I am delighted to reveal the gorgeous cover for The Revenge, the new book by the super-talented Holly Martin due out on 1st December. It’s the third book in the fabulous Sentinel series and is available for pre-order right now. 

Book Description:

He was created to be her back up and now he’s out to take her place

After the Oraculum orders Eve’s execution, she has to flee her home in the fort as those that have been guarding over her are forced to turn against her. Amongst the chaos, a new Sentinel is named. Adam, Eve’s half-brother.

Adam has spent his life incarcerated by the Oraculum while Eve was allowed to grow up with a family and friends. Now he is hell bent on revenge. He rules over his Guardians and his new kingdom with arrogance and a cold heart, but his one ambition is to make Eve’s life a living hell. Nowhere is safe from him, not even her dreams.

With the threat from the Putarians moving closer, her own Guardians betraying her, the survival of the world hinges in the balance.

Above all else, Adam must be stopped. But when Eve has a prophecy of her and Adam saving the world together, she quickly realizes she needs to work with him not against him.

But can Eve get through to Adam before it’s too late? Or will Adam’s evil heart result in the destruction of all?

Praise for The Sentinel (Book 1 in The Sentinel Series)

It’s a book you HAVE to read, because it’s incredible. An outstanding book that has left me bereft its finished. I wished I’d savoured it for longer. This book was one of those that once you started it was impossible to come away from. It was fast paced, exciting, full of suspense and action that had me gasping in shock at twists I never imagined could happen. It’s a story of courage and adventure. And no matter how dark it gets, there’s always love and hope. – Victoria Loves Books Blog

It’s really hard to find the words to describe how amazing this book is.
This is definitely the best debut I’ve read this year! I just love this book, I want you all to read this book, in fact you all need to read this book! – Love of a Good Book Blog

If you want to pre-order this book so it pops straight onto your kindle on December 1^st then pop over here. Its only 99p/99c

UK http://amzn.to/1GQcNOt

US http://amzn.to/1S7aAOX

And if you haven’t read the first two books in the series yet, then pop over here and get your copy, all three books are 99p/99c at the moment

The Sentinel

UK http://amzn.to/1giKNVp

US http://amzn.to/IKSOUk

 

The Prophecies

UK http://amzn.to/1DZ8ECN

US http://amzn.to/1khpDuY

Last month I wrote a post about how much I love autumn. I’m going to level with you now (we’ve become close this year, so I know I can) – I am at my happiest season-wise after the clocks go back, when the heating is on and with the curtains drawn.

I love summer (I’m not seasonist) but when the temperature sinks, you can breathe like a dragon and the promise of Christmas is but a whiff of mulled wine away, I come into my own.

The weather may turn a little grim, the air may be a little crisper but like a professional trouble-shooter, I am ready for anything. I have the boots, I have the gloves, I have the fluffy socks, the bobble hat and the duvet-type coat. I know what to do when life is less than perfect.

I am the woman who wrote a book called Not Quite Perfect after all. In it, sisters Emma and Rachel are starting to get the feeling that life is less than perfect, that the grass is possibly a little greener elsewhere. Obviously, if they were friends with me, I would soon teach them that a less than perfect day can be soothed away with the right treat.

For I am all about the treats, particularly when the weather gets chilly. And as we all know that treats are better when you’ve earned them, I’m going to share my top five for the end of a not quite perfect day.

You work hard, my friends – you deserve this.

1. Donning a pair of warmed pyjamas fresh from a toasty radiator.
2. A plate of hot-buttered toast enjoyed in front of an episode of Downton Abbey.
3. Sinking into a bath of Heavenly Gingerlily Molten Brown loveliness (Mr. Matey also works well) with your book of choice.
4. A Double Decker and an episode of Gogglebox.
5. Stuffed crust pizza and a glass or two of Malbec whilst watching Saturday night Strictly, preferably with family, friends or both.

And if that hasn’t got you in the mood, my lovely publisher Carina and I would like to spoil you rotten in a competition to win a signed copy of my bestseller, Not Quite Perfect and a special treat.

