poor advice – but I'll get to that later.

I felt tearful. Stupid. Ugly. I texted my best friend who was wonderful, I was then told I'd have to have my wisdom teeth out at the hospital at some point soon and by the time I got home, I was a wreck.

An over-reaction?

Yes. I did over-react – or rather, reacted as a normal person suddenly meeting the world of mass media for the first time. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not naïve about that world; I choose to ignore most of it for a very good reason: it's designed to make us miserable and buy more stuff to compensate. But to actually see myself being processed and churned out in the machine was a whole new level of awareness.

Now time has passed and people have reassured me that I don't look freakishly grotesque, just not like me, I've been trying to work out what to write. For a long while I wanted to list all of the inaccuracies in the article and put them right, but now, with distance, I don't see the point, they're only irritating to me. So what if it says I wrote 20 Years Later to express myself (yuk!) during a difficult time? Whilst that's utter rubbish, it's not going to change anything about the book, or whether people will read it. I got upset about that because it was loading an emotional agenda onto it, but I suspect I'm the only person in the world that thinks that's important.

What about that 'podcasting guide'?

Well, that really upset me at the time, now I think my over-reaction was aggravated by several factors: 1) it's written in the first person, so it seems I really gave those tips 2) If I had been asked for a 3 tip podcasting guide, I'd have happily given one that would actually help a starting podcaster (in my humble opinion) and 3) the tips I gave in the interview were far more helpful – just about Twitter instead of podcasting (that's what I was asked for).

I suspect there was another agenda behind pushing Blogger and Blogspot. So, just for my piece of mind, let me state here that I would never, ever recommend those. It's WordPress all the way baby. I won't even bother to correct the other tips, as I doubt it's going to matter to anyone else but me. I'm being precious again, aren't I?

Characters in the media

The focus in the article header is on podcasting, I see that as a tiny part of my publishing story, but they clearly felt I would be better cast in the role of someone who podcasted their way to success. I think that's what freaked me out – even though that's me in the picture I don't look like me, it's written in the first person but doesn't sound like me. That's a very strange and quite upsetting experience to have for the first time. Good grief, I sound silly don't I, but it's the truth. I'm a timid creature. It took a long time for me to be open here, in my space, this was the first time I was "out there" in a way controlled by other people. Does that make sense?

But it also made me realise, even more acutely, how practically everything we consume in the media is just a story. If they take a complete nobody like me, who has a real story relevant to what they want to talk about and still can't help fiddling with it to fit their ideas, imagine what must happen to celebrities and politicians. How many people have I liked and disliked thanks to their portrayal in the media? Who decides who will be loved and hated?

It's all so subtle. Take the picture of (not)me in the article (I know I haven't linked to it, I can't do it yet) – who on earth writes books wearing all that make-up, 6 inch high heels and a lurid green Dame Edna dress? I flicked through another issue which had a feature on an Olympic athlete "training" in full make up. Not a big deal? Well, yes and no. It's clearly all silly when we stop and think about it, but when we consume stuff like this we're not supposed to be in a critical mind-set. I suspect magazine editors hope their readers flick through, brain elsewhere, taking in the pretty pictures, feeling aspirational. I think on a subliminal level all of these images are designed to make us feel fat, ugly and boring and raring to buy the featured products to look like the pictures we see. That's why I don't read them. As the speaker in the sunscreen song so rightly says "Don't read beauty magazines, they will only make you feel ugly."

So now I'm a media whore, right?

I've been quite open here about the fact I avoid these kinds of publications. In fact, I actively reject the world they portray and think it's harmful – yet I still went and had the shoot, didn't I?

I can't say I feel proud of that.

I have a policy of not turning down opportunities (within reason), especially those outside of my comfort zone, as I'm trying to not let my rampant anxiety disorder ruin my life. The opportunity came one week before 20 Years Later was released in hardback, the article came out on the same day. I did it to get exposure for the book, just like all of the other people who put themselves into the media meat grinder who have products, projects and causes to promote. I became part of the machine.

