A Notepad and a Dream - Melissa Brown

In a series I'm calling 'A Notepad and a Dream', I'll be interviewing up-and-coming authors about their books, their writing process and their future plans.  If you have a book shortly due for release and would like to take part, or know someone else who would, please let me know via the 'Contact Me' page above.

In the latest 'A Notepad and a Dream' episode, Melissa Brown is dying to talk about Grim Reapers.

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your novel?

 
I'm an American author that wishes I was still a teenager. I teach work in a library and teach English.  My novel, Becoming Death, is about young grim reaper that tries to rebel against her destiny to save someone she loves.
 

What made you decide to write a book with a supernatural theme?

I was researching fairy tales and folklore for an university paper when I needed an idea for Nanowrimo that year. I thought the idea of a modern female grim reaper sounded fun to write and would allow me to create a new world. 

How does your book differ from other books with a similar premise?

Books about grim reapers are few and far between.  I feel Madison isn't the normal YA protagonist, she isn't a chosen one, she isn't brilliant or beautiful.  She is just trying to get through life/afterlife in one piece.  She's a fan girl that loves comic books and fan fiction, not something that normally pops up in YA novels.

Have you always wanted to write for a YA market?

Yes, I love the YA book market, there is such variety and it's the type of book I would gravitate towards as a reader. 
If you could choose any writer as a mentor, who would you pick?

R.L. Stine.  He's the reason I decided I wanted to an author as a kid.  I was addicted to his Goosebumps and Fear Street series; they were my introduction to horror and the paranormal.

Do you have any further plans for the characters in the 'Becoming Death' world?

At the moment, I'm working on another book about cupids but you never know - I might revisit Madison and her family again at some point.  I've always toyed with the idea of writing a book from her mother's point of view.

By Night, in a Pillar of Fire

Hello to everyone - it's been a long while since I posted here, but between my trip to the US, my accountancy exams and writing my novel, it has been really difficult to find spare hours to write my blog.

I have a few goals for the year to come, but central to all of them is to finish and self-publish my novel.  I've joined together with a number of my Nanowrimo colleagues to try and have a finished work by the end of June 2014.  You can find out a bit more about it here, but to assure you all that I am actually making some progress, here is an exclusive excerpt from the second section of three, entitled 'By Night, in a Pillar of Fire.'

(Please note that there is a trigger warning in the following excerpt for victims of domestic violence.)

 ***

Zuboja township

January 1980

Cicadas chittered away in the trees as a small pair of hands rested unseen on the outer sill. Blankets covered the windows, but the child could hear the shouting from inside all too clearly.

'So what are you saying? I have to feed all four of us?' His father's voice was low and sharp, like the crack of a whip.

'It's not my fault,' his mother protested. 'They wouldn't accept my dompa.'

'I suppose you didn't bother to argue. It's not as if you'd fight to do work.'

'I was lucky they didn't arrest me,' she said.

'You're always lucky,' he replied.

'You think I didn't try to argue?' Her reply was venomous. 'I shouldn't have to fight for the pleasure of cleaning up after lazy women who can't be bothered to look after their own children.'

'And who is looking after ours?'

'Fuck you,' his mother said. 'I told them that I work in that street, I even have the family's signature on the document to confirm it.'

'You should have told them to check,' his father said.

'They didn't care whether I was telling the truth or not.'

'You should have tried harder.' His father's voice became a wheeze and then descended into an ugly coughing fit. The child didn't need to pull the blanket aside to know his mother would be standing as far away from his father as possible, her arms cocooning her body.

When he had recovered somewhat, his father said, 'Every day I work in the mines. I sweat and bleed for you and our sons. Where is my gratitude? My thanks?'

Sithi could hear his mother's tears.

'You are no wife,' his father said. 'I expected so much more from you.'

Something smashed. The family owned few enough possessions before the argument had begun; now they owned one less. The child rested the side of his head against the crumbling wall and the argument within became a dull throb in his ear. He was dimly aware that in other places, children didn't live like this. They lived in houses built of red bricks and travelled around in shiny cars. Even so, he wasn't really jealous of those things. He did wonder if those children's parents fought as much as his did.

The grass that he knelt on was cool, a welcome respite from the heat of the dying day. The light was fading now, and his stomach rumbled. He wanted to sleep but he didn't dare set foot inside until the anger there had subsided. Instead, he moved away from the wall and voices became distinguishable once again.

