Sunday 28 April 2013

Cake Nazi (a true story)


Imagine, if you will, that it’s your birthday, the kids are at school and your husband has the day off. He asks you what you’d like to do. Well, it’s cold outside but the sun is shining and so you decide that it would be lovely to have a walk on the beach, followed by tea and cakes at a beachside café.


   Now imagine that you’ve had the long walk and have arrived at said café. There are a handful of people inside sipping lattes. A waitress guides you across to a table by the window with a perfect, uninterrupted view of the ocean. You shed your coats and hats and gloves and you sit.
   ‘What can I get you?’ the waitress asks. 
   ‘Two teas, please,’ your husband says. ‘And what cakes do you have?’
  
   ‘The cakes don’t come out until three o’clock,’ the waitress replies. 

   You look at the waitress, wondering if you’ve misheard. And then you look at your husband.
   ‘Three o’clock?’ your husband says to the waitress. 
   ‘Yes,’ replies the waitress. ‘And it’s only . . .’ She consults her watch, ‘. . . half past two.’
   You continue to stare at the waitress, waiting for her to crack a smile and tell you she’s joking. But after five long seconds you realise, no, she’s serious. Sorry, what? The cakes don’t come out until three o’clock? Is this some kind of new EU initiative? Do the chocolate éclairs have this stipulated somewhere in a special pastries contract? Does the lemon drizzle cake think it’s Mariah Carey perhaps? 
   ‘You can have your tea now,’ the waitress says. ‘And I can bring you some cake at three.’
   ‘Where are the cakes?’ your husband asks, looking around. You too begin to scan the room, hoping to spot a rogue piece of pecan pie and then you’d be able to say, ‘Aha! There! A cake has been spotted next to the coffee machine. I’ll have that one.’ But alas, there is not a slice to be seen. 
   ‘The cakes are in the fridge,’ she replies.
   Your husband smiles at her. A nice smile. Not patronising or forced. A genuine, lovely smile. One that you would never be able to pull off in such a time of stress and anxiety. ‘The thing is,’ he says, ‘it’s my wife’s birthday and we’ve come to your café for tea and cakes, but we have to leave quite soon to pick up the kids from school. So would it be at all possible for you to sneak us a slice from the fridge a little bit early. No one need know.’ He grins a cheeky grin to seal the deal. 
   She frowns. ‘No,’ she says. ‘Not until three.



  So would you like tea for two now? she says, And I’ll bring you the cake later, at three?’
   You check the time on your phone. It’s 2.38pm. You want to swear at the waitress, but instead you say, ‘Thank you, but I’d like the tea at the same time as the cake if that’s okay. Can we wait until three and have them both together?’ 
   She thinks for a moment before arriving at her decision. ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘That should be okay.’
   The waitress walks off, presumably to check on the cakes and see if they’re happy in the fridge. You smile at your husband and you both spend the next fifteen minutes gazing out at the beautiful sapphire sea and pondering on the peculiarities of cake timetables. You know you’ll have to wolf down the cake and knock back the tea in super-quick time if you’re to get to school on time to pick up the kids, but that’s okay;  this is England where 'customer service' has a myriad of definitions.
   At 2.55pm the waitress returns. Oh good she’s early, you think; now you’ll have a little extra time. She leans forward with a conspiratorial smile and says:
   ‘The cakes will be coming out in five minutes.’


Coming soon: Bread Nazi (another true story).

Wednesday 24 April 2013

Win a Free Edit worth $60/£40

 
This week I have something very special
for all you writers out there -
 
 Andrea Harding from Express Editing Solutions
is offering a free 10k word edit to one lucky person for their manuscript or short story worth $60/£40!!
 
Below, Andrea has written a wonderful guest post about how she came to be
an editor. Beneath the post you can find out how to enter the competition.
 
 
My mother, affectionately nicknamed Mammacat (we’re a cat kind of family), retired last year, after 38 years of teaching. She taught children aged 5-11 and was head of Literacy for many years. Recently, we were discussing my editing. She asked me why writers don’t just learn how spell and use grammar correctly. I tried to explain it to her in terms that she’d understand.

You see, when those tiny little budding minds that she’s so used to teaching sit down to take tests and exams at the tender age of seven, they do something called ‘the long write’. The long write is usually a story composition of some kind; it is marked on different criteria, and the resulting piece of work is given a ‘Level’, usually between 1 and 3 (with 3 being awarded to the highest achievers). Children who attain a Level 2 might have simply wonderful stories, but they might not have yet mastered the art of using a sentence, correct spellings or punctuation. The children who attain Level 3 can do all of these things and more, but sometimes their imaginations are somewhat lacking, and their stories are dull as dishwater.

This is how I explained the relationship between authors and editors: authors are your Level 2 children, their minds overflowing with wonderful characters and stories that are just aching to spill out onto the page; sometimes so much so that things like spelling, grammar, punctuation are forgotten, unimportant, barriers that their stories have to hurdle to be indelibly set onto a page. Editors, however, are Level 3 children, sometimes lacking in their own ideas, but with a great attention to detail, a phenomenal capacity for rules and their application.

Anyway, I told Mammacat not to question it; my skills would be surplus to requirements if all authors were Level 3s.