So am I now jaded and bitter?

No. I was freaked out and precious, I'm better now. I don't regret the experience – the shoot itself was a lot of fun and even though I look awful in the article, I didn't feel it at the time. I'm pleased, perhaps hypocritically, that I got the hardback of 20 Years Later in the photo, in fact, may I urge you to admire how beautiful it looks should you click here to see the article?

And if you're wondering what I really look like when I'm proudly showing off my book, you can see me here, outside my favourite bookshop on the day I went to sign the copies on sale there (that was so exciting!). That's what I really look like; freaky in a non-scary way, wearing my old hat, with a silly – and genuine – grin.

This Cornish thing…

There are a dozen posts I need to write and a zillion emails to reply to and a whole book to edit and three and a half more to write and – OH STOP IT BRAIN!

Happy New Year!

I'm a little bit frazzled. This loss of routine is taking its toll, but I'm not here to moan, or in fact write any of the posts I've had knocking around in my head for weeks. I'm here to talk about Cornwall. Why? Because I just have to tell you about what it means to me.

It's because I wrote a Split Worlds story today set in a Cornish tin mine, Dolcoath, a couple of miles away from where I grew up and I felt moved to write more about it here. In researching the details for the story, I've reignited my homesickness, and remembered just how important that place is to me. I felt like sharing that with you, I hope you don't mind.

Once upon a time in the far south west of England

I was born just outside a tiny fishing village in the far south west of Cornwall, not a huge distance away from Land's End. I lived in Helston for the first five years, then moved to Camborne, both towns heavily influenced by Cornwall's mining history.

I saw the ruined engine houses every day, Camborne in particular is steeped in mining and when I was at primary school the last working mine in Cornwall, South Crofty, was still open there. My best friend's father worked down in the pit there and I remember seeing him come home with that black dust worked so deep under his nails he'd never get them clean again.

My primary school had four "houses" named after local mines: South Crofty, Wheal Jane, Dolcoath and Cook's Kitchen (which was blue and the best!) and one of my brightest primary school memories was a history trip around our own town learning about Richard Trevithick's achievements (born just outside Camborne and schooled there) and the stories behind the town's civic buildings. There's a statue of Trevithick outside of Camborne Library, one of the most important places in my early childhood, and I remember standing and gazing up at him.

Whilst my family has a long tradition of military service and no direct connection to mining, learning so much about it at school and seeing it all around me as I grew up gave me a deep respect for the miners, and a love of the county's history.

The sea, the sea!

Almost all my childhood summers were spent at the coast, it was ten minutes away by car. What a rich place to grow an imagination. Countless things to find and excavate in rock pools and sand dunes, the sea to fear and love in equal measure, to swim in on the hottest days and admire on the stormiest from a safe distance.

And the cliffs… it's the cliffs I miss the most. How many hours of my life have I spent on top of one, gazing out over the endless sea? When I feel troubled, and can remember to do so, closing my eyes and imagining being back there, the eternal granite solid beneath my feet, the raging waves battering at the base of the cliffs, makes me feel grounded.

© Copyright David Hawgood and licensed for reuse under Creative Commons Licence

I love Cornwall's strength. The way it hunkers down and weathers all the storms the Atlantic throws at it. You see it in the trees on clifftop roads, you see it in the squat granite walled cottages. The cottage in the story "The Unwoven Heart" in From Dark Places is one of these. Its people are strong and have survived incredible hardships. I'd allude to the strength of granite here, if it wasn't such an awful cliché.

Cornish myths and legends

I sometimes wonder if my imagination would be poorer had I grown up elsewhere. There are so many legends that delighted me as a child – and still do actually. One of my favourites was the explanation of the huge boulders at the top of Carn Brea where we used to walk a lot. Legend speaks of a giant of Carn Brea who had a falling out with the giant of St Agnes, the rocks are the evidence of their throwing stones at each other as they argued. Even though I knew about ice age deposits, I could see those giants so clearly as I stood on top of the boulders.

