Emylia Hall

Walking on sunshine

2012-03-04T10:57:00.000Z

I'll tell the story of my first Publication Day in six pictures.

Thursday 1st March was a beautiful blue-sky day. It seemed like the first burst of spring sunshine after a bitterly cold winter. There's a nice poetry to that idea, but I'm pretty sure it's true anyway...

That evening I was bound for The Gay Hussar - a long standing institution and brilliant Hungarian restaurant in Soho - for a celebratory dinner, organised by the loveliest of all publishers, Headline. There was the dream team of Leah, Vicky and Ben from Headline and my agent Rowan, and some lovely journalists (Cortina from Book Brunch, Debs from Heat, Charlotte from The Sunday Express, and Suzi who reviews for the Indy on Sunday, FT and Time Out). It was a night filled with chatter, laughter, and that wonderful Magyar speciality, cold cherry soup. Here we all are...

Rowan and I, almost a year to the day that we first met...

The next morning - ever so slightly woozy-headed - I braved a book shop, to see if I could spot The Book of Summers. Once upon a time I used to work just off Oxford Street, so it seemed fitting that it was Oxford Street that I returned to, on an altogether different kind of business. This was the sight that greeted me... wholly unexpected and all the better for it...

Move closer...

Closer still...

There it is. Great, great joy.

I wound my way back to Bristol, my arms full of flowers from the night before, and the broadest of smiles on my face. It was a pretty perfect first publication day, and launch parties with friends and family still await... I'll be walking on sunshine for a while yet.

A thing of beauty

2012-02-29T17:49:00.000Z

When Julian Barnes won the Booker prize, The Guardian told how in his speech he thanked the designer of his book's cover, Suzanne Dean. And this was noted as unusual, amidst the traditional agent and editor thanks. The piece went on to talk about how in our increasingly digitally-driven world, making tangible books look beautiful, as desirable items to have and to hold and to keep on a bookshelf reminding us who we are and what we love, is more vital than ever.

Thanks to my publisher Headline, The Book of Summers is a visual and material treat. For starters it's in hardback, something I never presumed as a given. It has proper weight to it, and the pages are a deliciously creamy hue. When I run my fingers over the cover the finish is beautifully matt. All in all, there's nothing flimsy about its presence; it proclaims itself as a book to keep. The cover and endpapers, designed by the very talented Yeti Lambregts, are gorgeous. Morning Glory flowers, picked out in gold, trail across a perfect sky blue background, twining the letters of the title, creeping on to the spine. Look closely and there's a smudgey, painterly touch to this same blue. The effect is elegant, refined, and evocative of summer days, while not sending our minds in too particular a direction. Inside, the flowers continue in antiqued styling, and the page appears pre-loved, with the creases and blemishes of time. Polaroids are taped in, just like in The Book of Summers of the story. It's a delicate and lovely piece of design.

Here, Yeti explains the different stages the book went through on its design journey:

Many of us judge a book by its cover - or form a first impression, at least. I was delighted to see the cover art celebrated on the 'creative living' site Jackie Magpie, as one of 'a treasure trove of fictional gems.' Elsewhere online, it was interesting to see some debate (and a lovely review) on the blog Dog Ear Discs, suggesting that some male readers might be turned off by the outward prettiness of The Book of Summers. Perhaps idealistically, I always hope that would-be readers will stick around long enough to browse the opening lines, or jump-flick to random pages, maybe not getting the full story but at least enough of it to decide whether they think a book's for them or not. All I know is that on the eve of Publication Day, I couldn't be happier with how my novel looks. On this last day of February, the sun showed its face for a while this afternoon and finally it felt like spring. But it's cold again now, and we're heading towards the bleary evening. Yet here I am, holding The Book of Summers in my hand, admiring the beauty of its cover design, the care with which it's been printed and made, and I'm basking. It's as if we're skipping seasons, as if summer has arrived and for a while at least, is here to stay.

Deep thought, deep Devon

2012-02-23T17:22:00.000Z

The other week I took myself off to the seaside for a few days, to bury myself in the writing of my second novel. Since September I've been edging my way into it, ticking along with my daily wordcount, feeling it start to slowly take shape. But I hadn't yet been consumed by it. And the manuscript was throwing up difficult questions that I needed time away to answer. The Devon air proved just the thing.

I tucked myself away in a little hotel for a few days, and wrote from dawn until dusk and into the night. All of the usual distractions were entirely absent and although I felt a shade lonely at times, this feeling never lasted long. As soon as I let them breathe a little, I found the new characters I'm creating to be excellent company. And the story I've been working on for several months caught a hold of me at last, and refused to let me go. Happily trapped and writing feverishly, I stayed in my Devon hideaway just long enough to get over that awkward mid-point in a novel's progress. And whenever I sought diversion I could stare out of my window and see a view like this... comforting in its abstraction.

The village I'd chosen was devoid of most of the usual seaside trappings, the shops stuffed with lurid paraphernalia, cutesy 'gone surfing' signs and the like, but one souvenir did catch my eye. Its motto was peculiarly fitting. For much as I was intent at shutting the world out for those few days, I couldn't stop thinking about the fact that when I got back to Bristol the first finished copies of The Book of Summers would be waiting for me, and that publication day is just around the corner. And so, like a grockel (def: a tourist but, really, anyone who doesn't hail from Devon), I went home with a reminder of happy days spent working by the water. And even happier days still to come.

Ten terrifying questions

2012-02-19T13:37:00.000Z

... only they weren't. They were actually a lot of fun.

The Australian-based Booktopia is rapidly becoming one of my favourite books sites, for entirely narcissistic reasons. Not only is it offering very cool sounding tote bags with every order of The Book of Summers (while stocks last!), it was also one of the first sites to review my novel, and it now features what is my first online interview. A lot of love coming from Down Under. You can read my responses to Booktopia's Ten Terrifying Questions here, and find out why ditching class, crazy-good artists, and heroic husbands maketh this writer.

The joy of criticism - a Book Slam blog

2012-02-17T13:27:00.000Z

With publication just under two weeks away, my mind can't help turning to... reviews. I wandered across to the Book Slam site and decided to chew it over some more there. Click here to read about a boy called Holden, how we all love to criticise and my best keep-it-sanguine (as a wise man once said) pep talk...

A new home

2012-02-11T19:04:00.006Z

So... I've a new online home, at emyliahall.com. And rather lovely it is too, don't you think?

As with all the best things, it was a collaborative effort. My father hand-painted my name (disobeying all his inclinations for a perfectly executed classical script), my husband came up with the questions that form the Q&A section (equally resisting his natural impulses for slightly sillier inquisitions), and friend and former colleague Dan Hunt thankfully did everything just as he always does, and put the whole thing together, designing and building me a truly lovely site. I'm indebted to all, but especially to him. Thanks also to Vicky Cowell at Headline and Erika Imranyi at MIRA for much valued advice, along the way.

The creation of my website has also given me the chance to show off, for the first time, the gorgeous cover for the US edition of The Book of Summers. The artwork includes very lovely quotes from best-selling author Marisa de los Santos, 'Elegantly written and intensely intimate... a moving, poetic debut', and Rebecca Rasmussen, 'So tender and lovely, this is a novel I will keep on my bookshelf forever.' I'm enormously grateful to both for reading my novel in proof form, and being so very kind about it.

