A Dream Come True

Last week I had a dream come true.

It's not often you can say that. It was a dream I've had since - probably - age seven.
Yes. I can fly.




No. It's a different dream. It's the one I've had since I learned 'Roger Hargreaves' on the Front of the Mr. Men books was the name of a person, not a company, like Ford.
The dream was too have a book in print. Of course, back then, I had no idea it would look like this (massive thanks to the creative genius of Mr Oliver Prentice).

The first long story I wrote was more or less a rip off of parts of the Green Grass of Wyoming and Silver Brumby books (you can find them HERE  and HERE). I think the plagiarism is forgiveable. I was ten.

In the last twenty years I've completed three novels, three screenplays, two TV pilots, two radio plays, and written the first halves of five different novels. I've sent a couple of hundred submissions to agents and publishers.

Nothing stuck.

Then I heard about Amanda Hocking's success, thought 'I can do that' and last September published SONG TO WAKE TO as an eBook. I never planned to self publish in paperback, in fact, for years I've felt a little bit sneery towards self-publishers. However, once I released the eBook, it became the natural next step.

Though it was only natural thanks to Createspace, Amazon's astonishing one stop shop. You upload your text and they tell you what to do to turn it into a book. They tell you how to create a cover (or in my case they tell Olly how to make a cover). You decide how much you're going to charge for it, and BANG, it's on sale on Amazon. Every time somebody wants one, they print it. Plus now I have things to give away as prizes in competitions, bribes to reviewers, etc, etc.

But most importantly, those of you who don't read eBooks can get a copy for yourself, HERE

Anne Hathaway, 'Switched' by Amanda Hocking, and Princess Di.

Life doesn't seem to suit you, nobody really gets you, you don't get them, they don't show you the kind of respect you're due. Life is tough.
Then one day somebody tells you you're secretly royal. You don't believe them, of course, but they keep telling you. They give you a little bit of proof. in the end, inevitably, you believe. Hurrah!
You're royal, a proper prince or princess.
This story is played out in millions of books, films, songs. The latest I've read is Switched, by Amanda Hocking.
Alright, Hocking twists it a touch. Her heroine finds out she is a troll princess, a changeling who was swapped at birth, and who's mother hated her to the extent that she was diagnosed as insane and locked up. This stuff is interesting, but annoyingly skated over. It should be massively traumatic, especially the story of the boy who was abducted from her family and raised among strangers. He seems fine, everything seems mainly fine, apart from the massive trauma of deciding which boy to fancy.
But of course, as is the case in most of these stories, being royal turns out to be not as amazing as you hoped. The future of this young woman is a case in point...

Still, Hocking's heroine manages, and has the option to walk away, in the end. The lesson, maybe, is the though it seems so much duller, REAL LIFE can be much easier than ROYAL LIFE. My story, 'Song to Wake to' has a royal strand. It's due out on September 15th, and in the meantime I'd really like your help choosing the COVER... Thanks!

Teenage Losers, Vampires, Nigella Lawson, and Amanda Hocking's 'My Blood Approves.'

In 'My Blood Approves,' seventeen year old Alice Bonham falls in with a family of vampires. The first half of the book is mainly about when is she going to realise they're vampires, and then it's all about which of them will she devote herself to, and how will a possible vampire life conflict with her human life and her family.

The plot is neatly built up, and you want to know what happens next. The book's great strength, I think, is the authenticity of the teenage voice. The moods, the turns of phrase and the pop culture seem to me to be absolutely dead on.

The thing that bugs me about this is the thing that bugs me about other vampire stories: Why are teenage vampires so amazing? Why are they always beautiful, cool, smart, fearless, and supremely athletic. And I reckon it's some kind of wish fulfillment. As a teenager, school can be a complete jungle and I think writers get a lot of success with vampires, because they've invented the 'Superteenager.' Readers visualise these beings and think 'if only that was me, if only somebody bit me and I became a hero.' Vampires even have the 'not bothered' quality that teens admire. They're amazing, but they don't even care. Edward Cullen and his family are prime examples. I suppose stories with amazing teenage vampires are the ones that sell, but I'm still looking for the story with the vampire who never gets asked to the prom, or gets his lunch money stolen.

This is because teenage readers are continually being let down. It's not possible to be a school prince or princess by being a vampire. The message I wish writers would give them is one I got from Nigella Lawson. 'It's not possible to be a 'superteenager' but don't worry. You'll get through it, and then you'll be brilliant.

I was terrible at being a teenager. I didn't get any of it. I always looked two years younger than I was, I was scared of the opposite sex, I liked answering questions in class, I didn't know what was fashionable, I wasn't interested in music or other teenager interests, I had a stupid haircut... (I could go on). And for years afterwards, as I learned how to make life work, I was regretful that I had messed up my schooldays. And then Nigella spoke to me. Or rather, I read a quote of hers in a newspaper article, where she described herself as something like 'not very good at being a schoolgirl' (I can't remember her exact words, if you track it down please let me know). And that was actually no big deal, she was much better at being older. My proof is the video above. Look at her. She is a marvel of decadent food and downright sauciness. The ten seconds of Wham is just a bonus...

So there it is, my message to Alice Bonham and all the teenage losers out there, courtesy of Nigella Lawson: You don't survive teenage years by becoming a vampire. You do it by just waiting. I know it seems like forever, but in fact it's not that long and you get far more mileage out of being a Superadult than a Superteenager. Pass it on.