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An Excerpt FromThree Words

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A little bit from Three Words as promised.

rose in heart shape

 

“I’m so excited.” It was Tuesday evening and Tallie flung herself down beside Seth on Gaia’s big sofa. “A little bird just told me who’s playing at the Hare next Saturday.” Her eyes twinkled. “Pause for effect.”

“You do look more excited than normal,” Gaia commented, “which is a worry in itself.” She ignored the face Tallie pulled at her. “And as much fun as it would be not to ask you who but just to watch you try not to tell us, I will be kind and gracious and put you out of your misery. Who is it?”

“You’re fiendishly mean,” Tallie retorted, “But right of course. I’m nearly beside myself. It’s Underhill.”

Rob was grinning as Gaia, Ethan and Seth’s faces lit up. Serena was baffled.

“Really?” Gaia was elated. “Oh, I haven’t seen them in way too long,”

“Me neither,” Seth agreed. “Still the same guys?”

“As far as I know,” Tallie confirmed. “Well, Luke, Holly and Bryn for sure. Maybe Jonno, maybe April. Maybe both.”

Gaia rubbed her hands together. “That’s so great.”

Ethan nodded agreement, then noticed Serena’s puzzled look.

“They’re a band based in Cornwall,” he said. “Folky metally fusion.”

“Oh, but they’re so much more than that,” Tallie said pointedly, poking Gaia in the ribs with her elbow. “Aren’t they?” She grinned at Serena. “They’re the reason these two,” she gestured at Gaia and Ethan, “are together.”

Rob laughed and Seth was smiling. Gaia explained.

“Tallie and I were at uni together. She was the year above me but we were in the same flat. Luke was in her year, he’s the drummer. We were all good friends and Luke’s band got booked to play at the Summer Ball. Ethan and Seth came down and, well…” She took Ethan’s hand.

“The rest is history,” Tallie finished for her. “Oh, I can’t wait.”

Underhill did not disappoint. Serena had never seen a band quite like them. The energy seemed to crackle off the stage; most of their stuff was quite fast and heavy but the few ballads they played were hauntingly beautiful. the sound of the pipes seemed to reach right into her, touch her soul and the empty place beside it where her magic had once lived. She enjoyed chatting to them afterward when they came over to catch up with the others. Ethan noticed how Holly, who played the pipes and whistles, seemed to be watching Serena with interest. He moved to stand next to him.

“Picking something up, are you?” he asked quietly.

Holly grinned. “That could be taken in more than one way, but if you’re asking about magic, then yes.”

“I thought so.” Ethan was oddly pleased that he’d been right. After all, he’d picked it up about Holly, so he wasn’t sure why he doubted himself. Still… it sounded so farfetched. Holly wasn’t human, he was one of the fey, moving between the realm of magic and the human world as he chose. Despite his psychic gift, Ethan had been truly shocked when he’d realised how close true magic really was. He had never told anyone; Holly had asked him not to.

“I’m not sure what it is,” Holly went on, “But there’s something wild and mysterious there. I have no doubt you’ll find out.” He grinned impishly. “Didn’t take you long to find out about me, now did it?”

 

It’s World Book Day

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Yes it is, and in celebration of all things literary I thought I’d share some of my favourite books. Please do add your favourites in the comments; I’m always on the lookout for a good read!

5 books

Dreams Underfoot by Charles de Lint. Anything by Charles de Lint really, he’s exceptionally talented, but this particular one is a collection of urban fantasy short stories and is my go to book for comfort when I’m feeling in need.

Green Angel by Alice Hoffman. She writes exquisitely and this novella is particularly haunting.

The Wood Wife by Terri Windling. Full of extraordinary desert magic, you can almost feel the heat rising from the pages. I love this so much I have two copies (one for lending, the other for me!)

Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt. This is a children’s book but don’t let that stop you; the lyrical prose and intriguing story will leave you thinking.

Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn. You will never take the letters of the alphabet for granted again.

Skellig by David Almond. A beautifully wrought modern fairy tale.

The Miracles of Santo Fico by D. L. Smith. Funny, unexpected and uplifting.

