Interested in publishing?

Take a look here - a great company for budding authors:


http://www.swiftpublishing.co.uk/


:)

Mayhem with Angels - the beginning

A roadie came up behind them and asked, “You ready guys? Want me to flick the switch?”

Aron looked round at his boys and they all nodded in agreement.

He turned back to him. “Hell yeah,” he drawled.

Aron let the others go first and listened with a smile as he heard the masses explode. In the few seconds before he went on stage, the girls saw him change. An invisible shroud fell over him and he finally became what Maria and the others had seen on his album covers. He morphed like a lycanthrope. The spoilt, sordid creature they had first witnessed transformed into a figure-head, the icon he was. Maria felt a slow, savage tingle rush down her spine.

He ran on stage and the crowd went insane. He said nothing initially, knowing he didn’t need an introduction. He pulled his silver guitar over his head, nodded to Will, and they began.

Everyone instinctively surged forward. People jumped in all directions and screamed, as if they could jump high enough to reach him. Aron ran to one end of the stage and made the people perform a Mexican wave; something that regular fans were used to doing.

“Anyone wanna to cause mayhem?!” he screamed into his microphone. The mob roared back at him that they did.

His voice was extraordinary. Powerful and almost operatic, it was an instrument in itself. As if the music were made to fit his voice and not the other way round.

As she watched from the wings, Maria James was so overwhelmed, even by the first song, that she wanted to fall to her knees and weep. Certainly she had heard their albums and had now been lucky enough to see them in rehearsal, but to see Project Mayhem live, so closely, combined with the hysterical response, was one of the most powerful experiences she could ever remember. For the first time too, she saw how different the boys’ performing styles were.

Will Richards stood quite still, his legs awkwardly crossed and with timid eyes looking out, wondering why they had come to see him. He didn’t understand how special he was. He didn’t realise that the crowd, the girls especially, loved the way he stood. The tortured artist, the amused onlooker. The silent genius.

Jamie Taylor Jnr sat at the back, but by no means went unnoticed. His act was tinged with madness. He threw his drumsticks in the air, pulled faces at the crowd, and behaved more like a circus clown than what most critics agreed was world’s greatest percussionist.

Marcus was the tallest of them all, and looked like a huge punk giant. He flung himself about his side of the stage like a lunatic, and his size and projection made him a terrifying sight. But there was no doubt at all who was king for the day.

Aron Moretti stood at the centre of it all and harboured the ability to change the world. His command of the crowd was phenomenal, his skill as an entertainer unique. Unlike most performers, he did not put invisible barriers between himself and his audience. He created the feeling that they were one crowd, enjoying the gift of music together. He made them sing and yell as their ringleader, but he was also one of them. He touched them all, and they would remember him forever.

He dressed in all black today, yet Aron constantly reinvented himself. Not just for profile, but because he was easily bored and needed constant stimuli all around him. Today, being the first performance with the British girls supporting, he thought he’d dress to impress and let them know what they were up against. What the standards were. He looked like a ferocious dark angel. His tattoos and nose-ring added to his savage appearance, his hair was wild and unkempt. His luminous green eyes glared out at the audience with such anger that the front rows began to feel nervous, and some of the younger girls started to ease themselves backwards.

The crowd panted, begged and reached in desperation for him. Groups of excited girls chanted his name. They held up home-made banners with pictures of him and Will Richards on them. Men dressed like Marcus and Jamie, men who had followed them through high school, stuck posters inside lockers and on bedroom walls. Girls showed off tattoos of their names, had made t-shirts declaring they were pregnant by any one of the four of them. Drinks were thrown; people were hurt, shoved and crushed in the urgent, fearless mission to get closer to the biggest band in the world. For two hours, they were in heaven. For two hours, Aron strutted with long graceful legs up and down the stage like a gothic peacock; thrilling, inspiring and breaking hearts. An exotic hybrid of musicians both present and past, he delighted in being the protagonist, and felt confident that this was his place. His purpose. His magic was unworldly, his presence like the dazzling sunshine. The feeling across the world for all who knew him was that he was unique, ethereal, and untouchable.  That he’d been chosen, as if by some higher power, to be a rock star.

find Mayhem with Angels on Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mayhem-with-Angels-ebook/dp/B004SUP3SW/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1329938104&sr=8-2

Erugh...

Do you ever have those days when you want to peel your own face off? Well I am today. And it isn't my hormones either. Can't one just be horrid without hormones? Just for once?

Some reasons are:

a) Why can I never finish all the work I need to do? Even though I work constantly?

b) I wanna be blonde again, and I have no funding for this. But, I did have more fun!

c) This snow. I want it to just feck off.




I'm now off to sulk in the kitchen.

