Passion Projects

As any creative artist can tell you, the muse comes in many different guises and you never know where or when or even how inspiration will strike. I’m a novelist and short story writer so words are my thing, but I've never been entirely sure whether my writing is what you'd call art.  I do write a lot though!

In 2015 I signed a five-book deal with Joffe Books for a Brit spy series featuring Thomas Bladen, a Surveillance Officer on the lowest rungs of British Intelligence. In 2018 the fifth and final book came out and that was going to be the end of Thomas's adventures. In 2020 Joffe Books produced a box set of THE COMPLETE THOMAS BLADEN THRILLERS to round it off.

I then began a new crime mystery series for Joffe Books, starring Detective Craig Wild. New characters, new set-up. LONG SHADOWS debuted in 2020 and WEST COUNTRY MURDER followed in 2022. I’m currently wrestling with the plot for a third book.

But…sometimes old characters refuse to fade away and they return to us with new ideas and adventures, long after we thought they’d gone. PATHFINDER is one such story and follows on from FLASHPOINT (published in 2018, remember!).

The muse presented me with a compelling premise and the seed was a single question:

What if people started dying because of a secret no one else was supposed to know?

Weirdly, although I completed it this year, PATHFINDER picks up right after where FLASHPOINT ended. No spoilers here but there’s a major event in Book 5 that has dire consequences in Book 6.

As far as my publisher was concerned, the original series was done and dusted, but they encouraged me to try other options if I wanted. After contacting a couple of other publishers, without success, I spoke with a good friend and fellow writer and he nudged me towards self-publishing.

The last time I self-pubbed a novel was back in 2012, so it has been a bit of a learning curve. This time I brought in expertise for the cover design and final formatting at the outset. I am very pelased with the results.

I don't know whether PATHFINDER will make any money or climb the Amazon charts. I hope so, but that wasn't my main motivation. I simply believed in the book and wrote it for the people who loved the series. You could say that's when I knew it was art after all!

Derek

PATHFINDER

Surveillance Officer Thomas Bladen is back and he’s a man on a mission. 

THE SHADOW STATE AND THE ALLIANCE HAVE BEEN AT WAR FOR DECADES.

After seven dissidents meet to try and end the deadlock, they think their secret is safe.

 

They’re wrong.

 

A near-miss on the London Underground is just the beginning for a contract killer with friends in high places. When no one else can be trusted, the fate of seven people rests with Thomas, who will learn the hard way about the price of loyalty and the cost of failure. The only rule is to stay alive.

UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0CBZ32YP6 

US: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0CBZ32YP6 

 

 

 

You are never alone when you have a book to keep you company by Mary Dinan

As I walked by the sea I saw a solitary figure, head down and fully focused. I wondered if she was lonely but then as I got closer could see she was reading a book. She looked as if she was enjoying the experience. I breathed a sigh of relief. I knew she wasn't lonely. How can you be lonely with a good read? She had entered into another world.

It was then I had a thought. 'You are never alone if you have a good book.' A book can fill almost every void. It can advise, comfort, entertain, inspire, and provide a means of escape. A book can change your life and has changed people's lives. God released one of the most read books in the world, The Holy Bible which has changed countless lives.

A book is an ever reliable friend that you can pick up and put down at will. A good book can really lift the spirit no end; even a cover on a book can lift your mood in an instant.

It's a great gift for a child to learn to love books from a very early age, as they will never be lonely while they have a good book and the thrill of going to a library as a child has stayed with me even to this day. I remember the joy of finding another Famous Five book by Enid Blyton and how I loved escaping into the world of ginger beer and Timmy the dog; joining the children who went on adventures.

Growing up, I remember taking a great interest in self-help books. I read them all, Dale Carnegie - How To Win Friends And Influence People, Wayne Dyer - Pulling Your Own Strings, Susan Jeffers - Feel The fear And Do It Anyway and the list goes on...As an only child these books were my big brothers and sisters. I turned to them for advice when there was no family about.
Books and reading are a gift.

Never give up

by Mary Dinan

Need encouragement? Never give up!

You've written your book. You have put in hours of love, labour and language. Now all you have to do is get someone to believe in it the way you do.

Remember you only need one door to open.

I met with many rejections while submitting proposals, and failure to get an agent was really discouraging. It was then I decided I would be my own agent and approach the publishers. For this, what you need is a one page query to send off and if the publisher is interested they will request a full book proposal. It really saves so much time to email a simple query. It also helps to have the name of the Publishing Director. And it helps to identify the genres which interest your chosen publisher.

