Wow…sooooo excited!
My debut novel, White Mountain – Book 1 of The Darkling Chronicles, has had its first tantalising glimpse in the sunlight, with the worldwide release of its book trailer on YouTube!
HUGE thanks to Kim Maya Sutton & Safkhet Publishing for doing such a tremendous job. Thank you guys!
Check it out folks, my very first book trailer! :
I was having a discussion with some writer friends recently and this topic came into the conversation. It is also popped up on my publisher’s website, and they are of the same opinion as me. That although it is certainly a very common turn of phrase on writing forums and social media sites, it is also a complete cop-out!
Why ‘Aspiring’? Yes, to be an author may well be a long-held dream, certainly in my case, it has been a lifetime’s ambition, harboured and nurtured since I was a child. So I understand the longing, the desire to achieve ‘Author’ status, what I don’t understand or agree with, is the sentiment behind the word ‘aspiring’. It is such a terribly weak statement.
You are not an ‘aspiring doctor’, or teacher, or lawyer, or dentist…you either ARE a doctor, teacher, lawyer, dentist, or you are NOT. There is no halfway house. Yes, you may be ‘in training’ to join one of those professions, but you should still consider yourself to BE one of them, even if you can’t practise on your patients! Have confidence in your abilities and in where you want to go. You wouldn’t consider yourself an ‘aspiring human’, would you? Ummm…well in some cases that may actually be true!
Have the strength of your convictions and the confidence to see them through.
Putting yourself in the category of ‘Aspiring Author’, merely tells the world that you don’t have confidence in your own writing and that you don’t consider yourself to be a professional. Why should any publishing house take you on and take you seriously, if you don’t take yourself seriously. Publishing houses are not looking for amateurs. Debut novelists, new writers…YES! But ‘Aspiring Authors’? Really?
Your approach and your thinking must always be professional, from the outset. No weak ‘aspiring’ here.
Some consider the sacred term ‘author’ to be based on sales. That you cannot call yourself an author until you are published and those royalty cheques start coming through your letterbox. Again…is this right? If you are basing your status as an author purely on sales…then you are in the wrong profession! Yes, being an author is a professional endeavour, but it is also a highly creative one. Creativity should and MUST always come before hard cash.
Although it is easy to get carried away with stories of instant success and truck loads of money, Christopher Paolini is a good example. If you are writing to get rich…you are DEFINITELY in the wrong profession! These stories hit the headlines precisely because they are so rare. Most writers struggle with sales and building their fan base for years and years, there’s nothing instant about it. It’s hard graft all the way. A good mate of mine, Will, once said that writing the book was the easiest part about it and he’s absolutely right. As hard or as easy as you may find the process of writing and editing your work, that really is the easiest part of being an author.
Think of the great writers of the 19th and 20th century, few of them had instant success with their very first book. They too had to build their readership, hone their craft and get on the carousel of marketing and promotion. Why a carousel? Because it NEVER stops! If they had dismissed themselves as merely ‘aspiring authors’, when their first book languished on the bookshelves due to poor sales, then they probably would never have written a second or third book and thus deprived us readers of some literary masterworks!
Sales has nothing to do with writing or wanting to be a writer. Yes, you’ve got to be professional and yes, good sales are what you want to strive for and achieve, but it should NEVER be a motivational tool or a yardstick by which you class yourself as an author or not.
Be what you want to be. Have confidence in your abilities, your imagination and your writing. There is nothing ‘aspiring’ about it…inspiring, hell yes! Wouldn’t you rather be an inspiring author than an aspiring one?
Whatever your professional day job…You ARE a writer…or you are not. That simple.
For me?
I am and have always been a writer, an author and proud to be one.
With a heavy heart, I dragged myself away from magical Lake Taupo and the wonders of the Tongariro National Park.
Leaving my rental car and the majesty of New Zealand’s active volcanoes behind, I grabbed a cheap bus ride and headed south towards the country’s capital, Wellington, the southernmost capital in the world!
Known as ‘Windy Wellington’, it certainly lived up to its name! Situated in the latitudes of the ‘Roaring Forties’ and perched on a range of steep-sided hills that run down to the harbour and the sea beyond, Wellington is also particularly exposed to the coastal gusts that blow through the Cook Strait. The city also lies on an active geological fault line and has a high degree of seismic activity as a result, with several small earthquakes occurring every year, and was the sight of New Zealand’s most powerful recently recorded earthquake, in 1855, reaching a massive 8.2 magnitude.
Arriving, somewhat weighed down by my now massively heavy backpack, I got a room in a small B&B then set out to explore the wonders of Wellington.
