tempus fugit

So. It has been over a year since Sweet Damage came out in Australia. It doesn't feel that long. In fact if   someone asked me when my last book came out I'd answer 'Oh, just a few months ago.' Something quite funny happens to your perception of time as you get older. When I was a kid I thought a year was an eternity. A lifetime. Even when I was 18 and started a nursing degree I remember thinking, Three years? What point? Surely the world will be over by then and in any case I will be old and arthritic. Too old for nursing.

I googled this phenomenon (of time seeming to speed up as you get older) and according to my research¹ not ALL time speeds up as you age. Days and hours go by at exactly the same rate – only the years seem to speed up. This boggles the mind (how can hours go by at the same rate while the years speed up?). It's also mildly depressing. I don't want my years getting faster and faster, thanks very much.

But, apparently, all the painful, sad or boring bits of life will always feel slow. If you're in a queue at the supermarket the wait will feel eternal. If you're running late for an appointment the red light will take several decades to turn green. That's just the way it is.

It's good to know, however, that "if life does seem to be rushing by it is a sign that things are going well." I do take comfort in that. I must be relatively happy because the years are zipping by.

This is all just a very long-winded way of saying I have a new book coming out soon. It will released by Allen and Unwin on the 1st of October this year.  If I think about all the minutes, hours and days that I have to wait, publication day seems a long way away. But if I measure the wait in big-time, it's a mere four months away, one tiny little third of one of those flashing-by years, and so next time I blink I'll probably find myself at my book launch drinking champagne and shaking with nerves because I have to give a speech. That is the magic of time. (Are you confused yet? I hope so because I certainly am.)

My next book is called Cooper Bartholomew is Dead. There's a blurb on Goodreads² which reads:

Cooper Bartholomew's body is found at the foot of a cliff. His friends are in shock, and at least one of them is keeping a dangerous secret … Cooper's girlfriend Libby, is determined to fight for justice, but how will she deal with the explosive truth?

Unputdownable storytelling at its finest.


I started writing this book in 2009. Five years ago. When I think of my life in a big-picture way and remember what has happened – my kids and how they've grown, moving house, publishing a second book, all the things that have changed – the years have truly flown by. But when I think of working on this book, all the writing and rewriting, giving up on it and shoving the entire manuscript under the bed, changing my mind and pulling it out again and dusting it off, the time has passed much more  slowly. Second by second. Word by word.

And what is my point, you ask? I'm not entirely sure. Maybe I'm just trying to say it can sometimes take a long time to write a book. Longer than you hope. I reckon if you knew how long it would take in the beginning, if you knew how many words you'd delete and rewrite, and how frequently you'd want to toss the whole thing in the bin, you'd never start in the first place. But then, I'm sure that's true of a lot of worthwhile things.

The cover for Cooper Bartholomew Is Dead is below. Let me know what you think. I love it. Lee Kofman told me (on twitter) that she thought it looked romantic, sinister and melancholy and I think those words are perfect because that's exactly how I'd describe the book.

Anyway. Now I should probably go and write. I have another book to work on.  I'm quite certain this one is going to be perfect first time round.  It will require no huge structural  redrafts and very minimal edits. My editor is going to be amazed and say 'oh my goodness Rebecca, but you are a genius, you only just finished your last book a week ago!'  (Thank goodness for delusional optimism. Thank goodness time is so rubbery and memory so short.)

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22341147-cooper-bartholomew-is-dead

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1 Which was not at all extensive. I read exactly one article.^↩

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2 I am not sure whether this is the final copy. Will let you know!^↩

Sweet Damage UK release

In exactly one month from today Sweet Damage will hit shelves in the UK. This is cause for much excitement! (Well, around my kitchen table it is anyway). I love the design Faber has chosen for the cover. I look at the shadowy figure in the background and think 'ooooh,' and then I look at the girl and wonder what she's so afraid of. And then I remember that I wrote the book and am supposed to know these things.