To enter you just have to RT & follow me and post a pic on Twitter of your favourite treat after a #notquiteperfect day. Simples.

Good luck & keep treating yourself!

 

It’s important to have a dream, isn’t it? Some dreams are big-scale – ending poverty, ensuring that all children receive an education and living in a world where Mary Berry is in charge and cakes are currency (we’re on the cusp with that one).

Most dreams are smaller in their ambitions but important to the people trying to realise them. They may involve ensuring your children’s future happiness or just clearing out that drawer in the kitchen which is inexplicably filled with take-away leaflets, a ball of rubber bands, endless bits of string and keys for locks which no longer exist.

One of my dreams (apart from all of the above) is to have a beautiful garden. Regular readers will recall the highs and lows that my husband and I have experienced since moving to the ‘money-pit’ last year. Aside from the leaking water, cracks in the walls and dodgy electrics, the garden has demanded our attention with the ferocity of an angry toddler. If there were a gold medal at Chelsea for, ‘most evil bramble,’ or, ‘world’s biggest dandelion,’ we would be in with a shot.

Sadly, we are gardening amateurs. We’re not used to this level of horticultural intensity. Our previous garden was the size of a bath mat. We’ve done our best but it is dizzying.

One week, we attacked the front garden, cutting, weeding and spraying prodigious amounts of chemicals, which carried more warnings than a nuclear power station. Meanwhile, the back garden spread its roots and grew to heights not previously seen since Prince Charming was faced with ‘thornageddon’ during attempts to reach Sleeping Beauty.

The following week, we took on the back garden, whilst the front garden (knowing we weren’t looking) clearly entered a competition to, ‘grow as many weeds as possible in seven days.’

We were like dogs chasing our tails; big, stupid gardening dogs, chasing our tails round and round the garden.

One of the things we needed when we moved into the money-pit was a new fence. We parted with the GDP of a small African country and now we have one. It is lovely and during the re-building process, an extra patch of soil was created and with it my new dream.

The patch is about fifty feet long and six feet wide and as soon as I saw it, my little brain got excited and made me fetch my, ‘Grow Your Own Vegetables’ guide. I have lots of books like this – little volumes of dreams, as yet unrealised. I also have one all about bread-making and another (rather ambitious one) which encourages you to have a completely home-made Christmas. I haven’t opened it yet.

‘We can grow peas, carrots, runner beans, lots of herbs and fruit trees – we have to have fruit trees!’ I told my husband one Saturday morning, having looked at all the pictures in the book but none of the words.

‘Sounds great,’ he replied. ‘Shall we go to the garden centre this morning?’

A Saturday morning trip to a garden centre (with cake and coffee obviously) is my catnip but I resisted. ‘I think we need to have a look at the soil first. It might need to be improved.’

In our house I am the gardening expert because I watched a whole Alan Titchmarsh series once, know the names of all the Gardener’s World presenters and have successfully grown tomatoes in pots.

‘Okay,’ agreed my husband. ‘Let’s go and have a look.’

I fetched a small garden fork and gave the ground an experimental prod. It bent one of the tines. I looked up at my husband.

‘It’s very dry. Maybe I’ll try and water it,’ I suggested.

I gave the ground a liberal dousing and then tried again. It was as hard as the ‘Panettone’ I’d made the Christmas before last (I use inverted commas here because without them it would be insulting to proper Panettone)

‘Maybe we should try with this?’ suggested my husband carrying a large garden fork. I stood back and try he did. In fact, he tried so hard that he dug up a huge slab of concrete and a dandelion root the size and shape of a large parsnip.

‘I think we are going to have to improve the soil,’ I concluded.