A very good friend and columnist with The Sunday Times sent me a text saying, 'Persistence is everything.' During times of doubt I re-opened his text.

Think of all the great authors who met with rejection before becoming published. If you get rejection letters giving the same reason for the rejection time after time, it might be worth taking note and making ammendments but sometimes it may be just the wrong time in that particular place or the wrong genre for that publisher.

Remember you only need one yes. Maybe you are asking, 'well how do you know'?

I know because I've been through all the rejections and doubts. Any positive feedback you get from your rejection letter, keep it in your head for it will keep you going on the dark days.

There was one literary agent I contacted in London in the early days of writing my travel book and he told me that even though it wasn't for him it was 'publishable.' His words spurred me to keep going when all those manuscripts came back. That one straw made the difference between giving up and hanging in there.

It might surprise you to hear that George Orwell suffered rejection. Animal Farm was firmly rejected.
Stephen king had oodles of rejections for his Carrie novel but it didn't stop him. Lord of the flies was rejected by 20 publishers, one saying it was 'un- interesting rubbish and dull'. What would have happened if William Golding had listened?

J.K. Rowling may well have been discouraged as her book Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s stone was rejected by no less than 12 major publishers. Many offering the rejection letters were major publishers. Never underestimate the power of a small press. Never give up.

John le Carré, author of The spy Who Came In From The Cold was told he had no future by one such publisher. If he had listened this book would never have seen the light of day.

These are just a few authors who experienced the closed doors, only to find that one door opened and that was all they needed. Hang in there. It can happen swiftly and unexpectedly.

There is nothing like the joy of a book contract in your hand!

Debut novel up for US book critics award

Strictly Writing catches up with Northern Ireland journalist and author Anthony Quinn

A DETECTIVE thriller written by Northern Ireland journalist Anthony Quinn has been selected as one of the five best debut novels of 2012 by book critics from the LA Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, The San Francisco Chronicle and other daily newspapers.

Disappeared, which is set along the Lough Neagh shore in the aftermath of the Troubles, has been nominated for the Strand Critics Debut Novel Award, the only crime fiction award to be judged solely by book critics. Previous nominees for a Strand award include Stieg Larsson, Lee Child, PD James and Michael Connelly.

The awards, which recognise excellence in the field of mystery fiction, will be presented at an invitation-only cocktail party, hosted by The Strand in New York on July 9.

It is not just Disappeared’s tightly plotted story which has resonated with US audiences but also its moody scene-setting and ‘powerful’ prose.

Reviewers have praised the novel for its ‘powerful mood-enhancing prose’; ‘its convincing tightly-plotted story’; its ‘lavish portrayal of Irish history’ and ‘the ratcheting up of tension as the yarn progresses’.

Anthony has written a number of short stories which have been shortlisted for Hennessy Irish Fiction Awards, but this is his first novel. The idea for the thriller came from a single image of an elderly man burdened by his past wandering across windswept bogland.

“I wanted to write a novel about the past coming back to haunt a group of men caught up in the Troubles”, he said.
“The image of a confused old man struggling to remember a bad deed buried in the past with a desperate sense of urgency stayed with me. I wanted to know what drove him on and what lay waiting for him in this remote landscape.”
The book begins when Inspector Celsius Daly is called to a rural home in the lough-shore area, from which David Hughes, an elderly gent afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease, has lately vanished.

Hughes’ sister and caretaker fears he has wandered off and into trouble. But as the inspector investigates, he discovers that Hughes isn’t the quiet country putterer he seems. Instead, he’s part of a larger and much more complicated story connected to the long-ago slaying (by the Irish Republican Army) of an alleged political informer, Oliver Jordan, and the more recent torture murder of an ex-intelligence agent.

The fact that said agent placed his own obituary in a local newspaper, prior to his death, makes this whole affair particularly bizarre. Daly - a detective still wrestling with a recent separation from his wife and more capable at his job than at handling his personal life - adds further to the stakes in this mystery by inviting Jordan’s answers-seeking son into the case. It soon becomes apparent that the missing Hughes harbours secrets in his deteriorating mind that others don’t wish to see released.


You can purchase Anthony's novel on Amazon and other selected outlets.

How old is too old?

