Thank you Thank you Thank you!
I’m delighted (over-excited) to be able to tell you that… after only 3 days sales, Secrets has gone straight into the national Top 10!
I’m absolutely cockahoop and want to thank you, one and all, for your incredible support….
That’s all for now - I need to run around the garden like a mad thing… x
The Author and Her Assistant
(who tried to charge me 50p)
(we settled on an ice-cream… which turned out to be a damn sight more expensive!)
Well! What an exhausting, exhilarating day! My 10th novel is now, officially, published - and it was an utter thrill for your author to be out and about, nipping into book shops left, right and centre and seeing Secrets on the shelves! For me, the excitement of publication simply has not diminished one jot over the years.
Bizarrely, in Selfridges, the sales assistants refused to let me sign copies of Secrets until they’d had a long (rather stern) look at my author pic in the book to verify I was indeed who I claimed to be!
There are currently signed copies at Selfridges, at Waterstones opposite Selfridges and at Borders, Oxford Street. I’ll be sure to let you know as and when and where I sign more!
Hope you’re enjoying the new video section on the website - and that you’ve found the competition too!
What a day! So many lovely messages from you lot. Where would I be without you? Your seal of approval is more precious, more ‘real’ to me, than a month in the Top 10 (though that’d be rather nice too!)
Look at what I did to the sand at Saltburn on Sunday…
I thought it rather inspired marketing….and it was clearly visible for all on the pier to see! Saltburn Pier has been awarded the Best Pier in Britain for 2009 (Pier of the Year sounds better…). As most of you know, Secrets, my 10th novel (out on 30th April) is set in this wonderful, quirky Victorian seaside town.
Here I am, chasing Felix and Georgia off my handy work!
We were up in the North East because I was invited to give a talk in Whitby. It was excellent and I am so grateful to the staff of the Library (especially Allison) and all the lovely people (hullo Sharon Stone!) who came from far and wide to listen to me blether.
I also took videos at the Transporter Bridge, as well as at Saltburn, to provide you with my own tours of the settings of Secrets. I did the same for the settings of Pillow Talk (Stokesley and Great Ayton) and when I’m feeling particularly brave and technical, I’ll do my best to upload them for you!
I have to beaver away this week on a short story for Radio 4’s “Love in the Afternoon” which will be broadcast in June. I HATE writing short stories - it’ll take me longer to write than it takes me to write a couple of chapters. I think it was Browning or Byron or Someone Else Worthy Beginning With B who said “it would have been shorter had I had more time”. Give me 140,000 words over 2,000 words any day. How on earth can I fit a beginning, a middle and an end into THAT? Grrrrr.
Whitby Library 17th April 7 pm
Haringey Library (Crouch End) 29th April 7 pm
York Library 13th May 7 pm
Haringey Library (Alexandra Park) 26th May 7 pm
more dates soon…will keep you posted!
I can’t believe we’re a quarter way through the year. Gawd, what an old person’s thing to say that was! Needless to say, time has flown with my life peppered with highs and lows. Secrets was published in early February as a special edition for the UK airports - some of you loyal readers even made the trip to an airport just to grab a copy. I thank you from my heart.
I’m a perfectionist control-freak when it comes to my novels - some authors are quite content for editing work to be done on their behalf. I throw a hissy fit if anyone dares tinker with even a comma! Although I have done 10 novels in 12 years - an output many people marvel at - I do not ‘churn them out’. Each novel is carefully considered with in-depth research undertaken and by the time I submit it to my publisher, it’s in third draft. To arrive at those 130,000 words of original fiction, many thousands more words are written in the process! Then, after editing and copy-editing (which is to double check if the character’s eyes are blue in one chapter, they’re not suddenly brown in another!) the 5th and final draft of the novel is typeset and two rounds of proof-reading commence. Typesetting is bewildering. Somehow, entire sentences disappear! Elsewhere, paragraphs suddenly appear in italics. Invariably, words are split at the end of a line and look bad for it. Finally the work is ready to be sent to the printers - and I await my final copies.
The thrill of seeing my novels in book form has not diminished over the years. It’s the highlight of so much hard work, hope and energy. Imagine, therefore, how distressing it is when mistakes are made utterly beyond your control…. (more…)
Well, you know you’ve made it when one of your novels is featured in a soap opera… Thanks so much to you eagle-eyed readers who spotted an original edition of ‘Polly‘ in Coronation Street! This honour has to rank as highly as being a question on the Weakest Link…and a clue in the Daily Mirror crossword (I still dine out on those to this day…)
So, Cheryl Cole is to write a series of ‘chick-lit’ novels… Hmmm, what do I think about that? (check out my comments on the Bookseller blog) Ms Cole is gorgeous and talented…as a singer and celebrity. But can she hack it as a novelist? Does she actually know what it entails? Where’s her track record of being able to write 100,000+ words of original fiction? And hold on… isn’t she a singer? Has she ever said “if I wasn’t in Girls Aloud, I’d love to be a novelist”? Did I miss an interview when she’s previously revealed “all I’ve ever wanted to do is write…”? The quote I read said she hadn’t previously thought of writing, but that she’s “come around to the idea”.
Tell me she isn’t going to have her very own secret ghost-writer? Tell me that her fine UK publisher won’t now reject and forfeit fine unpublished novelists because they’d prefer to spend a vulgar amount on Ms Cole’s advance?
An author’s life can be a lonely ol’ existence - my working days are spent almost entirely on my own, concentrating very hard, doing committed research, putting in the hours and crucial fastidiousness to ensure I write good fiction. Will Cheryl have the time necessary to do this? And will she mind the long periods away from the limelight while she knuckles down to write?
Writing a novel is not about ‘burning ambition’ - where ambition is solely about publication or money or fame. For a novel to be a good novel - and worthy of the kind readers who part with their cash to buy it - it can only arise from the author’s absolute desire to write that story out of their system - and being blessed with the necessary talent to do so.
Oh Lordy. Secrets went to print today. It’s like sending a child off to school for the first day - you know they’ll be fine without you. You know they’re ready to go. You know you have to let go… BUT still you want to keep bringing them back to check they have absolutely everything they need. And one more kiss. And stay waving until they’re quite gone from sight. And you then feel utterly bereft.
I’m a perfectionist - much to the frustration of my publishers. Some authors I know can’t wait to see the back of their books - they are even happy to have minimal involvement in editing. Me? I’m an utter control freak. These are my words, THEY’RE MINE. HAND’S OFF! No you can’t change that comma! No I don’t want to use ‘green’ instead of ‘verdant’! No I’m not changing her age/ his hair colour/ the last two paragraphs of that chapter…. I’m obsessive about every adjective (yes yes, some are made up, I know!), every semi-colon, when a word MUST be in italics, (or in brackets), or when I need * * * (three please, one * won’t do) between paragraphs and not merely a line break. I can’t abide words being split between two lines. The spacing has to be just so. Sometimes I choose a word as much for its physical appearance on the page as for its meaning. I’m a nightmare control freak mad woman. But I do it because I care SO much about my work, my characters, their story - and most of all, the reader’s journey with them. I hope I’ve done you proud wtih Secrets. I hope you’ll love reading my 10th novel as much as I loved researching and writing it.
No matter how many people proof read, regardless of how many times we go over the text, there’s always a typo or two which escape. If you find one, please let me know! I’ll be mortified! I’ll be on the phone, barking at my poor publisher, in a jiffy…
