Annabel Pitcher's Blog, page 2

Secrets about Jasmine on October 14th

Many readers have told me how much they like the character of Jasmine in My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece, so this next stop on the Mantelpiece Musings Blog Tour is devoted entirely to them!

Click here to discover how I brought the character to life…

Stop one of my blog tour on October 12th

Just a quick one as I'm dashing to Liverpool for a school visit, but wanted to say a big thank you to Dog Ear Discs for hosting my very first stop on the Mantelpiece Musings Blog Tour.  Read it here!

Mantelpiece Musings on October 10th

Today I have mostly been getting excited about the paperback publication of My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece. Yes, that's right! It's out now – cheaper than ever before and far easier to hold in the bath if that's where you like to read.

To celebrate, I am delighted to introduce you to Mantelpiece Musings, the blog tour that starts TODAY and will be continuing throughout October. Basically, I will be writing eight guest posts, spilling all the behind-the-scenes secrets of Mantelpiece and revealing what it's really like to be a full-time author.

Want to find out the most popular songs on Jas's iPod?

Want to know which books are on my bedroom bookshelf?

Ever wondered what it feels like to be a professional writer?

Well, now you can find out the answers to these questions and MORE as I seek to spill the beans about all the stuff that I haven't had a chance to talk about in the interviews I have done so far.

Scroll down to see where I'll be popping up on the web and keep checking my Facebook and Twitter pages for more information, fun competitions and Mantelpiece giveaways over the next couple of weeks.

Happy reading!

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Blaming Cowell for the London riots on September 21

Today I have mostly been reflecting on the riots, which started over fifty days ago on August 6th. This morning, while chatting on Skype to a Spanish friend, I was asked for my take on the 'London trouble'.  I didn't blame failing schools or lenient parenting or chicken nuggets, as one journalist tried to claim.  I blamed Simon Cowell.

Of course, like everyone else, I watched in shock as teenagers tore up our town centres, breaking in to shops and setting fire to family businesses.  Of course, like most people, I didn't approve of their actions.  Their behaviour was irresponsible and punishment is necessary.  But so too is understanding.  So too is sitting up and taking notice of the message that's being sent to us by some of our young people.  I'm not naive enough to suggest that all the rioters were on a political crusade, protesting about EMA funding cuts or rising tuition fees as they torched Argos.  However, the fact that so many reacted so explosively and with so little respect for their home towns tells us something – and we ignore that 'something' at our peril. 

So what is it?  Malnutrition.  And no, I'm not talking about chicken nuggets or any other junk food that teenagers might put into their mouths.  I'm talking about the junk they can't help but see every single day of their lives – the limited, damaging, cultural 'bad diet' that is currently on offer to our young people, cooked up and dished out by people like Simon Cowell.

The rioters' 'smash and grab' materialistic behaviour was undoubtedly selfish, but before we criticise and condemn, let's remember that these teenagers have been brought up in a society that values selfishness far more highly than selflessness.  They have been born into a warped world that prizes celebrity and greed and instant gratification above education and moderation and patience.  Everywhere they look – be it on TV, in magazines, on the Internet, or even in the Houses of Parliament if we consider the expenses scandal – teenagers receive the same message: pursue pleasure, wealth, status and possessions at the expense of all else.  In short, be selfish.    

Take X-Factor or Britain's Got Talent – the McDonalds of the TV world – which shovel the same cheap, bland format down our throats with no regard whatsoever for the health of the viewer.  I mean this quite seriously.  The abhorrent message sent by these morally irresponsible shows is dangerous, trying to convince us that celebrity is the only thing that will make us happy.  Week after week, the downtrodden, the damaged, the disappointed and (perhaps more worryingly) the perfectly content traipse onto the stage for a chance to 'change their lives', turning their backs on ordinary careers.  As smug judges ask singers just how much they want this 'once in a lifetime opportunity', we see the contestants' desperation to leave their ordinary lives and homes behind – ordinary lives and homes that we're asking our young people to value while the message blaring out of their televisions tells them that ordinary is not good enough. 