Another favourite of mine is the stone at St Michael's Mount (a truly magical place). If you lie against it and press an ear to the rock, you can hear the giant's heartbeat who is imprisoned beneath it. Then there's Tregeagle and Dozmary pool, the Buccas and the fishermen, and the Knockers in the mines. Those last two were woven into the latest Split Worlds story. You can read it here if you like, I hope I've done the mining life some justice in it.

The hardback edition of 20 Years Later is out now!

It's been a long time coming, but it's finally here; the beautiful hardback edition of my debut novel 20 Years Later is on sale now.

Here's the blurb from the publisher if you've just arrived and are wondering what on earth I'm talking about (also, welcome to Em's Place!):

LONDON, 2012: It arrives and with that the world is changed into an unending graveyard littered with the bones, wreckage, and memories of a dead past, gone forever.

LONDON, 2032: Twenty years later, out of the ashes, a new world begins to rise, a place ruled by both loyalty and fear, and where the quest to be the first to regain lost knowledge is an ongoing battle for power. A place where laws are made and enforced by roving gangs—the Bloomsbury Boys, the Gardners, the Red Lady's Gang—who rule the streets and will do anything to protect their own.

THE FOUR: Zane, Titus, Erin, Eve. Living in this new world, they discover that they have abilities never before seen. And little do they know that as they search post-apocalyptic London for Titus' kidnapped sister that they'll uncover the secret of It, and bring about a reckoning with the forces that almost destroyed all of humanity.

You can read the first five chapters here by the way.

The wonderful Gareth Powell (who wrote The Recollection which is one of the best sci-fi space operas I've read in a long time) said "A gripping search through the ruins of post-apocalyptic London. I was hooked from the first page." – how cool is that!

As the publisher and distributor are American, it means lovelies here in the UK have a couple of options when it comes to buying it.

Online, there are the usual Amazon and Book Depository options, but I've arranged something with my favourite local independent book shop, Mr B's Emporium of Reading Delights in Bath. The book will be on their website later this week, but before then, all you need to do is either phone on 01225 331155 or email books AT mrbsemporium.com and let them know you'd like to order the hardback. The gently wonderful Kate at Mr B's knows all about this, so if there's any confusion, ask for her.

They will get a copy in for you and let me know so I can go and sign it – be sure to give them the dedication details, or me if you prefer – and then they'll post out the signed copy to you. The cost is £15.99 plus £3 postage and packing.

For my lovelies outside of the UK, I'm having special book plates designed for me to sign and send to you. I'd like to point you towards the very friendly Russo's Books if you'd like to send your dollars to an indy bookstore. Here are their details, as soon as I get the bookplates they have kindly agreed to slip them inside the books if you buy from them.

Russo's Books

9000 Ming Ave, suite I-4

Bakersfield, CA 93311

(661) 665-4686

www.russosbooks.com

russosbooks AT bak.rr.com

If you have pre-ordered a copy (a thousand blessings upon you!) and would like me to send you a signed bookplate when they've been made, just email me your details using the contact page and I will sign one and post it out to you. If you send a picture of you peeping out from behind it that would make me extraordinarily happy, and I'll shout you out on the blog if you like!

I am planning some parties to celebrate in the New Year, everyone is just far too busy in the lead up to Christmas, so I'll keep you posted on those too. You can always bring along your copy to get signed there too, in fact, it would be best for you to get your copy via one of the means described above as it's so much harder for me to get a box of books for events (and they're really heavy hardbacks!) and it would make my publisher happy too.

And if you're getting an e-reader for Christmas…

20 Years Later has been out as an e-book for a little while now, here are the places you can find it.

Kindle: UK Store US Store

Nook  20 Years Later

Kobo   20 Years Later – someone has just told me (via Twitter) that it's in the top 20!

