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.

The right to write

Who has the right to write? All of us, I guess. But when the cult of celebrity takes over and breaks into the popular fiction market, there are many writers among us who get the hackles up at this brazen move.

I’m referring to the ever-growing list of A to Z list slebs who feel the need to pen some kind of popular fiction novel. I absolutely love The Hills for light entertainment, but now that the show’s reality star Lauren Conrad has penned a novel or three, it’s made me somewhat queasy. I read an excerpt from her book and I’m not even going to share my views on its merits or lack of. Put it like this – if I was an agent’s assistant, it would be straight into the recycling basket. But readers who have ploughed their way through the first in the series, 'LA Candy' have eagerly reviewed it on websites including Amazon. “OMG, this is brilliant!!” said one. Another reviewer thought it was (alarmingly) ‘well-written.’ Apparently Lauren has stressed that she has written them all on her own without a ghost writer in sight. And I would believe that. Reading an excerpt is not good for your health as you may end up with an IQ lower than plankton. It's like...a bit like the dialogue on The Hills...like.

Another so-called ‘writer’ (cough, splutter) is Katie Price. Why bother putting your name to trashy tat which you didn’t write in the first place? I can’t understand that, apart from the financial aspect of course. No shame Katie! Granted not everyone is blessed with a good command of English, but why not do something you’re good at. Stick to modelling/taking your clothes off, or acting. It’s like me claiming to have painted the Mona Lisa when in reality I can only draw stick men. Sorry, but I’ll stick to a hobby I’m genuinely interested in, and one in which I can invest time and effort. According to reports, Katie Price hasn’t even read her own autobiography.

While these sorts of books lack literary merit (don’t clear your mantelpiece for an award love) are we justified in criticising the ‘authors’ for their fluffy tales of romance and adventure which pull in millions of readers? A sort of modern day Enid Blyton (my primary school teacher blew his lid when he caught us reading Enid!) Perhaps they are aimed at readers who otherwise wouldn’t open a book to experience escapism or to enhance grammar and spelling. Co-incidentally, Jamie Oliver and Victoria Beckham claim to never have read a book in their lives. What kind of example does this set to the computer-gaming generation? If you haven’t read a book don’t boast about it! Shut up.

And a final word - please don’t buy me any of this reading material for Christmas. I’m predicting Cheryl Cole will be the next sleb to start penning novels. Let’s see…the story will be about a reality television star who marries a premiership footballer who ends up cheating on her. You read it on Strictly first! I don’t know whether to laugh, cry or scream with jealousy. Seeing these books on shelves may well persuade any hard working author to hang up his or her quill and start stripping instead.

Quick Fire Questions with Katie Fforde

We are thrilled to welcome best selling romantic novelist Katie Fforde to Strictly Writing. Thanks so much Katie, for taking the time out of your busy schedule to join us.

The first story I remember reading was...

The first book I read on my own was ‘Snowball the Pony’ by Enid Blyton. I was a slow reader. The fiction I really loved- a couple of years before I could read myself- were the Arthurian Legends. I used to make the children I played with take the parts. I was always the noblest knight.

Which writer would you be for a day?

The writer I would be for a day would be one who can write 3000 words. Don't care which!

Amazon or independent bookshop?

Independent bookshop every time. I'm now Twitter mates with someone at my local Indy, and she'll order things for me. Bliss!

You really must read...

An awful lot of books! I think a lot of Jenny Rooney, whose first book, 'Inside the Whale' was short listed for the Costa. I've just read her second.


I know I have my story when...

I know where to start and how it will end. Fortunately I can start before I know the end. I just get half the story at a time.

If I wasn't a writer I'd be...

A therapist. I love listening to people's stories. Maybe there's a way I could do it without getting too distressed?

Favourite writing snack?

Carrots. Crunching down on a raw one helps with scenes requiring confrontation.

Longhand or computer?

Computer, every time. My hand writing is terrible. Fortunately I can type.

My biggest tip for a Women's Fiction writer is...

To read a lot - you learn so much. And keep at it! (Second tip slipped in there as I couldn't quite decide.)

My proudest writing moment so far has been...

When I heard from a female vicar who said she'd borrowed a bit of ‘Thyme Out’ as a basis for a sermon. (It was the bit about bereavement.)

Three authors dead or alive I’d like to invite to dinner are:

Well, Georgette Heyer. She might be a bit spiky but I bet she'd be fun. Mark Twain, ditto and probably Shakespeare. I've chosen dead ones because I might yet get to invite the living ones to dinner...

Katie has published fifteen novels and her latest, 'A Perfect Proposal' is due out on June 10th.

