Novelicious - The Female Fiction and Chick Lit Blog

Cesca Talks About... Self-Help Books

So I’m currently trawling through ‘The Right Way to Keep Chickens’ to the section on ‘Food’ for the 18^th time this week.  I am checking quantities as I’m fairly sure after 3 weeks with us our new ex-battery hens have almost doubled in size and I’m just checking that’s perfectly normal.  They were my first ever pet and I didn’t have the first idea as to how to look after them.  So the moment I had come up with the plan I instantly logged on and found a book that promised to tell me everything I needed to know about keeping chickens.  Because that is what I do when I don’t know what to do – I reach for a book that does (don’t feel sad for me, sometimes I ask friends but in this case they were as clueless as I was – one friend thought an ex-battery hen meant it had once been powered by a battery - quite).

I own a lot of books that all aim to improve my writing (How to Write/How Not to Write/How to Write well/Nailing your Novel/Selling your Script etc, etc...) and have always religiously studied their pages knowing I am taking that step closer to publication.  I have always placed my trust in manuals and guides.  I was a good school girl, swatted up and got the A grades I was aiming for.  But my writing books are a manual to help me achieve something specific and I have never really believed in a book that can tell you how to live your life.  It seems this is not the case for others however as self-help books are everywhere.  Recently we’ve been seeing a wave of celebrities walking around clutching these guides (Emma Watson was spotted clutching ‘Chicken Soup for the Soul’ and Lindsay Lohan was famously caught holding ‘Toxic Friends’ moments before she served time in prison).  But are they suitable for normal people?  Everyday common folk like us?  As I said I don’t read them.  Neither do any friends I have quizzed.  My sister swore by Allen Carr’s ‘Easy way to Stop Smoking’ book but then started smoking again and my memories of reading ‘Men are from Mars Women are From Venus’ as a teenager seem to revolve around vague images of caves and elastic.  I always found these books too simplistic.  It is surely all just common-sense?

But is that really right?  Surely it is good to be focused in this way?  Perhaps Emma Watson, dazzled by her millions, fed up with the shallow world of celebrity, upset at all the distracting wads of cash (am I going too far?) needed a reminder of her priorities?  And maybe Lindsay Lohan is now making less ‘Toxic’ friends (so no Britney Spears then... boom boom)?  Bringing up children is an intimidating task and seems to be a very popular source of self help books and the ‘Mumsnet Rules’ appear to be hugely successful.   So it can’t all be tosh.  And I’m sitting here learning all about my chickens and thinking about other ways of getting my life in order. 

So I am wondering if you can recommend any decent self-help books or whether you just want to tell me it’s all just a load of guff.  Go!

See you soon!

 Hello all,   

 Just a note to say that due to the other commitments of myself (Kirsty) and the Novelicious team, we will be going on a hiatus for a bit.

Though we'll still be tweeting and updating sporadically, full Novelicious service will return in about six weeks.

In the mean time, feel free to have a gander through the archives. Hopefully, this will go some way to quenching your thirst for all things chick lit!

So, toodlepip for now. See you soon and happy reading!

Kirsty and the Novelicious Ladies xxxxx

Sarah Duncan's Awesome Blog!

I've been meaning to tell you about this. I recently discovered the blog of author Sarah Duncan and had to bring it to your attention. It's an absolute treasure trove of excellent writing advice for those aspiring authors among us.

Not only does Sarah write marvellous Rom Com books, she also teaches creative writing at the Universities of Oxford and Bristol. She knows her stuff!

So take a peek, but be careful not to get locked on (like I did), else you'll be so caught up in reading about writing that you won't actually, you know, do any writing.

Visit Sarah's Blog

Event for Lisa Jewell Fans!

To celebrate the release of AFTER THE PARTY, Lisa is offering 40 people the chance to attend an exclusive event at her local bookshop in West Hampstead, where she will chat about the sequel to RALPH'S PARTY. To get your free ticket, all you have to do is sign up over on the book website...

If you do get the chance to go, we would love to know what you thought!

Visit Lisa's website here!

Buy the book here!

Writing Contest - The Strictly Writing Award

I happened upon this the other day, and thought I would let you know about it.

The writers at the fabulous Strictly Writing blog are holding a brilliant competition and are looking for short stories in any genre that are no longer than 2000 words.

The contest is free to enter and the winner will receive a cash prize of £300!

You can find out more about the competition and entry details by visiting the Strictly Writing website.

Win £100 of books from Hodder!

 Win £100 of books! 

This is such an ace competition that I had to interrupt normal service in order to bring it to your attention. Hodder books and fabulous author, Melissa Hill are running a contest to win One Hundred English Pounds worth of books. Yeah, you heard right.

It's really easy to enter too. All you have to do is click this link onto the Melissa Hill website and answer a short questionnaire about books. And that's it.

Good luck and let us know if you are the lucky winner!

xx

Novelicious Schedule

Bonjour!

Because of the missed day on Monday we will be continuing with YA Wednesday next week, and using today to catch up with some of the things that we've missed.

In general there have been a few amendments to our posting schedule, which we thought you should know about...

So you know how we usually dedicate certain days to certain topics (Tuesday - Writers, Wednesday - YA, Thursday - Little Black Dress Books)? Well, we are going to intersperse those posts with general news reviews and interviews. There is a helluva lot going on the chick lit world at this time and we have a mahoosive stack of books to get reviewed, so we thought we would sneak some in - along with general news reviews and interviews- everyday, rather than just on Mondays and Fridays.