This gorgeous thing will be on US shelves in June - I can hardly wait. But for now, it's all about the UK countdown.... after all, it's only nineteen days until Summer's here, hadn't you heard?

Part II: Rwanda - for the first time

2012-01-30T11:24:00.003Z

The night before we flew to Rwanda, I read the last pages of Philip Gourevitch's essential and harrowing account of the Rwandan genocide. He wrote, 'Even now, as I write, in the early months of 1998, Rwanda's war against the genocide continues. Perhaps by the time you read this the outcome will be clearer (...) Of course, if you're some kind of archeologist who digs this book up in the distant future, five, or fifty, or five hundred years from now, there's a chance that Rwanda will be a peaceful land of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, you may be planning your next holiday there and the stories you find in these pages will offer but a memorial backdrop...'

Fourteen years on - a sort of distant future - our university friends, and first London flatmates, Steve and Kate, are living in Rwanda. In their emails and brief visits home they've conjured for us, as best they can, the country they live in. They've talked of flying about Kigali on the back of moto-taxis, and buying bright-patterned kitenge at the market; having shirts and dresses run up by gifted seamstresses on ancient Singer sewing machines. They've talked about their house, its padlocked gates and the peak-capped security guard keeping watch, but how these things never felt as though they were really needed. They've talked of evenings spent on wicker sofas on candlelit verandas, a restaurant called Heaven, and spoken word nights where they sang jazz songs alongside Kinyarwandan poets. They've talked about the soldiers who quietly and calmly patrol the streets; ever-present, but merging into the background. Between the not so very old war reports, and my friends' accounts of the life they love in the new Rwanda, I tried to form my own picture. But I couldn't help imagining a tightrope of a place; a line walked between despair and hope. How could a tourist, an ex-pat, indeed anybody, still not find it somehow precarious? The only way to find out was to see for myself.

Now that I'm back, I can't pretend to know it all; for no tourist, however wide-eyed and open-eared, can ever claim to know a place in a week. But for all the aspects of Rwanda that I don't understand, and probably never will, there are some things that I do now know. And I treasure them. They may be only fragments, passing images, barely snatched, but they are mine. And I share them here.

I know that when dawn comes the chorus of birdsong is ballistic and indignant - the sun rises quickly, as if to bring quiet.

I know that I never once grew tired of seeing children delight in our otherness, watching them break into gulping laughter and chase our car, their cries of 'muzungu! muzungu!' rising in the dust.

I know that I've never seen a patchwork quilt anything like the hillsides of Rwanda. The neatly stitched hedges marking the edges of potato fields, the jaunty patterns of banana trees, the row after row of stiff-tall sweet corn, the rich, dense tea plantations, clinging to the sides of vertical slopes. Not one inch of red earth is wasted.

I know that in Rwanda there are some of the people you would expect; Western do-gooders dressed in khaki, putting the world to rights over a Mojito, pasty-faced Evangelists, intense girls in drawstring pants and Development careerists with red-burned forearms. But my friends are none of these and I am glad.

I know that at a classic Rwandan buffet, the tastiest dish to pile high is the ruby red stew of savoury banana. And the shredded cassava leaves. And the purple peanut sauce. Everything's fresh, home-grown, and delicious.

I know that in Kimironko market, you'll find yourself surrounded by shifting walls of the most cheerful fabric you've ever seen; rainbow-coloured, crazy-patterned kitenge from the DRC, and Kenya, and the Ivory Coast. A stallholder will say, 'if you like it, you can buy it.' And you do, so you do.

I know that at sundown on Lake Kivu the fishermen sing for the day's catch. You sit spellbound, bobbing in kayaks, as their voices carry across the still water. Then you watch them row home, as the deceptively peaceful hills of the Democratic Republic of Congo rise behind.

I know that when you happen upon a small boy cowherd, wandering behind his tail-flicking charges, eating a knob of maize, you return his grin. You pull over, and shake his hand. You marvel at one another, for a moment, and then you each carry on in your own direction. A little altered, perhaps.

I know that at dusk a sweet and smoky scent pervades the air, and it's the burning of eucalyptus leaves in people's houses. You realise that it's a smell that one day soon you will miss. That, inexplicably, and for all its strangeness, it reminds you of home.

I know that when you're in the misted Virungas, and a silverback turns his lazy, soulful gaze on you, from barely feet away, something inside you shifts. You stand still, stiller than you've ever stood before. You barely breathe. And yet, part of you wants to reach out a hand, and make solid the connection you know you feel. But it's awe that holds you motionless.

I know that in Rwanda most of the people I pass who are my age - or a little younger, or a lot older - will have seen their whole world torn to pieces. They will have been to hell and back. Lost more, perhaps, than they can ever hope to find again. And yet everywhere I see grace and laughter. I swap more true smiles with strangers than I ever have, and hear more gentle words of welcome spoken. I know that respect is due. I also know that Rwanda calls itself 'the land of a thousand hills'; its beauty is soft, and undulating and verdant. And while it would be presumptuous and uninformed to weigh the verity of Gourevitch's words, 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,' I will say this - whatever is has been, whatever it will be, and for all I still do not know, to me, this passing visitor, Rwanda feels like a place of warmth and healing.

Finally - I know that now I'm home, I miss Rwanda. Even if, after so few days spent, perhaps it's not really mine to hanker after. I know I want to try and hold on to the memory of it for as long as I can, but I can already feel it slipping; soon it will feel a world away again. I know the only answer, therefore, is to keep remembering, to keep writing, to keep discovering. And perhaps, one day, to go back.

Part I: Kigali - for one night only

2012-01-28T18:48:00.001Z

My first official appearance as an author, and my first public reading from The Book of Summers, took place in Kigali, Rwanda, last wednesday evening. The venue was The Goethe Institute in the district of Kacyiru. To get there we bumped down a red dust track, hemmed by banana trees, before rolling into the creative enclave that's home to the German cultural centre, an arts house, and a sprawling bar that was showing Libya versus Zambia (2-2) on the big screen.

Just after 7pm a group of musicians finished their rehearsal and we took over the dance studio they'd been using, making a small, modest circle of chairs. But as participants continued to arrive the circle widened. In all, twenty-eight people joined us. My dear friend Kate Haines was the event's organiser, and I had her to thank for the fantastic and diverse attendance; there were regulars from her creative writing group - workshops run in coffee shops and classrooms across the city - as well as a number of students from the Kigali Institute of Science and Technology. There were some who had already published non-fiction, avid screenwriters, freestyling poets, advertising copywriters, feature writers, and many more who were simply 'interested in writing.'

