Shifting perspectives as the #SugarandSnails blog tour enters Week 2 via @Annecdotist

Shifting perspectives as the blog tour enters Week 2

27/7/2015

If I was breathless last Monday, announcing Week 1 of the Sugar and Snails blog tour, I must be on the verge of a swoon this week as I begin another round of visits. The first week has gone brilliantly (you can catch up with those first five posts via the links on my blog tour page), so how could I not be excited about the second? I start today under Julie Stock’s Author Spotlight, with a piece about setting part of my novel in Cairo. As a writer of contemporary romance from around the world, Julie has a particular interest in the challenges of setting fiction in real places, the subject of her own post on Susanna Bavin’s blog this week. Tomorrow, Helena Fairfax is interviewing me about where my own life is set, among other things. Helen lives in an interesting place herself, the UNESCO World Heritage Site and former mill town, Saltaire, which you can discover more about in her fascinating post. Then I’m off to chat with my namesake, Shaz Goodwin on Jera’s Jamboree. With her day job as a school Inclusion Lead, I was interested in her interest in novels that tackle a social barrier, as Sugar and Snails most definitely does. On Thursday, I’m on Our Book Reviews discussing the various transformations of my novel from its initial inception as a story of masculinity across three generations. This post arose out of a Twitter conversation after Mary, one half of Our Book Reviews, read and reviewed an advance copy. Obviously, I was delighted to be invited back. Finally, Friday sees me in Australia, quite fittingly discussing the theme of friendship in the novel and in its realisation (extending the theme of my previous post on gratitude) with one of my dearest blogging friends, Norah Colvin. As Norah has already hosted me once before, I know the tour bus will be safe to leave there over the weekend until I get behind the wheel again on Monday.

I’m generally not in favour of “update” posts, but I can’t ignore the perspective shift since I posted five days ago. As of last Thursday, I’m a published novelist, and enjoying it immensely. With each review (six to my knowledge so far), with each supportive tweet at #SugarandSnails, I’m claiming more of my authorial authority. I’m even infiltrating the more traditional media, with a feature on Sugar and Snails in the Lincolnshire Echo and a nerve-wracking but not too dreadful outing on BBC Radio Nottingham (my bit is at about 2.15 p.m. and the link expires in about three weeks). The highlight of the last few days was, of course, my Nottingham launch party, which I’ll be sharing more about in due course. But in the meantime, there’s this lovely and unexpected post on the event from The Mole, the other half of Our Book Reviews.

Sugar and Snails is itself about shifting perspectives. My main character reinvented herself at age fifteen while, in the course of the novel, the reader’s perception of her makes a radical shift. Her childhood friend becomes her enemy; her best friend as an adult comes to see her in a different light. On a smaller scale, her student is studying optical illusions and it’s this that I’m using as my starting point for this week’s 99-word flash with a shift in perspective:

Friends warned me against dating a younger woman, but Julie was thirty, hardly a kid. I thought we’d gelled, but that card she sent afterwards was cruel. Fine if she didn’t fancy me; no need to tell me I’m a hag.

I let her call go to voicemail, yet I couldn’t stop the flutter in my chest when I heard her speak. “Can I see you tonight?”

Narrowing my eyes, I stared at the card anew. The nose became a chin, the narrow lips a necklace, the rheumy eye a shell-like ear. I pressed the green phone-icon. “You bet!”

Do let me know what you think.

14 Comments

Charli Mills

27/7/2015 05:12:59 pm

You've done much advanced work to be so prepared with a solid launch as this, Anne! How exciting to see you sitting in a radio studio. Lest I forget, I wanted to share what my cousin had to say about your book, which she bought on my recommendation:

Also, a terrific flash! Great interpretation of perspective using the optical illusion of a card. I'm amazed you had time to flash! Keep riding the wave!
"Didn't get a chance to start reading it until today. Just finished it. A wonderful novel that will stay with me. I'll fall asleep tonight thinking about it and know I'll spend days pondering it - thinking about Diana. This is a book I'll read again. Love it."

Annecdotist

28/7/2015 09:58:36 am

Thanks, Charli, yup, certainly no idea how I'd manage if I hadn't had a running start. I must admit that I'm not finding it so easy to get on with my writing amid all the excitement, and I'd still have deadlines looming for the guest posts I've arranged, but managed to compose this flash in a half-hour walk to the pharmacy yesterday. The summer weather here is still autumnal, so at least I don't resent sitting indoors.
How lovely of you to recommend the book to your cousin and to share such an enthusiastic response. (We need to get her to start writing reviews!)