I have seen for myself the detrimental effect this can have on some teenagers.  I have taught in schools where the aspiration of most thirteen year olds is to be a pop star, to appear in Big Brother, or to become a WAG.  Pouring over Heat magazine and hooked on dreadful shows that glamorise every aspect of celebrities' lives from the red carpet to rehab (take a bow Piers Morgan), young people are growing up with a very narrow sense of what it means to be a success in the modern world.  As the vast majority will never become famous or land the supposed 'dream' career or squeeze themselves into that size zero dress, teens with unrealistic expectations develop into disappointed adults, and we need only look at the soaring rates of depression in this country to see this in action.  There is an alarming gap developing between what people expect life to be and what it actually is – and it is a gap that is shamelessly perpetuated and exploited by Simon Cowell and co. 

To me, the people responsible for the riots are these parasitic individuals who are getting rich while morally bankrupting our society, the men and women who are making millions while robbing young people of any sense of satisfaction that they might have in achieving ordinary goals or leading normal lives.  Their shows are the very breeding ground for the 'smash and grab' materialistic attitude seen in the rioters – take as much as you can, while you can, giving nothing in return.  Though I can condemn the behaviour of the rioters as a law-abiding citizen, I do not blame them for their disappointment, depression, frustration, greed or anything else that made such behaviour possible in the first place.  Their mentality is a product of the society in which they live - this warped world where Simon Cowell is king.

Bath Book Blog CHAPTER THREE on September 12th

Today I have mostly been writing the third chapter of a story for the Bath Book Blog. Over the next couple of weeks, the story will be jumping from one author to another as we each add our section. If you're confused, think of it like literary pass-the-parcel. This is how I had to explain it to my dad (though I still don't think he understands… this morning he asked me what happens when the music stops).

Basically, the very clever people at Bath Festival of Children's Literature came up with an idea to celebrate stories and all the important blogging that goes on in the book world. Twenty authors and bloggers around the country have each been asked to come up with a section of a story, and readers can follow its live progress over the next few days as writers post their entries on their websites, starting up where the other author left off.  To find out more about the authors taking part and how to follow the story-trail, click here.

Before you take a glance at my section, have a look at chapters one and two.

***CHAPTER THREE***

The town was at the top of a steep cobbled hill.  Of course young Scribble sprinted up it easily.  As well as his feet being blue and furry, they were also incredibly big and unusually fast, so Scribble reached the top in 13.2 seconds flat.  Poor Mr Catch lagged behind, wheezing and rasping and gasping and panting. 

HURRY! Scribble wrote on the notepad that he always kept in his pocket next to a bag of toffees (only to be eaten In Case Of Emergency – which this obviously was). Scribble scoffed seven sweets as old Mr Catch struggled to the top of the hill. 

The tiny town was full of people in pyjamas and, let me tell you, this was a very peculiar sight indeed: ladies dashing out of houses in hairnets, men stumbling out of doors in striped dressing gowns, and dogs taking out their ear plugs and running outside in pink fluffy slippers.  Not one of them could believe their eyes, and all came to a halt in the town square by a statue, a mysterious stone lady with long flowing hair and a long flowing dress and a sad expression on her face.  She had been there since time began, and no one knew anything about the statue at all, except for the fact that the mysterious stone lady was called Luna.

 Mr Mutton, the fat butcher, pointed at the sky with a bristly finger.

            "Pork chops!" he cried.  "Pork bleedin' chops!  Look at that!  It's completely black!"

            "Whatever shall we do?" asked Miss Pooch, a poodle.     

            "Buy a new light bulb!" a not-so-clever person replied.  "When Mrs Screw's shop opens in the morning, let's put our pennies together and buy the biggest, brightest, most expensive light bulb in all the land!" 

