Knowing when to stop…

May 7, 2013 by sharonsant

You may be heaving a silent sigh of relief that my blog has been quiet this week. You could say I’m on location! I’m on holiday with lots and lots of family members and there isn’t much time alone for blogging. The fact is, I had promised myself that I wouldn’t blog or write anything this week. Since the end of last year, I’ve worked every spare minute trying to make some sort of impact on the world of publishing, not to mention new books that I’m desperate to write. But I know that time away from all that is good for the soul, or so everyone keeps telling me, so I decided that time away from it is exactly what I would get.

Except I just can’t do it. The laptop came with me ‘just in case’. Internet is sporadic at best here but I’ve wrangled and fiddled to get it working in a fashion, ‘just in case’. Yesterday I went to the most beautiful beach, Blackpool Sands in Devon. It was gorgeous, however, everywhere I looked I saw not scenery but stories. It’s just no good, this bug has me gripped.

I decided today that all I can do is give in and write where I have a quiet spare minute. I realised that there really is no need to feel like I’m a workaholic who can’t stop, because writing doesn’t feel like work to me. It’s what I do. If I never sold another book again I’d still do it. Where others go off and play tennis, I get as much fun out of telling a story. I may be less able to find the time this week to do as much as I normally would, but I’m not going to feel guilty about wanting to sneak the odd 500 words in here and there. The hours I spend every week at the laptop may be long, and at times and I may get frustrated, but it’s only in the same way that my daughter will sit for hours trying to complete a level on Temple Run.

So, I’m off to tap out a thousand words on a very close to being finished WIP before I hit the cider and one epic game of Trivial Pursuits begins.

The next big thing… take two!

May 1, 2013 by sharonsant

You may have a distinct feeling of deja vu when you read this post, but I promise you that although I have done this blog hop before, I’m now covering a different book! I was tagged by the lovely Lindsay Leggett, author of Flight, to answer questions on my current WIP so I thought I’d dive in and have another go anyway. This is not the only WIP I have on the go, but the other biggie is a little more top secret and slightly less certain to go to plan! So I’m sharing the safer bet with you!

What is the working title of your next book?

At the moment it’s called Storm Child. But that’s an old title and it may change.

Where did the idea for your book come from?

As usual, I’m pretty vague about the original spark, but I seem to remember having a simple idea of a baby left for someone to find, and what would happen if that baby was found by another child. The rest of it sprang from that central premise.

What genre does your book fall under?

It’s YA fantasy, but also a bit steampunk and perhaps could fall very loosely into historical fiction territory.

Which actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?

I have absolutely no idea! I think Skandar Keynes might make a brilliant Isaac. That’s about as far as I’ve thought about it!

What is a one sentence synopsis of your book?

Two worlds collide when poverty-stricken street urchins are thrown into an unlikely alliance with a wide-eyed country girl with one aim – to save a lost baby from a horrible death.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agent?

I don’t actually know, although, I haven’t managed to con an agent into taking me on yet!

How long did it take to write the first draft of the manuscript?

About 2 years so far! I started it and got stuck at 15k words. I’ve only just picked it back up, having had a brainwave about where it was going.

What other books would you compare this story to within the genre?

That’s a tough one. It’s a bit Wolves of Willoughby Chase, only with older kids.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

My brain!

What else about the book might pique the reader’s interest?

Its characters inhabit a strange, pseudo-Victorian world where magic exists and wolves stalk the English countryside. And one of the characters looks like Skandar Keynes.

I’m tagging onto another lovely blogger, Octavia Grey. Look out for her Q&A shortly…

Y is for Young Adult

April 29, 2013 by sharonsant

There are lots of reasons why I write and read YA. I don’t write or read it exclusively, but it seems to dominate my choices at a subconscious level. Whenever I put fingers to keyboard for a new story, invariably, a teenager appears. Maybe it’s because I’m drawn to young people in life (or people who have a young outlook). Maybe it’s because I have a misguided attachment to my battered old Converse which means you’ll have to prise them from my cold, dead feet, regardless of how embarrassing my kids find it. Maybe it’s because I’m clinging stubbornly to my own lost youth. I’m not sure I can really say why I lean towards YA – you might as well ask why I like the colour green.

Whatever Freud would have to say, I love to write characters of this age. They escape the constraints that dictate the actions of the rest of us. There’s a whole new world opening up for them, endless possibilities still to be written. I write younger protagonists from time to time under a pen name and, while they have just as much fun, mostly I have the watchful eye of a parent or guardian to take into consideration. Young adult protagonists have more freedom to go out into the world on their own but without the burdens that adults have. It’s a time of massive transition – of finding yourself, who you really are, what sort of person you’re becoming – and for me, that’s so exciting. With a young adult protagonist you can pursue emotional arcs that you can’t with any other age group.