If you asked me how I came to start editing, I don’t think I’d be able to actually tell you. Before I started busying myself with trying to help people improve on them, I read an extraordinary amount of books. I believe last year I actually read somewhere in the region of 180 of the things. I just can’t get enough. But with the dawn of a new technological age and the birth of the Kindle and other e-readers, I discovered more and more books with more and more errors in them.
 



Mammacat and I have a history of needing to be separated at functions such as weddings and funerals, because we would end up pointing out and giggling at typos in the programs; we photographed and shared badly sign-written vans we have been sat behind at traffic lights and plaques that beggar belief; it was hardly surprising that I became one of those annoying/helpful (delete as applicable) people who started emailing authors with lists of errors I had found in their books.

One such author was Griffin Hayes, who has not just become one of my favourite authors, but also a valued friend; he was the one that pushed me to push myself, recommending that I set up on a freelance basis.
 
I love working with a variety of authors who write within a range of different genres. Some people have commented that my low pricings are unprofessional, but at the end of the day, I already have a day job: I can pay my bills. I edit for the love of a good book; it’s my hobby, my passion and where my real talent lies. If I can pass all of that on to authors who might not necessarily be able to afford the expense of an editor who charges prices that make people cringe or by the hour, then why shouldn’t I do so? I certainly can’t think of a reason.
 
 
To find out more, visit Andrea's website: Express Editing Solutions
 
 
***THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED***
Winner to be announced May 15th 2013
 If you'd like win an amazing 10,000 word edit from Express Editing Solutions, all you have to do is leave a comment below stating why you would like the prize.
 
(Closing date May 8th 2013. Winner to be announced here on 15th May. The winner must respond within 7 days or the prize will be offered to someone else)

Thursday 18 April 2013

A Free 10K Word Edit

Attention, Authors/Writers/Dabblers!
This is a heads up to let you know that next week I'm running a competition in association with Express Editing Solutions to win a Free 10,000 Word Edit for your manuscript or short story.


Don't miss it.


Monday 15 April 2013

Greenwood Tree Cover Reveal

Today I'm proud to be one of the sites to reveal the cover for
 Greenwood Tree by B. Lloyd

And here it is in all its wondrous glory:



*sigh* *swoon* Gorgeous isn't it? And the story is just as swoonworthy...


Well, what do all mysteries have?' said Aunt Isobel. 'Money, mistresses, and murder.’

1783 – and Lichfield society is enthralled by the arrival of dashing ex-officer Orville; he charms his way into the salons, grand houses and even a great inheritance from extrovert Sir Morton. 

1927 – and detective writer Julia Warren returns to her home in Lichfield to work on her next novel. Initially she hopes to find plot material from the past and set it in the present. Aunt Isobel, while making preparations for the annual midsummer ball, has managed to root out an old journal from 1783 which might prove a source of inspiration. Once Julia starts reading her ancestor’s journal she becomes absorbed in solving the mystery surrounding officer Orville. Detective fever takes over, and she moves from reality to legend as events from the past seem set to re-enact themselves in the present, and she finds herself unravelling more than just the one mystery. Who was Orville? Who was the agent, Oddman, set to spy on him? And who is helpful Mr Grenall ? 

Pagan gods don’t walk away just because you stop looking at them. The Gronny Patch sleeps. Perhaps it dreams. Or perhaps not …

A complex, multi-layered story unlike any other, full of whimsy, horror, and mystery, shifting between the centuries and from source to source, until all the threads are finally drawn together by the imperturbable Miss Warren.

 

 Watch one of the mini trailers here:

 
 

Author Links:
Twitter: @AuthorsAnon

Buy Links:



Thursday 11 April 2013

Free Sci Fi Thriller


is free on Kindle until Sunday 14th April
Grab a copy while you can.


What would it take for the United States to fall from within? In a not too distant future, America is put to the test. With the American people deep in The Second Great Depression and two of the most powerful hurricanes on record to contend with, the United States is in no condition to deal with hidden terrorists on its soil, maniacal politicians, and the most formidable military threat the world has seen since the Third Reich.

This is the story of three men from three very different walks of life: Howard Beck, the world's richest man, also diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome; Richard Dupree, ex-Navy SEAL turned escaped convict; and Maxwell Harris, a crippled, burned-out chief of police of a small Texas town. At first, they must overcome their own struggles and fight for their survival against impossible odds. In the end, the unlikely trio must band together to save their beloved country from COLLAPSE.

Empires topple. Nations crumble. Civilization is fragile. In 2027, America will fall. 

Monday 18 February 2013

Blog Tour for THE CLEARING with Fiction Addiction

My blog tour starts today!!


 
I've hosted other books on their blog tours, but I've never had one of my own,
so I'm very excited to announce that my blog tour for THE CLEARING starts today.
I'd love it if you could join me over the next couple of weeks at the following virtual venues where there'll be interviews, blog posts, giveaways and reviews.
 
 
18th February 2013
19th February 2013
Victoria’s Pages of Romance - Interview & Excerpt
20th February 2013
Reading a Little Bit of Everything - Excerpt & Giveaway
21st February 2013
A Novel Review - Review
22nd February 2013
Story Addict Guest Post
25th February 2013
26th February 2013
Rhoda Baxter - Guest post
27th February 2013
Miss Bookworm Reviews Review & Giveaway
28th February 2013
Book-Marks the Spot - Review & Giveaway
1st March 3013
 
 
Thanks so much to Shaz Goodwin at Fiction Addiction Books on Tour
for her super-special ninja powers of organisation and co-ordination!