tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14645894890148606112024-03-14T11:04:09.181+00:00dementionA group blog by authors Teri Terry, Julienne Durber, Julie Bertagna and Claire Merle on all things dark and dystopian in YA fictionJuliennehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03177445245144105172noreply@blogger.comBlogger52125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1464589489014860611.post-1114245297079038132013-08-16T12:57:00.000+01:002013-08-16T17:40:34.522+01:00The Future...next exit! <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
by <a href="http://dementionblog.blogspot.co.uk/p/julie-bertagna.html" target="_blank">JULIE BERTAGNA</a><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The Edinburgh International Book Festival is an exciting place. I’ve been travelling back and forth, meeting friends and celeb-spotting in the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2011/aug/15/edinburgh-book-festival-yurts-nicola-morgan" target="_blank">Authors’ Yurt </a>(a kind of tented Tardis, much bigger on the inside, crammed full of authors bursting with stories they’re about to let loose on the world). But the best thing about a book festival is that authors and readers meet to share stories and ideas.</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So if you’re coming to our <a href="https://d3v4sx4i2y2qe1.cloudfront.net/cdnstatic/1080137dadfc84c0e1d8bb4efe501533c2cbf49d/uploads/programme_pdfs/2013_schools_brochure_web.pdf" target="_blank">schools event</a> (see page 15) or <a href="https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/the-festival/whats-on/julie-bertagna-claire-merle-teri-terry-deconstruct-dystopia" target="_blank">our evening event</a> on Wed 21st August, here’s a taster of what we’ll be discussing in our dystopian debates... join in!</span></b></span></div>
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<b style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: magenta; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Books and films imagining the future are hugely popular just now. Think of the Hunger Games, Inception, Halo - and our books! </span></b></div>
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<b style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: magenta; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Why do people enjoy them? Do YOU? Because we like to be thrilled, challenged, scared, inspired? Or are dark and dangerous stories an escape from reality? </span></b></div>
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<span style="color: magenta;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>We imagine three very different versions of the future. But how do you imagine it? Could science save us? Destroy us? Take us across the universe to new worlds? Will the climate, new inventions or politics change the way we live? (</b><span style="font-size: 15px;"><b>Why not</b> u</span></span></span><b style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">se some of these ideas to help you write a futuristic story of your own?)</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b><span style="color: magenta; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">But how far should writers go in imagining the future - especially for young readers? Should there be limits? The new dystopian fiction is marketed towards girls, though they are exciting stories with lots of boy appeal - are ‘labels’ and covers aimed at boys or girls helpful for readers? Or should you be free to make your own discoveries?</span></b></span></div>
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<b style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: magenta; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">There's much more about us and our books elsewhere on Demention, and here...</span></b></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>Claire Merle’s The Glimpse was welcomed as a grippingly readable and deeply unsettling British dystopian thriller. Her new book The Fall will be out in June. </b><a href="http://www.clairemerle.com/home.html"><span style="color: #1919a7; letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Claire’s website</b></span></a></span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>Julie Bertagna’s award-winning Exodus trilogy is a brilliantly imagined story of love and survival in a climate-changed world. Zenith and Aurora complete this highly-acclaimed, classic dystopian story of the future.’ </b><a href="http://www.juliebertagna.com/"><span style="color: #1919a7; letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Julie’s website</b></span></a></span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>Teri Terry’s Slated, a dark psychological thriller, was published to great acclaim last year and has now been followed by the engrossing, fast paced Fractured. </b><span style="color: #1919a7; letter-spacing: 0px;"><b><a href="http://teriterry.jimdo.com/">Teri’s website</a></b></span></span></span></div>
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JULIE BERTAGNAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11968031704120925668noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1464589489014860611.post-38045082506532442412013-08-07T09:25:00.000+01:002013-08-07T09:26:09.702+01:00Demention is heading for Edinburgh! <span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">by <a href="http://teriterry.jimdo.com/" target="_blank">Teri Terry</a></span><br />
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</span> <span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Yes, it's true: Claire Merle, Julie Bertagna and myself will all be heading for Edinburgh and the <a href="https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/" target="_blank">Edinburgh International Book Festival</a> - the largest festival of the spoken word in the world! </span><br />
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</span> <span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">We're doing one event in the school's programme, and one in the public programme - both on 21st August. The latter is at 6 p.m. and here is the event: </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Dangerous, dark, dystopian... Are stories about the future a thrilling escape from reality or can they inspire change? How far dare writers go as they embrace rebellion and independent thinking? Should there be limits? Should ideas be challenged? Join Demention blog authors, Julie Bertagna (Exodus), Claire Merle (The Fall) and Teri Terry (the Slated triology), for a big dystopian debate.</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Tickets are available<a href="https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/the-festival/whats-on/julie-bertagna-claire-merle-teri-terry-deconstruct-dystopia" target="_blank"> here</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">But that's not all....</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The YA Edinburgh Book Hunt!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">We and some other YA authors have got together to giveaway signed copies of all these books: </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKRKCOoCl1hF1IeTQ1HC3N4UWseZLZPvZRnWwbJhSg-6BudNfeBuuGB9IT4_yTWB9HlSM6mx5IyWN4npyUpnCE-tgeL-xIHVG1VvqiAqck2OzH8FbvaiRq-qvOVHcnx_Ys8RK4IRCEgdSo/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-08-03+at+14.51.31.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKRKCOoCl1hF1IeTQ1HC3N4UWseZLZPvZRnWwbJhSg-6BudNfeBuuGB9IT4_yTWB9HlSM6mx5IyWN4npyUpnCE-tgeL-xIHVG1VvqiAqck2OzH8FbvaiRq-qvOVHcnx_Ys8RK4IRCEgdSo/s400/Screen+Shot+2013-08-03+at+14.51.31.png" width="300" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">This giveaway is international.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">To enter, visit one of the blogs of the authors involved. The link to mine is <a href="http://teriterry.jimdo.com/2013/07/20/edinburgh-book-festival-here-i-come/" target="_blank">here</a>. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">All you have to do is follow the instructions on each blog and follow the hunt, until you get back where you started and email the answer from clues on each blog (full details are on each blog).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Good luck!!</span>Teri Terryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13641477543947472370noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1464589489014860611.post-61599951692591068762013-07-15T21:09:00.000+01:002013-07-18T11:53:42.950+01:00It's the Apocalypse!...is that why it is so HOT?<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">by <a href="http://teriterry.jimdo.com/" target="_blank">Teri Terry</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">OK, it isn't REALLY the end of the world. As far as I know. Though hitting high-20s for over a week in England, with no end in sight, feels a bit like pigs flying and/or snowballs in hell kind of stuff.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">No, what I'm referring to is....</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8boSs3IRrk50DPPNU1NvtKVmVA2lWcc6ziAhTLrSseWHZFhS2C6RDgeYhiZKq_VUFYfMP73d4KjK4e5Ag6jgO26KgKWE-Bp7Q1G2O2KTSBM_CAa-jX07hsXuhAzFTVus2AUG6ra67Sb5_/s1600/apocalypse+banner.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="208" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8boSs3IRrk50DPPNU1NvtKVmVA2lWcc6ziAhTLrSseWHZFhS2C6RDgeYhiZKq_VUFYfMP73d4KjK4e5Ag6jgO26KgKWE-Bp7Q1G2O2KTSBM_CAa-jX07hsXuhAzFTVus2AUG6ra67Sb5_/s400/apocalypse+banner.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Apocalypse! is an eight day blogging event hosted by Maja at <a href="http://www.thenocturnallibrary.com/" target="_blank">The Nocturnal Library</a>, Heidi at <a href="http://rainydayramblings.typepad.com/" target="_blank">Rainy Day Ramblings</a>, and Christy at <a href="http://christysloveofbooks.com/" target="_blank">Love of Books</a>. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">And there is a giveaway, oh yes there is! The giveaway is a blog hop, and all is revealed <a href="http://www.thenocturnallibrary.com/p/apocalypse.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Finally - </span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">to see the top ten things I'd need to survive an apocalypse, visit </span><a href="http://www.thenocturnallibrary.com/" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;" target="_blank">The Nocturnal Library</a> <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">: here is the <a href="http://www.thenocturnallibrary.com/2013/07/day-6-of-apocalypse-teri-terry-author.html" target="_blank">link</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Teri Terryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13641477543947472370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1464589489014860611.post-18267988722596734742013-07-08T20:14:00.002+01:002013-07-08T20:14:44.248+01:00Dystopian Rules! <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBkqlEejfGQh4SGVhylzDdqGCSTggAEQvMgQfLMtgrRHw5ki6PLWHo0vjshzU_R-FDR3-V1eVqSEcWdf3e6h2sKG1HPlPi1aWGKTSWVvX7gR6mj8PL-ZWPICxQ9sMTlAcwXYQITmQmH74/s1600/dd4+01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBkqlEejfGQh4SGVhylzDdqGCSTggAEQvMgQfLMtgrRHw5ki6PLWHo0vjshzU_R-FDR3-V1eVqSEcWdf3e6h2sKG1HPlPi1aWGKTSWVvX7gR6mj8PL-ZWPICxQ9sMTlAcwXYQITmQmH74/s1600/dd4+01.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Dystopian YA fiction is still hugely
popular and nothing shows that more than the awesome blogging event <span style="color: #674ea7;">DYSTOPIAN
DOMINATION</span> hosted every year by two bloggers, Kai and Precious. I had the privilege of
taking part in the event last year, with the release of <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Glimpse-Claire-Merle/dp/0571280536/ref=pd_sim_b_1" target="_blank">The Glimpse</a> and now
again this year with the release of <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Fall-Claire-Merle/dp/0571282911/ref=pd_sim_b_1" target="_blank">The Fall</a>. Whether you’re writing dystopian and
want to know about this year’s popular releases from around the world, or you just
love reading dystopian as much as we do, this is an event you’ll definitely
enjoy. There are character interviews, author interviews and international
giveaways for signed books and swag.</span><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Here’s what Precious, who hosts the blog <a href="http://shusky20.blogspot.fr/" target="_blank">Fragments of Life </a>has to say about it: </span></span><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"> </span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">"Dystopian
Domination came to life in May 14, 2011. At that time, Kai and I were thinking
of hosting our second blog event together. We were both dystopian enthusiasts
so naturally, we thought of hosting a blog event about YA dystopian novels. I
was the one who suggested that we use Dystopian Domination for the title. Why,
you ask? In 2011, it seemed to me that dystopia was dominating the YA field. We
hosted our first ever ‘DD’ as we like to call it, with excitement and anxiety.
It was our first time to host something that big. I consider it big because we
sought out YA dystopian novels not only in USA but also in other parts of the
world like Australia (Burn Bright by Marianne de Pierres is an example) and UK
(such as 20 Years by Emma Newman). That way, we are spreading the dystopian
love internationally, highlighting books from across the globe and uniting
dystopian enthusiasts and authors in a single blog event.</span></span><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"> </span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">After the first
post, the comments started trickling in. It turned out that a lot of people were
excited for the event! But what really surprised us were the comments that came
after the event. There were people who told us that we inspired them to host
their own blog events (who wouldn’t smile to that?) There are readers and
fellow bloggers who say that they look forward to Dystopian Domination every
year. For that reason, we continued hosting the DD blog event series. We hosted
DD2 and DD3 last year. This year, from June to July, we are hosting Dystopian
Domination 4. It’s not only a tradition for us. It’s also a treat for our
readers, a gift to authors and a fountain of discovery (a lot of people
discover new reads during DD) for everyone."</span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">To read my <span style="color: #674ea7;">character interview with Cole</span> featured on Dystopian Domination last week, and win signed copies of The Glimpse and The Fall click <a href="http://shusky20.blogspot.fr/2013/07/character-interview-with-cole-giveaway.html" target="_blank">HERE</a>. </span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">And just up today, you can also check out the interview with <span style="color: #674ea7;">Teri Terry </span>and win copies of Fractured. Click <a href="http://shusky20.blogspot.fr/2013/07/author-interview-with-teri-terry.html" target="_blank">HERE</a>. </span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Thanks Kai and Precious for such a fabulous blogging event. Dystopian Rules! Link to Kai's blog <a href="http://amaterasureads.blogspot.fr/" target="_blank">HERE</a>. Link to Precious' blog <a href="http://shusky20.blogspot.fr/" target="_blank">HERE</a></span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUfj2gtzl-GvMjvNf86LNRmmCDVUWjtbkDrxZNJN4PIn3Zw1yj85tetScP60HqgqGbe0HtzZtWbkNLKVGt417b9DKGaCFo0vBi5uvdkcChB_HG_7Lk7P6jNw-8BeSXz6zGf6bYhyF8MfI/s1600/4b211611e8f00a22d17b53.L._V384783087_SX200_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUfj2gtzl-GvMjvNf86LNRmmCDVUWjtbkDrxZNJN4PIn3Zw1yj85tetScP60HqgqGbe0HtzZtWbkNLKVGt417b9DKGaCFo0vBi5uvdkcChB_HG_7Lk7P6jNw-8BeSXz6zGf6bYhyF8MfI/s200/4b211611e8f00a22d17b53.L._V384783087_SX200_.jpg" width="133" /></a></div>
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">by Claire Merle</span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">author of THE GLIMPSE (2012)</span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">and THE FALL (Glimpse sequel 2013)</span></span><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"> </span></span><br />
<br />Claire Merlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07566685720094646776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1464589489014860611.post-36550151144742493682013-06-06T10:36:00.000+01:002013-06-07T06:50:42.711+01:00BOOK BIRTHDAYS, FANFARES AND GIVEAWAYS!<h3 style="line-height: 19px;">
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Today I woke to the sound of fanfares bursting below my bedroom window, opened my door to a spontaneous eruption of cheering all up and down my street, and took the kids to school amid the colourful paraphernalia of people waving flags, throwing streamers and blowing whistles at me. </span></span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;">That’s right today is one </span><span data-mce-style="color: #333399;" style="color: #674ea7; font-size: large;">special day</span><span style="color: #333333;">! </span></span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;">The Fall releases in bookshops all over the UK, which will soon be followed by sightings in Australia, Canada, South Africa and Russia! Hooray! People have been camping outside branches of Waterstones and WH Smith just hoping to get their hands on a copy and now YOU can have a signed set copy of the Glimpse Duology, just by bowing at my feet and giving me your soul.</span></span></h3>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4cLJPA5WJ_tFt_en-VVFGRqEhj3rBMRiKnydpeNcFIrn82dZCxsfIg82yYcbscLnNYT5uHTz8qfDXdhhsQhzoQXH8nEpNbFZBIpPr6d89ySHS8tSqtfygqwylOyTtJ22VmfFIuH6Sh28/s1600/tumblr_mnygsuE3zT1rtnjoro1_500.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4cLJPA5WJ_tFt_en-VVFGRqEhj3rBMRiKnydpeNcFIrn82dZCxsfIg82yYcbscLnNYT5uHTz8qfDXdhhsQhzoQXH8nEpNbFZBIpPr6d89ySHS8tSqtfygqwylOyTtJ22VmfFIuH6Sh28/s320/tumblr_mnygsuE3zT1rtnjoro1_500.jpg" width="320" /></span></a><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span id="goog_1397873245"></span><span id="goog_1397873246"></span><br /></span></div>
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OK, I won’t make it that hard. And I might possibly be exaggerating about the camping and fanfares. Maybe that all happened before I woke up...</span></h3>
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Actually, the truth about book birthday’s, is no one really notices anything unusual about the day, except perhaps that the author sparkles ever-so-slightly and might be heard uttering little incredulous ‘squeaks’ from time to time. But if you would like to help me celebrate, that would be awesome! </span></h3>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEjDv7ug4X6374SsvDrv6DPo6u8PrRxok9OYWkcsRmjW-QJZFGW42o54lfgqPwmhWvRJIO4hYZW-rJ9j3wrOKgLat8SHuq5hm1pv2-gQ8LN5OBlaCM-StduBkT6WpZwI9_wPUU-HmRqLY/s1600/41G8oRKEJ7L._SY445_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; color: #333333; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="clear: left; float: left; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></span></a></h3>
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I’m giving away three signed sets of The Glimpse Duology </span></span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;">– The Glimpse (2012) and The Fall (2013). Please come and leave a comment </span><a href="http://www.facebook.com/clairemerlebooks" target="_blank">HERE</a> <span style="color: #333333;">to let me know you’d like to win them! You can also help me by voting on a possible title for my new YA fantasy. And every time one of you leaves me a comment, a little ‘hooray!’ will sound in the </span><i style="color: #333333;">ether of wonder</i><span style="color: #333333;">, coming from across the waters in a little, red-roofed house near Paris. Thank you for celebrating with me!</span></span></h3>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEjDv7ug4X6374SsvDrv6DPo6u8PrRxok9OYWkcsRmjW-QJZFGW42o54lfgqPwmhWvRJIO4hYZW-rJ9j3wrOKgLat8SHuq5hm1pv2-gQ8LN5OBlaCM-StduBkT6WpZwI9_wPUU-HmRqLY/s1600/41G8oRKEJ7L._SY445_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEjDv7ug4X6374SsvDrv6DPo6u8PrRxok9OYWkcsRmjW-QJZFGW42o54lfgqPwmhWvRJIO4hYZW-rJ9j3wrOKgLat8SHuq5hm1pv2-gQ8LN5OBlaCM-StduBkT6WpZwI9_wPUU-HmRqLY/s320/41G8oRKEJ7L._SY445_.jpg" width="202" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.facebook.com/clairemerlebooks" target="_blank">GO HERE TO WIN!</a></span></h3>
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Claire Merlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07566685720094646776noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1464589489014860611.post-46758203450821519662013-05-27T15:32:00.002+01:002013-05-27T15:33:52.416+01:00Finding Your Voice - Writing fiction<br />
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><a href="http://www.clairemerle.com/" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"> by Claire Merle</span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #674ea7; font-size: large;">‘An ability with
words is nice, but it's not a voice.’</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Meg Rosoff (2011)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-SFX5kZSN431B7yi_edHxu1Wnz_1-s7iZEv-6WQpLvZzHvoIAedYfkQL7MxzjwWKqZTffX4kn1tB-CkxRZQDE7vfupr_zchMfYpq6BasNaujfOpTbJ-u3DPFK8ltPZ9_gjESl4Ql_3YM/s1600/161426.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-SFX5kZSN431B7yi_edHxu1Wnz_1-s7iZEv-6WQpLvZzHvoIAedYfkQL7MxzjwWKqZTffX4kn1tB-CkxRZQDE7vfupr_zchMfYpq6BasNaujfOpTbJ-u3DPFK8ltPZ9_gjESl4Ql_3YM/s320/161426.jpg" width="206" /></a></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Back in early
December I posted on </span><a href="http://dementionblog.blogspot.fr/2012/12/writing-and-lost-art-of-patience.html" style="font-size: 14pt;" target="_blank">‘Writing and the Lost Art of Patience’</a><span style="font-size: 14pt;">: the need to pause
between finishing one project and taking the time to discover the next one. At
the end of November, I had begun working on a new fiction novel – a Young Adult
fantasy. I knew this would be quite different to my first two novels, </span><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Glimpse-Claire-Merle/dp/0571280536/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1369662385&sr=8-1" style="font-size: 14pt;" target="_blank">The Glimpse Duet</a><span style="font-size: 14pt;">, written in the third person with one main point of view and several
alternating points of view. Not only was I entering the domain of fantasy
rather than dystopia, I was also writing in first person for the first time,
and felt quite conscious of the impact this could have on the voice and style