So that is what we have done, reader friends. Over the course of several weekends, my husband and I have dug over each section of soil. We have pulled out pieces of rock that look as if they’ve come from the moon, extricated gigantic weeds and held up gnarly tree roots for inspection like a fishermen showing off a prize Bass. We have dug over, raked and made friends with worms. We even bought a wheelbarrow, for Dimmock’s sake! It took flipping ages and we only managed about half the stretch but it was oddly satisfying and once done, it looked pretty good – a blank canvas ready for something wonderful. I went to bed that night dreaming of parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme. Paul Simon was there too for some reason.

The following weekend we decided to attack the next section. My husband strode down the garden to review last week’s work with me following closely behind. My heart sank as I looked at our newly cultivated soil, now covered with a multitude of tiny turds

‘Oh.’

‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘We have managed to create a great big cat and fox toilet.’

And so we had but you know what? All dreams face set-backs and the best dreams take hard work, perseverance and cat repellent. I will have my beautiful garden one day. It’s just a work in progress.

About six months ago I experienced a crisis of confidence. To be honest this isn’t unusual. I’m pretty sure writers have these on a semi-regular basis. I have a theory that if you can limit them to one a month, you’re doing pretty well.

I was probably doing something unhelpful like reading a bad review or feeling that everyone else had a bestseller/better cover/twelve-book deal for a squillion pounds and that basically everything I wrote was a waste of good memory space (the eBook writer’s equivalent of ink in case you’re wondering).

Of course, what you need to do when you’re feeling like this is either drink copious amounts of gin, give yourself a sharp talking-to or phone your editor.

Happily for my liver and self-esteem, I chose the third option.

I have been very lucky with my writing career to date and it’s largely because of my editors. A relationship with an editor is unique. It has to be close but not too close, you have to be able to pour out your soul to them and not be offended when they point out your failings. They need to help steer you on a constant path and offer up some tough love when it’s needed.

I asked my editor if I should undertake some kind of course to help refine my style and hone the craft. I had just finished my third book and knew that I was improving with every novel I wrote. However for me, writing is a journey and to use the London to Inverness train line as a metaphor, I had just reached Stevenage. There’s a long way to go and I want to get better at this, ‘words on a page’ lark.

She smiled. It was the smile of a favourite teacher – all-knowing, never patronising. I sat up straighter in my seat, ready to receive the truth. ‘You’ve read On Writing, haven’t you?’ she asked.

I nodded.

‘Well then,’ she said. ‘Pretty much everything you need is in that book.’

And you know what? She’s right.

I’m not writing off (hur hur) courses or groups or any of that good stuff but if you need a friend to lay it on the line as far as writing is concerned, Stephen King is your man.

I recommend this book to everyone because it’s a mighty fine book. It’s a bible for writers and it’s absolutely fascinating for anyone with a grain of interest in the written word.

Stephen King and I occupy very different writing genres but as far as practical advice and insight goes, there is no finer teacher.

What writer can’t fail to be enlightened by the advice,

‘Write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open’,

or emboldened by the words,

‘…you must not come lightly to the blank page.’

Who isn’t amused by the assertion that,

‘Language does not always have to wear a tie and lace-up shoes’,

and who can argue with the observation regarding appropriateness in writing (originally from George Carlin) that,

‘…in some company it’s perfectly all right to prick your finger, but very bad form to finger your prick.’

However, the biggest reason I love this book and why I re-read it before I begin a new novel is because Stephen King takes no prisoners. I‘m a pretty direct person and I appreciate directness in others, provided I respect what they have to say.  Needless to say, I respect Stephen King and all the advice he’s prepared to offer me.

This book is the equivalent of your straight-talking, slightly edgy uncle who comes to visit from time to time. You’re a bit scared of him but fascinated too because he’s got magic in his bones and he used to take large quantities of drugs.

It’s this edginess that inspires me. He talks about his muse as a guy in a basement, smoking cigars while he does all the work. This guy has a bag of magic called inspiration and he makes you work for it.

Well my muse is Stephen King. He sits on my shoulder and oozes disappointment as I use another adverb (I could have written ‘ill-advisedly’ here but I resisted). He nods in silence as I edit out unnecessary words from my narrative and raises an eyebrow if I manage something good.