I guess every author remembers their first public outing but I can't help feeling that mine was particularly memorable. The windows of the room were open to the night and I was forced to speak loudly above the roar of cicadas. The heat was intense. I gave an introduction followed by a reading, then just as we were about to launch into some writing exercises my voice creaked and croaked. I coughed. Sipped some water. Coughed again. I tried to speak but there were no words - my voice had entirely gone. Thankfully, several bottles of water and only a short spell of embarrassment later, it returned. I conducted the rest of the workshop testing each word before I said it, downing water, the frog in my throat only just kept at bay. The next excitement was that we lost the lights. Power cuts happen fairly frequently in Kigali I'm told, but not usually for so long; the Goethe Institute was plunged into pitch black for the next two hours. Our gathering took on a clandestine air as we sat in the dark, the pricking lights of mobile phones just enough to write by, and for me to follow, more or less, my notes. Undeterred, we carried on. People read aloud, in cautious voices. I kept my cough at bay.

Before...

... after!

When I was first asked to run the writing class I'd jumped at the chance, only wondering later whether, as a debut author, I'd earned my stripes yet. A fair question. So I thought about the workshops I'd attended and the authors I'd heard speak - and how I'd always felt as though I was moving forward just by being there, listening, my mind switched on to writing. So that night in Kigali I decided I'd pass on the wisdom I'd received, and some of what I'd learned myself along the way. Perhaps that's all anybody ever does. And it seemed to work; people listened, scribbled notes, even laughed at my feeble jokes, and there were plenty of questions at the end. Two and a half hours after we'd first sat down in our circle, the group and I went back out into the Kigali night. We said murakoze (thank you) and murabeho (goodbye) to one another, and email addresses were swapped. I couldn't stop smiling.

Kate Haines, founder of Material Books, and I.

On the way home we stopped off at for a late dinner, eating spicy chicken rice beneath a thatched gazebo, as around us a tinny kind of reggae hung on the night air. I was buzzing. My husband Bobby, once a drummer in a band, said to me, 'it's the post-gig high, isn't it?' and he was right. It was. But a different sensation too; In Kigali, for one night only, I realised I felt useful. And more like an author than I perhaps ever had. I drank a well earned beer, and watched the hills of the city strung out below us. I whispered a quiet word of thanks. Murakoze. And I tried not to cough.

Literary remixes - a Book Slam blog

2012-01-27T13:42:00.001Z

After reading P.D. James' 'Death Comes to Pemberley' I set to thinking about literary remixes, and what, to my mind, makes a classic. Despite James' virtuoso rendering of Austen's world, it's another remix that tops my playlist. Find out what, over on the Book Slam site...

Adland

2012-01-18T10:19:00.000Z

Over eleven years ago, when I was a green, green graduate, I took a job at an advertising agency in Soho. I thought it'd be a sparkly kind of profession, and in some ways it was. In the beginning I always got a kick out of seeing my agency's ads out there in the big, wide world. They didn't need to be Cannes-worthy, simply to point at something and say 'I helped make that' was novel enough for me. Sometimes, in the very early days, I even snipped ads from the paper and sent them home to my ever-encouraging mum; anything from budget travel to posh cars, from power tools to kids' TV, with the breathless note, 'this is mine!' It's been a long time since any press ad has given rise to such bursts of unbridled pride. And an even longer time since I sent one home to my mum. But the below, as it appeared in the inside front cover of the Debuts supplement of New Books Magazine, is, to me, deserving of both. Call me sentimental (and, okay... self-indulgent), but in all my time in adland I don't think I ever saw one lovelier. Thanks to Vicky Cowell and Headline for such a splash!

Bristol fashion

2012-01-08T15:03:00.000Z

I moved to Bristol four years ago, around the same time that I first started writing The Book of Summers. To me the city is synonymous with every stage that my manuscript went through, in its writing and re-writing. I played with plot as I walked the Bristol streets, to and from work. I sat in Bristol cafés, tinkering with characters. And I did a lot of dreaming, in Bristol supermarket queues, in the corners of Bristol pubs and across the Downs parklands. So it's rather fitting that my first interview as an author should appear in Bristol's local paper The Evening Post. Many thanks to Suzanne Savill for such a great write-up, and for this line perhaps above all:

It is a book that is exquisitely written, with a plot that is both uplifting and heartbreaking, and a sense of place that has the potential to do for Hungary what author Peter Mayle did for Provence.

A Year In Provence, j'adore. You can read the piece in full here.

Beginnings

2012-01-03T10:07:00.002Z

One of the questions I’ve been asked a lot over the past few months is, ‘did you always want to be a writer?’ And the answer, of course, is ‘yes’. When I went home for Christmas I found signs everywhere that the path I’m on is one my ten-year-old self would approve of…

My family home hasn’t changed for decades. Maybe it’s a sign of my parents’ nostalgia, but you won’t find spritzed and neutral guest quarters in their house – my bedroom is more or less the same as when I left it. The bookcases creak with pony club paperbacks and college texts, Daniel Deronda sharing shelf space with Arthur Ransome, Le Morte d’Arthur nudging up against a book of fairy spells. My old typewriter sits on the window sill. I remember being a lousy typist and in the end I got fed up of spending my pocket money on eraser ribbon and went back to my notebooks and blobbing fountain pens. And behold this for vanity: In the kitchen, a piece of my writing still hangs framed on the wall, approximately twenty five years after I decided it’d make the perfect birthday present for my mum. It’s a piece I wrote at primary school when we were set the task of describing the houses we lived in. I wrote about our Devon cottage, huddling under its thatch on the side of a hill. I noted the crumbled patch of wall where I leant my bike, a head of straw poking through the cob. I mentioned the quiet corner, where beneath a spindly apple tree our old cat is buried.

But despite the copious books, the tools of the trade, the celebrated, um, early works… it’s when I go into the garden of my childhood that I remember all over again why being a writer was always the right thing for me. The garden was the place where I dreamt up my stories, where I slipped into worlds of my own making. It wasn’t the biggest patch of land but it felt like it, the way it ran in a slope that gathered speed, the edges of the earth falling away into the neighbouring field. The way the hillside opposite seemed to be in touching distance, but really lay beyond a line of gangly birches, a twisting lane and a knee-deep stream. I’d stay out in my garden until darkness fell and the foxes started barking in the high woods, and, come morning, I’d be the first to dance away the lawn’s dew. Sometimes I kicked a football or batted around a shuttlecock, built a den or a bike assault course, but mostly I spent my time exploring; my feet treading the same old ground, my mind somewhere else altogether. My mum used to open a window and call out ‘are you talking to yourself?’ I’d shake my head, then pick up the story where I’d left off.

This Christmas, upon my return, the garden was etched out by winter. Old sweet corn stems stood cracked and white. A new crop of leeks persisted messily. Long rotted apples were scattered like billiard balls. The birches had lost their leaves and the distance hillside seemed closer than ever. So too, did my memories of a childhood spent roaming the edges of a page. Plucking words from thin air. Travelling, ad infinitum, in my garden of verse.

Resolutions for life and reading

2012-01-01T17:07:00.000Z

For 2012 I'm making resolutions on reading - with a little help from Raymond Carver. You can read them over at the Book Slam website, where I'll be blogging through the year.

Happy New Year, one and all. May 2012 bring us books to make our souls sing, and plenty more besides.