The wind was worsening, causing the roof to rattle. Someone had been up on there earlier in the day and weighted the corrugated sheets down with rocks so that they didn't get blown away during the night. The child wished that the roof would lift off, so that everyone else could see what was happening inside those walls.

He sat cross legged in front of the house and reached out his hand to where a twig had fallen in the grass. He scratched at the surface of the wood with his thumbnail, and when he was satisfied with its strength, he began drawing stick figures in the dirt.

His mother, short, squat, but with a heart as big as the world. He drew the heart, separate from her, and then he drew her hands reaching out to it. At her feet, he drew squares, to represent the pieces of paper that she used to help teach him and his brother to read.

Behind her, he drew a smaller figure to represent himself. The only facial feature he added on his own figure was the one that everyone commented on – his flat nose. He imagined it big enough to fill half his face. Then there was his brother, and he made his brother taller than him but shorter than their mother. This wasn't how it was, his brother already as tall as a man, but the child felt it was how it should be. He frowned as he considered the physical implications of this.

Finally, he moved to the furthest corner of the dirt patch, a hand's width from the other figures, and drew one with a sad face and no hair. He was the tallest of all and his spine curved around to fill the available space. At his feet, the child drew his father's chair and the bottles that surrounded it. When all other elements of the figure were complete, he drew a single long arm that ended in a ball-shaped fist above his mother's head.

The child surveyed his finished drawing. In the house behind him, his mother's voice, suddenly shrill, was silenced abruptly by the sound of a slap. The child flinched.

French Police Hunt Anti-Semitic Executioner

French police are linking an attack by a gunman on a Jewish school in Toulouse earlier in the week to previous attacks on military targets in the south of the country.

The attack left a 30 year old teacher and three children under the age of nine dead. CCTV images reportedly showed a lone gunman dressed in black stepping from a scooter, pursuing one of the children through the school before cornering her and shooting her in the head, execution-style, at point-blank range.

The most recent attack, coming so quickly after the murder of two soldiers of North African origin at a cashpoint in Montauban last week, have prompted one of the largest manhunts in French history. President Nicolas Sarzoky said of the killer that 'everything, absolutely everything, will be done to track him down.'

At the moment, it seems that the gunmen has the upper hand. His lethal hit-and-run tactics have now claimed seven victims, with a 17-year-old still in a critical condition in hospital. Authorities fear that it is only a matter of time until he kills again.

With the first round of the French Presidential election a little over four weeks away, the notion that the murders may be racially and politically motivated is a compelling one. With international focus very much on the recent political tensions between Israel, Iran and the US, it is not hard to imagine a hardline Islamist extremist pre-empting perceived aggression against the Islamic regime by targeting Jews and soldiers from a pro-US government.

It also adds another unwelcome strand to the election campaign itself. With Socialist candidate Francois Hollande having been very much in the ascendancy in the last few week, Nicolas Sarzoky has responded with a tough stance on immigration that he believes will secure him re-election. The idea of a foreign killer with a grudge against the state stalking the streets of Southern France might yet impact upon the consciousness of the French electorate.

All the Iowa Caucuses

Mark Mardell wrote a wonderful article on the BBC last week in which he posed (and answered, with an admirable degree of restraint) the question of whether the prospective US Presidential Republican candidates are all crazy. The sheer fact that this is a genuine question posed by a respectable blogger on the UK's premier news site probably goes some way towards explaining the British perception of the American presidential race.

Even the names of some of the candidates - Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, to name but two of the colourful characters participating in the first stinging round of the US electoral process - cause a degree of consternation for UK commentators.

Then, after the names, come the policies. Rick Santorum wants to annul every gay marriage that has already taken place in the country. Herman Cain suggested that he wouldn't attack Iran because it has mountains. Rick Perry forgot which government departments he was committed to closing in the middle of a key speech. Michele Bachmann said that even if she became president, she would follow the command from the Bible to be submissive to her husband.

Mardell made the concession of admitting that when the question was raised about the relative sanity of the candidates, it had usually been asked of him by left-wingers, and he was quick to point out that even mainstream American politics exists several notches to the right of the relatively liberal UK.