A guided tour of the hardback edition

Under the dust jacket

As fellow book nerds will appreciate, one of the first things I did when I got my hands on a copy was look at the binding and then look under the dust jacket. The binding is exquisite – no glue here people – and look at what's underneath the jacket.

Isn't that gorgeous?

Have you read it already?

If you have, thank you. My publisher is a small press and I'm a debut author, so getting the word out there is very, very hard. If you enjoyed it, please let me know, and your friends! Also, the VIP list is just for you. And if you have two minutes spare to write a review for Amazon / Goodreads / Librarything, I would be immensely grateful. Just two lines and a rating go a long way to increasing a book's visibility out there in this noisy world.

Hooray! It's out there! Let's eat ice cream!

Lots of Friday flashes

It's occurred to me that those of you who only follow my blog may be under the impression that I no longer write flash fiction every week because I'm not posting it here. Ooops! That's not true, in fact since the one I published at the beginning of November there have been four more, just elsewhere on the interweb.

So I thought I would point you in the direction of all of the Split Worlds flashes published so far, as one appears every week hosted on a different blog. You can sign up to the Split Worlds newsletter to get another free story right away, and then every week I'll send you a tiny note to let you know where the latest one can be found.

The Good Client – Text – Audio

The Visit – Text – Audio

Knotty Secrets – Text – Audio

The Price of Art – Text - Audio

Last Fare – Text – Audio

Enjoy!

The strangest morning of my life (so far)

Today I had one of the most bizarre mornings of my entire life. It's now up there in my memory with the time I ended up being driven across Oxford with four nuns in a mini, but that's another story.

This morning I was in a photo shoot for a national fashion and beauty magazine (I'm not telling you which one until I see the pictures, you understand I'm sure). If you have read any of this blog, or have met me in real life (or even an rpg one), you know I am not a fashion and beauty magazine kind of gal. But there I was, in a swanky boutique hotel in Clerkenwell, London, being glammed up, posed and photographed.

It came out of nowhere. A direct message came from a journalist on Twitter last week, asking to get in touch as she wanted to feature my book. Twenty four hours later I was interviewed over the phone and the shoot was booked. The feature is about people who have achieved success via social media. Well there's lovely.

With the official launch of 20 Years Later approaching fast, I figured I'd be an idiot to say no, and I have a policy never to turn down opportunities to do something new and silly (within reason). Whilst I don't think for a minute that someone will see the feature and rush out and buy my books, I figured it's still a great experience to have.

Aside: a little field victory

Now you have to understand that I have spent the majority of my adult life running away from cameras. I got into a complete tizz when I had to have my author shots done for my publisher. But this time, I caught the anxiety early and decided to see this as something exciting, rather than scary, and would you believe it, it worked! I think it would have been a lot harder if it was a shoot for, I dunno, SFX magazine, or something else more in my world, but still, I was proud of myself for not melting down like I usually do.

Back to the shoot

Hair and make-up was painless, Veronica was absolutely lovely and she made me look really… grown-up. I know that sounds silly, seeing as I'm 35 for heaven's sake, but I usually don't wear make-up, and on the rare occasions that I do, it's very minimal. She did great things with my hair, taming the mane impressively.

The thing I couldn't help be a tiny bit nervous about was the fact they had a stylist to dress me. I told them on the phone that this was inadvisable as I do not have a fashionable shape (i.e. I have curves, some of which are in the right places) and I don't suit most modern clothing. I was worried I wouldn't be able to fit into whatever they brought, turns out it was all slightly too big. I was put into a dress that I would never, ever, ever wear, mostly because it was awful. A lurid green lacy effort, but hey ho, I entered the spirit of it.

Then she got out the shoes.

I say shoes, I mean bizarre torture devices of doom. My lovelies, the heels were six inches. Six inches! I am not exaggerating – they were slightly platformed stilettos.

Now I don't have the best record for walking without injury, or just staying upright for that matter. I am the girl who fell over whilst walking down the corridor next to the bulkhead of a warship because one of the walls was at a 45 degree angle and my brain just couldn't handle it. I wear ankle high walking boots most of the time as I am just so very clumsy.