Here comes the sun

2011-12-22T12:30:00.001Z

In the bleak midwinter, it's comforting to think that it's always summer somewhere. I woke up yesterday, on a cold and wet Bristol morning, to a wonderfully warm review of The Book of Summers from the Australian books site, Booktopia. Describing it as 'a lovely coming of age story with a sting in its tail', Toni Whitmont writes:

'Newcomer Emylia Hall weaves a touch of magic in The Book of Summers... the magic of snatched dreams, half-recollected in the dawn. The magic of snapshots of memory. The magic of some really beautifully pieced together sentences.'

To read the review in full, go here. Thank you, Booktopia! And here's to a sun-filled Christmas Down Under.

Happy Mondays

2011-12-12T12:24:00.003Z

I love Mondays. This is a relatively new state of being, traceable from the end of October when I began to write full-time and with a capital W. I love them for lazy reasons (lolling in bed reading, edging into the day with peanut butter on toast and a mug of coffee) and sparky reasons (embarking on a working week that'll include new words written and take me ever closer to Publication Day). But this Monday has surpassed all others...

First, The Book of Summers was blessed with a truly lovely first review. Great thanks to book blogger Charlotte Chase for reading it so kindly and describing it as 'a captivating first novel' and 'a delicate treat'... Wow. As a newbie author whose edges are yet to be roughened and toughened, these are words to be cupped and cherished. You can read it here.

Then... the Red Pages published their Hot 100 list for 2012 this morning. Tis the season for lists aplenty, but this one caught my eye more than most. Last year the only novelist to be included was Téa Obreht and she went on to do okay, didn't she? In previous years Poppy Adams and Adam Foulds have appeared alongside actors, singers, models, child-stars, chihuahas and the like. Therefore it's sort of crazy to see that for 2012 I'm listed, along with fellow Headline writer Eowyn Ivey, author of the wonderful The Snow Child. Oh, and Lana Del Ray's on there too. Just saying.

I know, I know, this is the golden time. When the dream and the reality are twining in crazy fashion, and with a magnanimity that even a relentless optimist such as me knows cannot last forever. And so I tell myself this; there won't always be glowing reviews and hot lists but there will be other things. Like peanut butter. A second pot of coffee. A novel to read. And new words to be written. And that's enough to make me glad on just about any day - especially a Monday.

New for 2012

2011-12-02T12:27:00.006Z

In the January issue of ELLE magazine, Naomi Wood, Morgan McCarthy and I are tipped as three of 2012's "most anticipated debut novelists". What a thrill. As a teen, ELLE was the first 'grown-up glossy' I ever bought (Just Seventeen never did it for me, nor the naughty More, the mag my classmates used to cluster round, giggling into their sleeves). I'd read it as my village bus bumped along the country lanes, with fields of moody bullocks looking on. I'd feel glamorous just for having a copy of ELLE in my hands, for it was like peering into another world. Not that I was dissatisfied with my own, but I had the curious nature (curious? Nosy) that I suppose all writers are born with, and the wish to live more lives than one.

Back to now. In the feature 'We've only just begun', each of us write on the subject of 'new.' My piece is about me quitting my job in a London advertising agency to become a chalet girl. And how it was during those months in the mountains that I realised what I really wanted to do. I've said elsewhere on the pages of this blog that I owe a debt of gratitude to the high peaks of the Portes du Soleil, for that is where I gently found my way with words. I never tire of celebrating what those months meant to me. There, I wrote a little poetry, the kind that only ever stays between the pages of a notebook and is quite happy doing so, and I began to plan a novel. After six months of chalet work, the time I write about in ELLE, my boyfriend and I decided to go back for another winter. We rented a tiny one-room appartment, with a balcony that just had room for a table and chair. That was the notoriously mild winter of 06/07, where the lower ski slopes were streaked with mud and peppered with pebbles, and the days were long and sun-filled. As winter ebbed to spring and snowboarders turned their last tricks in the park, or rolled down off the mountain and into the town's bars, I sat on our balcony and wrote.

'A new view' is the title of my ELLE piece. And while I took that literally, decamping to a part of France where there were inspiring vistas at every turn, I do believe that we can change the view from our window at any moment. Watch the clouds clear. Spot a ray of light. For the mind is by far our nimblest mode of travel. We just need to work out where we want to go.

A fashionable reading list...

2011-11-24T14:38:00.001Z

It's lovely to see The Book of Summers in the January issue of ASOS magazine. It's included in their '2012 Preview' and tops their recommended reading list. Hurrah! Thanks, ASOS. Clearly the only way to celebrate is to go and do a little online shopping over at their place... the leopard print ballet pumps are winking at me, but then so is the tangerine leather satchel... maybe a more bookish choice... and the knitted earmuffs are just, well, practical. Perhaps I'd better get started on a list of my own.

My golden city

2011-11-09T17:29:00.000Z

When I was at university I spent a year living in Lausanne, on the shores of Switzerland's Lac Léman. My tiny room in university lodgings opened onto a balcony with an uninterrupted view of tumbling rooftops, the shining lake and jagged mountains rising beyond. I couldn't believe my luck. There, I read Molière and Rimbaud, and wrote an essay on A Farewell To Arms, whose final pages take place in the city. I watched the sun rise and set, and hung spellbound on the railing as electric storms churned the lake waters and rimmed Les Dents du Midi in neon. To be possessed of such a thrilling and unexpected view seemed to set the tone for a year that shines golden in my memory. I was nineteen, the age of possibility, and Lausanne with all of its elegance and drama suited me perfectly. It was a Riviera playground, the like of which I'd only ever read about. Just along the shore was Montreux, with its palm trees and casinos, where gentle old folk promenaded in furs and cavern jazz bars were tucked off steep and winding streets. We used to take the train there on a sunday sometimes, eat roasted chestnuts down by the water and drink wine that came from the vines that rose vertically behind the town. It is these places and this time that are the inspiration behind my second, work in progress, novel. Last weekend I went back to Lausanne, to remember and remember and to find new stories to tell. While the words are still finding themselves, I turn mostly to pictures.

Ouchy, Lausanne's waterfront, out of season.

A grey November day, brightened.

Graffiti on chipboard? Everything seems picturesque.

Lausanne's old town - the stuff of fairy tales and hidden stories.

Rude colour blooms in glitzy Montreux.

Nabakov passed happy years at the Montreux Palace, holed up in a suite.

Retracing footsteps, along the shores of Léman.

Terms of endearment, in Lausanne centre.

In my last days as a student in Lausanne, I remember going to see my tutor just before I was due to return to England. She asked me why I seemed so reluctant to leave. Had I fallen in love? she said. Oh, yes, I replied. For I had, and I was sure that Lausanne loved me back. Returning now, twelve years on, I'm still flushed with passion for the place. I passed one of the happiest years of my life on that lakeside, and over the mountains on the opposite shore I spent two snow-filled winters, just a few years ago. It's a corner of the world that will forever be linked for me with an unerring sense of possibility. Of new beginnings. And of tales worth telling.

The Book of Summers - the movie

2011-11-08T10:58:00.000Z

Or, at least, a trailer. Which in my world is almost as exciting as a feature length picture.

The trailer was launched at www.thebookofsummers.co.uk, just as a number of special limited edition proof copies were sent out by the Headline marketing team. These books are a thing of beauty - hard-backed, cloth-bound and adorned with delicately foiled gold flowers. I went into the Headline offices to sign them all a few weeks ago - my first official signing session. I tried to play it cool but, really, my delight was there for all to see.