I've started to panic a little about my age. The numbers just keep going up and up each year, like a cog turning. There are more and more candles on the birthday cake and soon the baker will be running out of room, which is frightening. I still have the photo of myself blowing out one solitary candle; the angelic face and the pretty, red dress and I wish I had started early!

I began writing fiction seriously about six or seven years ago and the guff I churned out was cringeworthy. The POV was all mixed up - one minute the reader was at the zoo, the next minute, back home. Dinner was eaten before it was served and my characters changed their handbag colours more times than their underpants.

I started writing this book purely to pass time when there wasn't anything decent on the telly. I occasionally visited a few writers' websites and learned that there was indeed this thing called 'POV' and that one wrote in either the first person or third person or rarely, the second person. I then filed said book under 'recycle bin' because it was autobiographical rubbish, and moved on to the next. I made a vow to really make a go of this one.

Anyway, several submissions later (I only tried a few agents) I noticed a publisher was open to subs and the books they published were, to use the old cliche, right up my street. It piqued my interest, so I sent in my goods and signed the contract shortly after.


But hovering in the back of my mind is the worry of being too old to start being an author proper. At 37 am I over the hill? We read about all these debut authors, many of whom are self-published, and they wrote their books at the age of 25 or 29 before they fell over the thirties hill. I realise I am well over the thirties hill and fast approaching the forties mountain of doom.

By contrast, other careers enable us to reach a peak at about 30 to 34, as we start around the age of 23. At 23 I could never have written a book. I was just out of university and being an author was this thing that other people did. I merely studied their works.

I take comfort in the fact the wonderfully talented Hilary Mantel is no spring chicken and she's going strong.

Summer's here

Summer's here, or is it? As I write this, I shiver! Where is the sun? Has anyone seen it anywhere? Please, someone, turn on the sun.

I hate to mention the weather during what's been an incredibly soggy June, but holidays are on the horizon - hurrah. I like to plan my holiday reading well in advance, just as others like to sort out which brand of suntan lotion they’ll use or how many bikinis/monokinis they’ll pack.

'Which Katie Price book should I buy at the airport's emergency shop, or which Dan Brown novel will I pluck from the bookcase?' some women will ask their husbands. While many holidaymakers revel in light reading I can be usually found clutching a chunky paperback with an obscure cover. And I don't mean to show off by doing this - I've even offered to back the books in sturdy wallpaper, like we did at primary school all those years ago to protect the covers.

I’ve not had a holiday in four years partly due to the acquisition of a cat who has ruled the roost. And as we can’t go too far with Baby, Tenerife is in the pipeline for the autumn.

Reading is an essential part of my holiday and goes hand in hand with the tropical escapism. The Secret History by Donna Tartt was a huge part of my honeymoon (*embarrassed smiley*) and I spent hours over dinner each night pondering the characters who just leapt from the pages.

I’ve already decided that the Number One read is The Submission by Amy Waldeman, a debut novel which has been hailed as 'remarkable' and 'exceptional'. It follows grief and trauma in the wake of 9/11 and focuses on a design chosen as a memorial to the victims. The Number One Read is the more intriguing of the two books I select and has the edge over the Number Two Read, well for me anyway - that's not to say it's superior.

Sadly I’ve yet to pinpoint my Number Two Read – and that’s where I need your help. My Amazon wishlist is as long as the circumference of the earth (around 25,000 miles for the nerds) and consists of everything from classics to new releases. There’s The Yips by Nicola Barker, but it has a more gritty English setting, or there’s Painter Of Silence by Georgina Harding, but I think it’s a little too depressing to take on holiday, given the Romanian setting. What about The Long Song by Andrea Levy? Too melancholy? Yes, I think so. I haven’t read The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, but again it’s not what I deem a holiday read.

My themes are are broad church - I'm fascinated by the American diner and its place in history and in the past I've holidayed with my diner themed novels. I like a bit of intrigue, something off the beaten path, complex characters and a lot of style.

Help me with my holiday read.

Sodding technology

Technology frustrates me so much. I’ve no patience. I’ve been known to unplug the printer and threaten to throw it across the room. I haven’t yet followed through on this, but I’ve come close to it. I am aware however that a simple act like this could make me come across as a complete psycho. ‘Charles Dickens didn’t have this sodding problem,’ I mutter.

