Sara Jayne Townsend's Blog, page 39

SOUL SCREAMS Cover Revealed

(Cross-posted on the WriteClub blog)

Stumar Press have an updated announcement about SOUL SCREAMS on their website…and the cover is revealed.  Which means I can broadcast it here.

I am quite excited about this cover.  The idea behind the title is that this is a collection of stories all about the angst and darkness within the soul.  And I think the screaming woman sums that up rather well.  I also like the blackened trees and bats in the background, against a dark brooding sky…

Release has been confirmed for June. And, as mentioned before, there will be a print version of this one. So, if you're one of those people who insist that paper is better than e-book, there's no excuse for you not to buy this one.

We've got some nice cover quotes, too. For more information, check out Stumar Press's website.

And so the countdown to the next release is on! Keep an eye on this space. As soon as the book is available to order, you'll be the first to know.

Monday's Friend: Rachel Brimble

Today I am pleased to welcome romance writer Rachel Brimble, on her second visit to my blog.

Why I Write Romance

By Rachel Brimble

Why do I write romance? That's the question!

My love affair with romance novels started when I was around nine or ten when I discovered the Sweet Valley High books by Francine Pascal. In fact, that's when my love affair with all things American started, lol!

I was the dreamy-eyed bookworm of the early 1980s – yes, the big glasses, the big hair and the big clothes, that was me.   The adventures of twins, Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield and their endless boy and friendship problems drew me in and steadfastly kept me there for a couple of years until I discovered the books that inspired me to put pen to paper…the Sweet Dreams books!!

Please tell me you remember these books and it wasn't just sad little me who devoured them one after another. I already had my favorite librarian at our local public library but with these books, I specifically remember her keeping back the new ones for me whenever they arrived. She was my first heroine!

I wrote my first book around the age of twelve and remember punching holes in its "spine" and holding it together with pink ribbon, lol! How I wish I'd kept it – the hero was Brad and the heroine, Claire. That's all I remember.

After that, it was a few years of sneaking my mum's Mills & Boon novels (Harlequin) into my bedroom and reading way past the light being turned off. There was one story in particular that moved me enough to make me decide I wanted to write when I grew up. Snippets of that book still linger in my memory but I have no idea of the author or the book. I can't even really remember the plot but what I do remember is the emotion, the way it made me feel. For me, as romance writers our job is to do equally that, evoke emotion.

To make the reader really feel – make them laugh, make them cry, make them feel. If my readers tell me I have moved them in any way, I am a happy, happy lady. My job is done.

Nowadays, my favourite romance or women's fictions authors are Nora Roberts, Jean Fullerton, Tami Hoag, Sophie Kinsella, Robyn Carr & Susan Elizabeth Phillips.

Big shoes to fill, huh? Of course, what would be the point of writing, of all that blood, sweat and tears if we didn't reach for the stars? I want to deliver bigger and better books with each novel I write – how about you??

Thanks having me here today, Sara-Jayne!



Rachel's latest historical romance is The Arrival of Lily Curtis available now from The Wild Rose Press. Here's the blurb:

At the mention of an arranged marriage, Elizabeth Caughley feels her life is over at the age of three and twenty….so she hatches an escape plan. She will reinvent herself as a housemaid. Overnight, Elizabeth becomes Lily…

Viscount Westrop wants nothing more than his legacy to be passed to his own son one day. Even though he feels insurmountable pity for the unborn child already, he knows how much pain a broken promise can cause and will do what is right. But with the arrival of his new housemaid, his plans are thrown into disarray. Lily is funny, feisty and the most beautiful creature on earth – Andrew is thunderstruck. But if anyone suspects how much he wants to ravish her and endlessly love her, Andrew's lineage will be in peril. And he cannot let that happen…

Buy it here!

Rachel lives with her husband and two young daughters in a small town near Bath in the UK. She started writing short stories about eight years ago but once her children were at school, she embarked on her first novel. It was published in 2007. Since then, she's had several books published with The Wild Rose Press, Eternal Press and Lyrical Press. She recently acquired a US agent with her second Victorian historical. A member of the Romantic Novelists Association and Romance Writers of America, Rachel hopes to have a further two novels, one mainstream contemporary and one romantic suspense published in 2012 as well as two novellas.