As if the proofs themselves were not lovely enough they were then packaged in brown paper parcels tied up with string, and further decorated with poppies and Hungarian stamps.

A huge thank you to Vicky Cowell for making the build-up to publication feel so special. Where are we now - November? Four months and counting...

An extra day of summer

2011-10-31T18:41:00.000Z

Just as the rest of the country was adjusting to the first Monday out of British summertime, the lovely people at Hachette Towers were basking in the warm glow of what they're calling 'an extra day of summer.' Thanks to Vicky Cowell (marketing whizz) and Leah Woodburn (editor extraordinaire) 250 Hungarian Ischler biscuits were baked over the weekend and laid out for the Hachette workforce as they arrived this morning - a piece of homebaking of industrial proportions. Ischlers are no ordinary biscuit. Made of two rounds of walnut shortbread, stuck fast with apricot jam and painted over with chocolate, they're a real Hungarian treat. My mum makes them for us at Christmas, and whenever else we can persuade her to dust off her walnut grinder. In the loving hands of Headline, Ischlers were served accompanied with proof copies of my novel, and specially-created recipe cards. All in all, it was a celebration of The Book of Summers, designed to whet the taste buds and the literary appetites of all throughout the Hachette building. I'm told they ran out of proofs before the working day officially began... as for the Ischlers, I suspect they might have disappeared even more quickly.

The best goodbye

2011-10-27T15:48:00.002+01:00

Parting is - thanks, Will - such sweet sorrow. I always knew that my last day at work would be emotional. I didn't expect those emotions to include amazement, astonishment and bewilderment. And all before the clock struck nine o'clock in the morning. Here's what happened...

It all began when husband Bobby said he'd walk me to work. Out of the ordinary, but not suspicion-inducing. We set off together, passing a Metro vendor en route. Bobby reached out and took a copy, then handed it to me as we walked. 'You might want to see this,' he said. I took it disinterestedly and glanced down, only to see my own, almost-as-large-as-life face staring back out of the newsprint. At the base of the page ran an ad for The Book of Summers - Boxing Monthly apparently thinks I'm a real contender. The article was a piece about me leaving my role of Agency Champion (nifty moniker, non?) to begin a career as a writer. And on the back page was a mock film poster for The Book of Summers The Movie, starring all my favourites... The Gosling, Audrey Tautou et al. Whaaaaaat? For one horrific moment I thought Bobby had bought a Bristol-wide run of Metro cover-wraps, making him one of those guys... you know, the kind that emblazon roadside posters with things like, 'Happy 50th Maureen, love Tony and the kids'... sweet, very sweet, but not quite cool. My look was somewhere between gratitude and mortification. What had he done?

But, it turned out, he hadn't done anything at all (except a series of stealth hand gestures to warn the briefed-up Metro vendor that I was coming). It was all the work of my friends at EMO, the marketing agency where I've worked on (mostly) and off (2010 - to write) for four years. One of the things they specialise in is community events and 'face to face consumer engagement' (true dat), so I suppose I should have guessed that me as Metro cover-girl was 1/1, and that yet more carefully planned antics would lie ahead. That's right... my last ever walk to work turned out to be quite the magical mystery tour.

Paper in hand, we carried on walking. College Green has been a tented Occupy village for days, and just as we were rounding the corner near the site four protestors jumped out with placards, chanting, 'Please don't go!' It was.... EMO again. Specifically, Sarah, Annabel, Kristin, Ewan and a cardboard cut-out of the absent Kevin. Mildly startled passers-by looked at us with interest and/ or reproof. Bobby's shoulder came in handy as a place to hide my teary face. I particularly liked the sign that said, 'Down With Bankers, Up With Mimi.' Yeah!

Then someone suggested coffee. We traipsed off up Park Street and ducked into the nearest café, to draw a little breath. Moments later the barista turned to me and said, 'Enjoy your latte, Mimi.' Okay yes, so... I'd never seen her before. The cup she held out to me had my face beaming back on it, and carried a coffee-related quote from a short story competition I wrote eons ago. Kind of bedazzling that anyone remembered I even wrote it, let alone could lay their hands on a copy of it still. Two more work pals (Zoe, Andy) then jumped out from the corner of the coffee shop, to film the spectacle that was now a crying girl with her hands full of printed items mostly featuring her own face. Whew.

Later, when I arrived at my desk, I saw a box of tissues awaiting me - with more moi branding and flowers from The Book of Summers cover art. Were it not for my incessant booing I'd have have kept them intact.

I later learnt that if it hadn't been for delayed trains, overly long coffee stops and pesky parking meters then I would also have been treated to a couple of busking boys (Gaz, Frank) on the steps of the office, singing Here Comes The Sun and strumming guitars. You know, I'm sort of glad that didn't happen. It might have sent me over the edge and into HR's office, demanding that they rip up my resignation letter. Having the kind of workmates that get up early for you, skulk in shadows, tip off Metro workers, chant and protest, dig out your old words and brand mugs with them and learn one of your favourite songs, well... they don't come along too often. Thank you, guys, so very much, for knocking my socks off in such inspired and lovely fashion.

The morning turned to day and day turned to night and night turned to Jägerbombs. I said goodbye to my dear work friends down on the waterside, knowing that I'd been given a very special send-off. Knowing also, that if in the days to come loneliness creeps or block descends then all I need to do is pick up my very own copy of Metro and know that there are plenty of people cheering me on in this writing life. For all my reluctance to leave the place I've loved being a part of these last four years, I know that a brave new world awaits. And I can't wait to join it.

What poetry can do

2011-10-10T11:46:00.002+01:00

The other week I heard Romola Garai talk about 'the music of poetry' as part of the Bristol Poetry Festival. Purists may argue that the author of a poem is the very best reader of it, but after an evening of hearing Romola read, I'm not so sure. She opened with 'How To Cut A Pomegranate' by Imtiaz Dharker, a poem I've always loved. Or have I? It made me think of that line in Crazy Heart when Bad Blake (Jeff Bridges) is talking about songs and says, that's the way it is with good ones, you're sure you've heard them before. 'How To Cut A Pomegranate' is a luminous piece of writing and the lines, 'Inside is a whole universe. No common jewel can give you this,' seem to encapsulate the magic of poetry itself. From there the night unfolded with the likes of Seamus Heaney and Robert Frost, Derek Walcott and Fleur Adcock. And, for me, some new treasures, in Julia Darling and Rosemary Tonks.

That was a Monday night. I'd gone along on my own, and sat on a hard chair with a small glass of red wine for the best part of two hours. My wine ran out early on and I wished I'd chosen a larger glass, but I drank in the poetry instead. The simple act of being read to, as part of a crowd, was intoxicating. And as much as I was listening, I also found my mind pleasantly wandering. Lost in the beauty of words - words crafted and shaped and caressed by people who really loved them and had made it their lives to do so - I thought about my own writing. Inspired, I made quiet but sturdy resolutions. Later that night I walked home, feeling the first dark shades of autumn. The streets of Clifton were wet and cold and quiet, but I was flushed with the heat of a new plan. That was a Monday. On the Friday I took a leap and resigned from my day job. The writing life awaits me. I will endeavour to fill it with poetry and perfectly cut pomegranates.

