If you touch me like this and kiss me like that...

I am editing Ascension.

Here's the bit I am currently on... I remember these feelings so well. I hope you all get to experience them at least once in your lifetime.

“Sorry, that was uncalled for,” she apologizes. “It’s just that... you have to experience it to understand.” She wraps both hands around the hot mug, even though there’s no chill in the kitchen. “Being in love is such a strange and unique experience. You feel like you are on stage every time he is near, as if a hundred pairs of eyes regard your every move, when in fact it is only him. Your mouth feels suddenly dry, yet you are forced to swallow several times before you can even speak. And the slightest brush of his skin against yours, causes your heart to lurch so much, it almost makes you dizzy!”

Happy Reading! x

Still editing!

I am still editing Invisible.

Here is the part I am currently on:-

In the hallway, the front door opened and then after a moment, closed again. Fran and Gary sat without speaking as if the moment was so sacred it required the silence of the sacristy. It took another few minutes for Alison to reappear and when she did, her eyes were red and puffy. “He’s gone,” she said, her voice breaking on the very first syllable.

 

How strange that it is me, comforting her, Fran thought as she rose from the chair with her arms wide, wrapping them tight around Jim’s twin. “At least his suffering is over,” she told herself and Ally. Whereas mine has only just begun. As painful and terrible as before, his death hasn’t brought an end to my anguish, just pushed it in a different direction, she realised.

Poor Fran... Happy Reading!

Life versus Fiction

At the moment I am editing the book about the woman whose life falls apart when she hears some revelations. It was a hard book to write and it's equally hard to edit. The emotions which pour forth from the pages are raw and gripping. And each turn of the page takes me back to my past. For after all, who of us hasn't stood chalk faced and shaking when we are told about something so fundamentally wrong in our relationship that it rocks us to the core?

The other day I became embroiled in such a situation. For the sake of those similarly enmeshed, I shall keep the identities private, as indeed the minute details of the situation... but to see such a thing first-hand and in real life was heart-breaking. Trying to mediate as I was and failing dismally, it was all I could do in the end to offer support and a shoulder to cry on.

But it made me think. My own life [until this very moment in time] has been filled with emotional drama, heights of delirium and depths of despair that I guess in one shape or form, I must have invited in. Had my friend also invited it into her life? As an outsider in the private inner realms of her world, I could only surmise that it was a possibility that she had. We lead the lives we do because of the choices we make within them. That, after all, was how I came to write Split Decision, about the consequences of a choice.

My friend has recovered but will she ever be exactly the same person that she was before she found out the horrible truth? Probably not. Because I think that day, a little piece of her died. And I know exactly how that feels.

And me? Well as ever I will channel that raw emotion into my books as I always do. You see when people ask me if I write fiction, I nod. But I know it isn't really fiction - it is a written depiction of life, a tome which has recorded the vagaries of life, love and of humans themselves.

Am I a writer? Yes. Am I an imaginer of things? Perhaps. But mostly what I am is a chronicler. Like it or not, that's what I really am.

Happy Reading.

Volume VII: Hunter's Moon

This weekend I finished the seventh volume of the Owners series. I am both sad and elated.


For a very long time I have suspected that it was not going to  be a particularly good ending for some of the main characters and I was right. In real life sometimes there are events which change everything or which alter how things are perceived...so it is with my characters and books. Regardless of how badly I wanted them to be ok, writing in an all-encompassing happy ending would have been both unrealistic and tacky. And they deserve better treatment than that.


Like all of my characters I will miss them dearly but they will remain in my heart. However with the finishing of this volume comes a little joy, for Volume VIII will see the story returning to one of the very first characters to show how things became how they were. It will be lovely to deal with already known and loved characters - its rather like meeting up with an old friend in a warm pub on a stormy night - exciting, long-anticpated and more than a little curious. Are you wondering which character? Well I'm afraid I won't be revealing that just yet, so hunker down for the wait.

In the meantime, there are lots of other things happening. I have been working hard on my editing job and am very busy attending functions on the magazine's behalf. I have also been busy organising the launch of Split Decision which will be out next month [date to be announced].

