The Backstory: How to Breed Sheep, Geese and English Eccentrics by Valerie Poore

I first met Val in 2005, when a small group of writers and artists developed into an online creative community after following Pete Townshend’s blog novella, ‘The Boy Who Heard Music.’ She went on to publish two memoirs: African Ways, based on her time in South Africa in the 1980s, and Watery Ways, which chronicled her move to the Netherlands and life on a barge in a historic harbour. She has also published The Skipper’s Child, a novel which appeals to both young and old. Her latest project is How to Breed Sheep, Geese and English Eccentrics, which is her second novel. Like all her work, it is based on her real-life experiences. Let’s have Val tell you how this quirky and amusing work of fiction came to be.

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Val: How to Breed Sheep, Geese and English Eccentrics. What on earth is this book? Well it’s fiction for one thing and it isn’t about to teach anyone anything really. Some time ago I read a wonderful book that suggested it was about maintaining Ukrainian tractors. I forget what it was called now, but when I read it I was delighted to find it was a novel about a family and the only connection to tractors was through the rather individual elderly father who was writing a book on tractor maintenance (I think). Anyhow, it really inspired me to give my book a ‘How to’ title, so there it is. I think it’s quite catching, but then I would, wouldn’t I?

The book itself is intended to be humorous, as I’m sure the cover will suggest. I hope it’s funny, anyway! In simple terms it’s what the blurb says it is, a story about a girl trying to help her mother hang on to her large and impractical country house by doing the self-sufficiency thing, but behind the fictional story is a lot of factual experience.

I grew up in both London and Dorset in England, and I did try my hand at self-sufficiency for a couple of years. It was a lot of fun and I just loved the animals, but I wasn’t very good at it. My sheep kept escaping and I really did have to go off and fetch them in my old VW Beetle. I looked after people’s horses, kept geese and chickens as well as a calf called Blathers because he mooed so much, and a couple of pigs that I was terrified of. The last two don’t come into the book. I don’t know why. I suppose I just didn’t get round to them. We also grew vegetables and generally did the sort of going back to nature lifestyle. Then I went off to South Africa for twenty years and learnt to be even more self-sufficient on a farm there.

That said, I will never forget all the experiences I had on the smallholding in Dorset. Some of them were so hilarious that when I started writing seriously, I knew that one day I would weave these experiences into a novel. My characters are completely fictional as is the plot, but the setting is largely real and the events concerning the animals are all based on truth. The opening incident that begins the book is also true. I really did come home one day and find my car cut in half, but I won’t say any more about it here or that might just spoil the story.

It’s the kind of life I would love to have again. If I could no longer live on the water, it would be the next choice. Writing and reading my book has helped bring it all back to me, so who knows? If I can make enough from writing, I’ll give it all up (my day job that is) to buy a small farm on the banks of a river so I can moor my boat there as well. Nothing like having your cake and eating it too, is there?

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How to Breed Sheep, Geese and English Eccentrics: Amazon | iBooks | Lulu

For information on all my books, including my memoirs about living in Africa and on a barge in Rotterdam, have a look at my author pages on Amazon.com and Lulu.com:

Visit Val’s blog for more information in her own words. Follow her on Twitter or Facebook. You can find out about all of her books, including her memoirs about living in Africa and on a barge in Rotterdam on her Amazon author page and her Lulu spotlight.

The Backstory: Something Else by The BB's

Ron Cianciaruso and I go back many years to the creation of musician Pete Townshend’s novella, ‘The Boy Who Heard Music’. We met online through a common love of music and a particular devotion for The Who, and have maintained a close friendship since 2005. When I published my Behind Blue Eyes rock fiction series, Ron was an early supporter and fan of the novels, and we often talked about how cool it would be for someone to take Ian Harrington out of my novels and give him and his band a distinct sound. As a musician and songwriter himself, Ron decided to take up the challenge, and the result was an incredible song called ‘Something Else’. There are elements of magic in the backstory of how this song came to be, which I will let Ron describe in his own words.