I don’t always get it right. Who does? I am a typo-monkey and an adverb-junkie but I keep trying. I think that’s what he wants me to do. That’s all any writer can do.

So next time you feel a crisis of confidence about your writing and don’t know what to do, reach for this book. Even if you’re not a writer, reach for this book.  As the great man might say, it’s a little piece of,

‘…uniquely portable magic.’

What more do you need?

On Writing by Stephen King

I’ll be honest with you (I can’t lie to you, I like you too much). I’m not much of a sharer.

I don’t mean this in an, ‘I’m going to eat all the biscuits and leave none for you,’ kind of way. You can have all the biscuits and all the crisps if you like, just don’t touch my Double Deckers.

I’m talking about sharing in a social media type way.

Oh yes – that old chestnut. You may or may not have read my post from a week or two ago (don’t worry if you didn’t – I know how busy you were that week).

https://annielyons.com/2015/08/31/my-love-hate-relationship-with-social-media/

It was all about my love/hate relationship with social media and how I feel that we all need to step away from the keyboard/tablet/phone from time to time and just be. I received a big reaction to this post and we were mostly in agreement. You need to find that ‘off’ button every now and then.

About a week ago, I heard a story on the radio reporting that psychologists had discovered that, ‘the need to be constantly available and respond 24/7 on social media accounts can cause depression, anxiety and decrease sleep quality for teenagers.’ 

Apart from winning my own personal award for, ’least surprising fact ever,’ it made me wonder how we’ve allowed this to happen because actually, this is the monster we’ve created.

We have developed this innate desire to share every tiny detail of our lives, possibly because it’s so easy to do. Click a button, load a photo, make a comment and you’re done. However and this however is the size of Mars by the way.

Sometimes there is nothing to share.

At least not for me.

I may win my own award for, ‘most boring life in the world,’ but my day mostly consists of school runs, chores, staring out of the window trying to think of something to write and writing. That’s it. When I set up the author pages for my Twitter and Facebook accounts, I was painfully aware that often I had nothing of interest to tweet or share.

That was part of the reason I started to blog and at the start of the year I set myself the challenge of writing a post a week. I have managed it so far, apart from one week during the Easter holidays when I had to resort to a photograph of a squirrel eating an ice-cream but then, it was a squirrel eating an ice-cream.

I haven’t met a person yet who doesn’t want to see that.

Still, I can’t help but feel that we sometimes put ourselves under too much pressure to share.

Twenty years ago if we had a piece of important information, we would have picked up the phone or even, dare I suggest it, written a letter. To one person.

Ten years ago, it was all about e-mail. Usually to one person but occasionally to a group.

Now it has to be done immediately, preferably in fewer than 140 characters and to the whole world. Invariably on at least three different platforms.

That is pressure.

I know this and you know this because we remember a time when this world didn’t exist. However, today’s teenagers with their snapchats, instagrams (I appreciate I sound like a doddery old dear here but I rather like it) and whatever else has been invented this week, are bearing the brunt. They have grown up with touch screens, are puzzled by CDs and don’t even know what a cassette is. It’s a brave new world but it’s an exhausting and pressured one too.

I also think that this generation of teenagers have the rawest deal. They are paving the way for my children and I’m grateful for that. The biggest question has to be, ‘do I need to share that?’ and moreover, ‘what will happen if I do?’ You see I get the feeling that people feel so pressured to have something to share or to be part of a discussion (not judging here, we all need to belong) that they create dramas or exaggerate and before long, they’re sharing opinions or images which will in all seriousness, haunt them for the rest of their lives.

For my part, I shall encourage my children to find the ‘off’ button and use their common sense when they’re sharing online. I think my rule is going to be, ‘never share anything that you wouldn’t share with Grandma.’ I know my children may rebel against me at some stage but they would never want to disappoint my Mum.