I wandered amongst the harbour and quayside, a picture of city tranquility and civic pride. None of the dirt, litter and graffiti so prevalent in our own capital. Public sculptures and fountains jostled amongst neatly clipped lawns and perfectly manicured flowerbeds. Only the unpredictability of the sea reminded you of the wildness beyond the city fringes.
I took the cable car and drank in the breathtaking views over the city as I passed Kelburn cricket grounds and headed up the hillside to the botanical gardens above and the Carter Observatory and Planetarium. Seeing the stars of the Southern Cross for the first time and a different night sky to one you’ve always known, is strange and thrilling.
The next few days whirled by in haze of sightseeing, but there was always something dogging my tracks, like a whisper on the wind, a feeling of melancholia that I couldn’t shake…
Rarely in life do we realise that we are having the time of our lives while we are actually having them! Yet I was all too aware, as I reached the mid-point of my four-month odyssey, that I had never felt happier, freer and more contented, and that the experiences and memories I was making, would stay with me for a life-time and shape my life in ways I could never have predicted.
Booking my ferry ticket, I posted home some of the encumbering weight of my backpack, before bordering the Interislander Cook Strait Ferry and saying farewell to New Zealand’s North Island!
93km and 3 hours later, for what has been deservedly described as ‘one of the most beautiful ferry rides in the world’, I saw the stunning inlets and channels of the South Island’s Marlborough Sounds. A 4000km2 maze of coastal ‘sea-drowned valleys’, of heavily wooded hills and sparsely populated quiet bays at the far north of the South Island, which evoke the best of ancient Scandinavian legends. A heady mixture of mystery, Maori mythology, spectacular landscapes and sweet solitude. Nature at her best!
I arrived at the sheltered harbour of Picton, gateway to the South Island. Grabbing another cheap bus, I headed west through the glorious rolling hills and vineyards of Marlborough’s famous wine region to the bohemian city of Nelson, the geographical centre of New Zealand. A small but wonderfully artsy feeling place, full of galleries, indie record shops and festivals, Nelson became my base for the next week.
Bathed in the highest amount of sunshine per year, making it the ‘Sunshine Capital’ of New Zealand, you can understand why it’s cerulean skies and dry heat are so perfect for making fine wines. And so, despite sadly not being a lover of wines myself (my immature palate makes them taste as disgustingly sour, as when I tried sipping them at age 13), I found myself getting lost down empty country tracks, picking grapes and macadamia nuts from the roadside! Bliss.
After happy days soaking up the sunshine and culture of friendly Nelson, I took my rental car and headed west, as I found myself aching once more for wild places. Branching off from the State Highway, I took the picturesque coastal road past Motueka and onto the pretty little town of Kaiteriteri with its sandy beaches and cafes…But still the wild beckoned me.
Following a twisting road, which can only be described as a single gravel track hardly wide enough for a car, with sheer drops inches from my wheels, I gingerly skirted the forested hills and cliffs towards my destination, Marahau, hoping against hope not to met a car coming in the opposite direction!
Crossing the Otuwhero Inlet, I was immediately amazed by the startling azure of the Tasman Bay and the Pacific beyond and the almost ethereal white of the beaches. Sheer paradise. Marahau, a tiny inaccessible village, gateway to the Abel Tasman National Park and outpost for laid back beach bums, surfers, hikers, adventurers and those wishing to get lost, had the most magical feel to it. Artisan and bohemian in the extreme, with only one way in or out, its solitary grocery shop, cafe, post box and the few dotted roads, houses, caravans, water taxis and kayaks, invited you to stay a while…and so I did.
THIS was a place to live and breathe and write! Hemingway, Greene, Kerouac…if they knew this place existed, they would have packed their cigars, white shirts and shades and headed here on the first plane. Du Maurier too…but maybe without the cigars!
I splashed out, booking myself into the rather posh, Ocean View Chalets, self-contained wooden chalets perched on stilts and overlooking the sea. The view from my balcony was nothing short of spectacular. This was the stuff of dreams. If you couldn’t be inspired here, then you couldn’t be inspired anywhere.
Wishing every minute would stretch itself and every hour would become a day, I spent the next three glorious weeks in a heightened state of happy delirium. No drugs needed, just utterly intoxicated on life.
Taking the Abel Tasman walkway and coastal track deep into the rainforest, I was astonished to see a passing group of little wild blue penguins casually crossing the path in front of me, as a cacophony of exotic birds cooed in the canopy above.
Abandoning shoes, I spent most of my days walking barefoot, hanging out on the beach as if it were a religion, beach combing, sketching and horse riding along the surf…yes, as clichéd as it is, there is nothing like it! Writing for hours and hours as the sun hovered overhead, a guiding light for my imagination. Watching the sunset blaze into the ocean, or the drifting embers of a bonfire on the beach, sharing gentle conversation with strangers, all as blissfully happy as me.
