A Beginner's Guide To Salad: Trivia

When I've watched a film, I like to go to imdb.com to look up facts and trivia about it (I can waste hours looking up films from the past!), so I thought I would share some trivia from A Beginner's Guide To Salad.

Ruth and Billy’s favourite sitcom was originally going to be How I Met Your Mother, but then I decided to have a bit of fun and make up my own, playing on the book’s title. 


Ruth and Billy’s favourite tv show, A Beginner’s Guide To You, revolves around Meg and Tom, whose names were inspired by the main actors from You’ve Got Mail.


Billy and Theo were named after the characters in the Bill & Ted films. Theo even has the same surname as Ted.


The Roxy Fitness Centre was named after my old local cinema, which unfortunately is no more *sobs*


Ruth’s older brother, Stephen, is named after the American comedy singer/songwriter, Stephen Lynch.


Stephen lives in New York with his American wife. I wrote a Christmas short story about how they met and you can read it here


Poplar Ave, where Ruth, Billy and Stephen grew up is real. I grew up there myself and have some very fond memories of playing marbles, rounders and curby with the other kids on the street.


The school reunion was inspired when my own former high school was bulldozed and a new academy opened.


In the original version, Ruth and Zack were conducting a secret relationship. Zack dumped Ruth in the restaurant, which broke her heart and caused her to flee to Stephen and Billy.

A Beginner’s Guide To Salad is available to download now from
Amazon
If you've read the book, you can leave a review here

 

A Chat With... Annabel Scott

Can you tell us about your new book?
My new book is the sequel to Millie and the American Wedding. It sees Millie returning to New York after her long term boyfriend Rob gets a job offer in Singapore. She catches up with her old friends including her ex-boyfriend Rob, who’s newly separated. As she grows closer to Rob, she starts to wonder who she’s really in love with.

What was your inspiration for Millie and the American Proposal?
When I originally published Millie and the American Wedding, I had lots of emails and tweets saying they wished the ending was different. It got me thinking about what would have happened in the story and whether it really would have been “the end”. When I had decided that the characters probably would meet again, it was just a matter of working out how and when.

What has been your greatest experience of being a published writer?
It’s hard to put it down to a single greatest experience, but I think knowing that people I don’t know are reading my books is amazing. One of my close friends was at dinner with some her boyfriends’ friends once, and the girls started discussing books they were reading, and one of the friends was reading one of my books. It was then that it hit me that strangers read my book.

What advice would you give to aspiring authors?
Don’t give up. Launching a writing career is tough. People will say mean things about your manuscripts. You have to turn down social engagements to get enough time to write. You have to trust your gut - which is really hard to do when you’re confidence has been knocked down by rejection. In the end, I’m sure a lot of good authors don’t get discovered because they don’t persevere. If you believe in yourself (as cheesy as it sounds) don’t give up making someone else believe in you too.

What was the last book you read?
I’ve just finished Mhari McFarlane’s Here’s Looking at You. I absolutely adored You Had Me at Hello, and I’d been looking forward to reading it. I think Mhari’s got a great witty tone.

And what’s next on your to-be-read pile?
I recently gave birth to my first child, and my publishers very kindly sent me some parenting books, along with the new Dorothy Koomson book ‘The Flavours of Love’. I haven’t read any of her books before, and my friends have often waxed lyrical about how wonderful an author she is. I just need to find a quiet time to enjoy it! 

Finally, what are you working on at the moment?
I am currently in the thinking stage of the next (and final part) of the Millie series. It’s called ‘Millie and the British Wedding’ and whilst I know the ending and the basic plot, I’m trying to think up the bumps along the way! 

Millie and The American Proposal is out now

Guest Post: Sarah Towne

Hello! Thank you for stopping by to my guest post. Jennifer was so nice to invite me to be a guest on her blog today. So let’s jump in - I’m here to talk about my writing experience. I have been writing in one form or another since I was in grade school. I would write short short stories, and then I’d add illustration or make a pamphlet about a story I’d just created. I was in love with all the different templates you can find in Word -- who am I kidding, I still am! I would pick one out and just start writing. 