Let me tell you about the printer, the device I was hoping could produce quality print-outs, so that Mr Big Agent would be really impressed. It’s manufactured by a very well known company and I was impressed with the sales advisor’s pitch when I went in search of a new model.

‘Yes it churns out fifty pages a minute or something like that,’ he said.
‘Wow,’ I replied. ‘I’ll take it.’
‘The print quality’s great too,’ he added.
Better still, I thought. Mr Agent won’t need his glasses as he squints at the botched printing. He’ll be impressed with the quality of the pixels and the glorious sheen, so much so, he’ll e-mail me back and ask me the name of the manufacturer.

(As I drove home, with the printer in the boot, I cast my mind back to the good old days. I got a typewriter from Santa for Christmas 1983, when I was eight. And I loved it. Each night I diligently sat at the breakfast bar and created beautiful asymmetrical lines of:

QWERTYUIOP
ASDFGHJKL
ZXCVBNM

If I made a mistake, I borrowed my mum’s special rubber and erased the mistake. The page, when complete, was so pleasing to the eye. It was the most beautiful square.)

Once the new printer was rigged up, I tried to print my fifty pages/first three chapters. But the useless lump of a thing kept sucking the pages back in, creating a big blob at the bottom of each page. I ended up with thirty spoiled sheets. I was convinced it did this deliberately.

‘Sorry, trees,’ I whispered as I loaded yet more sheets into the tray.

At that point, I wanted to kick the printer, pull the leads out of the back and hurl it across the study. Deep breath.

I think it’s a problem we all encounter at some point in our writing lives – the inability of technology to co-operate. I am comforted by the fact it’s a universal problem. But it sucks up so much time. If only we could journey back to pen, paper and Tippex.

Not impressed with this printer*

*I could be doing something wrong. In all honesty, it’s probably not a manufacturing fault and more to do with the fact I refuse to read installation and instruction manuals.

It was on special offer though and the cynic in me believes that this is the shop’s way of clearing out what falls short of the mark.

Lick it and stick it

I hadn’t a clue what to write about when I switched on the laptop to compose my post, so I gazed toward the calendar for inspiration. None was forthcoming. However, it did occur to me that we're almost half way through the year and so far I haven’t revised my New Year resolutions to see if I have fulfilled them. To be honest, I can’t even remember what I’d pledged in the first place, but I think it had something to do with finishing the current novel, which I’ve done, and to write more short stories which I’ve not done. The fact that it’s April 30th is also a timely reminder to buy stamps before the post office closes today. The stamps I buy today will be licked and affixed to the rejection envelopes which will accompany the recently completed ms.

It saddens me that most agents still ask for postal submissions. And quite a few still demand the little brown envelope in which they will place their rejection. In the age of new technology, I often wonder why agents still insist on having the mss posted. ‘Save the trees,’ I hear you shout. I must admit that I prefer to read from paper than I do a computer screen. And that is my one reason for the strong dislike of the e-reader. But I imagine that it’s easier to store fifteen manuscripts in a device than it is to stuff paper into a briefcase, the latter conjuring up images of a post-holiday suitcase crammed full of bargain buys. On the other hand, it’s probably easier to make notes on paper. So I see the argument both ways.

Many writers are put off by the inconvenience that postal submissions often entail. I can say assuredly that I’m certainly not. If that’s the way my preferred agent wants to receive them, then that’s the rules I will follow.

I will bid my manuscripts farewell this afternoon as they are shepherded off in the Royal Mail van. I hope the stamps on the enclosed brown envelopes are steamed off by the agents’ assistants as soon as they arrive, and that they put them to good use on this year’s Christmas cards. I don’t want any rejections, thanks.

It’s April 30 – remind me of your 2012 writing resolutions. Have you followed them through? Are you even half way there? Or what do you think of postal submissions? But be quick because I have to get to the post office before the end of today because stamps are going up as I mentioned…quite a lot!

A Scribble of Writers

Writing Groups in my neck of the woods are very few and even more far between. In fact I think the only one I’ve heard about has been running for over 35 years in a local hostelry of dubious custom which I had the courage to telephone decades ago when I felt hungry for validation and that conversation scared the bejeesus out of me (though easily done). I felt like I was being interviewed by a cross between Laurence Olivier and Margaret Thatcher.  After said phone call I decided I didn’t have the requisite credentials and became a ‘no-show’ on their register.  I probably stayed in and watched Eastenders instead – only slightly less scary than getting my prose out in front of complete strangers at the back of a pub.