Days were meant to be like this…
As I have a dreadful memory for things, I have a plethora of notepads around me at all times to scribble and sketch ideas down on. Now, I’m not placing myself into the illustrious company of the grand master himself, Leonardo Da Vinci, but I do understand the need for notepads (good old moleskins!). Well, imagine this…seeing Leonardo Da Vinci’s own notepad!
Wow!
Now THIS is a book to truly cherish! Leonardo Da Vinci’s notebook, the ‘Codex Forster I’ (1487-1505).
Who wouldn’t want a glimpse into the mind and internal machinations of one the greatest geniuses to have ever lived?
Leonardo Da Vinci, one my favourite artists of all time, whose sheer ingenuity and skill as a draftsman, in my opinion, has just never been matched, was also a prolific writer and doodler in his time. Any ideas for paintings, inventions etc, any mathematical mechanics he had to work out, any information he needed for research – he meticulously wrote down, often accompanied with a sketch.
What an object of beauty and wonder?!
Well, having had the extraordinary honour of seeing some of these precious items for myself, in the V&A Musuem in London some years ago, they are now ‘on tour’ travelling around the world and the lucky people of Atlanta, Georgia, will now have the opportunity to view them!
A HUGE thank you to Beattie’s Book Blog – unofficial homepage of the New Zealand Book Community, for this.
http://beattiesbookblog.blogspot.com/
I’m SO excited I can hardly breathe let alone speak…and for those who know me, they know that I am almost NEVER speechless!
Having met my lovely publishers yesterday, Safkhet Publishing, on a very sunny spring day, I am totally elated and beyond thrilled that my debut novel, White Mountain – Book 1 of The Darkling Chronicles, is NOW available to pre-order!
White Mountain, will be published 30th September 2012, but pre-orders are now being taken! It is all becoming gloriously real!
So, after doing an embarrassing dragon dance round my garden like a demented hopping frog, I am now trying to catch my breath and let my friends, family and supporters know…
So, to become a ‘Dragon Friend’, and get your name in print click here:
http://www.safkhetpublishing.com/books/fantasy/9781908208095/TDC1.html
A MASSIVE thank you to you all! So happy! xx
For the last two days I’ve had the pleasure of spending time in beautiful Cambridge. Having never visited it before. My only expectations were a hazy collection of pictures and tv travel programmes and of course, the recognisable names from University Challenge (my stalwart every Monday evening!). Trinity College, Magdalene…yes, all present and accounted for.
Driving up in the company of my good friend and fellow writer, Will MacMillan Jones, who also had never visited Cambridge, we chatted about writing and what might be awaiting us at our journey’s end, including meeting with our publishers, Safkhet Publishing.
Slightly nervous at the prospect of meeting said Publishers, who of course were utterly lovely, very friendly and just thoroughly nice people, I distracted myself with the beautiful architecture, the rich history, and the relaxed university vibe of the town. It was a sun-drenched day, students everywhere, cyclists whizzing past you at alarming speeds, ducks flitting on and off the water, swans asleep amongst the banks of daffodils…utterly idyllic, and yet… 
One thing that did strike my little socialist heart..were all the ‘no-go zones’. 
Having been to university myself, albeit a few years ago now, I was used to it being a bastion of education yes, but it also being pretty much a free for all. In other words, the public were welcome. Now, I certainly wasn’t expecting to burst into some hallowed college and disrupt a lecture…BUT…I did expect to be able to walk beside the beautiful river Cam.
Yes, of course there are sections where you can enjoy a meandering riverside stroll, but again and again we’d found our progress suddenly stopped by a barred metal gate or door, saying no admittance to non-university members! I was shocked. There were even two security guards, dapperly dressed and wearing bowler hats that were standing guard over a bridge to stop people crossing!
How in 2012, can there still be such obvious segregation between the haves and have-nots? These are not people’s private dwellings that we are trying to gain access to, no secret government facilities, no trespassing over gardens and private land…these are public places, parks, paths, bridges that only the affluent and connected are permitted to cross. 
Cambridge IS a beautiful place. Weeping willows lazily overhanging the Cam as punts drift on by…idyllic. The atmosphere of learning, of studious endeavour…fantastic. The centuries old history, so densely rich that it seems to seep through every stone and ornate archway…wonderful, and the mystery and magic caught in every gargoyle, every griffin and dragon winged statue…thrilling. But for me, the ever-present locked gates, closed doors, no admittance, spiky railings, ‘keep off the grass’, ‘members only’ signs were just a little too much.
Cambridge, you are glorious and magical and wondrous, but you are also too inaccessible, frighteningly elitist and ‘off-limits’…a taste I didn’t savour!