Does that sound okay to you? Does it? Does it?

Well that's what's going to happen :D

x

Buy Sadie's Dragonfly Necklace from Sophie Kinsella's Twenties Girl!

First off, Sophie Kinsella has a brand spanking new website and it's gorgeous; full of little bits and pieces about Sophie and her books.

So there I was having a good old route around, and what did I see? The Dragonfly necklace from Twenties Girl available to buy !!

Independent of the fact that I absolutley loved this book, the necklace is just beautiful. I need it in my life. It is designed by Claudia Bradby and only costs £38.00

It's already on my wishlist - what about you?

Brilliant Milly Johnson Article about Writing

I happened upon this article the other day, and if you're a writer then it's well worth a read. In an article for the Yorkshire Post, Milly Johnson talks about what it takes to become a paperback writer. The article also includes a fantastic ten tips "to coax you on the road to being an author"...

Read the full article here

Find out more about Milly here

Milly's fourth book A Summer Fling is out in May, and you can pre order it here!

The Novelicious Bookshop!

 I've always dreamed of having a bookshop. It would be full of floppy leather sofas and antique tables (with magic hidden plug points for the laptops), with an open fire and a selection of the best books ever written. We would serve amazing cakes and wines and exotic coffee and people would just hang out and chat and be all creative and stuff.

BUT in the absence of any, you know, money to set this up - I am content to be the proprietor of the VIRTUAL Novelicious Bookshop.

I have spent the weekend carefully selecting various titles and placing them into bookshop categories (Classic Chick Lit, Books for Writers, Chick Lit in the USA, to name a few) for your perusal.

The bookshop is powered by Amazon, so it's all secure and stuff. If you have any category ideas, then I would love to know - drop us a note at kirsty@novelicious.com

Visit the Novelicious Bookshop - it's pretty :)

Kirsty xx

* Image is of the gorgeous El Ateneo bookshop in Buenos Aires

Novelicious Returns!

Hello, lovely readers (and anyone else who may have clicked through by mistake)!

Welcome to the return of Novelicious and what I hope is going to be a fantastic relaunch week to get us back into the swing of things!

Can you tell I'm excited? I am totally excited. As you may have noticed, the site has had a few design tweaks (whaddaya think?) and the navbar above gives a clue to some of the new features we have coming up.

Things I need to tell you before we begin;

* We have been selected as official book bloggers for sheknows.com and will be taking part in bi-monthly book club discussions over on their site. This is a fantastic opportunity for Novelicious to meet more readers and will hopefully open up the site to many more chick lit-aholics!

 If you would like to join in with the book club, or chat to us on the message boards, just clink the link above and have a gander. Would be great to see you there!

* We have decided to change review marks to an out of ten rather than an out of five. Myself and the team feel that this gives a lot more scope with regards to scoring books. Obviously ten will be the highest score.

* We are going to be dedicating the whole of Thursdays to the Little Black Dress Books imprint; when the books are coming out, reviews of the books and interviews with the authors.

* We are tentatively stepping into the world of YA. These books will only be featured on one day of the week. There are some great YA books being released this year, so we thought it would be nice to cover them.

* New features include 'Top Tens' with posts such as 'Top Ten Chick Lit Book Covers', 'Top Ten Chick Lit Bastards' and 'Top Ten Funniest Girly Books' coming soon. We will also be doing a series called 'Chick Lit you Might Not Have Read and Probably Should', which I hope will be most enlightening, as well as a brand new column by an aspiring Chick Lit Writer - this will be appearing on Writers' Tuesdays.

 I hope that all the above sounds good to you?! Make sure you stay tuned because we have some cracking competitions coming up throughout the whole week as well as the usual news, reviews and interviews.

Thanks for staying with us :)

Love,

Kirsty (Editor)

Novelicious Relaunch Date

Hello again!

I appear to have accidentally deleted the previous update post, so would just like to inform you lovely peoples that the official date for the relaunch of Novelicious is Monday 22nd February 2010 and I cannot wait!

We are going to be having a bit of a crazy catch up week, attempting to cover what we've missed over the break. It will be lots of manic fun, I'm sure!

As you may have spotted by peeking at the navbar above, we are gearing up for some great new features including; top tens (covers, characters, bonkbusters etc), a dedicated Little Black Dress Books day and an expedition into the world of YA Chick-lit.

We have also just had some exciting news (which I can't tell you about yet) that will potentially open up Novelicious to millions more readers, helping us to take this site to the next level (just realised how utterly corporate that sounds!).

Anyways, I look forward to being here again on the 22nd and in the meantime you can come say hello on twitter, or become a fan on facebook 

Toodlepip for now, mes amis!

Great Article on How to Write Chick Lit

I saw this on the Times Online. I know it's an old article, but I thought it was pretty interesting. It even has some tips from some top UK chick lit authors.

Read 'A Girls Guide to Writing Chick Lit' here! 

Cecelia Ahern the Artist!

 I read this article and I know I shouldn't laugh. But...

I keep imagining her and her brother in law (Nicky from Westlife) as tortured artists drinking whisky and talking about concept.

I'm sorry. I'm just jealous.