When she isn't writing, you'll find Rachel with her head in a book or walking the beautiful English countryside with her family. Her dream place to live is Bourton-on-the-Water in South West England. And in the evening? Well, a well-deserved glass of wine is never, ever refused…

Find Rachel online here:

http://www.rachelbrimble.com/

http://rachelbrimble.blogspot.com/

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Rachel-Brimble/181873201887441

Twitter: @rachelbrimble

Fear

(Cross-posted on the WriteClub blog)

When I was a little girl, there was a game I used to like to play with my dad. We called it the 'Hand Stand Game'. He would lie on his back on the floor, arms above his head, palms up to the ceiling. I would plant a foot in each one of his hands. Holding onto my feet he would slowly raise his hands, then sit up, then get up into a standing position, all the while with me balancing on his hands. Besides what it says about my dad's upper body strength (I know I can't stand from a lying position without using my hands), I think we gave my mother heart failure whenever we played this game. As a four-year-old, I ended up pretty high off the ground. And yet I did this with confidence, and without fear. Until I got to about nine, and then suddenly I lost my nerve and I couldn't do it anymore. I had acquired fear.

Fear is a learned emotion. We don't possess it as children. Two things teach it to us. Firstly, we learn fear through consequence. If you get stung as a small child by a wasp, you learn to be afraid of wasps. If you touch a flame and burn your finger, you learn than fire is to be feared. The other way we learn fear is because the adults around us teach it to us. "Don't play too close to the water; you'll fall in and drown," they say. "Don't climb to the top of the climbing frame. You might fall off and hurt yourself." The concept of falling hadn't occurred to us before then. But once someone plants the idea in our head, it's there forever.

It is the same with writers. Why do so many of us get discouraged? We fear failure, perhaps. As a child, I happily wrote story after story. I wasn't really thinking about whether or not they were any good. I wrote them because I wanted to, and I didn't really mind who read them. But then I hit puberty and my self-confidence took a pummelling. What if the stories I wrote really weren't any good? Like George McFly in "Back To The Future", I decided it was better not to let anyone read them, than have to deal with rejection.

I had to overcome this, of course, because I'd decided I wanted to be a published writer. I had to face my fear of rejection and start sending stuff out. I learned that rejection hurts, but it doesn't kill you. I also sought to learn how I could improve my writing, and thus increase its chances of acceptance.

I think it's this acquired fear that holds many of us back. We fear what we've written isn't any good. If you've got one book published, you then fear that you'll never write another one of publishable quality. You fear your book won't sell. You fear you'll never finish the one you're working on. There are so many things that we fear. But we have to push on despite that fear.

So we are afraid of falling. That shouldn't hold us back. Yes, we might fall. But if we do, we can get up and try again. Fear of falling shouldn't stop us from the climb. After all, we might not fall at all, and in addition discover that the view at the top is spectacular.

Rock Chick in Training

I took on a new hobby last year. I started taking bass guitar lessons.

I've had secret ambitions to be a rock chick for years. I think it started with Suzie Quatro, in the 1970s. She was a Cool Chick who played bass. She looked like a woman who knew what she wanted, in spite of being so small the bass guitar she played was practically as big as she was.

At my 40th birthday party – with the 80s theme – I indulged in my fantasy and turned up dressed as Joan Jett. Complete with 80s rock star wig. See attached pic for the evidence…

I can't play the guitar I'm holding in this picture. A few years ago we got a bass guitar for me, I got myself a book of lessons, and attempted to learn, but I found it all rather tedious and not being very disciplined about these things, soon gave up and the bass guitar sat amongst all of hubby's electric guitars, untouched, for years.

Last year I decided to pick it up again. This time I booked weekly lessons. This I thought would make me more inclined to stick with it. Unfortunately, there are no more hours in the day than there were before, and trying to fit in practise time, amongst everything else in my life, is sometimes tricky. I quite often go to my lesson and my tutor says, "how's practise been going this week?". And I have to say, "er, it hasn't….". Fortunately he doesn't get too cross when I admit I haven't picked up the bass between lessons. I just have to accept that progress will be slow when I don't practise.