Meanwhile my new house is coming along nicely and I have now chosen a new fire to go where the old one was. It's a super, duper thing! In fact I think the whole house will look quite good when its finished [courtesy of my fab builder - details to follow on how to book him later].

So if you see a smiling but frantic looking woman buzzing around in an old battered light blue Citroen Berlingo,  not knowing where she is going or what she is doing, give her a wave, 'cos it will be me!


Happy Reading!

I must apologise for the lack of blogging over the last few days, but things have been frantic and there is just so much going on.

Please bear with me as I have a whole list of events to post. Next week things should be calmer and I will get up-to-date with you all.

Until then - Happy Reading!

I'm surprised to see you in here!

Well a character has popped up in my new book that I didn't expect. Her name is Valerie and she is very like my late grandmother.


I didn't intend to base this character on my grandmother at all - in fact I had her down for a very different personality type altogether but every time she spoke or performed any action, I saw and heard my grandmother in my head.


Sometimes this happens and when it does I always go with the feeling. I think it happens for a reason but whatever that is, it is so deeply buried in my subconscious, I cannot get to it.


So it looks like Valerie will be a larger character than I had originally anticipated. Just like my grandmother, she cannot let a good gossip pass her by.


Lets hope she is just as wise and just as endearing!

Am I normal at all?

Today I should be editing Split Decisions but instead I am writing a chapter from another book. I have workmen digging up my drive as I am having a new one laid and between making tea for them and stopping the dog barking, I can't concentrate enough to edit.


And yet I can write - it seems the noise does not hinder the writing process, only the editing. How weird is that? I guess that does go to prove that my writing comes from so far down inside of me it is not really a conscious thing, whereas the editing is.


One day I am going to investigate this further...but I guess it can wait until the drive is done! :)

HOT GOSSIP!

Lunch with friends and a gossip today...well a girl has to get inspiration for her new books from somewhere!


Ok so that's not strictly true. I don't use the nuggets of gossip or pieces of information that is gathered about friends' lives in such a direct way but I guess I do glean things from them.


Every piece of gossip that is dissected over the pub table is analysed - not just for my own reaction but for the reaction of others to it and it is that which I tend to use in my books.


For me, the greatest turn-off in a book is when a character seems cardboard, when they don't react in a way that is natural to them. And by that I don't mean react to the situation in the same way that I might but rather react in the exact way that he or she should, with his or her own personality traits, background and history.


So listening to friends coo and gasp, interject and explain is a fascinating experience for me and one which cannot fail to provide a deeper understanding into the psychology of human nature.


Or at least that's what I am telling myself as this week, very little editing is being done and a whole lots of socialising is taking place instead.


But hey its research isn't it? And anyway who's round is it now?


:) Happy reading!

This way up ^

Today I am happy and not even the rain which bounces off the sodden earth in my back garden can dampen my mood.


I am currently working on another edit of Split Decisions. As I have stated before, it's a very different book to The Owners and as such, I have kept it mostly under wraps. But the part I have just been working on is neither controversial nor contentious and I thought you just might like a little snippet, so here it is:-

I swallowed the lump which sat uncomfortably in my throat. I was not a bitch, not the sort of girl who sniggered behind another’s back at their stupidity and misfortune. I knew that about myself but it was suddenly not enough – I needed Suzie to know it too.

“It’s not about you, Suzie,” I said quietly, searching for the right words to say and unable to find them. Tongue-tied and embarrassed I realised how the sniggering must have been perceived. I tried to explain. “I was…I mean we were laughing at me, not…anything else.” I had been about to say ‘you’ rather than ‘anything else’ and managed to stop myself just in the nick of time. But even though it was the truth it was a lame excuse.  And we both knew it.

I have loved writing this book every bit as much as I loved writing The Owners but it has been nice to have a departure from sci-fi for a change.

By the middle of April I will be moving on to another book, one which is forming in the back of my mind at the moment, awaiting its chance to leap onto the pristine white screen as I type it out.

In the meantime - happy reading.

Early this morning I read a lot of philosophical sayings. There was a reason that I did this and it had nothing at all to do with one of my books or my writing. I won't bore you with the reason but I did want to share some thoughts with you.




