#MusicTherapyThursday #NinaSimone #IThinkitsGoingtoRainToday #musiciwriteto

On October 26, 2017 By Sara GethinIn Music, New Book, Not Thomas2 Comments

There have been so many versions of this Randy Newman song but my favourite is by Nina Simone.

It was used as the title track recently for ‘Broken’ a TV series where Sean Bean plays a good but struggling priest.

I find it’s an ideal song to summon up a heavy heart when I’m writing sad sections, and Nina Simone’s voice and delivery add new levels of sorrow. Very evocative. Beautiful too.

#musiciwriteto

Sara’s debut novel ‘Not Thomas’ – a story of child neglect, love and hope, shown through the eyes of five-year-old Tomos – is published by Honno Press in paperback and as an e-book, and is available to buy direct from the publisher, from Amazon and from bookshops.

#WelshWordWednesday #NotThomas ‘Oh diawl!’

On October 25, 2017 By Sara GethinIn #welsh, New Book, Not ThomasLeave a comment

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Today’s Welsh word, for readers of Not Thomas who are unfamiliar with the language, is:

‘diawl’

On page 212, Tomos calls round to the lady next door. He doesn’t know where his mother is, so he asks the lady to ring the police. She says ‘Oh diawl, there’s no need for that.’

‘Diawl’ – which, when you say it fast, sounds like ‘jawl’ – means ‘devil’

(And call the police is exactly what the lady next door should have done.)

Not Thomas Not the Booker Not to be…

On October 16, 2017 By Sara GethinIn Author, New Book, New Novel, Not the Booker Prize, Not Thomas, NottheBooker, Reading, Writing2 Comments

So it’s over

The Guardian’s Not the Booker Prize drew to a close this morning with a very happy outcome for one of the authors on the shortlist.

Dark Chapter by Winnie M Li is Not the Booker winner 2017

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Huge congratulations to Winnie. Her book is moving and brave and a worthy winner. The public vote was a closely fought battle, with Winnie’s novel achieving 130 votes, 24 ahead of Harriet Paige’s Man with a Seagull on his Head.

The public vote wasn’t the end of it, though. The judges’ verdict came next, chaired by Sam Jordison, head judge (think Len Goodman or Shirley Ballas) and organiser of the Not the Booker prize for the last 9 years.

The judges’ comments were really interesting, and listening to and watching them live online as each book was reviewed was a rather surreal experience.

And there was a little surprise for me.

One of the judges – book blogger and avid reader, Jackie Law – made some lovely comments about Not Thomas, saying it was her second choice behind Man with a Seagull on his Head. She called Not T poignant, never mawkish and a very engaging story which raised important issues without preaching. I’m very grateful to Jackie for her positive remarks.

Next the judges’ points were awarded. Yvain Poncet, along with Jackie, voted for Man with a Seagull, while third judge, Hannah Macdonald, gave her vote to Dark Chapter which, when added to the public vote, made this novel the winner.

Sam commented that Dark Chapter was ‘possibly controversial but that’s what winners are meant to be.’ He decided not to use his casting vote, saying: ‘We can feel that we made a strong choice.’

And that was the Guardian’s Not the Booker Prize done and dusted for another year

IMG_20171012_193740997 Not the Booker shortlisted authors at the Big Green Bookshop, Wood Green, London, from left to right: Rowena Macdonald, Harriet Paige – chair, Sam Jordison – Winnie M Li & me

I feel as if I’ve woken up from a very strange dream. This prize contest began back in July and seems to have dominated the last two and a half months of my writing life. It’s been a completely bizarre episode but one, as I’ve said many times since the summer, I wouldn’t have missed for the world.

So what have I learned from my Not the Booker experience?

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Well…

#1 Sometimes opportunities come along that are too good to waste and you have to be brave and just throw yourself at them – even if, like me, you’re not terribly brave at all.

#2 Public voting is a mixed blessing – some people don’t mind you letting them know they can vote for your book if they wish, while some people do.

But…

#3 The vast majority of people are helpful, kind and supportive.

#4 Social media is a godsend – but you knew that already, it’s just me that needed convincing.

#5 Social media is not a godsend when you’re on it for eight hours or more, seven days in a row.

And finally…

#6 Being shortlisted, when you’ve not got a snowball’s chance in hell of going any further (I’m thinking judges’ voting here) is almost as good as winning – I am just so grateful I had a place on that shortlist.

As I was dropping off to sleep last night, I began wondering what advice I’d give anyone who finds their book nominated for the NTB next year

I’d say go for it 100%, obviously, but what else? What tips would I share?

And then I started thinking of a whole new blog post, one titled ‘So you’ve been nominated for the Not the Booker Prize 2018…’

But I think I’ll put that on hold until next year, by which time the last few months will be a happy, distant memory and I won’t remember a single tip to share.

