Author: ChanAtkins

Writers Blog Tour

~ ChanAtkins ~ 4 Comments

So I’ve been passed the baton by writer John Needham, which makes it my turn to run with. At the end of my post I will be passing it on to two blogging writers, Nicole Nally and Michael Hawke. As is the whole point of the blog tour, they will then do their posts and link to some more writers, and so on. Seems a great idea to me! It’s certainly introduced me to some new authors and their blogs. So anyway, onto the questions! (Interviewing myself, how weird!)

What Am I Currently Working On?
A tricky question right away because there is no quick or simple answer. I am working on several things at the same time, which to be honest is a bit of a nightmare! There is the sequel to The Boy With The Thorn In His Side which I wrote a few years ago and have only recently decided to make public. This Is The Day is in its last edit and will hopefully be available in the next month or so. You can read it as a sequel, but it will also make sense if you have not read The Boy With The Thorn In His Side. Then I have another finished novel named This Is Nowhere. It’s currently being edited and when I get it back I will spend some more time on it before releasing it. It’s essentially a family mystery and deals with subjects such as dementia, mental illness, suicide and family conflict. Then there is a brand new book I have started writing, to be aimed at young adults. My book hungry almost twelve year old has been a major inspiration for this. She devours books like nobodies business and my ambition is to write something so gripping that she cannot put it down! Quite a challenge I can tell you. I can reveal that the book is called The Tree Of Rebels, and is set over a hundred years in the future where a thirteen year old girl begins to question the apparently perfect society she lives in. It is about nature to a certain extent, the human kind as well as the wild kind, but more importantly it is about rebellion. And finally that brings me to my debut novel The Mess Of Me; a first person narrative from the perspective of a cynical, body conscious sixteen year old girl. This will be re-released with Autharium at some point soon. Long story, but it was snapped up by another publisher, with whom things have unfortunately not worked out. I am looking forward to giving it the once over and getting it back out there!

How Does My Work Differ From Others In My Genre?

Hmm, another toughie. To be honest I am not really sure what my genre is, which is one of the reasons I decided to go with an independent publisher. It gives you the freedom to write what you want, whatever genre that may be. I suppose you could call it realist fiction, (although The Tree Of Rebels will obviously be a young adult fantasy) as I tend to write about real people in real situations. I have a tendency to write a lot of dialogue, and I would say that my books are largely character driven. There are plots, and sub-plots, but I like to feel it’s the characters that stand out and drive things forward.

Why Do I write What I Do?
I like this question! This one is easy! I write what I do essentially because I have to. It really is as simple as that. I never really decide to write about a certain subject, and I never really devise complicated plots before I start writing. It is always, always the characters that come to me first. They quite simply walk into my mind, set up home and refuse to leave. They start talking, and soon they have a particular voice. A way of speaking, as well as a way of looking at the world. They will eventually present a dilemma, or a journey, and then I will start to see the other characters that surround and influence them. Bits and pieces will link up and join together in my mind, becoming like this spider web of words and images and situations. Eventually it gets so noisy in there that I have to start writing things down. So that’s why I write what I do. The voices in my head make me!

How Does My Writing Process Work?
Well I probably answered some of this in the last question. It starts with the character and their voice, and then when it gets too much to contain I will start jotting bits and pieces down. It will probably just be in my phone to start with; just random notes and ideas as I am walking the dogs, or trying to sleep at night. Eventually I will need to start a notebook, and this takes over from the phone. It is sadly never as organised or as neat as it should be. There will be pages about characters, with their names, ages and physical description. There will be a timeline somewhere. There will be ideas for the plot, and many, many snippets of conversations I envision my characters having. This will all take place as the book is written though. Nothing is planned out in advance. The notebook takes shape alongside the story. It’s really just a way to stop my head getting too full. Most of the time the actual writing just flows. If it’s how it should be, then it just happens; word after word, page after page. To me, writing should bring out the same emotions in me as reading. I should be addicted to the story, desperate to get back to it!

Well that’s enough about me and what I do. Please let me introduce you to my fellow blog tour writers, Nicole Nally and the poet Michael Hawke;

Nicole Nally has told stories for as long as she can remember. After dabbling with the idea of joining the publishing world after University, and working in several desk jobs that left her crying in the toilets, she finally realised it was possible to make a living from writing and has done so ever since. Writing as a freelance ghostwriter, she is also working on her own stories and trying to worm her way into the world of webcomics. She currently writes a monthly post for Autharium’s Tuesday Takeover and writes for her own blog several times a week.
http://nicolenally.blogspot.co.uk/

Michael Hawke retired twelve years ago, after running his own pharmacy for twenty years. He started writing poetry as a way to communicate to his five children and six grandchildren a bit about who he is and how he feels about things. He has a book of poems called Vignettes published with Autharium and has a brand new book of poems called Love From Dad-Poems of Love and War coming out soon. Michael can often be found reading his poems to audiences in pubs, cafes and writers groups. You can find out more about Michael in his blog.
nompie.wordpress.com

Antagonising Protagonists

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Dean Samways's avatarIndie Blog

In last week’s Tuesday Takeover, Sam King started a dialogue about creating believable characters in literature. This week, The Boy With The Thorn In His Side author Chantelle Atkins picks up where Sam left off, by discussing the idea of heroes and villains.

In Chantelle’s opinion, the way to create believable, fully-realised characters is to pepper them with imperfections, paint them grey and put words in their mouths that are plain language.

Read Chantelle’s character creation guidance and join the conversation about writing a wholesome cast of protagonists and antagonists by clicking the links at the end of this article.

Enjoy and leave your thoughts in the comments box below.

