So, here is Sarah and over to her and her book shelf!

Sarah PJ White, author of The Last Angel.

What books are on my bookshelves?

I have four bookcases of varying sizes in my house – three upstairs and one big on downstairs – and I’d have more if I could! The bookcase downstairs has most of the fiction books on it; the likes of Dan Brown, Harlan Coben and, my favourite author, James Patterson. These books are mingled with non-fiction books about amazing facts, ‘how to’s’ and various idiot guides.

Hidden treasure in my office

Hidden in my office – where I share the space with my two cats, Badger and Fizz – is my treasure trove of literacy. The vast majority of these shelves is reserved for a mixture of inspirational and motivational books, along with those designated to the craft and business of writing. These include works from Paulo Coelho, Jane Wenham-Jones, Stephen Covey and Peter Jones.

I’ll pick a couple out to whet your appetite:

1.       Conversations with God: Book One– Neale Donald Walsch

This book was a complete eye-opener for me; it really casts a new light on the whole religious community and lifts a lot of the myths about heaven, hell & the fear surrounding faith. I’m not a religious person – but am spiritual – so this book was a real light-bulb moment for me. I also have book two and three, although I wasn’t so keen on them, as they focused on government and money – so were a bit heavy going.

2.       Unlimited Power – Anthony Robbins

This is one of many inspirational books I have, so it was difficult to just pick one! Although this is quite a long book, it’s a great read – I read it when I was having quite a ‘down’ moment in my life – then read it again to implement the strategies within it.

3.       Write Time: Guide to the Creative Process, from vision through revision – and beyond – Kenneth Atchity

In this book I finally found an easy to read book that really describes the idea of creativity – and how to handle it – in an easy to understand fashion. Totally recommend this for anyone who is thinking of going into the writing business.

4.       Coaching Quotations – Jackie Fletcher (Transitions life coaching)

This is a little book with over 2000 quotations that I’ve kept since my life coach training. What’s great about this book is that it all the quotes are indexed under categories, making it super easy to use. As a result, it’s got little pink bookmark post-its all through it.

5.       Aiming at Amazon & POD For Profit – Aaron Shepard

Both of Shepard’s books are excellent resources for indie publishers. They cover everything from formatting your book for Kindle, through to getting ISBN’s and dealing with publishers, such as Lightning Source.

6.       The Crime Writer’s Guide to Police Practice & Procedure – Michael O’Byrne

This is one of the few police procedure books I have found that is based in the UK. I have several others, but they are written from the US, so have differences. Byrne began his career in the Royal Hong Kong Police before ending his career as a Chief Constable in Bedfordshire. This book covers several categories, including investigation, tools of the trade, DNA, technology and organised crime.

My Thanks

I’d like to extend my thanks to Amanda for agreeing to be part of my blog tour, and for allowing me to guest post on her blog – I hope you all enjoyed it.

A few weeks ago I was asked if I wanted to do a World Book Day talk at Bradfield College by one of their fab, book-passionate teachers (who also happens to be an author and book reviewer and someone I’ve got to know via Twitter). I said yes without thinking about it, but last night I realised I was actually quite nervous. Talking to a room full of teenagers is a terrifying prospect. I’ve got one at home and that’s scary enough sometimes. As the nerves grew, I decided bribery was the way forward and spent the evening making chocolate chip cookies for my audience. I needn’t have worried; the children were fantastic. All of them were polite, engaged and interested, with many staying behind to ask questions about the writing process or eager to tell me how they were keen they were to become published authors themselves one day. It was an uplifting experience and I thoroughly enjoyed it. My thanks to the staff and pupils, and to the librarians for the beautiful flowers. You all made me feel very welcome and it was a pleasure to talk about hooks, language, tension, prologues, shocking sworn secrets, and the case for killing off some of those evil lurking adverbs…I mean, who wants to walk slowly when you can trundle..?