Different strokes

2011-09-09T14:50:00.001+01:00

*Warning! Contains 'The Stranger's Child' and 'Nemesis' spoilers (only sort of - but you can't be too careful).*

My reading preferences (and listening preferences, and viewing preferences...) sometimes collide with those of my husband, but generally we tread quite different paths and are quite happy doing so. Now and again this is thrown into sharp relief, and no more so than last night as we both climbed into bed and reached for brand new books from our bedside tables (this makes us sound old, old, old - why, why, why?). Mine was Alan Hollinghurst's 'The Stranger's Child', his was Jo Nesbo's 'Nemesis'. We were both chuffed with our choices and eager to tuck in. It's true, they could have been more different, but nonetheless we played a game that was just hilarious. Really, you've got to try it. I think we'll call it 'the compare-the-opening-sentence-of-each-chapter-in-the-book-you're-reading-with-the-ones-in-the-book-that-someone-else-is-reading game.'

It went like this...

My chapter 1: She'd been lying in the hammock reading poetry for over an hour.
His chapter 1: I'm going to die.

My chapter 2: While the maid was removing the tea-things, Freda Sawle stood up and wandered between the small tables and numerous little armchairs to the open window.
His chapter 2: The old man reminded Harry of an astronaut.

My chapter 3: Up in the spare bedroom, Jonah settled the first suitcase on the bed, and ran his hands over the smooth hard leather.
His chapter 3: 'Seen the video?'

My chapter 4: Hubert forwent his bath that evening, and had what he felt was an unsatisfactory wash in his room.
His chapter 4: 'Snow?'

Hilarity, as you might imagine, ensued. Once recovered, we settled down to the business of reading - both lost in completely different worlds, but still hunkered convivially side-by-side. Me wondering perhaps a little bit why the old man reminded Harry of an astronaut, and Bobby not in the least bit curious about Hubert's bathroom habits.

Two new arrivals

2011-08-22T22:00:00.001+01:00

As a fairly-recently married woman of a certain age, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that when I excitedly tell people that 'I have some news' more often than not their eyes go directly to my belly (where - depending on the size of the dinner I've eaten the night before - their suspicions are momentarily either confirmed or denied). I should be used to it, I guess. I've been working part-time for three years now and all too often this fact is met with the assumption that I've got tots at home that need tending, rather than words that need writing. Last week, however, we were blessed in welcoming two new arrivals into our home, so perhaps there's merit in the presumption after all...

First came my husband's new graphic novel, Baggage. On Thursday he received an advance copy from his publisher, David Fickling Books. If Baggage was a baby he'd be a giggling, rambunctious type, forever putting unsuitable objects up his nose and spoiling his nappy. I cooed as I turned the pages for the first time and, as ever, the work of The Etherington Brothers left me doe-eyed and proud as punch.

Then on Friday came another bundle of joy! A proof copy of The Book of Summers. I've spent countless hours writing-reading-rewriting my manuscript, but to actually see it bound between two gorgeous covers and hold it in my hands.... well, suddenly the whole thing became wonderfully real. And, like an awed mum-to-be clutching a picture of that first scan, I was smitten.

I don't doubt that I'll be pulling my proof from my handbag at the slightest opportunity, saying 'isn't she beautiful?' and 'look, you can see her spine.' Maybe in the run-up to Publication Day I'll even be able to get away with late-night cravings, sending my husband out onto the streets seeking pistachio ice-cream and salted caramels. And I certainly envisage sleepless nights ahead, where we'll toss and we'll turn and in the end console one another with the whispered promise that the world will be kind to our offspring. Knowing that all we can really do is work hard and hope.

When we were up we were up...

2011-08-08T14:48:00.002+01:00

It's been a funny old week.

It began with a very exciting book deal with an American publisher - a dizzying feeling, to know that my words will be going across the pond - and it ended with an inspiring first face-to-face meeting with my editor at Headline, Leah Woodburn. She showed me the initial cover design for The Book of Summers, and we talked animatedly about proof copies and what the next few months would hold. Afterwards, I went to Liberty and enjoyed easily the most delicious piece of carrot cake I've ever had, and bought a turquoise leather document wallet for no other reason than it's very beautiful and soft as butter.

But throughout it all, my brother-in-law has been in hospital with an acute appendicitis. He's the kind of guy who's given to superlatives, so fittingly his was no ordinary deal; he rocked the whole gangrenous, doctor-baffling, relative-terrifying variety. Thank all the gods, he's home safe now. But in the midst of his illness I was in Sainsbury's, queuing behind an elderly woman. She was - as tradition has it - taking her sweet time, and talking to the check-out lady (who was no spring chicken herself) about her niggling and various ailments. As she shuffled away with her groceries the assistant smiled up at me and said, 'don't ever get old, dear.' I pretended to hunt for my Nectar card but really I was trying not to cry a little bit. Because, given the alternatives, it's about the best thing we can do, isn't it, getting old?

In William Boyd's Any Human Heart, Logan contemplates a group of lithe and sun-kissed teenagers, and instead of lamenting his lost youth he muses, 'Play on, boys and girls, I say, smoke and flirt, work on your tans, figure out your evening's entertainment. I wonder if any of you will live as well as I have done.'

Get well soon, Lorenzo.

What do you do when a dream comes true?

2011-07-22T13:48:00.001+01:00

You run in the sea and caper like a wild thing...

You bask in the early evening sunlight that has briefly appeared, after a day of bluster and drizzle...

You get your husband to jump off something really HIGH...

... and then you team a bottle of Bollinger with a couple of packets of Scampi Fries and have yourselves a party.

That was the sequence of events when Rowan, my agent, telephoned to say I had a two-book deal with Headline. Such amazing news is welcome anyhow, anytime, anywhere, but I was on a beach in Devon (a beach I used to go to when I was a child, and always my favourite, as it's reached by a smugglers' tunnel through the cliffs) and the setting made what was already an incredible moment even better. After all the running and the splashing and the jumping we gathered pebbles to cherish forever and wrote our good fortune with a stick in the sand. Note to superstitious self, the words were duly washed away, was this a good idea after all?! And then... we went to the pub.

Even now, a couple of weeks on, the news is yet to sink in. I guess it takes a while to accept, and to truly believe. Meeting Rowan in March was a milestone moment, the realisation of which provoked my very first blog. And a month or so ago, along came another... It was the early hours of the morning and I was making finishing touches to my manuscript, knowing that it would soon be going out to publishers for the first time. It was probably the combination of sleep deprivation, soft lamplight and music in a minor key, but I had a quiet little cry, understanding suddenly and irrevocably that this was a further step along the road. I felt like I was on the cusp of something that night - whether it turned out to be boundless joy, great disappointment, or just a hellish long wait - the moment, I knew, was nigh.

The strange thing is, I haven't cried once since getting The News, and I am one emotional sap. Maybe that night hunched over my desk was my lot. Or perhaps the weight of it all will hit me when I least expect it, like when I next see someone innocently munching on a bag of Scampi Fries. Whatever, I'm ready.