The Secret Life Of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. Set in South Carolina in the sixties, it’s a sensitive coming of age tale.

Julie And Romeo by Jeanne Ray. A romance like no other and very funny to boot.

Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery. I adored this when I was a kid and still do now.

Guess I’d better stop now. There are just so many great books out there; happy reading!

A Little Bit of Dreaming The Moon

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picture of moon over sea

Here’s an excerpt from Dreaming the Moon. I hope you enjoy it.

 

Robyn and her friend Bryn are in the tunnels below the cliff, searching for what has been lost. But all is not going to plan.

 

 

Robyn forced herself to open her eyes and the first thing she saw was light. Not very bright, but definitely enough to see by and illuminating the tunnel in both directions. Ahead she could make out the cavern into which the tunnel opened, which also seemed well lit. She looked for the mark she had just made, only to find that it had disappeared.
‘Where are we?’ she asked. ‘What happened?’
Keeping his arm round her and pulling her closer to the wall, Bryn let go of her hand and lifted the bottle to show her. It was glowing fiercely now, almost incandescent.
‘I think somehow we’ve crossed over. Into the faerie realm. I don’t know how, whether we slipped through a rift in the shield or whether this is a crossing that neither side is aware of, but we’re certainly not where we were.’
‘Can’t we go back through?’
‘Unfortunately not. Humans usually can’t cross unless they’re with a magical being, but at the moment everything’s in chaos so who knows what rules apply. One thing I do know though, we need to keep moving because somebody is going to be aware of that shift and come looking.’
‘Which way?’ Robyn said. ‘Should we go back toward the sea?’
‘Don’t know which way that is,’ Bryn told her. ‘The approximate geography is the same but the transposition isn’t exact. I need to send a message to Holly, see if he’s got any ideas, then I think we should keep going, see if we can find another way out, or something that can help us in the meantime.’ He felt her shiver and gave her a quick squeeze before releasing her and feeling for the pen.
‘I’ll mark the wall,’ said Robyn. ‘Just in case.’
Bryn wrote the message on his arm and they watched it sink into his skin and disappear. Then they made their way cautiously into the cavern which was empty but lit by several flaming torches. There were several tunnels leading off it, most of them also lit. Bryn suggested they take the brightest one, thinking it was the one that was probably most used and therefore the most likely to lead them out. It was eerily silent, their footsteps echoing around them despite their efforts to stay quiet, and they were both on edge as they continued. Robyn marked their way and they walked for what felt like hours, up, down, tunnel after tunnel, with no sign of life at all. Finally they sat down on the ground in yet another small cavern, to rest and eat something.celtic knot triquetra
‘It feels like we’re going nowhere,’ Robyn said despondently. ‘Like in that old film Labyrinth. That girl, Sarah, she keeps walking and walking and it all looks the same, as if she’s not getting anywhere at all, no matter how far she goes.’
‘I know,’ Bryn agreed. ‘But we must be getting somewhere, surely. We haven’t seen any of the arrows you drew, so we can’t have gone back on ourselves.’
Robyn sighed. ‘We need a miracle,’ she groaned. ‘Otherwise we could be walking around down here forever.’ She leaned her head back against the rock. ‘At least it’s not dark. We’ll be able to see as we starve slowly to death.’
‘Cheery, aren’t you?’ Bryn said. He stretched. ‘Come on then.’
It was then that they heard the sound, a slight scuffling from the tunnel to their left. Bryn was on his feet immediately, finger on his lips. Robyn rose as quietly as she could. There was more scuffling, louder now, voices and a steady tapping. Bryn peered into the tunnel and backed up quickly. He grabbed Robyn’s hand.
‘Run.’
Glancing back as they careered through the nearest opening, Robyn saw with horror a large crowd of small ugly creatures wrestling and pushing at each other. One of them looked up directly at her just before she disappeared. They heard the increase in volume of voices, but didn’t wait to find out whether the things had seen which entrance they had taken. They just ran, following whichever fork or tunnel was the nearest. Behind them they could hear sounds, pattering feet and strange nasal grunts and whoops, varying in volume so that it was difficult to tell whether they were being pursued or whether it was echoing through from other chambers. As they exited yet another cavern, Bryn spotted a split in the wall, almost invisible yet big enough to walk through, and he pulled Robyn into the small cave behind it. They stood very still, desperately trying to control their breathing, and waited.

