This is hungry work

That’s a line from a Hozier song (yes, the one everyone has been listening to).  Writing work feeds into itself, to some extent, but the material that nurtures it comes from everywhere.  Writing work is hungry work, always seeking out new morsels.

I’ve started printing out the lyrics to some of my current favourite songs, and tacking them up on the walls of my office (using the term ‘office’ here in its broadest sense), so I can see the way words work in different combinations and contexts.  Poems go up too – although I’ve always thought that lyrics qualify as contemporary poetry – and sentences or phrases from books, photos, scribbled scraps of overheard conversations, pics of artwork, postcards, pamphlets, notes, business cards, newspaper clippings, drawings (usually done by my kids), jokes, Post-its, and other ephemera like feathers, leaves, and on my desk, random stones and mementos, including two conkers from a tree in Hyde Park.

I like the bower bird approach.  I’m not a tidy person by nature – tidiness is something that has instead been drummed into me by over a decade of householding for a large family.  When you have four kids, you maintain organisation or you flounder in a sea of chaos.  So I am tidy, but if you look around my work space, you can see that tidiness is an imposed state of being.

I collect things – knick knacks, oddsy-sodsy things…memories, I guess.  Do they help me work?  I don’t know.  I think so.  They remind me that for all the structured thinking necessary for daily routine - the mental order I apply to keep to diary dates and planned events, the discipline and compartmentalisation required to sort out work and parenting and weekly grocery lists and everything else - the part of me that writes needs randomness, and flow, and a certain looseness.  The mind has to be allowed to roam and wander and free-range if it wants to create.  It’s something I’ve discovered, or rather I’m discovering as I go along, that way of keeping ‘loose’ in my mind during the course of the day.

Lately, amidst all the bustle of book launching, I’ve been feeding myself with music, and with some great books – I just read Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel, and it was beautiful, full of poignant desperation and starlight.  It reminded me strongly of On the Beach by Nevil Shute, not just for its themes (which are similar to Shute’s, although not as grim) but for its evocation of human fallibility and longing and nostalgia.  I was gifted my copy of Station Eleven by Kirsty Eagar – a gorgeous gift, thank you! – and now I’m thinking deeply about a book I’d like to gift to her (we seem to have started our own little book club).  I’m going to be doing a longer post on workspace and working habits for Kirsty’s blog in a few weeks – when it goes up, I’ll let you all know.

First review: I was given a heads-up (thank you, Sera!) about the first review of Every Move, which I’m thrilled to say was glowingly positive, in Kid’s Book Review.  What a relief it was to find out that people are enjoying the book!  After all my nerves and anxiety, I’m starting to relax a little – it’s a great weight off my shoulders.  Thank you to everyone who has tweeted/texted/pinged me to say that you’re loving Every Move!  There’s nothing more satisfying than finding out that the work you’ve put in has been worth it.

Blog tour details: Ahh, okay, now this is still being finalised, but I can reveal some of the blog tour stops now.  More fine-tuning will be reported on soon, but here’s the schedule so far -

1 March: The Unfinished Bookshelf

2 March: Behind the Pages

3 March: Fictional Thoughts

4 March: Speculating on Specfic

5 March: Genie in a Book

6 March: YA Midnight Reads

7 March: Delicate Eternity

8 March: Novels on the Run

9 March: The Rest is Still Unwritten

10 March: The Loony Teen Writer

Please do drop in at the tour stops and say hi (or, y’know, read the articles and reviews) – I know most bloggers enjoy it when people leave a comment or two!  Some of the tour stops will involve giveaways as well, so if you’d like a chance to win a copy of the book, keep a lookout.  I’ll be doing a giveaway of the book here, as well, sometime in the next few weeks.

And you’re coming to the Every Move launch party, right?  I hope you are, if you live in Melbourne (or especially if you’re coming from afar), because me and Adele Walsh would love to see you – remember, it’s at Readings Carlton in Lygon St, on Monday 16 March from 6-8pm.  I’m trying to think up some nice food to give people who have gone to the trouble to come, because I don’t reckon corn chips and strawberries will cut it this year…should I go the kabana and cheese platter?  I know some folks who would like cake too (*cough* Allen and Unwin team *cough*), so I’m gonna aim for variety J

Anyway, I hope you’re having a good week, and if you have any catering suggestions, please leave a comment below!  Take care –

Xx Ellie

LOVE LOVE LOVEDY LOVE LOVE LOVE

Oh my goodness - Every Breath is coming out in Canada, the US and the Philippines on October 14, only a few short days away.  Book birthday!!  Folks, this is such a big thing, and I can’t tell you how nervous and excited I am.  Yes, there are many feels.

