Ringing in the New Year!

So… Here we are in the final hours of 2011 (assuming you’re not reading this from the East or the Antipodes). It’s been a mixed bag of a year and I, for one, am not the slightest bit sad to see the back end of it. As the new year awakens, here’s hoping that it brings with it all sorts of good things for everyone.

My wish for you is that the year ahead is one filled with love and laughter, peace and joy, creativity and happiness, prosperity, good health and success, friendship and goodwill.

For the writers, illustrators and authors amongst you, I wish for you representation, publishing contracts and book deals, excellent sales, awards and… an abundance of creative outpouring!

May 2012 be your best year ever!

Happy Holidays

If the ravening hordes on the roads and the malls are anything to go by, then I must assume that it is That Time of Year Again. Yes, the time of year when tinsel positively drips from people’s ears, their brains disengage and they enter a Frenzy of Shopping. I am relieved to say I did my shopping in November, and when I am obliged to venture out for food tomorrow or on Saturday, I will be doing so with fangs sharpened and bared. But the tree is up, the house is all sparkly and I am girding my loins to cater for three exceptionally picky eaters and one with food intolerances (that would be me) on Sunday. I may yet run away and join the circus.

Tinsel drips from the ears of the Christmas tree...

It has been a helluva year – intense doesn’t begin to cover it. Building a house evidently has that effect. And yet, I am grateful to my wonderful project manager and brilliant young architect who have steered me through the initial stages of the build with a limited amount of stress. Mostly, for all those who told me it would be a hideously stressful experience, it has been fun. Intense, but fun. Of course, I may yet change my view, there are still six more months to go…

Rooms with a view...

And then there is another first draft finished and currently composting, and another manuscript cleaned up and in submission-ready format. I am working on the rewrite of a midgrade fantasy and I have the stirrings of a sequel to a YA paranormal which I may yet consider self-publishing – a topic around which there has been much discussion during the past year. A huge thank you has to go to my wonderful critique partners who journey with me: Carmel Waldron, Candy Gourlay, Kathy Evans, Jackie Marchant, Ellen Renner, Pat Walsh, Jeannie Waudby and Jeannette Towey. Also group hugs all round for my writing support circle on G+: Sue Eves, Maureen Lynas, Sue Hyams, Vanessa Harbour, Mark Jones, Michele Helene, Jane Volker, Jan Markley, Louise Kelly, Jeannette Towey, Jo Franklin, Savita Kalhan, and Carmel Waldron. May we all travel onwards and upwards!

My wonderful critique group

There has been dabbling in a bit of marketing consultancy, which I’ve not done for a while, but which I am very much enjoying – the focus being on using online platforms for the widest reach.

And then there has been social networking, from blogging to Facebook and Twitter and the introduction of Google +. It’s too much, and that doesn’t even bring Tumblr, Flickr, Reddit, LinkedIn and all the rest into consideration. Frankly, I don’t see why we can’t just have a single GooTwitFace platform and be done with it. The bottom line of it all, however, shrieks “Be Circumspect”. Database management is the deathknell of privacy. Changes to Facebook, particularly issues surrounding privacy and the introduction of Timeline, make your life an open book from the moment you joined. Every idiotic status update you ever posted, every whining or ascerbic comment you ever made is there for all your friends (and the world) to see. Facebook, lest you ever believed otherwise, keeps everything. Take heed.




But as the tinsel on the tree glitters and the fairy lights twinkle let me wish you all the very best for the holiday season whatever your religious or otherwise persuasion. Here’s wishing you a Merry Christmas, good tidings and happiness for the Solstice, a joyous Kwanzaa and Happy Hannukah, may love and laughter, joy and happiness, peace and good feasting be yours.

Megg Jensen reveals a new cover for her novel, Sleepers

You may recall that I interviewed indie-published author, Megg Jensen, a few months ago. Having read Megg's first book Anathema (the first book in her Cloud Prophet Trilogy) I found I really enjoyed her strong, character driven, storytelling. And so, as is the way of writers supporting each other (yes, this is what social network marketing is all about), I'm happy to now introduce the new artwork for Megg Jensen’s bestselling novel SLEEPERS.

To celebrate the re-launch of SLEEPERS in January of 2012, Megg is giving it a new cover with artwork from the incredible PhatPuppy.

To see the full-size cover online, please click HERE

SLEEPERS

An adoptee raised in a foreign land, sixteen-year-old Lianne was content with her life as handmaiden to the queen, until a spell cast on her at birth activated. Now she's filled with uncontrollable rage and access to magic she thought had been bled from her people years ago. Even her years of secret training in elite hand-to-hand combat and meditation can’t calm the fires raging inside her.


Her heart is torn between two boys, the one she’s always loved and the one who always ignored her. But when the kingdom threatens to tear itself apart due to rumors surrounding the queen’s alleged affair, who will Lianne protect and who will she destroy?

To read reviews of SLEEPERS please see the Goodreads site, or take a look over on Amazon.

As part of Megg's promotion for the new cover, SLEEPERS is on sale now for only 99 cents!

To find out where you can buy a copy of SLEEPERS, please visit Megg's site:


To find our more about Megg Jensen please see the following:
Megg's website.
Megg on Facebook.
Megg on Twitter.

School's out for summer...

Summertime, and the living is easy...

It’s officially the start of summer holidays here. The sun is shining, the sky is blue. My tomato plants have gone mad with an abundance of shiny red cherry tomatoes. Schools broke up a week ago, the builders took their annual leave as of yesterday. People from upcountry are blocking the roads as they get lost and drive too fast. Restaurant prices have soared for the annual influx of tourists. Oh yes, holiday fever abounds and I swear everyone is wondering around with tinsel hanging out of their ears!

