The Dawn Herald

A Gentlewoman's Game

2012-02-15T14:10:00.001Z

I'd initially only planned three books in my Three World Series: The Dawn Herald, The Shield-Bearer, and The Arc Of The Sky. However, whilst staring in horror at England destroying its No1 status during the recent Test Series, a new book came to mind. Literally. It arrived with all the unstoppability of a runaway freight train (and other such appalling analogies) just as we finished on 72. Now, 22,000 words later, it's looking fair to be a riproaring yarn, featuring all our old favourites: the source of all ancient evil (naturally) in the form of the Old Ones, Isolde (temporarily without her broadsword), the Witch-Queen of Ira Doon, the Reverend Mother of Caravel, assorted warriors, talking Squirrels, Dryads, star sailors, eight-legged Daughters of the Dawn - not to mention islands popping in and out of the ether as they are piloted through many dimensions. But would I even have had such inspiration if it hadn't been for cricket? Is my writing ability contingent upon the noble game? Am I so hopelessly addicted to the sight of Tendulkar's propensity to sky a magnificent six over long on or Panesar's corkscrewing left arm spin that I can't be creative without it?
Regrettably few people 'get' cricket (almost as few as get me, but then I push the eccentric envelope through the sorting room wall). You start talking enthusiastically about a perfect reverse sweep - my favourite shot, elegant and almost orchestral: I call it 'The Conductor'- or a cover drive straight down the ground and watch their eyes glaze. You share an anecdote about how the chap at silly mid-off or backward point lost half his face when a tail-ender batsman, who wields their bat like a lawnmover, smacked them one, and get the response: 'I don't care'. It's Test season, you're watching the news, and whilst you're eagerly awaiting news of how our Brave Boys have been faring, you have to endure piece after piece about football - how much someone was sold for, or how someone didn't shake someone else's hand and caused WWIII. You try to share your chagrin over Pietersen's decision to cut the ball at a spinner and lose his wicket, and they shake their heads politely and say 'who'? (This about the best looking man in cricket, whose recent lamentable performance is mitigated by the perfection of his jaw.) You're unable to discuss bizarre fielding decisions, like not putting in a slip or gully when the best-bowler-worst-batsman Panesar comes to the crease, with ANYONE. Malinga's extraordinary bowling style - like a man flinging himself at a brick wall - means little to many.A wide ball suggests elephantitis, DRS a railway line. Shane Warne's famous because he's engaged to Liz Hurley (and had his teeth bleached so that they are neon-bright, and ran over a cyclist). Speak of a slip and people will try to look up your dress.
Endless T20s, 40-over and ODIs aren't helping matters either. (Not to mention DRS, which has profoundly changed the dynamic and pace of the game, the approach of the bowlers and the importance of the umpires vs a mechanical system.) I'm a purist; if the chaps aren't out there in their pyjamas for five days, it's Just Not Good Enough. Now it's frenetic, populated by big hitters who bang fours through the covers and invariably get caught out LBW because they're simply trying to score as many runs as possible in the shortest space of time. Shorter matches may be getting more people into the game, but try to explain to them the sheer artistry of a Test, the gentle pace of the gentle game, and you'll be met with a chorus of 'bor-ing'.
I, on the other hand, live for Tests. I get up at half-five (and I am NOT a morning person) if a match is being played in Dubai. Some of my happiest afternoons are spent en-sofa'd, with the neighbour's-cat-who-looks-like-Hitler curled up next to me, writing in between deliveries. In short, I'm utterly obsessed. And if it helps me to write books, so much the better.

Ultima Verba

2012-02-09T20:29:00.000Z

What would you want your last words to be? Spike Milligan immortalised himself with 'I told them I was ill' on his tombstone (he also wanted to have himself buried in a washing machine so that hundreds of years later people could open it and go 'ooh, look at their burial practices', but an austere vicar forbade it). Bismarck is said to have murmured 'I could die for a good cigar', and, having lit one, promptly expired. Steve Jobs famously cried 'wow' before he went into the beyond. Many die in silence, others in terror; still more are unable to speak, though wonder is etched on their fading features. At present I'm opting for 'Shalom', in the hope I'll be greeted in kind.