So it was with a certain amount of trepidation that I agreed to ‘join’ the writing group that the receptionist at my Osteopath’s office told me about.  In fact ‘trepidation’ kind of went off the scale a bit when she mentioned she’d been ‘watching me closely’ to see if I was the kind of person they wanted to be let into their Writerly circle as they were ‘a bit choosy’.

Have you ever felt wary and yet thrilled?  Thrary? Warilled?  I nodded a lot and kept my smile from morphing into anything too maniacal and asked her a bit about it; bearing in mind the fact I already knew she wrote and once  even asked her if she knew of any writing groups in the area and she’d said no, she hadn’t.  So not just selective but secretive.

They met, she said, every three or so weeks at the back of a well-known local bookshop and the other member of the group (I know, member singular) was the bookshop owner.  ‘So it’s more a duo than a group then?’ I smirked.  ‘Trio if you’re in,’ she smirked back.

She went on to tell me that they’d both written a book or two and that they’d had nice rejection letters from several agents whose names I recognised because I’d also had the same.  Along with discussing writing, she said, they also took it in turns to buy fresh Danish pastries and cappuccinos from across the road and occasionally they got ‘flashed’ at by a naked man in an upstairs window opposite.  Invariably, she went on, discussions about writing tended to end up as dissections of the local neighbourhood ‘characters’ from which they’d sometimes drawn their own.

When I left with the date of their next meeting scribbled onto my frontal cortex, I couldn’t help thinking that the whole setup sounded far too mad and far too within my own realms of fantastic imagination for it to really be true.  Maybe I’d made it all up. Perhaps this was how tortured I’d finally become and now it would be better for everyone if I just signed on the dotted line and took myself off to “HappyFields” for the duration.

When I got home, enthusiastically I Facebooked my news and was met with comments of concern and caution.  Was I not worried about the ‘watching you closely’ bit?  Um… no, not until you mentioned it, actually.  I was warned about meeting strangers in places I hadn’t been before and reminded of the security measures involving public areas etc.  Now… now I was a little bit worried.

But it didn’t put me off. In fact I couldn’t have been more excited if it had had a blue ribbon tied round its neck and was covered in caramel coating.

At the first meeting I felt as nervous as any first day at a new job and declined a Danish for fear that it would crumble all over me and I’d end up looking like a flaky fool in front of them.  But I needn’t have worried.  They are just lovely.  Both as writers and as people.  They are dedicated to their craft, have produced books worthy of immediate publication and I’m delighted to be in their acquaintance.   

There is something very rare that sits in a room with writers and that is the spirit of Understanding; of Knowing and of Getting It that just doesn’t happen anywhere else.   And as if I even need icing on this particular cake, we sit surrounded by thousands of beautiful books spilling from the shelves on the walls and covering the floor … a place where it feels like home.

And one of us has just signed a contract with an Agent so this year is beginning to feel very special indeed. Oh, and the crazy characters and the naked man in the window?  All true!

Celebrating World Book Day

Today (Thursday) it's World Book Day when children of all ages celebrate authors and books by dressing up as their favourite characters while developing their interest in reading. This is the 15th year of World Book Day and it has brought pleasure to many children who otherwise may not have had access to a wide range of reading material.

To mark today in a different manner, I thought I would talk briefly about the appeal of international literature and how it has gained a stronghold in the UK. You'll probably recall one of the most popular and talked-about reads, A Thousand Splendid Suns, the 2007 novel by Afghan-American author Khaled Hosseini which follows two women whose lives are intertwined. It swiftly gained a following in the UK and was a firm favourite with book clubs. Another of my favourite books which has received interntional acclaim is by JM Coetzee. The Booker Prize winning Disgrace is a touching, yet utterly bleak story of animal and human misery in post-Apartheid South Africa, its central character, the sex-obsessed David Lury, an academic whose daughter is gang-raped. A powerful book and a deserved winner of the Booker Prize.

We're British and the British like their British holidays, their British food and their British music - cue The Beatles. But, I don't think I'm alone in saying I like to take a journey into overseas lit as I enjoy savouring the flavour of the country and seeing incidents through other people's eyes, those immersed in a culture very different to our own. I like to soak up the atmosphere, visualise the scenery, taste their food (vegetarian dishes only!) and smell the surroundings.