2012 will also be known as the Year of the Tweet for me! In 2011 I didn’t know what Twitter was. It seemed so vacuous. Why would anybody be interested in what a stranger has for breakfast? Who on earth had the time? Wasn’t it sad that all these geeks didn’t have real friends? I was sure Twitter wasn’t for me. But then my publisher advised me to embrace this social media in advance of publishing Sworn Secret. It was vital, they said, that I connect with people. I decided to take the advice, but I made a choice. Rather than use it to hard-sell my book (pushy salespeople are deeply off-putting) I’d have fun, be myself, comment and interact with people as if I was sitting next to them. This way it would be pleasurable and if they happened then to take a look at the book, well that would be a win-win situation. In my wildest imaginings I could never have foreseen how I’d take to it. Twitter, I’ve joked many a time, is my spiritual home! I love the access to wit, opinion, and news in its unique quick-fire, reactive format. And these people I’m connected to on Twitter, these strangers I wouldn’t recognise in the street or those figures I recognise from television or newspapers, are interesting, kind, wildly intelligent, supportive and, most important for me, funny. I have laughed out loud, in front of my computer, countless times, and what a joy it’s been!

And lastly, for many of us, 2012 will always be the Year of the London’s Games. What an amazing time it was. Feeling the positivity and good-will, the unification, camaraderie and joy that manifested itself in this country before our eyes as great swathes of us cheered our glorious, talented, determined, disciplined, inspiring Team GB on during the Olympics and Paralympics is something we will never forget. From the eccentricity of the spectacular opening ceremony, through the immaculate, faultless running of the entire games, to the emotional extinguishing of that beautiful Cauldron, I can safely say have never felt more proud to be British. Never felt more proud to be a human being. And in this day and age, with so much of the news full of tragedy, human failing, and desperate sadness, this is a very precious feeling.

I wish you all a Merry Christmas and very Happy New Year!

Amanda xxx

That’s what I should be feeling anyway. Yet, for me, and I wonder whether it’s the same for a significant number of other writers, it’s more of a damp squib feeling. After months of spewing out a first draft, weeks of white-faced panic because the first draft is so dreadfully dire it’s really only fit for kindling, then more months of constant trawling through the hundred thousand words in front of you to find something (please, anything!) worth keeping. Then follows revisions. Oh, God, pages and pages and pages of revisions, pen scrawls, additional scenes, asterisks and arrows and non-sensical notes, acres of crossings out, all of it needing careful deciphering when it comes to writing them into your manuscript. This hasn’t been easy, this book. Deadlines have passed me by on this one, and they didn’t just limp by either, they flew by at the speed of light like a high-speed train passing my stop. I’m usually great with deadlines. I have a macabre enjoyment of finishing ‘in the nick of time’. It’s always been there. In exams, for example, it manifested itself by an unwavering need to plant my final full stop as the invigilator said: ‘please put your pens down.’ My first two real-children came ten days before their due dates and very satisfying it was too. When my third still wasn’t born ten days after my due date I panicked. It’s the same with this book I’ve just birthed. There’s another problem too with this second book-baby of mine. She comes with a fear born of knowledge. When I wrote books before I never really allowed myself to believe they would ever be published. The odds were hugely stacked against it and really, despite an obvious desire to see my book in a bookshop, I wrote very much for myself, to keep my brain ticking over whilst I raised my small children, to give me something to do other than the ironing and vacuuming. I didn’t appreciate just how exposing publishing a book is. How nerve-wracking it is when you hear someone say: ‘oh, by the way, I’ve just started your book…’ It’s like standing in the middle of Westfield Shopping Centre, on a plinth, taking your clothes off and screaming: ‘So? Waddya think?’ If they’re not bowled over in admiration it hurts. If they’re complimentary and appreciative they’re lying. And then there’s that destructive, sneaking suspicion I have that this little book-baby isn’t quite as pretty as her older sister…

So, yes, I’m not really feeling that back-flipping euphoria I should be. I feel a bit flat. A bit flat, very tired and faced with a mountain of housework. The life of an author is a series of anti-climaxes. Does that sound spoilt? Probably. But – in the words of Hemingway – I’ve just bled over my keyboard for a year. I need a transfusion. I need to get a life again. Maybe I could treat myself to lunch out with friends? A bit of Christmas shopping? I could sit down with the children and play a board game. Oooo, I could get a haircut! A game of tennis might do me good too and it would be great to finally clear out the cupboard under the stairs. I could see Skyfall!! Hang on a minute… I’ve finished my book! I can do things other than battle with it, oops, I mean, lovingly craft it. Oh. My. God. I’VE ONLY GONE AND FINISHED MY BOOK! Back-flip, somersault, whoop whoop whooop!!!!!!! Real-life hold on to your hat – I’m back!