Hubby has been encouraging me to play some fairly basic bass lines so I can accompany him on his Open Mic nights. But he's been playing for over 30 years and I've been playing about 9 months, and sometimes I have to remind him of that.



He bought me a shiny new shoulder strap for the bass. It's hard to make out clearly in the attached picture, but it's a bright yellow strap with "crime scene – do not cross" written all over it. I thought it was highly appropriate, and it makes me happy to have it on my bass.

I can now play three songs that I am happy to get up and accompany Chris on when he does them at Open Mic nights. The attached video is the first (and so far only) filmic evidence that I play bass in public. I'm not in the opening shots, but the guy behind the camera, Gerry, did a pretty good job of making sure I got my fair share of camera time.

So this is me, Chris and Julia doing Bob Seger's "Turn the Page" at Bar XLR in Epsom.

Homage to Women in Horror – Part 3

(Cross-posted on the WriteClub blog)

And so we come to the final post in my three-part tribute to women horror writers.

Several of my fellow horror hounds over on the AbsoluteWrite forum have also been honouring Women in Horror Month, so this week I'd like to give them a shout-out. Go check out their blogs, because they are all worth a read.

Rhoda Nightingale: Rhoda's 'Glitter and Gore' blog does what it says on the tin, and she has several posts paying tribute to Women in Horror.

Damien Walters Grintalis: Damien has a lot of guest posts for Women in Horror month on her blog, including one from me. Do read the post about Ripley from the 'Alien' movies, by Molly Tanzer.  She makes some jolly good points.

Brittany Maresh: On her blog, Brittany has listed the female horror writers who have inspired her at different stages of her life.

Tracy Pittman: Tracey's 'Flying With Broken Wings' blog pays tribute to more female horror writers, and she also explains why she writes horror.

As we come to the end of Women in Horror month, I'm aware that I've barely scratched the surface in naming women horror writers, even counting all the links that my fellow Horror Hounds have posted.  We are to be found everywhere, we women in horror, and we are a much larger force than people might think.

Ladies of horror, remember to say it loud:  "I am a woman.  I write horror.  I am proud."

Monday's Friend: Toni V Sweeney

Today I am pleased to have prolific writer Toni V Sweeney on my blog.

Carrying a Theme through Several Generations

By Toni V Sweeney



One thing about writing about a dynasty, it covers a lot of territory and a whole lot of people…centuries of events…millennia of generations… I took the easy way out. I decided to write about the beginning and the end of a dynasty—the rule of the kan Ingans of the Emeraunt Galaxy. My series, The Chronicles of Riven the Heretic (BLOODSEEK, BLOOD CURSE, A SINGING IN THE BLOOD, and BARBARIAN BLOOD ROYAL, and soon to come, THE MAN FROM CYMENE) told of the kan Ingans' origins. My series, The kan Ingan Archives, told of their inglorious end thirty-one hundred years later. The series didn't start out that way, but–as usual with characters with which I have more than one dealing, familiarity bred contempt—and Aric kan Ingan and his Black Shield friends yanked the book out of my hot little hands, and, in their superiorly militant way, took over. If they'd let me handle things, the story might have ended differently; then again, knowing my penchant for Unhappily-Ever-After endings, it might have been worse! As it stands now…

Family sagas are a lot of work because you have to keep track not only of the characters' names and physical appearances, but also of their ages, especially if each novel encompasses a number of years. Sometimes it's easier to make a tangible chart, a family tree or spreadsheet with all the relationships, ages, etc., so it can be referred to from time to time. In SINNER, the main character, Aric, goes from age 20 to 30; the second novel (tentatively titled EXILE) opens ten years later and covers five years of his life. In the third novel (RETURN), at the age of 46, Aric comes back to to his home planet, much to his enemies' dismay. When Aric left, the woman he will eventually wed was six-years-old. When he meets her again in the third book, she's 22, and his decision to marry her scandalizes his best friend because he's now twice her age. To add insult to injury, she's also the best friend's niece and he's only five years older than she though he's 15 years younger than Aric! Confused yet? Age plays a very important part in these stories so I had to keep close tabs on how old everyone was and when.

