Sarra Manning's Blog, page 6

Unpublished scene from You Don't Have To Say You Love Me!

Hallo!

I am up to my elbows in really hardcore heavy-duty novelling and also my business taxes are due so I'm aware that I haven't been blogging much. In fact, I haven't been doing much of anything but whittling my fingers down to the bone as I write, re-write, edit, tweak and try to decrease my word count.

But I did promise that periodically I would entertain you with bits from my books that never made the final cut. Or didn't even make the second draft. This is a scene from You Don't Have to Say You Love Me that never made it past the first draft, so it is rough. It might even be stuffed full of typos. It occurs about two thirds of the way in to the book when Max and Neve are all loved up, except they don't call it loved up, because of the whole pancake relationship thing. Max flies Neve out to join him on a work trip in LA. There is more of this chapter and if you're really good, I may post it in a couple of weeks.

But you have to be really, really good.

Live on

Sarra x

Neve wished she could breeze through LAX airport looking as glossy and groomed as celebrities did, but after eleven hours in a pressurised cabin, her hair was a static halo around her head and she was still frazzled from her encounter with a Homeland security official who insisted that she didn't even remotely resemble the picture in her passport.

It had turned out all right in the end, though she'd had to spend another ten minutes debating the benefits of a low-carb diet with him. Neve hauled her shabby weekend case off the baggage carousel, tried not to look too shifty as she walked under the Nothing To Declare sign and emerged blinking into the arrivals lounge.

There was a heaving mass of people waiting to collect passengers and Max had said that someone would be waiting for her with a sign. Celia had also said to ignore anyone who claimed they were there to collect her unless they had official ID because they'd take her to the La Brea tarpits steal all her money, rape her and leave her for dead. But mostly she'd just screamed for ten minutes straight when Neve had told her that she was spending the weekend in LA.

Now Neve had scanned the crowd for a sign with her name printed on it. She couldn't see the words 'Neve Slater' anywhere. Then she faltered and her gaze skittered back to five signs ago and there she was: 'Mrs Pancake.' And there he was, Pancake Boy, rolling his eyes and grinning at her.

"Thought you'd know your name by now," he said, when Neve had fought her way to him. "Give us a kiss then."

Max didn't take his hands off her. As they walked to where he'd parked the hire car, he kept this arm round her shoulders, even though he was carrying her case in his other hand and they kept bumping him.

Once they were in the car and driving to West Hollywood, his hand stayed on her knee as Neve thanked him, then berated him for cashing in a sizeable portion of his air miles on a business class ticket.

"Sweetheart, it's an eleven hour flight. You didn't want to be crammed in to economy. Was it boring? After about two hours, I'm ready to storm the emergency exits."

"Oh no, it was great," Neve enthused, because it had been. The only other time she'd flown had been when she'd gone to see Celia in New York and she'd had to ask the stewardess for a seatbelt extender and had a really horrible man sitting next to her who kept pointedly looking at the spread of her hips and Neve eating her meal on her lap because the flip-down tray wouldn't flip down over her girth. This time there had been a complimentary glass of champagne and a seatbelt that clipped in place with room to spare.

There also hadn't been a Charlotte on the plane so she'd managed to scrawl a rough draft of her Chalet School piece, read two Chalet School novels, watch the new Clive Owen film and have a little nap. Now she was wide awake and looking out of the window as they passed strip malls, twenty four hour drugstores and small squat buildings. Everything looked slightly grubby and off-white in the brilliant, unrelenting sunshine.

"It's not what I expected," she told Max. "I thought it would be more glamorous than this."

"I'll take you to Rodeo Drive tomorrow," he said, with a grin. "But I'm not buying one of those star maps so we can drive around and stare at the gates of Harrison Ford's house."

"Glad to hear it," Neve said, reaching out so she could cup the back of Max's neck. "But I do want to have my picture taken with the Hollywood sign in the background as photographic proof that I was here."

"Bloody tourist."

They circled the actual city of Los Angeles, the sun glinting off the skyscrapers, and just when Neve thought she might have to whine, "Are we there yet?" because they'd been driving for an hour, Max turned rightt off Santa Monica Boulevard and pulled in to the kerb.