Everyone cheered and, unbeknownst to them, the poor old moon sank deeper into the sea.  Only clever Scribble noticed that the waves at the bottom of the hill had stopped glowing.  Alarmed, he tugged the sleeve of Mr Catch and nodded at the black ocean.  QUICK! Scribble wrote on his notepad, and he underlined the word seven times to emphasise his point.  THE MOON IS SINKING! 

            "Don't worry, young Scribble," Mr Catch croaked.  He rubbed his hand over his sweaty brow and then grasped Scribble's blue shoulder, guiding him towards a hidden alleyway.  "I have an idea."

THIS IS YOUR IDEA? Scribble wrote several minutes later, standing on a doorstep outside a hidden house at the very bottom of the hidden alleyway.  THIS IS IT?  They had knocked on the black wooden door three times and no one had responded.

            'Patience,' muttered Mr Catch.  He licked his lips nervously.  'Patience…  She'll answer.'   

Look out for the next installment here on September 14th!

Contemplating my raison d’etre on May 16th

Today I have mostly been recovering from the Great Manchester Run.  For those who don’t know it, this is the most popular 10k race in the country, with over 37000 runners and huge crowds of spectators keen to see, not the heavy-footed jog that I can offer, but the breathtaking efforts of world class athletes like Haile Gebreselassie. Queuing up to run with a man who has won countless gold medals, set 27 world records and can sprint 6 miles in 26 minutes is empowering. You feel, albeit briefly, as if you’re in an Olympic final yourself. For a glorious moment, you’re on the right side of the rope – a somebody doing something worth watching, rather than a spectator on the other side. In short, you feel like a champion. The crowd stares as you stretch a leg.  Propel your arms in a windmill. Fiddle with your watch. I even found myself engaging in some rather dubious pelvic thrusts, just because I saw British athlete Helen Clitheroe doing the same.

The crowd’s chatter dies.  The gun gleams in the air.  You can almost hear the whispered BBC commentary of Brendan Foster as he announces the line up.

Haile Gebreselassie.

Helen Clitheroe.

Annabel Pitcher. 

 Some guy running for charity dressed as Borat…  

Then, quite suddenly, there’s a bang, a plume of smoke, and you’re off.

And it’s BLOODY difficult, so much tougher than anticipated. Any belief that you could be a professional athlete, a future Olympic champion, disappears as quickly as the elite runners, who stride ahead, trainers whizzing past the first distance marker as you languish a few metres from the start.  I have done four 10ks and I have ALWAYS found this to be the case. Before you say it, it’s not because I don’t train. I work hard. I eat the right things. I have an early night before the big day.  So what is it that makes running a race so difficult?

Well, it’s pretty obvious. Stick the word ‘race’ in front of a run, and the stakes rise. It’s not like training, where you can bounce along for forty minutes listening to Lady Gaga on your iPod without really breaking into a sweat. Race day has to count, so you push yourself. You strive. You care. You want to do it better, more impressively, than last time. And, as a result, a distance that was easy a few days ago in training becomes a hellish marathon to endure with gritted teeth as you teeter on the brink of your capabilities, flirting with disaster as you move out of your comfort zone.

As it is with running, so it is with being an author. Stick the word ‘novel’ in front of a piece of work, and the same thing happens. Writing that was, a few months ago, the easiest thing in the world, becomes fiendishly difficult. You strive for greatness. You care too much. You want to do it bigger, better, more cleverly than last time, so inevitably you end up staring at the screen, grinding your jaw, wondering if you’ll ever get to the allusive end.

And yet.  And yet.  The end does come.  No matter how difficult the journey, there is a moment when you turn the corner and see the finishing line – beautiful, reachable and tangibly there.

People have asked me why I run.  Or write novels.  Or hike up mountains, which is my other great passion.  It is for many reasons, but the most important seems to be this: the satisfaction of finishing. Achieving something you set out to do is the best feeling in the world.  Committing to a goal, being courageous enough to give it your very best shot, and seeing it through no matter what hardship you experience along the way, makes you feel like a champion – regardless of the end result.  Us authors can’t all be Dickens.  Us runners can’t all be Gebreselassie.  But doing the best we can with the talent we’ve got makes every single one of us a winner.       

