Procrastination is the thief of time...

Hi there, my chickadees...

I sit here and realise I have no witty, amusing opening sentence so I shall just plunge straight in.

First thing I need to tell you is that my official microsite - there's a link to it on the left hand side of the page - is not working. It's reverted to a much earlier version with an old design and all the fantastic extra content (an interview with Molly from Guitar Girl, Edie from Diary Of A Crush's Guide to crushes etc.) is missing. I'm hoping it will be back up for the release of the first Fashionista's Book, Laura, on July 19th. Talking of which, I'm extremely happy to announce that Fashionistas will be the first of my books to be translated into German. The series will also be coming out en francais and I will let you know of more foreign deals as and when and if they happen.

I've just finished a second draft of the third Fashionista's book, Irina, about a mondo-stroppy Russian model and realise that it's not a final draft as I expected. So I'm about to go back and sprinkle magic dust all over it. But mostly I'm panicking because I'm heading to the States next week for British ELLE in a whirwind visit and I one of my friends is away for the weekend and has my US adaptor plugs. You know, when I was wide-eyed and younger, I always hoped that I'd get to write sentences like "I'm heading for the States next week" and imagined it was all wildly glamorous. Actually the reality is a mound of laundry and piles of work to get through before I head off to the airport and not being able to find the little thingy that turns my iPod into a voice recorder. Still, I can't complain too much.

But it does get me thinking about what a time-waster I am, even with deadlines looming. So here's a list of all the stuff I get up to instead of working...

SARRA MANNING'S AMAZING, DEADLINE-DEFYING LIST OF PROCRASTINATION

* Writing blog posts. This is just one of my many blogs.
* Spending way too much money on eBay - currently buying Marc Jacobs' flip-flops and vintage Miriam Haskell costume jewellery
* Repeated applications of hand lotion
* Adding movies to my Lovefilm DVD queue
* Googling myself in all possible permutations and combinations
* See also looking up all my books on Amazon.
* Constantly clicking 'refresh' on the Friends page of my blog.
* Playing the awful, time-sucking Snood game which I should really remove from my computer.
* Eating - favourite mid-chapter snacks include cheese and crackers, handfuls of oat flakes, blueberry yoghurt and peanut butter eaten straight from te jar. (Not altogether I hasten to add.)
* Buying songs on iTunes. The last song I bought was Hello Saferide's I Was Definitely Made For These Times, though I was devastated to discover that she played two London shows last week and I missed them. By the way, I definitely wasn't made for these times just so we're clear on that.
* Annoying my friends with pointless emails.
* Analysing my playlists on lastfm.com
* Doing the MySpace thing even though all the cool kids are on Facebook.
* Going to the gym - I actually like going to the gym but I can't help but wonder if that's because it means I'm not staring at my computer screen
* Drinking coffee and smoking fags - God, never start smoking. More than that, never learn to inhale
* Gazing aimlessly at The Great Bear by Simon Patterson, which is the picture on the wall above my desk, when I need to come up with a new character name




* Obsessing over my word count
* Making lists and not knowing when to stop

OK, I now have coffee to make, laundry to do and a chapter to go and revise, but what do you get up to when you're meant to beworking?

Welcome to the Rockalypse...

Happy Eurovision Day readers

Tonight I will be going to a Eurovision Song Contest Party, as is my wont to do. There's going to be a Sweepstake though I will pick the country that only get a measly un point from the Slovakian jury. But I think you can either turn up your nose and be too cool for skool about Eurovision or you can embrace the cheese. I embrace it with both arms!

I also just want to remind you that I do have a MySpace and that also I've just bought a 50's clock from a charity shop, which ticks so loudly I can barely hear the TV. I just felt the need to share that.

But for now, I thought I'd post an author's questionnaire I just complete for my publishers in the run-up to the release of the first Fashionista's Book, Laura on July 17th. Be warned! I ramble on and on and on and on and on...

1. Do you consider yourself a Fashionista?

I consider myself a Fashionista of epic proportions. I love clothes and accessories. In fact, two hours before I wrote this questionnaire, I was racing round the new Primark in London's swinging Oxford Street on a seek and destroy mission for a black, broderie anglaise summer frock.

I love how clothes can transform you, how you can be whoever you want to be depending on your outfit. I'm not a diehard fashion victim, I have my own look (which I call The Lipstick Librarian) but I like adding new pieces (a lot of new pieces!) each season to bring my style up to date. And I have little truck with fashion rules, like curvy girls shouldn't wear horizontal stripes. Fashion to me is just another way of expressing myself creatively and my fashion rules are that there are no rules!

My most beloved items in my closet are a vintage fitted dress with lurex stripes and a skirt that foofs out in a delightful manner and my limited edition Marc Jacobs multi-pocket bag in peacock blue with red top-stitching. It was so expensive that I had a panic attack five seconds after I signed the credit card slip!