Life between worlds – writing a novel

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notebook, pen, laptopYou can get a bit lost in writing a book; it’s a long process and quite isolated too. You spend a lot of time with your characters, immersed in their world. Sometimes the real world is a welcome relief, sometimes it’s an irritating distraction. At times it can seem quite distant. The story grows and develops; it follows you even when you’re not actually writing. Your protagonists and antagonists feed you information, not always at the most opportune moments (mine often decide that the best time to tell me something vital is when I’m driving, usually with nowhere I can pull over to scribble it down). It’s as if you’re living in two different realms at the same time, each as tangible as the other.

You try hard to get the writing right, to let the characters have their say but also to keep the story flowing the way it should be. You cheer when it goes well and the words pour from your fingertips; you groan, procrastinate and drink far too much tea when the plot sticks or your characters decide to go off and do their own thing without telling you. And they do do that. Without so much as a ‘by your leave’ and then you find that they’ve changed the timeline or reconfigured the plot without so much as even conferring with you or asking what you think. Well, why should they? You’re only the author after all.

Eventually, eventually you get to the end.

Of the first draft.

But that’s not the end as a writer. Because the first draft is the basis but it always needs lots of work; editing and reworking paragraphs and dialogue, adjusting timeline inconsistencies, ensuring continuity of all sorts of things from the colour of people’s eyes to who has a dog and who likes what music. And then there are the typos and the grammatical errors and the repetition of words and phrases that need to be corrected.

So you plough through again, rewriting, amending, tightening up the prose and getting it closer to how you know it needs to be. And when you’ve finished the second draft, you go through it all again a third time, just to make sure.

Phew!

You’d think that’d be it then, wouldn’t you?

Alas, no!

It’s usually when I’ve got to the end of the third draft that I ask my lovely band of pre-readers to read through it and feed back to me anything that doesn’t fit right or hold true, anything that seems superfluous or out of place, anything that they think needs altered or adjusted. With these invaluable critiques it’s time for – you’ve guessed it – draft number four.

By the end of the fourth draft, hopefully the manuscript is as near finished as possible and as good as it’s going to get. This is usually the point where, having been living and breathing it for however long and having read and reread the story countless times, I usually think “This is complete and utter rubbish. Why did I bother? I might as well just dump it in the recycling bin and do everyone a favour.”

At that point I know it’s time to consign draft four to my virtual drawer and ignore it for a month or two. When I come back to it, it’s usually not as bad as I’d thought. Usually needs a few tweaks but generally it’s OK.

That’s the scary point. Time to unleash it…

A Birthday

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picture of moon over seaIt is a year today that my first book Dreaming the Moon was officially released in paperback. It was launched with titles from six other authors at a fantastic event in Lyme Regis organised by Magic Oxygen Publishing, which also incorporated the announcement of the winners of the first Magic Oxygen Literary Prize. It was a wonderful day, both an honour and very humbling to be surrounded by so much creativity and talent.

 

So Happy Birthday to my book and here’s a little excerpt from it:

There was a sharp stinging sensation on her left calf. Instinctively she reached down and rubbed it, thinking that she had been stung. Several seconds later, there was another on her hip, more of a blow this time, and then again on her shoulder. Robyn began to walk but the strikes continued and she noticed that small pebbles were falling all around her. There was a chittering in the scrubby grass and gorse either side of the path, high pitched spiteful laughter, leaves rustling and twigs snapping despite the stillness of the air. Robyn broke into a jog then a run as the stones became a hailstorm. She could just make out creatures in the grass, small twiggy limbed figures with long noses and angry eyes. There seemed to be a lot of them. And then the first one leapt onto her back, its gnarly fingers yanking at her hair.