As one of my all time favourite people, Alfred Wainwright, once wrote: ‘One should always have a def­i­nite objec­tive in a walk. As in life, it is so much more sat­is­fy­ing to reach a tar­get by per­sonal effort than to wan­der aim­lessly.  An objec­tive is an ambi­tion, and life with­out ambi­tion is, well, aim­less wandering.’

Contemplating my raison d'etre on May 16th

Today I have mostly been recovering from the Great Manchester Run.  For those who don't know it, this is the most popular 10k race in the country, with over 37000 runners and huge crowds of spectators keen to see, not the heavy-footed jog that I can offer, but the breathtaking efforts of world class athletes like Haile Gebreselassie. Queuing up to run with a man who has won countless gold medals, set 27 world records and can sprint 6 miles in 26 minutes is empowering. You feel, albeit briefly, as if you're in an Olympic final yourself. For a glorious moment, you're on the right side of the rope – a somebody doing something worth watching, rather than a spectator on the other side. In short, you feel like a champion. The crowd stares as you stretch a leg.  Propel your arms in a windmill. Fiddle with your watch. I even found myself engaging in some rather dubious pelvic thrusts, just because I saw British athlete Helen Clitheroe doing the same.

The crowd's chatter dies.  The gun gleams in the air.  You can almost hear the whispered BBC commentary of Brendan Foster as he announces the line up.

Haile Gebreselassie.

Helen Clitheroe.

Annabel Pitcher. 

 Some guy running for charity dressed as Borat…  

Then, quite suddenly, there's a bang, a plume of smoke, and you're off.

And it's BLOODY difficult, so much tougher than anticipated. Any belief that you could be a professional athlete, a future Olympic champion, disappears as quickly as the elite runners, who stride ahead, trainers whizzing past the first distance marker as you languish a few metres from the start.  I have done four 10ks and I have ALWAYS found this to be the case. Before you say it, it's not because I don't train. I work hard. I eat the right things. I have an early night before the big day.  So what is it that makes running a race so difficult?

Well, it's pretty obvious. Stick the word 'race' in front of a run, and the stakes rise. It's not like training, where you can bounce along for forty minutes listening to Lady Gaga on your iPod without really breaking into a sweat. Race day has to count, so you push yourself. You strive. You care. You want to do it better, more impressively, than last time. And, as a result, a distance that was easy a few days ago in training becomes a hellish marathon to endure with gritted teeth as you teeter on the brink of your capabilities, flirting with disaster as you move out of your comfort zone.

As it is with running, so it is with being an author. Stick the word 'novel' in front of a piece of work, and the same thing happens. Writing that was, a few months ago, the easiest thing in the world, becomes fiendishly difficult. You strive for greatness. You care too much. You want to do it bigger, better, more cleverly than last time, so inevitably you end up staring at the screen, grinding your jaw, wondering if you'll ever get to the allusive end.

And yet.  And yet.  The end does come.  No matter how difficult the journey, there is a moment when you turn the corner and see the finishing line – beautiful, reachable and tangibly there.

People have asked me why I run.  Or write novels.  Or hike up mountains, which is my other great passion.  It is for many reasons, but the most important seems to be this: the satisfaction of finishing. Achieving something you set out to do is the best feeling in the world.  Committing to a goal, being courageous enough to give it your very best shot, and seeing it through no matter what hardship you experience along the way, makes you feel like a champion – regardless of the end result.  Us authors can't all be Dickens.  Us runners can't all be Gebreselassie.  But doing the best we can with the talent we've got makes every single one of us a winner.       

As one of my all time favourite people, Alfred Wainwright, once wrote: 'One should always have a def­i­nite objec­tive in a walk. As in life, it is so much more sat­is­fy­ing to reach a tar­get by per­sonal effort than to wan­der aim­lessly.  An objec­tive is an ambi­tion, and life with­out ambi­tion is, well, aim­less wandering.'

