Saturday 31 December 2011

Happy New Year!


How did we get to the end of the year so fast, did I blink?

For me 2011 has been a year filled with many things some fabby times and a few not so fabby, but on balance a lovely year. On the writing front, with the help of the lovely Helen Hollick, my third novel Sometimes It Happens... was beautifully polished before being published in Kindle in May.

Seeing my third book so well edited, as you know I decided to re-edit my other two novels, Magnolia House & Satchfield Hall, due to heavy commitments for Helen, we could not work together for these two publications. Jo Field, another amazing and wonderful editor took me under her wing and by December, these two novels were not only republished in Kindle and paperback, but sporting fabby new covers designed by Avalon Graphics.

In June I also became one of the invited authors at loveahappyending.com and on 31st October,  I set up a group for Indie Authors, called Famous Five Plus.

Not only has my year been filled with so much, but filled with smiles thanks to so many people who have taken their time to read my Blog, read my books and chat to me about their lives.

So I am not even going to attempt a list because it would be, as our American friends say, awesome! Thank you everyone of you for your kindness, friendship and support. Enjoy your New Year celebrations and I hope that 2012 is a year that brings you more moments than you can count to laugh, nano seconds that make you cry and twelve months of happiness and good health.

Sending sunny smiles and Hugs

Wednesday 28 December 2011

Michelle Betham on Steamy Novels!


With all the turkey eaten and the chocolates gone, not to mention all the wine drank, what better way to chill than round my pool. Today, Michelle Betham, author of three novels, is sipping champagne, soaking up the sun and chatting to me! Come on Michelle tell me all about those steamy novels of yours.....

When Pauline asked me if I would join her round by her pool for a little chat, I didn’t hesitate to say yes! Talking books, poolside, clinking glasses of bubbly with a fellow author? Who would turn that down?


So, I’m here to talk a little bit about me and my books - where do I start? Well, how about with, why did I want to become a writer? And there’s an easy answer to that one - because I’m a dreamer. I’m also slightly obsessed by the world of celebrity, for my sins - the world of movies and music, Hollywood and rock stars. I think, deep down inside, I’ve always really wanted to be an actress, up there on the big screen, surrounded by gorgeous leading men, (Bradley Cooper, preferably!) but the more rational side of me knew that was never going to happen. So I wrote about it instead, in my first book, No Matter What – the story of an ordinary girl from the North East of England who finds herself catapulted into an extraordinary life in Hollywood. Would that whole situation have been a dream of mine? Oh God, yes! That's what made it so easy to write!

And then there’s my fascination with rock music and rock stars. You see, it’s not just the clean cut, handsome Hollywood types that I find attractive. No, I love a man with tattoos! Think Dave Grohl from The Foo Fighters and you’ve just about got my perfect rock star! And it's my love of all things rock (I’ve even got my own tattoo!) that led me to write See You At The Show – a rock’n’roll love story about a beautiful, wild female rock-band roadie, a drop-dead gorgeous rock star, and a handsome politician! Sound like a slightly unlikely premise? You’d have to read the book to find out how that all comes together. But it does!

So, that’s how two of my books came about, but what about the more light-hearted romance, Too Much Trouble in Paradise Well, that book came about by mixing another two loves of mine – the beautiful island of Tenerife, and my love of darts! I used to live in Tenerife, and I still miss the place terribly so I knew I had to set a book there, to give me a chance to re-visit the island and remember why I love it so much. The darts connection? The lead male character is a professional darts player, that’s all. The book is in no way about darts – it’s a funny, romantic love story, set on a beautiful island in the sun!

And, thanks to Pauline's fabulous Famous Five Plus site, I have been given great support and exposure for, not only my books, but also myself as an author, and I just didn’t have that before. Writing can sometimes be a lonely business, but since joining FFP I’ve felt as though I’m now part of a community, and that’s why I joined the group - to be part of a fantastic support network. I truly am grateful for everything FFP and Pauline has done for me so far, and I look forward to being a part of FFP for a long time to come!

So, that’s me – a movie mad music fan who loves a game of darts, a glass of bubbly, and some gorgeous men to write about, which is exactly what I’m doing right now as I write my latest book, the follow up to No Matter What. I’m back surrounded by the palm-tree-lined streets of L.A. and the lights of Las Vegas, and I love it!

Thanks for having me round by your pool, Pauline! It really was great to talk to you!

To read sample chapters from my books and links to buy, visit me at:
http://michellebethamwriter.blogspot.com/
http://michellebethamindieauthor.blogspot.com/

Friday 23 December 2011

A Special Thank You!


A special thank you to you all for your amazing and fantastic support in keeping me focused on my writing when I'm so easily distracted to twitter or generally faff! And equally as important, thank you for buying, reading and talking so positively about my beautiful three novels.