Ron with Pete Townshend.

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The BB’s have a new song called ‘Something Else’.

How does a song like this get written? What drives the inspiration? How does it take form?

This song is interwoven by several backstories, but in order to maintain context, I will keep this fairly simple. I have always been a fan of Anne Marie’s book series and have enjoyed them since Book One was released. After reading the novels, I felt like it would be very creative to try and put a voice to Ian and I set off to do that in one form or another. I had never written a score to a story so I felt the need to challenge myself on this. In early December, I watched a documentary on how Freddie Mercury conceived, composed, and recorded ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’. I was incredibly moved by the process for reasons I cannot explain. Immediately after viewing this, I sat at my piano and out came three parts of a song, literally within 10 minutes.

The instant I played them, I knew it was special, so I set to work on arranging the parts into a final song arrangement. I also sent the music to Lou Luca, who is my good friend and band mate. We have written many songs together over the years and always had a certain Lennon/McCartney type of musical connection. Within hours, Lou had written lyrics as he had done hundreds of times before and sent me a draft of the song. Imagine my surprise when I heard the words ‘Something Else’! Unknown to Lou was the fact the Ian Harrington’s band was called Something Else, and his lyrics fulfilled my desire to be spiritually connected to Anne-Marie’s books. This was an eerie twist to the connection of Anne-Marie’s book and my music, which seemed to bond together like molecules.

Very early one morning after reading an article about the recent Who concerts, John Rabbit Bundrick, the keyboardist for the band, was mentioned and I had wondered how he was doing. I had a casual email relationship with Rabbit over the years, so I wrote him to ask if he would listen to the song and if he would be interested in playing on it as a compensated performer. He replied back almost instantly and we made the arrangements for him to record the piano and Hammond (at Rabbit’s suggestion). Three days later, Rabbit uploaded his parts, which sounded VERY different than the piano I had played in the original recording. After mixing, we quickly realized that Rab took the song to a NEW level. He didn’t just play the piano; he invented some of the magic in the song. This set the stage again for a true collaboration between Anne-Marie, The BB’s, and a member of The Who.

After final mixing and tweaking, the song was released on March 26th. The first time I heard the final mastered version, it gave me chills up my spine. I imagined Ian, standing in the rain, alone, confused, singing this to some of the loves of his life. This was the final piece of the magic that has been born for me. We are already working on several more songs based on the book series and will release them as soon as we can.

You can hear the song by visiting www.thebbsmusic.com or looking us up on Facebook under The BB’s. They are @TheBBSMusic if you want to follow them on Twitter.

The Backstory: Dream On by Terry Tyler

Terry Tyler is an independent British author who wants to get you hooked on her books. She’s written here to tell us about the inspiration for Dream On, but she’s finalizing the sequel, Full Circle which will be published in the next month or so. Dream On sounds like a fun ride—but let’s have Terry tell us about it.

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Terry: Dream On is most definitely rock fiction, as it is about wannabe rock star Dave Bentley, and his Viking-orientated rock band, Thor; it’s also contemporary women’s fiction, as the other two main characters are Janice, the long-suffering mother of Dave’s son (Harley, David’s son…), and singer songwriter Ariel, who is the love of his life. Much of the novel is about Dave’s relationships with them. It’s quite funny, too…!

What made me write Dream On? It’s a story I’ve told in a couple of interviews in the past, so I apologise if you’ve read a condensed version before.

I’ve known quite a few struggling musicians over the years, gone to lots of rock gigs, and frequented rock music orientated pubs. In Northampton (England), where I used to live, the main one is called The King Billy—the inspiration for Dave’s local, The Romany, in Dream On.