I had thought that I was always an intrepid explorer sort of person. I thought I was the sort of woman who would have pioneered across America in the days of covered wagons and cart horses if I had lived in that age.


I had thought that if I had lived in any other age my metal would have been tested and found to be strong and true. But I have come to the sad conclusion that I have been somewhat delusional over this.


My original assumption was based on the fact that I left home at sixteen for a summer job which required me to live-in. Although I returned home in the autumn, I left home for good a bare eighteen months later at the age of eighteen.


I moved around a lot when I was younger, leaving Glasgow for London, London for Birmingham and Birmingham for Bromsgrove. I got bored of the same old scenery, the same old places, the same old faces and when I stayed in any one place it was not through choice but through necessity because I had ties that bound me there.


More recently I longed to move, to seek new horizons, to embrace what the world had to offer. That said it would have been within the geographical confines of driving distance to the schools my children attend, so granted I was never about to backpack around the world!


But I find now that the future has the distinct shape and pattern of the past, the same hue and colour and holds no more promise for me than my chameleon past.


This is not about my writing or my children...these are things that I hold dearly to my heart and always will...this is about my personal journey through life as a single woman, a wife, a mother, a divorcee and finally back to a single woman again. It is about me alone.


I know exactly why I feel as I do and I know exactly what to do about it. I also know that it is in keeping with the next book I am about to embark on. Perhaps that is the whole point of me feeling this way? Perhaps it is a vehicle in which to enter the mind of my next main character? Perhaps. Or perhaps I should just stop analysing it and get on with things...


So no more procrastination...here goes...wheee...!

I conducted a second book signing and book talk/reading last night at Bleakhouse Library and had a wonderful time yet again.


It's always lovely to speak to a receptive audience and the folk who turned out to see me last night were both welcoming and interesting. I talked about my series of books The Owners and also about my novel Split Decisions, which is just starting on the editing process. In return I was asked lots of questions about the development of the plot within The Owners and my writing in general.


But what struck me most was how enthusiastic the audience were. As a writer it is easy to get caught up with the characters and plots of your own fabrication but it is quite another to see it in a reader.


I hope that the audience enjoyed it as much as I did!


I am returning to Bleakhouse on the 4th of April as I have been invited to deliver a prize to a winner of a school/library literacy competition. Again I will be talking about writing and available for book signings.


How I love my job! :)

I SALUTE YOU!

Good morning! May I help you?


For the last two days I have been helping out in the office of a friend as the company's secretary has gone off on holiday [ a cruise I believe - lucky lady!]


And what a lark I have had...I got dressed up  in proper office attire, styled my hair and applied both perfume and makeup. I honestly looked like a different person - the kids almost didn't recognise me when I walked through the door!


But it's made me realise something. As a mom who is home all day writing, my kids NEVER have to fend for themselves. They don't put their dirty plates in the sink, they don't help out with chores and they wouldn't even be able to make a slice of toast for themselves if they had to.


Therefore these last two days have been an eye-opener for us all. Because I had to leave home before the kids, my eldest had to lock up and then let them all back in again at the end of the day. The kids learned to wait for their tea and accept that I was truly going as fast as I could.


Most importantly of all, in my opinion, they saw what other kids lives are like - and so did I. The constant organising at the start and end of the day to ensure that the house and its occupants ran smoothly whilst I was out working...and the sense of having to pull together to achieve the best end result for all.


The lists of instructions to make sure the lights were off, the doors locked etc...


The walking of dogs at 7am so that they were not neglected....


The cooking of the evening meal in high heels and a tight skirt because the kids would have expired if I had taken five minutes out to change...


These were all things that were strange for me and yet familiar to many other women worldwide I am sure.


So Ladies [and Gentlemen as I am aware some of you men hold down this demanding home/work balance] I take my hat off to you!


For all the times you went without milk in your morning coffee because to have used it meant there would be none for the kids cornflakes...


For the legions of you who slam the dinner in the oven, still wearing your business clothes of the day...


For those of you who perform a whirling dervish of spins with every activity, holding so many balls in the air at once that if they fell, the weight of them descending on you would crush you into the asphalt beneath your feet...