I look forward to strolling around the glistening spires of Oxford and its friendlier riverside paths!
My second in-depth interview! Woo-and Hoo! 
(Yes, it is strange that this and Tricia’s blog came out on the same day, but you know…life IS strange and wonderful and bizarre!)
A few weeks ago I was thrilled and VERY humbled to be approached by the multi-talented, Ryan Holmes – a fellow fantasy writer, a skilled ‘Quiz Master General’, blogger extraordinaire and all round lovely guy.
Oh…did I mention that he also has my dream job?
He works for…(drum roll please)…NASA!
Ryan Holmes is also the creator of Griffin’s Quill, a fantastic website “created by authors for authors and their readership.”
Not only does it feature Ryan’s own writing, ‘Dawn of Resurgence’, but it is also dedicated to encouraging and nurturing new writing talent.
A great place and a real haven for writing and writers in general – highly recommended!
Well, over the course of the last few weeks I’ve had an absolute blast, as Ryan has well and truly quizzed me over my reasons for writing and my debut novel, ‘White Mountain’, Book 1 of ‘The Darkling Chronicles’ – published by Safkhet Publishing 30th September 2012.
Massive thanks to Ryan Holmes for all his incredible hard work and for making the interview so much fun! Check out the results here:
http://griffinsquill.com/2012/03/21/sophie-e-tallis/
Griffin’s Quill: http://griffinsquill.com/
P.S. I still want to join NASA!
Yesterday I was very flattered and rather humbled to be included in Tricia Drammeh’s – ‘Authors To Watch’, focusing on the work of ten new fantasy writers and their reasons for writing fantasy!
Tricia Drammeh’s question was this: “Why do you write fantasy?”
The answers were wonderfully varied and gave a fascinating insight into the writing processes and motivations of each author.
Some wrote from a compulsion and obsession to write, others from a need for escapism in a hard or dreary world. Some wrote fantasy as a cathartic release, a way of working through demons and again escaping a less than easy life, others simply because of their profound love of the genre, the way it can encapsulate the imagination like no other writing form.
My reason for writing fantasy? Probably all of the above!
Huge thanks to Tricia Drammeh! Check out her wonderful website and the ‘Authors To Watch’ section here:
http://www.authorstowatch.triciadrammeh.com/2012/03/great-escape.html
Tricia Drammeh’s website: http://www.triciadrammeh.com
Having just fulfilled a life’s dream of actually having a library of my own, albeit very small and petite, the room is only big enough for four of my ten bookcases + a sofa so the others are dotted around the living room and house, I came across this wonderful article all about libraries!
http://flavorwire.com/261320/20-beautiful-private-and-personal-libraries?all=1
Thanks to Beattie’s Book Blog for that one! : http://beattiesbookblog.blogspot.com/
Ahhhhhh!!!!!!! What heaven!
Now, on the whole I’m a very even-tempered person. By all accounts my mates describe me as very laid back, often too much so. However, I am also a perfectionist who worries a lot and gets incredibly passionate and fired up about people and things who are important to me.
The one thing that gets my goat, is injustice. People being treated badly and situations which are completely unfair, really jar with me, as I’m sure they do with you. Now, trying to be diplomatic about things and biting your tongue gets you so far…but when you witness someone behaving badly and with total impunity, the urge to set things right can become overwhelming. So, what do you do when you absolutely HAVE to vent but know you can’t?
Well…I write, furiously and in a fury! Often frenzied, words spilling out and crashing about the place like truculent teenagers. BUT, apart from the cathartic release you get from venting on paper or on screen, does writing in a temper actually enhance or detract from your creativity?
Tricky question!
Certainly writing in a temper will inject your prose with passion and fire, and of course, while you are in that raging vein, you are not self-conscious (the killer of creativity!). But does the content of what you are writing become better with a proverbial axe to grind, or merely more ‘in your face’?
Re-reading passages of White Mountain that I knew I wrote in a rage, made me chuckle, as I remembered not only the cause of my anger but still took ENORMOUS pleasure in seeing the literary results! Bad, I know…but why not immortalise those who have irked you or caused you pain, into caricatures of themselves?
Poetry I find is particularly best when ‘written in rage’…it’s fresh, powerful and uninhibited…just how I like it! BUT, the flip side of course, is that you are incapable of reflection and introspection in moments like that. Any scene which requires subtlety and ‘stillness’ simply cannot be achieved if you’re in a personal lather.
So…my recommendation to all writers, particularly those that have action in their books…is don’t write a battle scene, fight, murder etc in a calm mood, wait until you’re juiced up on rage and injustice! But ensure your calmer literary scenes are written with peace of mind and a clear narrative of thought…time to breathe!