Another genre is fast emerging in the book world too, that of New Adult. This genre is one I’m currently trying to write in, and I have to say that I’m finding the challenge exciting. It’s taking me out of my writing comfort zone and allowing me to explore some of the themes that Young Adult only begins to touch on in more depth. I’ve heard it said that this genre is just an excuse to let teenagers in books have sex, but I don’t agree. I think that YA stories can and do already do that. By the same token, I think that NA stories don’t have to be limited by sex either. Just as adults don’t spend all their waking hours thinking about it, there’s no reason why New Adults have to, and nobody complains when being presented with a book about adults where sex does not happen. Mine is still very much a work in progress, and it’s hard to say how it will turn out, but I’m having fun experimenting!

U is for Unlikely Hero

April 24, 2013 by sharonsant

Not only the title of a Hoosiers song (just sharing a guilty pleasure moment there) but also my favourite sort of hero. From lovestruck Cyrano to sociopath Sherlock to ‘scrawny, specky git’ Harry Potter (I wish I could claim that but blame it on the Weasley twins) everyone loves an underdog (which also begins with U).

Why do we look to the least likely heroes to save the day? What is it about them? Maybe they remind us of ourselves. It takes a hobbit to save Middle Earth when there are warriors and elves all around. Maybe hobbits are like us – real people. And maybe it’s healthy to root for the hobbit. Maybe it reminds us that we don’t have to sit idly back when injustice is around us, that everyone can make a stand, no matter how insignificant they may seem. The difference is, in real life there are often things beyond our control to change, even with the most determined will. In fiction, we can achieve our aims through our protagonist. And the more like us they are, the more we take the journey with them.

In any story, you can bet that I’ll be rooting for the overlooked geek, the quiet, unsung hero toiling away in the background, the socially awkward non-entity… the unlikely hero of the tale. Maybe because they’re just like me.

T is for Tethering Titles

April 23, 2013 by sharonsant

Regular visitors to the blog may know that I have a soft spot as big as New Mexico for Jack Croxall’s Victorian adventure, Tethers. I ‘met’ Jack on Twitter last year when he was still writing it and right from the first mention I was intrigued. The book promised to be everything I grew up loving: heart stopping, swashbuckling adventure with kids at its heart, set in an era steeped in romance. I looked forward to its release with a mixture of excitement and trepidation; it would have been the disappointment of the year if it hadn’t been good!

My fears were unfounded and I loved it. But that’s not the point of this post, so I apologise for digressing. The point is that Jack’s title, Tethers, was intriguing just by itself. In fact, without gushing, it was a work of genius. As I began to lose myself in the tale, I just knew that somewhere along the line, it was going to be significant. So when the moment came to reveal that significance, it was such a gratifying one that I almost punched the air. It was so important to everything that the book was about and that made it perfect.

Titles are funny things. Some people struggle with the title more than anything else, often using a working title for as long as possible. For me, a work in progress doesn’t feel like a real book until I have a title for it. I often find, in actual fact, that the title is one of the first things that occur to me. For one book I recently began, a title that popped into my head actually dictated the whole premise and kick-started the draft! However the title comes, for me, it’s usually one of the first things put in place. There have been occasions where books I’ve written have had a title that was changed at the last minute, though. Sky Song was initially called The Cosmic Canvas (taken from a line in the book) until a friend wrinkled her nose and mentioned that it made her think of hippie Neil from The Young Ones. After that, I couldn’t get the association out of my head and the old title had to go. Another novel, Runners, went through about four titles before it was settled.

Titles are not only significant in terms of telling you what to expect from a book or linking into the plot, but they can dictate whether the book sells or not. This sounds extreme, but I believe it to be true. Unless highly recommended, if I see a book whilst browsing and I think that the title is boring, I pass it by. I realise that everyone’s concept of boring is quite different, so, obviously, this will be subjective according to each reader. But the point I’m making is that it needs to be clever/intriguing/witty/romantic – whatever will pull at the heart strings of your target audience. This may sound obvious, but it doesn’t seem to be to everyone. I would point here to Snakes on a Plane. Either someone had their tongue firmly in their cheek, or their imagination had gone for a city break. Whatever you think about it, I have never seen, and do not intend to ever see this film, simply because the title puts me off.

I realise that I might be setting myself up for a massive fail here as lots of people point to my book titles and scoff. In which case, all I can do is point you to Tethers to prove my point.

If you want to find out more about Jack or his book, you can click the following links…

website

Goodreads

Amazon

R is for Runners… what else did you think it was going to be for?

April 20, 2013 by sharonsant

Yay! I’ve been desperate to get to R so that I could share an extract of Runners with you. Runners is a YA dystopian novel set in a near-future Britain (about 100 years, is that near-future?). Runners is the name given to kids who live on the streets, and the novel follows a gang of these kids as they battle to stay alive. As if that’s not bad enough, they stumble upon a secret guarded by a powerful man, a secret that will threaten their lives and the very existence of their entire world. Here we go…

Xavier leaned against the wall of the alleyway and folded his arms.