"This is us," he said, as Neve peered out of the window at the hotel until her view was obscured by a black-clad hotel employee intent on opening her door and helping her out of the car.

The sun was still high in the sky and the lock on the dashboard had told Neve it was only six pm, but as far as her body was concerned it was two in the morning. Her eyes swam as she walked across the zigzag-patterned marble floor through the lobby and leaned against Max as they travelled up to the fifth floor in the lift, though Neve assumed she'd have to call it an elevator – when in LA do as the LA-ians did.

Then Max was opening a door and Neve had a vague impression of muted blues and greys but all she cared about was the huge bed on a raised platform, which she fell up in her rush to flop face down on the bed.

She gave a blissful and muffled sigh.

"Oh no, you don't," Max said, tugging at her foot so he could begin to pull her off the bed.

Neve clung to the quilt but it was no good – the quilt came with her until both of them were in Max's arms.

"I'm so tired," Neve mumbled, because talking clearly would have required too much effort. "Way too tired for you to be looking at me like that."

"Like what?" Max protested but his eyes were gleaming as they ran from her flyaway hair and grumpy face to her body shrouded by the crumpled dress and leggings she'd travelled in. "Seriously, Neevy, if you go to sleep now, then you'll never adjust to the time difference. Best to just ride it out."

"Just a little snooze," she begged as she tried to wriggle away from him and curl up on the bed, but Max's arms were doing a good impersonation of steel girders and she had no choice but to let him drag her upright.

"You'll soon get your second wind," Max insisted. "Have shower and then I'll take you out for dinner."

"Shouldn't I be taking you out for dinner?" Neve argued, but she didn't have the energy to put up the much of a fight. Instead she let Max steer her towards the huge bathroom and the huge shower that was as big as her spare room back in Finsbury Park.

Max had set the shower on the sting-ray setting and after, though her bones still ached, Neve felt invigorated enough to leave the hotel room, even if she did cast one longing look at the bed as Max hustled her out of the room.

He took her to what looked like an abandoned car park in a bad part of town. Abandoned apart from the ramshackle hut strung with fairy lights and surrounded by plastic lawn chairs and tables, which Max assured Neve sold the best Mexican food north of the border. They ate tacos and shared one Margarita that was so heavy on the tequila that Neve had to suck on a lemon slice every time she took a sip.

By the end of the glass, she was fading fast and she'd wanted to know how the cover shoot had gone but as Max told her, his voice seemed to come from further and further away. Neve could feel her head drooping and his eyelids getting heavier and heavier, and then she'd come to with a jolt, forcing herself awake and getting a bad case of vertigo every time her head jerked back.

"Do you think they do peppermint tea?" she asked Max doubtfully.

He shook his head. "That's the third time you've asked me that. I take it you don't want to go clubbing, then?"

Neve looked at him in horror through bleary eyes. "Oh God, please don't make me."

"Joke." Max took Neve's chin in his hand. "Are you sure you can't stay up for another couple of hours. You'll feel better for it tomorrow."

She thought about it for all of three seconds. "Bed. Now. Please."

Neve fell asleep during the drive back to the hotel, even though Max kept shaking her awake. And she must have got to their hotel room on her own two feet and under her own steam because when she bolted out of sleep a few hours later, she was in bed and naked. Max was sprawled out next to her, his hand on her hip, fast asleep. She angled her head so she could squint at the digital clock on his nightstand.

It was 3.51 am. Statistically that had to be the most depressing time to suddenly find yourself wide awake and with no hope of going back to sleep, while the person next to you was snoring gently.

Neve thought she'd been laying there very quietly and very still, until Max curled against her and whispered in her ear, "Go back to sleep."

"I'm trying," Neve whispered back, shutting her eyes and settling back against him. But Max was naked too and however sleepy he was, she still feel his cock getting hard. Now other bits of her were starting to wake up and really, what was the point in Max using all those air miles to fly her across the Atlantic if he wasn't going to take full advantage of having her naked in his bed.

