Make for Macmillan

This is soooooo exciting! It's the end of March and that means...less than two months to go before the launch of Summer Loving, my new book and - even though I say it myself - a sizzler of a summer novel!

However, BEFORE that happens, the most brilliant book event is due to take place at the end of April and I am chuffed to be a part of it.

Clare and Shelley, the totally brilliant brains behind the 'Make for Macmillan' campaign, will be holding a week of live book auctions - the chance to buy books by your fave authors AND raise some cash for an extremely worthy cause. Watch out for more info here as we get closer, but as you can see from their Facebook page, the line up so far is beyond impressive. Do visit the Make for Macmillan pages to check it out - and bid on the gorgeous, gorgeous handmade items they are auctioning RIGHT NOW.

Go and check it now - click here and start thinking about which ones you are going to bid for!!!

Funny, I can't read that...

I am dyslexic.
I didn't find out until my second year of an English degree, when one of my tutors told me that he had no idea how I'd managed to get a place at university, that I was going to fail my degree and, even if I didn't manage that, I would certainly fail his section of it. Luckily, they weren't all like him and, with the support of another member of staff, I was subsequently tested, diagnosed with dyslexia and given strategies for coping with my written work. (And, in case you were wondering, got a 2:1 over all and came out of my first tutor's exam with a borderline First.)
Ha!
The problem is, it isn't an easy condition to live with. I do not suffer from the severest forms it can take, but am still constantly embarrassed by my spelling and grammatical mistakes, hate the amount of time it takes me to get to grips with complex pieces of written work, cringe at the difficulties I have in remembering people's names (yes, really: that too is a common dyslexic symptom), find it hard to read music because the notes seem to wobble and am forever mixing up my right and my left.
Having said that, though, I don't want the condition to limit what I can and can't do. People are often surprised, given my various career choices, that I have a specific learning disability (as it is known in the trade): English Degree, MA in Medieval Studies, law and now writing novels are not part of the expected CV of a dyslexic. None of them give any slack: I have to be as good as the competition despite the dyslexia - or I go under. No one is going to make excuses for me.
And I wouldn't want them to.
So this was me and how I saw my life - until last week, when I learned from the school that my eldest child could well be dyspraxic. Now, I had suspected dyslexia for a while: familiar symptoms were starting to rear their heads in his school work - messy hand-writing, words spelled as anagrams of themselves, words with letters missing, sentences with words missing, lack of organisation and co-ordination on the page - I could go on. However, as soon as I began to look at lists of dyspraxic symptoms - some of which overlap with dyslexia - I saw where the teacher was coming from.
My immediate reaction was relief - fantastic! The fact he struggles doing up a zip and has messy handwriting is explained away! Then there was sadness: my child is going to have to struggle like me. To achieve the same marks as his peers, he will have to work harder than them for no extra reward.
And then, after the reaction of a couple of friends, I got into thinking about labels and whether we are too quick to label our children as 'not quite right', and the effect this might have on them.
And my response was quite emphatic.
I think, in our society, we already label people. Every day. In every conceivable way. Other people are better off/worse off/cleverer/stupider/have better jobs/nicer cars/better educations/more holidays/larger houses/smaller houses than us. We are always defining others against our own achievements or failures; always trying to ascertain if their grass really is any greener. This is nowhere more pronounced as our education system which now constantly assesses and grades children; comparing child against child in a way that would have been unthinkable thirty years ago. Parents and kids (myself included) get sucked into the grading/testing cycle and worry about whether our child is really a 4b when they should perhaps be a 4a or even a 5c. There is so much middle class parental energy expended on this, they could run the National Grid off it.
So my child is already labeled by the education system. And, if he is dyslexic/dyspraxic, that school attainment label may be selling him short. My view is that at least if we know, we can do something about it, even if it is simply to roll up our sleeves and work harder to make up the shortfall.
Because I know from experience that without labels such as dyslexia, the child will be given other labels such as 'lazy' or 'a daydreamer' or 'needs to pay more attention' or even - as I was by my university tutor, 'stupid' and 'unintelligent' and 'a failure'. That way lies nothing apart from a vortex of increasing frustration, sadness and loss of self-esteem.
So fine,whilst we live in a label obsessed society, let's go forward with the positive labels too - and as far as I'm concerned, dyslexia and dyspraxia are positive. If my boy is dyspraxic, so be it - he is in some illustrious company and I won't let it hold him back for one moment. The news that Daniel Radcliffe aka Harry Potter was dyspraxic cheered my son up enormously. Frankly, if you can be that good at quidditch, nothing on earth is going to stop you succeeding in life.

