Where I Write by J D Sharpe (Oliver Twisted Blog Tour)

As part of the blog tour for the release of her book Oliver Twisted, JD Sharpe kindly stopped by to talk about her favourite places to write...
---

I have three different places where I love to write and unfortunately none of them are at home!

I find that I can get rather distracted at home and also a tad hermit like. However, when I’m up against a deadline there is nothing quite as satisfying as holing yourself up in a warm room and just losing yourself in the writing!

So my top three places to write?

1,

Public Transport

I don’t know what it is but put me on a plane, coach or train and I will happily type on my laptop, or, if room is restricted, write in my notepad for hours and hours.

I think the thing I really like about writing on public transport is that I know I’m going somewhere. This gives me a kind of momentum and direction that is incredibly useful when it comes to getting words down. I also swear that the movement of a train shakes up my brain cells and I end up having some of my best ideas while I’m on my way to somewhere else!



I am particularly fond of writing on the Piccadilly line as it has sections outside which is a nice bonus!

2,

Libraries

I live in Oxfordshire and so I’m very lucky to be surrounded by the many amazing libraries that belong to Oxford University. My favourite of them all is the Radcliffe Camera which is right in the centre of Oxford.

I go there because it reminds me of when I was a student - this is the place where I’d go to write essays about Dickens, Austen and Beowulf

It is also possible to order ANY book that has ever been published in the UK in this library. These books are kept beneath the streets of Oxford. It always makes me smile when I think that the streets are literally paved with books!



Most importantly, Lyra talks about the Radcliffe Camera in Northern Lights by Phillip Pullman. This is one of my favourite books and so I always feel extra inspired when I work here!

3.

Cafes

I love working in cafes. I think the attraction is simple. By going to a café to write you can still participate in the ebb and flow of everyday life because you’re outside your home but you’re also working as well! I also find that getting out of the house helps me to stop procrastinating. One of my favourite cafes is quite close to where I live and is called the Church Green Cafe. It is quite small and has mismatching china and the owner is really lovely and doesn’t mind if I stay all day long! They also do lush soup!



Malcolm Gladwell has written a great piece about writers in cafés. Read it here.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704147804575455923448456324.html
---
Thanks JD! The Radcliffe Camera sounds (and looks!) AWESOME!

You can check out the next stop on the tour over at Tall Tales and Short Stories tommorrow.

We Can Be Heroes Blog Tour: Guest Post

To kick of the We Can Be Heroes Uk Blog Tour I have a guest post from the lovely Catherine Bruton.  So without further ado I shall hand you over...

My first blog tour

There are many important firsts in a girl’s life: first visit from the tooth-fairy (who bought 10p in my day); first kiss (Tim 1, 1989, Warrington Roller Disco – loveliest kiss ever! Tim 2 and his tumble dryer tongue action were a definite let down after that); first car (white Nissan Micra called Noggin); first car crash (Noggin the Nissan – the day after I got her); first heartbreak (Cape Town 1996 – I actually vomited with sadness, giving whole new meaning to the phrase love sick); first Krispy Creme doughnut (yesterday, and seriously do they put that crack drug stuff in them to get you addicted cos I just can’t stop thinking about it?) ... Oh, I’ve lost my train of thought. . . Krispy Cremes, vomiting in the Cape, snogging at the roller rink... Yes, that was it – important firsts.

Anyway, this is my first blog tour. In fact, it’s my first ever blog. Which is exciting - and terrifying at the same time. I’m hoping it’s going to be more like the snog and the Krispy Crème and less like sick-bag, car crash experience. But basically, I’m a blog virgin so you may have to bear with me if I commit terrible blog faux pas or get myself tied up in blog-knots, or whatever. But here goes. . .

So I have this book coming out called ‘We Can be Heroes’ - in three days time, in fact - which is incredibly exciting. In fact, I reckon I need one of those Glee t-shirts. You know that ones that say stuff like ‘Can’t sing’ and ‘Likes boys’ and ‘I’m with stoopid’? Well, I want to get one that says, ‘I wrote a book’, just so everyone knows. Like everyone – the postman, the grumpy blinky lady from the post-office, the mean girls I used to go to school with, George Clooney, Taylor Lautner, Wills and Kate, Harry Potter, Michael Jackson (yes, I know he’s supposed to be dead but I reckon he’s in hiding somewhere with Elvis and the Queen Mum doing karaoke versions of ‘The Man in the Mirror’ and ‘Dirty Diana’ – the QM’s fave!) Basically, everyone!

Anyway, I’m getting off the topic and I think at this point I’m supposed to tell you a bit about my book and a bit about the blog tour and stuff. Right? So here goes. My novel is called ‘We Can be Heroes’. It was inspired by an article I wrote for The Times in 2008 about children who had lost a parent in 9/11 attacks and it tells the story of 12 year old Ben, whose father died on September 11th. He meets 10 year old Priti, a Muslim girl who is convinced her brother is a suicide bomber. The pair, along with Ben's troubled cousin Jed, decide to turn detective to try and foil the bomb plot with hilarious - and explosive - consequences.

We Can be Heroes has been described as 'an outstanding debut', ‘ an important book’, ‘ a remarkable book’, ‘an exceptional debut’, 'one to watch' and compared to ‘The Curious Incident’ by some lovely reviewers (thank you, reviewers, I love you!). In fact, I think I might get all of that on a T-shirt too. Or perhaps just the nice review that said, ‘Bruton is Brilliant’ – which is my new life mantra - and anti-dote to Krispy Creme cravings.

