Coming very soon...

I'm thrilled to announce that The Boy Who Rescues Pigeons will be coming soon. Keep your eyes peeled!

Jigsaw Girl

Today I'd like to tell you about Jigsaw Girl. 

It was a story that came to me via its main character - much the same as Split Decision did.  But that's where the similarity ends. Natalie, from Split Decision, was carried along by fate in many ways, whereas Scarlett Clarke (aka Jigsaw Girl) goes as far as to make her own fate. 

I've always been fascinated by the idea of consequence. And I think that comes out fully in most of my stories. It is, after all, the thing that's at the heart of every good tale. And it fills our lives, shaping the course of our individual destinies. 

Scarlett is a character who is taken to the very brink. She feels responsible for the death of the fireman who died trying to save her and unworthy of the sacrifice he gave - his life for hers. During the time I spent telling her tale I felt a voyeur to her pain. I understood her sense of unworthiness the fragility of her. But I was also proud of her, the way she found her strength, the fact that she dragged herself up in order to help her brother Charlie; that she refused to go down without a fight. 

So if you see yourself in her, please take what you can from this story.  We are all of us flawed. We just need to find a way to be the best that we can. 

BLURB 

   “Do you think we’ll get another dog?” he says. 

    I’m so shocked I stop in my tracks. “After Shadow?” Breath catches painfully in my chest and I have to force myself not to scream. “Is that what you would have done if I’d died, Charlie? Ask Mum and Dad to give you another sister?”

      It’s cruel and unfair, especially as the tone it’s delivered in is acidic. None of this is Charlie’s fault and he’s only nine after all. But he can’t be allowed to think that life – any life – is so easily replaceable. That like changing a lightbulb, the light of one life can ever replace the light of another, extinguished one. It doesn’t work like that.

      Not for me anyway.

      But what if the end, wasn’t the end at all? What if it was really only the beginning?

     Because that’s where my beginning started. At the end. 

TO VIEW THE FIRST SECTION OF JIGSAW GIRL FOR FREE CLICK here.

Happy reading, 

Carmen.  

Editing!

Editing today...

The toilets are empty ,as I knew they would be. I find the cleanest cubicle and lock the door. For a long time I stare at the razor but do nothing with it. I am not afraid. Quite the opposite. I am excited. The anticipation of the calm serenity which I know will overcome me when I make a cut, causes my hands to shake with excitement.

I hold the blade up towards the electric strip lights. The bulbs are covered so the metal doesn’t gleam as much as it does at home, but it sparkles enough to entice me to turn it around and around in my hands.

I want to cut so badly. More than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life. Soon I can’t stand it any longer; the wait, the heady anticipation. I bare my skin and make a cut on my upper thigh, the one I’ve already marked. Blood wells and flows and I mop it up and flush the evidence of bloodied tissue away, watching it swirl around the white porcelain bowl like an unfurling flag.

It’s my flag. My banner. My proclamation that I still exist. Whether I want to or not.

Happy reading!

An Exciting New Book

Oh it's a good start to the day...

I have just started to write a story that's been rattling around my brain for about three years. It's going to be a dark one!

Here's the very first paragraph:-

I sit on the hospital bed and wait for them to come for me. The smell of disinfectant is overpowering. It’s too clean, too sterile, as if it intends to wipe out every living thing from the face of the earth. Perhaps it should start with me.

There’s nothing here to look at except the other patients. I try to avoid looking at them, not because it’s rude to stare, but because I don’t want their attention returned to me.

Happy Reading!

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.

Ok, here is a review of my first book, warts and all.

One thing I will state openly is that book 1 did go to print with typos and I have been pulled up about this before...I am sorry about that and have endeavoured to learn from my mistakes and the reprinted versions which are now available should contain no typos. But the bit I am focusing on is where he says that for all that,
he loved it! So I guess I must be doing something right...

 So here it is.
...
I’ll start with this: on a technical level, this book is utterly horrendous. From the very beginning it is filled with misplaced commas, excessive exclamation marks and ropy formatting. Various words are capitalized which probably shouldn’t be, most notably “Pet” and “Eyon”. In general, this book gave me the impression of an author with much raw talent but with little care for the editing process.

And yet, for much of the time reading it, I absolutely loved it.