A book I particularly enjoyed and which ticked those boxes was The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney. Despite being a British writer and having never visited Canada, she managed to evoke the time and place so fittingly for this book. The frozen plains of northern Canada were so authentic that readers there thought she'd accessed 1867 via a time machine.

For World Book Day I made a pledge to add ten more 'international' books to my Amazon list. So far I've added A Thousand Years Of Solitude, The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter, The Long Song and The Saffron Kitchen. I know The Long Song is a popular book and it so far has escaped my reading clutches.

As a final thought for World Book Day, I often wonder what other people are reading around the world - I'm sure they won't be sitting down savouring Bleak House or Wuthering Heights. Are books just as widely read in Hong Kong, Australia, South America, Romania, Russia and even China, a country of emerging literature?

What are you doing for World Book Day? Are you dressing up as Harry Potter? Tell me.

Contractions and a contract

This has been a summer of contractions and a contract.

On August 1 at 6:16am hubby and I gave birth to Amelie (7lbs 11oz) and a few days later I signed a contract for Novel Two (Novel One is currently on the backburner). If truth be told, the novel was far more painful and laborious, despite mum having hyperemesis from hell (extreme sickness) for nine months. The book took around two years from start to finish, whereas my labour (as a first timer!) was four hours and up until the last eighty minutes or so, relatively painless which I attribute to my chiropractic treatment.

Conception is just the beginning. From conceiving those ideas in a flash of inspiration and getting them down on a piece of paper, to the foetus developing into a perfectly formed baby, often I look back on both and wonder how it all started. And every parent I'm sure has gone gaga over early scans, aka the rough draft, wondering whether or not everything will turn out right and if all the bits and pieces will be in the right places.

When we found out Baby was healthy and doing well, we began to look forward to the end result, bound in flawless skin, like a fine leather book engraved in intricate detail.

With a birth and a book comes the plans. The birth plan went reasonably well - from waters breaking naturally to a fast birth and minimal pain relief, I was happy. Admittedly it did go a bit pear-shaped at the very end thanks to my soaring blood pressure, and the recovery has been hellish. However, I’m dealing with the aftermath by pulling my anger away from the forceps and trying to focus on Book Two - which had a plan. It was a lovely detailed plan and I stuck rigidly to it. Now and then I wandered off course, but that's part of giving birth to a book. We can't have it all our way.

The urge to push is very strange. It’s like (TMI alert) expelling a cannonball and for me, similar to the desperate urge to push on with a work in progress and meet those self-set deadlines. Once you have that initial idea for the book, you need to expand on it before the inspiration disintegrates into the hectic blur of daily life. Likewise, every parent nurtures a growing child, feeding, taking care of him or her and guiding the offspring in the right direction.

My book will no doubt be the subject of a future blog post, and like a parent rejoices over the safe delivery of a baby, I’ll also rejoice over the appearance of it.

Confessions of a hoarder

Hoarding books is a hobby of mine. I have books from the 70s, 80s and 90s, spine-creased, worn, torn and tattered but still loved. No matter how hard I try to let go of them, just like redundant boyfriends, I simply can’t part with them. I have my Enid Blyton collection neatly packed away just in case I want to read ‘Five Go To Smuggler’s Top’, the Mallory Towers set to fondly remind me of my school years, and The Secret Seven, in case I feel like indulging in a little detective work. And there’s the Nancy Drew collection, in case I suddenly aspire to be like Nancy and want a few tips from her on becoming a heroine. And the crème de la crème is my Anne of Green Gables box set which was purchased in America – my pride and joy.

It’s not just my own books I hoard. On one or two occasions, I’ve borrowed books from friends only to conveniently ‘forget’ to give them back. I innocently add them to my collection. On several occasions, the friend has simply not pursued the case of the missing book. Others have said: ‘Just keep it, Gillian. Don’t worry, I’ve read it.’ Now I don’t know whether they were just being polite or not, but I always took this at face value. Samuel Beckett’s More Pricks Than Kicks springs to mind as a borrowed book. I’m don’t think a kleptomanic, honestly. Or am I? No, I always ask before borrowing.

However, I’m the person who, when staying in a hotel, will trawl the room to see what I can get away with ‘borrowing’ – from the robe to the nice shower gel. In cheap hotels, they appear to fasten the large shampoo bottle to the bathroom wall, and guests have to make do with a few pump action shots! How unfair. I prefer the establishments which let you ‘borrow’ the Molton Brown bottles, soaps and shower caps. Confession – I still have the sewing kit from a hotel in Mauritius. Have I ever stolen books from hotels? No. Not even from a hotel in Prague which boasted a rather robust library in which one could browse freely.

