Blogging and workshopping

Busy weekend - I did a creative writing workshop in Exeter on Saturday, and today I did an interview with fellow novelist Steve Emmett, who invited me to be a guest on his blog.

The creative writing workshop went very well. The eight people who took part were all keen to develop their novels-in-progress, I was impressed by their commitment and professionalism, and I think we all learned a lot yesterday! I'm grateful to Cathie Hartigan for setting it up, and I hope we'll be able to do more workshops together. You can learn more about Cathie's other workshops at www.creativewritingmatters.co.uk.

I had a great time chatting to Steve, and you can read his interview with me on his website at http://chukkienator.blogspot.com.

January Book of the Month

I've been a bit slow about getting to grips with 2011 - can't believe it's 6th January already! Why is my life flashing past so quickly? What can I do to slow it down? I know, read a really boring book. Or maybe not - I'd much rather read a great one!

This brings me on to my book of the month for January, David Nicholls's brilliant, wonderful, superlative novel One Day, which certainly doesn't need endorsement from me (it's sold in zillions and is still selling in zillions), but is going to get my endorsement anyway.

It tells the story of Em and Dex, two students who meet just before they set off on their adventures in the cruel, hard world, and it catches up with them on the same day each year. It's one of those novels in which the writing is so real and so believable that Em and Dex become the reader's friends. I haven't cared about any fictional characters quite so much since I read To Kill A Mockingbird about a hundred years ago.

David Nicholls shows the rest of us how to do it.

Inspiration

Since The Silver Locket came out, I've done quite a few interviews in which I explain why I chose to write about Dorset, why WW1 and on into the Depression, and why three families!

I think this one comes closest to telling all - http://luciewheeler.blogspot.com/2010/09/interview-with-margaret-james.html.

The Golden Chain

It's always exciting to see a new cover, and I must say I'm delighted with this one for my forthcoming paperback The Golden Chain, which will be published on 1 May 2011. By then, the snow will have all gone and it will be summer, hurrah!


This novel is the sequel to The Silver Locket and continues the story of a Dorset family into the Depression of the 1930s.

Long time, no blog...

...as my friend and fellow blogger Cathie Hartigan once said. I've had my head down revising a novel for paperback publication, and I find it's always best if you can take a run at these things, because then you're more likely to keep the momentum going.

Of course, life tends to get in the way a bit, and you can't become a hermit for a month without the neighbours wondering if you've died, but this time I managed to meet my target and I'll be able to take Christmas off with a clear(ish) conscience before I do another read through and find all the plot holes I missed the first time around - and break my long, long sentences up a bit.

Apparently, Georges Simenon (the creator of Maigret, the French detective) never revised anything, and Samuel Johnson hardly ever did. I am seriously impressed.

Christmas is coming

Why does December zoom by faster than all the other months of the year? I'm racing to get the revisions of a novel finished by the end of the month, and normally that would seem like plenty of time. But in December Christmas is sitting there like a great beast about to spring, messing up my schedules and fouling up my plans.

Bah humbug - or I wish it could be Christmas every day? A bit of both, actually...

Talli Roland - The Hating Game

Ebooks are here to stay. They've been a long time coming to the mass market, but in the past few months they've definitely arrived. Soon, say the futurologists, we'll all be using Kindles or similar, and the paper book will be no more.

Talli Roland's new novel The Hating Game is in the Amazon Kindle Store right now, is racing up the charts and is my December Book of the Month. You can find it at http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Hating-Game/dp/B004CLYIO2/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1291210467&sr=1-2

Talli is getting masses of positive feedback and lots of great reviews, so it's not surprising to see that the book is doing brilliantly in the Kindle Store today!

But, in case you haven't yet got your Kindle, there will be a paperback edition next spring.