I meanwhile, having finished the first draft of my YA space/sci-fi/love story, have been playing with a midgrade fantasy, first written several years ago, while the YA composts for a month or two to give me better perspective for the rewrite. In-between arguing about aspects of the house build, I’ve been up to my eyeballs in dragons and gnomes. It’s a giddy life, I tell you, between building a fantasy world and building a house. But there’s nothing quite like the process of creation, that business of seeing things in your mind and then bringing them to life – either on a page, or a piece of earth.

“Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will.”
George Bernard Shaw

“It is better to create than to be learned, creating is the true essence of life”
Barthold Georg Niebuhr

I’ve also been jumping around like an excited loon about the news of a two book deal for one of my long standing critique partners, Jackie Marchant. Jackie is classic example of perseverance paying off and I’m just so pleased for her! I’m hoping she’ll agree to do either a blog post or an interview here because her persistence and determination really are inspirational.

Right, and now I suppose I’d better go and get that damned Christmas tree up.

Ice-cream Sundays in the sun

Guest Blogger: Nicola Morgan speaks about her novel Mondays are Red

Changing Minds by Nicola Morgan

And now for something new on Absolute Vanilla...

Today it's my pleasure to introduce to you a guest blogger and one of my favourite YA authors, Nicola Morgan - also known as the Crabbit Old Bat despite the indispensible advice she offers writers on her blog Help I Need A Publisher.

Author, Nicola Morgan

You may recall that I did a rather gruelling interview with Nicola about her YA novel, Wasted, but today, I've decided to skive off and let Nicola speak for herself about the her debut YA novel, Mondays are Red.

First published in 2002, Nicola Morgan is now delighted to be personally producing Mondays are Red as an ebook, with a new cover and extra material, including creative writing by school pupils inspired by the book. For review information and details about where and how to buy the ebook (price: approx £2.23 on Amazon), see here.

NOTE: you do NOT need a Kindle to buy a Kindle book. Simply download the free Kindle software for your laptop, iPad, iPhone, smartphone, android, tablet etc

When Luke wakes from a coma, his world has altered. Synaesthesia confuses his senses and a sinister creature called Dreeg inhabits his mind. Dreeg offers him limitless power – even the power to fly – and the temptations are huge, but the price is high. Who will pay? His mysteriously perfect girlfriend, with hair as long as the sound of honey? His detested sister, Laura, with the wasps in her hair? When Laura goes missing, Luke realizes the terrible truth about himself and his power. His decision is a matter of life and death, and he will have to run faster than fire.

Thank you, Nicky, for letting me come here today. And to escape the clutches of your interview technique, too! You’ve asked me to say something about language changing minds, which is an underlying theme of Mondays are Red.

First, the relevant parts of the premise: an ordinary, sport-mad 14-year-old boy wakes from a coma after meningitis, to discover his world changed. Not only is his leg weak (so he may not be able to run again) but his mind is invaded by synaesthesia (where the senses are mixed) and a sinister creature called Dreeg. Dreeg shows Luke that his synaesthesia offers absolute power – and we all know what absolute power does to people. The mechanism of this is that his synaesthetic way of seeing the world gives him the power of language, which is, in effect, the power to change people’s minds. When Luke describes something, he does it so powerfully that people actually see the thing he’s describing – in other words, he changes what they see, which amounts to changing what is.

And that is why the power of language is the greatest power. It can be used, of course, for good or for ill, but as writers and speakers we do change people’s minds.

Let me demonstrate – and this is what I show pupils when I do creative writing with them. I’m going to say a word and when you hear it, I want you NOT to picture the word I say. Ready? Elephant. Did you manage to hear that word without a picture of an elephant coming into your mind? Try harder this time. Apple. It’s hard, isn’t it? Old crone with glowing red eyes and a hunched back. Impossible. The point being that every word we use paints a picture in the reader or listener’s mind.

Let’s take that further. Imagine I describe someone’s lips as “fire engine red”. What do you think of when you think of fire engines? They are red, big, noisy, and represent danger, glamour, bravery. So, if we say “her lips were fireengine red”, we’re adding those meanings to the reader’s mind, hinting that she may also be loud, dangerous or glamorous. But supposing I say that her lips were not fire-engine red but “strawberry red”. Strawberries are small, sweet, strawberry-shaped, and so those are suddenly the things the reader will attach to that woman’s character. Try the same with “letter-box red”.

Power, you see, and it’s greater than we think. Every word takes with it a load of meanings and they all seep into the reader’s mind. And change it. And there’s something else – the actual sounds take meanings with them, too. Sounds do have colours, and smells and feelings and all manner of sensations, which all add to meaning. We’re all a bit synaesthetic – as I’m going to be showing on Mary Hoffman’s blog on Dec 9th! Understanding the power is essential for writers.

People ask me why I wanted to be a writer. It’s simple: power. (*rubs hands*) I just hope I’m never corrupted as Luke is in Mondays are Red...

THANK YOU FOR HAVING ME!

Buy Mondays Are Red on Amazon UK.
Buy Mondays Are Red on Amazon.

Nicola Morgan talks about synaesthesia on Lucy Coats' blog.
Nicola's next stop will be at Mary Hoffman's Book Maven blog on Friday 9th December.

Nicola's website is here.
You can also find Nicola on Twitter (where she Crabbits regularly as @nicolamorgan).