When I got a little older, I started writing poetry. I kept all of my poems in a spiral notebook. I didn’t write anything on the first page so that just in case someone found my notebook they would perceive the rest of the pages to be blank.

It wasn’t until college that I started studying the craft of writing. I started off college as a journalism major, but I quickly found out that I didn’t connect to that kind of writing. Out of interest, I took an intro to creative writing my second semester of freshman year, and I was hooked from there. We read and wrote poetry and short stories. I took two more poetry courses before I ever enrolled in a fiction or creative nonfiction course; I ended up taking two more fiction classes and a creative nonfiction class.

This isn’t to just show you my education in writing because as we all know you have to write in order to be a writer - you can’t just have some courses under your belt. I was legitimately interested in everything these courses had to offer - the professors exposed me to literature and authors and poets who I might not otherwise ever know about. They helped me further explore and discover the life of literature. College was also my first experience being able to sit around a large table with a group of my peers and talk seriously about characters and motive and plot progression. We weren’t just memorizing Hamlet’s soliloquy; we were dissecting it and figuring out how to incorporate iambic pentameter into our own poetry.

So - then I hit graduate school. I attended a small (small) university in the Midwest with a small and growing MFA in Creative Writing. I had several unique experiences at this school of which I’ll expand on someday, but, out of everything, I think I appreciated the opportunities I had to interact with authors.

Having been in a program like this, I can see where people would get the idea that some who come out of these programs come out as cookie cutter writers because you’ve got a pool of writers in classes for entire semesters with professors with a certain taste. Some are writing to the professor’s taste and some are writing so they don’t get slammed by the girl who sits across from you and some are writing exactly what you want to write.

Either way, if you are in a writing community of some nature where you have the chance to share your writing in front of a group of people - I recommend it in some ways, BUT you have to know, that just because someone might not like your work doesn’t mean that it isn’t good. In fact, maybe that was the biggest lesson I learned. I learned how to sit in a class of anywhere between 8 and 20 people and not say a word while they critique your work - some will love your work, some will sort of like your work, and some people won’t like your work. That’s the case with anything.

I hope you’re still with me! Because, at the end of all of this, I’ve written my first novel titled, The Other Summer Girl. The book takes place at Indiana University. The story follows Melanie Collier, a freshman at IU, through her sometimes self-induced social alienation. Melanie is not an overly shy person, but she does have some social anxieties that are perpetuated by her roommate who parties excessively. It isn’t until she meets Lleyton Harris, the Australian tennis transfer, that she becomes distracted enough to let her guard down a bit. Lleyton and Melanie hit it off, but she begins to find out about things he’s hiding from her. Lleyton turns out to be a wonderful distraction, helping Melanie finally adapt to the college life, but the question remains whether or not their relationship can live through the test of summer.

I am working hard on the sequel. I haven’t titled it yet, but it will be A Melanie Collier Novel.

I hope you’ll check out my book on Amazon or Barnes & Noble, and please connect with me on my social media sites! I’d love to hear from you


Connect with me:

Website: http://sarahdtowne.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/sarahdtowne

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20638344-the-other-summer-girl

Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/sarahdtowne/

Instagram: http://instagram.com/sarahdtowne

Facebook fan page: https://www.facebook.com/sarahdtowne



Book Buy Links:

Amazon USA: 

Amazon UK: 

A Beginner's Guide To Salad: The Cast

A fun part of writing is a novel is 'casting' the parts afterwards. I've only ever done this in my head before, so actually putting it down on paper (or the computer screen) was much more difficult than I anticipated. But here they are, my cast for A Beginner's Guide To Salad:

 

 

Ruth Lynch: Rebel Wilson

 

Billy Worth: Mathew Baynton

 

 

 

Jared Wilson: Ben Lamb

 

 

 

Erin de Silva: Shelley Conn

 

 

 

Theo Logan: Danny Mac

 

Cover Reveal: Sidelined (Game On Book 3) by Kyra Lennon

 

 Genre: NA Contemporary Romance

Release Date: March 31st 2014


At the age of twenty-one, Bree Collinson has more than she ever dreamed of. A handsome husband, a fancy house, and more shoes than Carrie Bradshaw and Imelda Marcos combined. But having everything handed to her isn’t the way Bree wants to live the rest of her life. When an idea to better herself pops into her head, she doesn’t expect her husband to question her, and keep her tied by her apron strings to the kitchen.