2. Which character in your books do you identify with the most?

I identify the most with whichever character I happen to be writing at the time. I think that there is a common thread running through all my girls of people trying to figure out who the hell they want to be and how they're going to achieve that without losing part of themselves in the process. That's how I felt when I was a teenager. I knew I wanted to be a writer and I knew that I wasn't like a lot of other girls my age because of the way I looked and the music I listened to, the books I read and the things I liked to do. When I stopped kicking against that and realised that it was OK to be different, I became a lot happier in myself. So I guess I could really identify with Isabel from Let's Get Lost – not just because my mother passed away just before I started the book, but because I was so prickly and defensive when adolescence began to kick in.


3. How did you become a "Teen Queen Extraordinaire"? Was it always your dream to be a writer?

I have no idea how I became a Teen Queen Extraordinaire! Just luck, I guess! Certainly when I was a teenager, apart from loving Just Seventeen magazine (which I went on to write for), I shunned teen culture. But as I got older, I found myself obsessed and excited with things like old skool Sassy magazine and the TV show, My So-Called Life. My theory is that I made such a hash of being a teenager first time around, that I'm trying over and over again to get it right. I still feel the same away as I did when I was 17 – still trying to figure out all the big, heavy stuff and maybe that's why it feels very natural to write from the point of view of a teenage girl.

And I've always wanted to be a writer. Ever since I learnt the alphabet and suddenly realised that you could make words out of the letters. Certainly there are people who knew me when I was eight who can remember me announcing that I was going to be a writer – though I had a brief flirtation with wanting to be in a band but as I have no musical talent whatsoever, it was a very brief flirtation!

4. What is your favourite book?

I refuse to pick just one! The books that I re-read over and over again are Girl by Blake Nelson, Fabulous Nobodies by Lee Tulloch, The Pursuit Of Love and Love In A Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford, all of the Jane Austens (apart from Mansfield Park because I think Fanny Price is a stuck-up little prig) and Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita. Though I do read other stuff – anything and everything from Edith Wharton to Mills & Boon to biographies on Madame de Pompadour!

5. Who are your heroes?

Diana Vreeland who was a marvellous, idiosyncratic, eccentric woman who was editor in chief of US Vogue. I love the way she wrote about fashion and the wilful way she lived her life.
Coco Chanel because she liberated women by raising hem lengths so they no longer needed help crossing the road.
Courtney Love because she inspired me so much when I was younger. No matter what crazy stuff she pulls, there's something about Courtney and what she used to be that means I'll always be a little bit in love with her.
And Joss Whedon because he gave me Buffy and I'm probably more inspired by good TV writing than books.
I wish I had a few people in here who'd helped find a cure for cancer or campaigned for world peace, but I'm a very shallow person.

6. Are your characters ever based on people you know?

Not really. Usually it's people that I don't really know but there's something intriguing about them or what they're doing and I file them in my head and drag them out at a later date for a vignette or an incidental character. It sounds vague but for instance, I was in New York last November at a really cool restaurant called Bette's waiting for the loo next to this louche girl with the most sooty eyelashes I've ever seen and she was so full of ennui because she was beautiful that I thought, "Oh, you are so going into a book of mine!"

7. How do you get your ideas? Are they ever based on real life experiences?

They just happen. Diary Of A Crush was inspired by the two years that I spent at college after my school asked me not to go back to do A-levels. It was a time when I was changing and blossoming and that was what Edie was going through too – though I never had a Dylan. Let's Get Lost was directly inspired by losing my mother and thinking to myself how much worse it would be to lose a parent when you were a teenager and in the middle of that process of pushing your parents away so you can learn to be your own person. But Fashionistas, my new series, is inspired by everything that's going on around me in the world; from America's Next Top Model to car-crash celebrities to New York to the size zero debate to reality TV stars to Project Runway to walking past shops selling Saris to internet It girls to Agyness Deyn to post-Communist Russia! Everything inspires me and causes my imagination to almost implode and I wouldn't have it any other way.

8. What is your favourite band? Does music ever inspire your writing?

The bands I never, ever get bored of are Belle And Sebastian, Saint Etienne, Velvet Underground, Hello Saferide (a new addition but she's a keeper) and my Growin' Up Too Fast 60's girl group collection. At the moment I'm listening to a lot of Swedish bands and old French pop – I'm very Continental!

Music is a huge part of my writing process. Sometimes one song becomes a theme for a book (like Broken Social Scene's Anthems For A Seventeen Year Old Girl was for Let's Get Lost) but I always make a playlist for my main character and listen to it while I'm writing. It's hard at the moment as I'm writing Irina, the third book in the Fashionistas, and she's a Russian girl who listens to rap music, which I don't know much about.