But I do love to hoard and often refuse to share just in case the friend genuinely forgets to give me it back. That would hurt me a lot. It would be like losing a child. If someone asks me if they can borrow one of my books, I’ll politely forget once. If they ask a second time, I’ll hand it over, but closely monitor the situation until it’s handed back. What’s the most appropriate time frame to expect a book to be returned – one week, two weeks, or for the slow reader, two months? I have a huge collection but please don’t ask to borrow any of my books as your request may well fall on deaf ears.

Paddling the toes, transatlantic style

Recently I made a brief foray into the world of trying to secure a US-based agent. It was on a whim that I decided to pen my 'help, I need an agent' query letter. This sudden freakish fantasy was inspired by my discovery that a fellow Irish writer had garnered much success from paddling his toe transatlantic style.

Now I know this is a topic of some debate, with many writers saying that it's a better idea to target an agent in your own country. But the majority of agents are London-based, so what if you live in John O'Groats? Or the Orkney Islands? You get in a car, park it, get the train and spend nine long hours travelling down.

So let's pretend my agent's in New York. I get on a daily flight which leaves from the airport which is eight miles from my house, and five hours later I'm there. Voilà. Sorted. With e-mail, instant messaging, teleconferencing, and more, communication opportunities will only get better in the future, so what's the harm in having an overseas agent? Sure, anytime we need to ring the bank with a query, we phone India anyway. So what's the problem?

My second and fourth books are heavy on the Irish-American theme, like those of Colm Tóibín and where better to send my 'help, I need an agent' query letter, than to America? The first question the agent will ask is: why aren't you submitting to agents in our own country? I'll say 'well, don't you Americans just love us Irish? Every time I meet an American, they're keen to tell me their great-great-great grandmother was part Irish.'

And anyway, what if I decided to uproot and move abroad? I can't expect my UK based agent to follow me. There are pros and cons to having an agent abroad, but I think it's all down to a matter of personal taste and whether or not the relationship will work for you the writer. I'd be interested in hearing from anyone who has an American agent, but is UK-based or vice-versa, as well as people's thoughts on the topic.

For your info, the scary top agent in question wrote back saying he was inundated with work from current clients and thanked me for my letter. This was nice, considering I didn't send an SAE!

Photo: Brooklyn Bridge, New York.

Book Orphans

I have piles…

…actually only one but that got your attention, right? It’s a pile of ‘abandoned’ books that I have teetering by my bedside. In fact the orphans by now far outweigh the ‘To-Read’s. Which is a bit sad.
It’s difficult to know what to do with them. Although in the past I have been known to chuck them across the room straight into the bin. I daredn’t name names. With all these networking sites I can’t take that risk. Suffice is to say it ‘twee-ed’ me to death and I couldn’t bear it any longer. I actually felt insulted. But it would probably have delighted the next person. If Twee be their cuppa tea.
I do, however, have a small list of things that really get my goat. *clears throat*:

A Contents list. And by this I mean a list at the beginning of the book with chapter number followed by chapter title. Because a lot can be learnt from the title of a chapter. And if this is at the front of the book, then it’s going to be read before, say, Chapter One is even reached. I picked up one such book recently and by the time I’d read the titles in the contents list, I felt I’d already read the whole book. And after I’d read the first few actual pages, I was waiting for the *Chapter 1 heading* to happen. Which it did. Followed by the *Chapter 2 heading* that was about to happen. OMG. It felt so pointless. So annoying.

Mixing up the tenses/typos And, while we’re at it – isn’t this what a copy editor/proof reader is paid to iron out before it gets as far as our hands anyway? Once or twice I can kind of forgive, but every other page? No thanks. Unless the book comes with a packet of Panadol and/or a bar of Galaxy.

An MC who either works as a Florist (and there’s a LOT of those lately) an Advertising Exec, or anywhere Big in Media – or all three at the same time. Please, for crikey sake can’t we have some ordinary people who work at the Town Hall, Tesco or in the local Chippy?

A Preface. The more obscure, the heavier it sits on my mind as I try and read the rest of the story. What did it mean? Is *this* the person/situation it was alluding to? Am I missing something? Why was I given this information to begin with? I don’t know what to do with it – where does it fit? Should I skip to the end to make sure I’ve understood it properly or should I just open the nearest bottle of wine?