Isolated and unsure who to turn to, Bree finds herself falling back into a dangerous friendship, and developing feelings for the only person who really listens to her. Torn between her loyalty to her husband and her attraction to a man who has the perfect family she always wanted, she has some tough choices to make.

While Bree tries to figure out what she wants, a tragedy rocks the Westberg Warriors, triggering some dark memories, and pushing her to take a look at what’s really important.

Sidelined is the third book in Kyra Lennon’s Game On series. Game On (Book 1) and Blindsided (Book 2) are available on Amazon and Smashwords.



About the Author:

Kyra is a self-confessed book-a-holic, and has been since she first learned to read. When she's not reading, you'll usually find her hanging out in coffee shops with her trusty laptop and/or her friends, or girling it up at the nearest shopping mall. And occasionally hanging out with rock stars, because that’s how she rolls!

Kyra grew up on the South Coast of England and refuses to move away from the seaside which provides massive inspiration for her novels. Her debut novel, Game On (New Adult Contemporary Romance), was released in July 2012, and she scored her first Amazon Top 20 listing with her New Adult novella, If I Let You Go in November.



You can find Kyra at the following places:

Website: http://www.kyralennon.com/

Blog: http://kyralennon.blogspot.co.uk/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kyralennonwrites

Twitter: https://twitter.com/KLennonWrites

Pinterest: http://gb.pinterest.com/kyralennon/

Instagram: http://instagram.com/kyralennon

 

Book of the Month: February

 

The Sum of All Kisses by

Julia Quinn

 

 

Hugh Prentice has never had patience for dramatic females, and if Lady Sarah Pleinsworth has ever been acquainted with the words shy or retiring, she's long since tossed them out the window. Besides, a reckless duel has left this brilliant mathematician with a ruined leg, and now he could never court a woman like Sarah, much less dream of marrying her.

Sarah has never forgiven Hugh for the duel he fought that nearly destroyed her family. But even if she could find a way to forgive him, it wouldn't matter. She doesn't care that his leg is less than perfect, it's his personality she can't abide. But forced to spend a week in close company they discover that first impressions are not always reliable. And when one kiss leads to two, three, and four, the mathematician may lose count, and the lady may, for the first time, find herself speechless...

*      *      *      *      *

 

 

I'd never read a Julia Quinn novel before, so I didn't know what to expect. I was pleasantly surprised by this humorous historical romance and thoroughly enjoyed the book. My review of The Sum of All Kisses will be up on Novelicious soon.

 





 

 

Click here to see all Books of the Month

Writing Book 2 - Part 2

The Second Draft

Last month, I blogged about the first draft of my second book (click here to see the post) and this month I am tackling the second draft. It's quite daunting to be faced with your book again - is it going to be utter crap? Will any of it be salvageable? Will I be able to make an actual novel out of it?

I always fear the worst, but I have to say I've quite enjoyed the second draft so far. That isn't to say it's been a doddle. It's been hard work, with lots of cutting and shifting scenes and writing new parts, but I feel like I'm really getting to know my characters now. This usually happens a lot sooner, but the first draft was written over a long period of time with other projects in between, so poor Ally was neglected. But not anymore!

I'm about 80% through the second draft. This last part requires the most shifting around of scenes, which is a bit brain-melty, but I'm hoping it'll make the book a lot stronger. I know there is at least another draft to be done before I even think of sending it off to be edited, but this time the task doesn't seem so daunting as I know the manuscript I have now is far better than the one I had a month ago.