of the work. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt;">About a hundred and twenty pages into this first draft I had an
epiphany about some of the attitudes and feel of my main character and I
started from scratch again with a strong sense of ‘capturing’ a unique and
specific ‘voice’, which wove like a thread into the atmosphere of the work and
story world. I began redrafting, with the uplifting sense that I was making a
personal breakthrough. But by around the hundred and twenty page mark, I began
floundering. <i>Again! </i></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt;">My
level of interest dropped off, the shiny feel of something new and special had
slipped away and I was in throws of doubt with a lurking sense that something
was wrong with my story.</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMUpyra-Xysmnm6ZaWf2j9mi71f2Dkp4VSbxVn9zmU-1ToYAC4e5m8DEQshKEyE5G7zUkcEpX7MdzqJr9EdBLV7Y4Ksmf2RCSi6KzUBGVOaTjk-b8oY-PnTzq0MtCWRfV9MlFZ9xtKu7s/s1600/IMG_3804.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMUpyra-Xysmnm6ZaWf2j9mi71f2Dkp4VSbxVn9zmU-1ToYAC4e5m8DEQshKEyE5G7zUkcEpX7MdzqJr9EdBLV7Y4Ksmf2RCSi6KzUBGVOaTjk-b8oY-PnTzq0MtCWRfV9MlFZ9xtKu7s/s320/IMG_3804.jpg" width="238" /></a></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7WpHXH0_Fs40c0vYMyOetv5U53IsFy6phmelgcQGF8dx9y61mnpOc4aYqnB87Efp3a5a_L-2bOocWnMmMO9zStp5y6BhJN6_n2NBMXMRkO4Em5Jey27Ie21c-rNaEA1QS8dcAXtt04Oc/s1600/IMG_3807.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="149" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7WpHXH0_Fs40c0vYMyOetv5U53IsFy6phmelgcQGF8dx9y61mnpOc4aYqnB87Efp3a5a_L-2bOocWnMmMO9zStp5y6BhJN6_n2NBMXMRkO4Em5Jey27Ie21c-rNaEA1QS8dcAXtt04Oc/s200/IMG_3807.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; text-indent: 35.4pt;">Around this time, I attended a SCBWI writer’s
conference. During workshops on pitching, I found myself struggling to write a
dazzling pitch for my YA fantasy. Or more honestly, anything remotely good at
all. Summing it up in a line or a paragraph seemed almost impossible. To work
within the frame of what we were being asked to do, I began altering the basic
story structure to come up with a simpler concept, resulting in another light-bulb moment. Followed by
panic. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMWYyGlHx88ooneJpCXYAoOwXWesK219PsIMMTBE3ACio-ny6qwd2rhV2vbrdogM1e0uDQ_dRb9QgM97OqhpkGAQ1-_GBH0L7KGNgaPiFUnQysX1L9vO28mVUNzSh-DeeoYOoSPPRde8c/s1600/IMG_3801.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="149" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMWYyGlHx88ooneJpCXYAoOwXWesK219PsIMMTBE3ACio-ny6qwd2rhV2vbrdogM1e0uDQ_dRb9QgM97OqhpkGAQ1-_GBH0L7KGNgaPiFUnQysX1L9vO28mVUNzSh-DeeoYOoSPPRde8c/s200/IMG_3801.JPG" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; text-indent: 35.4pt;">I’d been grappling with aspects of my fantasy story that weren’t working
but I was also reluctant to let go of all my previous hard work. Inspired (and
scared) I allowed myself one week to start over and pursue the new idea. I wrote furiously to get as much down as I could,
desperate to see if it could really stand up to the long haul, or if it would frazzle and splutter out
like previous efforts. Now, less than two months later, I’m sitting with an
80,000 word draft and I’m almost finished. After months of writing and throwing
away hundreds of pages, I have a first draft! (*throws confetti*) And I’ve
never written so fast in my life. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">But
what does this have to do with voice?</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/oct/18/how-to-write-fiction-meg-rosoff" target="_blank">Meg Rosoff's article for the Guardian</a>, (follow the link to read it), she states,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><i><span style="color: #674ea7; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Your 'voice'
lies somewhere between your conscious and subconscious mind. Finding that place
is a challenging exercise in self-confrontation.<o:p></o:p></span></i></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5DqfW4XTQS_MFXVSlYjkII1WkW1K9nMOPA7iZBbS_wpt1i2NY1MiFhXwQEvwc1_W50dnkR7J9Cd-ZVDEEri1sT8cPBb5h8j_LwPowzG7bDmYyxhkGi6dRls7uvLlTA8N6AxOxxFh6qS8/s1600/10280563.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5DqfW4XTQS_MFXVSlYjkII1WkW1K9nMOPA7iZBbS_wpt1i2NY1MiFhXwQEvwc1_W50dnkR7J9Cd-ZVDEEri1sT8cPBb5h8j_LwPowzG7bDmYyxhkGi6dRls7uvLlTA8N6AxOxxFh6qS8/s1600/10280563.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">Over the years, as I’ve written and thrown
away hundred of thousands of words, I’ve often wondered about the way so many
authors advocate scribbling down a first draft as fast as possible, with little
prior plotting. It’s an approach that, from experience, I know can run you hard
and fast into walls. But I also think it’s a powerful way of reaching that
strange and wonderful place where the story seems to flow out of nowhere, where
the writer hovers between thinking and feeling, the rational and emotional, the
conscious and subconscious. There’s nothing more magical than running after a
story, trying to keep up with it, rather than pulling it along behind you.
Writing like this gives your characters the freedom to take you to unexpected
places, to tell the story their way, to tap into something that isn’t logical
but lies beyond analytical or rational thinking.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, I don’t believe voice is something you
can ‘learn’ like plotting or syntax. It’s something you find through the
journey of writing to discover the story only you can tell in the way that only
you can tell it. It’s a culmination of how your characters live through and
learn from their experiences, how they perceive the world, how they act and
react, how they think and speak, and how your own sensibilities and deepest
experiences ripple beneath the pages to create themes and subtext that
sometimes as the author, you’re not even fully conscious you’re doing.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #674ea7; font-size: large;">In life, finding a
voice is speaking and living the truth. Each of you is an original. Each of you
has a distinctive voice. When you find it, your story will be told. You will be
heard</span><span style="font-size: medium;"> ~ John Grisham<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So if you're looking for your voice as a writer, my advice is to take risks, write what excites you, what
sets your pulse racing, what scares or obsesses you, what you’re grappling with
or haunted by. Write and write and write, and somewhere along the line, you
won’t have to find your voice, your voice will find you. </span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Photos from the March 2013 <a href="http://www.scbwifrance.com/events/" target="_blank">SCBWI Paris conference</a>. </span></span><br />
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<!--EndFragment-->Claire Merlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07566685720094646776noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1464589489014860611.post-9520227324388946852013-05-21T16:37:00.004+01:002013-05-21T17:48:50.469+01:00DEMENTION HITS THE ROAD!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Here at Demention we're packing our bags and our books (but hopefully not our wellies) for the <a href="http://www.hayfestival.com/p-5716-the-demention-blog.aspx"><span style="color: #1919a7; letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Hay Book Festival (Friday May 31st 5.30pm)</b></span></a> and the <a href="https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/uploads/programme_pdfs/2013_schools_brochure_web.pdf"><span style="color: #1919a7; letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Edinburgh International Book Festival (Wed 21st August am & pm)</b></span></a> for </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b><i>DARK, DANGEROUS & DYSTOPIAN</i></b></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> debates. Come and meet us - we’d love you to join in. Here’s a taster of what we’re all about...</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><span style="background-color: magenta; font-size: x-large;">JULIE BERTAGNA</span></b> </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b style="background-color: white;"><i><span style="color: magenta;">A boy and girl, oceans apart, fates entwined, fight for a future in a flooded world.</span></i> </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Julie says</b>, ‘An SOS from islanders at the mercy of rising seas on the other side of the world sparked <b>Exodus, Zenith and Aurora</b>. I kept thinking, what if that happens to us? How would we cope in a climate-changed world? So I began an apocalyptic tale of young survivors on a storm-ravaged Earth.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_t3US0VJJb_zhdyDkqTbD9im4aNVWrYuA6dXUA677LpKVaNIt4VdbJ_PsifcE8pjaFvwvcMq9E3nzl0elYRXyfnBywheJorWayRLOYh7mB3USMbqhJx7aRrRMzF5-YrL7Cpfb_VuZ9g/s1600/IMG_1541.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="205" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_t3US0VJJb_zhdyDkqTbD9im4aNVWrYuA6dXUA677LpKVaNIt4VdbJ_PsifcE8pjaFvwvcMq9E3nzl0elYRXyfnBywheJorWayRLOYh7mB3USMbqhJx7aRrRMzF5-YrL7Cpfb_VuZ9g/s400/IMG_1541.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">I set my story 100 years in the future - then climate change kicked in for real, affecting millions. The floods, tornadoes and storms are unnervingly close to my imagined world. Published in over 20 countries, I love that they’ve made lots of shortlists and won awards (even Green awards in the UK & US) but the most brilliant thing for me is that young readers across the world write and tell me how the books have made them think about the future - though some teachers and librarians in the USA have blasted them as too dangerous...’ </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<i><span style="color: magenta; font-family: Trebuchet MS;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Why do we enjoy dystopian and apocalyptic stories when the real world is scary enough? Are they a thrilling escape? Dangerous</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">? Can they inspire hope and change? </span></span></i><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span><br />
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<b style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: blue;">Watch <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCMTmOk8urI" target="_blank">EXODUS TRAILER</a> </span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><b style="background-color: magenta;">TERI TERRY</b></span></div>
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<span style="color: magenta; letter-spacing: 0px;"><b><i style="background-color: white;">Imagine you’ve been SLATED - your memory wiped clean and you don’t know why. </i></b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Teri says</b>, ‘<b>Slated</b> grew from a dream in the dark murk of my unconscious, so it wasn't a plan to write a dystopian novel at all. But I think I end up writing about my obsessions, things that worry me. Whether I want to, or not. I didn't set out to consider big questions, but the story took me places, and the questions were there.’</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8cbJ4lu9-OUQcdHIcGErM8knOFIaUMAJ4SI-fndXRbCQbTRixUIZXz4Xc3UDHsDFg_Q_Th4HhPvF1RRicMQXLej3Nw4l4xnxYyD0D58FHJgD141OC9sOY13J2Nck8r4VaACNcprZYRA/s1600/Teribooks.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="257" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8cbJ4lu9-OUQcdHIcGErM8knOFIaUMAJ4SI-fndXRbCQbTRixUIZXz4Xc3UDHsDFg_Q_Th4HhPvF1RRicMQXLej3Nw4l4xnxYyD0D58FHJgD141OC9sOY13J2Nck8r4VaACNcprZYRA/s320/Teribooks.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<i style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: magenta;">If a young person commits a terrible, violent crime, why did they do it? Are people born bad, or made that way? If someone commits a crime as a reaction to horrible things that have happened to them, is it their fault? Should they even be punished? But if they are dangerous to everyone else, you can't just let them go...</span></i><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large; letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b style="background-color: magenta;">CLAIRE MERLE</b></span></div>
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<span style="color: magenta; letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><span style="background-color: white;">In a society divided into Pures and Crazies, a DNA test can destroy your life forever. </span> </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Claire says</b>, ‘I don’t write to be controversial, but I do hope to make readers think. </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">My debut novel <b>The Glimpse</b> addresses mental health issues from a rather different dynamic than is more common in fiction. Some readers have completely embraced and understood the book in the way I intended, but interpretations have been wide and in some cases very surprising. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-cWWlISvaBQNb2CXWFHN_03NtpC2uYJeIWg_RxemP6apmrGpsIZrVHB6H0K6MqZyjNJS6GqK6kjRsk29Bk_fWSxgpZPmaC5yDKGVdCOjuWvthNM4gNtI1YmUHtOKLXWpSrtp5nGx-Qw/s1600/Clairebooks.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-cWWlISvaBQNb2CXWFHN_03NtpC2uYJeIWg_RxemP6apmrGpsIZrVHB6H0K6MqZyjNJS6GqK6kjRsk29Bk_fWSxgpZPmaC5yDKGVdCOjuWvthNM4gNtI1YmUHtOKLXWpSrtp5nGx-Qw/s320/Clairebooks.gif" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">I didn’t set out to be provocative. I just wanted to write about a subject that concerns me deeply – the direction western society is headed in terms of the perception, diagnosis and treatment of mental health problems. I’m not a particularly confrontational person, but I could easily end up having a heated debate about a pint of milk...'</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i><span style="color: magenta;">Are dystopias so popular because they take risks, exploring all kinds of possible futures in challenging ways? Should there be boundaries in YA fiction? How far dare authors go?</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #333233; letter-spacing: 0px;">From the Hay Festival Programme...</span><span style="color: #1919a7; letter-spacing: 0px;"><a href="http://www.hayfestival.com/p-5716-the-demention-blog.aspx" style="letter-spacing: 0px;">book here</a>:</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">‘Claire Merle’s The Glimpse was welcomed as a grippingly readable and deeply unsettling British dystopian thriller. Her new book The Fall will be out in June. </span><a href="http://www.clairemerle.com/home.html" style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Claire’s website</span></a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #38761d; letter-spacing: 0px;">Teri Terry’s Slated, a dark psychological thriller, was published to great acclaim last year and has now been followed by the engrossing, fast paced Fractured. <a href="http://teriterry.jimdo.com/"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Teri’s website</span></a><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #38761d; letter-spacing: 0px;">Julie Bertagna’s award-winning Exodus is a brilliantly imagined story of love and survival in a climate-changed world. Zenith and Aurora complete this highly-acclaimed, classic dystopian trilogy.’ <span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><a href="http://www.juliebertagna.com/">Julie’s website</a></span></span></div>
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JULIE BERTAGNAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11968031704120925668noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1464589489014860611.post-57524790994054846342013-05-21T16:19:00.001+01:002013-05-21T17:49:24.883+01:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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JULIE BERTAGNAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11968031704120925668noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1464589489014860611.post-17789976327632454082013-05-16T19:59:00.000+01:002013-05-16T19:59:19.877+01:00Seige by Sarah Mussi review by Julienne Durber<div style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="color: white;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Siege by Sarah Mussi tells the story of Leah Jackson, a sixteen year old girl who finds herself trapped when her school is overrun by a gang of gun-wielding students, one of whom is her brother. Told from Leah’s point of view we follow her as she rescues her wounded friends and tries to find a way to escape from the school.</span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">From the cover design, which if it hasn’t featured in the pages of Creative Review I’d be surprised, the reader is fired into an uncompromisingly harsh situation. T</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">he action zips along at just the right rate. </span>Leah’s internal voice is excelently written and really connects us with the claustrophobia and the harsh decisions she has to face. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHA3TccxRILJ_eORZhs5rO-htEh4VzVnaUYtWlGtMUiyEaqvszxjBBq2dox2AGTIjwe0SVSDD2sBJF24xGzKlo8QKNg9MWVNqpIAm0DegCU1089On2HT3XeKnLkiu4xgwbc6oZ68QDq_U/s1600/ID-100114821.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHA3TccxRILJ_eORZhs5rO-htEh4VzVnaUYtWlGtMUiyEaqvszxjBBq2dox2AGTIjwe0SVSDD2sBJF24xGzKlo8QKNg9MWVNqpIAm0DegCU1089On2HT3XeKnLkiu4xgwbc6oZ68QDq_U/s200/ID-100114821.jpg" width="148" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Now I remember having a conversation with a friend about the Tarantino film Pulp Fiction after it first came out. She decided that it was an average film that had been chopped up and re-edited in a funny order to make it seem interesting. I argued that she was missing the point and that the re-editing was a vital part of the intertwined ‘pulp’ story feel.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">But I fell into that exact trap when I started reading Seige. In fact after twenty pages I was convinced I was going to call this review ‘Die Hard meets Columbine’ (and part of me hopes that was the phrase Mussi used to pitch the book to her agent).</span><br />
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<span style="color: #351c75;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Die Hard meets Columbine</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">It is undeniable how close to Die Hard this book is. The violence is visceral and present from the first page. Leah is caught unawares but escapes as others are captured. The Nakatomi building is the school, the terrorists are the gang, and the twist … well, that would be giving the game away - if you have seen the film you'll spot the similarity.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">And when Leah found herself having to negotiate a corridor strewn with broken glass, in my head she had morphed into a young, female Bruce Willis. The bald head really didn’t suit her!</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #351c75;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I was the one missing the point.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">It doesn’t matter that certain elements are familiar. This is a totally immersive story that raises real questions about society, community responsibility and personal choices. Leah’s situation forces the reader to question what they would do in the same situation. And the fact that there have been incidents like this in the news adds a truly chilling edge. This is a book about today. Society. Right now.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Which is why the dystopian thread was the one thing I didn’t like. It seemed to detract from the purity of the situation – terrified student against terrorising gang. The events in the school would have had greater impact without it, and it ended up feeling like a device added to allow certain things to be rounded off blamelessly in the last chapter.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq5t_suEuLMuLKT_2_TylCQHzXHst1a_dkuWDthCKfrdDlAQQMzIx7yKK3-ax3Y3BeMNZ4YCStZnBQ7BqEZ3_FpdAwJJ_Y1G27vGFzmH6Gf8xI-GHHCqRg84CaMAPVc6w-edwL7GJKMok/s1600/ID-100161088.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="146" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq5t_suEuLMuLKT_2_TylCQHzXHst1a_dkuWDthCKfrdDlAQQMzIx7yKK3-ax3Y3BeMNZ4YCStZnBQ7BqEZ3_FpdAwJJ_Y1G27vGFzmH6Gf8xI-GHHCqRg84CaMAPVc6w-edwL7GJKMok/s200/ID-100161088.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">The actual ending, however, was excellent.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #351c75;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I don’t think that this is a genre defining book, though I predict some copycat titles are flying towards the shelves as I’m typing this, but it’s certainly genre influencing.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #351c75;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Read and enjoy. Yippie kay ay …</span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #351c75;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Royalty free images from freedigitaphotos.net </span></span></span></span></span></div>
Juliennehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03177445245144105172noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1464589489014860611.post-21473806058473705292013-04-15T00:30:00.000+01:002013-04-15T00:30:02.225+01:00Jeff Norton, Author of Metawars 2.0:The Dead are Rising - interview and review by Julienne Durber<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="color: black;">Ahead of the release of Metawars 3.0:<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> Battle Of The
Immortal</span></span> <br />I'm interviewing <a href="http://www.jeffnorton.com/" target="_blank">Jeff Norton</a>, author of the Metawars books<br />Scroll down to the end of the interview is my review of<br />Metawars 2.0: The Dead are Rising.</span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><a href="http://dementionblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/metawars-1-fight-for-future-by-jeff.html" target="_blank">(To read my review of METAWARS 1: Fight For The Future click here.)</a></span></div>
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</span>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="color: white;">
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<span style="color: white;">Jeff has kindly donated a signed copy of<br />Metawars 2.0:The Dead are Rising<br />
Leave a comment to be entered into the prize draw, tweet and repost
on FB to be entered twice more
<br />(you know the deal.)
