It's The White Road and Other Stories' first birthday today. Wow. What a year! My great writer/blogger colleague and friend Nik Perring. has interviewed me about that first year over at his blog. A few tantalising snippets, and then down to the Free Book stuff...

Because I am published by a small press, Salt, even though they are amazing and they made me this beautiful book, most of the marketing and promotion was and is down to me. And I have no clue about selling a book! Well, perhaps now I have a bit more of a clue. So, basically, I made it up as I went along. I built a website for the book, I set up a Facebook Page, I organised a hectic 11-stop Virtual Book Tour where I was interviewed on 11 blogs over 11 weeks about everything from my love for science to writing and religion.... I cajoled as many people as possible into writing reviews....I obsessively checked my Amazon rankings, searching for some indication of whether what I was doing was working. And whirring through my mind, all the time, was: “How can I sell the book? How can I sell the book?”

To find out the biggest surprises of the last 12 months, and more, pop in to Nik's blog...........

Read Full Post

Deborah Durbin has been a freelance journalist for 12 years, contributing features to numerous publications including My Weekly, Fate & Fortune, It's Fate, Natural Health and The Daily Express. She is also the author of 12 non-fiction books. You can visit her website at www.deborahdurbin.com, and her blog at http://deborah-durbin.blogspot.com/



So far this week I have learned that if you mix strawberries, mint, lemon juice and a little milk powder together you can create the most marvellous, natural face-pack. I’ve also learned that if you apply honey to a burn, it will heal much quicker and it will also prevent scarring. I now also know that a study carried out in the Netherlands found that by drinking three to four cups of the nation's favourite drink you can reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke by up to 70 percent.

As a freelance journalist this is the best part of my job; learning about things that I might never have had the opportunity to know about and it amazes me how much trivia I now know – I think I would make a good contestant on Who Wants to be a Millionaire?.

I mainly write for the women’s lifestyle market, so it covers quite an extensive range of topics: in my 12 years as a journalist I have covered a diverse amount of subjects; from Native American Astrology to 50 facts you never knew about chocolate and almost everything in between.


Read Full Post

Most writers know the feeling that our fictional characters have lives of their own, but I never thought when I set out to write A Secret Alchemy that one of my characters would turn up on Twitter. A Secret Alchemy was published in April, and in the last couple of weeks Elizabeth Woodville has been tweeting. Philippa Gregory just published a novel based on her, and has been promoting it by this extremely twenty-first century means.

Neither of us is the first, of course. As I've described elsewhere, it was seeing Shakespeare's Henry VI plays which set me thinking about Elizabeth, and my first attempt at her was over a decade ago: it's got easier for all of us since then because two modern biographies have been published. Sitting in the Young Vic I instantly remembered Josephine Tey's 1930s description of her in The Daughter of Time as "the indestructible beauty with the silver-gilt hair" (hope I've quoted that right - I don't have a copy to hand). And I know of at least Sharon Penman's The Sun in Splendour and Rosemary Hawley Jarman's The King's Grey Mare, which focus on Elizabeth, and no doubt there are more: dozens, if you include novels centred on others of her extended family. Follow "Customers who bought this also bought..." and you'll get the idea. I haven't read Gregory's The White Queen, though I've admired the cover, and it's a great title. Indeed, I haven't read anything by Gregory since her first novel many years ago, so I can't even make an assumption about what it's like.

Certainly I've never 'studied the market' or read books because they're successful (that way lies the writerly suicide of tangling with the market for ropes), but only because I fancy them.

Read Full Post

So, after writing this last blog for a while, I must clear up the bedside clutter and clean some floors before we pack for Italy. It's been a really hectic August, what with having to disassemble my plans for the Winter just after I'd made them, so I can spend two months volunteering in Spain, the camping trip and D's job search. Not to mention the new lodger. At least we'll know someone is clearing the letterbox. The temporary postman is too harrassed to push things all the way through.


Read Full Post

A couple of weeks ago I read (as mentioned here) and loved Lizard by L Schick.I contacted her immediately to see if she'd like to be interviewed here and I was thrilled that she said yes. And I'm even more thrilled to be able to show you all what she had to say...


Welcome to the blog, Leonore – I’m delighted to have you here.
It's a comfortable blog, I'm delighted to be here, I might stay.

I absolutely loved your book, Lizard. Can you tell us a little about it?
Thank-you. This makes me very happy. It is a novella - which by Wikipedia's standards is a story under 50 000 words. It is about a metamorphosis, but never a complete one.

Read Full Post

Yes, we're here! And we have Internet, which arrived the day after we did, miracle of miracles. Bristol is lovely, although rather damp and half the temperature (celsius) of where we moved from. It's delightful, confusing, disorienting, I am finding that my English isn't quite what I thought it was... they say that after 5 years in a country where your mother tongue isn't the native language, you are no longer a native speaker of that language. I can understand that now. I like to think it makes my writing more "colourful"!

I won't write too much more now, just to say that it is lovely to be in a place where people's default expression when they meet you on the street is a smile. I like that. I am sure there will be other things I find harder, and many aspects of Israel that I miss. Give me time, I will moan. And will take pictures of our new home when our stuff arrives on Tuesday.

Other things to report:...

Read Full Post

For the past week I've been on a strict routine for the new novel, rising at 6.30am and writing for two hours before the rest of the house is awake. I'm at the stage where what matters is getting black on white, putting in the hours until I have the story lodged so firmly under my skin I'm dreaming of the characters and can't wait to get up and at 'em. For now though I will admit it is hard work, especially the early rising. This morning there was an exciting bit of news to reward my bright start to the day.

Read Full Post

Five unexpected events that have occurred since last I blogged:

1) A Barba Do Tio Alonso arrived in the post - Uncle Alonzo is a fully-fledged Brazilian at last! Now all I need is someone who speaks Portuguese to translate for me...

2) Following a generous gift of fresh-from-the-tree damsons from a lovely neighbour, I have successfully cooked two different damson-related desserts from scratch! Recipes to come in later posts.

3) I have started driving lessons again. No fiddling about with manual cars for me this time, though; it's automatic all the way! I have decided that I possess neither the patience nor the robust mental disposition necessary to cope with a manual car. Yes, I've heard all the arguments - 'What if you have to drive someone else to hospital in their car?' being one of the most popular. Frankly, if my control of a manually operated automobile is all that stands between the critically ill individual in question and certain death, then they might as well start picking out hymns... ;-)


Read Full Post

So far, most of my posts on this new blog are about Matthew. Can’t resist this next one though. I’ll justify it by using it for a short story.

Read Full Post