The book’s concept is certainly a novel one. In Alone, humanity is dominated a race of avian humanoids called eyons. The creatures frequently take in human children to live as pets and servants; Loni and San, the book’s protagonists, are two such pets. Their owners, like most other eyons, spend most of their lives hooked up to mysterious “work machines” and are consequently oblivious to the world around them. Loni, however, is different in that she spends most of her time with her owner’s hatchling, who she calls Little. When Little’s work machine arrive, the two flee in order to keep Little from becoming like the others. San, meanwhile, leaves without prompting in order to discover the truth behind humanity’s place in the world.

Chapters alternate between Loni’s and San’s perspectives, with the final chapter incorporating both points of view at once. Of the two, I must admit that I preferred Loni’s sections by a fairly long way. I could genuinely feel the bond between Loni and Little as I read about them, making them very easy to emphasize with. There is a real sense of progression in Loni’s chapters, as both she and Little learn about the world around them and vow to change it for the better. San’s chapters were hardly bad, but their events felt quite random at times and I didn’t feel that he developed as much as he could have done.

My only major criticism of this book is the ending, which leaves almost all of the book’s plot threads open and seems intended solely to set up a series. This is compounded by the fact that all other “Owners” books have been prequels so far, which leaves me to wonder if the author will ever go back to Loni, Little and San. I really hope that she does, as it would be a shame to end their tale where it currently is. Here’s hoping it happens.


Found on http://theparasiteguy.wordpress.com/2013/06/25/tpg-reviews-alone-by-carmen-capuano/

Finished!!!!

Well, having written the last chapter, it turned out that there were four more pages to write and how could I stop there until September...so I wrote the final four pages!

I had no idea the baddie was who he or she [not giving that away] actually was! And I had no idea how they had schemed and twisted the knife so much. I am shocked but even more eager than ever to see how this epic tale will resolve itself...

I'll keep you posted!

The Owners, Volume V:Eyon Rising

Well Volume V is nearly written. Two chapters, two full edits and a couple of proof readings to go...then lots of production decisions and it will be ready!

I can't believe I am half way through the series already...

But yesterday, a friend told me that she is currently reading Volume II: Storm Clouds and has not been able to put it down. Apparently her teenage daughter is waiting in line to get her hands on the book, so as you can imagine I was really pleased.

Anyway, here is a little bit from Chapter 22 of Volume V {I don't think it gives too much away}

As the silvery tinkle of the child’s delighted laughter continued to echo in his ears, Dan hoped against hope that it was a sign, a presentiment of how the situation could be peaceably resolved.

But as the child’s mirth melted away, the laughter was replaced by the hunting call of a bird of prey, echoing sharp and clear and sending a chill up his spine, as it scooped its unsuspecting quarry from mid-air.  And in his heart, lodged the fear that it was that particular sound which would prove to be the  true foreboding for what was yet to come.

Happy 4th July America.

It's that time of year again!

Have a great year everyone!

WARNING!!!

Oh! Another section of The Owners, Volume V has just downloaded into my brain from wherever it is created, deep in my subconscious...

There are some nasty surprises in store...ones which leave a foul taste in the mouth and a quickening beat to the heart.

Watch out, the Owners Volume V is coming soon!

The Owners, Volume V: Eyon Rising

Well this book is coming along well and I am spurred on by my eldest son, who has just read Volume IV and can't wait to get to this one. But all good things take time...

Anyway, here is today's offering - I hope you enjoy it!

At once outside the scene and also within it, playing her own part, Georgia saw the fragility of the intertwined lives. As if they were all miniature characters, contained within a snowdome, their world only appeared solid from their perspective. From the outside in, she could see that if dropped, the scene would shatter into a thousand pieces, none of which could ever be put back together but which equally could not survive alone.

Sex Education. Please!

I have just had a really funny conversation with my children who are 8, 10 and 13 respectively. They are all receiving sex education at school as per the National Curriculum and as a sensible, forward-thinking mother, I encourage them to discuss anything which concerns them, or which they feel may need more clarification.

It was for this reason that the following conversation took place.

Daughter : "Why would a boy want to have sex with you if he is having a baby with someone else? 'Cos he's already having a baby!"

Me : "It's not the baby that interests him!"

Daughter "OH!"

Eldest son : "Yes and anyway you don't want to have sex with anyone 'cos then you can get STDs and catch HERMES!"

Me : "Actually no! Hermes is a company who deliver parcels...I think you'll find you mean HERPES!"

Enough said!

Now you may be wondering why I am sharing this funny anecdote with you. So I shall tell you - Britain has one of the highest teenage sex rates and highest unwanted pregnancy rates worldwide. It is neither fashionable nor acceptable but it is true.

So talk with your kids and find out where they are at ...you might just live to NOT regret it.  And you might even learn where unwanted parcels come from... x