"Don't do that," Max murmured, as she gently ground her hips back against his pelvis. Neve could tell he was trying to sound stern, but the hand that had been resting on her hip was already moving up and across so he could run his thumb over the aching tip of her breast.

She didn't think that they'd ever made love so slowly or so sweetly; whispering nonsense words against each other's skin and the first streaks of dawn light breaking up the darkness as Neve came with a startled cry that echoed in the still of the room. Afterwards, sleep was a simple matter of settling back into Max's arms and closing her eyes.

Start spreading the news…

Hello lovers! (You are not actually my lovers but you get my drift, also I am heavily addicted to Go Fug Yourself especially when they do a Jennifer Lopez post. But I haven't even got the the main blogging action yet and already I'm wittering.)

So, I have been a maelstrom of writerly activity and with writerly activity comes writerly news. Good news.

I'm super happy, thrilled even, to announce that my third grown-up novel, Nine Uses For An Ex-Boyfriend will be published on 2nd February 2012. Hurrah! There is no official synopsis yet but basically, like so many of my other novels, it's largely a case of boy meets girl meets rock meets hard place.

As soon as I have a cover and proper synopsis, I will post all the details here.

I'm also equally thrilled to tell you that my first YA novel for Atom Books, and my first YA in over two years, Adorkable will be released on 24th May 2012. I've just finished the first draft and I think you are going to love and loathe Jeane, my heroine, in equal measure.

Both books are available for pre-order now, but don't you worry, I'll remind you nearer the time. I'm nice like that.

So, no news of any events for the rest of this year as I will be editing 9 Uses, finishing Adorkable and starting my fourth grown-up novel sometime in September after I've had a little holiday. But next year, I hope to be out and about, doing talks, doing signings, taking names etc.

Now I need to go and shift a really heavy filing cabinet from lounge to study (the glamour of my life, it almost kills me) but before I go, I'd like to big up Caitlin Moran's How To Be a Woman I think every woman, hell, every man, should read this book. But more importantly, if you're a teenage girl, then I beg, implore and beseech you to get hold of Caitlin's funny (like, snorting liquid out of your nostril funny,) intelligent, entirely making sense memoir/rant on what it means to be a feminist and why if you have a vagina, you SHOULD be a feminist. And as she explains far better than I ever could, feminism has become a dirty word and so many of us don't want to describe ourselves as feminists, when actually you probably already are one, you just don't know it yet. But I do know that if I'd read this book when I was 17, it would have totally changed my life.

Also, remember, you can follow me on Twitter.

Live on

Sarra x

Unseen snippet from Unsticky

Hello!

Well, in my last blog I asked what you'd like to see more of and I wasn't surprised that so many of you asked to see the bits from my novels that ended up on the cutting room floor. Or in my overmatter folder, if I'm going to be pedantic about it.

So, I think this will be an irregular regular on my blog. I over-write and I have a heck of a lot of bits that never made the final edit and I'm happy for you to see the bits that didn't end up in the books because of lack of space. You will NEVER see the bits that didn't make it into the books because they were bad, bad, bad with added bits of badness!

Anyway, here is a snippet from Unsticky As far as I can remember, it's a couple of months into Vaughn and Grace's arrangement. Long enough that things aren't awkward between them anymore and long enough that the cracks are just starting to show. Hope you like it!

Sarra

"I ordered pudding," Vaughn added as Grace wriggled to get purchase on the leather seat in her slippy satin skirt.

Of course, Vaughn ate most of the Apple Crisp, Grace had to fight for every spoonful of vanilla gelato. Unusually, Vaughn didn't want to linger over coffee and brandy either but asked for the bill and signed it, without even checking the final amount.

"Let's get out of here," Vaughn said, already helping Grace out of her chair.

"I just need to freshen up," she said, as they came face to face with one of the couples from the back table, the man already hailing Vaughn like a long lost brother and not someone who'd stung him for marked-up graffiti art.

"This is Marisa," Baldie said proudly, presenting his companion with a flourish.