<br />
Giveaway closes on 1st June. Winner's name will be posted here.</span></div>
</blockquote>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3Y5W3ANOq7Wxk9vw-3jW3KKaxivw-EBvvEqs-mDd_c8_yvcejmDmYMf6Xb5-fgf2GSq8nCwy3nvPun4tjxAORjtD_WWLmcIvTaetiISyIWcZ6pXO_wLC6iyduefl5XU9GZG5DMt7OZGs/s1600/Profile+pic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3Y5W3ANOq7Wxk9vw-3jW3KKaxivw-EBvvEqs-mDd_c8_yvcejmDmYMf6Xb5-fgf2GSq8nCwy3nvPun4tjxAORjtD_WWLmcIvTaetiISyIWcZ6pXO_wLC6iyduefl5XU9GZG5DMt7OZGs/s1600/Profile+pic.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #674ea7;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Welcome to Demention, <a href="http://www.jeffnorton.com/" target="_blank">Jeff</a>, and
thank you for agreeing to be interviewed about Metawars 2.0:The Dead are Rising
- a book I enjoyed a great deal.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Thanks for having me!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I love the Demention blog, so this is a real
honour!</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #674ea7;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">When I read book 1, Fight for the
Future, I felt that it relied quite heavily on the technological elements and
was worried that the technology it references would start to feel dated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In book 2, The Dead are Rising, the story
seems to breathe more and we are drawn further into the real world, and while
the technology is still present you touch much more on the characters and their
situations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Was this a conscious change
of direction, or had you always planned it that way?</span></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ93vwLPkMShq1vR0c6rFo0mEQJAOJ1Igi00yweh1FnyhAYSZIuG341XqecevgRScRjBIqXK25O3mENSuODNRKs4d5aahuVr2RXHgRskBX-p4BCGxFY3oX6Oj-d9jxafZQ9-aj8AzzO3g/s1600/metawars+the-dead-are-rising.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ93vwLPkMShq1vR0c6rFo0mEQJAOJ1Igi00yweh1FnyhAYSZIuG341XqecevgRScRjBIqXK25O3mENSuODNRKs4d5aahuVr2RXHgRskBX-p4BCGxFY3oX6Oj-d9jxafZQ9-aj8AzzO3g/s200/metawars+the-dead-are-rising.jpg" width="130" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">The series is anchored in
technology, specifically the interface between the real and virtual worlds, but
that’s not what the books are about. For me, the entire four-book MetaWars saga
is a coming of age story for Jonah and Sam.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I want the reader to feel as though we’re growing up alongside both of
them.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">In the first book, I had to set
up the rules of both worlds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But once
those rules are established and understood, I was free to focus more on the
characters and their growth and development.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #674ea7;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Without giving too much away to
those who haven't yet read it, The Dead are Rising treads some quite sinister
paths and looks further at the issues of mortality and loss that you touched
upon in the first book.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How important do
you feel it is to underpin your stories with such weighty subjects?</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">MetaWars is about choice. It’s
about choice and consequences, which is fundamentally about morality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t shy away from weighty, serious issues
because the characters are grappling with defining their own moral code across
two very confusing worlds. In this book, I tackle everything from gang
membership to suicide and explore one recurring question: does the end justify
the means?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">I want my readers to always
question and interrogate their own moral code as the books evolve.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #674ea7;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">And have you had to tone down any
of the darker aspects to suit your readership?</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">If anything, I’ve dialled up the
drama and with it the terrifying consequences to certain choices that the
characters make.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This book, The Dead Are
Rising, is essentially the exploration of the chilling consequences to one
impulsive choice that Jonah made at the end of the first book.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He chooses to save the ‘life’ of his dead
father, and the entire population of the digital dead.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In doing so, he unwittingly grants the dead a
new form of consciousness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This book
investigates how far someone who knows they are dead (in this case, Jonah’s
father) will go to be alive again and how far someone who mourns for the dead
will go to keep them ‘alive.’</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">In terms of the audience, I think
younger readers can handle a lot more than we adults give them credit for. The
very essence of adolescence, the process of moving from childhood to adulthood,
is an incredibly dark process as your childish beliefs are (sometimes
painfully) replaced by real-world experiences.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I think young readers can relate to this experience, and older readers
can remember it viscerally – which is why I’ve always maintained that MetaWars
is for readers aged 9 to 90!</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #674ea7;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">You also play very effectively
with the morality of the characters, leaving the reader to decide the merits of
each character's situation and the decisions they make.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Did you find it hard to stay away from the
traditional 'authority figures = bad, rebels = good' dystopian paradigm?</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">It was a very deliberate choice
because I think it’s more honest. Each of us is the star of our own movie and
we look at the world through our own moral lens. Every terrorist thinks he’s a
freedom fighter. Every authoritarian figure believes he’s doing the right
thing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s far too easy in contemporary
dystopian literature to play into the tropes and conventions, but it’s much
more fun to upend those conventions – and much more reflective of human nature.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #674ea7;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">In </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The Dead are Rising, even more so than in Fight for
the Future, you look at the negative side of people relying on the Metasphere
as an escape from reality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do you worry
that the virtual experiences we have today could have a similar negative effect
as they become more advanced?</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I’m no Luddite and I love technology, but yes, I am very concerned that
as the world turns online for connection and communication that we risk
alienating ourselves from the real world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I’ve based MetaWars on the ten '</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/"><span id="goog_428404398"></span>meta trends<span id="goog_428404399"></span></a>' that I
believe are shaping our future and meta trend #10 is the what I call the '<a href="http://youtu.be/xrUUcpHnNqk" target="_blank">virtual bubble</a>'</span><a href="http://youtu.be/xrUUcpHnNqk"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"></span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It’s the idea that whenever we engage with the internet, we enter a
virtual bubble – effectively leaving the real world behind. You see then
whenever someone checks their iPhone while walking down the street, they’re
suddenly not paying attention to the real world and thus susceptible to bumping
into someone, walking into the path of a bus, or having their £500 portable
computer nicked.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Author William Gibson
called it ‘cyberspace’ and I do think that the more time we spend away from the
real world, the less time we spend thinking about or caring about the real
issues facing our real world. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #674ea7;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And finally, can you tell me a little about book 3?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When will it be out? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And can you say anything about the fourth book?</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">If book 2 is about the rise of the digital dead, then book 3 is about
the war between the living and the dead. It pits Jonah against his father in a
very emotional struggle over the rights of the living and the ‘reborn’ digital
dead. It’s the most emotional book yet, and I guarantee will make you cry at
the end!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>MetaWars 3.0: Battle Of The
Immortal publishes 1<sup>st</sup>May, 2013 from Orchard Books.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I’m currently writing the fourth and final book now and it’s called The
Freedom Frontier.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s about survival
and sacrifice. I don’t want to give too much away, but when the world suddenly
changes on Jonah and Sam, they find themselves alone in a terrifying new
reality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The book explores the nature of
their relationship against the backdrop of a threat they never saw coming.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #674ea7;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="http://www.jeffnorton.com/" target="_blank">Jeff Norton</a>, thank you very much.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Thank you! It’s been a real pleasure to catch up.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">To find more information about Jeff Norton visit </span><a href="http://www.jeffnorton.com/"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">www.jeffnorton.com</span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">find him on Twitter: <a href="http://www.twitter.com/thejeffnorton">www.twitter.com/thejeffnorton</a> <br />and Facebook: <a href="http://www.facebook.com/thejeffnorton">www.facebook.com/thejeffnorton</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="color: #674ea7;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And my review:</span></span></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: #674ea7;"> </span>Metawars 2.0: The Dead
are Rising follows directly on from book 1, Fight for the Future, but Norton takes
the story to a new level.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jonah</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">
Delacroix is still embroiled in the battle for control of the Metasphere - the
virtual world that the internet has become - but his journey takes him to
emotionally dark places where he has to question both the consequences of decisions
made in the first book and the motivations of both his allies and his enemies.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">As well as expanding the characters established in
Fight for the Future, The Dead are Rising draws us much further into the real
world that Norton has created and seeds planted in the first book begin to
blossom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This extremely believable world
provides a realistic, three dimensional anchor for the Metasphere that was
perhaps lacking in Fight for the Future.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I only liked Fight for the Future, but I love The
Dead are Rising and can't wait for </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">MetaWars 3.0: Battle Of The
Immortal.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: white;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Don't forget to leave a comment for your chance to win a signed copy of </span></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: white;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Metawars 2.0: The Dead
are Rising</span></span></span></span> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"></span></span></span></div>
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Juliennehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03177445245144105172noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1464589489014860611.post-28024242644820246592013-04-04T08:16:00.000+01:002013-04-04T08:16:57.150+01:00A Fractured book birthday!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjj43ViNN4216ZiDCbVveWRSVqyw3iVEkN2C7yBYJIdUSIYPtRNTGYUGknC96nNy6g0Ofz_kTxk-DToAMLifDYKMcO7WoY-CdiPdNc9tUURXK6Alz8jWUCvKf4Uguh2lDXOuy1KbdmUaaPP/s1600/Fractured+final+jpeg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjj43ViNN4216ZiDCbVveWRSVqyw3iVEkN2C7yBYJIdUSIYPtRNTGYUGknC96nNy6g0Ofz_kTxk-DToAMLifDYKMcO7WoY-CdiPdNc9tUURXK6Alz8jWUCvKf4Uguh2lDXOuy1KbdmUaaPP/s400/Fractured+final+jpeg.jpg" style="cursor: move;" width="261" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">by <a href="http://teriterry.jimdo.com/" target="_blank">Teri Terry</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Today is the official publication date of <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fractured-Teri-Terry/dp/1408319489/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1365059677&sr=1-1&keywords=fractured" target="_blank">Fractured</a> in the UK, the sequel to Slated: time for some more happy dancing!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Isn't it pretty? (in a dystopian kind of way :O)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">To celebrate, over on my website you can enter for a chance to have a character in the third book named after you; there are also copies of Fractured up for grabs. This is on teriterry.com <a href="http://teriterry.jimdo.com/2013/04/04/have-a-character-in-slated-no-3-named-after-you/" target="_blank">here</a>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I've also blogged on book 2 trials and tribulations, and celebrations, too, over on Notes from the Slushpile. This one is <a href="http://www.notesfromtheslushpile.com/2013/04/fractured-is-here-book-two-trials.html" target="_blank">here</a>. </span></div>
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Teri Terryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13641477543947472370noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1464589489014860611.post-51278646293397704632013-03-31T23:35:00.000+01:002013-03-31T23:56:45.649+01:00BEACONS:stories for our not so distant future<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8clyJykG4dxLgoywdzALTFgv8aa6BffNOYqgzb_CW0-QZTZ8aznNEZl5QgwGXQ3ClbNRlRW6VrTEyAPOXqbHQdLkZhcEzAAlbbP-ACFTnJBMlY1RMc4BEZQHkR6e5bmOJggaU6OQbOg/s1600/IMG_1478.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8clyJykG4dxLgoywdzALTFgv8aa6BffNOYqgzb_CW0-QZTZ8aznNEZl5QgwGXQ3ClbNRlRW6VrTEyAPOXqbHQdLkZhcEzAAlbbP-ACFTnJBMlY1RMc4BEZQHkR6e5bmOJggaU6OQbOg/s400/IMG_1478.jpg" width="298" /></a></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"> Review by <a href="http://dementionblog.blogspot.co.uk/p/julie-bertagna.html" target="_blank">Julie Bertagna</a></span></span></h3>
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Basking in last spring's unexpected heatwave</span>, we joked that global warming wasn’t so bad, after all. This year, a <a href="http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/1867169/scientists_link_frozen_spring_to_dramatic_arctic_sea_ice_loss.html"><span style="color: #1919a7; letter-spacing: 0px;">dramatic Arctic ice melt</span></a> has exported a long, bitter cold that feels like Narnia’s endless winter, where Christmas never comes. And now <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-21927393"><span style="color: #1919a7; letter-spacing: 0px;">Arran has plunged into a mini Ice age</span></a> as the jet stream that gives the UK a relatively mild climate, and makes Arran’s island climate mild enough for palm trees to line Brodick Bay, has gone awol. An email from the wonderful children’s author <a href="http://www.alisonprince.co.uk/"><span style="color: #1919a7; letter-spacing: 0px;">Alison Prince</span></a> describes a snowed-in community, with emergency generators breaking down if too many washing machines are switched on at once, a scenario uncannily like a scene from post-apocalyptic fiction. Even the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-21956724"><span style="color: #1919a7; letter-spacing: 0px;">bees are in trouble</span></a>, thanks to us, and that means <a href="http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/381155/Britain-needs-bees-Crops-suffering-as-wild-pollinators-decline"><span style="color: #1919a7; letter-spacing: 0px;">we’re in big trouble too</span></a>.</span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Having written a <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Exodus-Julie-Bertagna/dp/033039908X/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_z" target="_blank">popular YA ‘climate change’ trilogy</a>, I’ve been struck by the reluctance of mainstream adult publishing to explore such an urgent, imaginatively rich theme. There seems to be a nervousness about how to tackle such a big idea, how adult readers would react. So I couldn’t wait to get my hands on <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Beacons-Stories-Our-Distant-Future/dp/1851689699/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1364768576&sr=1-1" target="_blank">BEACONS</a>, an anthology of ‘for our not so distant future’ with stories from some of my very favourite authors - Joanne Harris, AL Kennedy, Alastair Gray, Janice Galloway, Lawrence Norfolk and many more talents. </span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">BEACONS is an unsettling read in these times</span> - a kaleidoscope of visions, flights of fancy and warnings; poignant, tragic, bleakly comic. In every story, urgent undercurrents tug, dislocate or rudely shove us beyond the lie that our lives are immune from the vast global changes that are already happening. Many end with the feeling of standing on a precipice - and a sense of a powerful story’s unique ability to simultaneously fire the imagination and emotions, while sparking exciting new interconnections in the <a href="http://www.neuralpathwayrestructuring.com/home.html"><span style="color: #1919a7; letter-spacing: 0px;">neural pathways</span></a> of the brain. </span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">These are ‘real’ horror stories </span>about the biggest issue of our age by some of our very best writers, and for that reason BEACONS deserves to be on the shelves of every bookshop, secondary school and public library in the land; to be read, reviewed and debated widely. Yet that seems unlikely. In the same week <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/mar/21/school-climate-change-petition" target="_blank">reports suggest schools in England will have to downgrade/ erase discussion of climate change in the curriculum</a> (though thankfully not in Scotland), Beacons' editor Gregory Norminton tweeted that no one at the BBC will touch the anthology. Has climate change literally become too hot to handle, censored, too controversial for debate? </span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">A few years ago, I wrote a story called <i>The Imagineers</i> for a 2020 project, inspired by think-tank workshops where business executives and creatives met to brainstorm future challenges. Already, in 2013, my vision of Arctic Scotland, with icebergs in the Clyde, feels all too scarily real... but what stayed with me most of all was a sense that imagineering a brave new future needs all our talents, and that stories can help us to see where we are and envision a way forward. </span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: magenta;">Carpe diem</span> is the old saying: seize the day</span>. But that’s only the first part. <i>Carpe diem quam minimum credula postero </i>is the full quote - <i>seize the day, putting as little trust as possible in the ones to come.</i> </span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">The future is unforeseen so do not leave it to chance</span>, is what the ancient warning means. Seize the day and do everything in your power to make your future better. </span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Grab a copy of BEACONS. Slip one to a young person. In the age of social media, censorship is a fence we can all slip under. Let’s all seize the debate about our future.</span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">As always, we’d love to hear what <span style="color: magenta;">you</span> think... </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: magenta; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; letter-spacing: 0px;">*You can read my 2020 story, THE IMAGINEERS, and others, </span><a href="http://imaginingscotland.com/the-imagineers-julie-bertagna" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">here</span></a><span style="color: magenta; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; letter-spacing: 0px;">. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">*BEACONS is edited by Gregory Norminton (Twitter @GDRNorminton). Buy it in your local bookshop or on Amazon <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Beacons-Stories-Our-Distant-Future/dp/1851689699/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1364768576&sr=1-1" target="_blank">here</a>.</span></span><br />