I’ve been particularly thrilled by the way the excitement is spreading.  The blog tour dates are all lined up, and Cuddlebuggery is the last passenger aboard this train – the full blog tour schedule (Oct 20-24) is up here at the Tundra blogsite.  New reviews have been popping up all over the place, like this one at There Were Books Involved (so lovely!) and here at BookVerdict and here at Brittany's Book Rambles and I mentioned the Kirkus review, right?

I’ll be at the announcement for the Inky awards on October 21 – Will Kostakis (The First Third), Amie Kaufman (These Broken Stars), Allyse Near (Fairytales for Wilde Girls), and Claire Zorn (The Sky So Heavy) will all be there too, and there was some talk online about a WWE/Hunger Games-style Inky Author Smackdown…  But I’m sure we can be civilised about this! (I mean, unless you’d like to see us authors all battling it out…)  The event is open to the public, so if you’d like to come along, jet on over to the State Library website and book your (free) ticket.

I’ll also be at Clunes Library on October 22, and at the Little Bookroom with Kirsty Murray and some other guests on November 11, and no doubt you will catch me online, blagging about Every Breath in its new life overseas.

I’m gearing up for some big thank yous soon – my cup of gratitude and happiness officially runneth over.  But I wanted to say one big thank you first of all, to my partner, Geoff.

Geoff and I jumped the broom twenty years ago this year, and apart from our kids, he is the most important person in my life.  We have raised four sons together, and share two decades of memories.  People often ask me, ‘How do you write with such a large family?’ and sometimes the answer is ‘I honestly don’t know’, and sometimes the answer is my own discipline and sheer bloody-mindedness, but mostly the answer is ‘My partner’.  We parent and order the household together, juggling work and taxiing kids and other commitments, and splitting the household chores, but he will do the lion’s share when I’m on deadline, or in some other sort of writerly frenzy.

He is the one who revs me up, calms me down, prods me to keep going when I need it, encourages me at every turn.  We put up with each other’s foibles – my head in another world of characters, his footy obsession.  We talk about everything – everything.  He is my lifeline, and my inspiration.  And y’know, he’s hot (still.  After twenty years.  Uh huh.)  He would be mortified that I’m saying all these things about him in such a public space, but I would like to acknowledge all the whole-hearted care and commitment he’s given to me, especially these last few years, since the book-writing thing has taken off, because without him I wouldn’t have been able to do any of it.

So Geoff, I know I’ve included you in acknowledgement pages and dedications, and I try to say it every day, in small domestic ways, but I want to thank you – for the last twenty years, for love and devotion, for our sons, for everything.  I love you, darling.  Happy anniversary.

Xx Ellie

Release Week

Hi again!  I know I said I would post up an article with a new YA Crime guest, but this week things have gotten a little hectic.  I wanted to update here with news on what’s been happening since Every Breath’s release.  I thought it wouldn’t really do justice to the lovely Kim Kane (Cry Blue Murder) to post her article up until my blathering and excitement has had a chance to die down.

So Every Breath was released into the wild on Wednesday 21 August.  It was a day like every other day – I still did the school run, took my son to footy training, took my other son to soccer training, took my other sons to swimming lessons, made salami and cheese sandwiches for Thursday lunches, made the dinner.  A very normal day, except that I had a book published!  (Dan Brown – a friend pointed out on her own book birth-day – probably doesn’t sweep the kitchen floor on publication day.  Or hey, maybe he does.  What do I know?)

What’s been wonderful is that so many people have started reading and responding to Every Breath.  This is the amazing moment you dream about – the moment when other people begin reading your novel.  When it goes out into the world, and people see it on a shelf somewhere, and pick it up, and become intrigued…

People have started putting up reviews on Goodreads.  And on their blogs.  And  on their websites.  That is so unbelievably cool.  I want to hug ALL of you, especially the reviewers who’ve liked Every Breath enough to give it such high ratings, and especially that one reviewer who posted a pic of Benedict Cumberbatch whipping his scarf off (I could sit and watch that all day).

Madison and Sydney, the two girls from Castlemaine Secondary College who so kindly agreed to read and review Every Breath, have sent me their review - I’m going to include it at the end of this post.  But if you DO read the book, and you like it, feel free to go say so on Goodreads, or Facebook, or wherever you fancy.  It would make me ridiculously happy.  And if you feel inclined, send me a link so I can Tweet it around @elliemarney.

So I promised more info about the blog tour and here it is:

Book Probe Review (already up! – author Q&A)

YA Midnight Reads (review and giveaway posted!)

A Sunny Spot (review posted!)

Vegan YA Nerds (review and giveaway on 26 August)

Novels On the Run (author Q&A on 26 August)

Bad Ass Bookie (author Q&A on 9 September)

Kids Book Review (author Q&A 14 September)

Speculating on Spec Fic (author Q& A on 16 September)

The Rest is Still Unwritten (author Q&A on 23 September)

Claire Reads (review coming)

There’ve also been some AMAZING reviews that have emerged - ALPHAreader has posted a great one, and I’m still gasping from the one at Hypable…wow.