A few months ago she was rushed to the vet with a twisted gut and nearly died. Following three hours of surgery, during which she had her spleen removed, she gradually recovered. It was a long two weeks of constant nursing from me, and when she recovered against the odds, the whole family was over the moon. But ten days ago her shoulder began to play up. She was in pain, chewing at her foot, moaning and asking for more and more cuddles. We went to the vet and she was given painkillers for what appeared to be a joint issue. Twenty-four hours later, in the middle of the night, we were woken by horrendous howling. Her back legs had given way. We lifted her into the car and took her to the vet and she was given some opiate painkillers. X-rays were taken but were inconclusive. Her hip dysplasia wasn’t to blame. Her shoulder didn’t look as bad as her limp suggested. There was no obvious explanation for her losing the use of her back legs. The x-rays went off for a second opinion and it was then they noticed a dark mass in Shayla’s chest, a cancerous growth close to her spine. By this time she was in agonising pain and none of the painkillers she was receiving seemed to be easing it. She never got to her feet again and there was nothing we could do. I held her as the vet put her down, her enormous head in my lap, tears pouring down my face. Losing a pet is an awful thing to go through. These animals are part of our families. We love them and care for them, they are dependent on us for everything, and they give us unconditional love of the purest kind. We had Shayla for five short years. We got her as a puppy when we bought this house and she is intrinsically part of it. As I sit here typing I miss her desperately. The house is empty without her.

I want to take this opportunity to thank Shayla for being a part of our lives and to send my sympathies to anyone having to deal with the death of a loved pet. Mortality is an impossible concept to deal with and the grief that goes hand in hand with losing a pet is considerable and should never be underestimated. Shayla has left a bear-sized hole in this family and it’s one that won’t be easy to fill. Take care, Big Girl.

The book I’m currently writing had two seeds of inspiration. The first was an unpleasant incident I happened to witness at boarding school between a friend of mine and a younger boy. My friend thought his bullying behaviour was acceptable, just an example of what went on, ‘life’ if you like. It happened to him as a younger boy and would happen to the next boy. It wasn’t acceptable of course and I’m sure it had long-term effects on the other boy involved. The second seed is this heady version of Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance by my then ‘Crush du Jour’ Jared Leto and his band 30 Seconds to Mars. Now, if you listen to it (perhaps close your eyes as that hat he’s wearing is a little distracting) some of the lyrics – he’s added new ones – are very dark and very sexual, and the line ‘I don’t want to be friends’ is incredibly poignant, tortured even, much more so than the club-camp Gaga version, and it’s this darkness that had me hooked. Those who’ve read my previous blog posts will know there’s a significant dark streak coursing through me and songs like this cut right to my core. I love it and while I was writing certain scenes in this new book I had it playing on loop. If I hear it now my central character springs to mind with all his brooding sexuality and difficult past. It’s like a light switch. So in answer to the question: ‘Where do you get your ideas?’ I can say that for my current book (working title: A Bad Romance) it was a shocking incident and an evocative song. Add to these a significant amount of time spent staring into space, four full notebooks, and three semi-neglected children, and I now have a 90,000 word draft that is being read by my Lovely Agent this very moment. Yikes. Fingers crossed I chose the right two seeds or else it’s back to the daydreaming, which is actually a lot more tiring than it looks…

Why is she showing her boobs, Mum?

I don’t know.

Does she like showing her boobs off?

I think so.

Does Dad like her boobs?

Pass the milk.

Whilst our daughters are allowed to believe that boobs in the news is acceptable, just a bit of fun for the boys, convincing them their opinions, minds and worth are as valued in our society as any man’s is so much more of a struggle. Our sons and daughters need to know it’s not right and proper to phwoar-blimey-look-at-the-rack-on-that at the breakfast table. This isn’t a feminist cause. This is a social necessity. It’s the 21^st century and it’s time to make Page 3 yesterday’s news.

(Lucy Holmes has whipped up a bit of a storm. Good on her. She’s fronting a campaign, and has organised a petition, to get bare boobs out of The Sun and has written a letter to the paper’s editor, Dominic Mohan, requesting it. At the time of writing she’s yet to have received a reply. You can follow the campaign on Twitter: @nomorepage3 and sign her petition here.)