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JULIE BERTAGNAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11968031704120925668noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1464589489014860611.post-76786616224561538472013-03-23T09:20:00.000+00:002013-03-23T18:40:04.157+00:00Cover Reveal 'The Fall' and Giveaway! by <a href="http://www.clairemerle.com/" target="_blank">Claire Merle</a><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #674ea7; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">THE FALL has a cover!</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Finally, I can show you the cover for THE FALL - the second and final part in my Dystopian thriller, The Glimpse Duet.</span><br />
<a data-mce-href="http://clairemerlebooks.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/thefall_uk_bpb1.jpg" href="http://clairemerlebooks.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/thefall_uk_bpb1.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="TheFall_UK_Bpb[1]" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-454" data-mce-src="http://clairemerlebooks.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/thefall_uk_bpb1.jpg?w=190" height="300" src="http://clairemerlebooks.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/thefall_uk_bpb1.jpg?w=190" style="border: 0px; float: left;" width="190" /></a><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">To celebrate, my publishers have organised a special offer<span style="color: #674ea7; font-size: large;"> </span>for <a data-mce-href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Glimpse-ebook/dp/B007TVAOCM/ref=tmm_kin_title_0" href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Glimpse-ebook/dp/B007TVAOCM/ref=tmm_kin_title_0" target="_blank">The Glimpse on Amazon Kindle</a>! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">For a limited time only (2 weeks I think, but it may be shorter) you can purchase The Glimpse for only 99 pence, <a data-mce-href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Glimpse-ebook/dp/B007TVAOCM/ref=tmm_kin_title_0" href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Glimpse-ebook/dp/B007TVAOCM/ref=tmm_kin_title_0" target="_blank">HERE</a>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />As an added celebration, I'm giving away the FIRST advanced copy of <span style="color: #674ea7;">The Fall</span>! Actually, this hasn't even come off the print yet so you will be the first to read it. As soon as I receive advanced copies, I'll be sending it to the winner!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The giveaway is international. </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">To enter to win the signed copy of <span style="color: #674ea7;">The Fall</span> all you have to do is tweet:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #674ea7;">THE GLIMPSE is on special offer on Amazon Kindle! @ClaireMerle http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Glimpse-ebook/dp/B007TVAOCM/ref=tmm_kin_title_0</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The giveaway will run until Thursday 4th APRIL 2013. So feel free to tweet any time between now and then! On the 4th April, I'll pick a winner at random from all the tweets that have @ClaireMerle in them, so please don't leave that out. (If you are the winner and you would prefer a signed copy of The Glimpse, that can be arranged!)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">AND HERE'S THE COVER BLURB FOR 'THE FALL':</span><br />
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<span style="color: #674ea7; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span class="s1">In the </span>not-so-distant future, society has been divided into Pures and Crazies according to the results of a DNA test. But Ana has uncovered dangerous evidence that the tests are fake.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #674ea7; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span class="s1">Determined </span>to expose the lies, Ana escapes her Pure Community and makes it to the Enlightenment Project. Back in the arms of Cole, nothing is simple. Some believe her presence in the protest camp jeopardises their safety, others believe she is the Angel from their prophetic Writings . . .</span></div>
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<span style="color: #674ea7; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span class="s1">As Ana </span>struggles with her past and her identity, she must take greater and greater risks for the truth. Threatened with losing everyone she cares about, can she finish what she’s started?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Hope you like the cover! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Claire Merlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07566685720094646776noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1464589489014860611.post-75794459798283076152013-03-15T14:58:00.000+00:002013-04-05T08:34:00.809+01:00Fractured giveaways, happy dancing, and general hysteria!!!<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">by <a href="http://teriterry.jimdo.com/" target="_blank">Teri Terry</a></span><br />
<script src="http://cdn.widgetserver.com/syndication/subscriber/InsertWidget.js" type="text/javascript"></script><script type="text/javascript">if (WIDGETBOX) WIDGETBOX.renderWidget('62491804-7eac-4cb7-9280-b85a852fa6f1');</script><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fractured-Teri-Terry/dp/1408319489/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1363356918&sr=1-2" target="_blank">Fractured</a> is published on 4th of April by <a href="http://www.hachettechildrens.co.uk/homepage_orchardbooks.page" target="_blank">Orchard Books</a> in the UK: yippee!! And I'm SO close to finished writing the third book of the trilogy for next year. I'm having trouble concentrating with all this excitement going on, so I thought I'd spend the afternoon dancing about the house and giving things away.</span><br />
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<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The giveaway is now closed but do read on if you want to! The winner of a copy of Fractured is..... Barmybex!</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Leave a comment on this blog post, below, for a chance to win a copy of Fractured:</span> </span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE_YmKdUcKU25f6boaIJPu4bP7ei87VGWa-Aa8XlRij-PTLI8G8LhdEP5K_tIjhdraOl3d1M3QtIq8ucLxivJrRK0CvWQavMsnOlRoVKioMlGwUvVkYZuvN-tqroiLLKHgVCyNRfOz6ALH/s1600/FracturedUS.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE_YmKdUcKU25f6boaIJPu4bP7ei87VGWa-Aa8XlRij-PTLI8G8LhdEP5K_tIjhdraOl3d1M3QtIq8ucLxivJrRK0CvWQavMsnOlRoVKioMlGwUvVkYZuvN-tqroiLLKHgVCyNRfOz6ALH/s320/FracturedUS.gif" width="211" /></a><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The winner will be chosen at random and posted here on Demention. This is international. If you live anywhere in the world besides the US/Canada, you'll get a lovely final copy of Fractured as being published on 4th April by Orchard Books, as above. If you live in the US/Canada you will get a lovely proof copy of the US version of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Fractured-Slated-novel-Book-2/dp/0399161732/ref=la_B005K6IY5W_1_2_title_1_har?ie=UTF8&qid=1363359066&sr=1-2" target="_blank">Fractured</a>, published by Penguin with <a href="http://www.us.penguingroup.com/static/pages/publishers/yr/nancypaulsen.html" target="_blank">Nancy Paulsen Books</a>; it looks a lot like the cover to the right, but has 'advance uncorrected galleys - not for sale' along the bottom of it. This closes on 4th April at noon (UK time).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="color: blue; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>BUT wait</i>... there's more!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">There are also giveaways on Goodreads!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">There is this one, which is international except for US/Canada for FIVE copies of Fractured: </span><br />
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<h2 style="color: #555555; font-size: 20px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; line-height: 20px; margin: 0 0 10px !important; padding: 0 !important; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/" target="_new">Goodreads</a> Book Giveaway<br />
</h2>
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<div style="float: left;">
<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13490543"><img alt="Fractured by Teri Terry" src="http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1349683734l/13490543.jpg" title="Fractured by Teri Terry" width="100" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13490543">Fractured</a><br />
</h3>
<h4 style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin: 0 0 10px; padding: 0;">
by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5238854.Teri_Terry" style="text-decoration: none;">Teri Terry</a><br />
</h4>
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<div class="giveaway_details">
Giveaway ends April 04, 2013.<br />
<br />
See the <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/47438" style="text-decoration: none;">giveaway details</a><br />
at Goodreads.</div>
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<a class="goodreadsGiveawayWidgetEnterLink" href="http://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/enter_choose_address/47438">Enter to win</a><br />
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<script charset="utf-8" src="http://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/widget/47438" type="text/javascript"></script><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">AND because I didn't want anyone in the US/Canada to feel left out, I'm doing another one of three copies of US version of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Slated-Teri-Terry/dp/0399161724/ref=pd_sim_sbs_b_1" target="_blank">Slated</a> as published by Nancy Paulsen Books 24th Jan of this year; this is also on Goodreads. That one I just put up so they have to approve it before it goes live, which should be soon.</span><br />
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<h2 style="color: #555555; font-size: 20px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; line-height: 20px; margin: 0 0 10px !important; padding: 0 !important; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/" target="_new">Goodreads</a> Book Giveaway<br />
</h2>
<br />
<div style="float: left;">
<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15812184"><img alt="Slated by Teri Terry" src="http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1346251691l/15812184.jpg" title="Slated by Teri Terry" width="100" /></a></div>
<br />
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<h3 style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 20px; margin: 0; padding: 0;">
<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15812184">Slated</a><br />
</h3>
<h4 style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin: 0 0 10px; padding: 0;">
by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5238854.Teri_Terry" style="text-decoration: none;">Teri Terry</a><br />
</h4>
<br />
<div class="giveaway_details">
Giveaway ends April 15, 2013.<br />
<br />
See the <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/47676" style="text-decoration: none;">giveaway details</a><br />
at Goodreads.</div>
</div>
<div style="clear: both;">
</div>
<br />
<a class="goodreadsGiveawayWidgetEnterLink" href="http://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/enter_choose_address/47676">Enter to win</a><br />
<br /></div>
</div>
<i style="color: blue; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">AND</i><span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;"> the REALLY exciting news is....</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I'm not allowed to tell you yet. This is such torture: I hate keeping things to myself - I'm fairly rubbish at it, too - but I'm going to try very hard not to spill until 4th of April, when it'll get a mention here and go up on my website, <a href="http://teriterry.com/">teriterry.com</a>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: blue; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">And events:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I'll be at Heffers bookshop in Cambridge for my very first public signing for Fractured, on 20th April, noon to 2ish. More events will be posted soon on my website, <a href="http://teriterry.jimdo.com/calendar-of-events/" target="_blank">here</a>. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Don't forget to leave a comment below to have a chance to win Fractured.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Now back to happy dancing...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Teri Terryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13641477543947472370noreply@blogger.com40tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1464589489014860611.post-66408678614638160282013-03-11T00:30:00.000+00:002013-03-11T00:30:01.198+00:00World Book Day<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: white;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">To celebrate World Book Day on March 7th we have each chosen our favourite childhood book, teenage book and adult book. So to find out what each of us liked best as a child, a teenager and now as adults, read on.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: white;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: white;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">And we'd love to hear what your favourite book was when you were a child, a teenager and an adult, and what you think of our choices.</span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="color: #351c75;"><span id="goog_879571955"></span><span id="goog_879571956"></span>Claire Merle</span> - Here are my book picks:</span><br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLmzdWAZN0pD8p7wnA6-TKi150m_4e-dFbZkGfTUoKpn1Rp6DGyJriP0Ioj2_FFXRFp7vRNeT_qgvqSW0VM5OEoNjcJh2r2O3L9Gdu2PgZjmS_mnR_PEAm5B_5YPHwE6D70Y3v-JEJpiI/s1600/IMG_397.jpg.opt422x316o0%252C0s422x316-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="149" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLmzdWAZN0pD8p7wnA6-TKi150m_4e-dFbZkGfTUoKpn1Rp6DGyJriP0Ioj2_FFXRFp7vRNeT_qgvqSW0VM5OEoNjcJh2r2O3L9Gdu2PgZjmS_mnR_PEAm5B_5YPHwE6D70Y3v-JEJpiI/s200/IMG_397.jpg.opt422x316o0%252C0s422x316-1.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Claire Merle</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">As a child: <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Magic-Faraway-Tree-Enid-Blyton/dp/1405230282/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1362950410&sr=1-1" target="_blank"><span style="color: #351c75;">The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton</span></a>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I can't wait to read this again with my boys. The story had such a big impact on me that the children's adventures became entangled with my own memories and it's as though I actually went to
that magical place. </span><br />
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">When I was a teen: <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Pride-Prejudice-Jane-Austen/dp/1847624820/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1362950389&sr=1-1" target="_blank"><span style="color: #351c75;">Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen</span></a>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I read this book at school and I've never fallen out of love with it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">And as an adult: <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sky-Everywhere-Jandy-Nelson/dp/1406328030/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1362950367&sr=1-1" target="_blank"><span style="color: #351c75;">The Sky is Everywhere, Jandy Nelson</span></a>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">It's almost impossible to just pick one book from so many years of reading and so many amazing books, but 'The Sky is Everywhere' definitely deserves more attention! Reading this book is like taking a bath in starlight. For my goodreads review go here: <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/136139789" target="_blank">http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/136139789</a></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOTFkAQmdzFaxvToF_iyxWxrslsc0Qi2-ULftphiCRO-CzGjap4VORpkrFGFFxakL6HVVe6dJR6t0Be2VkUKYsdTbk6RDWyEu5-MAaQc0pXu1OgODOa9mtXmy258qVnCtb_IMVGebH_Uo/s1600/DSCF4099.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="176" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOTFkAQmdzFaxvToF_iyxWxrslsc0Qi2-ULftphiCRO-CzGjap4VORpkrFGFFxakL6HVVe6dJR6t0Be2VkUKYsdTbk6RDWyEu5-MAaQc0pXu1OgODOa9mtXmy258qVnCtb_IMVGebH_Uo/s200/DSCF4099.JPG" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Teri Terry</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="color: #351c75;">Teri Terry</span> - I was really stumped with this at first. I love so many
books: how do you choose? But then I realized that as far as childhood and
teenage favourites, it was easy: I have The Shelf. I’ve moved a million times (nearly),
sometimes literally from one end of the earth to the other, and these are the
only books that made it through every single space-challenged move from where I first started reading, Canada:</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgW7TNYkRpEmIa8BTScwN-maqKu58JbonGFIAQRyIFh4Dn0gYS5qqEVprR2O3PbDpGzeXfpMOcgv_hEiuT8oXZOCqgK0Vd7uXQvo6tnMaZk7MmBudrfbHbd6b5xF9SotJaeSDQJ9Tzr-j4/s1600/shelf.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="182" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgW7TNYkRpEmIa8BTScwN-maqKu58JbonGFIAQRyIFh4Dn0gYS5qqEVprR2O3PbDpGzeXfpMOcgv_hEiuT8oXZOCqgK0Vd7uXQvo6tnMaZk7MmBudrfbHbd6b5xF9SotJaeSDQJ9Tzr-j4/s320/shelf.gif" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Going by broken spines, it’d have to be <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hobbit-Lord-Rings-J-R-R-Tolkien/dp/0007509847/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1362950333&sr=1-3" target="_blank"><span style="color: #351c75;">Tolkien’s Lord ofthe Rings</span></a> when I was a child (I first read it at 11), and <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Stranger-Strange-Land-Robert-Heinlein/dp/034093834X/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1362950307&sr=1-1-fkmr0" target="_blank"><span style="color: #351c75;">Heilein’s Stranger ina Strange Land</span></a> as a teen. The latter was dated when I read it (first
published in the 60's) and yes, it shows in the sexist attitudes of the
time. But I loved the whole idea of someone raised by Martians and
returning to earth, knowing nothing of where he finds himself, and the
magic of how he changes the world he finds. I guess I often felt like a
Martian at that age.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Favourite book now that I’m ‘grown up’? I can’t pick.