Marisa was so stunning that all Grace could do was stare as Vaughn introduced her to Baldie with absolutely no flourish. Marisa had shiny, flicky straight hair, skin so flawless it looked airbrushed and was wearing a plunging Viktor & Rolf dress that showed a good two thirds of her breasts, which owed their awesome aerodynamics either to her barely pubescent years or a really good surgeon.

"I'll get your coat," Vaughn murmured, leaving Grace with Marisa, who must have needed to pee too though Grace couldn't believe she possessed something as prosaic as a full bladder. Marisa hadn't acknowledged Grace's presence in any way and now she propped herself against the wall, as they waited in the narrow alcove, like her beauty weighed so heavily that she couldn't stand up straight. It was hard not to look at her in the same way that it was hard not to look at a beautiful pair of shoes or a Narciso Rodriguez dress.

And OK, her upper lip was the tiniest bit too short but that was just clutching at ugly straws and staring at that perfect arch where her sooty eyelashes swept down or the elegant curve of her cheekbones made Grace feel like a blowsy, thrown together girl that didn't deserve the good fortune that was currently getting her coat.

Even Marisa dropping the hauteur long enough to ask Grace if she thought that they should bang on the bathroom door and ask the current occupant what the hell they were doing, couldn't pierce the pity bubble that Grace found herself in. Especially as Marisa decided that they should bond, which meant showing Grace pictures of the adorable spaniel puppy that "me and Archie just got from the pound."

Vaughn had been right. Marisa expected guys to fall in love with her. Rich guys. Even if she was selling her beauty to the highest bidder, she got flourishes and puppies out of it and Grace? Well, she had a credit card, the best table at The Waverly Inn and an expiration date stamped on her forehead that was only visible to Vaughn. Because Grace wasn't beautiful or smart or whole enough to be anyone's long haul girl.

And when she got back to the car to find Vaughn waiting impatiently for her, he said, "For God's sake, Grace, stop pouting. You look like you've had filler injected into your bottom lip." Grace knew for a fact that Archie would never, ever say anything like that to Marisa.

It turned out that Vaughn had wanted to get back to the apartment for a midnight conference call to Beijing. He took it in the study, which left Grace free to make her own fun. Grace wasn't sure when making her own fun, which mostly involved mentally planning her Sunday shopping expedition to Soho, became snooping.

She'd never snooped before. Not even when she'd been left on her own for days in the Hampstead house – she'd been brought up to respect other people's privacy. But then she'd also been brought up to save herself for the man she married, never drink to excess and strive to be all that she could be; all things that she'd failed to deliver on, so having a quick rummage in Vaughn's drawers wasn't so terrible.

Apart from a half-eaten bar of Green & Blacks, which she bet Gustav knew nothing about, her search proved futile. There wasn't anything incriminating in the bureau either, no porn stash under the mattress and absolutely no photos of the ex-wife or the women he'd had arrangements with before Grace. She could hear Vaughn's tread coming down the hall and quickly arranged herself decoratively on the bed, her heart pounding, her cheeks stained with red. Vaughn didn't notice that anything was wrong but maybe that was because Grace was on her knees, unbuckling his belt, before he had a chance to ask why she had such a guilty expression on her face.

What to blog about when you don't know what to blog about

Over the last few days I have been aware that I haven't updated my blog for a while. 'Hmm, I need to do a blogpost,' I kept telling myself and then promptly not doing any blogging.

Today after dinner, I could not put it off for any longer. The need to blog had come upon me and then I realised I didn't have a giddy clue what to blog about. For some peculiar reason playing back to back games of Scramble didn't unlock the blogging part of my brain either. I mean, what does one blog about. What do I blog about.

1. Posting about what I've been doing

I have been doing nothing remotely exciting. Sadly, the life of an author (or the life of this author) is not an endless stream of launch parties, literary salons and glamorous soirees stuffed to the seams with glamorous media types. Quite frankly, I think I should ask for my money back. Basically, I am writing my next YA book, Adorkable while awaiting a vast amount of editorial notes on my next adult book. There is not much to be said about actual writing. It's a very solitary past-time that involves fingers to the keyboard. Though again, it amounts to back to back games of Scrabble interspersed with suddenly looking at the clock and realising I've been at my desk for hours and have written half a paragraph and it's nearly time for dinner. Then, and only then, do I turn into a book-writing ninja. And in the mornings I go to the gym or go for a run, though I tore a muscle in my calf, which I don't recommend as it hurts like billy-o, so I'm confined to swimming and very long walks.