I salute you!


Because fun as this was, it was also exhausting and draining. So tomorrow I'll be back in my jeans and t-shirt and back to my beloved writing! See you there!


Carmen x

GLAD TIDINGS!


Good news! Volume IV is now showing as available on Amazon as an ebook [the paperbacks apparently take up to a month to show up - I have no idea why] and is priced at £2.00.


My other good news is that sales figures have just come in for Volume II and Volume III. Sales show that people who have bought and read Vol I are coming back for the follow on volumes, so happy reading all round!


As a writer its so lovely to know that you are enjoying the tales, journeying through the intertwined lives of the characters and empathising with them.


I think that is the real beauty of a good read...we all want to get lost in it but we want to find ourselves through it too and I hope that my stories provide at least some measure of that.


I will be at the wonderful Bleakhouse Library, [0121 422 2798]West Midlands, giving a talk on writing and my books on March 25th. The staff at the library are also taking pre-orders of signed copies of Volume III and will be happy to take your booking.


I visited this library about eighteen months ago when my first novel was published and the staff and customers are an exceptionally friendly bunch so do pop along.


I look forward to meeting you.

Update as promised!


The Owners
The Owners Volume IV should be appearing on Amazon at any moment and I thank you for your patience. It has been a long haul and although the writing of this particular volume progressed very nicely, there has been one hitch after another in getting it to press.


The Decision.
As you may remember, this was a story I began long, long ago [probably about 6 or seven years ago] and had to abandon for various reasons.


I came back to it recently with the intention of finishing it off and giving myself a break from The Owners series.


It wasn't hard to get back into the characters or to visualise where they were going and how they felt about it but what was almost impossible to do, was recreate the way in which I told the story.


You see I have changed! Yes this has become a big revelation to me. The chapters I wrote all those years ago have had to be changed, moulded to fit my newly emerged style.


It wasn't that they were badly written to begin with - indeed far from it but my writing is now stronger, more gritty with a hardened edge and I can only credit this to the success of The Owners.


Where once before I looked in from outside at the characters in The Decision, now I am submerged in the very core of them. Consequently they have more depth, feeling and colour than ever before.


At first I thought that I was imagining this, however even my proof readers have remarked upon it, so I realise that it must be true. I wonder if this means I have finally grown up. I suspect not. I think it merely means that I have achieved a level of introspection that I could or would not attain before...


I hope The Decision will be out in the summer. Until then I will keep you informed of developments.

COMING SOON!

I am always itching to get back to writing after any holiday and this half term is no exception.


I have never been one of those writers who sit staring at a wall for long stretches of time. But sometimes I wonder if the sense of achievement they feel at the conclusion of a book is greater than mine. Is it all the more satisfying to metaphorically lay their pen down after a hard and ferocious struggle to compose their thoughts into words? Or do they feel exactly the same as I do?


The reason that this is on my mind is twofold. Firstly, the fourth Volume of The Owners will be released imminently. And secondly - when the kids do go back to school I have to write the ending to The Decision and then begin the long editing process [and this one requires an extensive edit] but it is the final home stretch.


The finessing of a work is not as difficult as visualising the concept in the first place or transposing those thoughts and ideas into words that other people can relate to...it is merely the gloss put on afterwards.


And when it is finished? What will I feel?


There is a strange sadness that accompanies the ending of any book. The author has to say goodbye and good luck to the characters and like a mother, stand back and watch them rise to the surface or fall flat on their face.


And there is a heartbreak in there too.


But most of all, like a fickle lover, there is a desire to move on to the next book, the next concept, the next set of new characters...


I'll keep you informed of my progress.  :)

I am working now on my teen novel. It's very dark and reflects the world we live in today. There are times when it is funny and times when it is romantic but mostly its real. This is a book for the over 15's for a reason...


I also have a lot of exciting irons in the fire at the moment! Right now my lips are sealed but keep your eyes on this blog for when I am able to tell you what I hope will come through for me!


Until then - happy reading!


Carmen.

This will hopefully be the cover for The Owners, Volume IV: A New Epoch. Isn't is beautiful? It was specially created for me by the wonderfully talented Martin Darcy. Visit his Facebook page here https://www.facebook.com/martin.darcy2?fref=ts.