Honestly, I’ve tried, but my favourites change all the time. There isn’t
a
rational answer. Though one thing is true: the revolving list is all not
meant for grown ups. <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Skellig-David-Almond/dp/0340997044/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1362950283&sr=1-1" target="_blank"><span style="color: #351c75;">David Almond's Skellig</span></a> will always hold a very
special place as it was reading it and seeing the magic that children's
books still hold for me that made me desperate to write them.</span></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRlWMPlcolujBrYVkGma0QKdarId2SFzHnHJbJr_DeIMNAwre1jhig8yAOwcV9lq9nM2QiQdZZFmswjnA5zOBnBzOK9fiqkegDUvOqOlvYCZk0qZAOHBesU8c5Xu3Gs8BiRoPwHo8FdEA/s1600/Profile%252Bpic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRlWMPlcolujBrYVkGma0QKdarId2SFzHnHJbJr_DeIMNAwre1jhig8yAOwcV9lq9nM2QiQdZZFmswjnA5zOBnBzOK9fiqkegDUvOqOlvYCZk0qZAOHBesU8c5Xu3Gs8BiRoPwHo8FdEA/s200/Profile%252Bpic.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Julienne Durber</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="color: #351c75;">Julienne Durber</span> - I have to admit that, like Teri, my childhood choice is really The Lord of the Rings and it still counts as the story I've read the most. But as Teri has bagged that one, here are my choices:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">My childhood book, bought from a jumble sale because it had a dog on the front is <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fluke-James-Herbert/dp/0330522590/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1362950253&sr=1-1" target="_blank"><span style="color: #351c75;">Fluke by James Herbert</span></a>. No horror, sex or violence just a facinating take on a simple idea - especially when you are 11!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">My teen book is<a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Life-Denisovich-Penguin-Modern-Classics/dp/0141184744/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1362950223&sr=1-1" target="_blank"> <span style="color: #351c75;">One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich </span></a><span class="st"><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Life-Denisovich-Penguin-Modern-Classics/dp/0141184744/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1362950223&sr=1-1" target="_blank"><span style="color: #351c75;">by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn</span></a>. Chosen off my grammar school library's bookshelves in a crass attempt to look intelectual (it's Russian, but really short!) it is the first novel I read from cover to cover in one go, then reread two days later.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span class="st">And like Teri and Claire, my adult choice changes all the time. But discounting anything I have read in the last couple of years, or books by friends (and as there was no Tolkien in my first choice) I'll say <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tree-Leaf-Including-MYTHOPOEIA-Tolkien/dp/0007105045/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1362950106&sr=1-1" target="_blank"><span style="color: #351c75;">Tolkien's Leaf by Niggle</span></a> - a tiny gem entirely devoid of elves, orcs, dwarves or rings.</span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEie9qF6okiaNK7BDUiN922f5_cM1HPKjy4LUaztBE4kvvfM_qES_qBQf8xnVNBuisTqfK_4mlysJI2oOcHUb3RXH8Oa-HH95k66oWcWGJBx3OlyvO61seD67mTM1AcXcPR3WbEFHk86QKA/s1600/C---Documents_and_Settings-H.Adam-smith-Desktop-Julie_Bertanga.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEie9qF6okiaNK7BDUiN922f5_cM1HPKjy4LUaztBE4kvvfM_qES_qBQf8xnVNBuisTqfK_4mlysJI2oOcHUb3RXH8Oa-HH95k66oWcWGJBx3OlyvO61seD67mTM1AcXcPR3WbEFHk86QKA/s200/C---Documents_and_Settings-H.Adam-smith-Desktop-Julie_Bertanga.jpg" width="151" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Julie Bertagna</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span class="st"><span style="color: #351c75;">Julie Bertagna</span> -</span> Never thought of <span style="color: #351c75;"><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Heidi-Johanna-Spyri/dp/1613820275" target="_blank">Heidi</a></span><i> </i>as
dystopian fiction? Well, it was for me, aged four. I was fascinated by
this tale of a young girl ripped from the world she knows after her
parents’ deaths and transported to an alien landscape where all the
adults are harsh tyrants. But little Heidi changes her cruel new world
and reclaims her destiny by sheer wit and will. </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">In
my teens I hurtled into sci-fi but (shock-horror) since YA was not yet
invented, I trawled the adult shelves of my library and had my mind
blown by <span style="color: #351c75;"><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Three-Go-Back-Leslie-Mitchel/dp/1434451348/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1362941602&sr=1-3" target="_blank">Three Go Back</a></span>,
a 1930s time travel love story where a crashed airship plunges the
survivors into a pre-historic world of the first humans. Beautiful and
strange, it's stayed with me ever since.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I
can’t choose just one favourite book but the story that’s been most
powerful for me all my adult life, and as a writer, is actually a poem -
Tennyson’s <span style="color: #351c75;"><a href="http://www.famousliteraryworks.com/tennyson_ulysses.htm" target="_blank">Ulysses</a></span><i>. </i>Read it and you'll see why...</span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span class="st"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span class="st"><span style="color: white;">Now tell us your choices - we'd love to know whay they are. </span></span></span></blockquote>
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</span>Juliennehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03177445245144105172noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1464589489014860611.post-55099208213475237892013-02-24T17:05:00.000+00:002013-02-24T17:06:12.355+00:00Dystopian YA endings: too dark, or not dark enough?<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">by <a href="http://teriterry.jimdo.com/" target="_blank">Teri Terry</a>, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">on special leave from the Writing Cave</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">"</span><i style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">...genre is just a flavouring. It's not the whole meal. Don't get confused by the scenery." </i><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Terry Practchett, 2001 Carnegie speech</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">When I'd barely begun writing <i><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Slated-Teri-Terry/dp/1408319462/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1361723604&sr=1-1" target="_blank">Slated</a></i>, I kept getting asked: what is it about? What genre box to we put it in? I struggled to answer this when the story was still forming, but would usually say something about it being a future society where criminal young people have their memories stolen. What I frequently heard back was this: that is dystopian.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">So...what does 'dystopian' mean?</span><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;"> </span>Back then I'll admit I only had a faint idea. I felt I knew what a utopia was: an imagined perfect society. A dystopia was somehow the opposite, defined by the absence of perfection. Since that time I've read many dystopian novels and recently finished a research MA on dystopian YA fiction, so you might think I've got a grasp of what it is meant to be, and how the Slated trilogy fits (or doesn't) in the dystopian box.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">What comes next? </span>For many weeks now I've been hiding away in the Writing Cave*, working hard on the third and final instalment of the Slated trilogy (the second, <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fractured-Teri-Terry/dp/1408319489/ref=pd_sim_b_6" target="_blank">Fractured</a>, is out soon: April in the UK/Australia; September US/Canada).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> *Writing Cave: a lonely place containing one badly dressed author under threat of deadlines, half drunk cold cups of tea, and empty chocolate wrappers. Often in desperate need of dusting.</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Confession time: </span>Should I admit that over half way through the first draft that not only have I not named book 3, I also haven't entirely decided how it is going to end? </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">(please don't alarm my publishers by telling them this!). </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">As a writer I like to not know <i>everything</i> about what is going to happen as I write. This is the excitement of writing: waiting for the characters to demand what happens next in ways that surprise. It is also the terror...</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Has spending too much time on the academic side of things thrown down a gauntlet for the ending of the Slated trilogy?</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Before the YA craze, dystopian novels had a specific </span></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">function</span>. They are set in a future society where things are going horribly wrong; somebody, our hero, fights against the system, but ultimately, tragically fails. The whole point is that of a lesson, a call to action: change the world now, or this may happen. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">The YA crowd of novels</span><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;"> are different</span>: endings are often hopeful, ambiguous rather than miserable, or even happy. Literary critics don't like the departures, say the way they end means they aren't really 'dystopian'. And at the same time there are those that argue the entire genre of YA dystopians are too dark, too depressing.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Having had my head under these academic arguments for too long (way WAY too long...!) it is easy to see the end of my trilogy as something that either comes out on one side of this, or the other.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">But getting back to the quote from Terry Practchett: genre boxes can serve useful functions. They help booksellers and librarians know where books fit on their shelves; they help readers make reading choices. But I need to remind myself as a writer that they aren't the whole meal.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Ultimately it is all about this book, this story, and where all the characters yammering away in my head want to go. And the story always wins for me.</span></blockquote>
<i style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Terry Practchett's full Carnegie speech can be found <a href="http://www.carnegiegreenaway.org.uk/pressdesk/press.php?release=pres_terspeach.htm" target="_blank">here</a>. I'm really excited that we're both up for the <a href="https://public.rgfl.org/RCBA/Pages/TeanReadCategory(Y10-11).aspx" target="_blank">Rotherham Book Award</a>: fingers crossed he is there! Though I may be embarrassingly fangirling if he is.</i><br />
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Teri Terryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13641477543947472370noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1464589489014860611.post-37798493991152824582013-02-11T09:20:00.000+00:002013-02-11T09:26:11.097+00:00Dark, Disturbing and Addictive - Tanya Byrne reveals her writing process for Heart-Shaped Bruise<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">By Claire Merle</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Heart-Shaped Bruise by Tanya Byrne breaks the rules, drawing us into a psychologically compelling story where the protagonist is the villain. As an author, I am as intrigued by Tanya Byrne's writing process as her disturbed narrator Emily Koll. T</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">oday, I have the huge pleasure
of welcoming Tanya to Demention to answer some probing questions about how Emily Koll emerged, how the voice and shape of the story took form, and how Tanya managed to create such empathy for a character that is essentially 'unlikeable'. </span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Hi Tanya, thank you so much for joining us
here on Demention. How would you describe Heart-shaped Bruise in just a few
words to someone who hasn’t heard of it before? <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="color: #674ea7; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Heart-Shaped Bruise is the story of Emily
Koll, Archway young offenders institution's most notorious inmate. Last year,
the psychiatric unit is closed and Emily's journal is found on top of one of
the wardrobes. In it, Emily explains why she did what she did and why she isn't
sorry at all. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I read in an interview that you originally
wrote the book from Juliet’s point of view, a teenager going into Witness
Protection, and that Emily Koll wasn’t introduced as a character until you were
working on a second draft. Once you took the leap and began rewriting the story
from Emily’s perspective, how well did you know her as a character already? How
much did the story change once she was telling it? Were there any big
surprises?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="color: #674ea7; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I don't know where Emily came from. I wish
I had a romantic anecdote about a dream or a girl on the bus, but all I can say
is that one moment she was there, and there she wasn't. She's the one character
in Heart-Shaped Bruise that I didn't question or fret over, she just was. I
knew her take on events would be riveting, but I'd written a whole novel from
Juliet's point of view and was reluctant to throw away all of those words, so
in the second draft I alternated their POVs. I got about 40k in and realised
that it was Emily's chapters I looked forward to writing the most, she made me
laugh and scared me a little. Writing villains are so much fun because you can
push them so much further and I really pushed Emily. I knew that I had to start
again but the thought of doing all of that work again was unbearable. A friend
convinced me not to, saying that no one would read a book from the villain's
point of view, especially a debut. But I'm a contrary so-and-so, so as soon as
she said that, I started again, determined to prove her wrong. I hope I have.