The Value of Money

2012-02-08T14:26:00.001Z

I've bitten the metaphorical bullet and lowered the price of The Dawn Herald to 99 pence. A difficult decision. While I was crafting a hen pie (leeks, onions, carrots, celery, garlic, Fino sherry, white wine, mustard, chicken stock, browned chicken, lemon zest, thyme and heavy cream) and roast potatoes (in duck fat, crusted with rock salt, naturally) for a dinner party we had last night (during which I bit the Dude, and not merely from hunger: I'm still not entirely sure why. Suffice to say, I was vexed about *something*) I gave the knotty problem some considerable thought. A glass of wine and a touch of lightheadness later (note to self: don't drink blends, only the pure stuff), I came to the conclusion that the reason why I and half the world's population balk at cheap stuff is precisely because it IS cheap.
The cheaper the item the less likely people are to want it, except at Sale time, when they lunge on uninspiring blouses and vomit-coloured trousers with all the frenzy of a Dude at feeding-time. No-one would ever imagine that the cubic zirconia from Claire's Accessories bear any relation to De Beers' diamonds. Because De Beers charges up to many millions for its pieces, rather than 99pence. People wouldn't willingly choose a Vauxhall Astra over a Lamborghini. Rarity value is everything. And books are no exception.
What books do you associate with 99pence? Why, discounted books, of course. In one of those metal cages that resemble large wastepaper baskets with 'Clearance' on the side. Or in a warehouse of all the books that had become too dog-eared and foxed on the shop floor. Or the books no-one wanted, the rejected brainchildren of many a hopeful author. Conversely, books selling for the requisite £8.99 command respect. They've been printed by proper publishing houses, they seem to say. By people who want the author's work and are prepared to market it for them. Illustrated by entire departments of artists. With fonts especially created for them. £8.99 and above sounds serious. 99 pence does not.
However, I've decided that the rarity quotient just doesn't apply to virtual media. Bands put their music out there for free. The finest writers jot thinkpieces in the ether. Great art is available for the entire world to see and be inspired by. And offering a book on Kindle for 99 pence doesn't devalue it. On the contrary, it allows the author the kind of exposure that costs a publishing house millions of pounds in publicity - for free. Success is an elusive sort of thing, desperately sought by many and achieved only by the very few: one must use whatever means are at one's disposal to achieve it.