I figure it must be a good cover if it has the author intrigued...

Paperchain Bookstore Event

If you live in Canberra and are free next Thursday night why don't you come along to Paperchain Bookstore? I'll be there talking to the lovely Tania McCartney about all things writing. (Well, maybe not all things, but certainly many things.) You can have a glass of wine and a piece of cheese* and sit and listen to us natter. We'll be talking about my latest book, Sweet Damage, and the pressures of writing a second book. We'll be talking about Beautiful Malice a bit too and pondering the pros and cons of getting a big advance for your first book, and what it's really like to be compared to JK Rowling!

If you want to come, (and I hope you do), you need to RSVP for catering purposes. You can find all the details here on the Paperchain website.


*I'm assuming there will be cheese, but I could be wrong, there may not be any cheese at all. You will have to come along to find out.

Launched.

Any questions?

The problem with blogging, for me, is that I can never think of anything to say. Before I sold Beautiful Malice I used to blog quite frequently about whatever took my fancy, and I enjoyed it, and had a bit of a readership. But since being published I've become all self-conscous and I feel like I should have a theme and a structure to my blog, that it should be specifically 'about writing', or 'about my books', or even 'about motherhood' and somehow this inhibits me from actually writing anything. It's all a bit silly really,  since the blogs I enjoy reading most are a bit messy and unstructured, random musings, little snippets of other people's lives. Sometimes just reading what another family eats for breakfast can be fascinating...

Anyway, in an attempt to get my blogging wheels rolling again, I thought that it might be a good idea to offer to answer your questions here. (If you have any questions, that is.) Feel free to ask me anything. About my books, about writing, about being mother to four boys, about living in Canberra. Anything you may be curious about, or not really curious about. Even if you just make up a question to be polite. That would be fine. Better than fine, really. It would be fantastically helpful.

No question is too silly or offensive or boring  - in fact you're doing me a favour and I'll only be grateful.

So, go ahead, ask me a question.

Please?

Book launch

Come and help me celebrate!

Sweet Damage

So, apparently Sweet Damage is out and about, making its way in the big wide world without me.

It's a weird and wonderful time when your book is first published. I feel slightly hysterical and on edge and am not sure where to direct all this nervous energy.  I went to the shop and saw Sweet Damage stacked on the shelves and felt strangely anxious. I was glad to see it on the shelf, but felt sad when I saw someone pick it up and then put it down again. I had this insane urge to go and buy all the copies myself, as if I could protect it from feeling lonely or rejected. Luckily I realised I was acting like a lunatic, the worst kind of overprotective, grasping parent, and hurried away to buy food for dinner instead. 

My sister told me I should always have another book to get on with, to avoid obsessiveness, and self-googling... and I think she might be right. So while I'm going to do my best to promote Sweet Damage (in a non-annoying way, I hope!) I'm also going to start some new writing, or at least do some serious thinking about new plots and characters, and give Tim and Anna (and Lilla and Fiona and Marcus) some space to make their own way in the world. 

But in the meantime, here's the final back-cover blurb, and, below that, a short extract:

(P.S. Sweet Damage is available as a Kindle ebook for only $9.99)


'I still dream about Anna London's house. In my dreams it's as if the house itself has sinister intentions. But in real life it wasn't the house that was responsible for what happened. It was the people who did the damage ...'

When Tim Ellison finds a cheap room to rent in the perfect location in Sydney it looks like a huge stroke of luck. In fact the room comes with a condition, and the owner of the house, the mysterious Anna London, is unfriendly and withdrawn. When strange and terrifying things start happening in the house at night, Tim wonders if taking the room is a mistake. But then his feelings for Anna start to change, and when her past comes back with a vengeance, Tim is caught right in the middle of it.

A thrilling, rollercoaster of a story - read it with the lights on!

Rebecca James - Sweet Damage (Extract) by AllenandUnwin