To celebrate all this incredibleness, and just to celebrate the whole ‘I got a book released, woot!’ thing, I went to see The Mortal Instruments:City of Bones movie with my son (yes, it’s awesome, go see it) up in Bendigo.  Then, in the continuing spirit of celebration, we got Nutella and banana pizza on the way home.  Now that is an excellent way to mark the occasion.

So I promised Madison and Sydney I’d post their review - here it is (and a very lovely one too, even when I asked for warts-and-all!)  

“Every Breath – Ellie Marney

Summary:

What if Sherlock Holmes was the boy next door?

Rachel Watts is an unwilling new arrival to Melbourne from the country.

James Mycroft is her neighbour, an intriguingly troubled seventeen year-old genius with a passion for forensics.

Despite her misgivings, Rachel finds herself unable to resist Mycroft when he wants her to help investigating a murder.

And when Watts and Mycroft follow a trail to the cold blooded killer, they find themselves in the lion’s den – literally. A night at the zoo will never have quite the same meaning again...

Review:

This impressive book is burdened with suspense-filled moments. It is a fast-paced novel with wonderfully flawed characters, all with unique personalities and possibilities. The novel is refreshingly original with diverse ideas from different stories. I think it’s clever how the author has woven in the idea of Sherlock and Watson being these two rebellious teenagers.

 “I’m an academic genius and a social moron...Being a moron in one or two areas serves to highlight my extraordinary brilliance in everything else.”

 I love how Mycroft is equally clever and quick-witted, as he is damaged and cocky.  Equally brilliant as he is broken. Mycroft was only young, fourteen, when his parents were killed in a tragic accident while on their way back from a holiday. After that, he changed and he changed people. Mycroft prides himself on keeping his guard up and never letting anyone see what is really behind his blue eyes because he knows that they won’t like what they find.

However, there is one girl in particular who can see (who he lets see) through the layers and layers of pretending.  Rachel Watts, a country girl at heart but living in the busy streets of Melbourne. Although Watts has only recently moved to the city, a strong connection between Mycroft and Rachel has already formed. Together, these two solve the mystery of a murder, lying, sneaking, and charming their way through the many obstacles that obstruct their path.

I feel that this book is perfect for the young minds of today, filled with teenage hormones and bright minds, ludicrous characters and mind-blowing twists, the realization of deception. People are not always who they declare they are. 

I, personally, don’t typically read crime novels but I thought that this one was great!

Review written by Madison and Sydney Oliff”

Thank you, girls, for reading, and I’m so glad you enjoyed it :)

xx Ellie

Cashing in my Review V-card

Peoples!  Every Breath has had its first review!

This came out in Books & Publishing a short while ago, and I was rapt when a friend sent it to me.  As the site itself is subscriber-only, I thought I’d post it here so everyone and their dog could read it too...

Every Breath (Ellie Marney, A&U)
Picking up on the current Sherlock Holmes zeitgeist, Every Breath is the story of two teenagers playing at detective, trying to solve the death of their friend Homeless Dave. Rather than Holmes and Watson we get Mycroft and Watts, best friends drawn to each other because they have both lost everything—Mycroft his parents and Watts her family home in the country. As they are pulled deeper into the mysteries surrounding Dave’s murder, they also discover a growing attraction to each other, so like all good stories about death it’s about love too. Mycroft and Watts are fast-talking, flawed, bright characters. The requisite banter is threaded through with the language of crime procedurals—lividity and rigor mortis and blood spatter patterns—which is charming in its novelty. Ellie Marney’s YA novel explores the isolation and the desperation to escape later teenage years, and is moodily underscored by a cold and gloomy Melbourne. The writing is pacy and engaging but doesn’t shy away from darkness. Reminiscent of Lili Wilkinson’s A Pocketful of Eyes, although slightly grimmer in tone, Every Breath will be enjoyed by readers aged 13 and up. It is the first book of a trilogy.
Reviewer: Cordelia Rice works at Thorpe-Bowker.
She is a former bookseller and previously worked at the Centre for Youth Literature

 

So there it is, and I’m very happy – what a lovely review J

If you’re still keen to enter the Cover Reveal competition, it closes in a few days – but you can still drop me a line HERE to put your name in, or FB me, or Tweet me @elliemarney…  I guess you know how these things work.

And my next post will be a new YA Crime Report with the entrancing Kirsten Krauth, talking about a teenage cyber-perspective and noir suspense surrounding her new book just_a_girl.  Make sure you pop along and say hi.

Xx Ellie