So, I’m totally chuffed to have been asked to do this blog tour, talking about how I came to write the book, the challenges of writing about events like 9/11, my favourite books, my childhood escapades (zombie grannies, piercing ears with fish fingers, locking teachers in cupboards, roller rink adventures etc) and loads of other stuff too. I’ll be blogging on the day my book actually hits the shelves – which might just be a series of squiggles and eeeks! – oh, and if you want to find out a bit more about me I’ll be doing the usual interview stuff too.

So if you want to join me on my magical mystery blog tour over the next few days, remember, you have been warned: I’m a learner blogger with a record of writing off perfectly innocent Nissan Micras and a Krispy Creme habit to feed . So it could be a bit of an emotional rollercoaster but I promise to give 110% and put my heart and soul into it (and any more Talent TV clichés I can trot out). Right, that’s the safety announcement over. Now here we go - Tooth fairy, Tim 1 , achey breaky heart - eat your heart out, cos I just done written my first ever blog. How cool is that? Over and out!
----
Thanks Catherine!  How much do I now fancy a Krispy Creme lol!

You can find Catherine at her Website and on Twitter

The next stop on the tour is tomorrow at Wondrous Reads and you can check out the whole schedule to the right on my sidebar.

Amy & Roger's Epic Blog Tour: Extract

I'm delighted to be part of the Amy & Roger's Epic Blog Tour and have an extract for you.  Enjoy:)

“So,” I said after a moment, “we should probably get back on the road, right?”

Roger nodded. “Probably.” He took a sip of his root beer and looked out at the freeway. “You know,” he said thoughtfully, “I don’t think it’s going to take us four days. Some friends of mine drove cross-country, and they did it in thirty-six hours.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. Though I don’t think they ever stopped—I think they just drove straight through. And they probably sped a lot,” he added.

“Huh,” I said, not exactly sure how to respond to that. It hit me that, while I didn’t want to do this, Roger probably wanted to do it even less. Why would a college almost-sophomore want to spend four days transporting a high schooler across the country? Maybe this was Roger’s way of saying that he wanted to get it over with as fast as possible.

“Have you ever taken a road trip?” he asked.

I turned to squint at him and shook my head, feeling very lame. I knew that he didn’t mean a family excursion to see a historical landmark. He meant a road trip, the kind that cool people took in college. “Have you?” I asked, even though I had a feeling the answer was yes.

He nodded. “Just in-state, though. Up to San Fran, down to San Diego. And I don’t know . . .” He paused and peered into the bag. He shook it hopefully, fished around inside, and came up with three fries. He took one and offered the rest to me. “Last two,” he said. “Go for it.” I took one, leaving one for him. He smiled and ate it, looking pensive. “I guess I just thought that this trip might be more of a real road trip,” he said. “I don’t know. More interest­ing places. And at least a route we could pick ourselves.”

I took a sip of my shake, hoping my relief wasn’t obvious. So it wasn’t me he had a problem with, just my mother’s version of the trip. Which was entirely understandable, given the places that she’d chosen for us to stop.

I thought about what I’d just reread in my father’s book. About going out and just driving, and how you can only do it when you’re young. For the first time, it struck me that this trip could be some­thing worth recording in the scrapbook, after all. “Well,” I said, not entirely able to believe I was about to suggest this. “I mean, I guess we could go other places. As long as we’re there in four days, does it really matter which way we go?”

“Really?” Roger asked. “What about your mother’s reservations?”

I shrugged, even though my heart was pounding. It was a legitimate question. Knowing my mother, she’d probably be call­ing every hotel to make sure we’d checked in. But there was a tiny, reckless piece of me that wanted to be the difficult one for once. That wanted to make her worry about me for a change. That wanted to show her what it felt like to be left behind. “I don’t care,” I said. This wasn’t exactly true, but I liked the way it felt to say it. It was something Charlie would have done. And something Amy! would never do in a million years. And as I thought about the four hundred dollars in my front pocket, it occurred to me that we might be able to use it to buy just a little bit of freedom.

Roger blinked at me. “Okay,” he said. He turned to face me more fully and leaned back against the window. “So where should we go?”

“We’ll still get there by the tenth, right?” I asked quickly. My mother was not going to be happy we were ignoring her route, but I knew she would have a conniption if we took longer than the allotted time. “This is just a detour,” I clarified.

“Just a detour,” Roger agreed, nodding. He smiled at me, and I felt the impulse to smile back. I didn’t, but the feeling was there, for the first time in months.

The In-N-Out employee to our left suddenly raised her vol­ume and began screaming at her soon-to-be-ex. Apparently, his name was Kyle, and he knew exactly what he’d done. Feeling like I was overhearing something I probably shouldn’t, I jumped to my feet and began to walk around to the front of the car when I saw that Roger hadn’t moved. He was still listening to the breakup with a slightly nauseated expression on his face.

“Roger?” I asked.

"Right,” he said quickly, getting up as well and crumpling the white paper bag. We buckled ourselves in, and Roger started the engine. “So if this is going to be a real road trip,” he said, backing out of the parking space and heading toward the exit, “we need to get some road trip essentials.”

“Like gas?”

“No,” he said. “Well, yes,” he amended, looking down at the gauge. “But there are two things that are absolutely necessary if you’re going to be hitting the road.”

“And what are those?”

Roger smiled at me as he paused at a stoplight. “Snacks and tunes,” he said. “Not necessarily in that order.”

---
You can read my review for Amy & Roger's Epic Detour here. 

You can check out the next stop on the tour over at Wondrous Reads tommorrow.