New Teaser

Great Uncle Arthur's role in my new book - Circus of the Damned

I am continuing with my MG novel, Circus of the Damned. despite the fact that I have a half edited YA novel sitting on the computer. I decided to take a break from the editing of the Iron City as it's NaNoWriMo month and I wanted to try to get as much done on the MG novel.
 
  

    I did some further research on one of the characters, Arthur Margery, who was actually my great uncle. I found that he was one of 13 children and a twin. He is listed on the 1901 census as a 'Professional Society Entertainer', which was great to see as I knew he was a magician. 

Arthur Margery

I also found out that in later life, he had a bookshop in Bromley, UK which stocked over 6000 books on magic. When Arthur died in 1945, they were sold by his brother Henry to Foyles, London for just £100.

Lots more to discover, I hope!

  

Halloween Teaser

Teaser - The Anoulk from Marvin's Curse

An updated teaser from Marvin's Curse. I decided to have this one in colour as usually I tone the images down to black and white. In this case, the colour definitely has more impact. Seriously thinking of using this image for an updated cover of Marvin's Curse. Negotiations with the owner need to take place first though. What do you think?

Teaser Time!

Boot has a night out

So tonight, I took the poorly leg to meet friends at Bill's in Norwich. The burgers there are amazing. I also had a rather unusual cocktail called a Raspberry and Rosehip Collins which was rather yummy - and a Bill's cider.



Boot was not happy as had to spend most of the evening under the table, Here is a picture of boot sulking.

Have boot will travel

Today I took the poorly leg to Oxburgh Hall, a lovely 15th century house in Norfolk owned by the National Trust. There were a few Tudor stalls there and there was an oppotunity to try on costumes (boot refused point blank).

The house is a lot like Hampton Court albeit on a much smaller scale and it has a huge moat with crocodiles, sharks and piranha fish so no swimming is allowed.


Here's us posing with the house in the background. You can probably just make out the moat.


 
We had a lovely lunch then stopped to play chess, but boot got in the way and kept 'accidentally' knocking the pawns over. This is how it looked before we started playing.

 And afterwards...






 

 

 Finally, on the way out we had a look at the plants and flowers which were 'bootiful' (*sighs*). They have a great variety of apple trees there plus a climbing pear tree which you weren't aloowed to climb !?!
Still, a lovely afternoon.

Meeting author Meg Rosoff again.

Yesterday, the poorly leg and I took the train to Cambridge to attend the annual Philippa Pearce Lecture at Homerton College with my SCBWI group. This great event is actually free and followed by a wine reception afterwards (also free!) The committee rely entirely on donations to provide such events and on the goodwill of Homerton College. Amazing and so well attended.

This year the speaker was the lovely Meg Rosoff, author of How I Live Now among others. It was a wonderful lecture, truly inspiring and in many ways reassuring to the way I write. I was also a big girly fan and asked her to sign a book for me. I was delighted that she remembered me from our previous meeting at a SCBWI conference in Winchester where I had my photo taken with her.  No photo this time, but here's the earlier one. We really are best friends you know. :)

We all got together for a lovely meal afterwards (not Meg!) which was lovely and gave us a chance to catch up on our authory exploits. A great evening. 

Special thanks to Alice Turner for chauffeuring me from the train station to the venues and back on account of my poorly leg. :)

#YA #YAlit #Kidlitchat

Editing first draft with a poorly leg.

I have finally finished the first draft of the Iron City which is brilliant - finishing the book, that is. I am not claiming that the book is brilliant as that would be a little big headed. In its present state it is an okay book, but it needs a lot of work on it. Argh!

   Working on the first draft edits is where I act as the reader and just read it through making sure it flows and that I haven't left chunks out. Because of the way I write, this is so necessary as I jump around all the time when I'm writing (not literally, especially with a poorly leg) so I could work on an end piece then dart back to a more middling part. It all depends how excited I am at the time.

   There are also lots of questions I need to make sure I know the answers to. Here's a few examples of questions I had to research:

• How far can a healthy person walk in one day?
• Where would you hit someone in the face to knock them out?
• How much weight could a typical teenager carry?
• What's the inside of your elbow called?

