Amanda Brooke

A Step Back in Time

Amanda Brooke Leave a comment

Even though I’m immersed in the rewrite of The Bench at the moment, I’m very aware that the publication of Yesterday’s Sun in America is fast approaching and I’m suddenly distracted by all of those images I conjured up of the gatehouse, the place where Holly comes face to face with her future in Yesterday’s Sun.

The house itself was part of the Hardmonton Hall estate, all figments of my imagination that can be traced back to countless old houses scattered across England that have now become detached from the larger estates they once guarded.  The imagery of the garden however was created from memories a little closer to home and while the rambling and overgrown grounds of the gatehouse where Holly finds the moondial is deep in English countryside and looks out over an orchard, the feel of the place lies deep within my childhood memories of my grandparents’ garden.  Lynn Chris and Mandy Garden

I was brought up in a terraced house in Liverpool so my Nan and Grandad’s garden a few miles away drew us kids like magnets.   And now you’ll have to indulge me because I’ve managed to dig out some family photos.  They don’t do the place justice but if nothing else, they give a good sample of 1970’s fashion.Chris Garden

The garden didn’t have an orchard, only an apple tree grown from a pip my mum had planted when she was a child.  A homemade swing had been hung from one of its branches and we always fought for turns on it.  Unsurprisingly, that’s one memory that appears in Another Way to Fall (which isn’t going to be out in the UK until September 2013 now but I hope you’ll find it worth the wait). Lynn Chris Mandy Neil Garden

You wouldn’t have found a large workshop in the garden either but there was my grandad’s shed.  It had a strong smell of creosote and all kinds of tools crammed inside.  My granddad was a shipwright at Cammell Lairds and was a skilled craftsman.  I never realised until later that he had made some of the wooden toys we loved to find in their house, remnants of my mum’s childhood.

It’s funny but whenever I think of their garden, the sun is always shining and all the memories are good.  But enough of my reminiscing, I must get on with my writing!

PS.  If you must ask, I’m the younger girl but please don’t get confused – not all of the long haired kids are girls.  My brother Chris did have such beautiful curls though!

The Perils of Research

Amanda Brooke Leave a comment

When it comes to writing fiction, there’s only so much you can draw from personal experience and knowledge before you have to start knuckling down to research. It’s a necessary evil that sometimes slows down the writing process but then there are certain subject matters where you can only count your blessings that you don’t have firsthand experience. Another Way to Fall is about a young woman with a brain tumour and as well appreciating my own good health as I built Emma’s world around her, I also felt a huge weight of responsibility. I had to do justice to my heroine and more importantly the real life sufferers of this insipid disease. I had to put the research hours.

Now I’m the first to admit that with my fledgling career as a writer and a full time job, finding enough hours in the day can be a struggle so it’s a godsend when I can enlist the help of others and with my second book I was lucky enough to find a wealth of information and advice from someone who surely had better things to do with her time than answer my endless questions. Natalya Jagger set up BT Buddies (www.btbuddies.org.uk) after her friend’s daughter was diagnosed and later died from a brain tumour. She is undoubtedly an amazing woman with a generous spirit which she extended to me. We certainly agree on one thing, the story of someone battling a brain tumour should respect the harsh realities and not trivialise or twist facts. That being said, I have to accept that my account will be flawed. I don’t know if writers are meant to admit to that but the truth is, even with the best research, I still can’t know what it’s really like for sufferers, I can only imagine and I hope I’ve achieved what I set out to do, to create a story that will be inspiring and not depressing, to reflect the inner strength and bravery that can be found in real life and to give some insight into a family dealing with a cancer diagnosis, something I do have experience of.  More than anything I want readers to admire my Emma rather than pity her and to love her as much as I do.

