October’s Book Club: Booktober Challenge
Book Corner is our monthly online book club. Anyone can join.
How it works…
We love books and we love chatting about them even more. Every month, we pick a new book for discussion. We will post a question to kick things off and then you can talk about any of your thoughts about the book in the comments box below. The best thing about our book club is that EVERYONE CAN TAKE PART.
This month, I am doing things a little differently. As it’s October, and also the launch month for Books are My Bag 2015, I am going to be doing the Booktober challenge. Four weeks, four books. I’ve picked four books that I will be reading over the next four weeks. You can either read along with me or pick four of your own. Please do let me know in the comments if you’d decided to read along and which books you’ve picked.
Also, to celebrate Booktober, anyone who takes part and comments on any of the books they are reading in the comments below will go into the draw to win a £10 Books Are My Bag gift card which is accepted in bookshops nationwide.
(Competition open to UK only. Draw will close on 31st October 2015 at midday and the winner will be drawn at random soon after and announced on the Novel Kicks blog.)
So, to the four books I’ve picked….. The Day we Disappeared by Lucy Robinson, The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon, Us by David Nicholls and The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins.
by 
Author Interview: Megan Tayte
Hello Megan, welcome to Novel Kicks. Firstly, how much planning do you undertake when beginning a novel and do you edit as you go?
I let ideas come freely for a long while, and then I start planning. Once I have a detailed plan down, I start writing, but from that point on I still follow the creative process as I write. Sometimes that leads to a deviation that doesn’t work, and I cut the whole lot and go back to the plan. Sometimes the deviation turns out to be great, and I go with it and amend the plan accordingly.
My day job as an editor can be quite a hindrance to writing – I automatically slip into editing mode, and that pulls me out of being in the pure creative flow. My solution is to try very hard to resist the urge to edit as I write. So I write the first draft quickly, letting the words flow out. And then, some weeks later, I begin to edit. And edit. And edit.
Is there a fictional character you’d like to meet?
Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights. It seems to me he could do with a friend – and some relationship advice.
Who’d you like to invite to a fantasy dinner party?
Oliver Queen (the Arrow), James Corden (presenter), Dawn French (comedian), Ed Sheeran (singer), Bear Grylls (adventurer), Kathy Reichs (author), Stephen Fry (actor), Beaker (Muppet). Oh, and we’d better have someone to cook, or we’ll be eating cheese on toast – Gordon Ramsey will add a bit more colour (and volume) to proceedings.
Five pieces of advice for new writers?
1. Explore. Go places, meet people, challenge your assumptions. Thoreau says it best: ‘How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.’
2. Read. The single best way to improve your writing is to learn by osmosis, to read and read and read. Not just in your favourite genre; all kinds of books by all kinds of writers. Literary, mass market – even the bad ones have plenty to teach you.
3. Believe. If you don’t have faith in yourself, why should anyone else? You’ve nothing to lose by believing you can write, and everything to gain.
4. Enjoy. Always remember why you want to write – for the sheer love of it. Don’t get bogged down in the business of writing. Love every minute.
5. Keep writing. In his bestselling book Outliers Malcolm Gladwell lays down the 10,000-Hour Rule: to succeed at anything, you need to practise your craft for 10,000 hours. That’s a lot of writing!
by Novel Kicks Fiction Friday: Historical Figures
Friday 2nd October: Historical Figures
Fiction Friday is our weekly writing prompt. The aim is to write for a minimum of five minutes and then keep going for as long as you can. Once you’ve finished, don’t edit, just post in the comments box below.
Today’s prompt: Pick four historical figures (all from different time periods) and place them at a round table. What would they talk about? Write this mostly in dialogue.
by Bella’s Scribbling’s: Shelfies
You may have noticed that a well known UK Superstore is now stocking my novel – ‘It Started At Sunset Cottage’ and if you haven’t then I suggest you hot foot it down to the store where ‘Every Little Helps’ to check it out for yourself. To be honest I’m guessing most folk are not quite as excited as I am to see it on a shelf (I could stand there staring at it for hours but apparently they’re not very keen on that, or so the nice security guard man said as he showed me out).
So how did this happen? (Grab a cuppa and I will update you).
Apparently my lovely editor at Harper Impulse, Charlotte Ledger, has been encouraging everyone she knows to read my book and one of the people she offered it to was Caroline Kirkpatrick from Avon (no not the curly paged magazine that gets poked through your door and then an odd-looking man comes to demand it back a few days later – not that. This Avon is another imprint of Harper Collins and thankfully has no curly pages or odd-looking men). Luckily Caroline enjoyed the story and this is where I get a little hazy as to what happened next, so I may have to make bits up.
After various discussions deep within the nooks and crannies of the News building in London they decided to repackage my novel and make it ‘supermarket friendly’. I wondered if this meant it would have a sell by date and come with two packets of custard creams (well, a girl can dream). Apparently, the supermarkets are very specific about what they want and what their experience tells them will sell. So with that in mind my cover was tweaked – it gained some bunting and the cottage was thatched but sadly we lost the dog in the handbag and the pineapples hidden in the floral arrangements. But overall the revised cover was definitely striking.
by Blog Tour: Little Girl Gone by Alexandra Burt
I’d really like to welcome Alexandra Burt and her blog tour to Novel Kicks today. Her latest novel, Little Girl Gone was released by Avon on 24th September 2015. To celebrate, we have an extract from Little Girl Gone. Enjoy….
A baby goes missing. But does her mother want her back?
When Estelle Paradise’s baby daughter is taken from her crib, she doesn’t report her missing. A week later, Estelle is found in a wrecked car miles from home, with a gunshot wound to the head and no memory. The only thing she can remember is the blood…so much blood.
She knows she holds the key to what happened that night – but what she doesn’t know is whether she was responsible.
The blood lingers. There’s flashes of crimson exploding like lightning in the sky, one moment they’re illuminating everything around me, the next they are gone, bathing my world in darkness. Then the bloody images fade and vanish, leaving a black jittering line on the screen.
Squeaking rubber soles on linoleum circle me and I feel a pat on my shoulder.
This isn’t real. A random vision, just a vision. It doesn’t mean anything.
A nurse gently squeezes my shoulder and I open my eyes.
‘Mrs Paradise,’ the nurse’s voice is soft, almost apologetic. ‘I’m sorry, but I have orders to wake you every couple of hours.’
‘Blood,’ I say, and squint my eyes, attempting to force the image to return to me. ‘I don’t understand where all this blood’s coming from.’ Was that my voice? It can’t be mine, it sounds nothing like me.
‘Blood? What blood?’ The nurse looks at my immaculately taped central line. ‘Are you bleeding?’
I turn towards the window. It’s dark outside. The entire room appears in the window’s reflection, like an imprint, a not-quite true copy of reality.
by Book Club