So…

What is all this leading to? To the promo for my new book. SINNER, the story of a man who falls in love with the wrong woman. (Don't they all?) A man who was destined to be the most powerful person in the galaxy until Cupid skewered him with one of those little darts. A man accused of committing a crime and unable to prove himself innocent because to do so would reveal he's committed an ever greater crime. It's got plenty of love, sex, and violence. In other words, it's a real winner!

Check it out.

Blood Sin is available from Double Dragon Publishing.

Watch the trailer here: [image error]

Toni V. Sweeney was born some time between the War Between the States and the Gulf War. She has lived 30 years in the South, a score in the Middle West, and a decade on the Pacific Coast and now she's trying for her second 30 on the Great Plains. Her first novel was published in 1989. An accomplished artist as well as writer, she has a degree in Fine Art and a diploma in Graphic Art and produces videos as well as writing. Toni maintains a website for herself and her pseudonym Icy Snow Blackstone, and has been associated with the South Coast Writer's Association, the Pink Fuzzy Slipper Writers, several other writer's loops, myspace, Facebook, and YouTube. She has currently had her 30th book published.

My Life In Books: Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret

Everything changes when one hits puberty. The grown-ups do tell you this – but no one, at 10 years old, can fully comprehend how much is going to change in the next couple of years. The physical, psychological, mental and emotional changes that you experience in just a few short years are completely overwhelming. No wonder teenagers get a bit stroppy.

The enduring popularity of Judy Blume is that her books are there to help you through the Hell that is puberty – because her characters are going through what you are going through, and you feel she understands. Unlike all other grown ups, who of course couldn't ever have been young enough to experience puberty…

Grade 6 was the year that this book made the rounds amongst all the girls in my class. It was also the year all the boys had to leave the room while the girls had to watch the film about periods. A bit late in the day, in my opinion, but maybe things have changed nowadays. Nevertheless, this book is as relevant now as it was then, to girls on the brink of puberty.

Margaret is coming up to 12 when she moves to a new city with her parents. An only child of parents who eloped, because one was Jewish and one was Christian and her grandparents did not approve of the match, she has grown up without any particular religious doctrine. But as she hits puberty, part of the process of discovering who she is involves exploring the concept of God.

Margaret and her friends start a club where they talk about boys. They practise kissing on posters. They are all anxious to start their periods – no one wants to be the last to experience this formal passage into womanhood. They all go off to buy their first bras, and worry about not having anything to fill them. And Margaret talks to God about all of her worries – things she feels she can't talk to anyone else about.

The wonderful thing about this book is that it demonstrates that 12-year-old girls really haven't changed at all in the generations since it was written. I identified with it because at 11/12 I worried about the same things Margaret did. I'm sure I wasn't the only girl who decided to try out the exercise that Margaret and her friends engage in to improve the chest muscles – holed up in the bedroom, pulling my arms back vigorously, chanting "I must, I must, I must imcrease my bust" as the characters in the book did. I really should have looked at the long line of generously endowed women in my mother's family and realised that genes would take care of this problem for me, with a little patience. But hindsight is a wonderful thing, and the anxieties of the adolescent seem like the end of the world at the time, even though in the grand scheme of things these problems are pretty trivial.

The only thing that dates this book is the fact that the sanitary towels Margaret buys in secret to practise using, so that when she has need of them she'll know what to do, are the kind with loops attached to a belt around one's waist, which haven't been available for many years now.

Judy Blume said she wrote this based on many of her own experiences and feelings in adolescence. They resounded with me as a pre-teen, and I have no doubt that they still resound with today's pre-teenage girls. Sometimes I feel old when I see today's teens. But sometimes, books like this serve to remind me that some things don't change at all.