“Get off me,” she shrieked, grabbing frantically behind her and flinging it away by its spindly arm. Another one had attached itself to her leg. Stones were still raining down on her, dust rising around her as she ran. Panic was nearly choking her now as she felt more of them grabbing at her, leaping in front of her, trying to trip her and bring her down. She stumbled, twisting her ankle but managing to keep her footing, slowing under the onslaught of pinching and scratching and stones. Just as she felt that she couldn’t go on, she heard Fiona’s voice, a memory in her head. “There are charms that will protect you from the fey, should you need it. Salt’s one, iron’s another, they’re the strongest. But red thread, bells and chimes, even turning your clothes inside out will work.”

Robyn grabbed the bottom of her T-shirt and wrenched it over her head, dislodging several of the little demons and sending them flying. Slowing momentarily, she flung it back on inside out, immediately relieved to find that the rest of them fell away. The storm of pebbles continued however and she accelerated back up to a run despite the pain in her ankle, not slowing until she reached the garden at the back of the shop. She fumbled desperately for her key, struggling to get it into the lock with her shaking hands, and flung herself through the kitchen door, collapsing onto one of the chairs as her knees gave way.

Jim was standing by the counter waiting for the kettle to boil.

You can check out my titles and those of the other Magic Oxygen authors using the link at the top of the page.

 

 

Dreaming the Moon release date

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So… it’s 2015! Happy New Year! It’s already shaping up to be an exciting one and we’re still only in January! One of the most exciting things for me is the publication of my first novel, coming out in paperback on 14th February.

picture of moon over seaCalled ‘Dreaming The Moon’, it’s a fantasy story set in Cornwall (a land of mystery and magic itself) where Robyn, an ordinary girl haunted by strange dreams, discovers that not only is there another hidden, magical world linked to our own, but that the barrier between the two is failing fast and she is the key to restoring it and preventing the forces of darkness from overrunning both realms. With everyone in danger and everything she loves at risk, can she and her friends outwit the malevolent creatures sent to stop them and fix the shield before all is lost?

Here’s a taste:

By the time Robyn fell into bed that night it was past midnight, and she was exhausted. She curled up under the duvet and dropped into a deep sleep.

It was dark – intensely, terrifyingly dark. The barest sliver of a new moon illuminated a silver thread of sea in the distance, but where she stood the blackness was total and heavily oppressive. Just moving through it was like walking through treacle. She stumbled forward, desperately trying to see something, anything. A branch caught her arm, making her jump, and she stumbled again, feeling her way but not seeming to move anywhere. Eventually she stopped and looked around again, straining her eyes to pick out something familiar, some outline or shape. But she could see nothing except for the narrow ribbon of sea far ahead of her, hear nothing except her own ragged breath. Everything around her was perfectly and absolutely still. She tried again to move, slowly easing her way toward the silvered water, concentrating hard so as not to lose her footing in the inky darkness. And despite the silence, the stillness, the sense of isolation, she was acutely aware that someone or something was watching her.

A Song From When Joe Met Alice

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When Joe Met Alice coverI can hardly believe that it’s almost a year since my first short e-book ‘When Joe Met Alice’ was published and appeared on digital shelves in virtual bookstores across the web. I still remember the sheer excitement of seeing the story I had written out there in the public domain; thrilling and scary at the same time. But it certainly spurred me on and the characters for other tales have been kind enough to wander into my head and say hi. They’ve kept me busy and have resulted in one novel that will be coming out early next year and another that is still a work in progress. Magic Oxygen have also published my second short e-book ‘Catching Up With the Past’. All in all, a fairly eventful twelve months on the literary front.

So, how to celebrate? Well, I am lucky to have a creative family and both my sons are very into music; playing, writing and listening. I was talking to Jed (older son, 16) about song writing and asked if he’d ever consider writing music for an existing set of lyrics. When he said yes, I asked him if he would write something for the lyrics at the end of ‘When Joe Met Alice’ and he agreed.

He’s been working away at it for some time now; writing the music, then sequencing the drum track and recording the keyboards, bass, rhythm and lead guitars and vocals (all of which he played/sang himself). Called Truth Won’t Die, it’s almost finished and you will be able to listen to it from a link here a little closer to Halloween. I’m as excited about this as I was when the story came out.