Where it began

A blank piece of paper.
An empty writing book.
The thrill of getting a brand new exercise book on the first day of term; the feel of the cover, the colour on the outside and those invitingly pale blue lines inside just waiting to be filled with your very own personal journey through the next few weeks of education. Remember?
God but I loved those new, fresh books. For me they were like a clean slate. Which I’m guessing is where the saying comes from. A clean slate. A new Term. A fresh start.
And I always tried to change my handwriting. I remember clearly trying to make my loops bigger, my dots more pronounced, my tees, whys and effs cursive to shame a mediaeval script and for the teacher to tell me how beautiful my writing was.
Which actually did happen once as my best friend and I jointly won a ‘Most Improved Handwriting’ award and my prize was ‘The Children of Cherry Tree Farm’ by Enid Blyton. The only downside being that my writing was obviously crap to start off with, if it had ‘improved’ so noticeably.
But that’s where it all began for me. That year. At that precise time. I just wanted to fill and fill and fill those waiting white pages up with as many lovely words as possible. My “most improved” written words. And I wanted everyone to read them and tell me how great they were. And the more encouragement I got from my lovely teacher, Mr East, at aged 9, the more I felt the need to cast aside the boring old “What I did at the Weekend” (all much of a sameness - I cleaned out the gerbils, I walked the dog, I ate some more seventies stodge and groaned at ‘Farming Diary’) and so I began to invent things to make the two days I spent away from school sound more interesting than they actually were.
Which heralded my first trip to see the Headmaster. A formidable, Captain Mainwaring of a man who stood far wider than he did tall in his brogues and who could turn stone to jelly with a single well-aimed query.
So, why hadn’t I told anybody that my “Policeman father (actually a butcher, but Policeman is way more exciting don’t you think?) had been mauled into Intensive Care at the weekend whilst trying to arrest three masked gunmen who had broken into our house and tried to make off with my mum’s diamond necklace (realistically glass - diamante at a push) before our Alsatian dogs (in truth one daft Mongrel who’d no more raise a bark than lick a poor intruder to death) savaged them to the ground and ripped their throats out”?
Ah.
I clearly wasn’t giving out any indications of distress following my bloodbath of a weekend and was asked why this was.
And if The Simpsons had been on the telly back then, I’m sure I’d have given my favourite Homer quote in response to my total fabrication of creative genius:
“I’m not lying - I’m writing fiction with my mouth” (for “mouth” read “pen”).
So for me, fiction was just stuff that sounded far more interesting that my life actually was. And I liked it.
Oh, we had to have those three Alsatians put down of course and Dad’s never been the same since he hung up his Chief Superintendent hat and took that desk job at NASA. And Mum, well she keeps all her ‘bling’ firmly stitched inside her gold-leaf embroidered stocking-tops now. Next to her Colt .45.
And me? I write books. No, seriously, I do.

My archaeological dig

Until recently, I used to sit in my parents' attic on a Sunday afternoon, unearthing all my childhood books and magazines and sitting down on a cardboard box to a good random read. Taking the dust sheets off the boxes and blowing the few particles from the covers, it was a joy to transport myself back to childhood. I was brought up to read from a very young age and my school reports always contained comments in relation to my reading ability. 'Gillian's stories are always interesting to read,' stated my P2 report.

And when I moved from the family home, I took ALL my books, magazines and comics with me (yes, I still have copies of The Beano 1983 floating around somewhere!) They were largely discarded in a spare bedroom, which slowly over the years metamorphosed into a library which looked as if it had been ransacked by the National Party Against Reading (see what I've done there - thrown in a little gesture to the elections!)

While trying to sort out the reading pile, I unearthed many treasures including a plethora of books, I'd read, digested and then forgotten about. I never throw books out, and I never sell them on ebay, or drop them into charity shops. That's one thing I'm selfish about.

I have listed some of them here – many you will recognise, many you might not.

Five Go To Smugglers Top – Enid Blyton – This is one of my favourite of the Famous Five, along with Five Get Into Trouble. It follows the five as they stay in an old house and discover secret passageways. Reading critically now, I see how these incidents of mystery and suspense appeal to the younger generation.

The Lion's Way – Lewis Orde – I bought this at a school fair in 1987. I always headed to the book stall, which was filled with discarded reads sent by parents. However, this story was quite enjoyable, following Daniel Kirshbaum, a Jewish singer, overcoming the obstacles of Depression-era New York, and going on to succeed on the nightclub scene. I then ordered The Lion's Progress which I haven't yet read!

The Haunted Showboat (Nancy Drew) – Carolyn Keene. Poor Carolyn - I wrongly believed Nancy herself was the purveyor of these great mysteries, and the woman who inspired me to write my first novel at the age of 11. It was a Nancy Drew story involving secrets written on paper and hidden in trees. My friends thought it was a great book and better than the rest of the Nancy series!! It's in a landfill site.

The Tripods Trilogy – John Christopher - I remember watching this series with my dad in 1984. It was freaky, and I remember having nightmares as a result of it. These massive alien machines control human minds by 'capping' them.

Ulysses – James Joyce - I'd forgotten about this tattered copy, but I fully intend to get though it in one stint this time, instead of my reading spurt being permeated by other books as was the case a few months ago. If you haven't read it, then you should.

Carrie's War – Nina Bawden – this is what I call a great piece of children's literature. I read it in P5 and I found it such an enjoyable book. Set during World War Two, it follows Carrie and her brother as they are evacuated to Wales. It was made into a television series, such was its popularity.