Fast Food and the Dude

2012-02-02T12:20:00.003Z

Xavier Denamur, top French chef and rightfully angry gourmand, has launched a campaign against the processed food which is doing such damage to France's international culinary reputation. It seems that naughty restaurant chains are having such French essentials as confit de canard preprepared in factories and passing them off as the real thing. This, says Denamur, is the Outside of Enough and Cannot Be Tolerated. The French are getting fat. With this diet - alors; horreur! - they are turning into their continental cousins: obese and with little appreciation of decent food.
I'm entirely with Denamur. No matter how prettily packaged the ready meal is, it's like an elegant socialite with her front teeth knocked out. Like learning to be human by correspondence course. Incongruous. All that 'inspired by ancient Goan traditions' and 'hand-prepared in our artisan kitchens' is merely shorthand for 'cranked out of a giant vat by Doris, our furious and unfulfilled assembly line worker, into a plastic tub which is then sprayed with enough chemical preservatives to murder a million bees and shoved into cold storage for eighteen years'.
I once tried to buy a ready meal. In Marks & Spencer, which is a byword for such things. I approached the package from every angle. It sat squatly on the shelf, mocking me. I picked it up gingerly and read the ingredients. And quickly flung it back. I believe I even wiped my hand on my coat afterwards, to remove the taint of contamination. I don't want to eat something that's '26% chicken pieces minimum'. Nor do I want to ingest something that has a great big traffic light on its label, indicating just how much quicker I'm going to die from the transfat overload. I don't want to have to ovenbake something which looks eerily Stepford and perfect, only to have it taste like minced mouse in a pig slurry gravy, wrapped in a pastry made from bathmats and tweed. Food shouldn't look as though it's been botoxed. When a label says 'free range', I want to know it's as freely ranging as the ducks, geese, chickens and deer that roam around our nearby fields and lanes, not some poor shivering hen crammed into a basket with a number of other shivering hens because the producer's found a loophole that means he can treat animals like dirt yet seem ethical. Which I am sure will be a staple in Denamur's campaign.
However, Denamur may also have an issue with my cooking. My food will make you fat. This is because I have a love affair with butter. We get through three blocks a week, minimum, and very little goes on my (obviously) homemade bread. How could you marry the perfections that are spinach, purple-veined garlic, alpine gruyere, heavy cream, beef stock, nutmeg and cracked pepper with some oily spread that promises to lower your cholesterol? What would a beef pie be if you'd sauteed your beef and chestnut mushrooms - the mere act of slicing which feels like cutting through cashmere - in cooking spray? And as for roasted potatoes: if they are not seared in goose fat and the best French butter with enough salt to demand an angioplasty, they're just not worth it.
The Dude is becoming rather complacent about my cooking. He pootles off each day with a full lunchbox of homemade comestibles, is occasionally fed a pigwich (bacon sandwich) for breakfast when the cricket is on, and comes home to a house warmly scented with whatever delectableness I've prepared him that day. On the list this week is coq au vin, curry prepared with my own curry base that took three hours to make, stroganoff impregnated with enough brandy to put you over the limit and a smoked salmon and gruyere souffle. Sometimes he has the audacity to ask whether I need to use every pan in the house, but I soon quell him with threats of withdrawing food favours.
While the Dude sits hunched over his laptop drooling over brass pencil sharpeners, titanium bike frames and tan leather goods, I can be found cooking three to four meals at once. Preparing stocks and sauces. Fending him off with a carving knife when he starts cheeping at me, mouth open like a baby cuckoo, pointing at his maw frantically to indicate the fact that he is hungry. Contemplating the latest development in the three novels I'm writing - or is that four? I have so many ideas buzzing around in my bonnet that I forget which world I'm actually living in - whilst marrying flavours that make my mouth water to think of them. So, to all eaters out there: throw away the ready meals and get into the kitchen. Ditch the Diet Chef and spend your Saturday baking. Xavier Denamur will hunt you down if you don't.

The Front Cover's Nearly Here!

2011-12-06T08:33:00.000Z

The First Print From Andy English Is Ready!

2011-11-28T09:18:00.000Z

The first print is finished! SPECTACULAR image from Andy English.

2011-11-26T13:34:00.000Z

Cover Artwork for the Dawn Herald

2011-11-22T10:52:00.000Z

Simply Stunning.

Illustrations for The Dawn Herald

2011-11-14T12:52:00.000Z

Some amazing stuff from Andy English ... and !

Competition Time!

2011-11-08T15:53:00.001Z

I've hit an absolute mental roadblock when it comes to naming Isolde's world in my debut novel, The Dawn Herald. I've searched through Icelandic, Cherokee, Norse, Cree, Hebrew and Anglo-Saxon mythology to find it: nothing seems *right*. Nothing. So I'm turning to the Interweb for inspiration.The reader who names Isolde's world will get a numbered, autographed first hardback edition of The Dawn Herald and will be thanked in the acknowledgments! Just post your suggestion and the inspiration behind it in the comments section below. Any takers?

The Dawn Herald - Artwork....

2011-10-28T12:55:00.001+01:00

I had to share Abi Daker's latest map of my imaginary world. Simply stunning.

It's Here! The Dawn Herald is Live on Kindle.

2011-10-27T11:50:00.002+01:00

It is astonishing that the moment you've been waiting for since you were four years old can be such an anticlimax. Perhaps it is because The Dawn Herald became available to the general public at nine thirty at night; or because we didn't have any champagne in the house; or because my dearly beloved, who has been an absolute rock of fortitude throughout the entire publishing process, was engrossed in "Wimbledon" which rendered him effectively deaf. Or perhaps it's because the realisation of a dream brings home, incontrovertibly, the fact that dreams are anticlimactic. I am not speaking of the strange subconscious wanderings that make sleep such an interesting process for me - a dinner with Nigel Farrage here, a horse tethered with a violin string and sitting on a dolls' house there - but the alternative realities we construct for ourselves. When we enter the alternative reality, we have to shed all the miserable preconceptions about how bad our lives will be if we're not successful: endless debt, being unmemorable and unremembered and unfulfilled. When we get what we want, we have to suddenly metamorphose into that version of ourselves we always imagined we'd be if only we were successful. I'm in the transition stage which, regrettably, involves watching endless episodes of The Gilmore Girls and doing the housework. Even in success there is housework.
A big thank you to all my dear friends, who have been so unbelievably supporting: bless you, one and all. For the first six of those who actually buy the first of my magnum opusssesss, I'll give you a signed first edition hardback copy when the artwork's available. A good incentive? I hope so!!