Charli Mills

28/7/2015 11:35:31 am

I saw a screenshot of a fake software: it read "British Summer, error loading." Strange, strange weather all over. We broke high temperature records and then plummeted into a cool down and had snow in the Rockies two days ago. It feels normal and cool today. I'm going to have stunted corn, I think.

I did ask my cousin if she wrote reviews (she's a voracious reader). She said no, too lazy, but she'd get one on Amazon through her Kindle for your book. It made me think of the faulty logic of reviews. Those most apt to read and like the book and pass on to other readers are the most likely not to write a review. Writers are the ones who tend to write reviews. Not that we don't read, but we are less of the target audience than that ideal reader of our books. Still mulling this over...

Annecdotist

29/7/2015 02:30:52 am

Yes, I saw that Tweet also, Charli – very apt, although at least the sun's shining this morning.
I suppose writers tend to write reviews because we understand the importance of them in a way that the general reader doesn't. But some people do enjoy reviewing all kinds of things online (restaurants, hotels, vacuum cleaners) – but again, are these the kind of people who read books?
At my launch event I did ask if people would consider reviewing if they liked the book, mostly because there was such a strong feeling of goodwill around, I thought they wouldn't mind. But if people haven't ever contemplated doing such a thing, I wouldn't want them to feel pressurised to do so. I'm grateful that they're reading the book and giving it a chance.
So please pass on my thanks to your cousin – I hope she'll post a review (after all, it's already written here in the comment box) but I thank her for at least considering it. BTW, Wondering if it was her who posted an enthusiastic comment on my previous post (One Huge Leap for Anne).

Charli Mills

29/7/2015 03:06:11 pm

I went back and looked, and yes, Joy is my cousin. I'm pleased she left you a comment! She and her parents have been huge supporters of my writing over the years. And she is one of those avid, yet discerning readers. So if she liked it, it's a good book!

Annecdotist

30/7/2015 01:14:25 am

What an endorsement! It's an honour to have such readers on board. Thank you both.

Sarah link

27/7/2015 08:26:25 pm

I wish you had a "like" button for those times I cannot read as thoroughly as I'd like. But love the flash and love the picture. Classic psych 101 pic, isn't it? I think I saw this when I first started at university and was a psych major (for a semester and a half). ;-)

Annecdotist

28/7/2015 10:01:28 am

Yeah, Sorry, Sarah,a like button would certainly help. I have no memory of studying this, but I must have done – in my novel the focus is on the Necker cube. So how come you gave up psychology?

Sarah link

30/7/2015 01:36:55 pm

Why did I give up psychology? I talked to a psychologist. ;-)

Actually, I'm serious. She told me horror stories about lawsuits and testifying in court and, what really killed me, having to send kids home after a session with the very family who was responsible for hurting them and having them be in therapy in the first place. I couldn't handle that. NO way.

Annecdotist

3/8/2015 02:10:26 am

Oh dear, Sarah, you caught that psychologist on a bad day! There's probably quite a difference between practice in Britain and the USA: in all my years I was never called to court (although I know it's much more frequent for those working with children rather than adults) and never even had a formal complaint made against me (although once came pretty close). As for returning disturbed children to disturbing families, I think a main feature of psychological practice would be working with the family as a whole – I don't think many UK psychologists would think it was their job to "fix" a problem child but to help parents to do their jobs a bit better. I think you'd have been ace at that!

Norah Colvin link

28/7/2015 04:26:08 am

Thank you for sharing your shifting perspectives - all of them exciting. I loved listening to you talk about your book on BBC Radio, hearing your pride and excitement was like I was sitting beside you. Your choice of James Taylor's "You've Got a Friend" is a good one too. Have "they" given you a copy of the interview? If not, you "should" record it before they take it down. I think it would be a great resource to keep - interview on publication eve!
Thank you for keeping us informed of your blog tour. I'll do my best to get around and see you at each stop. It's fun meeting up at other friends' places. :)
Your flash is great. Not what it seems, obviously - or not! That picture is a great one. Once I find one of the women, it takes me ages to change perspective and find the other. It's interesting to think that the transformation is one that takes place as one's life progresses.
Like Sarah, I wish you had a "like" button too! :)

Annecdotist

28/7/2015 10:09:07 am

Thanks for listening in, Norah. Initially, I didn't want anyone I knew to hear it, but a couple of local people had courted by chance and commented positively so I braced myself to listen myself and decided it wasn't too bad for a first time. I'd like to have the opportunity to do better next time.
I think those optical illusions are so clever because it's very hard to be conscious of contradictory things. I did think initially that something of the sort would be good for my book cover, but fortunately the designer came up with something much better. Look forward to landing on your site on Friday.