2. Posting stuff from my huge archive of published works.

I have whiled away a long hour tonight going through old pieces I've written for magazines and became side-tracked by wishing that I still got asked to write pieces about the best rabbits to have as a pet and why Barbie is a feminist icon. Then I had a bit of an existential crisis. (Commissioning editors: call me!)

3. Posting bits that never made it into my books

As you can probably tell, I massively over-write. My adult books usually rock in at about 175,000 words (most lady novels are 120,000 tops) and my first drafts can be anything up to 250,000 words so I cut a lot of stuff. Mostly, I'm cool about that. It's stuff that I need to write to get me in a rhythm or else it's not moving the plot along or developing my characters. Though sometimes, they're just from an awful first draft and should never, ever see the light. But there is an awful lot of unused words lurking on my hard drive. So, where do you stand? Would you like to see some spare bits from Unstickyor You Don't Have to Say You Love Me? Let me know in a comment and (assumes Jarvis voice,) I'll see what I can do.

4. Posting lists of stuff what I like

I am always doing this and I figured that you must be so very bored of it by now. But, if you really want to know, then I exhort you all to read The Last Letter from Your Lover by JoJo Moyes and I've just started to watch The Killing on DVD because I'm always late to the party and I've realised that I may have feelings for the guy who plays Troels Hartmaan.

5. If all else fails, blog about puppies

Who doesn't love puppies, eh? Only stone-cold-hearted people with no souls who prefer cats, that's who. This is my current favourite website All it has on it are pictures of puppies.

There! I did it. I blogged. Leave me a comment with some idea on what I should blog about or post next time. Though you should know, I don't do sequels. I love that you love my books enough that you would like a sequel but I have four unwritten novels all crammed into my head right now and I'd quite like to write a period novel and maybe a screenplay and a magazine piece on why I love puppies, so no sequels. What I would hope is that the story and the characters stay with you and you can have your own little sequel fantasies playing in your heads. I'm totally cool with that.

So, in conclusion, I have blogged and now I will chocolate.

Live on

Sarra x

The Chrismukkah quiz winning questions and my answers. (Finally…)

Like the book cover, there is more than one version of the song You Don't Have To Say You Love Me, by various artists such as Dusty Springfield, Elvis Presley, Cher and even Denise Welch. Which one does it for you? Or as the words are the same it doesn't matter? Daniella

Dusty. Just Dusty. Her version of You Don't Have To Say You Love Me is the version by which all other versions are judged and found seriously wanting. From the orchestra crashing through those majestic opening chords to the sob in her throat as she sings the last "Believe me…" it kills me every time I hear it. That said, I still think Bobbie Gentry 's version of Son Of A Preacher Man is far superior to Dusty's but let's not get into that.

I've been reading your books since DOAC was published in J17 (RIP). One of the (many!) things I love about your books is the way you deal with sex. Was it a deliberate decision to deal with sex in a non-sensationalist, non-judgmental way? Or is it just your style of writing? Jude

Well, I think that the way I approach writing sex scenes owes a lot to the fact that I wrote for teen mags and published a lot of YA novels, before I started writing for adults. The lessons I learned in my teen publishing days were that, though I couldn't be explicit, there had to be an emotional back-story to any sexual encounter; that it couldn't just be there for titillation. Sex was part of the plot but it was also part of the character development and I needed to show the impact and consequences of sex. My adult characters can have a lot more in the way of fun, sexy times, and I can be more explicit, but I genuinely believe that the sex in my novels isn't gratuitous, despite what other people may think! I also hate dressing sex up in flowery language and euphemisms so I prefer to call a spade a spade, as it were, equally when two people are having sex, they're not minding their language either and I want my sex scenes to reflect that reality.

