Book Release and Film Capture

It’s so tempting to start each new blog post with ‘Crikey, look at the last time I blogged! I’m so sorry I haven’t got on my soapbox for three and a half months.  It’s because of...’ and then insert a list of lame excuses.  My only excuse this time is that I’m instinctively lazy when it comes to blogging and do you really want to hear how my Christmas went?  No, thought not.  I will say though I hope you were at Kempton Racecourse on Boxing Day.  I can’t remember the last time a horse winning made me cry like Kauto Star did in the King George...  Oh yes, I can it was when Kauto Star won at Haydock Park earlier in the season.  That horse is turning me into a wreck.  If he wins the Cheltenham Gold Cup, I shall need to be hooked up to a saline drip.

What this post really should have started with is an apology to the lovely Clare Wartnaby.  She very kindly nominated my blog for the Liebster Blog Award.  So totally undeserved I feel, I never found a way of saying thank you and before you know it, weeks and months have gone by and I felt too embarrassed to speak up.  I can feel the guilt shawling me as I write this.  But Clare really is a great gal.  If you haven’t checked out her blog already then I’d recommend you do here.

If I was even vaguely marketing savvy I should also probably have already mentioned my novel At Long Odds is now out on amazon as an e-book.  Woohoo!  There’s something about writing blog posts that unleashes the secret metaphorist in me and I can’t help but write in bizarre disguises of reality.  I was going to compare At Long Odds’ launch to attempting a pike to double twist somersault off a 6 metre board but since I never had the guts to do anything but divebomb off the 3-metre board, I don’t actually know what that’s like.  I do know however what’s it’s like to unleash my imagination on an unsuspecting audience though now.

It’s bloody scary.

‘You write about horses and love? Are you the next Jilly Cooper?’ I’m asked.

Noooo. As much as I’d like to adopt that tag, I think anybody looking for a Jilly Cooper read should go read Jilly Cooper.

‘Are you the next Fiona Walker?’ they then ask.

Noooo again.  But only because I’ve never actually read any of Fiona Walker’s books (sorry Fiona - I will, I promise).

At Long Odds is all me.  I hope you’ll give it a bash (not too hard though, they’re really strict on whip use these days).  If you honestly don’t think you can, then tell someone who you reckon might enjoy it.

When it was available as a free download it got some great reviews so without trying to blow my own trumpet too loud, it can’t be that bad, can it?  Each £1.98 (minus tax) goes towards the Hannah Hooton University Fund since the loan which the government deem acceptable for students to live on only keeps me in home and food eight months of the year.

In other news?  Not a lot, to be honest.  Well, nothing that would be of riveting interest to anyone but myself (I have an eccentric taste in interests I’ve found).

Oh, I did go see War Horse at last.  Well!  I waited impatiently for about a year for that film to come out and all we get is Equine Lassie?  I’m sorry, maybe I’m being too harsh - it is a family film after all.  I just feel that after the massive build-up it had, it fell a little short of the mark.  It had its moments, don’t get me wrong but it didn’t hit the spot which triggers the waterworks.  I had much the same impression after watching Secretariat back in 2010 - they’d turned a gritty but magnificent horseracing tale into a chocolate-chip Disney ice cream cone.  I rewrote a partial script of Secretariat for one of my film modules last semester and received a first for it.  Take that Disney.

Okay, I’m going off on a tangent so I’d better stop there (you never know, I might be looking for work placement with these production companies someday if I get this degree).

Cheers for now and hopefully it won’t be another three and a half months before the next exciting thing happens in my life.