"Let your spirit roam free and do what you heart knows is right - ignore those who oppose you and try to restrict you, for they are devoid of imagination." Carmen Capuano.

Before I tell you about my adventures in Redditch last Saturday, when I was doing a book signing event, let me show you this.

It is an open letter to the readers and comes at the end of Volume VI. I think it adequately conveys how I feel.

A word from the author.

I am very sad to say that this volume sees an end to the story of Jack, Georgia, Seth, Laurie and all the others.

I have tried to give each and every one of them their time in the sun, a little space to tell their own stories and I think it has been the making of them…

More than a few tears have been shed by me in writing these books and I will miss the characters dearly – they have become a part of my everyday life. Their voices sound in my head, their images flit before my eyes and I’m sure that they will remain in my heart forever.

But I wonder if you are left uneasy that you do not know how things will ultimately work out for them?

So just in case you do, I would like to reassure you that they continue to face their tribulations in life, as indeed we all do but from the end of this volume, their road becomes a little smoother, a little less fraught and climactic!

Volume VII will see some new characters arrive, so I hope you will join me in welcoming them and wishing Bon Voyage to the old ones we loved so well…

Goodbye Jack, Georgia, Laurie, Seth, Parm, Delilah, Eden and all you others. X  

Carmen Capuano.

Now to tell you about Saturday! 

The shopping centre was busy and there was a lot of interest in my books. Sales were high and it was lovely to speak to readers of all ages.

 

But that's not what I wanted to tell you about. What I want to tell you is far, far stranger...

First of all I was approached by some old friends whom I haven't seen properly in a few years as they were originally friends of an old ex-partner from twenty years ago. We exchanged pleasantries and then promised to meet up at Christmas.

Some time later, I had a further revelation.

Stationed as I was by the side of a broken elevator, I was addressed by a stunning woman who initially turned to me to enquire how she could get to the upper floor.

But on turning around to answer her question, I triggered a recognition on her part.

"Carmen!" she exclaimed. "Don't you recognise me?"

Now the truth is that I speak to so many people and in so many different places that although I often remember a face, I cannot always put a name to it.

But there was something about her which was incredible familiar!

It turned out that she was my ex-sister-in-law from over twenty years ago, when that same ex as mentioned above, had been my current partner.  

We had both been young women at the time and although once she revealed her identity to me, it seemed ridiculous that I should not immediately identify her, as we had been in each others' lives for eight years, it also seemed a ridiculously long time ago.

We talked and caught up on how life had been for us in the intervening years and there was a warmth between us that I don't ever remember feeling away back then.

It seemed that life had mellowed us both and the former rivalry that I remember so well, had crumbled into the dust of time.

And it made me wonder why we had ever been rivals in the first place!

With a melancholy sadness in my heart I watched her depart. She was a part of my old life and had no place in my here-and-now but it was strange to hear about the family I had once been a part of and no longer was. [There's a book in there - just wait!]

But the day was to get even stranger.

Some time after she left, a very ordinary but well presented gentleman approached me.

"You have some clairvoyance in you," he declared, eyeing me with his head cocked to one side as if peering into my very soul.

I didn't know at first whether he was referring to the plots within my books and how they could so easily come to pass, or whether it was something deeper.

"Well..." I responded unsure what to say.

"I know you do, because I have some too!" he said.

And you know what I thought? I thought ok, crackpot alert!

But then he said some things about me and my life which really made me wonder, because they referred to things which had actually come to pass.

So between seeing long lost in-laws and this man, I had a rather strange day.

I made great sales and had a good time but there was also that sense of the Ghost Of Christmas Past, courtesy of all my visitors and I began to feel the whole thing was more than a little spooky...

So this Saturday, when I am doing signings in WHSmith in Birmingham, if you once brought a cat to the vet's I used to work in, or bought one of my old houses, perhaps it might be best NOT to tell me...I might just freak out entirely and run away screaming.

Because if the Ghost of Christmas past keeps turning up, I dread to think what the Ghost of Christmas Future is going to show me!

 

Merry Christmas folks and Happy New Year!