I'm ready.

"Something glimpsed... in passing."

2011-07-20T19:45:00.001+01:00

I was introduced to Raymond Carver by Louise Dean, on an Arvon course in November 2008. I was in a barn, in a huddle of other aspiring writers, as she handed us the poems 'What The Doctor Said' and 'Late Fragment.' It was at the end of a session and around me people were getting ready to leave, shuffling papers and thinking of coffee and cigarettes and a brief break from the relentless pursuit of writerly progression. But I stayed seated, reading. Reading and falling in love with the quiet, tough, beauty of Raymond Carver.

Later, at home in Bristol, I began to read his short stories. His collection 'Where I'm Calling From' now occupies a permanent spot on my bedside table. The author's foreword ends on a paragraph that I never fail to find affecting. I won't quote it here - you need to buy it and read it for yourself. But it cuts right to the very heart of what it means to read and write, and I love it. It shames me to say it, but Carver's was the first book of short stories I've ever bought. However I've proved a quick convert, discovering soon afterwards the incredible writing of Canadian Alice Munro. Since then, I've never looked back.

I'm moved to write about these two great short story writers because just a few hours ago I spoke to a friend who is a voracious reader. One who reads well and reads widely. And yet... she doesn't think she likes short stories - a reaction that Jonathan Franzen explores in his foreword to Munro's collection, 'Runaway'. I say 'doesn't think she likes' as I rather think that's all set to change. Tomorrow I will be presenting her with two of my most prized book-possessions - 'Where I'm Calling From' and 'Runaway'. I'm not going to say anything to her... I'm going to resist all temptation to wax lyrical... instead I will let the stories speak for themselves, with sweet brevity. And as V.S Pritchett says, I will leave her to discover "something glimpsed from the corner of the eye, in passing."

Borrowed time

2011-07-01T21:25:00.005+01:00

Whenever I visit someone's house for the first time, I always head straight for their bookshelves. You can tell a lot about a person by the book-company they keep. The libraries of old friends aren't free from my scrutiny either, and I recently sized up the collection of my friend Sonya. A fellow York English Grad, her shelves were creaking with righteously-good tomes, and I quickly turned into a child in a sweet shop when she said 'borrow whatever you like.' That night I took home with me An Equal Stillness by Francesca Kay, What I loved by Siri Hustvedt, and Sunset Over Chocolate Mountains by Susan Elderkin. What a haul!

The pleasure of borrowing a book is quite different to buying one for yourself. After peanut butter, chorizo sausage and extra-shot-cappuccinos, books are the thing I buy the most, and the thrill I get each time never diminishes (the same can be said for the other mentioned items). But borrowing a book from a dear friend, or perhaps even more tantalizingly, a newish acquaintance 'of promise', offers a pleasure all of its own - as indeed does lending. As a teen I thrust The Catcher In The Rye upon several potential boyfriends, thinking, 'are you, like Holden, the sort to care if a girl kept all her kings in the back row?' Then I met a boy at university who already had a copy all of his own on his shelf... Reader, I married him.

I've just finished the last of my borrowed books, and each were enjoyable and impressive in wholly separate ways. But it was Sunset Over Chocolate Mountains that captured my imagination the most. Perhaps it was the Arizona desert setting, conjured with such drama, beauty and a magpie-like eye for glinting detail. Or maybe it was the dark fairytale-ish feeling that's evoked; don't be swayed by the saccharine title, Elderkin's is a book with its fair share of gruesome, a heady mix of idyllic and uncomfortable that smacks of Grimm... or, sometimes, just plain grim. Or it could even have been the dual storylines that run parallel all the way through and then criss-cross beautifully when you least expect it. All I know is that I loved it. And once I've returned it to Sonya, I'll be squeezing a new copy on to my own shelves. After all, I might want to lend it to someone myself one day.

Wimbledon Love

2011-06-22T14:19:00.006+01:00

The Championships, Wimbledon - my favourite two weeks of the year - are underway. I've always loved Wimbledon, for reasons that are as much aesthetic and poetic as sporting. The beauty's in the detail; the blond wooden net posts, the impeccable green lawns that turn sun-blistered and scratchy by the end of the fortnight, the way the sun falls on Centre Court coating it in a heavenly glow as behind, the tiered seats lie steeped in shadow. And at this time of year, I always enjoy reading the writing of tennis correspondents who share this feeling.

I still have a stack of BBC Wimbledon magazines at my parents' house. Through the Nineties this was a great publication, with a really high standard of writing and photography throughout. I'd played the sport since I was eight, but for a spell during my teens I wanted to write it as well. As a gangly sixteen year old I spent a week on work experience at The Guardian. I lost myself in their clippings library and wrote about Andre Agassi for The Rose Guardian, the pretend newspaper that fellow work experiencees were putting together. At home, I followed ATP and WTA tour matches on Ceefax. With little sense of targeting or readership I typed a lengthy feature about Thomas 'King of Clay' Muster's reign on the red-dust courts of Europe, and sent it snail-mail to the Express & Echo, a paper more commonly interested in local football derbies and horse racing in the Exeter environs. Unsurprisingly, it never ran. Then, without ever being able to pinpoint the precise moment that it happened, my tennis writerly ambitions slipped further and further down the rankings until, eventually, they disappeared from sight.

Every time Wimbledon comes around though, I find these dreams suddenly reappearing in the main draw, wild-card like. Once again I'm smitten; a starry-eyed teenager with a ring binder full of snipped articles and a head packed with stats. I picture myself with a press pass, looking out over the lines of courts; the sun-hatted throngs; the knee-length-skirt-wearing officials who carry with them a whiff of the Church Fête. I'd note the swirling brollies, colourful and rain-dashed; the jet-black VIP motors at the virginia creeper-clad club entrance; the track-suited, racket-bag shouldering players whose time in the sun is beckoning. I'd watch the wistful faces of old pros turned pundits, stuffed in suits under studio lights. I'd think of all that history, hearing the echoing ground strokes of great champions and ripples of applause from matches gone by. And I would know that my job was to capture all of it and set it down as best I could. Not just the score - which shot won what point - but the poetry, the romance, the dreams, the desire. All the winsome details that add up to make the Wimbledon fortnight the loveliest two weeks of the English summer.

To borrow from MacArthur, old wannabe-tennis-journalists never die; they just fade away.

Making Hay

2011-06-07T22:19:00.001+01:00

This is my office door and it's SHUT. The artist's palette (thieved from my dad's studio while still wet) makes as good a 'do not disturb' sign as any. I'm busy redrafting my novel so for the next few weeks, my head is well and truly down. Resisting the temptations of procrastination that blogging undoubtedly offers, I'll make my Hay Festival follow-up post as short and sweet as I can bear to. There's so much I could say about my first trip to this stellar arts fest, but in the end I'll settle for plain old 'awesome.' Here's why...

I was bursting with pride all day long (still now, a week on), because The Etherington Brothers lit up the Starlight Stage on their first appearance. My husband and his brother Lorenzo entertained and inspired a 200-strong crowd of children and parents, delivering a workshop on graphic novel creative processes and character development that had all-comers enthralled. It was the first time I'd really seen the boys in action and, simply, they smashed it.