Wishing I was back in Madrid on April 14th

Today I have mostly been shivering in England, wishing I was back in Spain. Last week I spent three wonderful days in the sunshine in Madrid, talking to journalists and Spanish teenagers in the build up to My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece coming out over there. It was my first meeting with my Spanish publishers, Siruela, and I loved it.

The trip started rather stressfully. As I am living at home at the moment, I have regressed to being fifteen years old so I didn't put up too much of a fight when my dad banned me from driving to Liverpool for my flight. 'You'll die,' he shrugged, 'or else kill some other innocent driver. You're getting the bus.' A few weeks ago, the twenty-eight year old Annabel would have laughed this off and driven regardless.  The new Annabel, however – the one who gets her laundry done and her dinner cooked and has to text her parents when she'll be home late – didn't protest.

So get the bus I did. Or at least tried to. My dad dropped me off at the bus station an hour early and, to kill time, I bought a magazine. Grazia. This is not something I ordinarily do. Celebrity gossip doesn't interest me; the royal wedding even less. I mean, who cares right? So a balding prince is marrying a rich girl with a nice smile while the lower classes dig deep in their shallow pockets to buy sausage rolls from Tescos for street parties on pot-holed roads that the council can't afford to mend because the country has no money. Anyway. There I was, sitting in the bus station, flicking absent-mindedly through Grazia, when I came across an article that interested me. I can't for the life in me remember what it was, but I have to admit that I was unusually hooked. Perhaps Katie Price's chest had exploded. Or one of those freaky Olsen twins had overcome anorexia to eat the other one. Or heavily-pregnant Natalie Portman had given birth to a black cygnet. Whatever it was, I was so engrossed in my magazine that I didn't see the bus arrive at the station and only realised it had been there at all when I saw the rear lights disappear around a corner.

Seventy quid and one taxi ride later, I finally arrived at the airport, cursing my overprotective father, especially as the cab driver seemed hell bent on killing me as he hammered down the fast lane at one hundred miles per hour. I have a fear of flying, so the rest of the journey was no better, as I gripped the arm-rests on the plane and gritted my teeth at the slightest sign of turbulence.

I am pleased to report that the rest of the trip improved considerably. Madrid was fabulous, my pitiful Spanish aside. I can only remember the bits I picked up when I was travelling through South America with my husband, and there was no real need to ask for a guinea pig and side salad during my stay. I had interviews with magazines and newspapers and radio stations, a photo shoot or two, an event and book signing at the British Council and a trip to a school where 100 Spanish teenagers humoured me during the last period of the day as I blabbed on about my book. They were a fantastic audience and I loved their questions, which included, 'How many friends do you have on Facebook?' I am embarrassed to say I exaggerated the figure slightly. Thirty mates sounded reasonable.

When I returned to England, I popped to the London Book Fair, which offered an interesting insight into the publishing world. At least it would have done, had I understood what on earth was going on. Important people huddled around mysterious papers spread out on tables. Distinguished guests gave highbrow talks to eager listeners on incomprehensible topics. I hobbled round the stalls in uncomfortable shoes sipping a carton of Ribena, trying not to look lost.  Thankfully, my agent took me under her wing and we had a lovely time at the Andrew Nurnberg party, where I was introduced to my fabulous French and German publishers. It really is humbling to meet people who are so enthusiastic about Mantelpiece. I feel very lucky indeed.

After a great dinner catching up with my agent, I stayed the night at a friend's house and then managed to attend Kazuo Ishiguro's talk the following day at the book fair. He spoke about the importance of writers and artists and film makers working together to ensure that difficult projects – those that challenge rather than patronise society – get made, despite the fact they will never be commercially lucrative. Claiming that we were drowning in a wave of blockbuster culture, he stressed the importance of stories that offer something less obvious but far more important to the human psyche. According to Ishiguro, there's a price to pay for our obsession with celebrity culture.