For more information on dyslexia, click href="http://www.bdadyslexia.org.uk/">here

For more information on dyspraxia, click here

For a list of famous dyslexics, click here

Summer Loving

I noticed today that the fabulous Chicklit Club have given my new book, Summer Loving, a head's up - thank you guys! So I thought it was about time that I shared the cover and a few little tasters on my blog. Even though I have had some lovely covers in the past, I think this time the cover fairy has been especially good to me: I love it! The story is about four friends from uni who get together eight years after graduation for a holiday on a Greek island. Needless to say, the sun, sea and relaxation they had in mind doesn't quite materialise and my heroine, Beth, finds herself trying to hold things together - with comic as well as (almost)tragic consequences.

Watch this space as I'll be dropping a few little previews and exclusives as we get nearer to publication time!

Summer Loving is published by Arrow and will be out on 26th May. It is currently available to pre-order from all the usual outlets.

Hollywood Daze

The new book is now officially 'in' and I am waiting for the copy edits to come through. However, there is no rest for the wicked and I am already pondering the various plotlines and characters for my next novel. As a writing exercise - and to give my brain a bit of a break in between books - I spent ten days or so watching roms coms/chick flicks to see if I could pick up any writing tips. Yes I know, I know, I write novels, not screenplays, but I reckon it is always useful for any writer to try and see how the guys in other genres do things - and I think I learned a few valuable lessons.

Lesson One: Make sure your screenplay has a really strong central hook.
Basically, this means your story has an original, inventive and easily graspable idea at its centre. For example, The Wedding Date starring Deborah Messing works on the basic premise that a girl hires a male escort to accompany her to a wedding where her ex is the best man - and then falls in love with him. Simple, concise, compelling and with loads of comic potential. Or how about PS I Love You, where the heroine's husband dies, but she receives a series of letters from him helping her rebuild her life. Having a brilliant central concept makes sense from both an artistic and a marketing point of view: a strong starting point should automatically set up tonnes of conflict and suggest storylines which will help carry your plot through to the end PLUS (and don't under estimate this one!) it will make the story easy to pitch and sell. In Hollywood, you would be expected to come up with a 'log line' which sums up the story in one sentence. Also useful for novelists wanting to pitch to agents and publishers - give it a try!

Lesson Two: Give yourself a smart, funny, vulnerable but ultimately feisty heroine with whom your audience will identify and root for all the way through.
This is vital for both screenplays and novels. You wouldn't want to read a book where you couldn't stand the central character or thought she was a bit of a wimp. We read/go to movies to be entertained, but we also go to see a bit of ourselves reflected in the central character and you need to have one you and your audience can look up to. Sure, give your heroine flaws; of course she needs to have a vulnerable, human side to her - but ultimately give her the personality and intelligence she needs to triumph against all the odds and you'll have a winner on your hands.

Lesson Three: Make sure that your plot and character arcs are as strong as your initial idea.
There is nothing more disappointing than a book or movie which has a superb initial concept and then fails to deliver. The disappointment stays with you for ages (I still feel let down by Men in Black even now. Sigh) Sadly, Letters to Juliet affected me in a similar way. The idea of the wall in Verona where people still write letters to Shakespeare's most famous heroine - and receive an answer - was stunning. And I also liked the idea that the love story chosen for the plot involved an older woman (I'm all for mixing it up age-wise!) but the actual plot was so predictable and pedestrian that I felt cheated. Eleven out of ten for the initial idea and the first half an hour of the movie, three out of ten thereafter. Don't do this!!