Tonight, Republicans will gather at more than 1,700 precinct locations in Iowa. Each caucus, or electoral meeting, starts with the election of a caucus chairman and caucus secretary. The caucus leadership conducts a presidential preference vote, usually a via a secret ballot. It is worth noting that the caucus ballots are simply straw polls, with candidates subsequently picked at county and district conventions later in the year. Nevertheless, despite their nonbinding nature, the caucuses receive huge media attention and give prospective candidates the chance to display their electoral credentials.

Of course, both major American political parties hold caucuses. However, with Presidential incumbent and Democrat representative Barack Obama likely to stand unopposed, the focus of the world's attention will be on the far-right representatives of the Republican party. These are America's uber-Conservatives, wealthy plutocrats and billionaire businessmen. The world in which they live is a million miles from that inhabited by most of us, but now as the voting starts in Iowa, they will be the absolute centre of attention.

Within a few short hours, the candidates will know whether they are likely to get an opportunity to rattle sabres and draw first blood in the lengthy campaign that each of them hopes will end in glory in Washington in November 2012.

However, before they can get there, there are the little matters of a sceptical electorate, worldwide and domestic economic crises in dire need of resolution, not to mention having to compete against one of the slickest campaigning machines that has ever graced a political stage. In the presidential election, the chosen Republican candidate will have to move away from party in-fighting over issues like gay rights, abortion and immigration and focus on jobs and the American economy if they are to have any hope of defeating Obama in the Autumn.

Dateline Samoa

By far the most entertaining news of the week prior to yesterday's new year celebrations was the little-heralded item that saw Pacific nations Samoa and Tokelau jumping westwards over the international dateline. The change was made in an effort to boost trade links with Australia and New Zealand, and comes 113 years after the decision was made to travel in the opposite direction in order to attract the trade attention of the United States.

The change was heralded by Samoan Prime Minister Tuila'epa Sailele Malielegaoi, who clearly enjoyed the opportunity to promote the tourist industry in his nation when he appeared in front of international news cameras wearing the shirt below.

Now, if this decision was as clean cut as it seems that it might be, it would make perfect sense. However, a minority of Samoans have good reason to be a little upset, because the change meant that earlier this week, Samoans went to bed on 29th December, and woke up on the 31st, having skipped the 30th entirely. What about people frantically preparing parties for new year? You think you have a couple of days to pick up the beer and prepare the food, and then you lose an entire day just like that. The change also meant that people born on 30th December now face a metaphysical quandary. Have they aged at all this year? If you were due to retire, have you now lost your chance? I should imagine that all the people born on 29th February are probably looking at this and thinking, 'Now do you see what a bloody pain in the arse this is?'

Of course, in any island nation where the average daily temperature all year round is a balmy 28 degrees centigrade, we can expect that such issues will not prove troubling for long. In 2009, Samoa made the decision to switch from driving on the right of the road to driving on the left, becoming the first nation in the 21st Century to do so. They also have a pretty fascinating colonial history, which culminated in an eight-year civil war that resulted from German, American and British interests funding and training indigenous troops in the region. The situation came to a head in March 1889, when all three nations sailed large warships into Apia Harbour and full-scale war seemed inevitable. However, at the last possible moment, a giant storm struck the bay area and sank all the ships, returning the country to temporary calm.

There is just one other potential issue with the decision to skip the international dateline - the possibility that it might set a worrisome trend. The decision by Samoa and Tokelau sees the west coast of the US as the final stop on the international dateline. It doesn't take a giant leap of faith to imagine one of the loony Tea Party presidential candidates might choose to take a break from bashing homosexuals and shooting Communists to imply that America's position at the back of the queue is an insult by the world against their nation, and demand that the US also skips a day to go to the front. It would probably suit a few of the emerging economies like Brazil too, though the outcome in Canada and other South American nations is probably a little less clear cut. Still, you can imagine the phone call from President Obama to Hugo Chavez in Venezuela - 'Damn it Hugo, if you won't sell us your oil, we're going to skip Thursday!'

And of course, once nations get a taste for hopping around the dateline, where does it end? David Cameron could skip whole years to bring the next general election forward, then skip back again to continue dismantling the NHS. Vladimir Putin could go back to his entirely fairly contested Duma election in December 2011 and this time, he could arrange to fix a few of the ballot boxes. And most prominently of all, Bashar al-Assad could have delayed his crackdown on pro-democracy campaigners long enough to ensure that Syria had a presence at the Royal Wedding.