So, wearing those shoes turned out to be comic gold. Honestly, once I'd got them on, which was extraordinarily awful in and of itself, I simply could not move without holding onto the wall, and only then could I move a tiny amount. Cue lots of nervous giggling, one thing the photographer said was that she didn't have to keep trying to make me smile all of the time because I was just on the brink of hysterical laughter the whole time.

Various wobbly standing shots done, there was then the pièce de résistance: sitting at a computer "writing one of my novels". Seriously, I was wearing more make-up than I usually do in a year, with massively glam hair, in a posh frock (held by bulldog clips at the bag as it was too big!) and 6 inch high heels writing my book at a posh Mac laptop.

Very representative of my real life. No really, I find the crushed toes motivate me to type faster.

In all seriousness, it was one of the funniest, most absurd things I have ever done in my life and I really enjoyed it! The people were so very lovely, me being a total photo shoot noob and utterly clueless in the ways of fashion and beauty on every level, and they looked after me so well. And it just felt so gloriously Pythonesque in its surrealism.

So, if the magazine comes out and I don't want to curl up and die when I see the pictures, I'll tell you where to find it. Until then, I'll be here trying to get the industrial strength mascara off. The make-up remover, it does nothing! Where are you Fallout Boy?

In Good Company

One of my closest friends has recently launched a website called In Good Company. The idea behind it is simple; many people suffer from anxiety and depression, few people talk about it. If more people share their experiences, the hope is that we'll all feel less alone. I couldn't agree more.

I wrote a post for it a little while back, and to help spread the word about the site, I'm cross-posting it below. It's all about my experience of post-natal depression and was extraordinarily difficult to write.

I hope it helps.

Hollowed Out

I've been trying to write this for weeks. Writing is not something that I find difficult, in fact, since I started trying to write this post I've written over 36,000 words of my latest novel. And some blog posts. And a fair few emails.

I'm stalling again, even here, on the page.

Since I had post-natal depression I've written novels, an anthology of short stories, hundreds of blog posts and yet I have never been able to write about my experience of the first three years of my son's life. I've mentioned that I've had post-natal depression, you know, in passing. But I've never described how it felt. I've never been brave enough to set those memories into stony words.

I've talked about it. I make myself talk about it when the topic comes up, because so few people share what it's really like. And every time, every single time I have spoken up about it, someone says "I went through that" or "I know someone who had that" and sometimes there are long looks shared, sometimes a hand is touched. Then I know I did the right thing.

When I write things down, they become more real. I write to work out problems, I write to escape to fictional worlds and to take people with me. To write about post-natal depression is, frankly, terrifying. I don't want to make it real again. Just thinking about it – just sidling up to it slowly as I am here – brings tears to my eyes. There's a bitter lump in my gullet, a hard rotten ball of grief whenever I think about my baby boy and how I lost so many years and so much joy to that depression.

I can feel the temptation to talk about triggers, to hide behind intellectual analysis of what caused it and what the risk factors were. I did a degree in Psychology, I was able to take myself to the doctor and say "I have post-natal depression. These are my symptons, these are the factors that trigger the worst bouts. Please help me as my brain knows what the problem is but not how to solve it."

But is that going to help anyone? Maybe. But I feel I want to share the other stuff. The bits I've never written about. How it felt.

It wasn't "just the baby blues" and in fact, every time I hear that phrase I am seized by a murderous rage. It wasn't just feeling low or out of sorts.

It was like a little death.

I felt dead inside. No, worse, as death would have been quiet and still. It was like something had cored me out like an apple, and stuffed me with crippling anxiety and self-doubt. So much of my PND was anxiety, and a firm belief that I was a terrible mother with no trustworthy instincts of my own.

I wasn't like that when he was born. It was a perfect birth, at home, no complications. But jaundice and feeding problems took us both into the hospital I had done everything to avoid, and that three days destroyed me.