As for me, I expect I shall continue to have little to share and I’m fine with that. I won’t feel the pressure – there’s enough pictures of baby pandas and grumpy cats without me adding to them but just in case you did miss it…

Now that’s quite enough sharing for one day – who wants a biscuit?

The advantage of being married to the same person for thirteen years is that you usually agree on the big stuff. Indeed, this is probably why you stay married to this person for that length of time – disagreements on issues such as, ‘where should we live,’ and, ‘should we have children/a dog/a cat/a time-share in Magalouf’, are all key issues which require mutual accord.

My husband and I have managed to achieve agreement on most of the key decisions over the years, although there was a moment very early on during our first ever trip to Ikea. I think it was excessive stress due to being unable to find the tills or a person to ask about the location of said tills (I wanted to find a person, he just wanted to leave), but we were young and carefree and had no idea what real stress was. That came later with mortgages, marriage and small people.

Then there was the time when we were trying to decide where to live and having visited a very expensive and very unpleasant flat above an Undertakers in Tooting, he made the following wide-eyed suggestion.

‘Why don’t we go and live in a house-boat on the Thames?’

We were both working in publishing at the time, both with company cars, travelling to customers the length and breadth of the country. I gave him a look, which was quite new and unpractised back then but which is pretty skilled now. At first, he didn’t understand the look and we had a heated debate about the relative merits of living on a boat, whilst trying to maintain a professional lifestyle or merely stay warm, dry and happy. He was quite passionate about it whilst I was violently opposed. To paraphrase the late Brian Clough, we talked about it for twenty minutes and then decided I was right.

I wouldn’t want you to misunderstand me, reader friends.  I don’t always get my way and my husband is categorically not a pushover. He’s actually as stubborn as a mule wearing a pair of mules, who got straight As in ‘won’t budge, ‘can’t make me,’ and ‘what are you going to do about it?’.

Unfortunately so am I.

Recently we had a conversation about the pros and cons of summer and autumn, and it became immediately apparent that we are in entirely opposite camps. It went something like this:

Me: I love autumn. I love cold, crisp mornings and falling leaves turning orange and red. It’s the most beautiful time of year.

Husband: There’s always dog poo in piles of leaves. Leaves are not to be trusted.

Me (ignoring this): But it’s such a refreshing season. It’s like nature’s way of clearing away the old plants and getting the earth ready for next spring.

Husband: Everything dies.

Me (ploughing on regardless): The evenings draw in and you can cosy up, nestle under a blanket and watch great television like Strictly for instance.

Husband (with eyebrows raised): I don’t like Strictly.

Me (casting around for a positive): You like Claudia Winkleman. And the music, you like the music. And Ola Jordan.

Husband (nodding): I guess

Me (thinking I’m on to a winner here): And the football season has started. Liverpool are on almost every weekend.

Husband (frowning): They lost last weekend.

Me: Yes but-

Husband (on a downward spiral): And the weekend before.

Me (in slight desperation): What about roast dinners?

Husband (slightly more cheerful): Yeah, roasts are good.

Me: And then there’s Fireworks night and Christmas.

Husband (pedantically): That’s winter, not autumn.

Me (through clenched teeth): True, but what about misty mornings and cold but sunny days, apples on the trees and my home-made parkin.

Husband (nodding): I do like parkin.

Me (smiling and putting an arm around his shoulder): See? Autumn is great isn’t it?

Husband (smiling at me before planting a kiss on my cheek and moving to the safety of the doorway): It is but summer’s still better.

He grins at me before darting from the room, fearing a punch on the arm. I sigh and fold my arms. I could come back with a retort but I’m playing the long game here and I know exactly how to resolve it.

I head to the kitchen and set about taking out the ingredients needed to make parkin. I will be victorious and I will use cake to achieve my victory because everyone knows that cake is the trump card that wins every time.

Regular readers of this blog will know how much I love a list. This week finds me working on my next book and this in itself has started me thinking about where I am when I have my best ideas.

I have therefore decided to unite the two in beauteous harmony. Here are my top five ‘light-bulb’ locations.