Wherever you are and who every you are with, have a truly wonderful Christmas.

Sending sunny smiles!

Merry Christmas



The beautiful Christmas picture is from digitalart at freedigitalphotos

Wednesday 21 December 2011

Christmas in the Sun!

onemorepageIt's an exciting time of the year and today I am over at the lovely Amanda's One more page Blog talking about Christmas in the sun. I hope you'll pop over to sit with us on the beach! Oh yes, bring your shades!
                              http://www.onemorepage.co.uk/?p=5383

Monday 19 December 2011

Chilled, Spilled & Thrilled!


Whilst many of you are having freezing cold temperatures we are not as you might expect roasting here! This last week has been overcast and for here a tad cool.

Yesterday, it was a mixture of sunshine and clouds and very windy. Being Sunday we decided to take a trek up the mountains to Tias. We set of with the dogs, the wind was harder to fight against than the hike up the mountains and if that was not bad enough we got rained on twice, but it was a fabulous walk. No other person, just us, the dogs and openness! 

We stopped in Tias for a drink, watered the dogs and then headed back down the mountain. It was wonderful, exhilarating and downhill all the way. With the wind on our backs we almost flew down!

Two and half hours later after leaving home we were all back home.



Two very happy and tired doggies flopped in to their baskets for the day and we chilled out too!


Saturday 17 December 2011

Stephanie Keys Talks about her Debut Novel


Today, I am thrilled to have sitting around my pool the gorgeous Stephanie Keyes talking about her debut novel, The Star Child. So whilst I open a second bottle of bubbly, I'm leaving you with my fabby guest. Go on Stephanie take it away.......!

The Romance Behind The Star Child

Let me just say how excited I am to be sitting around Pauline’s pool today! It was a little to cold here in the states today: 33 degrees F/0 C. I’ll take the pool!
Over the past month, I’ve finally started to share with friends and work colleagues that The Star Child is about to be released. Even though I always knew I would publish it, I didn’t want to deal with the inevitable “Have you finished with that book yet?” types of questions. However, now that we are so close I’ve started letting the cat out of the bag so to speak.

Needless to say, I’m getting quite a lot of questions about the book. Particularly from people who are surprised that it’s from the Fantasy genre and it’s for Young Adults. So as I sit on an inner tube with my margarita, I thought I’d tell you a little but about that.

The reason that I was drawn so much to Fantasy is because there is very little magic in our day-to-day lives. Granted there are those of us who try to incorporate it, myself included. However, when it comes to it, most of us are stuck in a cycle of getting up, going to work, coming home, and going to sleep – with various other tasks mixed in between. There is very little opportunity for anything other than the ordinary. Pauline, you are probably the exception. Do you have an extra room here?

The Young Adult audience was equally appealing because at that time in our own lives, there are so many possibilities. Your life hasn’t quite begun yet. There is a strange sort of romantic quality associated with this exciting time, so the combination of these two appealed to me.

In The Star Child, I was writing a protagonist in an opposite gender from my own, so it was very important that he have a very strong personality. Kellen St. James shares many of my own views. That was something that I decided to pass on early.

For example, I am a very direct, no-nonsense kind of person. However, when it comes to romance, I’m mush, if the sceptic in me allows the romance in. Kellen is that same way. He is absolutely convinced that Calienta is lying to him and really takes a decent amount of time deciding whether or not to believe her, let alone fall in love with her.

The relationship between Kellen and Calienta mirrors my own with my husband in many ways. I didn’t believe that he was for real; he was almost too normal. Opening myself up seemed risky and I put him through the ringer quite a bit before I really decided to commit to him. He was always patient and always there, consistently reinforcing his commitment. So Calienta is quite a bit like him. Although, between us it would be nice if you didn’t share that I gave his qualities away to a female character. I don’t want him to suffer an identity crisis.

Although The Star Child is a fantasy, there is also quite a bit of romance and adventure backed in. If you look carefully you will also see quite a bit of my own real-life romance embedded in the story, minus the world-saving prophecy.

Use the comments section of this article to tell us about your real-life romance! If Stephanie picks your comment, you could win an Amazon gift card! Only comments posted on December 17th are eligible.


The Star Child is available on;





About the author:

When Stephanie isn’t writing, she works full time as a Corporate Educator and Curriculum Designer. She holds a M.Ed. from Duquesne University and an undergraduate degree in Management information Systems from Robert Morris University. Stephanie is a clarinetist, saxophonist, and vocalist, and is always making music somewhere at sometime. She credits her loving husband of ten years and her two sons for the completion and publication of the Star Child.

Find out more about Stephanie at http://www.stephaniekeyes.com/.
Follow Her On Twitter: http://bit.ly/jjneXg

Stephanie is a featured author on Love a Happy Ending.com http://loveahappyending.com/stephanie-keyes/
And an Author member at Famous Five Plus http://famousfiveplus.blogspot.com/



Wednesday 14 December 2011

Celebrating the launch of Reaching for the Stars!