He's right, of course. Seventy quid in a taxi to be precise. I'm never buying Grazia again.

Wishing I was back in Madrid on 14 April

Today I have mostly been shivering in England, wishing I was back in Spain. Last week I spent three wonderful days in the sunshine in Madrid, talking to journalists and Spanish teenagers in the build up to My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece coming out over there. It was my first meeting with my Spanish publishers, Siruela, and I loved it.

The trip started rather stressfully. As I am living at home at the moment, I have regressed to being fifteen years old so I didn't put up too much of a fight when my dad banned me from driving to Liverpool for my flight. 'You'll die,' he shrugged, 'or else kill some other innocent driver. You're getting the bus.' A few weeks ago, the twenty-eight year old Annabel would have laughed this off and driven regardless.  The new Annabel, however – the one who gets her laundry done and her dinner cooked and has to text her parents when she'll be home late – didn't protest.

So get the bus I did. Or at least tried to. My dad dropped me off at the bus station an hour early and, to kill time, I bought a magazine. Grazia. This is not something I ordinarily do. Celebrity gossip doesn't interest me; the royal wedding even less. I mean, who cares right? So a balding prince is marrying a rich girl with a nice smile while the lower classes dig deep in their shallow pockets to buy sausage rolls from Tescos for street parties on pot-holed roads that the council can't afford to mend because the country has no money. Anyway. There I was, sitting in the bus station, flicking absent-mindedly through Grazia, when I came across an article that interested me. I can't for the life in me remember what it was, but I have to admit that I was unusually hooked. Perhaps Katie Price's chest had exploded. Or one of those freaky Olsen twins had overcome anorexia to eat the other one. Or heavily-pregnant Natalie Portman had given birth to a black cygnet. Whatever it was, I was so engrossed in my magazine that I didn't see the bus arrive at the station and only realised it had been there at all when I saw the rear lights disappear around a corner.

Seventy quid and one taxi ride later, I finally arrived at the airport, cursing my overprotective father, especially as the cab driver seemed hell bent on killing me as he hammered down the fast lane at one hundred miles per hour. I have a fear of flying, so the rest of the journey was no better, as I gripped the arm-rests on the plane and gritted my teeth at the slightest sign of turbulence.

I am pleased to report that the rest of the trip improved considerably. Madrid was fabulous, my pitiful Spanish aside. I can only remember the bits I picked up when I was travelling through South America with my husband, and there was no real need to ask for a guinea pig and side salad during my stay. I had interviews with magazines and newspapers and radio stations, a photo shoot or two, an event and book signing at the British Council and a trip to a school where 100 Spanish teenagers humoured me during the last period of the day as I blabbed on about my book. They were a fantastic audience and I loved their questions, which included, 'How many friends do you have on Facebook?' I am embarrassed to say I exaggerated the figure slightly. Thirty mates sounded reasonable.

When I returned to England, I popped to the London Book Fair, which offered an interesting insight into the publishing world. At least it would have done, had I understood what on earth was going on. Important people huddled around mysterious papers spread out on tables. Distinguished guests gave highbrow talks to eager listeners on incomprehensible topics. I hobbled round the stalls in uncomfortable shoes sipping a carton of Ribena, trying not to look lost.  Thankfully, my agent took me under her wing and we had a lovely time at the Andrew Nurnberg party, where I was introduced to my fabulous French and German publishers. It really is humbling to meet people who are so enthusiastic about Mantelpiece. I feel very lucky indeed.

After a great dinner catching up with my agent, I stayed the night at a friend's house and then managed to attend Kazuo Ishiguro's talk the following day at the book fair. He spoke about the importance of writers and artists and film makers working together to ensure that difficult projects – those that challenge rather than patronise society – get made, despite the fact they will never be commercially lucrative. Claiming that we were drowning in a wave of blockbuster culture, he stressed the importance of stories that offer something less obvious but far more important to the human psyche. According to Ishiguro, there's a price to pay for our obsession with celebrity culture.