Continuing on the subject of research, I should confess that it’s not all as onerous as it sounds and sometimes it can broaden horizons. In Another Way to Fall, Emma gets to create an amazing life for herself and amongst other things, explore the world. In the first draft this included going off to Iceland and it was only when I started researching the country that it became one of my own dream destinations. Sadly, Iceland didn’t make it to the final cut although to counter this I did make reference to New York which was where I took my daughter Jess for a celebratory holiday after getting the first book deal. But where fiction failed, reality succeeded and at the time of writing this blog, I’m on the flight home after an absolutely amazing week in Reykjavik. I didn’t get to see the northern lights but maybe next time…and I really do want to go back…the mountains, the volcanoes, the geysers, the lava fields, the thermal pools, the waterfalls, the glaciers, the blue lagoon…I could go on. It was all breathtaking and I wasn’t deterred in the least by the driving rain, low cloud or lack of daylight – it’s only given me an excuse to go back again during summertime.

I’m sorely tempted to bore everyone with tonnes of photos but I hope these two reflect the two extremes of my experiences on holiday.

Blue LagoonGullfoss Waterfall

I know I’m in danger of sounding like I’m working for the Icelandic tourist board but it really is an incredible country and even though there’s a lot to be said for blazing sunshine and sandy beaches, this is one holiday I won’t forget in a hurry and one that might just make it into another of my stories one day.

What would your word be?

Amanda Brooke 2 Comments

The page proofs for Another Way to Fall have arrived and it’s so exciting to see the words I’ve written (and rewritten) transformed into something that resembles a book if only on the screen.  But at the same time it’s also very scary because this is my last opportunity to make any changes and hopefully I won’t pick up any major errors as I’m only supposed to be making minor adjustments now.

This run through is probably as close as I can get to seeing the book from a reader’s perspective.  I’m actually reading my story now, not writing it.  OK there are two streams of thought as I read, one still asking if a sentence is flowing properly and picking up on repetitions or inconsistencies but the other part of me is enjoying the journey that my characters have embarked upon and yes, I am enjoying it.  I can only hope that others will feel the same when it’s published in February next year, that part’s scarier still!  Emma is the focal point of the story, holding onto her dreams whilst her cancer tries to yank them from her grasp.  But it’s not just Emma’s journey I’m following, it’s her family and friends’ too and of course it’s Meg, Emma’s mum who I can relate to most and there’s a part of me speaking through that character.

There’s another character who pops up from time to time in the book and he’s clearly made an impression on me because I had a dream about ‘the shopkeeper,’ the other night.  I won’t say too much about him but in my dream I was in his shop and he directed me towards a special room and told me I had to choose a word, one that would be with me for the rest of my life.  I’m the first to admit that it was a pretty weird dream even by my standards but frustratingly I woke up before going into the room and picking my word.  So of course I’ve spent the last few days trying to decide what word I would choose.  There were no rules, the word could be anything…something inspiring, funny or completely random.  There’s only one restriction and it’s a tough one, it has to be a single word.  It’s taken a while to decide but I’ve settled on my choice and my word is…smile.  It sums it all up really, enjoying the moment, doing things that make you and your loved ones happy, appreciating what you have and if things are tough then it’s a gentle prompt to find something to smile about, even if it’s only summoning up precious memories of happier times and the people you miss.  Smile…and everything else will follow.

So….what would your word be?

Today I am mostly being…Amanda Brooke

Amanda Brooke Leave a comment

At 9.48am, I board the London train at Lime Street Station, Liverpool.  I had to drive through torrential rain to get here but the sun is out now and I’m scanning the skies.  No rainbows.  Normally at this time of day I’d be at my desk at work but as the train pulls out of the station, I’m leaving my normal life behind me, for a while at least.  Today I’m not in the office where I’ve worked for the same employer for the last twenty seven years, I’m an author off to meet my agent and my editor for lunch in Chelsea.   I signed the first book deal almost eighteen months ago and my first book was published six months ago but being an author is still new to me and I’m having one of those moments where I have to pinch myself.  I suppose it’s a good thing that I write under a different name, it gives me a clear separation between my normal life and my ‘alter ego’.  So yes, today I am mostly being Amanda Brooke.