‘We’re not taking him with us.’

‘But, Xavier –’

‘There’s enough of us as it is.’ He cast an appraising eye over the unconscious boy. ‘I don’t trust him.’

‘How can you say that? You don’t even know him.’ The speaker was a girl with long, blonde hair.

‘I don’t need to know him. He’s a Runner.’

‘We’re Runners!’

‘That’s different.’

‘How?’

‘It just is.’

The boy on the floor groaned.

‘He does look in a bad way,’ said a second boy. ‘He might die if we leave him here.’

‘Not my problem,’ Xavier said.

‘Jimmy’s right,’ the girl cut in. ‘What if you had said that about Rowan? Think of all the ways he’s helped us out since we met up with him. Maybe this kid could do the same, maybe he’d be good for us.’

Xavier nudged the boy with his foot, but he didn’t stir. ‘I doubt it. He looks as though he’d just eat everything we have and then scarper.’

The girl looked down at the injured boy with a pained expression. ‘Please, let’s just take him back to the cottage. I couldn’t bear it if I found out something had happened to him and we could have helped.’

Xavier sighed. ‘Alright then. But don’t blame me if he steals everything you own once he wakes up.’

‘I don’t own anything,’ the girl smiled.

‘You two can carry him if you’re so desperate to get him back.’ Xavier threw a last glance at the figure on the floor and then turned to leave.

***

When Elijah came to the second time he felt better, as if he had just woken from a good night’s sleep. His eyes remained closed while he savoured the sensation. Some instinct he couldn’t name told him he wasn’t in immediate danger. When his eyes finally opened, he could see that he had been taken indoors. Instead of concrete hardness beneath him, he was lying on something lumpy – but soft, at least. As he pushed himself up to investigate, his head reacted to the change in position and exploded with pain. He clapped his hands to it, holding himself until the pain subsided into a pounding throb. Gingerly, he felt the spot where the blow had struck. His hair was matted and sticky. Inspecting his fingers, he recognised what could only be his own congealed blood. As he dropped his hands to wipe them on his trousers, he looked up and found two faces near his, watching him with a mixture of concern and curiosity.

‘D’you think he’s ok?’

‘Dunno, looks a bit rough still.’

‘You could check him.’

Elijah looked from one to the other. In a weak, hoarse voice that he hadn’t expected from his own mouth, he interrupted: ‘I am actually here, you know!’

The boy addressed Elijah uncertainly. ‘Sorry… um… how many fingers am I holding up?’

‘How many am I holding up?’ Elijah raised two fingers of his own in a dubious salute. The boy’s frown changed into a broad grin. It was such a disarming grin that, despite himself, Elijah couldn’t help a small smile in return.

The boy was about Elijah’s age, slim, taller than him, brown haired with a floppy fringe. It was a frank, honest face; the corners of the boy’s mouth had a natural upturn which gave the impression that he was constantly suppressing a grin, and lively brown eyes added to the air of mischief.

Elijah’s gaze flicked briefly to the girl. She was about his age too; blonde, blue eyes that spoke of summers past, with a melancholy to them that made Elijah wonder just how long she had been running. Judging by the way she was dressed, in jeans that looked far too large tucked into battered lace up boots, her wrists covered in coloured beads and fabric bracelets in varying states of decomposition, he figured it was quite a long time.

‘What’s your name?’ she asked Elijah.

Did he lie? He stared dumbly at her, not knowing what to say. She smiled patiently.

‘You’re ok here. Maybe you should just lie down again. D’you want some water?’ Elijah nodded. ‘I’m Sky,’ she continued. ‘And this,’ Sky gestured toward her companion as she crossed the small room for a plastic bottle of water, ‘is Jimmy.’

Jimmy grinned in acknowledgement and pushed a hand through his fringe.

Elijah took a chipped mug of water from her. It wasn’t cold, but it was clean and fresh. ‘How long have I been here for?’ Elijah sipped again, his eyes not moving from them.

‘Well,’ began Jimmy, ‘we found you yesterday afternoon…’

‘And it’s about four now,’ completed Sky, looking at a nurse’s fob watch pinned to her grubby jacket, ‘so about a day.’

Elijah was going to ask how they had found him, but Sky anticipated the question.

‘It’s a good job you’ve come round before Xavier got back.’ She glanced at Jimmy as she spoke. ‘We saw two guys at the precinct before you got there. We were out looking for stuff in this boarded up store and we saw them hanging around in that alleyway. They looked a bit dodgy, so we hid and waited for them to go. Next thing we see you come along with another boy and get clobbered.’ She looked suddenly pained. ‘They went through your pockets… and they took your rucksack. I’m sorry we couldn’t…’

Elijah stopped listening. He remembered that he had been running. He remembered what he had been running from…

Runners is due for publication 8th June by Immanion Press. You can check out the Goodreads page here.