I also heard four exciting debut novelists talk about their work. Téa Obreht, Sarah Winman, Sam Leith and Mirza Waheed are all members of the 'Waterstone's Eleven' - hugely different writers in style and scope but all brilliant at talking about what they do and why they do it. It was an educative hour - a particularly gratifying moment coming when an audience member asked about 'redrafting' and they all said how different their finished books were as a result of copious revisions. This is not new news - didn't someone say that 'writing is rewriting'? - but somehow it's ALWAYS nice to hear it again.

Thanks to Bobby's VIP status, we wined and dined, gratis, in the artists' area of the Ascari Restaurant. It was the cherry on the cake (actually it was steak frites and a bottle of rouge). I attempted to play it cool, while literary heroes drifted in and out of my sight lines.

Just as we were leaving the sun burst out from behind the rain clouds, bathing the surrounding hillsides in a neon kind of light. So there endeth our Hay day. We trained it back to Bristol with hearts warmed, souls full, and creative spirit invigorated.

Love is...

2011-05-26T13:32:00.000+01:00

... a pair of box-fresh Nike Liberty Blazers.

I've never been one for a closet full of heels, but a kickin' pair of trainers? Colour me happy. I'll be sporting them at the Hay Festival this coming holiday weekend, as I sprint from the Starlight Stage (where The Etherington Brothers - aka my husband and his little bro - will be talking about the art of making comics) to The Elmley Foundation Theatre, for debut novel inspirations from the likes of Sarah Winman and Téa Obreht. I don't know which I'm the more excited about... wearing my oh-so-pretty, veh veh limited edition trainers, or going to Hay for the first time. I'll have to get back to you.

Just finished reading...

2011-05-12T17:51:00.000+01:00

The Tiger's Wife, by Téa Obreht.

Ever since I started writing with purpose, I've been reading with purpose too. I look for books that can teach me about the art of writing; not how-to guides, or course companions, but simply the finest stories out there. Never has learning been so enjoyable.

As soon as the Orange Prize shortlist was announced I plumped for The Tiger's Wife as my first-choice read - driven mainly by curiosity (Obreht is a dewy-cheeked twenty-five year old) and personal interest (it's set in Eastern Europe).

The Tiger's Wife is a book to devour. Or, if you've got the self-restraint, a book to savour, sentence by beautifully-crafted sentence. Either way I was left licking my chops and craving more. Obreht whisks her readers away to an unnamed Balkan country, bringing to life vineyard-tracked shorelines, dark-forest villages and crumbling cities. The cast of characters takes in opportunistic bootleggers, valiant teachers, doctors, orphans, beauties and beasts. The story slips between modern-day reality and ancient folklore, cruelty and kindness, superstition and seeming truth. Characters come and go, details of their lives are dangled tantalizingly then whipped away, but the voice of Natalia and the figure of her grandfather guide the narrative, and never stop beguiling. While throughout a tiger stalks...

Put simply, I loved it. Perhaps less simply, I intend to learn from it.

The Tiger's Wife will assume its place on my bookcase between Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible and Monique Roffey's The White Woman on a Green Bicycle.

The first is paper...

2011-05-08T11:02:00.000+01:00

Exactly one year ago, I was living an American Dream, cruising down the blacktop in a snow-white Mustang, with my new husband beside me. We'd eloped and wed in Vegas, and were headed down New Mexico way. On the road and looking for adventure, to the tune of a rock and roll song.

We wed at the top end of Las Vegas Boulevard South, where fast food joints shimmy up against tired striptease palaces and the neon blinks as though something's caught in its eye. The ceremony cost us the grand sum of $160, a ring of giant palms as witness. We spent the afternoon lazing by the pool with frozen cocktails. I wonder how many other brides read a little Alice Munro on their wedding day, the pages whipped by a desert wind?

We wanted a trip of contrasts, for better or for worse. If Vegas is easy-come-easy-go, Santa Fe is rock solid, the USA's oldest state capital. It's set in high desert country, the beloved territories of Georgia O'Keefe, where the houses are flat-topped and pueblo style. Native American, Hispanic and Latino cultures combine to make an intensely welcoming city, strung out on the scent of lilac trees and street carts frying fajitas.

It's also a place that belongs to the artists. On Canyon Road alone there are more than a hundred high-end galleries showcasing work rich in its diversity. At The Palace of Governors, Native Americans display their intricately crafted turquoise and silver jewellery. New Mexican cuisine was a fine art in itself, from the lashings of green chilli sauce on our breakfast burritos to the sopaipillas, puffy pillows of sweet dough at Tia Sophia's on West San Francisco Street.

I don't doubt that we'll return to America's South West; one year on, it's a place I dream of. My 'Santa Fe' mug, bought in the Five and Dime store on East San Francisco Street, has achieved nigh talismanic status - it's the only mug I'll consider drinking coffee from while writing. Thus it gets a lot of use. And every day I get a little taste of Santa Fe, and remember our happy, happy days in the sun.

Why I'm here...

2011-05-07T11:46:00.000+01:00

I love a good quote. The kind you come across in dusty compendiums in secondhand book shops. The ones you find in a novel you're already loving then you read that line and just have to grab a pen and jot it down. Even the sort that pop up in hit 80s movies, delivered by a teen hero in a ropey bathrobe...

To launch my blog I wanted to pick a quote and stick by it. One that would set the tone for future posts, and even explain why I'm blogging in the first place. So I turned to the finest minds of this and previous generations, and... came all the way back to the kid in the bathrobe. Ferris Bueller.

"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while,

you could miss it."

But why choose to write a blog at all? It's because I've reached a point in my writing where I want to remember every tiny step of the process, chart what happens next, and recall all the little things that led me here.

I spent most of last year writing a novel. The three years before that I'd been working on it too; a little here, a little there, but last year was the big one. The time when I decided to devote myself entirely to writing and see what happened. As a result I finished the novel and found an agent, Rowan Lawton at PFD.

I met Rowan at her Covent Garden office. She was inspired and inspiring and altogether lovely. Afterwards I phoned my husband from the street. I said, 'I think I've found my agent.' We both yelped a little, then I hurried to the tube. But before I got there I stopped and stood still. Buffeted by the tides of tourists and commuters I told myself to remember this moment, and cherish it always. It wasn't a moment where I was entertaining foolhardy notions of glittering deals and worldwide acclaim. It was simply a moment when I thought, I am happy. I am SO happy. I am so very, very happy. That's all.

Of course, as Ferris says, life started moving pretty fast after that. I got on the tube. I got a headache. I got hit with a £50 fine on the train, as my ticket was off-peak and I was on a peak service. By the time I got home to Bristol, the giddy moment on the street had passed - even if it was pretty much resurrected by my husband and his late-night offering of pizza and champagne.

You see, the road to a published novel may well be paved with uncertainty, strewn with pitfalls and even - if the naysayers are to be heeded - shaped by disappointments, but... I'm on it. And my eyes are wide open.

This blog is about me stopping and looking around. And hopefully not missing too much along the way.