Welcome to The Dawn Herald

2011-10-26T10:51:00.003+01:00

"The Dawn Herald" is available on Kindle! At last! After five years of writing, rewriting, hair-tearing, nailbiting, absurd hope and crushing disappointment, "The Dawn Herald" is finished. Five years of carefully crafting submission letters and blurbs; formatting text, cold-calling, networking, hoping and praying. Five years of 'it's not for us, though it's very well written' and my favourite *ever* response to a pitch that took six hours to write: 'no thanks'. Five years of not having my work read; of having it returned crumpled and coffee-stained, ripped by too-tight rubber bands, of drawers full of rejection slips. Five years of near-hope as I have the book accepted, only to discover that the publishing house is an out-and-out scam; five years of 'waiting for my life to start' (a sentiment shared by writers and enneagram lovers, particularly Number 4s). And five years of rejecting the self-publishing option due to the all-pervasive snobbery surrounding it: if you 'do it yourself', you're not quite good enough/pandering to your own vanity/doomed to literary failure/won't be taken seriously. I've come to view the last sentiments as absolute rubbish.
The traditional publishing model is dying. Going the same way as vinyl and 8 tracks. Bookshops are becoming coffee shops lined with books. Digital media isn't the way forward: it's the status quo. While there will always be a place for the tangible book as opposed to its virtual cousin - the sumptuous coffee-table art book, the delectable cookbook, the weighty law tome, the lavishly illustrated children's book - people are becoming accustomed to carrying their literature with them in the form of bytes rather than print. It means that you can read what you like, when you like, without a literary snob squinting at the spine of the book you're reading and raising a derisive eyebrow. Accountants can read Harry Potter on the Tube; High Court judges can dive into the murky world of chick lit and Aga Sagas without being rumbled. Digital media is a great leveller, entirely democratic. It's available to all. Everyone can educate or entertain themselves wherever they happen to be for a few pounds. Access to literature is not a closed shop any more (excuse the pun). And today's writers are finding it equally freeing.
The typical publishing model means that a writer is tied into a contract for x-number of years with a whole host of caveats concerning what they can and can't do with their own work. They may have unknowingly sold the rights to their story in a particular format, which means they can't reissue their work in a different format, have it illustrated independently, or distribute it as they wish. If they're not careful, their characters may end up in cereal packets or as a Ready Meal toy or, in a case that incensed book lovers and nostalgia hounds the world round, Paddington Bear in an advertising campaign for Marmite. They have to fork over a hefty 70% of their royalties to the publishing house; advances are drying up; and there's no guarantee that their book won't be edited until it's unrecognisable, marketed in a way they find inappropriate, or illustrated in a way they hate.
Publishing to Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Apple et al turns the publishing model on its head. You keep 70% of the profit. You choose your own artwork - I've used the best illustrators out there: Andy English, who is creating three exquisite woodcuts (one for each part of the novel) and Abi Daker who has produced a delicious map and a series of watercolours to illustrate the whole.You can amend your book whenever you wish, market it freely, and control what happens to it. So, although self-publishing is in one sense an absolute leap in the dark - I feel rather like a mother sending her child off on the first day of school and hoping said child doesn't get kicked or dumped in the litter bin. What if no-one likes it? - it's an awful lot more freeing. I know that I am the creator of my own success; the amount of effort I put into marketing The Dawn Herald will be commensurate with the number of people aware of it. Isn't it a hundred times more satisfying to know that you have earnt the proceeds of your hard labour? As Dale Carnegie said: 'The harder I work, the luckier I get.'