Have you unearthed anything lately? I have a few quid to spend on Amazon, and always enjoy your recommendations.

What's In A Name?

Do you remember the early books you read? Or the first films you saw? In my case my favourite early childhood book was Enid Blyton’s ‘Five On A Treasure Island’ and one of my first film memories is 'Broken Arrow' starring James Stewart. Two very different stories, a treasure hunt off Kirrin Island with Julian, Dick, Anne, George and dog Timmy, versus cowboys and injuns in the broken wild west.

As a young girl, I sometimes wanted to be George, Blyton’s tomboy female character. I was fascinated with her character and the fact that she insisted on Georgina being abbreviated to George, a boy’s name. Other days, I wanted to be Sonseeahray, the apache girl who was Jimmy Stewart’s love interest. If I’m honest, most days it was Sonseeahray (meaning ‘Morning Star’). I even named my special Christmas doll after her. A blonde doll, whose hair had to be given a makeover with my father’s shoe polish in order to make her more authentic. I was six years old.

See, for me, the story began with the name of the character – and still does. Give me a name and I’ll write you a story. Each and every time I start to write, I begin with the character’s name. I roll it around my tongue - imagining where that person lives, what they look like, what their favourite colour is, who they live with, who they love, what they do for a living, what their struggle in life may be. All of it, all of it stems from that first thought – what’s their name? And for me, it’s always instant. I know immediately what they’re called and I rarely change it, because they become that person straight away. It’s like the word – the name – makes them flesh.

Looking back on my most recent novel ‘Plumb Crazy’ the antagonist is named Paul Chadwick. In fact, I rarely refer to him as ‘Paul’. Is this because the use of his full name implies straight away he may be a bit of a cad? Or maybe a more complex Mr Rochester type? My main character Samantha is a female plumber known as Sam (Hmmm...shades of Miss Blyton’s gender subtleties here?)

So, I thought I’d pose a little name game and challenge you readers to come up with instant characteristics with just a name offered. My current WIP features a main female character Libby Bowen. Other characters are married couple Cal and Chrissie Neames. All three have specific characteristics, jobs etc as created by my head. But what would YOU make them? What does Libby Bowen say to you? And what exactly do Cal and Chrissie Neames do that might be eh, misunderstood in today’s society?

Have fun!

This Girl Is Doing It For Herself

One of the downfalls of being an aspiring author and blogger is that you constantly read interviews with other writers, but no one ever, ever, ever asks you to do one! And we at Strictly are just as guilty of this. Regardless of talent or experience, we have only ever invited published writers to answer our Quickfire Questions. I don’t know why – gifted yet unpublished authors have provided us with great guest blog posts.

So, you know what? Today I am going to interview myself. It’s very exciting for me, and I am going to relish it as it may be the one and only time I get asked! Yes, it’s rather self-indulgent, but I reckon I deserve it after all these years of sweat and tears.

So please, published, but especially unpublished writers out there – if you comment on this post, do choose one question and answer it for yourself; I would love to see some other responses.

Three famous authors, dead or alive, you would invite to dinner.
Enid Blyton, Stephanie Meyer, Sophie Kinsella

Email or phone?
Email – far less nerve-wracking.

Top three dream agents?
Anyone who likes my work will do – that’s how it seems sometimes. But, on a good day, when I’m feeling choosy? Ooh, difficult – so many lovely (in my experience), highly qualified agents out there. If pushed, Darley Anderson, Broo Doherty or the Ampersand Agency.

And publisher?
The Little Black Dress imprint. They sum up what my writing is about – fun, entertaining (I hope) and my novels always come in at under 80,000 words.

Favourite desktop snack?
Chocolate, of course! Although in a moment of madness, I recently agreed, with my family, to give it up (watch this space). So, instead, a glass of Soave and huge bowl of cheesy nibbles.

Favourite writing outfit?
Anything with an elasticated waist. I know, sexy NOT – but see previous response.

In the face of rejection…
Never give up. Get mad. Get high on caffeine. Get drunk. Just don’t stop writing, rewriting and submitting. Imagine yourself like an onion and each rejection letter is another layer of peel. By the time you're in double numbers, it takes a lot more to get through to, and wound, the core. And I should know, i've just had a full rejected. I'm still standing. Here's to the next one...

My biggest technical tip would be…
Don’t be afraid. With my first novels I followed all sort of rules I thought were necessary to produce quality work. It was that bad at one point, I hardly dare write 'I’d' instead of 'I had'. Loosen up. Follow your gut. And then get some of it professionally edited to see what really matters and what doesn’t.

Hacker or Adder?
Hacker. To my disgust I always lose several thousand words on the edit.

If my favourite hobby wasn’t writing it would be…
Swimming. Although since my despairing hairdresser has forced me to don a cap in the pool, I might give it up. Yes, I’m still just about young enough for vanity to override good sense.

Epitaph?
She was what she was.