Thank you for reading and keeping me company on this often weird and wonderful experience. And to everyone who voted for Not Thomas and cheered me on – I am so grateful. You are all magnificent!

Diolch o galon,

Sara x

P.S. I’m planning on starting what I hope will become my new novel soon, and so my next series of blog posts will have some writing tips about points to remember when beginning a fresh WiP. I need reminding – I began writing Not T back in 2001!

#WelshWordWednesday

On October 11, 2017 By Sara GethinIn #welsh, Music, New Book, New Novel, Not Thomas1 Comment

Today’s Welsh word, for readers of ‘Not Thomas’ who aren’t familiar with the language, isn’t a word at all, but a title. It’s Calon Lân and it’s the name of a well-loved Welsh hymn that’s often sung at funerals.

Calon lân translates as ‘a pure heart’:

calon = heart

glân (which loses its ‘g’ when it mutates after calon) = clean.

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On page 123 Miss mentions to Mrs Jones, the school cleaner, that Nanno had planned her own funeral. Calon Lân was Nanno’s favourite hymn and she wanted Tomos to sing it back at home after the chapel service. Of course, Ree had other ideas…

And since I never miss a chance to play my favourite version of the hymn, here’s Cerys Matthews once again.

Not the Booker Final Public Vote

On October 10, 2017October 10, 2017 By Sara GethinIn Child, Children, New Book, New Novel, Not the Booker Prize, Not Thomas, NottheBooker, Writing1 Comment

A huge thank you and diolch yn fawr to everyone who voted ‘Not Thomas’ onto the shortlist of the Guardian’s Not the Booker prize.

NotThomas cover final front only

The final public vote has just opened to help decide the winner. I know the original vote was fraught with problems because of the Guardian’s fiendishly difficult website, but if you’d like to vote for Not Thomas and have the energy to tackle that voting page again, this is the link.

Hopefully, having navigated the page once, second time around it won’t be quite so horrendous.

Of course, you’re still able to vote even if you didn’t vote in the first round. Click in the box that says ‘join the discussion’ near the bottom of the voting page.

The Guardian would like your vote to start with the word VOTE then the title and author of the book and a 50 word review. Your previous review should still be online, and if you click on your username it should take you to it.

It’s been a weird couple of months on the shortlist

and I have yet to take part in the Big Green Bookshop event, where I’ll meet some of the other authors, which I’m really looking forward to, and my scathing reviewer, Sam Jordison, which should be rather interesting. I’ll be reporting back when I get the chance!

In the meantime, thank you so much for your support of Not T and me – I appreciate it very much indeed.

Bye for now & diolch o galon,

Sara x

P.S. Here’s that voting link again

#MusicTherapyThursday

On October 5, 2017 By Sara GethinIn Music, New Novel, Not Thomas, Writing1 Comment

#musiciwriteto #thecivilwars #20years

There’s a note underneath your front door…

Not the Booker Madness

On August 3, 2017 By Sara GethinIn Author, New Book, NottheBooker, Writing6 Comments

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It’s been a very exciting week for me – a weird, amazing, crazy three days since I found out Not Thomas has made it on to the longlist of The Guardian’s annual Not the Booker prize.

To be fair, it didn’t have to do anything to qualify, apart from meet the simple criteria that the regular Booker prize entrants meet.

But it did have to be nominated.

I’m very proud to say that Not Thomas was initially nominated by book blogger, Anne Williams. I’m so delighted that out of all the very many books she’s read this year, she chose my little Not Thomas.

If you’ve read Not Thomas too, and liked what you read, you can vote now for it in the public voting stage. This ends at midnight on Monday, 7th August, so not long to go!

There are a couple of rules: you must vote for two different titles & you must review one of the titles you’ve chosen.

Why not go to the Guardian’s Not the Booker prize page and take a look at what people are saying in the comment thread?

And if you’re curious about Not Thomas – a novel for adults in the voice of a five-year-old child – you can find a sample on Amazon.

Not Thomas is available to buy for £2.84 on Kindle today.

Read it by Monday and then if you like it, please consider giving it one of your votes!

I’ve been keeping a nightly diary on my Facebook page since I heard about the Not the Booker longlisting. I thought I’d share last night’s snippet here:

Before I crawl off to bed after another weird but wonderful day, I thought I’d post a quick round-up of ‘Being on the Not the Booker prize Longlist’ Day 3.

It’s been a day when I’ve realised that there are so many people – who I’ve never even met in real life – going that extra mile to support me and Not Thomas.