Homage to Women in Horror – Part 2

(Cross-posted on the WriteClub blog)

Continuing my tribute to Women in Horror Month, today I am following on by mentioning some of the women of horror I have met, and who have inspired me, over the years:

Sally Spedding: I first met Sally at the Winchester Writers' Conference a few years ago. Part of your delegate ticket when you register is the opportunity for three one-to-ones, two of which can be with agents or editors. I picked Sally for my third non-agent/editor one-to-one because she was another writer who crossed the genres of crime and horror. I sent her the first chapter of DEATH SCENE. When I sat down for my fifteen minutes with her, she told me it was the best thing she'd read all weekend and I'd really made her day by sending it to her. Well, she made my week – nay, my year – by telling me so, and we've stayed in touch ever since.

Sarah Pinborough: Sarah is a versatile writer who writes in many genres, including YA, sf, horror and crime – or combining all of the above. I can particularly recommend her "Dog-Faced Gods" trilogy. Set in a near-future dystopian London, the main character is a paranormal investigator looking into a series of crimes. It becomes clear that there is something supernatural involved. I feel like I've known Sarah for ages, because I run into her at every convention I go to.  But I think we first met at the World Horror Con in Brighton, less than two years ago.

Lisa Tuttle: Many years ago, in my first job as book shop assistant, an anthology of horror stories written by women came into the shop. Published by Women's Press, it was called THE SKIN OF THE SOUL and Lisa Tuttle gave the introduction, making the argument that horror had been erroneously considered a man's domain for far too long and it was high time to acknowledge all the fine women horror writers out there. I've been a fan of Lisa's ever since.  I got to tell her how inspiring I found that anthology at World Horror Con in Brighton – and it seems I wasn't the only woman to do so, as she makes reference to it in a blog post on her livejournal blog.

Next, a shout-out to some Women of Horror I've connected with online, but haven't met in person:

Rita Vetere:  Rita's WHISPERING BONES is a thrillingly scary horror tale.

Diane Dooley: Diane is also honouring Women of Horror on her blog this month, so go check it out.

Fiona Dodwell: Fiona is another Writer of Damn Scary Books.

Sealey Andrews: Sealey is also honouring Women in Horror Month on her 'Girl in the Soapdish' blog.

Jenna M Pitman: Jenna's horror fiction can be found everywhere, it seems, going by her list of publishing credits.

Last but by no means least, I want to give a shout-out to the lovely ladies who are my co-bloggers on the WriteClub blog. They are all fabulous writers, and you should go read their books:

Sonya Clark

Nerine Dorman

Pamela Turner

Seeing as how February has an extra day this year, next Wednesday will be the third and final part of my homage to women of horror, so be sure to come back next week.

Homage to Women of Horror – Part 2

(Cross-posted on the WriteClub blog)

Continuing my tribute to Women in Horror Month, today I am following on by mentioning some of the women of horror I have met, and who have inspired me, over the years:

Sally Spedding: I first met Sally at the Winchester Writers' Conference a few years ago. Part of your delegate ticket when you register is the opportunity for three one-to-ones, two of which can be with agents or editors. I picked Sally for my third non-agent/editor one-to-one because she was another writer who crossed the genres of crime and horror. I sent her the first chapter of DEATH SCENE. When I sat down for my fifteen minutes with her, she told me it was the best thing she'd read all weekend and I'd really made her day by sending it to her. Well, she made my week – nay, my year – by telling me so, and we've stayed in touch ever since.

Sarah Pinborough: Sarah is a versatile writer who writes in many genres, including YA, sf, horror and crime – or combining all of the above. I can particularly recommend her "Dog-Faced Gods" trilogy. Set in a near-future dystopian London, the main character is a paranormal investigator looking into a series of crimes. It becomes clear that there is something supernatural involved. I feel like I've known Sarah for ages, because I run into her at every convention I go to.  But I think we first met at the World Horror Con in Brighton, less than two years ago.

Lisa Tuttle: Many years ago, in my first job as book shop assistant, an anthology of horror stories written by women came into the shop. Published by Women's Press, it was called THE SKIN OF THE SOUL and Lisa Tuttle gave the introduction, making the argument that horror had been erroneously considered a man's domain for far too long and it was high time to acknowledge all the fine women horror writers out there. I've been a fan of Lisa's ever since.  I got to tell her how inspiring I found that anthology at World Horror Con in Brighton – and it seems I wasn't the only woman to do so, as she makes reference to it in a blog post on her livejournal blog.