Which secondary character, out of any of the books you have written, has intrigued you the most? I guess, to be more succinct about it, which secondary character has been your favourite? Hannah Hollman

This is such an interesting question! I've always loved the secondary characters – much preferred Willow to Buffy, would have picked Jane Lane over Daria and you can keep Sookie and Bill Compton, I'll take Erik Northman any day. But when it comes to my own books I'm so emotionally invested in my heroines to the extent that they live in my head for months on end, that I don't have quite the same kind of love for my secondary characters. I'm actually racking my brains trying to think of at least one of my bit players who really spoke to me. I think maybe I would like to write something from one of the male characters' points of view, just because they're always described in such great detail but it's always by someone else and that someone is often what we literary types call an unreliable narrator. I think that's why I like sneaking characters from past books into cameo roles so we get to see them in a different way. And one of the main characters in Unsticky will have a big supporting role in my fourth grown-up book, but I can say no more than that.

One of the things I love most about your books are the pop-culture references (I so, er, don't have a spotify playlist of the Pretty Things songs!) So I wondering what your one must hear song, must watch film, and must read book are? Beth Eades

That's simply not fair! I couldn't possibly narrow it down to my most favouritest ever ever song, film and book. It can't be done. My brain would dribble out of my ears. I will tell you my favourite songs, films and books right now though. I'm writing my next YA novel, Adorkable so it's been essential to put my teenage head back on and the quickest way I know to do that is a Juno and Whip It! double bill. I'm also in love with What Did You Expect From The Vaccines?, it's the perfect writing soundtrack because it makes me think of long, hot teenage summers and brooding, lanky boys and snippy girls who would break aforementioned boys' hearts. And, like everyone else in the Western Hemisphere, I love 21 by Adele and yes, I did get a bit choked up when she sung Someone Like You at the Brits. On the book front, I am going through a Georgette Heyer phase as I'm in the long, arduous process of transferring all my mother's Heyer novels from my Dad's house to mine. I think she pretty much had the full set. Anyway, if you're bereft that Jane Austen only wrote six novels (what a slacker) then you could do worse than read some Georgette Heyer. Her Regency novels are stuffed full of lovely historical detail and feature uppity, feisty heiresses and sardonically amused Earls who wear tight britches and take no nonsense from flighty heiresses. The last one I read was Regency Buck and I'm just about to start Black Sheep. I have to say though that my mother's Pan paperback editions have much better and racier covers than the very tasteful reissues.

What I wanna know is you obviously love writing for both teens and adults but at what point do you think "I have to make this an adult book" is it before the actual writing stage or have you started writing something without even thinking about who its aimed for and thought "crap, I cant give this to teens!"? Raimy

It happens way before then. I have so many ideas that they're usually percolating in my head for at least a year before I have a chance to turn them into books and I'm also a writer that can't write without a detailed chapter by chapter outline so by the time I do get down to writing, I know exactly who and what I'm writing about. So, as soon as I get the first nibble of an idea I know right away whether it will be an adult book or YA from either the character who pops into my head or the bare bones of an idea that suddenly grabs me. (I'm always asked where I get my ideas from, but they do seem to just arrive out of nowhere!)

Have you ever sought revenge on someone by creating (and even naming!) a horrible charatcer (e.g: someone like Ruby/Irina) after them? Hania

Not consciously, though I now realise that aspects of Charlotte in You Don't Have To Say You Love Me and the way she was the neighbour from hell, were inspired by Mr R*chford, a horrible, vile man who lived below me and banged his broom on the ceiling every time I walked across a room. He had issues. Serious issues and I used to stay late at work because I dreaded going home so I suppose I channeled that dread and discomfort in my own home when I was writing those bits. But, boy, have you given me ideas about exacting revenge on all the people who've done me wrong. Oh, yes. And Irina was not horrible, she was just misunderstood!

