Author: emmahaughton@outlook.com

Wow, I am exhausted! Why? Well, yesterday evening I threw myself onto Twitter and the gorgeous frenzy of tweeting around #ukyachat. Everyone was there, including Malorie Blackman, Joe Craig, Sally Nichols, Alexia Casale, James Dawson, Annabel Pitcher, Zoe Marriott, Keren David, Helen Grant, and many, many others. You name them, they were participating in one of the biggest twitterfests the UKYA community has ever seen. We were trending hard in the UK!

So what was all the fuss about? Everyone pitched in with their favourite UKYA reads , resulting in an absolute feast of brilliant books. I suspect a lot of people woke up this morning with a burgeoning To Be Read pile. There were also lots of previews of what’s to come in 2014 – including ‘Now You See Me’ from yours truly – as well as some great suggestions about what people would like to see more of in the future.

Organised by the indomitable YA book blogger Lucy Powrie, Project UKYA is a blog dedicated to spreading the word about the fabulousness of our home-grown YA sector, and features reviews, news and all manner of other posts around UKYA books and events.

Don’t worry if you missed it last night’s Twitter bonanza. You can still read what everyone said on under the #ukyachat hashtag. And it’s a monthly event.  Check out the Project UKYA website on http://projectukya.blogspot.co.uk/ for news of the next one, or follow her on @LucyThe Reader. Lucy is also cooking up something pretty special on UKYA for April, so keep your eyes peeled!

I thought you might like to see my official ‘I Haz Finished My Edits’ face:

We’ve not been having a lot of fun in the West Country, as you may well have seen on the news. We’ve been getting quite a lot of this:

So in the interests of keeping cheerful, I offer you my Gratuitous Terrier Pic for February:

His name is Stan, and this picture was taken in September, just after we’d been to Hull and back to pick him up. He’s grown a bit since, and now looks pretty much like this:

Note the rim of mud round his nose. Stan’s new pastime is digging random holes in the flower beds. When he’s not doing that, he quite likes to collect shoes and leave them around in attractive piles. Oh, and rip up bits of tissue.

Back from the pistes, all bones intact, and super proud to reveal the cover for my upcoming YA thriller, Now You See Me. I love the edgy, sinister feel, which I think cleverly gets across the tone of the book, without giving too much away. And that gorgeous, zingy green!

Now You See Me was inspired by a true story, one I read in a Sunday supplement some years ago. It was so fascinating, so full of suspense, that my mind wouldn’t let it alone. Though the book I eventually wrote involves very different characters and outcomes, that kernel of truth behind the fiction still captivates me. Truth can really be stranger than anything you read in the pages of a novel.

So what’s it about? Well, without spoiling any of the plot twists, I can tell you that Now You See Me follows the story of Hannah, whose best friend, 13-year-old Danny, disappears one sunny September afternoon. Hannah soon finds herself sucked into what feels like a never-ending quest to find him, but Danny has seemingly vanished without trace. One year on, and Hannah has lost all hope of ever seeing him again.

Intrigued? I hope so. Now You See Me will release on the 1^st May, published by the fabulous Usborne. Let me know what you think on my Facebook page – https://www.facebook.com/emmahaughtonwriter – or drop me a tweet @Emma_Haughton. You can also sign up for news of this and other releases via the form on the left.

I’ll leave you with a little taster…

“It’s not him. The body in the water. It’s not Danny.”

            I waited for the impact, for the news to sink in, to flood me with elation. But there was nothing. Only numbness.

            This was good news. So why did I feel so defeated?

            Then it hit me.

            A darker, deeper, buried part of me had been hoping all this was finally over.

 

 

 

 

For the next ten days I’ll mainly be doing this:

Hopefully back soon in one piece.

I am suffering from a bad case of dog envy. Basically, I want to be a dog. I don’t care about the fleas or the endless diet of cardboard dog biscuits. I don’t even care about the halitosis. I would still be one of my dogs in a heartbeat.

Why? Let me count the ways…

1. The dogs don’t have a to-do list or a diary.
2. The dogs never worry about whether they’re putting on weight. Even if they are, they don’t care.
3. The dogs aren’t concerned about editing their next novel.
4. The dogs never have to wander around Tesco wondering what the hell we’re going to eat tonight.
5. The dogs don’t have to cook it either.
6. The dogs don’t get spots.
7. The dogs never lose their car keys. Or their phone.
8. The dogs never have to bother about personal hygiene.
9. Nor do the dogs fret about keeping fit. They just are.
10. The dogs don’t feel guilty when they see the growing pile of ironing in the utility room. They lie on it.
11. The dogs aren’t panicking about their tax return.
12. The dogs don’t have to enter into protracted negotiations with their kids over every single insignificant decision. They just look bored and walk away.
13. As far as I can tell, dogs don’t get three-day migraines.
14. The dogs don’t have to speak to someone in Mumbai every time they have a query on their credit card.
15. The dogs don’t notice when they’re having a bad hair day.
16. The dogs never, ever have to go to the dentist.
17. The dogs don’t bother with makeup. The effect would be lost under all that hair.
18. The dogs get to lie around dozing all day, either in the sun or out, depending on their mood.
19. The dogs think a walk around the scraggy woods up the road is the closest thing to bliss.
20. The dogs seem to actually enjoy running until they pant.

Mind you, the dogs aren’t going skiing the week after next. Suckers.

Thanks to Dave Walker

I’ve been thinking what to write about on this blog. I mean, there’s already so many out there – what on earth have I got to say that thousands of others haven’t said already?

I’ve also been pondering who might read it. I write books for teens, so hopefully some of you would fall into the catch-all category of ‘young adult’. But then I read an interesting statistic a few months back, that over half of YA books are bought by fully-fledged adults – ie. people over the age of 18. And of these adults, most are in the 30-44 age bracket, accounting for 28 per cent of YA sales.

So they’re buying books for other teenagers, right? Well, no. Apparently not. When asked by industry gurus Bowker Market Research, 78 per cent said they were buying these books for themselves. Interesting.

These are US statistics, but there’s no reason to believe the picture is any different this side of the pond. So, I suppose I can safely assume that over half of my potential book and blog readers – not counting any chickens here – will be adults. Hmmm…

So, here’s what I’ve decided. I’ll offer a mix. Maybe a few recurring themes. News about the books, obviously – but not too much, because I don’t want to bore the pyjamas off you. Some writing stuff, though there’s so much fantastic advice out there I don’t see the point in adding to it unnecessarily. The odd book review. Things I wish I’d known at 13 – because… well, just because. And expect random silliness, things of interest, and terriers. Lots of terriers.

So let’s kick off with my Gratuitous Terrier Picture of the Month:

If you’ve ever learned to drive you’ll remember that first terrifying moment when you got behind the wheel, turned the key in the ignition, and suddenly – amazingly! – found yourself in control of an actual moving car. Okay, you probably stalled immediately. Several times. But you know what I mean.

Starting a blog feels a bit like that. How do I get this thing going? What if people are watching? What if they’re not? (More likely.)

So bear with me as I try and work out which pedal does what. And where the hell I’m actually heading with this thing. I’m a newbie – to blogging and being a bone-fide author – and it’s going to take me a bit of time behind the wheel to make all this worth reading.

In the meantime, wave if you see me drive past!