I turned on my laptop this morning and found the wonderful book reviewer Being Anne’s blog post about why she loves The Guardian’s Not the Booker prize and why she nominated Not Thomas for it. It’s so kind of her to choose Not T out of all the books she’s read this year, and I’m very honoured she did.

This afternoon, the very talented YA author, Amy Kitcher created a wonderful graphic on twitter for Not T, plus a voting & buying link. It’s brilliant! I wouldn’t have a clue how to do it. She’s made one with all four of us authors from Wales on too. They’re on my twitter feed if you’d like to take a look.

There are lots of other instances of people showing their support too – the re-tweets, the shares, the supportive comments. My lovely neighbour kindly put a post on our town’s FB page, and my local post office suggested I put a poster up there.

And then there’s been the votes.

A huge thank you to everyone who’s voted or reminded someone else to vote – the tally was creeping towards 20 when I last looked, far more than I dreamed possible on Monday afternoon, when I first heard I was long-listed.

So that’s the end of Day 3. Thanks for your support. Dare I say this? I’ll whisper it:

If voting carries on the way it’s going, with nearly 20 votes at the end of today, maybe there’s actually a tiny, tiny chance of getting Not Thomas onto the short-list. A tiny chance. Tiny tiny…

Thanks for reading. There’ll be an update of Day 4 on my Sara Gethin Writer Facebook page tonight. Until then…

Sara x

Here are those voting and Amazon links again, just in case I’ve tempted you…

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When Crying is Good

On July 9, 2017 By Sara GethinIn LitFic, New Book, New Novel, Writing9 Comments

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It’s a strange thing to have written a book with the potential to make people cry. I knew it made me cry – I could hardly edit some sentences for the tears – but I had no real idea if when someone else read Not Thomas it would have the same effect on them.

Before it went to print, four authors read it and gave Honno, my publisher, some lovely endorsements to use on the cover and inside the book. All four authors said they found it sad, and some of them emailed me and told me it had made them cry. That was good news – maybe.

But what about readers that wanted a book for pleasure, rather than to ‘endorse’ it – what would they think when they read it? Would they find it sad? Too sad? I didn’t know what to think.

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Until the other week…

I was holding a signing event with early editions of my novel where a lovely person called Alli came along and bought herself a copy. I was amazed when she messaged me on twitter close to midnight that same day. ‘It was un-put-downable,’ she said. ‘I started crying at page 30 and didn’t stop until the end.’

The next day she wrote about her teary experience on her own blog, and eight other people who read her account bought a copy of the novel or downloaded the e-book. Wow! I was over the moon. That’s the kind of thing I’ve dreamt about: people getting to know about my book by word of mouth – or word of blog. Whichever, it was fabulous!

It was also really interesting to read the comments left on Alli’s blog. Some people were less than keen on a ‘sad’ book, while others were attracted to the idea of a good weep. And there were definitely more in the ‘crying’ camp.

It reminded me of a conversation I’d had with a former teaching colleague in June, when I first had my early copies of Not Thomas. I had taken some into school as gifts and was explaining the setting of the story – how Tomos has been removed from his lovely foster family and sent back to live with his mum; how she’s hiding a drug addiction and so she badly neglects him; and how the story is told from his five-year-old point of view.

And then I gave an apology. ‘It’s a bit of a weepy, I’m afraid. One reviewer said it should be printed on plastic paper so the reader’s tears don’t ruin the pages.’

‘Don’t apologise,’ the ex-colleague said. ‘That’s a bonus. Sometimes life is a pile of manure’ (I’m paraphrasing there) ‘but in real-life you can’t always let your guard down and have a good weep, so I love books that give me permission to cry. It’s a release – like weepy films.’

And she made perfect sense.

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Of course, we shouldn’t feel we have to hide our tears. It ought to be OK to have a cry whenever we want. But most of us are used to packing away the upsetting baggage and just carrying on with life. So maybe she was right – sometimes we do need to give ourselves permission to have a good weep.

Her comment forced me to think again about my own attitude to having written a ‘sad’ book. So now when I explain the set-up for Not Thomas and someone says: ‘Oh dear that sounds very sad’ I don’t apologise anymore. Instead I say, ‘It is a bit of a weepy, but there are some funny moments too. And reviewers have called it “ultimately uplifting”.’

At ‘ultimately uplifting’ the person I’m talking to usually sighs with relief.

And if they do decide to buy the book and dedicate five or six hours to reading it, I hope in that time their mouths will have smiled, as Tomos might say, even if their eyes have cried.

Thanks for reading!

What do you think? Do you like books that make you cry? Does it help to know a sad book is ‘ultimately uplifting’?

I’d love to know your thoughts,

Sara x

Sara’s debut novel Not Thomas is published by Honno Press in paperback and as an e-book, and is available to buy on Amazon.

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