With two lives to lead, it’s busy fitting everything in so even on a two hour train journey I need to make the most of my time and so I set to work writing this blog.  Just as I reach London the sun is shining when my friend Karen texts me to say there’s a rainbow over Liverpool.  Rainbows have a strong significance in my life.  I searched for rainbows after my son died, convinced it would be a sign from him to let me know that he was alright.  The first arrived one week after I lost him, to the exact minute in fact, just as I was struggling to work out how I was ever going survive without him.  The next rainbow arrived the following day at his funeral just as I was sitting in the funeral car telling my sister about the one I’d seen the day before and there have been a fair few since then.  So if nothing else, the rainbow in Liverpool reminds me that this journey I’m on started with Nathan and he’s never far from my mind.

A quick race across London and I arrive on time for lunch with Luigi and Sarah.  I am most definitely Amanda Brooke now and the food is good and the company even better.  The news is that Another Way to Fall is going into production so it won’t be long before it stops looking like a Word document and more like a book.  Of course that also means that the time for playing around with it is over, there will only be minor changes from now on.  Sarah tells me she hasn’t shared it widely yet but those who have read the manuscript have cried but that doesn’t surprise me.  I read through it from start to finish after the copyedit and it made me cry too.  She also tells me that they’re planning to publish in February which is the same month that Yesterday’s Sun is being published in the US so it’s going to be a busy month!  There are no firm decisions on the front cover for Another Way to Fall yet but I can’t wait to see it as a proper book.

We talk a little about book three which I’ve now handed over to both Luigi and Sarah.  Its working title is The Bench but no-one is under any illusions that it will stay that way – I need to think up a proper title for it.  I might muse over that little problem on the way home on the train.  Of course the worst and best news is that Sarah is pregnant (very pregnant!)  so after a year and a half of holding my hand, she’s leaving me.  But of course I’m thrilled for her and she assures me and Luigi that I’m in safe hands with her chosen replacement Kim who is coming over to HarperCollins to cover her maternity leave.  There’ll be a lot of work to do while she’s away and Sarah and Luigi have plenty of ideas of how to promote the new book and me, ‘the author.’  I’m glad I’ve spent the wet and miserable summer writing, it should give me enough free time to put more effort into all the other work that comes with being an author in the coming months.

Lunch is long but over too soon and I’ve got the rest of the afternoon to myself.  Slowly but surely, I stop being Amanda Brooke.  I’m in Oxford Street shopping, calling in at Forever 21 which is a must when I’m in London with my daughter but today it’s only window shopping.  Eventually, I find myself on the train home.  It’s late and I won’t get home until ten so am in no mood for the two businessmen sitting opposite me who are having a very loud conversation that they really should be having in private.  I suspect their ruthless character assassinations of their colleagues are annoying the whole carriage.  I can’t concentrate on anything else, especially not titles for The Bench but perhaps one day I will exact my revenge…I wonder if I can use these two obnoxious characters in a future project.  I smile, I haven’t stopped being Amanda Brooke quite yet.

An Artist in the Making

Amanda Brooke Leave a comment

my sketchMy love of writing may have had its beginnings in real life when I began to write a journal but as far as my forays into fiction are concerned, I’ve never set out to recreate a character or an event that has been based on real life, not yet at least.  But I can’t deny that there have been small elements of my real life that have managed to creep onto the page.  It’s difficult to describe what’s going on inside a character’s mind without drawing upon some of my own ideas and influences so I suppose I have to accept that there is a little of me in some of my characters.

Take Holly in Yesterday’s Sun for example.  It’s no coincidence that I share her love of art.  I grew up in a household where we all enjoyed drawing and painting, it was a hobby I shared with my brother and sister who continue to create amazing pieces of art while I’ve taken a creative detour into writing.  When I had to decide what kind of career I wanted for my main character, making Holly an artist was a way for me to not only fulfil a lost ambition but to take my limited artistic talents to new, if somewhat imaginary heights.  I had only ever played around with sketching and painting so it was quite liberating to suddenly start creating a huge sculpture if only in my mind’s eye.