When you write your stories, do you ever envision high-profile actors as your main characters? If so, who did you think of when you wrote YDHTSYLM's Neve, William and Max? If you didn't, then who would you like to see play those characters? Catherine Smith

When I'm planning out a story, I see the characters so clearly in my head that they're entirely real to me. Sometimes as soon as I get an idea, I see my heroine or the love interest and as I think more, they become so clearly defined. I know how they dress, what annoys them about their hair, what lipstick they wear, what bits of their body they hate. It's such an essential part of my story-telling process that to just use an actor would feel like cheating and I think my story and my characters would be weaker. In fact, I'm quite perturbed (in some cases horrified) when people tell me that they imagined one of my characters to look like an actor or person in a band when THEY'RE NOT MEANT TO LOOK LIKE THAT AT ALL! One of my friends after reading Unsticky told me that she could imagine Ralph Fiennes playing Vaughn and now she's kinda ruined Vaughn for me. Not that I have anything against Ralph Fiennes but he's not Vaughn.

I just wanted to know what the reason behind the title Unsticky was!? It's always intrigued me and I feel like I'm missing something by not understanding it! Aimée Field

I think my editor and I were the only two people who understood the title and I've read really baddirtywrong interpretations of why the book is called Unsticky, so I'm pleased to be able to set the record straight once and for all.

So, the book starts with a quote from E.M.Forster's Where Angels Fear to Tread, which may well have been where I got the idea for Grace from: "I seem fated to pass through life without colliding with it or moving it – and I'm sure I can't tell you whether the fate's good or evil. I don't die – I don't fall in love. And if other people die or fall in love they always do it when I'm just not there." From those lines, I had the idea of this girl, and later of this man, who were drifting through their lives, damaged and broken, and unable to find anyone or anything that they could stick to or who wanted to stick with them, hence the title, Unsticky.

So, there you have them, many months late for which I can only apologise. Thank you to everyone who entered the competition and especially the winning questioners, who gave me much pause for thought.

Remember, I will be appearing with Jo Carnegie at Stevenage Library on March 31st for a Girls' Night In. Tickets cost £5. Details here

OK, this post has taken years off me. I need to lie down in a dark room with a damp cloth over my forehead.

Live on

Sarra x

Authors for Japan: Bid to have one of my characters named after YOU!

Organised by YA writer, Keris Stainton, Authors For Japan, is a charity auction where some of your favourite authors from Adele Parks to Sam Baker, to Jill Mansell to well, me, are offering all sorts of goodies for you to bid on. Some writers are offering mentorships, or manuscript critiques or signed books and I urge you to have a look at what's on offer. All the proceeds of the auction will go to the British Red Cross Japan Tsunami Appeal to aid victims of the terrible sequence of events that has occurred in Japan.

I am offering the chance to either , out early next year, which I'm writing now.

EDITED TO ADD: I am now offering not only the chance to have your name (or the name of a loved one appear in either my next adult book, or my next YA book. Oh, no. The two winning bidders will also get a signed copy of one of my books – and they get to choose which book it is. This is such a good cause. Every time I read a news report or see pictures from Japan my heart turns over, so this is a great way to donate money and also get something wonderful in return. Get involved, people!

The auction closes this Sunday (March 20th) so be quick about it!

Sarra x

L'amour, demure, ecriture

Greetings!

I am happy to report that I have sent off a ginormous Microsoft Word file to my editor of my third adult book. I'm even happier to report that I'm just about to put my teenage head back on and start writing my umpteenth (I've actually lost count) YA novel, Adorkable, which I'm so excited about, especially as I'm planning a Juno [DVD] [2007] and Whip It! [DVD] [2009] double feature to get me in the mood.

So, this blog post is all about books, because I write them and I read them and I talk about them a lot. Like, really a lot. I recently did a great event called The Firestation Bookswap, which is now available as a podcast in ITunes, but it's free, which I can't bear to listen to but you might find it amusing. The book I took to swap was a copy of The Dud Avocado (Virago Modern Classics) only because I found a very old Penguin edition in a charity shop so I decided to give away my other copy with a less aesthetically pleasing cover. The Dud Avocado is definitely in my all-time Top Ten Favourite Books and why wouldn't it be when it's set in 1950′s Paris and tells the giddy, chaotic take of Sally Joy Gorce, an American ingenue who goes to breaakfast in an evening gown because all her other clothes are at the laundry, dyes her hair pink and gets embroiled in schemes with louche, disreputable men. I implore you all to read it!