There's a temptation to fall back on stories here. The story of when they used a breast pump to keep me expressing whilst he was being checked and nothing but blood pouring from my nipple. The story of the doctor seeing this and saying "Ah, that's why your baby's ill, there was blood in the milk that unsettled his stomach." The story of me screaming, hysterical, wailing that I'd poisoned my baby. I never scream like that. I wish you knew me, so you'd know how unlike me it is to lose control like that. I'm very, very British.

Post-natal depression was a total loss of control. I'm not going to hide behind those stories. Even though they are true, they hold me at arm's length from telling you how I felt.

For long periods of time there was a total absence of feeling. Sometimes I couldn't speak, that was usually in the evenings, when my husband was home, and all my words had been poured into my baby as I overcompensated for the hollowness inside. I didn't want my little boy to be affected by a husk of a woman, so every mote of anything I had left went into him. There was simply nothing left after a day of that.

PND was constant clock watching. Most of my memories of those early months, when it was at its most severe, are of working out how long it would be until someone else came home. Whether it was relatives I was staying with, my husband, a friend, no matter. I was terrified of being alone. I was convinced I wouldn't be able to cope, that something would go wrong.

Do I need to tell you about the nights? Haven't all mothers lain awake listening to their baby's snuffling and held their breath in the gaps in between? I did that too. For years. Even now, at four and half years old, I am terrified I will walk in on a still, grey child.

But all of that is just icing.

The worst part, that which just thinking of now as I type is making tears rush down my face, is that I didn't feel that love, that special, precious, golden adoration that everyone told me would happen the moment I saw him. I spoke to mothers when I was pregnant, who universally spoke of how much they loved their child right from the start. It thought it was natural. Automatic. Guaranteed.

I felt glimmers of it in the pregnancy. I felt the beginnings of it when he was born, mostly wonder and a strange sense of familiarity when I watched his little legs kick in the pattern I'd felt every night. But after that stay in hospital? Nothing but guilt and fear and self-hatred.

It took almost three years for me to feel that expansive rush of pure love when I look at him. I still remember the first time it happened, it stole breath from my lungs as I stood at his bedroom door and listened to his tiny snore. Then when I realised what it was, I sobbed. I had finally felt it, and that was wonderful, but I wept – and still do – for all the years I lost.

I look at pictures of him as a baby and that rush happens every time, followed immediately by its twin grief. Why didn't I have that at the time? Why couldn't I feel that, appreciate that, when he was that small?

It's lost now. I'll never have another child, I can't put him and my husband – and myself – through that again. But I can tell you that here, on the other side of those dark, dark years, I have emerged a better person. I can understand, sympathise and empathise with women going through this in a way that was impossible before.

My marriage survived, and is also stronger for it, but it was a terrible strain, and at times it looked bleak. My little boy is secure, happy, healthy and bright. And we love each other. Dearly.

I suppose I want to reassure you that there is a path through that black forest. It's the hardest thing I've ever had to cope with, and there have been some challenges in the past, but it is possible to survive, and to move on, and to develop a deep love for and connection with one's child. I was lucky enough to have support, to recognise what was happening and to take steps to change our lives to take the power away from the triggers.

If you've been reading this and nodding, if these things I describe are familiar to you, I wish I could hold you. I wish I could embrace you tight and stroke your hair and say "It's okay. You'll get through this. You will find a way. It feels impossible, and it is when you're inside it, it is impossible, but eventually, it will pass."

My words will have to suffice. Much love to you, and your family. You are not alone.

A dialogue with a demon

I had a bit of a wobble last week. By wobble I mean a visit from my old friend the anxiety demon. He brought some friends and they had a loud party in my head. It was most unpleasant.

Unsurprising though. Whilst I was launching the Split Worlds project I was also writing the first book, and could hide away in another world. When I finished it, the real world was here waiting for me, along with all of its emails. The anxiety demons were upset at having been ignored for so long and made their protests more loudly just to be certain I got the message.

Yeah, thanks guys.