So watch this space, and perhaps if you’re wondering why Halloween is relevant, you might like to pop over to the Magic Oxygen shop to get your copy of “When Joe Met Alice”. And while you’re there, check out the other fantastic titles they have.

The Magic Oxygen Literary Prize

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MOLP posterMagic Oxygen, as you will be aware if you have clicked on ‘My Publisher’ at the top of this page, are the wonderful people who have published my books. But unless you have visited their website you may not be aware that they take pride in having a much fairer and greener ethos than most other companies out there. And they are very keen on encouraging creativity, wordplay and storytelling (most usually accompanied by a lovely cup of tea and some biscuits.)

This is why in June this year they launched the Magic Oxygen Literary Prize, a competition with two categories, short stories up to 4000 words and poems up to 50 lines. Each category carries a first prize of £1000, with a second prize of £300, a third prize of £100 and two highly commended prizes of £50. All the winning entries will be published in an anthology. Not only that but, true to their ethics, they have pledged to plant a tree for every entry they receive, to create the Magic Oxygen Word Forest.

It’s only £5 to enter and is open worldwide to anyone over 16. And it doesn’t close until 30th November 2014. So pick up your pens and get writing. Get your entry in! You’ve got nothing to lose and everything potentially to gain and what’s the very worst that could happen? You’ll have helped to grow not just a tree but the amazing and wonderful art of words.

For more details about the Magic Oxygen Literary Prize and further information about the Word Forest, go to http://www.magicoxygen.co.uk/competition/

Good luck!

A Cloak of Glass by Connor Cadellin Mckee

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I am pleased to have another guest post from the talented Connor Cadellin Mckee, introducing his new story, A Cloak of Glass, a short prequel to his dark, dystopian novel Children of the Crater, which was released in May 2014. And lucky us, this one’s free to download. Thanks, Connor!

 

A Cloak of Glass

Art work by Phanutchanat Chareonsap & Connor Mckee

It happened on the 19th of July, 2014. I was sitting in a Dutch coffee shop, a warm drink resting on the knotted wooden table before me. I was thinking not of drinking, but of stories. I wanted to write a prequel to Children of the Crater, that much I had worked out, but which characters to follow? One by one I ticked off Vanir in my head; many of my characters were simply too young to have much more backstory than I had already given them. At the moment my mind reached the twins, two identical women walked in and took a seat at the table across from mine. I said nothing to them, nor they to me; but the idea was planted.

By that evening I had the story mapped out, and now here we are. A Cloak of Glass has been released here on the internet (for free) via Smashwords. The twins are such mysterious characters to me, they are really fun to write about. Enjoy!

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/472043

Dreaming the Moon

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crescent moon over seaI am delighted and very excited to say that my first novel, Dreaming the Moon, will be coming out in paperback on 25th August 2014. The fantastic cover photograph was taken by the very talented Alex Smith (thank you so much) and formatted by the amazing web wizard, Simon West (again, thank you).

It’s a modern fantasy that follows Robyn, heartbroken and haunted by strange dreams, who discovers that this world is not the only one, but is separated from another magical realm by a protective shield that is failing. Thrown into a desperate situation, she and her friends are pitted against time and dark forces in a seemingly impossible task, the search for a lost fragment that will restore the shield and save both worlds.

If you like to look at life a little sideways, if you ask yourself sometimes ‘Was that only a bird rustling in the hedge or was it something else?’, or ‘Did I misplace my keys or is something otherworldly teasing me?’; If you’ve ever thought that the woods seem darker than they should when you’re walking alone at dusk, or wondered if it was just coincidence that you called your best friend at exactly the same time as he/she called you, then I hope that this will appeal to you. And if you’re not familiar with my work, may I (very cheekily) say that I have two ‘snack-size’ stories out as e-books: When Joe Met Alice and Catching Up With The Past, available from Magic Oxygen and Amazon, just in case you fancy an appetiser.

Izzy