Too many characters. I can cope with two main and two secondary. And I’ll let those also have minor acquaintances but character overload equals brain malfunction. I want to feel close to my main characters; please don’t dilute. I once read a book that had 16 main characters. Never again. There aren’t enough highlighter pens in a set to keep up. Same with maps of the fictional area. What’s all that about?

Designer-names. If I find another MC who has a fabulous Louis Vuitton bag/scarf or hankers after some Jimmy Choos, then she’s joining that Twee book on the next flight into the WPB. What’s wrong with having a bag you got in the Matalan sale anyway? What are you implying? Aren’t I good enough for you?

Too many commas in one, sometimes five line, sentence. Please… I know the comma-splice ‘rule’ but let’s be realistic about it, okay - I thought reading was supposed to be an enjoyable experience? I don’t want to have to track back half a page to find out how the sentence began. This is not the reason I bought you.

Babies/toddlers: who get in the way. Perfectly ok if they’re the main reason FOR the story but if there’s action and/or conversation going on – please – give the child a dummy or ten quid to get out of a scene or two. References to them are fine but an interjection by them… no thanks. They’re just an annoying distraction and I have enough of those in my life already, thanks.

p.s. I got SO annoyed once, right at the end of one of  Tony Parson's books when his characters were dancing to Britney Spears' "Do that to me one more time" that I spent an eternity tracking him down to point out the error of his ways... I don't know if he ever read the e-mail  but I've never bought another of his books... so that'll teach him, won't it?!

Pet Peeves anybody?

Books versus movies

I like to read a good book as many do, but I also like to watch a good film. However, a well-written and entertaining narrative does not necessarily translate into a good film.

It's always exciting when a new movie comes along, one which has begun its life in literary form. Standing in the box office queue, you wonder what the filmmakers have done to it, and will there be parts which veer considerably from the book? Will they present the characters in the same way you visualise them in your head? Or - crisis - will they butcher the whole thing and change the ending?

A sizeable proportion of films released over the past few years have been books in former lives, a fact which prompted me to wonder what percentage of movies are in fact, adaptations? My (very) rough guess is around 18 per cent.
Books which have been made into films include: Girl With A Pearl Earring, Atonement, Fight Club, The Reader, Chronicles of Narnia, The Constant Gardner, PS I Love You, The Kite Runner, and not forgetting the Harry Potter series or comicbook adaptations like Hellboy. Of course those few are just a drop in the ocean of the vast number of book and film marriages. I also hear on the grapevine that both the Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (who last week sold a new manuscript for close to $5 million) and the wonderful Secret History by Donna Tartt (at last!) are to be made into films too.

I much prefer to read the book before I see the film, which I believe to be the case with many people. A book allows you to create the characters yourself, whereas the filmakers have presented them in front of you. There are some exceptions to the rule though - wouldn't you much prefer to watch The Godfather, rather than read it?
Probably the main reason that the average Joe Public prefers the film version is a short attention span and access to a form of 'easy' entertainment. The average teenage boy would probably prefer to watch a Vin Diesel action movie than read a book upon which the film is based.

There are various books I've read before they were made into films and have been a pleasant surprise when the red curtain goes up. Into The Wild directed by Sean Penn was excellent, retaining much of the sentiment of Jon Krakauer's book; however I did have a feeling it was 'Hollywoodised' as is the case with many.

And what about those films you didn't even know were books in the first place?
How many of you have been in this situation?
Friend: 'Fancy going to see Marley and Me?'
You: 'Yeah it looks good.'
Friend: 'Have you read the book?'
You: 'What book?'

But it seems to be the hotshot Hollywood directors and producers who take much of the glory for the success of a project. Who's heard of Vikas Swarup? Readers may know him as the novelist who wrote Q&A, the story of an orphaned 18-year-old who won a major prize in a quiz show. Many critics said it was a preposterous idea for a novel, but look at the subsequent success of the movie - none other than Slumdog Millionaire.

Perhaps your current WIP (work in progress) will be the Academy award winning Best Picture of 2012? Don't don't rule it out. And while I'm on the subject, can you think of your favourite book/film combo, a successful marriage that holds up on both sides? American Psycho? The Silence of the Lambs? 25th Hour? To Kill A Mockingbird?