Dad’s the word…

I remember a few weeks before I had my little son, I looked at my husband and said, ‘you’re about to become someone’s hero… are you ready?’

I’m not sure he quite believed me, but, I know from experience that I was very lucky to have a hero. And, as my husband has many of my father’s qualities (it’s true, I chose a man just like my dad!), I know he’ll be the same to our little one.

Why was my dad my hero? Well, he always had teabags and a washing line on holiday for starters. He could erect any tent in minutes, large or small. He looked at me as though he adored me and encouraged me in everything – and that was what made him wonderful. He gave me self-belief and confidence (as well as superb camping skills).

So I know the way my son will feel about his dad, and I can’t wait to see it happen…

I simply must own these...

So pweetee!

Look inside me :)

Hello to all,


It's been a while, for various reasons, and while I was away I made sure my book has Look Inside on Amazon. Therefore there's a little starter to the carnage that follows... it only costs £1.03 at the moment too.

Anyhoo, here is the link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mayhem-with-Angels-ebook/dp/B004SUP3SW


Love to all.


C

XXX

So excited about this!

Hello world. Here’s an extract from my new novel. I’m so excited about it, just because…well, I think it might be good (if I say so myself). I have that scared, tingly feeling when I work on it. Like I’m creating a monster…anyway, here’s that start:

Richard Peterson-Fife was the head of a vast, powerful retail empire. Dominating the UK and Europe, he ran a chain of small holistic shops, specialising in alternative remedies. He named them, Apothecary. Each one sold a huge plethora of herbal pills, candles, essential oils, and spiritual health paraphernalia. Richard, or ‘Dickie’, to his immediates, fancied himself as a new-age, self-made ‘King of Quirky’ hippie. A saviour for the alternative. He strolled around dressed in garish coloured suits and flares, claiming to be lord and master and icon of all things good, and noble. Fair-trade this, and hand-made that, the truth, was disturbingly different. His hair grew past the shoulders, was purest white, and scattered with dirty plaits and beading. He stood at a towering six-foot seven inches, and, had a grotesque pot-belly which he thrust forward proudly. A signature of his ill-earned wealth. Yes. Richard Peterson-Fife was truly a despicable and dishonourable man. Externally, he was repulsive, sleazy, lecherous, but inside, he was much much worse. And yet, bafflingly, they loved him. The people that worked for him, amazingly, loved him. But that’s because they didn’t know. Were unaware of how he had built his vast money-making machine. And that was because he made them believe.

There would be no doubt to the soulless demons of business, that Dickie had truly discovered a genius way to make millions. A way to get people to work with their souls, and dedicate their lives for very little in return. The message he preached from the very beginning, was that if they worked within this industry, they did good for the people. Provided a service. In a western word eternally struggling with spiritual beliefs, feeling ever suppressed by the standard nine-to-five work place, he saw that in giving an escape from this would attract staff who would take lesser pay. If he made them believe that they were really doing good, that they would help their customers by selling them products that would make them feel happier, make them lose weight, have better sex, a good night’s sleep, then they, would be warriors in a new age spiritual war against ‘The Suits’. Yes. They could be as crazy and eccentric as they wished. They could sport any hairstyle they liked, show off their tattoos, be as outlandish and visually weird and wonderful as they wanted, and all for minimum wage.

                “Be who you are!” he preached at his annual conventions, in which all management were invited, “Take your business and mould and shape it as you please! Add you own personal stint into your very own ‘Apothecary’ and inject your personality!”

                They applauded furiously. A sea of wild hair styles, heavily tattooed females and thrash punks; all felt they fitted. All felt they had found, finally, a work place in which they could be themselves. For this they felt privileged, so happy they were accepted. A place fitting for the misfits. And for this, they asked for no pension, no benefits, and no wage increase. By the time their dire financial situation became apparent, they were trapped. Felt unable to wear a suit again, dye their hair brown, and go back amongst the grey faces of the office.

                The fact that that Dickie let them run the shops how they pleased also meant that loyalty was strict, and thus he had a low staff turnover. This meant he saved a lot of money. But the way that he truly made a profit was far more disgusting and unethical than any of them could ever have known, or imagined. His main factory was situated in the UK. No one, bizarrely, ever questioned its size. So blinded by the colours of each other, the bohemian tribe that were the workforce never took time out to wonder, just for a few moments, how a factory of the capacity it was managed to accommodate all two hundred and forty-nine shops nationally. The truth was, he had a factory elsewhere. A top secret, high production facility that produced sixty-two per cent of all the goods sold in Apothecary. And the location, and workers of this factory? Taiwan, and orphans. Yes. Richard Peterson-Fife, due any day for a knighthood, the ultimate good-guy, the nice, down to earth, billionaire with his cheeky quirky smile, was in reality a slave driving, money laundering scumbag. And none of them knew.