See, and you thought being a writer was all about the glamorous things in life! I'll let you know when other questions pop up in further edits. :)

Here's a photo of my poorly foot until then.

 Ooops! Wrong photo.

#AmWriting, #AmEditing, #YALit, #YA

Marvin's Curse Teaser

The Iron City - Teaser time

  

 Extending a taloned claw, the red dragon hooked the pendant from Rae's hand. It stared hard into her eyes then lifted its wings, heading upwards once again before flying off into the distance followed by the others.

   Rae collapsed to the ground, her stilled heart crashed into action, banging against her chest. Her breath came fast, making her gasp for air.

'What the freakin'...' screamed Eric, pushing his hands through his hair. He jumped to his feet and started pacing. His hands rested at the back of his head where he clasped them together, staring upwards. 'A Slayer who doesn't actually slay. I've seen it all now.'

   George dashed to Rae's side, kneeling down then pulling her up into a sitting position. He shook her shoulders furiously. 'Why didn't you strike? Why didn't you use Ascalon like we showed you?' When she didn't respond, he shook her again. 'It'll come back. They always do.' He dropped his hands to his knees, shaking his head despondently.

Super day at Toftwood Junior School

I had another great author visit in Dereham, Norfolk. This time I was with Year 3 at Toftwood Junior School. Lots of the pupils dressed as superheroes for the day which added to the fun.
Year 3 leader, Anita Warren, organised a fabulous day for me which included an author talk and three workshops.
This picture is taken in their new library which is due to be officially opened later this month.

There was a really lovely write-up on their website.

Year 3 Are Visited By Author, Debra J Edwards

The children’s author Debra J Edwards came to visit Year 3 to give a talk to the children all about what inspired her to become a writer and how she used ideas and events from her life as inspiration for her books and the main character in them, Aggie Lichen; Pilp Collector. She then went on to take some exciting and fast paced creative writing workshops with the classes, where groups of children invented their own super hero character and then gave them super powers and gadgets to use in defeating their enemies. The children used the ideas they had created in their work shop to write  a story all about their superhero.

Here are some comments by the children about Debbie’s visit:

·         I enjoyed Debbie’s whole visit!                                                   Cadell

·         I liked creating our superhero - ‘Super Flameo’, designing his costume and working together on inventing his super powers.        Siena, Justin and Aksayan

·         I liked it when Debbie did her talk in assembly and was acting out the children she had taught in the past who inspired her to come up with the idea for her first book.                                                                                   Tahlia

Welcome to a new reader

As a writer you always hope that your reader likes the book you've written. The problem is that you don't always get to hear about it if they do let alone see it. What a fabulous surprise to see these lovely photos of Callum Whyman reading the book his mum bought for him today at the school fair. It's the first of my trilogy, Aggie Lichen; Pilp Collector. He's already asking for book two and three! Fingers crossed he's just as interested halfway through. :)

Visit to George White Junior School

Last Thursday and Friday I had another great school visit. On this occasion I spent two days at George White Junior School in Norwich. During my time there I delivered workshops to Years 3, 4, 5 and an author talk to the whole of Key Stage Two. Fabulous talking and listening in groups resulted in some amazing characters being created.

Photos from author visit to Edith Cavell Academy

Just received an email from one of the schools I visited last week to say that some of the photos they took are now on their website. Have a look at me in (sort of) action.

http://www.edithcavellacademy.co.uk/#!galleries/c1byd

Great author visit to Edith Cavell Academy, Norwich

I had such a fabulous time visiting the Edith Cavell Academy yesterday. With an author talk for starters, I soon had Years 3,4,5,6 giggling at my silly antics. They seemed to especially like my story of being a reluctant KS1 teacher in Year 2 when I first thought of writing about stroppy teenage tooth fairies.

 Following on from my third book, Hero Required, developing superheroes in workshops was next. I really loved the idea of one particular group who created, Superhero Happy, whose sole job in life was to make everyone in the world happy. I gave them a bag of 'character props' and one of the items was a keyring. On the back of it was printed Thanks for visiting. Using their brilliant imaginations, the group said that Superhero Happy captured unhappy people in the keyring. When they were happy he let them out and what they saw when they left was... Thank you for visiting.  A fabulous day. Thank you!