I am not really one for deep, philosophical bloggertry (yep, made that up). It has come to my attention that the internet is awash with people, quite rightly making lists of things they want to do, achieve, see in 2012.

I kind of jumped on the bandwagon in my last post with the whole ‘Letter to the Universe’ thing, but one of the things I intend to do in the next twelve months is to notice and in some cases stop noticing the little things. By this, I mean focus on the little things that actually matter; for example when someone contacts you out of the blue via a text, email or if you are really lucky, letter….take note of the fact that despite the fact that person probably has a load in the machine they need to hang out to dry, some washing up to do, errands to run and needs to find time to put petrol in the car, they stopped and thought about you enough to wonder how you are and actually find out. On reflection that is actually really rather nice as we all live in a certain type of chaos and to be on someone’s list is pretty special indeed. Not just that, but I am really intent on opening my eyes and storing to memory as many of the small moments which are actually very important. we rush around constantly missing wonderful things (yes, little bit OTT with the emotion today but if you don’t like it just stop reading!).

A prime example of this was this morning when I came downstairs after getting dressed and my little boy (not even two) just looked at me with his incredible smiling face and said “Pretty, mummy”. This is a total memory bank moment. Forget female insecurities, the fact I had twenty outfits on the bedroom floor after sulking in the view of my reflection, because ultimately all that matters from this scenario is that I have a beautiful child and in his eyes I look pretty, that’s good enough for me!

As well as storing the positives, making sure I take in all the best bits along the way I feel 2012 is the year I must, for my own sanity learn to leave the small, unimportant things alone. I am a born worrier, to an unhealthy degree. I feel guilty for hours if I walk past a charity person in the street with a clipboard. If I have to cancel plans through illness I will worry more about the implications of letting someone down than the implications to my health of going out in the bleak midwinter when ill. It is destructive behaviour and although I am glad I am the sort of person that cares about others I must learn to care a little bit more about myself too.

Soo…..rambling over for today. Here is my 2012 to do list:

- Notice the good little things more/be more grateful

- Ignore the silly little guilt feeling I get for ridiculous reasons!

- Write more (book number two still on page one pause due to lack of focus, tut!)

- Enter as many writing competitions as possible (someone has to win)

- Relax more

- Eat less sugar (we enjoy much too close a relationship for my health, weight and teeth!)

- Listen to more music

- Make time to see my wonderful friends more

By February I am always excited for the year ahead…the back to work feeling has long gone and normality has resumed, plus it is the month in which both myself and my wonderful little boy have a birthday and birthdays mean cake and fun!

2012 is the big year…the one where my writing really takes shape, in mo small part due to the fact I will be creating a real writing space when we move house so I can focus and not write when there is kids’ TV in the background!

To anyone reading this I hope you have an excellent year. Make it yours, achieve what you want as you are the only one that can make things happen for you.

I recently heard someone on the radio, a successful and very talented musician, say she had written to the universe asking very specifically for what she wanted to achieve with her music. One year on she no longer works as a waitress and so I thought why not? I have written my letter, specifics and all (apparently the universe is a stickler for very specific timescales so don’t be vague…if you want that new job by June spell it out). I haven’t posted mine as not sure how you go about that but I reckon that just keeping hold of it is good enough.

Let’s all try and see what happens!

No..I have not taken on Charlie Sheen’s motto! I have been very lucky this week and have received The Liebster Blog Award, twice! I am incredibly excited and above all, grateful that anyone would award me this!

I hadn’t heard of it before this week. It is for bloggers with less than 200 followers. Liebster derives from the German dearest and I think it is a wonderful honour for anyone to hold something I have written in this regard.

I will follow the rules….which are:

* Name the people who gave it to you by tagging/linking their blog in your post (they are the first two of my blog favourites listed below)

* Pick your top five blogs with under 200 followers and let them know who they are by commenting on their blog

* Post the award on your blog

* Hope that the picks pass on the Liebster love so we can all share in excellent blogging wonderfulness.

So here are my top picks:

http://pleasedontslowmedown.wordpress.com/ This blog is pure magical wonderment. Creative, hilarious and brilliant story telling combined
with great music suggestions. Yes he’s the bestest friend in the world but he is very talented too.

http://alovingheartisthetruestwisdom.wordpress.com/ Beautiful truths about love and life summed up with perfect quotations from all history. You need this in your live, we can all relate to this.

http://tymothylongoria.wordpress.com/ To be fair I am not totally sure if this blog doesn’t have more than 200 followers, I would be surprised but I couldn’t see. The thing I love about Twitter is it is an incredible resource for writers and this writer’s tweets and blog are inspiring, honest and always thought provoking.