And while I'm talking about books, I wanted to rec a teen book by my friend, Anna Carey. Though I'm not reccing the book just because I know Anna, but because it's a really good teen book. The Real Rebecca is funny, really funny and tells the story of 14-year-old Rebecca from Dublin whose life sucks because her mother, a best-selling author, writes a teen book based on her and her sister so everyone at her school can mock her and if that wasn't bad enough she has a crush on Paperboy, even though she doesn't know his name and has to call him Paperboy and it's little wonder that Rebecca and her friends form a band so she can take all her aggression out on her new drumkit. What I really loved about this book was that it wasn't set somewhere in England or somewhere in America but is definitely set in Ireland and is full of slang and reference points that didn't crop up in the last episode of Glee. Please read it and then nag Anna to write a sequel.

I have yet more friends who have written amazing books! Erin McKean is the coolest woman I know. She's a lexicographer by profession, roller-skates in her spare time, writes the wonderful A Dress A Day blog and had written an amazing novel The Secret Lives of Dresses which you'll love if you've ever worn a vintage dress or thought that maybe you might want to wear a vintage dress or you like smart, perceptive stories so beautifully written that they make you sigh longingly when you get to the last page.

And finally the last book I want to bang on about by a person I actually know in real life is The Girls' Guide to Homemaking and is an utterly sweet novel about a girl who turns to her grandmother's 1950′s home-making manuals for advice on how to mend her broken heart.

Right, enough of all this plugging other peoples' book, let's talk about me now, shall we? I am doing an event on March 31st. Girls' Night In is part of the Stevenage and North Herts Lit Fest and I'll be appearing with fellow author Jo Carnegie at Stevenage Central Library. All the relevant details are here.

Also, if you were a winner of my Chrismukkah blog competition (if you can even remember that far back,) you should have been notified and may even have received your prize and I will be publishing the winning questions and my answers to them sometime this week. Sorry for the delay but book deadlines always take precedence and some of those questions are HARD.

So, I'll be back soon and if you can't wait that long, you can always follow me on Twitter.

Live on,

Sarra x

Live Chat tomorrow night!

Hola!

Just a drive by reminder that I'll be doing a live chat from 7pm to 8pm tomorrow night (24th February) to answer your questions about You Don't Have To Say You Love Me, and indeed any other questions you might have about my books, my writing and even my favourite cheese.

You have to register to take part in the chat here

Hope to see some of you there.

Live on

Sarra x

Firestation Bookswap this Thursday!

Hello there!

I am currently in a state of mild panic as I feverishly and diligently beaver away on my third adult book, which is due to be delivered at the end of the month (and how I wish that February wasn't so short because I could really do with an extra three days.) But I am taking time out from my busy schedule of writing, rewriting, re-rewriting and eating a lot of cheese to remind you that I'll be taking part in the Firestation Bookswap in Windsor this Thursday (!7th February.) Joining me will be Jess Ruston whose new novel To Touch the Stars

is fantastic and we will swap books, answer questions from the floor and eat cake. In fact, if you bake a cake you can get in for free. Details are here.

I'm also doing a live chat on February 24th, which you can sign up for here will also be doing an event in Stevenage in March, so will keep you posted about that.

I have also selected the winners of my Chrismukkah competition and will be answering their questions on this blog as soon as my writing chores are done. The winners will be contacted in the next few days.

Mostly though I wanted to say thank you for all your comments about You Don't Have to Say You Love Me

It's the most me book I've ever written and I am so glad and relieved and heartened that so many of you love and have taken Neve to your hearts. I've done a lot of press for the book's release and if you didn't see it, the weight loss memoir I wrote for The Sunday Telegraph's Stella magazine is here

Right, I need to get back to the coalface of commercial women's fiction, but keep checking back here as I will be posting all about the Bookswap (and will tell you about the fab book I'm swapping.) In the meantime, if you're still desperate for your Manning fix, please follow me on Twitter.

Live on

Sarra x

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