Today, Janice Horton is celebrating in wonderful style the launch of her new e-book, Reaching for the Stars.

Part of the celebrations is that we have to post a photo of where we wish we could be, well here is mine.... to be on that luxury cruiser sipping champagne and eating fancy goodies at the captain's table..... !


But before I dream myself on to this fabby cruise ship, let me tell you about Janice's great new book.


In Reaching for the Stars the main character Chef Finn McDuff feels he's had enough of all the food campaigns, the TV cookery shows, the constant frenzy surrounding his private life and disappears into a self-imposed exile for a while. Hence the theme of Launch Day is 'Wish I Was Here... But this is hardly enough to get your teeth into, so why not pop along to Amazon and download a copy and find out just what is being cooked, baked or casseroled! Enjoy!




Wishing Janice great success and hoping she sells zillions!



Monday 12 December 2011

Getting in the Mood!

I hope you had a great weekend and despite the proximity to the festive season, I hope you found sometime to chill.

This Sunday we got a little Christmassy, I uploaded my Santa smile for twitter and we put up our Christmas trees, I say trees as we have four: large, medium and two small ones - of course, not all in the same room! And as you can imagine the villa looks very festive indeed. I'm not one for trimmings, but love my trees especially at night when we can switch on the lights. During the day it is a waste of time if the sun is shinning, though as I write, it is overcast! So one of the little trees, is twinkling away on my desk.



As well as putting up the trees I've designed a Christmas poster for my beautiful three books! Now we're getting festive!

So do tell are you a tree and trimmings person or just a tree person? I hope you are enjoying the run up to Christmas.

Friday 9 December 2011

TGI Friday!


 A December dawn in Lanzarote
I don't know about you, but I love Friday's. The thought that the weekend is here is a fab feeling. Though as a writer I never really stop, but the other distractions that take me away from writing are so much more less at the weekend... TGI Friday!

This week has been another manic week and despite packing lots in, I've still not got all the Christmas presents bought or the tree up so I will need to get my skates on next week. 

But as well as re-designing my web site http://www.paulinebarclay.co.uk/ I have managed to write a few more words on my next novel, book 4. It's been a bit of s struggle with this book for a variety of reasons, mainly because my thoughts are constantly thinking about how to improve my marketing for my three published books. But the good news is that the characters in my new novel are getting restless and are not just talking to me, but begging me to listen! So I intend to devote large chunks of time this weekend to finding out just what they want me to hear!

Do your characters behave like this or is it just my crazy imagination running riot?

Whatever your plans are for the weekend, reading, writing, even listening to characters.... make sure you have a fab one!

Monday 5 December 2011

Monday Mews & More!

I hope everyone had a great weekend, no doubt Christmas being the main thoughts of everyone.

My weekend was very busy though I did manage to design our Christmas cards and get all those that need to be in the post away to the post office this morning... phew!

The other area that has taken up much of my time of late is my new venture for Indie Authors, Famous Five Plus, it has increased 400% in 4 weeks and I have several authors sending details to join too. We have members from the UK, USA, Canada, Portugal and Spain, now how international is that! You have no idea how taken aback I am at how it has all happened so quickly. If you have a moment, please take a look at the site and let me know what you think. I'm burning the midnight oil to keep it bang up to date and I think it is worth doing because I believe many Indie Authors are very professional and due to a variety of reasons they are doing their publishing alone. Here is our fabby site, I hope you'll take a peek and maybe follow us! Famous Five Plus

As well as keeping up with everything else. today my first In Focus appeared on the loveahappyending.com site. It is a little different from what I've done before for loveahappyend, but what do you think. In Focus

Oh by the way, I've added a little News Page to this site where I add snippets of information about this and that. Phew! I think that's it for now, a big thanks for stopping by and taking time to say hi! I'll return again later in the week, so please join me, and I'll bring homemade mince pies with brandy butter!

Sending sunny smiles and have a fabby week until then.

Thursday 1 December 2011

Thank you to my December Sponsors

A big thank you and welcome to my December sponsors. Each month authors can include their book cover in my sponsor photo frame, in return for one of my book covers appearing on their Blog. This month I am happy to welome:


Dangerous Deceit - Romy Gemmell



Astral Travelling, The Avatar and Me - Richard Holmes



December Moon - Suzy Turner



Excess All Areas - Mandy Baggot



Endless Night - Maureen Miller



Orange Petals in a Storm - Niamh Clune



No Matter What - Michelle Betham
 
 

Production Party - Jan & Don Beasley
 
 

The Golden Chain - Margaret James
 

 If you are interested in being a monthly sponsor, please email me at paulinembarclay@gmail@com for more details.