So it's been a rough few days, and in the spirit of this blog, I'm writing about the ugly warty bits of this writing life as well as the utterly wonderful bits. It started to get a bit better when I started to have a conversation with the anxiety instead of just trying to ignore it, and it's hard to remember this stuff once I've moved past it, so that's why I'm here, pressing it onto the page.

The golden rule of anxiety

After many years of wrestling with these beastly bouts of ick, I've come to realise that I can usually, eventually, trace it all to one immutable fact:

The anxiety is trying to protect me.

That's really hard to remember when it's making me feel sick, keeps me awake at night, makes me burst into tears in coffee shops or have minor panic attacks in supermarkets. It feels so intensely awful, it's really hard to hold onto the idea that some deep part of me is trying to keep me safe.

The thing is, life is pretty scary for me. I wasn't always like this, but some unpleasant things happened and pretty much destroyed my confidence. I've rebuilt it as best as I can, and there are some situations in which I am absolutely fine. Sitting in my office writing books and stories for instance, I have that pretty much sorted now.

It's when I need to step out of the good old comfort zone that things get ugly, and a big part of my unconscious mind wants to keep me safe, so it scares the hell out of me to stop me from going where it feels uncomfortable.

It can be really insidious, it's a crafty little bugger. Sometimes I even believe it's me thinking these things, until I realise it is only a part of me; a frightened, insecure and child-like part that is terrified of failure and rejection. Which is not good for a writing career, I can tell you.

This is where the conversation thing comes in. When the anxiety is raging, the hardest thing to do is just sit quietly and turn inwards. I just want to read, role play, watch films, play Skyrim – escape! All that does at the worst times though is keep the anxiety bubbling away on the back stove, and then it boils over as soon as I stop distracting myself.

I stopped and talked to it last week. I acknowledged that fact that I am terrified that the Split Worlds will not be well-received.

I acknowledged that this is the first project where I have really, really fought to make happen, the first thing in my life that I have put absolutely all of my skills into and the first large scale (for me) creative project that I could really publicly fail at.

That's all very, very scary stuff.

I asked the anxiety what it was most afraid of. Gradually, the answer surfaced:

If the Split Worlds fails, I'll never have another chance to devote my life to writing books.

It's that simple. That's all I want to do, so it makes sense that after working hard for years and years to craft my life into the shape it is now, the risk of losing it would be scary. But you know what? When I acknowledged that, I felt better. I realised that all I can do is my best. Nothing more, nothing less. Whether people love the Split Worlds or not is beyond my control, all I can do is try to make as many people aware of it as possible, without being grotesquely annoying. And if it doesn't work, if I don't keep my investor happy and can't do a project like this again, well, I'll survive.

The Split Worlds project is forcing me to go to hard places

For this to be a success, I need to promote it, there's no getting away from that fact. I hate, hate, hate promotion! I constantly worry about being pushy and annoying (I see a lot of authors doing that on Twitter and I really don't want to be one of them) and so I lean the other way and say far too little. I hasten to add that if you are reading this and worrying that it's you, it's likely that it's not. For you even to worry that automatically means you're not the kind of person to blast out a tweet to your book twenty times a day and say nothing else or have any conversations. If you are doing that… um… that's not what Twitter is about.

I know, intellectually, that there is a happy medium to be found, but I am struggling to work out what that is as I know my instinct to stay quiet is probably more my anxious self trying to keep me safe, so I am doing my best to negotiate with it, and not bother the hell out of people by going on about the Split Worlds.

Am I striking the right balance so far?

It seems to me that I can't trust how I feel about this, and you guys are the ones I worry about, so do you think I am overdoing it? My hope is that because every time I tweet and actively promote the Split Worlds there is a story for people to enjoy for free, it isn't as offensive as other messages like "BUY MY BOOK!" in the Twitter stream (every five minutes) can be. Or am I overcompensating and not doing enough?

Can I sound any more insecure? Urgh, I'm sorry. I'll go and put the kettle on.