In 1995 I was sitting in The King Billy with my sister, Julia, and we were looking at two guys at the bar. They were both tall, fair, nice looking and leather jacketed, with long hair—very much ‘all man’, almost like latter-day Vikings who’d been born in the wrong era. Because it’s the sort of thing we do, we started to weave a story around them. They became Dave Bentley, and his sidekick Shane Cowley, of rock band Thor. I’d already written a few novels, and the very next day I started on Rock ‘n’ Roll Dreams—all about Dave, Thor, Janice, and the love of Dave’s life, singer songwriter Amber Fox (later to be renamed Ariel). I wrote the novel for my own amusement, and for my sister, brother and sister-in-law—they were the only people who ever read it. Between 1993 and 2000 I wrote about nine novels, but Rock ‘n’ Roll Dreams was the one they all liked the best.

By coincidence, a few years later I got to know the Dave Bentley and Shane Cowley characters—who were actually called ‘Lockey’ and ‘Stodge’—typical biker nicknames! They weren’t rock musicians at all! Their real names were Martyn (with a ‘Y’, he always said—so we called him ‘Myartin’), and Alan. In 1999 I married Alan (the Shane character), and Myartin was the best man at our wedding. The marriage only lasted a few years, but I thought I’d put that in as a little coincidental aside—it’s funny how life works out, isn’t it :).

In 2010, very happily married to my new and much lovelier husband, I started writing again, and publishing my books on Amazon. I had always thought of re-writing Rock ‘n’ Roll Dreams, but, although I have a cupboard full of old, yellowing manuscripts, I could only find half of it. I wonder what happened to the rest…I never found it, so I re-wrote it from memory. I brought it up to date, with the inclusion of such things as the TV talent show, and the bit where one of the characters (I won’t say which one!) gets dragged onto The Jeremy Kyle Show. My sister Julia ‘test-read’ it—at the time there was only a mention of the Jeremy Kyle Show appearance; she thought this had massive potential, so I turned it into a whole scene, and developed the circumstances that led to it into a sub plot.

To sum up, if you’re into rock music or have ever known any struggling musicians, you will like Dream On—and it’s also very much a book for people who like to read about relationship tangles and dilemmas, too! Dave is torn between his love for Janice and his son, and his obsession with Ariel. He’s a thoroughly nice guy, though a tad misguided, while Janice is a favourite amongst those who have already read the book, and Ariel is so much more than just a pretty face.

I have just finished the sequel, Full Circle, which is now having its final proofread, and and the cover is being agonised over! I hope it will be out by mid-April. Julia has test read that, too, and likes it even more than Dream On! Whereas Dream On is told from the points of view of Dave, Janice and Ariel, in Full Circle Shane gets a look in, too—I loved writing about his womanising ways, and thought he was worthy of star billing in the sequel.

I hope you have found this interesting, and thank you for reading! Thanks also, Behind Blue Eyes people, for inviting me to your blog!

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Dream On: Amazon UK Canada

Visit the Author’s blog and Goodreads profile. Follow her on Twitter or Facebook.

The Backstory: Lore of Fei by Kathleen S. Allen

Kathleen S. Allen has the writing bug. She ignored it until she no longer could. In her own words:

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Kathleen: Once upon a time there was a little girl who had an imagination too big to be contained in her little head. She found her Muse and began to make up stories about pictures she saw in books. When she was four she learned to write. She began to write poetry and short stories and when she was eight she put together a collection of poetry she had written into a “book” and gave it away to friends and family as gifts.

At the age of fifteen she published her first poem in a national magazine and at the age of seventeen she wrote her first novel. She began to publish short stories and poetry on a regular basis. She dreamed of becoming a writer (little did she know, she already was one). The Muse smiled. Naysayers told her to do something more practical. To stop dreaming. She listened because the naysayers seemed so wise and knowledgeable and so she put her pen down vowing never to pick it up again. But, the Muse was too strong to stay silent. The Muse whispered stories to her. So, in secret, at night when everyone was asleep, she wrote her stories and her poems. No one knew she never stopped writing, she just pretended to.

Years passed and she managed to suppress the Muse but she was still there, a small tiny voice whispering in her ear. When her children begged her to write down the stories she told to them at bedtime she decided to listen to the Muse once more.

And published her first novel.

Then, her second.

