Free on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk this weekend (Saturday/Sunday) as part of the KDP Select promotional programme, the award winning, silver medal novel A Thousand Glass Flowers
AND
Also as part of the same programme, highly commended in the Golden Claddagh Awards for 2012 –
Felt the need to cook brownies but had no berries so threw in a whole packet of caramel bits by Neslé.
Played in my veggie garden and went shopping at the nursery where I bought basil, zucchini, white lobelia and white nemesia, common mint (must find pot to plant it in as it is feral).
While my book-sales take a Springtime nosedive, and I spend more time in the garden or working around the farm to worry about my failing writerly profile, or even how ill-disciplined I am toward my writing (to give myself a pat on the back: I did write from 11-12.15PM and reduced myself to tears as I wrote), I came inside this evening to find a link sent to me by my daughter for the most delicious and witty blog called Faux Fuschia.
I had crept into the laundry and divested myself of sheep-poo encrusted clothes, scrubbed my mud-filled nails, brushed out my seed filled hair and hauled myself to my wardrobe to climb into trackie bottoms and a polar fleece top. Flung tiny new potatoes on the stove to boil, made (gorgeous) mayonnaise and pulled Creole smoked salmon out of the fridge to eat tonight with white wine alongside. It’s all my aching hands, body and mind could manage.
And then I opened the computer and clicked on the link and stared at this divine woman’s slick home which was overflowing with colour, at her perfectly manicured nails, her beautifully applied lipstick and miraculously tied Pucci scarves – and thought how far removed from her I was at that moment.
That said; I vicariously enjoyed her perfection knowing I’m too tired to find my own. I also love that the Universe Talks to Her. To be frank it talks to me too, but it obviously says the same things in a different way.
BUT … I loved reading this blog tonight. It absolutely hit the spot because I needed the escape and sometimes things like picturesque blogs and Pinterest are the best medicine.
And tomorrow, if the Universe Talks To Me in the right way, maybe I shall pull out the gorgeous Gucci scarf my children gave me last birthday and try and tie it at least a little bit perfectly and maybe I shall even paint my toenails…
Posie Graeme-Evans is a rather special person to me – one of Australia’s top TV drama producers, her largest claim to fame is a much-loved TV drama based around a family of farmers who just happened to be women. Everyone in Australia knew McLeods’ Daughters and waited with baited breath for each episode.
As a reader, I love descriptive narrative. I welcome the chance to create an image in my mind with the author’s words.
Rosamunde Pilcher springs to mind:
‘As usual, Elfrida was the first downstairs. At the turn of the stair she threw back the curtains (a marvellously grand threadbare pair she had bought in the market in Buckly) and gazed out at the day. Actually it was night because it was still dark, but it had stopped snowing and by the light of the street lamp she could see the garden, all shape and form obliterated. Bushes and trees dropped under the weight of the snow and shrubs, pillowed, had lost all identity. It was still and quiet.’ Winter Solstice. The description is so plain, so perfectly understated, so very comforting. It is why Pilcher will always be a number one favourite.
Malika Ghandi has the fine credentials needed to write a novel based around the Indian independence movement. Born in India, her family have deeply ingrained roots in the sub-continent. It is my absolute pleasure to have Malika in the Big Red Chair today.
I would like to announce that A Thousand Glass Flowers (US purchase link, UK below) has just won a silver medallion in the 2012 Readers’ Favourite Book Awards.
Initially, to gauge finalists, the submitted novels are read by volunteer reviewers. If a novel is fortunate enough to reach the finalist stage, professionals within the industry then take over and the novels are read by judges drawn from the fields of publishing, agencies, editors, professors of english literature and/or creative writing and so on. So the books are very heavily marked for their quality.
Last week I bought a word.
I did … a three letter word.
I paid for it, received a receipt, and the word was wrapped in tissue and placed in a brown paper bag.
It was a curious feeling. As though I alone now had ownership of the word. But of course that is definitely not the case. In fact, I think the word might just have ownership of me.
Lately I had cause to pull out the WIP of The Chronicles of Eirie Book Four. I noticed something glaring, something I had never honestly thought about before. Alongside this WIP (I write in longhand and then transcribe, editing in the process), I laid the WIP of Book Two of The Gisborne Saga – different genre, different characters, different world.
