I
AM PLEASED TO WELCOME AUTHOR
Celia J Anderson
Author Bio:
Celia J Anderson teaches English in a small South Derbyshire
town and dreams of living by the sea. Having her previous books published
(Sweet Proposal, with Piatkus Entice and Little Boxes and Living the Dream with
Tirgearr) has whetted her appetite for the author’s life, but at the moment she
is juggling her love of junior drama and writing classes, reading thrillers and
drinking too much wine/eating too much cake while she keeps on top of the
marking pile. One day…
BANTER – STUFF ABOUT YOU
Q: Did you like school when you were a child?
A: Not much. I missed the very first term because I had a
raging case of chicken pox and I didn’t really start to properly enjoy it until
6th form, although English and Art lessons were always worth turning
up for. Oh, and cookery.
Q: How do you feel about exercise?
A: Walking is the only exercise I can honestly say I enjoy,
although if a lottery win came up I’m sure I could get to like swimming…
Rolling out of bed in the morning and staggering down to your own pool must be
a very different matter to getting up, dressed, finding a bag, towel, make up,
shampoo, spare knickers etc and driving down the road in the dark, then
remembering you left your purse on the table!
Q: Texting, love it or hate it?
A: I absolutely love texting and WhatsApp - I can quite
easily create the next War and Peace to send to friends/husband/daughters if
I’ve got a spare minute and even when I haven’t, I can’t resist just firing off
a few one liners. The ping of a message coming in is music to my ears.
BOOKS – ABOUT THE CRAFT
Q: When did you start writing and why?
A: Like many writers, I’ve loved writing since I could hold
a pen. My mum encouraged me to write letters and stories when I was very young
and both my parents read everything I produced and praised it to the skies,
with a dollop of healthy criticism/advice thrown in. They were both avid
readers, so we would all settle down with our books as often as possible, and
the stories I read in those early years fed the writing habit.
Q: What do you think is the hardest part of writing a book?
A: Planning is my worst nightmare. The only book where it’s
come easily has been Little Boxes (Moondancing, my current novel, is a prequel
to this) because each box had its own story and had to be filled with the
appropriate message and clue item. Planning that one was fun - like wrapping
surprise presents.
Q: When crafting the story do you go from beginning to end,
or do you jump around writing the scenes that are pushing themselves forward in
your brain?
A: No, I can’t seem to get the hang of this tactic. I have
to go from start to finish and I can only change things around when The End is
written. It’s a good way to work if you get stuck, or so I’ve heard - must try
it again sometime.
Q: Do you like to read the genre that you write?
A: Rom Coms and their close cousins are lovely to read when
you need total escapism but I’ve recently become addicted to the more
psycholgical/crime novels of Nicci French, a husband and wife team who write
together (although you can’t tell who write which bit - I’ve tried!) They are
fascinating. I also particularly love Elizabeth George’s crime stories and
Alexander McCall Smith’s Scottish books.
BOOKS - NOW LETS PROMOTE – STRUT YOUR STUFF
Q: What are you working on now? Would you like to share
anything about it?
A: My WIP is a crossover romance/psychological drama, mainly
set on a river boat on the Rhone, travelling down through France. It features a
heroine who is very screwed up in one way and another, and follows the path of
her fight to lead a more ‘normal’ life. It’s in the editing process at the
moment and I’m waiting for the half-term holidays to finish that job properly.
Q: Do you have a new book coming out soon? Tell us about it.
A: Moondancing is coming out on January 12th - as
mentioned earlier, it’s the prequel to an earlier book, Little Boxes, and takes
the reader back to what Molly did first! Little Boxes is my personal favourite
- there are some very personal moments in there, hidden amongst the fiction.
Q: How can we find you? Do you have a web page, FaceBook
page or any buy links?
A: Yes, I do. Here they are:
Website: http://celiajanderson.co.uk/
Q: Are you currently participating in a blog tour? If you
are let’s tell everyone where you’re going to be so they can catch up with you
again.
A: I have a blog tour up and running, courtesy of the
wonderful Lucy Felthouse (Writer Marketing Services). Here are the dates and
venues:
11th January http://romanticfanaticblog.com/
12th January http://vsreads.com
13th
January http://www.jennykane.co.uk
14th
January http://www.longandshortreviews.com/
15th January http://locglin.blogspot.com/
Blurb:
Together since their teens, Molly and Jake have four
children, a house in a sleepy village and jobs that bore them to distraction.
Their marriage is an accident waiting to happen. When Nick arrives in Mayfield,
young, disturbed and in desperate need of mother-love, Molly doesn’t realise
that he will be the catalyst that blows everything apart. Add a headmaster
whose wife doesn’t understand him and Molly’s unpredictable, frustrated best
friend to the mix, and the blue touch paper has been well and truly lit.
Extract:
Molly doesn’t realize
how lucky she is, thinks Kate. She’s got that great big cosy house and all
those kids who really like her and still need her there, even if she moans
about them taking her for granted. She lives in the prettiest part of the village
– well, come to think of it, Mayfield’s all pretty now the pit’s closed and
they’ve landscaped everywhere. She even gets on with her parents and her
mother-in-law. And she’s got Jake, too. Just because she’s got curves and a
cleavage and that massive tangle of dark curly hair, and she’s so bloody nice, she
gets it all.
Kate knows Jake can be a
bit irritating, what with his temper and his leeks and everything, but he’s
still pretty damn fanciable with his spiky, unpredictable hair and his long
gangling body. He’s not changed much since school really. Last Christmas she’d
almost got to kiss him under the mistletoe at the brewery Christmas party –
Jake and Steve work in the same section, both foremen, but Steve usually works
nights – and Jake was just standing there looking lost. There was a reasonable
band playing that night, and they’d just launched into their Elton John medley.
Kate could hear the
intro to Sacrifice – she’d always
loved the words to that one – and she started to sidle across the room. Jake obviously
hadn’t even noticed the mistletoe but Kate could see some of the women from the
packing line nudging each other and sniggering. She was just going to slip up
behind him, make a big joke of it then grab a quick kiss at the same time, when
one of them suddenly shouted, ‘What’s up, boss? Waitin’ for the woman of yer
dreams to whisk you off yer feet?’ and pointed to the huge bunch of greenery
hanging over his head.
He’d
jumped as if he’d been shot, and blushed like a twelve-year-old when he saw
Kate approaching. They had grinned at each other, and all the women whooped
with laughter, but then Molly had turned up to see where Jake had got to, and Steve
had suddenly appeared to ask his wife to dance. Bloody hell, the first time he’d
done that in ten years and it had to be at the wrong moment.
Kate had downed way too
much vodka after that and didn’t see Jake again until they met at the door.
When no-one was looking, he pulled a tiny bit of mistletoe out of his pocket
and slipped it into her hand, closing her fingers round it. The next time she
saw him they were back to the usual sniping and teasing, business as usual. She’s
still got the mistletoe, though; she keeps it in her bag in the secret side
pocket.
GIVEAWAY!
Make sure to follow the whole tour—the more posts you visit
throughout, the more chances you’ll get to enter the giveaway. The tour dates
are here: http://www.writermarketing.co.uk/prpromotion/blog-tours/currently-on-tour/celia-j-anderson-4/
A
reminder to the reader ~ before you leave be sure to take a look at the
Come
back and visit again.
The unexpected twists and funny situations... :)
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