A third. Fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, twelfth. Three more are on their way. More short stories, flash fiction, essays, blogs, guest posts, interviews. She writes every day. The Muse hoped that her voice would no longer be silenced.

The little girl with the imagination too big to be contained in her little head now believes.

The stories she tells are ones that have to be told.

To inform. To entertain. To enjoy. To ponder over.

She continues to write.

Because she is a writer.

And that’s what writers do.

The Muse’s voice is loud and clear.

And will not be silenced.

Ever again.

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Lore of Fei: Amazon | Muse It Up Publishgin

Watch the trailer for Lore of Fei, a Young Adult faerie fantasy novel, soon to be followed by its sequel War of Fei. Visit the Kathleen’s website and Goodreads profile for more information. Follow her on Twitter or Facebook.

The Backstory: SHOES HAIR NAILS by Deborah Batterman

Deborah Batterman is very patient. She was our very first backstory submission—and we are just publishing it now, several months later (mea maxima culpa). In this collection of short stories, she explores contrasts between images and symbols. In her own words, the Backstory to SHOES HAIR NAILS…

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I was at work on a novel, and I’d published several short stories, when the idea began to simmer: do I have enough stories for a collection, and is there a unifying thread to them? I did not envision a collection of connected stories, but, as I began looking at which ones I thought I’d include and which ones I’d leave out, a pattern began to emerge: the stories I felt were the strongest were framed around symbols in our everyday world, in an attempt to get past the surface association. The title stories, for example, might, at first glance, conjure images of frivolousness and vanity. And, yet, by putting them center stage, at the heart of the collection, I’m asking readers to leave aside presumptions, step into narratives built around those very images, see them in a different light—one that goes deeper to reveal the underlying metaphors.

The narrator in “Hair,” for example, comes of age in a tale braided between ‘two mothers’, the one who abandoned her and the one (a hairdresser) who took care of her. In “Vegas,” you have a character who thinks he can rattle his father out of an encroaching dementia by taking him to the place he loved visiting most, a fabricated city that it is much about possibility as it is a kind of last-chance saloon. What I think makes the story resonate—and lifts ‘Vegas’ as a symbol from cliché to metaphor—is the irony that comes into play, especially in an environment not known for subtlety. Stories for me often begin with images, sometimes in the form of a line that pops into my head—”The last time I saw my mother I was propped on a phone book in a red leather chair at Jeanie’s Hair Salon.” Another story, “Twin Tales,” opens with a phrase—How could this be happening?—an allusion, it soon becomes clear, to the events of 9/11. Here you have an ordinary woman doing a very ordinary thing (walking her dog) on a day that would prove to be anything but ordinary.

Collectively, the stories seem to ask these questions: How do everyday events — the backdrop to so much that shapes our lives—drive our narratives? How is the subtle power of narrative shaped by the interplay between the mundane and the unexpected? What compels individuals to act the way they do? Growing up in a solid middle class Brooklyn neighborhood, I was so often struck by the daily ‘dramas’ of my immediate world: a neighbor’s husband takes off one day, never to return; an aunt walks out on three young children; a classmate who is emotionally/intellectually challenged (we did use the word ‘retarded’ without apology) is ridiculed. Scenarios that leave their imprint become the core of fiction. So when I’m asked about the autobiographical elements in my own stories, “Shoes,” in particular, the answer just rolls off my tongue: yes, the genesis of the story was my mother’s death and the months of cancer preceding it; and, yes, my parents’ relationship saddened me. The rest, as the saying goes, is fiction.

As a final thought, the cover would have to be a much a part of the backstory as the stories themselves: shoes as symbol are as much metaphor (from Cinderella to Christian Louboutin) as they are utilitarian, and a shoe on the cover would seem to cancel out arbitrary distinctions between ‘literary’ women’s fiction and ‘chick’ lit. At least that’s my hope.

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Purchase SHOES HAIR NAILS (print or digital): Amazon

Watch the trailer “Stories are what we live by”. Read more about Deborah at her website, on Facebook, or follow her on Twitter.