He's right, of course. Seventy quid in a taxi to be precise. I'm never buying Grazia again.

Publication Summary on March 22nd

Today I have mostly been trying to finish my second novel, Ketchup Clouds.  To paint a picture: coffee cups are piled up on the bedside table to my right; on my bed there's half a manuscript covered in my scrawl; my mum's dog is at my feet, badgering me for a walk; my laptop is on my knees; I'm wearing my pyjamas; my hair's in a high ponytail that makes it impossible to rest my head on the wall, thereby encouraging me to sit up straight and work work work work work. 

My wrists are aching. 

My eyes are tired. 

But I am sitting here smiling because the book is almost done.

Finishing my second novel while trying to move house and promote the first was ambitious to say the least.  I haven't really slept for three weeks.  It's been worth it though.  Seeing Mantelpiece on the shelf and getting to speak to students, journalists, bloggers and book shop owners about my debut novel has been an enormous privilege, and I have loved every second of it.  It is impossible to describe what I've been up to in the past few weeks, so instead I thought I'd do a sort of bullet-point summary.  Forgive my laziness – I'm approaching my twelfth consecutive hour on this laptop and my brain is FRIED.

Most exciting moment – walking into Europe's biggest Waterstones in Piccadilly (London) to be met with this fantastic display of My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece. 

Scariest moment – talking about Mantelpiece live in the studio of BBC Look North.  It wasn't being in the studio that was terrifying.  It was seeing the replay later, blown up in high definition on my dad's huge TV and realising I need to get my teeth done.

Loveliest celebration – a glass of champagne or two at Bob Bob Ricard with my agent, editor, publicist and marketing lady followed by a congratulatory dinner. 

 

First ever book signing – at Orion, my publishing house.  The company provided a copy to everyone who works there.  People queued up to get their copy signed and I got to say thank you to all the folk who have worked tirelessly on Mantelpiece for the past few months. 

 

Most lump-in-throat moment – returning to both Holmfirth High School (where I was a student) and Wakefield Girls' High (where I was a teacher) as a visiting author. 

 

Schools visited – Holmfirth, Wakefield, Broughton High School and James Gillespie High School with the Scottish Book Trust, and Chorlton High School with HeadSpace.  Big shout out to you all!  Thanks for being such wonderful audiences.

 

Best comment by a student – 'You looked much younger in your photo.'

 

Best question – 'How many books do you want to write before you die?'

 

Biggest audience – about 800 people at Wakefield Girls' High.  My pulse was racing all the way through the assembly, and increased significantly when I realised I had to sing the hymn on stage in front of everyone.  I was worried my microphone was on and I was bellowing Abba Father to the Heavens.

 

Interviews given – Look North, ITV Calendar News, BFK Books, Scottish Book Trust, The Big Issue, The Scotsman, Write Away, Wondrous Reads, Teen Titles, and The Yorkshire Post.

 

Places visited – London, Cheltenham, Manchester, Wakefield, Leeds, Edinburgh.

 

So there you have it.  In between all of this I have been snatching a few hours of writing wherever possible, trying to fit in kitchen and bathroom appointments for our new house, looking at carpet and paint samples and talking to builders about patios and plaster.  Suffice to say, I am one very tired but very happy author.  Thanks to Nina Douglas, my publicist, for organising the chaos so magnificently. 

Of course a bullet point list cannot possibly do the experience of being published justice.  After such a long build-up, it crossed my mind that seeing my book on the shelf of a shop would be something of an anti-climax.  It is thanks to my family and friends that this wasn't the case at all.  I have been truly humbled by the amount of enthusiasm and support I have received.  From loved ones sending me pictures of themselves next to the book, to friends buying several copies for no reason, to neighbours popping round to get their copies signed, to phone calls and cards and emails and tweets and messages…  You have all made March 2011 one of the best months of my life.  Thank you.