I'm on a research trip now in Sevilla, Southern Spain. It's almost violently hot and most days are spent hiding out in my air-conditioned apartment, plotting and planning my current work-in-progress, another thriller, while sensual nights are spent eating up the Sevillano atmosphere - more on that, with photos, in my next post.
Sorting through papers today, I found the speech I wrote at the Edgewater Hotel, Seattle at 4pm on the day of the ABNA '13 event - Saturday 15th June. I wrote it on the hotel computer and so had no record of it other than the printed pages I would read from - running late I didn't think to email it to myself - just printed it out to read when my five minutes of scary 'fame' came.
I am posting it here in its entirety, to scrap-book it, for myself. I have always found the inspiration behind stories and novels intriguing. I am propelled by a desire to know why people do what they do. I am insanely curious, always have been.....and hope to always be this way.
I am the person who will have chats with little old ladies at bus stops and in those precious five minutes, while waiting for the bus, I usually manage to get people's life stories out of them. I think I have a knack for it - the journalist in me, but the bottom line is I find other people far more fascinating than myself. This scrap-book entry is a little bit of archival spot-lighting........I want to remember the ABNA 2013 moment forever, and make no apologies for it.
I have no clue who reads my blog - if anybody - but when I post I write for myself.......the fact that it's a sort of diary entry, permanently stamped into the digital encoding of the world, makes no difference to me. So, here it is:-
"I want to thank Amazon Publishing for their warmth, support and amazing hospitality, for their total professionalism in helping to get my novel ready for its October 2013 release, and for totally getting my story. Their respect for authors and their generosity of spirit has made this experience totally
mind-blowing.
I want to thank Publishers Weekly for their incredible review of my manuscript. It has kept me going, and on a permanent high, since I read it all those weeks ago at the semi-finalist stage.
I want to thank my amazing family who live and breathe my novels with me, for their patience, love and support.
The Hidden began as a trip to a local bookshop in Melbourne, Australia, one of my daily visits, many years ago. I discovered a beautiful book about harem women who lived in the Ottoman Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries. It fascinated me, and plunged me immediately into a two-year obsessive research journey into the lives of these harem girls who lived in the palaces of the time. From there I dived into the political history of Egypt, the 1919 Nationalist riots and the stranglehold of the British over the Egyptian people.
I started asking questions. Would it be possible for a harem girl to break free of the traditions imposed on her and live a different type of life? In 1919 Cairene Women were protesting in the streets against the British rule, so things were changing.
From there my research took me deep into the Egyptian underworld, the world of espionage and terrorism. I found myself in war-time Cairo living the spies and the prostitutes in the brothers there. I made friends with the soldiers and listened to the stories about counter-espionage, the impending German invasion and who was going to make it out alive. I lived in this world for two years as I bought every single non-fiction book I could get my hands on about the era. I lived in second-hand bookshops and unearthed some amazing stories.
So The Hidden was born. I wanted to write about what draws people to certain types of lives. I carried on asking questions; why would someone plot to assassinate a king? Why would a young man join a terrorist group? Why would a family try so hard to keep the story of their lives so secret? Why would a young girl, the daughter of the sultan of Egypt, want to challenge every single tradition she had grown up with?
My fictional harem girl Hezba wrote a diary about her life in 1919. Her only legacy to the daughter she never knew is this diary. Her daughter was raised without an identity of her own. It was hidden from her. Her mother spent her whole life fighting against the identity forced on her. The Hidden isn't just a political thriller, it's a story about identity, about nationality, and about the sins of our ancestors and how their actions become genetically threaded through to future generations.
I adored writing this story. I lived it through my research, through writing it. It helped me deal with my own issues of nationality and identity.
I pitched it many publishers but it was rejected many, many times. Eventually I self-published it to Kindle Direct Publishing and the response was amazing. Then I entered the ABNA competition and here I am.