In the end, it was surprisingly easy. I finished Emily's draft in three months
and it was an utter joy to write. I knew then that I'd made the right decision.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Using a diary format is a very effective
way of unfolding the story, and also preparing the reader to accept what Emily
does. How did you come about this decision and how conscious was it?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #674ea7;">I had to use a diary format, because the
whole point of the book is Emily setting the record straight. I considered
doing this in a series of newspaper articles and police interviews, but they
wouldn't be as honest, as vulnerable. As Emily says in her first entry, she
leaves pieces of herself all over London. She tells her psychiatrist, Doctor
Gilyard, some things, her friends at Archway some things. She scratches things
into walls, writes on the back of receipts, but the journal is the only place
she keeps everything.</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">At what stage in the writing process did
you decide to set a Heart-Shaped Bruise in a young offenders’ institution and
how did this alter the tone and feel of the book? Was it a decision you felt
immediately comfortable with or an idea you played around with before
committing?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="color: #674ea7; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I knew I wanted to tell the story
backwards, so it had to be set at Archway. If it started the day she was
released, or during her trial, or even the day she finds out who her father
really is, it would have been a completely different book. Any of those stories
would have been compelling, but there's was something about Archway, about the
inmates and the routine and the claustrophobia, that was a thrill to write
after writing Juliet's point of view, which was much more 'normal' and included
going to college and being at home and snogging her boyfriend. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I actually grew up in a little side street
off Archway Road between Highgate and Archway. (Sorry had to slip that in –
small world and all that!) I was curious, why Archway and why invent a
fictional young offenders’ institution rather that one that already exists?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="color: #674ea7; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I hope it feels authentic! When my mother
first moved to this country, she used to work around there - as a nurse at the
Whittington Hospital - and my brother is an Arsenal fan, so when picking a
location, it seemed obvious. There aren't many female young offenders
institutions and I wanted to avoid comparisons with an existing one, so I made
one up, which gave me much more freedom. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0CTlw_ZWOp4Rdh2PFls2cld_woInb2S1tP4jW4l8I7xZxbx6ITi1PTC3kn6sKA7bmnqcyliBZVizRLEF9cdbjKrj1sNvzPTjdSf8YdRbQbtWN89YiQKy0yZ5Mm4ntb3wyiJi9RhCr3bs/s1600/fringe.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0CTlw_ZWOp4Rdh2PFls2cld_woInb2S1tP4jW4l8I7xZxbx6ITi1PTC3kn6sKA7bmnqcyliBZVizRLEF9cdbjKrj1sNvzPTjdSf8YdRbQbtWN89YiQKy0yZ5Mm4ntb3wyiJi9RhCr3bs/s200/fringe.jpg" width="181" /></a><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">You have an unreliable narrator who has done
bad things and technically isn’t that likable. But you manage to create great
empathy with her and a sense that she is carried along by a tide she cannot
really control. Can you give us any clues as to how you managed that?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="color: #674ea7; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Thank you! I guess I just tried to make her
human. Actually, not make her human, rather show her to be human, which is. I
think the most unsettling thing about Heart-Shaped Bruise is that you wonder,
with the right people around her and enough support, if Emily would have done
any of the things she did. That was the question I was trying to ask with this
book, if we're all a couple of bad decisions away from doing similar.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The reader is drawn through the story by a
strange compulsion to know what it is, exactly, that Emily has done to get her
locked up in the psychiatric ward of a young offenders’ institution. When you
wrote your first draft from Emily’s perspective did you know what she’d done
and how the story would end?</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #674ea7;">Absolutely. It's the same story, but in
Juliet's draft I told the story forwards and in Emily's, I tell it backwards. I
think that's common for most writers; we know how a story begins and ends, it's
just that annoying bit in the middle!</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Do you have a favourite line or scene from
Heart-shaped Bruise and if so, can you share it with us?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="color: #674ea7; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">My favourite chapter, and the one I read
out at events, if my emotions will allow it, is the scene where Emily burns
Juliet's photo. It's such a despicable thing to do, and Emily knows it. She
knows that's the point of no return and it broke my heart to write.</span></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Thank you so much Tanya for joining us. For all of you out there searching for a book with a powerful voice, intriguing narrator and an addictive, provocative read, I highly recommend you get your hands on a copy!</span></span><br />
<br />
<a href="http://tanyabyrne.tumblr.com/" target="_blank">LINK UP WITH TANYA HERE</a><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19px;">They say I'm evil. The police. The newspapers. The girls from school who shake their heads on the six o’clock news and say they always knew there was something not quite right about me. And everyone believes it. Including you. But you don't know. You don't know who I used to be. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19px;">Who I could have been.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19px;">Awaiting trial at Archway Young Offenders Institution, Emily Koll is going to tell her side of the story for the first time. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19px;">Heart-Shaped Bruise</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19px;"> is a compulsive and moving novel about infamy, identity and how far a person might go to seek revenge.</span></i></span></span>
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Claire Merlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07566685720094646776noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1464589489014860611.post-40431054129699056462013-02-04T00:30:00.000+00:002013-02-04T00:30:01.095+00:00I like Billy Joel – A Review of Maggot Moon by Sally Gardner - Reviewed by Julienne Durber<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
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<span style="color: white;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I like Billy Joel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There, I've said it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The music of the multi award winning, rock
and roll hall of fame member who wrote such popular tunes as Uptown Girl, Piano
Man and Just The Way You Are makes me happy.</span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlBVL3T_e0D1R3rQQlYr88j_zjk1h5eLL0b-1aXHOVZy8j6REVCB4ghZjNqzRkbyS3eNezuloMjscG8HX9OwlOIhXXeUlC0n3paa-kPXlo7_-2bIAX-_nXhC0sbf_v6Ox-o5fPuOcDif4/s1600/ID-10094922.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="125" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlBVL3T_e0D1R3rQQlYr88j_zjk1h5eLL0b-1aXHOVZy8j6REVCB4ghZjNqzRkbyS3eNezuloMjscG8HX9OwlOIhXXeUlC0n3paa-kPXlo7_-2bIAX-_nXhC0sbf_v6Ox-o5fPuOcDif4/s200/ID-10094922.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">A piano, man</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">So what?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some of you are undoubtedly thinking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He's all right.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Really?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Billy Joel?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Others may be sniggering behind your hands.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">What has this got to do with Maggot
Moon?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many more may be shouting.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieUpMzG7aVsa9tDCE1ziKIZ_6faip2smyj6FRDiq3V4RFeWl4yaxCG512gMAigMhd7EG3WOMuV34uWUeQ5jofk4gNV3bH4C2HOmqYbusPKCYggdKUzPAzB6ocxQrnNg2yIY2wyBWotxcc/s1600/Profile+pic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieUpMzG7aVsa9tDCE1ziKIZ_6faip2smyj6FRDiq3V4RFeWl4yaxCG512gMAigMhd7EG3WOMuV34uWUeQ5jofk4gNV3bH4C2HOmqYbusPKCYggdKUzPAzB6ocxQrnNg2yIY2wyBWotxcc/s200/Profile+pic.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Me</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">As you can see, I'm a long-haired
guy who's quite fond of purple.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I'm
not writing I sing and play guitar in a rock band.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My iTunes is crammed with Muse, Metallica,
The Killers, System of a Down, Kaiser Chiefs … you get the idea.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Piano-based rock and roll pop from the 70s
and early 80s should be something I hate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But it's not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I like it, and
that's that.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS2mz4wHsWkvzfA1tA9ENdEFjvX8EQhh4PYKtH1RdDky3hulkNHRXegvQFVmAoj29xbleA356u_7l3bNy1HH36QM9REgFQ96xcb3K5ZH92vAN_KhC3Nd17OqecVusy7Ofurxi7-EqcwJw/s1600/maggot-moon.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS2mz4wHsWkvzfA1tA9ENdEFjvX8EQhh4PYKtH1RdDky3hulkNHRXegvQFVmAoj29xbleA356u_7l3bNy1HH36QM9REgFQ96xcb3K5ZH92vAN_KhC3Nd17OqecVusy7Ofurxi7-EqcwJw/s200/maggot-moon.png" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Now when a friend whose opinion I
respect greatly in all matters literary told me I should definitely read Maggot
Moon, I bought it straight away without even looking at it (we were standing
near a book stall at the time), shoved it into my rucksack and went on with my
day.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">A week later I pulled it out and
read the jacket notes, wondering what it was actually about.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>First off is a quote from the wonderful Meg
Rosoff </span></div>
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<span style="color: #351c75;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><i>'Dazzling, chilling,
breathtaking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A perfect book.'</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">High praise indeed, but what's it
about?</span></div>
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<span style="color: #351c75;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><i>Hector and Standish are friends.</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Nice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I like odd names.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I own one myself.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">It then goes on, and this is where
the alarm bells started to ring.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #351c75;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><i>… live together in Zone Seven … the
Motherland can keep them … under surveillance … moon landing … </i></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">And finishes with</span></div>
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<span style="color: #351c75;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><i>A powerfully original and moving
story.</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">We'll see …</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLSWsltoNzlYoedFG-BlspW_SaCv44MXCLWy8h7dgdDUR0iINhmQSJoh0-X96_6zeVWLq9qBejGkoUC4OYCuzR-dQs_wLJfPynK4Sq3HX123ulNqpdL_ECPEEUkLCCvqsQJlVTnaDnD-s/s1600/MAGGOT_MOON_Back_Cover.480x480-75.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLSWsltoNzlYoedFG-BlspW_SaCv44MXCLWy8h7dgdDUR0iINhmQSJoh0-X96_6zeVWLq9qBejGkoUC4OYCuzR-dQs_wLJfPynK4Sq3HX123ulNqpdL_ECPEEUkLCCvqsQJlVTnaDnD-s/s200/MAGGOT_MOON_Back_Cover.480x480-75.jpg" width="150" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Without giving anything away, the
main aspect of the setting and a key element of the plot are concepts that I've
seen explored before … a lot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The BBC
have produced plays about the events that Gardner is hinting lead to the
dominance of the Motherland.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sci-fi
comic stories and time travel shorts have mused on what would have happened if
… And I even remember a sketch on the Two Ronnies show in the 70s that featured
a similar set up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are
documentaries and websites aplenty loaded with evidence and conspiracy theories
that back up real life claims – seen it, done it, poo-pooed it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On paper, I shouldn't have found anything
engaging or exciting in this book.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">But I absolutely love it!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like Mr Joel, it makes me happy (sad,
excited, dismayed).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In Sally Gardner's
hands, the voice of Standish and his view of the events and situations lifts
the whole story to such soaring heights that I don't mind that I've seen these
concepts before.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact I barely even
noticed them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dramatic, emotion packed
moments are handled so deftly and originally that they make me want to rethink
my own writing.</span></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_8fdSxiWxiZ9fCx1laUzm0iIg6-zGeJq3FxqLsHWXVxK_mjMj3pXqctnMSKbt5_k3AhLfCVv44Ui54HGrr03QZ3bRd4RwrQNnY-zcstZEKqGZHcI5lFCdiWgHQHAElghjQPRlI6f1ft4/s1600/maggot-moon-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="127" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_8fdSxiWxiZ9fCx1laUzm0iIg6-zGeJq3FxqLsHWXVxK_mjMj3pXqctnMSKbt5_k3AhLfCVv44Ui54HGrr03QZ3bRd4RwrQNnY-zcstZEKqGZHcI5lFCdiWgHQHAElghjQPRlI6f1ft4/s200/maggot-moon-2.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Julian Crouch's stark illustrations
that run throughout the book add a whole extra dimension of beautifully
sinister grubbiness.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I have a section on one of my
bookshelves for things I will read over and over.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There aren't may books in it but Maggot Moon
is now one of them.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">So I'm not going to tell you
anything more about Maggot Moon by Sally Gardner, I'm just going to say you
should definitely read it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That's what
my friend did for me, and I'd like to pass on the favour.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="color: #351c75;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><i>Ah … ah … ah … ah … ah … ah … ah
… ah … ah … ah … ah … ah … ah … ahhhh … uptown girl ;)</i></span></span><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Images from Maggot Moon and freedigitalphotos.net </span><i><br /></i></span></div>
</div>
Juliennehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03177445245144105172noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1464589489014860611.post-83233129864404651502012-12-17T15:15:00.001+00:002012-12-17T15:47:41.532+00:00All I Want For Christmas Is...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red; font-size: small;"><i><b> The Demention Team is looking forward to a Christmas break after a fantastic</b></i></span></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px 'Trebuchet MS'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red; font-size: small;"><i><b> launch year! </b></i></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red; font-size: small;"><i><b>Thanks for your company, it’s been fun. </b></i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red; font-size: small;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px 'Trebuchet MS'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red; font-size: small;"><i><b> A Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, everyone. </b></i></span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red; font-size: small;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red; font-size: small;"><i><b> </b></i></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTEELsrk3ZGoUMdkF75tnQiLMHO-k13z_vCtbdEV9BUk7eLRw06nTcxUrH0fbApVuyy1WrRs77GDVmOtPPkRttQ6MDxWyaL0xp0IBf5lUK845ZPBKoJ3EkPpGdtjkApKfwvOdm_jIMOA/s1600/Christmas-Art.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTEELsrk3ZGoUMdkF75tnQiLMHO-k13z_vCtbdEV9BUk7eLRw06nTcxUrH0fbApVuyy1WrRs77GDVmOtPPkRttQ6MDxWyaL0xp0IBf5lUK845ZPBKoJ3EkPpGdtjkApKfwvOdm_jIMOA/s400/Christmas-Art.gif" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red; font-size: small;"><i><b> Here are our (slightly demented) Christmas Wishes.... what’s yours?!</b></i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6aa84f;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6aa84f;">Julienne</span> </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">All I want for Christmas ... is time.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">My head is packed full of stories - I need time to write them, refine them, polish them into perfect jewels. (Only last night whilst flicking through the innumerable tv channels I chanced upon a sound bite that is the perfect opening line and jumping-off point for my next book. The one after the one I'm only a third of the way through!)</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The world is packed with great books, my bookcase is groaning under the weight of unread stories - I need time to read them all. (And now I can download things as well - free classics to borrow straight onto my phone!)</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">My world is packed with friends, people to laugh with, sing with, play with, have in depth discussions with - I need time to enjoy them all.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">A head full of ideas, shelves full of books, a life full of friends ... I have all I want for Christmas.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTEELsrk3ZGoUMdkF75tnQiLMHO-k13z_vCtbdEV9BUk7eLRw06nTcxUrH0fbApVuyy1WrRs77GDVmOtPPkRttQ6MDxWyaL0xp0IBf5lUK845ZPBKoJ3EkPpGdtjkApKfwvOdm_jIMOA/s1600/Christmas-Art.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTEELsrk3ZGoUMdkF75tnQiLMHO-k13z_vCtbdEV9BUk7eLRw06nTcxUrH0fbApVuyy1WrRs77GDVmOtPPkRttQ6MDxWyaL0xp0IBf5lUK845ZPBKoJ3EkPpGdtjkApKfwvOdm_jIMOA/s200/Christmas-Art.gif" width="200" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red; font-size: large;">Teri</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Dear Santa,</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I have been </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px; text-decoration: line-through;">very good</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px; text-decoration: line-through;">mostly good</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px; text-decoration: line-through;">occasionally good</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> haven’t committed any actual crimes all year. Also, I’ve done my very best to not leave things to the last minute </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px; text-decoration: line-through;">all of the time</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px; text-decoration: line-through;">most of the time</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> sometimes and I have made </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px; text-decoration: line-through;">all</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> almost all of my deadlines by </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px; text-decoration: line-through;">working diligently</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> staying up all night. And I </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px; text-decoration: line-through;">never</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px; text-decoration: line-through;">almost never</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px; text-decoration: line-through;">sometimes</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> spend valuable writing time on Facebook and Twitter.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">So please for the first time ever could you take me off the naughty list, and put me on the </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px; text-decoration: line-through;">nice list</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> not totally lost cause list?</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Just in case it is a yes, and it’s not too much trouble, here is my modest little Christmas wish-list:</span></span></div>
<ol style="list-style-type: decimal;">
<li style="font: 12.0px 'Trebuchet MS'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Please could you get the UK government to change the tax laws so my tax return isn’t due in January so I don’t have to do my taxes over Christmas? </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">(which could of course been done months ago, but heh - this is <i>me</i> we’re talking about)</span></li>
<li style="font: 12.0px 'Trebuchet MS'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">A large supply of calorie-free chocolate</span></li>
<li style="font: 12.0px 'Trebuchet MS'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">A movie deal for Slated.</span></li>
</ol>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">p.s. say hello to Rudolph.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTEELsrk3ZGoUMdkF75tnQiLMHO-k13z_vCtbdEV9BUk7eLRw06nTcxUrH0fbApVuyy1WrRs77GDVmOtPPkRttQ6MDxWyaL0xp0IBf5lUK845ZPBKoJ3EkPpGdtjkApKfwvOdm_jIMOA/s1600/Christmas-Art.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTEELsrk3ZGoUMdkF75tnQiLMHO-k13z_vCtbdEV9BUk7eLRw06nTcxUrH0fbApVuyy1WrRs77GDVmOtPPkRttQ6MDxWyaL0xp0IBf5lUK845ZPBKoJ3EkPpGdtjkApKfwvOdm_jIMOA/s200/Christmas-Art.gif" width="200" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6aa84f; font-size: large;">Claire</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Merry Christmas.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">For Christmas I’m hoping for a ‘Men in Black’ Neuralyzer, so I can wipe my mind and reread my work in progress with no memory of having written it. (Why is it so easy to read someone elses WIP and know exactly what needs work/ revising/ correcting/ deleting, and so hard with your own characters, scenes and story?) </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">And while I’m wishing for MiB gadgets I also wouldn’t say no to the auto-clone machine so that I can make quick-clones every time there’s housework to do. Signed copy of The Glimpse to anyone who can tell me where to get hold of these!</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTEELsrk3ZGoUMdkF75tnQiLMHO-k13z_vCtbdEV9BUk7eLRw06nTcxUrH0fbApVuyy1WrRs77GDVmOtPPkRttQ6MDxWyaL0xp0IBf5lUK845ZPBKoJ3EkPpGdtjkApKfwvOdm_jIMOA/s1600/Christmas-Art.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="132" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTEELsrk3ZGoUMdkF75tnQiLMHO-k13z_vCtbdEV9BUk7eLRw06nTcxUrH0fbApVuyy1WrRs77GDVmOtPPkRttQ6MDxWyaL0xp0IBf5lUK845ZPBKoJ3EkPpGdtjkApKfwvOdm_jIMOA/s200/Christmas-Art.gif" width="200" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red; font-size: large;">Julie</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Dear Santa, </span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">It's a little bit tricky but... </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">All I want for Christmas is a</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">n extra day in the week. One just for me. Myday. A secret day that slips between the cracks of Friday and Saturday, still with a glimmer of Friday feeling. A day where my week’s work is done (ha!) and I can fill my time with reading the books piled beside my bed that I never get around to and have a filmfest of all the stuff I’ve meant to see and didn’t have time for. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">With the normal rules of time suspended, there are no deadlines, word counts, invoices, emails or any other of the hundred and one things that normally have to be done. I can think and dream like a child and see where my imagination takes me. And there’s no one waiting for dinner or needing a washing done - Mother Time has ensured that such things don’t apply on Mydays. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">And since the Internet, FB and Twitter are all trapped in human time, there’s none of that either - which leaves a LOT of extra time to fill. I’m sure I can remember how...</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Best of all, I can chomp my way through all the chocolate I hope you’re leaving in my Christmas stocking. If Myday is outwith time, it surely doesn't count. Which, now that I think of it, could be very interesting in all sorts of ways... hey, there's a great idea for a book!</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6aa84f;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">*</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Thanks to Julienne for the Christmas graphics!</span></span></span></div>
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JULIE BERTAGNAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11968031704120925668noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1464589489014860611.post-70296141831646954232012-12-13T16:40:00.000+00:002012-12-13T16:40:02.499+00:00What were Peeta and Katniss REALLY up to? Under the Covers in YAby <a href="http://teriterry.com/" target="_blank">Teri Terry</a><br />
<br />
A recent blog on <a href="http://eponareviews.blogspot.co.uk/" target="_blank">Epona Reviews</a> caught my eye: <a href="http://eponareviews.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/sex-in-ya-novels.html" target="_blank">Sex in YA Novels: Should it be kept under the covers or do readers want more?</a><br />
<br />
This was particularly because of the timing: when I was in Edinburgh recently at the Anobii <a href="http://teriterry.jimdo.com/2012/12/08/me-on-summerhall-tv/" target="_blank">First Book Award party</a>, fellow Demention blogger Julie Bertagna and I were discussing this issue - from the other side. Yep: authors. It isn't always the choice of the author what does or doesn't happen under the covers...of their books.<br />
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One example I'd raise is in <a href="http://www.suzannecollinsbooks.com/" target="_blank">Suzanne Collins</a> The Hunger Games, when Katniss says Peeta is comforting her in the night when she has nightmares. I instantly thought....what were they doing together in the middle of the night? Why don't we know? Did the author decide to keep it ambiguous, or were judicious edits responsible? Do readers who aren't authors also wonder these things?<br />
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Stay tuned as Demention will explore this issue further in a future blog!<br />
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<br />Teri Terryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13641477543947472370noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1464589489014860611.post-79699391833721645602012-12-10T15:24:00.000+00:002012-12-10T15:24:46.947+00:00Writing and the Lost Art of PatienceClaire Merle<br />
<i><br /></i>
<i> </i><i><span style="color: #674ea7;">…long-form writing is like running a
marathon: it requires endurance, patience, a deep reserve of will power and
commitment, and an almost Herculean ability to delay gratification.</span></i>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span lang="EN-US"> –<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-US">Dennis Palumbo<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Last week was a milestone week for me. A
year and I half ago I signed a contract with Faber and Faber for The Glimpse
Duet and last Tuesday I posted the final corrected proofs of the second book
back to my publisher. It was an extraordinary feeling. Both books finished. A
year and a half of deadlines and revisions and corrections had come to an end.