Movies are a very useful tool for the novelist looking to hone their craft: a film must achieve everything a good novel needs to on the plot/character/structural front - but it has to do it in an hour and a half (which is why that strong central idea is essential). So go on - get out the DVDs and have an afternoon on the sofa. After all, it's all in the name of work!

There and Back Again

Hello again. You probably won't remember me, but I was the short one with the blonde hair who used to do a blog about writing...

Actually, the past few months have been a bit of an emotional (and work) roller-coaster. The good news (in fact the veryveryveryveryveryvery good news) is that in May I was given a contract by the lovely people at Arrow - only I couldn't tell anybody about it for a while (hell on earth for a blabbermouth like me). They wanted the finished book in by the end of January which meant an awful lot of graft - I think I took Christmas Day off, but that was about it. Then, in June, about four weeks after the contract was agreed, we had a shattering diagnosis for a close family member which resulted, five months later in the loss of that person. It was a pretty horrible time and, I'm afraid, one during which I split my time simply between the family and writing the book. Blogs and FaceBook fell rather by the wayside.

So I hope you forgive me.

However, on a happier note, the book is now in - watch this space for some exclusive previews - and work on the next one has already begun. The publication date for Summer Loving is scheduled for the 26th May this year and I am also planning my workshop at this year's Winchester Writers Conference on 'How to Write Like Jane Austen: surely every writer's New Year's Resolution!

In the meantime, stay well

Lots of love,

Allie x

Trashionista Review of 'The Not-so Secret Diary of a City Girl'

And if my night at the Melissa Nathan Awards wasn't enough, yesterday I read the lovely review by Elle at Trashionista for City Girl. She even gave it a five out of five - hoorah! To read the review, please click here.

The Melissa Nathan Award 2010

This was a truly amazing night. For starters, the event was being held at the Cafe de Paris, which was beyond glamorous; then there were the judges Jo Brand, Liza Tarbuck, Morwenna Banks, Sophie Kinsella and Joanna Trollope who are all, without exception, idols of mine; and finally there was the fact that the event is held not only to champion the genre of comedy romance (a genre sadly neglected by 'serious' literary people) but also to celebrate the life of Melissa Nathan - comedic novelist extraordinaire - and to continue the charity work she undertook during her life via the excellent Melissa Nathan Foundation: click here to see the work The Foundation does.

The evening began with champagne and canapes as the guests arrived: there were the other shortlisted writers to meet, old friends and acquaintances to catch up with and new friends to make - Melissa's family were there and I had two conversations with her mother who was wonderfully warm, encouraging and chatty. In fact the whole event had a lovely family atmosphere. There were two babies present: Shortlisted author Danny King ('Blue Collar')'s little girl who was ten weeks old and Sophie Kinsella's youngest, only eight weeks old. Also present was Melissa's son Sam (age 7) who, after the judges had summed up all six shortlisted books, gave an extremely moving explanation of the work of the Melissa Nathan Foundation that had most of the audience wiping away a tear or two.

We were called into the main auditorium where Jo Brand bounded onto stage to host the event. She was sensational. I saw Jo live in 1993 and my abiding memory was of my face aching with laughter - it only took about two minutes and it was aching again. We then had a performance from songwriter (and, as it turned out) singer David Arnold and then the judges each celebrated one of the shortlisted books. Jo Brand did mine, beginning by holding up a copy of the book featuring the image of my blonde, barrister heroine on the front and saying: 'As you can see, they put a picture of me on the cover...'

After a short interval we enjoyed a fantastic performance by Neil Hannon of The Divine Comedy who performed a selection of his songs ("I suppose you'll want me to do the one about the bus...") and then there was the announcement of the winner, who was...'Moon-Light in Odessa' by Janet Skeslien Charles. Huge congratulations go to Janet whose book Joanna Trollope describes as 'a book that stays with you for all the right reasons'. All the shortlisted winners received a beautiful trophy (mine is now proudly residing on my mantelpiece) and the evening ended with more mingling, canapes and champagne.

It was a real fairy-tale evening and I feel so lucky to have been part of such a wonderful experience. Melissa was a truly exceptional author and her Award and the work of her Foundation will ensure that she remains a powerful force for good for years to come.