Q is for Quirky

April 19, 2013 by sharonsant

Oxford Dictionary: having or characterized by peculiar or unexpected traits or aspects

Urban dictionary: something that is strange/not normal but cool

Quirky is a label you hear used a lot these days. Quirky singers, quirky actors, quirky writers. But what does it actually mean? I think I know what quirky looks like if I see it, but I couldn’t tell you what marks it out as such if you asked me. I’m actively drawn to quirky, both in art and in real life. I think I might be a little quirky, although to say so might be the equivalent of the most boring person in the office shouting ‘I’m mad, I am!’ And if I knew exactly what is quirky and what isn’t, I’d be able to say it more certainly.

So why are we suddenly so aware of quirkiness? I suspect we’re no more eccentric than we ever were before, only now eccentricity is greeted with an indulgent smile instead of being whispered about over the garden fence by the neighbours. The difference is, it’s cool to be quirky, in the same way it’s now cool to be a geek. It’s possible the two go hand in hand.

Ok, I admit it, this is another one of those posts where I’m losing my way. And is also a thinly veiled excuse to include a photo of The Mighty Boosh, because I love them. And they’re quirky. I think…

So, how do you define quirky?

Not Of Our Sky – Cover Reveal!

April 16, 2013 by sharonsant

Rebecca Bradley

On May 1st, author, Sharon Sant is releasing the third book in her Sky Song trilogy and she has kindly allowed us to have a peek at the cover and the book blurb.

I’ve been lucky enough to have read the book, and I loved it. I read a large chunk of it on a train journey and at one point had to try extremely hard not to cry in front of two young lads that were seated in front of me. I can only imagine the faces I was pulling as I tried to keep a stiff upper and lower lip! Sharon delivers the emotion effortlessly. It was a gripping and wonderful third book.

So, I’m pleased to show you Not of Our Sky!

Jacob fights for his life and Ellen faces her toughest decision yet: whether to finally reveal his true identity to his parents. For Jacob is…

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L is for Lovely Little Lies

April 13, 2013 by sharonsant

We all lie. Whether we think we do or not. According to some of the fascinating studies I’ve read before writing this post, most of us lie many times a day without even realising it. One study estimated that we tell two to three lies every ten minutes. We lie about small things and big things, we lie to spare the feelings of others or to spare our own. We lie to get ourselves out of trouble or to save others from trouble. We embelish stories, we leave awkward details out. That’s a pretty hefty chunk of porkies a day. Imagine how many we tell in our lifetimes. Many of them will never be found out.

But what if you’re a writer of fiction? People lie to us even more. My family and friends almost certainly lie when they hand back a manuscript with the words ‘It was good.’ and a look of abject terror that I’ll break down into unhinged sobbing as I figure out they didn’t like it at all. Writers of fiction lie too, every time we switch on the laptop or pick up a pen and construct a sentence. We lie for fun. We create whole worlds full of fabricated events and people that don’t exist, we use every tool at our disposal to convince you that we’re showing you truth, or at least make you believe us for a little while. We do it knowingly and with intent to manipulate. We tell you that we’re going to lie to you before we dish out our big, juicy platter of whoppers. Are we forgiven? Because lovely little lies are what makes the world go around.

K is for Killing

April 12, 2013 by sharonsant

I remember my horror when I heard that JK had considered killing Harry Potter in the Deathly Hallows. It felt like she was threatening to kill her son… more than that, it felt like she was threatening to kill mine. There was a public outcry when Conan Doyle killed Sherlock Holmes, so big that he had to bring him back to life. As writers, how much do we owe our readers? They’re our stories to tell, but when we’ve crafted a character and made everyone fall in love with them, are we allowed to kill them? Doesn’t it seem like some gross act of betrayal?

As a writer, I tend to get emotionally attached to my characters and the thought of killing them fills me with dread. Yet I know that a story full of danger and darkness will have its casualties. I can’t write a story like that in which nobody is killed, because in a story like that, someone is bound to get killed. When I was writing Runners, my editor friend said straight away: ‘Right, which character is going to die?’ To her, it’s a given that you need to kill someone, and that it should be someone significant. If I was writing crime, of course, it would be much easier. I’d just get the murder out of the way on the first page. But I don’t write crime, I write stories for young adults, and emotional ones at that (at least I think they are when I cry at the laptop). As much as I love my characters, though, I know that I have to subject them, in some part, to the risks that people in the real world face. Unless I make them immortal, then they can be hurt and killed, just like the rest of us. They feel like my kids, though, and I want to protect them like I do my own kids.

So, did I kill anyone in Runners? Maybe…