But my influences didn’t stop there.  It might have been Holly who had the problem of producing a commission for Mrs Bronson but it was me who had to come up with the ideas on how to express the relationship between a mother and a child.  That was less of a problem than you might imagine because some of those initial ideas she had existed long before I started writing Yesterday’s Sun.  One sketch in particular was based on a drawing that takes pride of place on my living room wall.  It’s a pastel sketch I drew shortly after Nathan was born and was meant to represent me with my two children.  I would have to say that Holly’s sketches are far better than mine but that’s the joy of writing.  I can describe a masterpiece without even picking up a pencil and I can create a magnificent sculpture of swirling figures curling ever upwards without having to take a chainsaw to a block of granite.  And I’m very proud of the sculpture I’ve created, more so than the lump of broken rock I would have produced if I’d tackled it in real life!

Who Loves Book Clubs?

Amanda Brooke 1 Comment

I’ve been lucky enough to be invited to a few book clubs in the last six months and the first thing I asked myself was…where have all these book clubs been hiding??  I think the answer is fairly obvious, they’ve been around forever, I’ve just been embarrassingly ignorant of them.  I could say I’ve been too busy writing to read but that’s no excuse so… shame on me!

OK there are the big ones that even I couldn’t miss and of course the Richard and Judy Book Club is up there with the biggest and I certainly owe an awful lot to them for selecting my first book for their Spring 2012 list.  But it’s the smaller book clubs that we should be shouting about.  The independent ones that have been brought to life because a community, a company or simply a group of friends decided meeting up regularly to talke about books they’ve read and to share their views over the odd glass of wine wasn’t such a bad idea.  It’s easy to skim through a book and then go onto the next without really stopping to think about what you’ve just read.  And of course by listening to other people, you get a different perspective, no two people will read the same book and be moved, intrigued, excited in the same way.

I’ve visited a few book clubs that are run by groups of friends, where everyone takes it in turns to host the evening.  I don’t think it’s just a good thing because it’s encouraging people to read and maybe broaden their horizons on what they read…it’s also a good excuse to set aside time on a regular basis to meet up and catch up…and talk about books of course.

I was also  invited along to Merseytravel who had encouraged their staff to join in the Six Book Challenge and it was great to see so many people being encouraged to read more and also as part of their scheme, to write too so maybe one year they’ll be reading a book from a homegrown author.

My latest foray into book clubs was at the Neighbourhood Cafe in Childwall, Liverpool.  It’s run by Lynne Collins and it has everything that a book club should have.  A warm and welcoming atmosphere, great food and hospitality and because it’s open to anyone, you get a real mix of people.  I went along to talk about Yesterday’s Sun and there were plenty of questions that really got me thinking and my mind was still buzzing when I got home, in fact I couldn’t sleep.  So now I know what I’ve been missing out on I’d love to go back there as a reader rather than a visiting author, I loved it!

Why have I got three and a half books spinning around in my head?

Amanda Brooke Leave a comment

I had thought, rather naively I admit, that writing novels would be a fairly linear process…you write one book, finish that and then onto the next. And if it wasn’t for that wonderful first book deal which is a writer’s dream, I might still be under that illusion.

So here’s how it really happens or at least this is how it happens for me…

My first book, Yesterday’s Sun went through a fair few rewrites but by the summer of 2011while the manuscript was going through the finer detail of copyediting and proof-reads, I knew I had to make a start on the second book. I already had a synopsis which had been agreed with my editor Sarah Ritherdon and my agent Luigi Bonomi so I set to work. Yesterday’s Sun was put to the back of my mind and Another Way to Fall began to take shape.

Early in 2012, Yesterday’s Sun was published so even though I was busily working on my first rewrite of Another Way to Fall, I was now being asked lots and lots about Yesterday’s Sun as part of its promotion. It was an amazing time but eventually things quietened down and by late spring Yesterday’s Sun was on the shelf and Another Way to Fall had gone through a second rewrite which my editor Sarah loved…so I was ready to start on Book 3 which has the working title The Bench.

Just when I thought I only had one book to concentrate on, I heard from Harper in the US who are going to publish an edited version of Yesterday’s Sun for an American audience, so there was more copyediting to go through. Fortunately not much but enough to distract me temporarily from The Bench.