Next, a shout-out to some Women of Horror I've connected with online, but haven't met in person:

Rita Vetere:  Rita's WHISPERING BONES is a thrillingly scary horror tale.

Diane Dooley: Diane is also honouring Women of Horror on her blog this month, so go check it out.

Fiona Dodwell: Fiona is another Writer of Damn Scary Books.

Sealey Andrews: Sealey is also honouring Women in Horror Month on her 'Girl in the Soapdish' blog.

Jenna M Pitman: Jenna's horror fiction can be found everywhere, it seems, going by her list of publishing credits.

Last but by no means least, I want to give a shout-out to the lovely ladies who are my co-bloggers on the WriteClub blog. They are all fabulous writers, and you should go read their books:

Sonya Clark

Nerine Dorman

Pamela Turner

Seeing as how February has an extra day this year, next Wednesday will be the third and final part of my homage to women of horror, so be sure to come back next week.

My Life In Books: The Witches

We're going slightly out of order here because I didn't read this book as a child. However, as it's a children's book, I thought it was best to publish this post at the end of my section on children's books, before I move on to the books I read in puberty.

Roald Dahl's THE WITCHES was published in 1983, at which point I was 13 and had decided I was far too old for kid's books. Such irony here, as I got to be a grown up and decided I wasn't too old for kids' books after all.

When I was 19 I had a job working in a book shop in central London. In some ways I really enjoyed the job – I loved being surrounded by books, I loved putting the books in alphabetical order (one of my favouring pastimes), and we were free to borrow all the books we liked from the shop. There was also a 40% staff discount if we wanted to buy any. What I didn't like, though, was having to deal with customers. In the end I decided customer service probably wasn't for me.

Anway, staff members had to take turns being on 'cash register duty'. As the cash register could not be left unattended, if you were on this shift you had to sit there until relief arrived, whether there were customers or not. If the shop was quiet, in these days before computers at every work station and mobile phones, it could be pretty boring. There were always piles of books around the till, so if there were no customers to serve I would reach for whatever book was handy – no matter what it was – just to have something to read. One such occasion, THE WITCHES was to hand, so I read it in one particularly quiet afternoon whilst on 'cash register' duty.

I think THE WITCHES still holds up as a marvellous kid's book. It has the archetypal Dahl violence – the protagonist is a young boy (in the book he is never named) whose parents are killed in a traffic accident. It contains some delightfully subversive messages – for instance, as witches can sniff out children, and the scent of a clean child is much stronger, it's better for children not to bathe too often.

As usual in a Roald Dahl book, there are adults being very nasty to children – possibly this is the most extreme example, as the witches are out to eradicate every child in Britain. The protagonist also goes through a rough time. Not only does he find himself an orphan, the witches turn him into a mouse and he has to foil their dastardly plot in this form. The boy, with the help of his grandmother, manages to defeat the witches, tipping the potion the witches planned to use to turn all children into mice into the witches' soup. All the witches turn into mice at their banquet, and they are destroyed by the hotel staff who think they have a serious rodent problem.

What I really like about this book is that it has a somewhat bittersweet ending. Although all the witches are defeated, the boy remains a mouse. But he's happy to remain so. He still has his grandmother, and she loves him dearly, and he decides it doesn't matter what you look like as long as you have someone who loves you. And although he won't have a long life as a mouse, it means he won't have to out-live his grandmother and face years being alone.

The film version, predictably, changed the ending to a somewhat saccharin version where one of the witches decides to be a good witch instead of an evil one, and turns the main character back into a boy. I much prefer the book's ending. It teaches you that things don't always go the way you want them to but they generally work out OK in the end, and that's a very important lesson to learn.

This post brings me to the end of the first part of this series – books of childhood. But there are still plenty of books left for me to talk about, and in the next part I will be moving onto the books that made an impact on me as a teenager.