A second book ready for the press. WOW! But beneath this incredible</span> feeling of
accomplishment lay the ever present ‘what next?’ It is wonderful to know that
the answer to that could be, ‘Well, anything you want!’ But it’s also daunting.
All around me I suddenly seemed to be hearing the importance of pitching NOW; of general industry expectations for a YA writer to produce/publish a book a year; of not falling off the bandwagon because God knows how hard it is to get on it
in the first place.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzB6_Qi3wR6VYm4XSMGC2pMF_2U6VXTiGDkzJqafRG3WPVUW70qZqw0Ju5GV7p8Iw8PoQEEmdeovw-FHKdylxro8dmUKJHKd906RaNRi9HFQfH1xZa33V9_Gti6by-iJVfSYFmh-PngNA/s1600/file000101532435.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzB6_Qi3wR6VYm4XSMGC2pMF_2U6VXTiGDkzJqafRG3WPVUW70qZqw0Ju5GV7p8Iw8PoQEEmdeovw-FHKdylxro8dmUKJHKd906RaNRi9HFQfH1xZa33V9_Gti6by-iJVfSYFmh-PngNA/s320/file000101532435.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">PRESSURE. </span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US">I think all writers put it on themselves. You have to if you’re going to learn
the craft, dedicate time and energy to writing a book you’re not sure anyone
will ever read, find the courage to give it to critique groups and send it to
agents. To get published you need to be extremely motivated and always pushing
forwards on the next step – revisions, critiquing, agents, publisher. But I'd got to a point where I also felt I needed to step back a bit, give myself room to explore a few
ideas before committing to one single one for the next year or more. So with the feeling that I was/ am going against the grain, I began searching around to justify
the instinct. And that’s when I stumbled on an audio interview with Paulo
Coelho, author of The Alchemist, (translated into 71 languages), about his writing process. Despite the fact
that Paulo Coelho says it only takes him around two weeks to write a book, he
also says that his ‘natural cycle’ for producing a book takes two years. When
explaining this further he says,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><i>‘<span style="color: #674ea7;">Eventually some subject pops up when
the cycle of two years ends and there are several layers of ideas… I think I’m
going to write a book about this and then I start and then (I start) a second
and a third. But hidden behind all these books that are not ready to be
written, or should never be written, is the book that wants to be written</span>.’ <o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">As the saying goes, ‘people see what they
want to see,’ or in my case ‘find what they want to find.’ Yes I admit, hearing
these words after I’d just ditched 35,000 words of a rough draft of a
contemporary YA, offered some comfort. But while it is often acknowledged
that writing requires stamina and endurance, I was intrigued by this idea that
sometimes we may need to throw things away to uncover the book that will
be the right one to have published next.</span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil9T2hnjT2MehmSSuqVLQ53fF1rRNLK2QoOk3K6dAU99iegkCyE4LxGibKO_a70vWqXW5D3ildrTm1pWWbiTY7JcICInfJ-hy-259-BNorUqAgycIMoEN7uCSr-YPSpB3KU49INaMfmT4/s1600/file00098805585.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil9T2hnjT2MehmSSuqVLQ53fF1rRNLK2QoOk3K6dAU99iegkCyE4LxGibKO_a70vWqXW5D3ildrTm1pWWbiTY7JcICInfJ-hy-259-BNorUqAgycIMoEN7uCSr-YPSpB3KU49INaMfmT4/s320/file00098805585.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<br />
<br />
In an article for the Huffington Post, ‘<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dennis-palumbo/hollywood-on-the-couch-fo_b_440339.html" target="_blank">Hollywood on the Couch: For Writers, Patience is still a virture</a>,' writer turned therapist
Dennis Palumbo says,</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdE4_5RmIYv_x1QWNmT9qCof5w4thwiW42Rxk_bs0avKsZtoPEoGlD6NjDbFSM1XQTnalyZHS_isUJ_y9GNX_pA3-PVm-86S7AmPxcfzgIw-X9odLRmgNh51uTa7b0fCyANqLK2vWiArA/s1600/file0001977214690.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdE4_5RmIYv_x1QWNmT9qCof5w4thwiW42Rxk_bs0avKsZtoPEoGlD6NjDbFSM1XQTnalyZHS_isUJ_y9GNX_pA3-PVm-86S7AmPxcfzgIw-X9odLRmgNh51uTa7b0fCyANqLK2vWiArA/s320/file0001977214690.jpg" width="320" /></a><span lang="EN-US">“<i><span style="color: #674ea7;">Nowadays, few writers are advised to
cultivate patience. There’s a lot of pressure to just write, to get it out
there, to strive mightily to come up with the next high concept (“You got
anything like Iron Man?” “We’re looking for another Harry Potter-type book.”
“How about a police procedural show on Mars?</span></i>”).</span><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Don’t get me wrong – there are many writers
who have an amazing talent to turn around books in six months or less, to sit
down at their desk and spin something off and their books are selling well time after time. Some authors
need the deadline, the pressure, the sold pitch. </span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US">As an aspiring
writer, I believed if only one day I KNEW I’d be published then I could relax,
just enjoy the process without worrying what the rejections meant. Now I
know that wherever you are on the chain, there’s always the next step… agented,
published, mid-list author, best-selling author, film deal, huge best-selling
author, J.K. Rowling. </span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US">We live in a competitive, consumerist culture where
success is measured by money and sales. This is inescapable. But for me the art
of living is appreciating where you are now, of being fully in the moment, of
absorbing and interacting with the world around you. And perhaps it’s also the
lost art of patience. In terms of being an author, I don’t mean sitting around
waiting for a masterpiece to smack you over the head, I mean digging and
cultivating and nuturing until you find it. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: white;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I'm working on something new now. I'm trying to cultivate patience, hoping it will be THE ONE. Or at least THE NEXT ONE. What about you?</span></span></div>
</blockquote>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">If you want to hear all of Paul Coelho’s
audio interview, ‘How I write’ go <a href="http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2012/02/15/paulo-coelho-how-i-write/" target="_blank">here</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">
<!--EndFragment--></span></div>
<!--EndFragment--></div>
Claire Merlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07566685720094646776noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1464589489014860611.post-91491379707066869942012-12-03T00:30:00.000+00:002012-12-03T00:30:01.565+00:00Fiddlesticks and Flapdoodle - made up swear words are great! by Julienne Durber<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
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<span style="color: white;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">When I decided to write this post, I was convinced that my
first experience of made up swear words was in the pages of 2000AD from the
grizzled lips of the mighty Judge Dredd.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But then I came up with the title 'Fiddlesticks and Flapdoodle' and
realised that things went back a lot further.</span></span></div>
</blockquote>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLrAvqSH3DleUXRlkmFlQylbSLYhJIINbAfwI1aLug2c_Rtqi1vSp0W7O6HH7e6YLITy83Whpog1vBNSTpwexmhDFWwGP_clfF5eZZBwqz8d94HWF3xNWkHbQQ8t50ieKey852YNYDEPk/s1600/yaffle.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLrAvqSH3DleUXRlkmFlQylbSLYhJIINbAfwI1aLug2c_Rtqi1vSp0W7O6HH7e6YLITy83Whpog1vBNSTpwexmhDFWwGP_clfF5eZZBwqz8d94HWF3xNWkHbQQ8t50ieKey852YNYDEPk/s1600/yaffle.gif" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Professor Yaffle</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">The cantankerous Professor Augustus Barclay Yaffle, carved
wooden bookend in the shape of a woodpecker, foil to the gentle wisdom of
Bagpuss, naysayer of mice, used to fire swearing at me from the television
before I was even old enough to go to school!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Now before high horses are mounted, I have to say that in my opinion Bagpuss
is the finest children's television program ever made, and I am positive that
the legendary Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin hadn't the slightest wish to
offend (though I did see Mr Postgate on a documentary recently explaining what
Mother Clanger was actually saving behind all of those whistles, and it wasn't
entirely wholesome!)</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #674ea7;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">But I'm being flippant for a reason - fiddlesticks is a term
of mild disapproval dating back centuries, along the same lines as balderdash
and poppycock, but when combined with the explosive flapdoodle it became
something that my tiny ears loved and my tiny mouth was too nervous to use in
public! </span></span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEPx73rnNdG_hjNnB9xERrfjA3faklecHxc7t0-ozIRZm9JBwqYGS3Xic3nCoGKIphEUNvnmOz8lsN4RdXpP3kST3xz7ASnCiWeM5nHY3h-QtVAjNZoTIbpCYT6kv3YfXzUNbcCQF2Za8/s1600/fry.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEPx73rnNdG_hjNnB9xERrfjA3faklecHxc7t0-ozIRZm9JBwqYGS3Xic3nCoGKIphEUNvnmOz8lsN4RdXpP3kST3xz7ASnCiWeM5nHY3h-QtVAjNZoTIbpCYT6kv3YfXzUNbcCQF2Za8/s1600/fry.gif" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stephen Fry</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">But why create swear words when there are so many already available?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><a href="http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Stephen_Fry" target="_blank">Stephen Fry</a> expounds the virtues of swearing as part of a full and
rounded vocabulary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People swear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Children swear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Swearing is
naughty and bad ... and great fun when you're not supposed to be doing it!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And used sparingly, swearing in teen books
can have a huge impact.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The inclusion of
the word sh*t (see, I'm self censoring so that I don't offend and yet you all
know what I'm saying) on page 4 of the wonderful<a href="http://www.sallygardner.net/older-readers/maggot-moon/" target="_blank"> Maggot Moon by Sally Gardner</a> says a huge amount about the central character in an instant.</span></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLffKnnMmxkwtvITPjvcaHf91JvJ7O8ECDS54zzXtzd2BEnAgm8mGL6Al9vgY5KLBj7J-8tZYlo61v1L1U4zt32hZYM4ivTjtlk7IzgBuhoauV8dywm_P7w2bn-nZ44W1jrCgpwkyb8l8/s1600/dredd.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLffKnnMmxkwtvITPjvcaHf91JvJ7O8ECDS54zzXtzd2BEnAgm8mGL6Al9vgY5KLBj7J-8tZYlo61v1L1U4zt32hZYM4ivTjtlk7IzgBuhoauV8dywm_P7w2bn-nZ44W1jrCgpwkyb8l8/s1600/dredd.gif" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Judge Dredd</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">When creating Judge Dredd, <a href="http://www.2000ad.nu/classof79/jw_interview.htm" target="_blank">John Wagner</a>
wanted a gritty cop for a gritty future, a future with swearing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But as he was writing for comics in the late
1970s he had to create a vocabulary that Dredd could use without
censorship.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hence 'Stomm', Grud' and my
favourite 'Drokk'.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These are great,
chewable, spit-outable words, loaded with venom and brilliantly similar-but-different
enough to please both publishers and readers in the 70s and 80s.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">But that was then. These days things are more relaxed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><a href="http://www.samhawksmoor.com/" target="_blank">Sam Hawksmoor's</a> excellent The Repossession uses swearing sparingly
and effectively, as do many other book too numerous to list.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It enhances tension, defines emotion and
character, and isn't a block to getting published, yet I still chose to invent a
whole range of frustrations and insults for Springpunk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People are cog-heads, spring-brains and in
extreme cases spring-faced cog-winders.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And
if you are hit with a stray winding spark then you would cry 'Cogs!' without
thinking.</span></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh922eID1mMERpNMzoY-99sjuChqiuG5RR64Rao3qD4XsQ0Y4PBZ7NKbQCzaOUwAnbiqW-v3Dj7VF5I6nDdZ7-oAORhUNIT3mT2QqjIhh7HmemyoxB-OtljVPYzsS_SZGGNxp46fGJOtu0/s1600/starbug.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="215" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh922eID1mMERpNMzoY-99sjuChqiuG5RR64Rao3qD4XsQ0Y4PBZ7NKbQCzaOUwAnbiqW-v3Dj7VF5I6nDdZ7-oAORhUNIT3mT2QqjIhh7HmemyoxB-OtljVPYzsS_SZGGNxp46fGJOtu0/s320/starbug.gif" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Starbug</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="color: #674ea7;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">And what would Red Dwarf be without the insult
smeg-head?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Still great, but ever so
slightly less so.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Made-up swear words can be as integral a part of a
future, dytopian and other-world society as the oppressive government forces, plasma
sythesizing killer robots and overarching mystic prophesies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They let readers into the sociology of the
world and show how things have changed, how the trials, threats and drudgeries
of life have bled into everyday speech.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #674ea7;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">So I challenge you, you fracking, smeg-brained, flapdoodling
drokkers - have fun with your swearing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It isn't gratuitous, but it can be vital!</span></span><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #674ea7;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="color: black;">All artwork copyright Julienne Durber 2012</span></span> </span></span></div>
</div>
Juliennehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03177445245144105172noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1464589489014860611.post-90642994239645230092012-11-19T16:43:00.000+00:002012-11-20T10:38:33.634+00:00Serendipity Strikes<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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By <a href="http://dementionblog.blogspot.co.uk/p/julie-bertagna.html" target="_blank">JULIE BERTAGNA</a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEJkzJWVgxfeUFSbPlsNs4Go0C9mMuaA2R2NWonhgwhKYr23dOxcDS1gCJ1CFw6fs9gvmiOyBpux8AF9dZ9oEwZoqRirVitNjPdTias_nZg_cHvDQp3aJzE7HVPTxq7lg2eh95wMW4Ig/s1600/IMG_1241.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="130" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEJkzJWVgxfeUFSbPlsNs4Go0C9mMuaA2R2NWonhgwhKYr23dOxcDS1gCJ1CFw6fs9gvmiOyBpux8AF9dZ9oEwZoqRirVitNjPdTias_nZg_cHvDQp3aJzE7HVPTxq7lg2eh95wMW4Ig/s400/IMG_1241.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>It was still dark across London. </b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>I hauled myself off the pre-dawn flight from Glasgow onto the dinky little Docklands Light Railway for a meeting with my publishers. I’d barely slept and spent the short flight in a hazy, waking dream of the futuristic novel I was writing and I still felt deep inside that world. I was at a crucial point in the story. My teenage heroine had just fought her way through a world of death and despair, up into a spectacular ‘sky city’ that rose out of the ruins of a flooded Earth. I was building up that world in my head - to survive in it, Mara had to absorb all of its strangeness, fast, and the reader too.</b></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_ltrTAlWYxyyCZajT_I1x6XYthi_7LaMtnMVpGREPH8jJHAerBFYskYuUBquOx3arP6_Dp57QfSYfMItZTU94klgYd2VFhpMZdzr3Q11_Cs2l11I6fEh6ludwgYoOXQ6n86Qs3lIx7w/s1600/IMG_1049.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_ltrTAlWYxyyCZajT_I1x6XYthi_7LaMtnMVpGREPH8jJHAerBFYskYuUBquOx3arP6_Dp57QfSYfMItZTU94klgYd2VFhpMZdzr3Q11_Cs2l11I6fEh6ludwgYoOXQ6n86Qs3lIx7w/s320/IMG_1049.jpg" width="239" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>I’d imagined an empire of cloud-high cities with towers linked by sky trains, where people lived liked gods, by their wits, trading ideas, inventions and stunning technologies while the forgotten world outside rotted and drowned. </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>The docklands train swerved around a bend and I jolted wide awake. For a stricken second I felt I’d slipped through a crack in reality into the sleek futuristic city of my imagination.</b></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3bYHSb-5i5DqEwDrROuL-krNdA_TSiRsoDKYjuiOFDAwGvRObZqAQUBM4o1w0UWnaxgiev0oTf8q5_SRhF7LdnKV5R4H_1hgLz2aS-jtfJG58HmhSOEJUuyHQq0Cm6ltOgopwS7xYEA/s1600/IMG_1064.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3bYHSb-5i5DqEwDrROuL-krNdA_TSiRsoDKYjuiOFDAwGvRObZqAQUBM4o1w0UWnaxgiev0oTf8q5_SRhF7LdnKV5R4H_1hgLz2aS-jtfJG58HmhSOEJUuyHQq0Cm6ltOgopwS7xYEA/s320/IMG_1064.jpg" width="238" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>There, through the window, was <i>my </i>sky city. Giant glass towers soared up out of the dockland waters. Global market data flashed in reels around the skyscrapers, above processions of early traders walking to work through luxurious shopping arcades and entertainment malls. It was as if the plane from Glasgow had landed in my own book.</b></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtaCuBKGCQHi2SgQdo9STyOzdIJpJJhwg16dIGoNi60m93Kq8Js2zioUpMNw6G2UYGEdhgKAGFGbFvqnz6WhQcysADb8Y0pNjtCaqJs_55IMtkrl6LvohmUXJ41fEUNRK_pw18Bl7-5w/s1600/IMG_1062.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtaCuBKGCQHi2SgQdo9STyOzdIJpJJhwg16dIGoNi60m93Kq8Js2zioUpMNw6G2UYGEdhgKAGFGbFvqnz6WhQcysADb8Y0pNjtCaqJs_55IMtkrl6LvohmUXJ41fEUNRK_pw18Bl7-5w/s320/IMG_1062.jpg" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Global market data flashed around the skyscrapers</td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>It was Canary Wharf. As the train wormed right through the heart of that exclusive trading bubble, my fictional cityscape burst to life in my head. It was a crucial part of the story that would become the <i><a href="http://forwinternights.wordpress.com/2012/04/12/the-exodus-trilogy-exodus-zenith-and-aurora-by-julie-bertagna/" target="_blank">Exodus</a> </i>trilogy and sell around the world. Somehow, in that half-dream state, the writing gods had gifted me just what I needed, exactly when I needed it. </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>Serendipity strikes when you least expect. It’s like a tap on the shoulder of the creative subconscious from some unfathomable force. Suzanne Collins was half-asleep, channel-hopping between newsreels of the Iraq war and reality TV shows when the idea of <i><a href="http://www.thehungergames.co.uk/" target="_blank">The Hunger Games </a></i>burst upon her. Jo Rowling was trapped on a broken-down train with no book, pen or notebook, nothing but her thoughts, when Harry Potter zapped into her head. </b></span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHNOHBR0AOzkHJDZ8ljt-3qxlxq-NIuKdHSSz5ytDOwlgmZq19j7y_Arf7CarxWzQnccgc6dnLkB_Jtnbeau9rIct7Ns_QlD0cM_UlcYDiilKgWqKCuMJ2Ux_Q4r1v4M7sozEa3oVLGg/s1600/IMG_1242.