I will be honest here and say I am not sure who else I am going to give this to yet. I dip in and out of many blogs but these are the ones I read most. So I will make it my mission over the next week to seek out my other two favourites blogs…these will likely be writers as I tend to gravitate to those blogs (many I read regularly are way above the follower count, so I will seek out new ones that will benefit from the award).

Thank you xx new post coming soon

Happy endings, cliffhangers, ill-fated lovers, prince charmings, serial killers with a soft side, or multiple sides, crooked cops, good guys, surprise heroes, ghosts, vampires….the list of options is literally limitless thanks to imagination.

For me; reading is a moment to relax but mostly escape routine for a few minutes which is why I normally read most on holiday. Therefore I don’t tend to choose high-octane thrillers or graphic crime novels. While I can appreciate their appeal I choose to steer clear of major trauma. That’s not to say I won’t or haven’t read these genres, I read everything but most of the time I am looking for something that can be challenging without being out-right hard going. See the problem? I embody the issue with establishing what readers want….I like all kinds of books but I go all Goldilocks depending on my mood so it has to be ‘just right’. I’ve left books before thinking they weren’t for me and revisited them another time when circumstance meant I was more willing to get engrossed in that particular tale.

As a writer I now have to try tackling these issues to ensure I deliver something the reader will be hooked on from the start. Now, let’s be clear, I am not saying I will hog the genres to please people, it is important to ow your strengths and I know that YA fiction is my area. I am never going to be a crime writer, the good ones are incredible and I think telling those stories is a really special skill involving new levels of emotion and understanding of the human psyche.

I will stick to what I know and my own interpretation of what readers want..which I feel is a defined character (they can be vulnerable or
ferociously strong but they must be real), the voice must be clear and the story must have direction and a a series of relevant twists and turns that build to something captivating – though that is just my opinion!

I would love to hear what you all want from a book and why.

Thanks for reading (this and in general), come back soon x

As per usual, I feel I must start with an apology…I have been very slack of late and a couple of questions about my conspicuous absence have prompted me to address the blogging situation.

So…since we last spoke (?!) I have been finalising the amendments to Embers and drum roll  please…these are now complete. So it is finished and I am preparing a new query to send off. Exciting and nerve wracking as you can imagine.

I have taken a leap (albeit necessary) and passed on the newly completed copy of Embers to some more people to read and so far the response has been excellent. I am so thrilled that in whatever way, even if nothing else ever comes of it, that I have achieved what I set out to; to write something that convinces, evokes emotion and ultimately is enjoyable. This is the dream people.

Spurred on by recent feedback, here I am back in the land of the blog and I have also started Ashes, book two. I am only toying around with concepts and locations at the moment but it feels good to be working with Scarlett again and I cannot wait to see where this one takes me.

Looking into options for e-publishing Embers in the near future so if you, or anyone you know is interested in YA Fiction, spread the word and keep your eyes peeled!

Thanks for reading, come back soon xxx

Today’s post is about something that has been playing on my distracted mind today. Distracted as in I have a severe case of the post-holiday blues and I mean severe. Going from 28 degree gloriousness to drizzly, grey crap is hard going!

Anyway…the title obsessional confessional comes from a problem I feel I must get off my chest. Deep breaths, here goes. My name is Amy Keen and I am a notebook-a-holic. And no, techie generation, not the computerised kind. The beautiful, crisp page turny kind that come in all manner of shapes and sizes.

I think I have been in denial for some time…but it has been brought to my attention that I collect an absurd amount of notebooks, many of which have not even been used. I don’t know what it is exactly but the smell of a new notebook, the anticipation of a crisp, clean page that begs to be filled with thoughts is just super exciting to me. I have owned and filled many a notebook in my time; there’s shopping list ones, work ones, financy boring ones and then there is my favourite of all, the creative one.

My current obsession is my ‘Gorguss little everything book’ from Santoro which has the most beautiful illustrations through it and combines all types of paper with lovely dividers, a concertina folder and is just generally the stuff of dreams if you adore stationery the way I do. It is even more fabulous now I have made it the birth place of all the ideas for book two in the Foresight series; Ashes. It is already brimming with exciting plot twists, locations and new characters so I get a bit giddy just picking it up.

So, there. I said it. I love notebooks and I am proud. I think that is enough for one night; maybe I’ll save the rest for another time…I have a notebook to fill!