So to end, I just want to say again thanks to Amazon, who made this all possible. They got my story. Writers have it tough. I was prepared to carry on writing to the end of my life with no publisher in sight, but now, well.......I am just so happy. Thank you."
Sorting through papers today, I found the speech I wrote at the Edgewater Hotel, Seattle at 4pm on the day of the ABNA '13 event - Saturday 15th June. I wrote it on the hotel computer and so had no record of it other than the printed pages I would read from - running late I didn't think to email it to myself - just printed it out to read when my five minutes of scary 'fame' came.
I am posting it here in its entirety, to scrap-book it, for myself. I have always found the inspiration behind stories and novels intriguing. I am propelled by a desire to know why people do what they do. I am insanely curious, always have been.....and hope to always be this way.
I am the person who will have chats with little old ladies at bus stops and in those precious five minutes, while waiting for the bus, I usually manage to get people's life stories out of them. I think I have a knack for it - the journalist in me, but the bottom line is I find other people far more fascinating than myself. This scrap-book entry is a little bit of archival spot-lighting........I want to remember the ABNA 2013 moment forever, and make no apologies for it.
I have no clue who reads my blog - if anybody - but when I post I write for myself.......the fact that it's a sort of diary entry, permanently stamped into the digital encoding of the world, makes no difference to me. So, here it is:-
"I want to thank Amazon Publishing for their warmth, support and amazing hospitality, for their total professionalism in helping to get my novel ready for its October 2013 release, and for totally getting my story. Their respect for authors and their generosity of spirit has made this experience totally
mind-blowing.
I want to thank Publishers Weekly for their incredible review of my manuscript. It has kept me going, and on a permanent high, since I read it all those weeks ago at the semi-finalist stage.
I want to thank my amazing family who live and breathe my novels with me, for their patience, love and support.
The Hidden began as a trip to a local bookshop in Melbourne, Australia, one of my daily visits, many years ago. I discovered a beautiful book about harem women who lived in the Ottoman Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries. It fascinated me, and plunged me immediately into a two-year obsessive research journey into the lives of these harem girls who lived in the palaces of the time. From there I dived into the political history of Egypt, the 1919 Nationalist riots and the stranglehold of the British over the Egyptian people.
I started asking questions. Would it be possible for a harem girl to break free of the traditions imposed on her and live a different type of life? In 1919 Cairene Women were protesting in the streets against the British rule, so things were changing.
From there my research took me deep into the Egyptian underworld, the world of espionage and terrorism. I found myself in war-time Cairo living the spies and the prostitutes in the brothers there. I made friends with the soldiers and listened to the stories about counter-espionage, the impending German invasion and who was going to make it out alive. I lived in this world for two years as I bought every single non-fiction book I could get my hands on about the era. I lived in second-hand bookshops and unearthed some amazing stories.
So The Hidden was born. I wanted to write about what draws people to certain types of lives. I carried on asking questions; why would someone plot to assassinate a king? Why would a young man join a terrorist group? Why would a family try so hard to keep the story of their lives so secret? Why would a young girl, the daughter of the sultan of Egypt, want to challenge every single tradition she had grown up with?
My fictional harem girl Hezba wrote a diary about her life in 1919. Her only legacy to the daughter she never knew is this diary. Her daughter was raised without an identity of her own. It was hidden from her. Her mother spent her whole life fighting against the identity forced on her. The Hidden isn't just a political thriller, it's a story about identity, about nationality, and about the sins of our ancestors and how their actions become genetically threaded through to future generations.
I adored writing this story. I lived it through my research, through writing it. It helped me deal with my own issues of nationality and identity.
I pitched it many publishers but it was rejected many, many times. Eventually I self-published it to Kindle Direct Publishing and the response was amazing. Then I entered the ABNA competition and here I am.
So to end, I just want to say again thanks to Amazon, who made this all possible. They got my story. Writers have it tough. I was prepared to carry on writing to the end of my life with no publisher in sight, but now, well.......I am just so happy. Thank you."
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