It’s now August and at last the very first draft of The Bench is finished and I can breathe a sigh of relief. Writing isn’t my day job – I work fulltime in local government – so for the first time in a long time I was looking forward to having a weekend or two of pure leisure. What did I used to do with all of that free time? At the back of my mind I know I need to go right back to the beginning of The Bench soon as I’ve only finished a very rough draft but at least I have a complete story and I can mull over some ideas in the meantime. I might even have time to think up some ideas for future books….

I’m still planning what to do when what happens? My weekends (plural) turn into one singular Saturday where I treat myself to a trip to my mum’s caravan in North Wales but I’m already thinking about the emails I’ve just received. Yesterday’s Sun has thrown up a few queries during the proof read in the US that need addressing, Another Way to Fall is back from the copyeditor and I’ve got three weeks to turn it around and The Bench is still demanding my attention.

My head is spinning but I’m really not complaining, I’m loving it. I know how very fortunate I am to be in this position and that’s not something I’ve been able to say in a very long time. I have the publication of Another Way to Fall to look forward to early in 2013, not to mention the publication of Yesterday’s Sun in the US in February by which time The Bench should be coming together and I will need to start thinking about Book 4.

I’ve just remembered what I used to do in my free time…in 2010 I ran the London Marathon and the months of training left no room for anything else…yes I think I prefer the writing!

So How Did I Get Published?

Amanda Brooke Leave a comment

I suppose it all began with that first spark of an idea, the one that led me to developing the storyline for Yesterday’s Sun and oh how I wish I could remember it in perfect detail! All I have is a vague recollection that I had been walking through Liverpool city centre when I started thinking about time travel…as you do…and to be honest, I spend lots of time toying with ideas for my writing and most are completely forgettable but this one persisted. I couldn’t help thinking about what it would be like for me to go back in time and change events so that my son would have survived his battle against cancer or even just to have the chance to hold him again. Yesterday’s Sun allowed my heroine to do the one thing that I couldn’t and the more the ideas began to form in my mind, the more I became determined to get to that scene where Holly could scream at the world: ‘Take me, not my child!’

I started writing Yesterday’s Sun in May 2010 and by November I was ready to face the daunting task of convincing someone to publish my book. I knew I had to find an agent first as publishers rarely take on authors directly so I looked in the Artists and Writers Yearbook and picked three that represented my particular genre and followed their submission guidelines. I didn’t hold out much hope, I don’t think anyone does if you look at the odds of being able to convince an agent to take you on, so while I waited for responses, I was already listing the other agents I’d try next. I was stunned, amazed and beyond excited when Luigi Bonomi took an interest in the manuscript but he suggested some pretty major changes before he’d commit. I would have been mad to ignore the advice of a highly regarded literary agent so Christmas was cancelled and I set about the rewrite. By February 2011 I had another version ready and this time Luigi loved it. My manuscript was ready to be sent to the publishers and essentially my work was over. It was all down to Luigi now and for the most part all I had to do was wait for that call. I might not clearly remember the moment I had the idea for Yesterday’s Sun but I do remember that call from Luigi telling me I had a two book deal with HarperCollins. I was crying when I phoned my daughter to tell her and she actually thought I’d had some bad news.

I now had not only an agent but an absolutely lovely editor, Sarah Ritherdon but of course that meant that more rewrites were in store and it was probably autumn by the time the editing was complete. The original publication date was April 2012 but then I had another one of those never to be forgotten phone calls. I was walking down Matthew Street in Liverpool when Sarah phoned to say that Yesterday’s Sun had been selected for the Richard and Judy Spring Book Club and I had to sit down on a doorstep to take it all in. It wasn’t all good news though…I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone until the official launch in January 2012 and it was still only October but who was I to complain?!!

The week that Yesterday’s Sun was published was surreal. I went down to London the day before to be interviewed by Richard and Judy and the next day…publication day…I was back in the office doing my day job. OK I was surrounded by flowers, balloons and banners from my work mates but it was still back to normality, doing the job I’ve done for the last twenty five years and trying to adjust to my new double life.