Been a hectic few weeks, but rather excitingly I did recently take delivery of a hard, printed copy of Embers which I produced on Lulu and that was probably the best package I ever received!

Anyway…I promised a snippet or two or Embers once I had worked through some edits, so (in no particular order) here is a little sample….

Interested in reading more? Let me know your thoughts as I
am toying with the idea of making the book available online once totally complete.

Hope you enjoy…my mind is already full with books two and three and a new shiny idea is screaming at me too so watch this space, there is much more to come.

‘The street beyond our drive was silent and the lights played to an empty street as everyone slept. The quiet was disrupted by the engine of a single car which grew closer; but instead of fading peacefully into the night it seemed to linger. I turned off the lamp and crept to the window. With my curtain as a shield I peered round to see the car, engine running, poised at the start of our driveway. The driver, head turned was looking directly at me. I flashed a glance at my alarm clock, three am. Who the hell would be here at this time? For one moment I allowed myself to think it, Jake had come to talk to me, knowing I would be tossing and turning after our fight. I squinted to make out the face in the poor light and a bolt of white hot panic flowed through my entire body. His eyes boring a hole into my hidden face; he was watching, waiting. Clayton Mayer didn’t flinch, or move at all. In an act deliberately designed to evoke this exact reaction he remained perfectly still, unnervingly so.’

‘The world became nauseatingly unsettled as I was carried at speed, the smell of chemicals faded and a cool breeze hit my face. The air whistled around me as I was thrown like a rag doll into the back of a car. I knew then who had been shot and the remaining pieces of my soul shattered. The car sped off with a screech. Leaving my life in pieces behind me.’

If there are so many people who can write, and can do so very well, why am I bothering to compete with them? Sometimes I feel like I can see that question running behind people’s eyes when I start jabbering on about writing.

It is a valid question though; after all, I am totally aware there are much, much stronger writers than me out there that haven’t been published, so what am I hoping for?

I suppose the reason I feel it is worth it and the reason I feel so passionately about at least pushing myself to make it happen is this….

Couldn’t it be me? If the chances are one in a million, couldn’t I be that one? How amazing would it be if I was?

I think in this situation the anticipation and drive to do it far outweighs any fear I have of failure. Partly because I don’t feel like I would be failing now. I looked at my mum when I was four years old and told her when I grew up I wanted to write books and whether I get an agent and get published is a separate matter, I am doing what I set out to. I have already started to fulfill my own dream by writing Embers, by planning the second and third parts of the trilogy and by writing this blog and putting it out there. So that’s the point!

Finally…a quick note to all of you lovely folk that have bothered to read my nonsense, a huge thank you. You don’t realise how important your role is in making my dream come true and I can’t thank you enough.

PS- if enough people sign up to the blog I will post some extracts from the book in my next post….

I have read and enjoyed Young Adult Fiction (as a fully fledged grown up – I’m a parent and everything), nail biting thrillers and crime novels through to modern and historical classics.

Like everyone, I lean in a certain direction but it is these wide ranging tastes that have shaped my writing, my ability to develop (hopefully) believable characters for my (future) readers to connect with and care about. Each book I read is a lesson, sometimes in how to be a better author, some point out styles that I choose to distance myself from. It is reading that has given me my own voice.

The books below are some of the ones I love, they are all very different but all worth a read. Some for escapism, some for emotion and others just damn good story-telling.

- The Catcher in the Rye – J.D Sallinger
- The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
- One Day – David Nicholls
- I heart New York – Lindsey Kelk
- The Twilight Saga – Stephenie Meyer (don’t even dare judge I love those books)
- My Sister’s Keeper – Jodi Picoult
- The Scold’s Bridle – Minette Walters
- Anything by Shakespeare

I suppose the point of this is to say you don’t need to adopt a genre and stick to it. Trying something out of your comfort zone can lead to amazing discoveries.

Get reading. Something you wouldn’t normally pick….

It’s not too bad. Reading through the book now (Titled: Embers – exciting to write that as I haven’t mentioned it yet) I am immensely proud and I believe in the story more than ever.So much so I have two and three in the series planned out. But, I have to recognise the need for revisions, editing and a lot of TLC to get this book to the standard I want it.

I would love to hear from other authors on their own revision and editing experiences. Did you end up with some unexpected major changes? When is the right time to stop playing around with the story and just get it out there?

I am in the process of tackling the dreaded query letter and synopsis. Which I think are harder than coming up with the book and writing it combined!

I am planning to post an excerpt from the book in the coming posts so I would love for you all to keep an eye out and give me some feedback.