 

The Shower

It is a source of great joy and huge frustration that I probably have my very best ideas whilst I’m washing my hair. I’m thinking that perhaps the massaging of my scalp is kick-starting a neurological ideas-fest in my head. Sadly, I can rarely remember them by the time I am dry and next to a notebook. I currently have a patent-pending on the waterproof notebook and pen and firmly expect it to make me millions.

Whilst driving

A close second to the shower but not always so productive as there is often a small person demanding a tissue, some food or replies to questions such as, ‘do you believe in God?’ At 8.27 in the morning? I can barely remember my name. Still, if the ideas don’t flow then the dialogue for scenes can often be found. Again, as with the shower, the lack of ability to write stuff down can be a problem. I have been known to repeat an idea over and over so that I don’t forget it but only if I’m on my own, when it is perfectly acceptable to act like a crazy lady.

 

Whilst sitting in a coffee shop

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, staring out of the window at the blue sky whilst listening to the cheeping of small birds doesn’t give me ideas. It makes me long for a nap. When the ideas start to dwindle and I need to remind myself what humans look like, I head for the nearest coffee shop. Fortunately I am very nosy but quite good at appearing to do something else. It doesn’t always end up in a book but it’s very useful for stimulating the imagination.

Whilst cleaning the house

I am a reluctant cleaner. It is repetitive and boring. However, the mindlessness of the job means that your brain is effectively empty and I find that random ideas often pop into my mind and take root. The best type of cleaning for this is dusting or wiping surfaces. Nothing will pop into your brain whilst cleaning the toilet apart from, ‘I bloody hate cleaning toilets. I wish I could afford a cleaner or at least train the children to do this.’

 

In the middle of the night

I used to be a really good sleeper. I could sleep for twelve hours at a stretch, have an afternoon nap and then do another twelve the night after. Since I hit forty, my brain seems to like to wake me up around four with a brilliant idea for a blog or a book or just to worry about the leak in the kitchen. Sometimes I want to remove my brain, have a sharp word with it and threaten to remove its TV privileges unless it goes back to sleep immediately. However, I often get up and start writing. I came up for the entire concept for my second book during one sleep-deprived night so it does work, even if it leaves me feeling as grumpy as a badger.

 

So there you have it – my top five light-bulb locations. Let me know what yours are and I’ll be sure to send you a waterproof notebook and pen once it hits the shelves.

 

Regular readers of my blog may remember that we moved last year to a house which my husband and I lovingly refer to as ‘the money-pit.’ It makes me think of George and Mary’s house in, ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’. For the uninitiated, there’s a scene in the film when George arrives home on the evening after their wedding and it’s raining both inside and outside the house.  It reminds me of the money-pit because for the past year, we have been trying to fix leaks of one kind or another.

We have had leaky gutters (causing damp), a leaking dishwasher (which had to be replaced), a leaking shower, tap, windows, conservatory roof and most recently, a leaking fridge. There are times when I have wondered if I should re-define my occupation from, ‘writer’ to ‘woman who attempts to prevent water coming into the house’. Less catchy but you get the gist.

The other thing you may know if you’ve read this blog before is that despite being reasonably intelligent people, my husband and I are somewhat lacking when it comes to the more practical side of life (see my earlier post about the day we changed a lightbulb for evidence).

So, when we finally realised that the fridge was not only leaking but also failing to keep anything inside it cool or (perhaps in a more potentially life-threatening way) frozen, we decided to take action. By action I mean that we did what any right-thinking middle-class people do and bought the cheapest replacement from John Lewis.

The fridge was delivered a week or so later by a couple of cheery giants. They took the old one away, set the new one up and told me to leave it for four to six hours before using. I thanked them and returned to the kitchen to admire our new shiny white beauty. I took a step back to get a better look and a worrying thought whispered in my brain.

It looks smaller than the last fridge.

I shook my head. I must be imagining it.

We wouldn’t have bought a smaller fridge.

Would we?