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHNOHBR0AOzkHJDZ8ljt-3qxlxq-NIuKdHSSz5ytDOwlgmZq19j7y_Arf7CarxWzQnccgc6dnLkB_Jtnbeau9rIct7Ns_QlD0cM_UlcYDiilKgWqKCuMJ2Ux_Q4r1v4M7sozEa3oVLGg/s320/IMG_1242.jpg" width="239" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>It’s harder than ever amid the cacophony of social media, deadlines and deal-making, and the echo of your own voice selling your wares, to find a calm space to rummage around in your dreams, wander through doors in your subconscious, triggering impulses and inspirations we don’t really understand. Often it’s in those half-awake moments when your subconscious runs free that serendipity drops you a gift from the universe you can never quite explain. </b></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjru_EunEW-WCBAX00vtX7MOZ6XnG_E9-vBUDq9ALlFlY7RLSCwMMMeLZ-m0shRfkAunTo5BCR6YiCAILr3xNlBnOYET9AWfPO_4FJttEP0Ia_25SkOQKjNhGq3-eK0YOBCkn_oTq6uqQ/s1600/1959086.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjru_EunEW-WCBAX00vtX7MOZ6XnG_E9-vBUDq9ALlFlY7RLSCwMMMeLZ-m0shRfkAunTo5BCR6YiCAILr3xNlBnOYET9AWfPO_4FJttEP0Ia_25SkOQKjNhGq3-eK0YOBCkn_oTq6uqQ/s200/1959086.jpg" width="130" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>When writing my YA novel <i><a href="http://www.juliebertagna.com/soundtrack.html" target="_blank">Soundtrack</a></i>, a sea-drenched coming-of-age story, I remembered Bobby, a second cousin. He'd seemed godlike to us younger teenage girls; a good-looking charmer and, most amazingly of all, he was a guitarist in a band. He’d punkified his bedroom with cascades of netting hung with iconic album covers and posters. To an impressionable 14 year old from suburbia, it was a rockstar den. I don’t know why I remembered it decades later, but I gave my music-mad character, Finn, a bedroom just like Bobby’s. I also gave Finn a beautiful song, <i><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVihue_ZslY" target="_blank">Walk The Last Mile </a></i>by Scots band Love and Money, to leave to the girl he loves at the end of the novel. </b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: magenta; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>And this is where the story behind the story turns strange. </b></span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>Families fracture. I hadn’t seen Bobby since my early teens. Love and Money are one of my favourite bands and when I'd asked my relatives if their bassist, Bobby Paterson, was <i>our </i>Bobby, the family grapevine said no, couldn’t be, he’d gone off the rails, never got a proper job, fallen in with a bad crowd, got himself in debt... so I didn’t think any more about it. Moody-looking guitarists were ten a penny in Glasgow. Reader, I married one.</b></span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>Tragically, Love and Money’s Bobby Paterson died, far too young, a few years ago and when I read his press obituary I was doubly gutted. It <i>was</i> our Bobby. The one whose bedroom I’d enshrined in my book. Old-fashioned Scottish values, the family rumour-mill and no doubt a bit of sheer green envy had twisted the truth. No, he hadn’t got a proper job, he’d fallen in with a bunch of musicians and run up music company debts - in one of Scotland’s best-ever bands. And the opening bass line that pulses goosebumps of soul through <i>Walk The Last Mile</i>, the song I’d given to Finn in <i>Soundtrack, </i>was Bobby’s<i>...</i></b></span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: magenta;">How did Bobby’s bedroom and his song end up so strangely entwined in my novel twenty years on? I’ll never know.</span> </b></span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8UjqjQPnKgltf7iJ2mCioijzT0ue18twetJKPzvCe1hlkmpX9zzVqXl3REmHfSrk10vPYORlrTZqpf7h7Br6ytKQavUi4vTLK71vb_fb3sCyBlSuxDGi6UaFbdOFHGBde9edWUAaRkA/s1600/image.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8UjqjQPnKgltf7iJ2mCioijzT0ue18twetJKPzvCe1hlkmpX9zzVqXl3REmHfSrk10vPYORlrTZqpf7h7Br6ytKQavUi4vTLK71vb_fb3sCyBlSuxDGi6UaFbdOFHGBde9edWUAaRkA/s400/image.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Orion Nebula, NASA image</td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>Serendipity struck again a couple of weeks ago. Unhappy with my day’s writing, I began rummaging through books and websites, following trails (wasting time, but totally engrossed by my own curiosity.) It was like following a faint, unknown scent. My tracks led me to NASA and I made a mind-bending discovery, one that’s thoroughly discombobulated me. Somehow the universe itself, via NASA, seems to have gifted me the most extraordinary surprise in the exact spot of the cosmos that I need it to be in my new book. </b></span><br />
<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: magenta; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span></i>
<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: magenta; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>‘It is in our idleness, in our dreams, that submerged truth sometimes comes to the top.’ Virginia Woolf</b></span></i><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>I don’t understand the hows or whys. I’ll just thank my lucky stars, keep following the scent of my unconscious and see what else serendipity brings. </b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>How about you?</b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: magenta; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b><i><br /></i></b></span></div>
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JULIE BERTAGNAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11968031704120925668noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1464589489014860611.post-85993464221770058862012-11-07T00:30:00.000+00:002012-11-07T00:30:00.360+00:00The Next Big Thing by Julienne Durber<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="color: white;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">For this week's post I have been asked to take part in
The Next Big Thing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Upcoming authors are
asked to answer ten questions about a work in progress and then link to others
who have done the same.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So here are my ten
answers and at the end are links to some of my favourite up and comings, do
check them out, they are all fab ...</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt8xVJWxsHWmBenY_EeJApD3te1By7Nu7-O2HGFAz0hf3LB9ro0mAvBhZ00wa0hlPgkj5bczLcQeCefPAr8v4ZwYrRMhohoIo900-wnZ-kWJV19TMIxD2UGC2qjI3z4FM4tgJD5RxKCqI/s1600/DURBER_J_ART2.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="42" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt8xVJWxsHWmBenY_EeJApD3te1By7Nu7-O2HGFAz0hf3LB9ro0mAvBhZ00wa0hlPgkj5bczLcQeCefPAr8v4ZwYrRMhohoIo900-wnZ-kWJV19TMIxD2UGC2qjI3z4FM4tgJD5RxKCqI/s400/DURBER_J_ART2.gif" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #351c75;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">What is the working title of your book?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I always struggle to title my works in progress.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For ages, they are just called by the name of
the main character until I bite the bullet and give them a title that sums up
the spirit and hopefully raises a question. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the moment, this story has just graduated
from 'The Maxwell Story' to the extremely unsatisfying <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>'A Forest Full of Aliens', (partly because
Maxwell has just been rewritten as a female called Redd).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There will be more changes!</span></div>
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<span style="color: #351c75;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
Where did the idea come from for the book?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I was trying to reimagine an old idea I've had for a
while about a whole world within a gearbox in a scrap yard, changing it from a
fantasy epic to an ultra-violent sci-fi thriller.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #351c75;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
What genre does your book fall under?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I'm aiming for Young Adult Science Fiction Thriller as
long as I can keep the cuteness and wise-cracking at bay that tend to drag my
stories towards 12+.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #351c75;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I'd love Redd to be played by Paloma Faith.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She had a small part in The Imaginarium of
Doctor Parnassus which really stood out for me, and she's great at 'fabulously
bonkers'.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think she'd give a brilliant
take on the concept of a heroic main character.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And to counter Paloma, the scientist character would have to be played
straight and by-the-book.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps Helen
Mirren.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #351c75;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">The Borrowers meets Platoon and then the solder hits the
cooling fan.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #351c75;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I'm currently working on another couple of things with my
agent, but when this one gets into a shape where I'm willing to show people
then hopefully it will go forward with agency representation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="color: #351c75;">How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">This story is ongoing, but my last first draft took
around six months, fitted in around my day job.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="color: #351c75;">What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Hopefully none!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I lie
awake worrying that someone will have come up with a similar idea to one of
mine and that a publisher will already have it on their desk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Authors don't write in a vacuum.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Inspiring events, films, books, newspaper
stories etc are all around and it's inevitable that other creative people may
take an idea in a similar direction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And
good luck to them if they have, I genuinely wish them every success with it.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #351c75;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
Who or What inspired you to write this book?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">The original gearbox concept came from a college exercise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was on an illustration course and the
project was to combine a piece of technology with a fantasy element.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had an overgrown mini gearbox in my garden
and wondered what it would be like if tiny creatures lived in it.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #351c75;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">The whole thing takes place inside a computer tower
(apart from the bits that don't ;)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">The fab authors I'm tagging are: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Sam Hawksmoor - author of The Repossession and The
Haunting</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.samhawksmoor.com/" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">http://www.samhawksmoor.com/</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Caroline Green - author of Cracks and Dark Ride</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.carolinegreen.net/" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">http://www.carolinegreen.net/</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Addy Farmer, who invited me to take part (and author of
amongst other things the heart warming Grandad's Bench)</span></div>
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<a href="http://addyfarmer.jimdo.com/" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">http://addyfarmer.jimdo.com/</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Sharon Jones - author of Dead Jealous and lover of
poodles</span></div>
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<a href="http://deadjealous.blogspot.co.uk/" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">http://deadjealous.blogspot.co.uk/</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Please check out their sites and responses to the Ten Big
Questions.</span></div>
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Juliennehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03177445245144105172noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1464589489014860611.post-27244433821014970102012-10-30T13:37:00.000+00:002012-11-02T07:33:05.801+00:00Dystopian fiction, an Oracle for Modern Times.<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">by </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.clairemerle.com/" target="_blank">Claire Merle</a></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The last year has been full of discussion
on the internet about why dystopian fiction is so popular right now. Teri here
at Demention in her blog post <a href="http://dementionblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/dystopian-fiction-at-edinburgh-book.html" target="_blank">Dystopian Fiction at the Edinburgh Book Festival</a>,
recently gave a great overview of the main perspectives YA authors the likes of
Scott Westerfeld, Patrick Ness, Moira Young and Maggie Stiefvater have shared in understanding this popularity – Escapism, the Dystopian parallel found in high school,
fear of the future and a concern about the way the TV/ video game generations are becoming numb to
violence. </span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDm-VkyxRtL1Qyzm27-cKyhqE4WWzZH_55ZXDSuEJFTm0noKfZ69URbJgzsHCTeM-ZGmaK5iAfRPePAlppwQv4Sm3Kd4MANexdRUknFNnpaG2WYxsLRs-WfPXGQLCPgLPmeYYVBwy3f00/s1600/05006960.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDm-VkyxRtL1Qyzm27-cKyhqE4WWzZH_55ZXDSuEJFTm0noKfZ69URbJgzsHCTeM-ZGmaK5iAfRPePAlppwQv4Sm3Kd4MANexdRUknFNnpaG2WYxsLRs-WfPXGQLCPgLPmeYYVBwy3f00/s1600/05006960.jpeg" /></a><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Dystopian by definition is all about a
society that’s gone wrong. It naturally embodies some sort of rebellion against
authority, which is obviously going to have big appeal to teenagers who are at an age where questioning the things one has been raised to believe or follow is
a natural step into adulthood. Personally, I think this is one of the defining elements of dystopian’s popularity in the YA market right now, plus
the fact that as it’s slipped into the YA genre, dystopian has undergone a transformation. YA dystopian usually ends with hope for the future. There is a positive outcome during the final power struggle and the individual (young hero or heroine) is shown as someone capable of bringing about
change.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #674ea7; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">But
I think there’s another element in the mix. Something that has become diluted
in our modern culture but which still resonates in all of us. A profound desire
to know what the future holds for us.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; text-indent: 35.4pt;">Throughout
history, civilisations have been built and guided on prophecy, oracles and
predictions, and mankind has consistently shown an innate thirst for knowledge
of the unknown future.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijpEZOVql9N4yl8w8jAT8_N3wyefuFUEV0vNKitFCt4MIeuuDcIWrs_zAsLMhP-zY0V48glRVkgLNKR4YEtxkGiMw-QR7nNNA-fed8S8TAPMJWfvTUFYkLmVFWjq-05Ga9E9SmaQDV_No/s1600/imgres-1.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijpEZOVql9N4yl8w8jAT8_N3wyefuFUEV0vNKitFCt4MIeuuDcIWrs_zAsLMhP-zY0V48glRVkgLNKR4YEtxkGiMw-QR7nNNA-fed8S8TAPMJWfvTUFYkLmVFWjq-05Ga9E9SmaQDV_No/s1600/imgres-1.jpeg" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">One of our
greatest ancient civilisations and what is considered the birthplace of western
civilisation – Greece – orbited around the divinations and predictions of the
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delphi" target="_blank">Delphic Oracle.</a> Situated in central Greece, the city of Delphi was considered
the heart of the known world between roughly 800 BC and 400 AD. Essentially,
The Delphi Oracle was the highest authority both civilly and religiously in
ancient Greece. People travelled for weeks from all corners of the country and
surrounding countries to consult the oracle. Her responses influenced Kings,
philosophers and citizens alike, having an impact on politics, crime, war and
law, and influencing some of the most significant conflicts of the period. </span></span></div>
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<!--EndFragment--><span style="background-color: white; color: #674ea7; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; text-indent: 35.4pt;">Allegedly, the Delphic Oracle
proclaimed Socrates to be the wisest man in Greece, as a result of which, he
dedicated his life to a search for knowledge that became one of the founding
events of western philosophy.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; text-indent: 35.4pt;">In modern day society, prophets, seers, oracles, rune castors and shamans have lost much of their power.
The popularity of religion in general has diminished and in terms of divinatory
practices what we’re left with is a kind of watered-down, often rather superficial
western version of psychics, tarot cards and daily horoscopes.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt53HMF0g3CXnZwFff20jML7m66znfoaAnRs1BZR5_htDSJoikramx5uHoZkcXkYQrw0aLBIvQObHzw8sQWVwjOEzSivKGjedL5uCnWVQSbO6aaPmSnwuNA2hOVR0z93o4qXSiZWg4RG8/s1600/delphivapors.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="251" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt53HMF0g3CXnZwFff20jML7m66znfoaAnRs1BZR5_htDSJoikramx5uHoZkcXkYQrw0aLBIvQObHzw8sQWVwjOEzSivKGjedL5uCnWVQSbO6aaPmSnwuNA2hOVR0z93o4qXSiZWg4RG8/s320/delphivapors.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; text-indent: 35.4pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; text-indent: 35.4pt;">But the deep
need to anticipate the future and to prepare for it, is of course part of being
human. Whether through divine practices or through logic and reason, man casts
out a net to try and trap the allusive unknown. <span style="color: #674ea7;">Dystopian fiction is fulfilling a certain hole that has been left behind in modern society. Like the Oracle it predicts, warns and draws in so many readers because of the drive in each of us to know what the future holds. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; text-indent: 35.4pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; text-indent: 35.4pt;">There are those who argue the dystopian setting comes secondary to the story, and it's the high stakes and exciting plot that are of primary interest to teenagers reading in the genre. But for me the setting in a dystopian is as entangled with the plot as the main characters. You don't have one without the other. Besides, this doesn't answer the question, why dystopia, why now? YA fantasy, sci-fi, paranormal and urban fantasy all provide life and death situations, and an exciting struggle against 'dark forces'. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; text-indent: 35.4pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; text-indent: 35.4pt;">I think Dystopian fiction helps fill the need to anticipate where
we’re heading, and to envisage the future we’re building for the generations to follow. A need that is as old as man.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> What do you think? Is the recent trend of dystopian fiction basically just another form of escapism and entertainment, or is it connected to something more deeply rooted in the human psyche?</span></span></blockquote>
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Claire Merlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07566685720094646776noreply@blogger.com0