Now, we all name our children’s uniform, but the method of naming varies greatly. A few days before school restarted I found myself living in a parallel universe where seemingly normal people started behaving irrationally, spending hours sewing name tags into their children’s clothes. These I-Sew-So-I’m-Fabulous Mums are amazing and deserve formal recognition in the Queen’s Honours list. I’m jealous of these Ubers. Jealous of their dedication, their self-pride, their skill, their patience. You see I’m very much a Just-Pass-Me-The-Biro Mum. Just-Pass-Me-The-Biros are, incidentally, quite likely to not-iron too. We ‘hang creases out’ rather than ‘iron them out’ either by suspending the clothes on a hanger or by leaving them in a heap on the floor. Our nail polish is often chipped and we’re likely to feed our children pasta four times a week, but we’re generally happy, if grimly accepting of our inferior status. There’s a third group of mums in the name-tag classification system, of course. They fall between the I-Sew-So-I’m-Fabulouses and the Just-Pass-Me-That-Biros. These are the I’m-A-Bit-Clever-I-Use-Iron-Ons. This group is quite smug because they’ve used a respectable household chore in the process of  naming, and though all they’ve really done is written their child’s name in biro on a special label then held an iron on it for a few seconds, they are secure in the knowledge that they aren’t Just-Pass-Me-The-Biros and that’s enough for them. Here it must be noted that the Just-Pass-Me-The-Biros split into two further groups. Those who write the name neatly and legibly, possibly going over the odd letter that doesn’t look right or isn’t dark enough couple of times. The others are the Christ-That-Will-Dos, who scrawl an unreadable surname or maybe even a couple of hard to decipher initials. Sadly, I’m one of these. The lowest of the low. Two poxy initials in a running-out biro. I wasn’t always this tragic. I used to be ‘better’. I’m the Fallen Angel of the mothering world. With my first daughter I had great aspiration to be a I-Sew-So-I’m-Fabulous Mum. I ordered those green-stitched labels and when they arrived in the post I stared at them proudly. I think I even stroked them a few times. I’d made it as a mum, I thought triumphantly! A bonafide, caring, talented mum who loves her child enough to do this mind-numbingly dull task for her. I picked up the thin metal needle-thing and, seventh time lucky, pushed the string through the teeny hole on it the end of it. Then I sewed a label on. Well, I nearly did. I did one long side of the damn thing then stopped. I swore. Then I tried to sew a bit more. After a fretful ten minutes, disheartened, weary and with a slight sheen of sweat on my useless brow, I gave up. Defeated I looked up at my sniggering husband.

‘Darling, stop laughing’ I said. ‘And just pass me the biro’.

That's a lot of books in one place...!

There was a fantastic mix of friends – old and new – some from school, some from university, some I was meeting for the first time, including a few lovely people I’ve met on Twitter, including authors Tamar Cohen and Louise Millar, who I loved chatting to about the highs and lows of bringing a book to the shelves. There were people from Constable and Robinson who’ve been involved in publishing the book, my lovely agent, and, of course, my amazing family. The warmth of the evening was palpable. We spilled out on to the pedestrianised court, drank wine, laughed and squealed. I signed books, met book bloggers, and then, perched on a small step ladder, wobbling in my high-heeled platform boots, I braved a speech. At one point it was a little like listening to Gwyneth Paltrow’s infamous Oscar acceptance, teary thanks yous to all those (and there are many) who’ve been there for me over the many years this has taken. Thankfully, I managed not to do a ‘Bridget Jones’, though perhaps if Mr Fitz-Herbert had been there I might well have tripped up – Mr Tits-Pervert rolls off the tongue far too easily! I am honoured to have so many people who want to wish me well, and who were enthusiastic and happy for me. To all of you, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

So now, Sworn Secret is properly out there. The reviews so far are great, and now all I can do is sit back, let it be, and concentrate on editing my second book. After three weeks of being very distracted with the launch, I’m gagging to get writing again. It’s what I love to do. Though, after last night, I have to admit to be quite fond of signing my name in gorgeous wood-panelled bookshops in the buzzing centre of London. Roll on the next launch, I say!!

And a very happy birthday to my gorgeous friend, Sara, who took a few of us out to celebrate her big 4-0 in style. Thank you. xx