 

I opened the door and tried to put the bottle shelf from the old fridge inside. It wouldn’t fit. It was far too big. My heart sank. I opened the freezer compartment. It looked quite big but then it was completely empty and everything looks big when it’s empty. I called my daughter for back-up. She is ten and always says the right thing.

‘What do you think of the new fridge?’ I asked her, trying to dismiss the panic from my voice.

She screwed up her face. ‘It’s nice?’ she offered.

‘What about the size?’ I asked. A leading question I know but hey, I needed answers fast.

‘Yeah, it’s slim isn’t it? Did you mean to buy a smaller one this time?’

‘No,’ I sighed, starting to feel sick. ‘No, I did not.’

It was then that I found the instruction booklet for both the new and old fridges. I turned to the pages that no-one ever looks at, which deal with ‘specifications’. I noted with interest that there was a ‘capacity’ category. I noted with tears in my eyes that the capacity figure for the new fridge was smaller than the old fridge’s. Hindsight is a marvellous but profoundly irritating thing.

By the time my husband came home that evening, I had a plan.

‘You’ll have to phone John Lewis and tell them we made a mistake.’

‘Why me?’

‘Because I am the woman who attempts to prevent water coming into the house. You are the man who orders the new fridges.’

‘O-kay,’ he sighed.

Ten minutes later, he came off the phone, his face bright and triumphant. ‘John Lewis are great,’ he beamed.

A week later, two different cheery giants arrived to take away the old-new fridge and replace it with a much bigger new-new fridge. It’s so tall, I need a step to reach the top shelf and it beeps in protest if you accidentally leave the door open. Best of all, it doesn’t leak.

Now all I need to do is get the guttering fixed and work out where that water in the kitchen is coming from.

The work of a WWATPWCITH is never done.

 

Two years ago as I made the exciting step from, ‘person who scribbles words onto a page’ to, ‘published author’ (basically the same thing except someone is willing to pay you to do it), my editor suggested that I have a go at social media.

As a woman who hadn’t updated her Facebook status since joining in 2003, I felt a flutter of panic when she handed me a document all about the best channels for authors to erm, channel.

‘I’ve just joined Twitter and it’s quite good fun,’ she said with smiling encouragement.

‘Great,’ I replied with false cheer. ‘I’ll give it a go.’

And give it a go I did. After an exhausting morning setting up an author page on Facebook, I was spent.

I know.

Ridiculous.

I’m not sure if it was the fact that the exercise involved finding a decent photograph of my face (there are only three pictures of myself in existence that I actually like and I have used them all for author material) or writing something interesting about myself. It just felt like such a chore.

I am by nature self-deprecating (you will know this if you’ve read any of my other blog posts) and prone to outbursts of juvenile humour when faced with a) a compliment or b) the need to promote myself and my books.

But the days of people pottering in bookshops and finding my novels by joyful accident are long gone. I was an eBook author (I am now in print too) so online was the way to go.  You’ve got to sell it and sell it hard (sorry, just made myself giggle there) so I knew that I couldn’t stop with Facebook.

After a much-needed fish finger sandwich and a joyous half hour reading Nora Ephron, my sanity was restored. I was ready to face Twitter. Nora Ephron was behind me. She would have owned Twitter in her heyday. So would Jane Austen. And Dorothy Parker. I could do this. I resolved to be more positive and less like a grumpy teenager. Actually, it wasn’t too bad. I already had material from my Facebook page and there’s a reason Bill Gates invented ‘copy & paste.’ I’m not going to argue with Bill.

And Twitter is fun. There’s always something going on; an interesting article to read or an engaging person with whom to chat (plus the occasional weirdo chucked in for good measure). It has its own culture and etiquette and for the most part, people are kind and generous. If you are kind and generous in return, the rewards are there. It’s a souped-up version of real life; vibrant and alive and full of ideas (and weirdos).

But it can quickly become all-consuming. I’ve spent too much time reading something and nothing on social media, searching for goodness knows what when actually, I could have been offline reading (or indeed writing) a good book.

