Watching Willow Watts Launch Party!

It's really great to see so many blogs out there celebrating the Launch of Talli Rolland's Watching Willow Watts - her fabulous second novel.

I have my copy already and if you're so inclined, you can buy a copy of Willow for yourself on Amazon UK for £1.71, or on Amazon.com for $2.99.
Paperback coming in November!

So ... If I could be anyone, who would I be?

There are so many choices, as there are so many people that I admire (and envy just a little bit). But the person I'm going to choose is Bertie Wooster.



Bertie Wooster was a fiction character created by the inimitable PG Wodehouse. He is a gentleman of independent means (in other words sufficiently wealthy that doesn't have to work for a living) and is looked after by the utterly brilliant Jeeves - his "gentleman's gentleman". If you ever get a chance to read any of the PG Wodehouse stories or watch any of the TV series episodes broadcast between 1990 and 1993, staring Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry, take it with both hands.
I can only hope I wouldn't be such a silly ass as poor old Bertie!

Actually, if I were to give a more serious answer to this question, I would say that if I could be anyone, I would be me. For all the ups and downs of my life, I wouldn't want anyone else's, because I already have so much that I could not bear to let go.

Good luck Talli with launch day - I hope that Willow is the huge success that you deserve it to be!

The Pivotal Point

Last week I awoke from a hectic dream where I was the central character at a moment of high drama. I was aware that the world was fully formed in the background and the moment of the dream was a wonderful plot twist where the villain tried to destroy me but instead empowered me. There were four basic facts I needed to remember and I repeated them over and over in the hope that I would still remember them when I woke in the morning. Fortunately it worked.

As I re-imagined that scene from my dream, I realised that it was the key pivotal point in a much greater story. I could very easily trace backwards in time and see the steps that had to have occurred in order for me to arrive at that moment, indeed the pivotal moment practically dictated the starting point. I realised too that the rest of the story was simply playing out the inevitable consequences of that pivotal moment. I sat down for an hour and, seven pages later, I had mapped out the entire plot line for a high fantasy novel. The pivotal moment is not the climax, indeed it may not even be at a moment of crisis, neither is it just one of the key moments which joins a novel together like a dot to dot puzzle. It is the point to which the characters move from the beginning and from which the characters travel to the end.

For me the pivotal moment of JRR Tolkein's "Lord of the Rings" was Frodo saying "I will take the ring to Mordor, though I do not know the way" Up to that moment the characters had been fleeing from a half understood evil, and were driven towards Rivendell. The rest of the novel related the consequences of that decision for each of the fellowship. Here the pivotal moment was comparatively early in the novel, but the pivotal moment could just as easily be nearer the end

Take an entirely different genre, say Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice". For me the pivotal moment was not Elizabeth's visit to Pemberley, even though that was arguably the point at which Elizabeth's feelings changed from contempt to admiration, it was, I believe, the moment when Darcy declared Elizabeth to be "handsome" after she and the Gardiners had dined at Pemberly. Up to that point the characters words and actions had been controlled by their pride and prejudice, but this was the point after which the characters actions are controlled by their hearts rather than their heads and the story unfolds as a natural consequence of this.

Can you identify a pivotal moment in your favourite book. Can you identify one in your own book?

I'm Back!

Hello everyone - nice to be back.

We have just returned from a fortnight's holiday in the north of Wales in a little village called Llanaelhaearn (pronounced lan - eyel - hern apparantly) and am feeling much refreshed. The area we were staying in was essentially a farming area, as could be determined at the local newsagents - magazines about computers = 0, magazines about gaming = 0, magazines about knitting and stitching = 0, magazines about art = 0, magazines dedicated solely to tractors = 11! The holiday was biased towards walking and visiting ruined castles (which doubled up as some superb research for my fantasy series - I found the perfect setting and the perfect example of castle, as well as the perfect layout of medieval house as the Foresters Hall. I have been inspired!). We managed a couple of visits to the beach, but my complexion blushes at the mere mention of the sun, so I end up taking an umbrella and embarrassing everyone!

Here is the local beach with the almost mountain in the background which we climbed on our first day. I say 'almost mountain' because it is 50m shy of the official UK government definition of a mountain - ah well - you can't win 'em all.

Here is another view of the local beach / harbour. We managed a bar-b-q here one evening - had to light three of the portable ones before we got one that worked!

We visited Harlech castle when they were hosting a tournament. The castle was wonderfully situated and absolutely worth the visit, but the tourney was frankly a bit naff! Admittedly they might get into trouble if they injured each other mortally, but the participants merely knocked the swords together ponderously until one of them decided to fall over. Ah well, at least the show kept all the visitors in one place while I wandered around! Anyway, that's enough of photos. Suffice it to say that we did lots of things in a beautiful corner of the country.

Now I'm back to the internet I can go visiting and find out what you have all been up to while I've been away.