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Antagonising Protagonists

The cast of Trainspotting

It’s fair to say most good books have a protagonist; a main character the author hopes the reader will become involved with. However, not all stories have an antagonist, and you certainly don’t need to…

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100 Happy Days

~ ChanAtkins ~ 2 Comments

Day 100! I’m not sure how many of you are aware of this social media challenge, and I’ve no idea how successful it’s been, but I decided to take it up for two reasons. One, I liked the thought of a challenge apparently 71% of people failed to complete due to lack of time, or possibly lack of things to be happy about? Two, I liked the whole positive vibe of it.  It may have helped that I took the challenge up when I was in a particularly happy place personally, (pregnant with my fourth child and full of the joys, longing to share, that sort of thing) but it also got me thinking.  About a year before I had not been so happy.  In fact I think its fair to say, and I’m sure my facebook statuses of the time would concur, that I had got myself trapped in a cycle of moaning.  I even ended up annoying myself with my own negativity.

So what changed?  Life events, or just my attitude?  I think, in reflection a bit of both.  Things improved financially for us, so that is always one less thing to stress about, and obviously the pregnancy was a huge factor in the smile on my face.  But before this challenge came up, I was able to wake myself up a bit, and remind myself of how damn lucky I am.  The thing about the challenge is it makes you look for things to be happy about.  What a positive approach to have!  So on greyer days, I would post about the baby wild rabbits I had spotted in the hedgerows while out walking, or the spread of dead nettles in my garden which were doing a great job encouraging the bees.  On days when I felt like moaning I was forced to search for what had made me smile, and suddenly the stuff that annoyed me seemed less and less important.

So looking back at a 100 days of happiness, I can see a clear pattern emerge.  Without a doubt I am an extremely fortunate person with a hell of a lot to feel happy about.  My posts are either about my kids, my pets, my garden, my writing, music, or the environment around me. It actually got hard to choose which thing to post about each day.  A lot were simple things, simple pleasures, like my duck enjoying a freshly filled bath, or my dog resting his head on my baby bump, or one of my kids leaving me little notes outside my bedroom door, or my son smiling broadly as he harvested his first pea pod.  Little things.  Free things.  Happy things.  

So on day 100, I find myself thinking about the whole thing.  I just feel lucky.  I think i knew I was before, but now I feel it even more and it is making me smile a lot.  I feel like I am surrounded by good things; from the seven year old who insists on making his own breakfast every school morning now that the baby is here, to the cool joys of a shady lane filled with birdsong to walk the dogs down .  The ponies in the field behind, and the sunsets that set the landscape ablaze, the wall of green that surrounds my garden and fills the views from my windows, to the sound of the river shushing by us in the middle of the night.  The satisfaction of my fingers flying over the keys while i thump out a brand new story, the absolute joy of reading a good review, the making of new friends, the holding on to old ones, the genuine sweet and unprompted kindness of so many people i know.  Happy, healthy, funny, questioning children with lots of crazy hair.  Two dogs racing across the common, their back feet overtaking their front, their ears flat against their skulls, eyes filled with pure joy when they return.  Music, all the time, everywhere, in the car, in the kitchen, in the lounge, outside in the garden.  Singing and dancing and being silly and getting lost in the memories that certain songs kick off.  Emotions heightened by chords, tones and arrangements, feelings swollen by lyrics that get it just right.  Excitement for the future…a baby boy growing and changing before our eyes…good times ahead.

Even today I would have struggled to decide what happy thing to post about, hence me deciding to write a blog entry instead.  There was the five hour block of sleep the baby allowed me last night, and also the gorgeous big smile he gave me at silly o’clock this morning.  There was the happiness in all the kids faces when they discovered the shop on the way to school sells loom bands! In a basket, right near the till!  There was the gift of an awesome Stone Roses t-shirt for the baby from a lovely, kind hearted friend, and another gift of the hungry caterpillar book and toy from my friends at book club.  Such kindness.  Then there was watching highlights from Glastonbury while I fed the baby, and just grinning at all those people in the crowds, all those people so so happy because of music and togetherness, and it’s so genuine and real and it’s the beautiful potential in all of us to be nice and get along and find joy and hold it tight, and having days like that, times like that.  Because that’s what it’s all about at the end of the day.  Having the time of your life.  As much as you can.  Whenever you can.  For whatever reasons you find.  

So i end my 100 happy days as happy as I started.  I’ve got a lot.  I hold it all dear and I won’t let it go.  You never know when things might change, you never know when luck might take a different turn, so you have to keep smiling while you can.  We haven’t got a lot in terms of money, or material things, but interestingly it was never those kind of things that made me happy anyway.  It was all the free things, all the things that were already there, and I just needed to remember that, and I just need to never forget it again!

 

Britpop: Music, Writing and Me

~ ChanAtkins ~ Leave a comment

Dean Samways's avatarIndie Blog

Autharium’s Tuesday Takeover

You can be inspired to write by lots of things; a news article, a family event, the view from your deckchair, a conversation with a friend, a relationship. The list of motivators endless. One of the biggest influences for published Autharium writer Chantelle Atkins is music. The Golden Age of Britpop; the media-fuelled fisticuffs, the gangly swagger of Pulp’s lofty frontman, and the mildly angst-riddled soundtrack to Thatcher Britain. Music, specifically that period of 90s UK indie rock, is ever-present in Chantelle’s work. Her two-part book series, The Boy With The Thorn In His Side, even borrows its name from a Smiths track.

It seems only appropriate then for Chantelle, in her first Tuesday Takeover, to talk about her love of music and shed light on exactly how it shaped the writing of The Boy With The Thorn In His Side. However, there’s much more to the post than…

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