I’ve also read exchanges on Twitter and Facebook, where the conversation has become heated very quickly, where people deliberately seek to wind-up, annoy and ultimately hurt others. In some instances it’s plain trolling but in others, it’s normally rational people saying things they don’t mean as if they’ve taken leave of their senses. Frankly, it’s terrifying. This social media world isn’t for me. It’s too much.

I often wonder why people don’t just walk away and press the ‘off’ button in these instances. This kind of social media seems like an increasingly harmful addiction.

People’s brains are continuously active but not actually doing and we’re rapidly forgetting how to just be. We seem to constantly need to interact but not in person. We seem to need to communicate but not with individuals. We want to talk to the whole world at once but what happens if the whole world starts shouting back at us?

Nothing is private, nothing is off the agenda; everything is revealed, discussed and dissected. It’s exhausting and often damaging.

This was part of the inspiration for my new book, Life or Something Like It. My main character, Cat Nightingale has an impressive career in PR, is single, childless and blissfully happy. Social media is the foundation to everything she does and she can’t recall a life before it. Everything changes when a PR launch goes disastrously wrong and Cat has to take an enforced career break. This coincides with her brother needing someone to look after his two children over the summer. Suddenly, Cat has to look at life beyond the iPhone and it changes her forever.

So for me, social media is a big (mostly fun) party. But I don’t always want to be at a party.

Sometimes I want to just be, with my family, with my friends or in my brain. I want to press the ‘off’ button and see what happens. I want to watch Britain’s Got Talent with my kids without having to comment on Amanda Holden’s hair or watch the new series of Modern Family with my husband without having to declare whether it’s better than the last. I want to stare out of the window and dream up an idea for my next book.

I love going to parties but I love staying at home too. It’s the best of both worlds; social media is always there but so is the ‘off’ button. You’ve just got to learn to press it sometimes.

There is a place as familiar to me as home, where I go every year with my family. I’ve been visiting the seaside town of Southwold in Suffolk on and off for my entire life.

My parents used to take us there for family holidays. I can remember the car journey, which seemed to last at least a year to my small person self. There would be a toilet stop at the Happy Eater (remember those?) and we knew we were getting closer when we drove over the Orwell bridge.

My father would sigh, ‘Or-well’. Every single time.

As the A-roads gave way to winding country roads and the landscape became flat and open, he would cry, ‘First one to see the lighthouse! First one to see the water tower!’

You couldn’t actually see the lighthouse from the road but you could spot the gigantic water tower on the common. Inevitably either my brother or I (usually my brother – he’s eight years older than me and at that time about three foot taller) would reply,

‘Seen it! I win.’

There’s one road in and one road out of Southwold. There are no traffic lights and up until about ten years ago, there were no high street shops apart from a couple of banks and an ancient Gateway (remember those?). From the horse-drawn carts that used to deliver the locally brewed beer to the dozen or so pubs around the town, to the multi-coloured beach-huts, which still populate the promenade, the town has an air of a place which never quite left the 1950s.

And it is to these huts every year that I go with my family. True, they are basically sheds by the sea and yes, one year after a particularly bad autumnal storm, our beach hut disappeared into the North Sea but it’s my favourite place in the world.

For this is the place where I stop, where I still my mind and learn to just be again. We have enjoyed breakfast, lunch and dinner here, we have read books, played some very competitive games of Scrabble and solved the crossword every day. We have soaked up the sun and peered out at the rain, snug under beach towels.

There is no-where else in the world I get to do this and it feels like a precious treat every year.

This is where I sent Cat Nightingale in Life Or Something Like It, when I wanted her to take a step back and look at her life from a different angle. With no phone signal and nothing urgent to do, she starts to see what she really needs to make her happy. It’s not what she expects either.

So I’ll be sitting in the beach-hut again this year with my book, games, newspaper and family, watching the world go by, allowing my mind to rest and unwind.

I can’t wait for my little slice of beach-hut heaven.