9. Do you have any regrets?

Yes, but it's for the things I didn't do, not the things I did. Which is just how it should be!

Living dead girl...

When you're a nipper, you imagine being a proper grown up is going to be ace with completely added bits of aceness. Like, you'll be able to eat chocolate for breakfast, lunch and dinner. You never have to tidy up if you don't want to. And you can listen to your music as obnoxiously loud as you please without parental intervention. But actually, not so much. I like to eat well balanced, nutritious yet tasty meals. About two years ago I suddenly developed a need to live in a mostly clutter-free environment and now I like my music just loud enough to drown out the sound of my singing. (I often think that if I could hold a tune and arch one eyebrow, I'd be damn near perfect!)

But what no one ever told me when I was a wide-eyed naif, was that being an adult also means having to do mind-numbing, stultifying tasks like filing your tax return. I won't go into the messy details but it involves filing cabinets, paper cuts, discovering that crucial pieces of paper have gone AWOL and having to be talked down from the ledge by my accountant. Finally, tonight with four documents still lost, I'm almost finished and a mere husk of the girl I used to be. See, this is what no one tells you about being a novelist. It's not glamourous or remotely rock 'n' roll although my accountants do also have The Kills and Fierce Panda Records on their books.

Jeez, I can't believe I'm blogging about my tax return. It's a personal low!

I have also been working for a living. I've been typing a lot; words to form sentences that might actually end up in print one day. I've just finished going through the page proofs of the second book in the Fashionistas series, Hadley. That means cutting down on the number of times that characters smirk or raise their eyebrows in a mocking kind of way. We've also finalised the marketing campaign for the first book, Laura (out in the UK, on July 17th, pre-order it from Amazon.co.uk today!) It's all very exciting and I'll tell you more details as I can, but this blog will be heavily involved.

Most importantly, I've realised that it's impossible to choose between Dean and Sam Winchester from Supernatural, so I decided that I love them both equally. This has restored a sense of calm to my life...

Frustrated, table for one...

I'm determined to get through this post without any controversial statements, which I can be berated for, except it's not going to happen, is it?

I've had a spate of the "Please write another DOAC book/sequel to Guitar Girl/Let's Get Lost" comments - strangely no on ever asks for a sequel to Pretty Things. There's not really much I can say, apart from I have no plans to ever. I have explained why many times and have even tagged those entries, which you can see in the column to the left. I am really flattered that you love the books so much but they all ended exactly where they had to. I have other stories I want to tell and I'm not one of those writers who's happy to churn out umpteen books in a series, the quality slipping with every new release. If you want to find out what happens to Molly, I suggest that you read Let's Get Lost where she has a guest star role. I also have no intention of reproducing the Diary Of A Crush columns that featured Grace - for a very good reason. I don't own the copyright to them!Also, I don't think they're very good.

There's not much else to report. I am very busy as usual with a lot of freelance commissions for British ELLE and finishing the first draft of the third book in the Fashionista series, Irina. (Which does have an appearance from a much beloved character from one of my other books - I am such a tease.) I've also been spring-cleaning, probably as an excuse to put off work.

Before this post descends into absolutely no content, maybe a round up of my current cultural things?

I'm listening to

Lots of fey indie stuff: Maths And Physics Club, The Pines and you all need to go out and buy a copy of Lucky Soul's first album, The Great Unwanted for stirring, emotion-soaked, truly great pop songs that sound as if they've been languishing in a vault since the 60's.

I'm watching

The Gilmore Girls. Well, Life On Mars has finished now and I'm missing Gene's pimptastic white loafers but have pulled out all my Gilmore Girls boxed sets and have started re-watching it from the beginning. American readers will already know and love the genius of this show but British girls, you can get the DVDs really cheap and wish that Lorelai was your mum.

I'm reading

Edith Wharton, an American writer from over a hundred years ago who writes great snarky novels about heiresses falling on hard times and the snobbish, suffocating ways of uper crust New York society. It's research for a secret project. I've been having a hard time finding good books to read. Started lots of things (including the worst teen book I've ever read) and had to abandon them a few chapters in. I'm very excited though that I'll soon be getting my sticky hands on How Sassy Changed My Life, which is a book about Sassy, the greatest teen magazine in the world ever (apart from the first six issues of Ellegirl UK and J17 when it first went monthly!)Sassy was a huge influence on me and was one of the main reasons why I stopped writing about music and got a job on a teen mag.

I'm wearing

Empire line dresses over very dark wash skinny-ish jeans and little cardies. I realised that smocks and trapeze dresses make me look like an elephant in the 22nd month of gestation. Really, are they flattering for anyone? And I found my ginormous Bottega Veneta sunglasses when I was spring-cleaning and love them because they make me look like an imperious fashion bitch.


So, that's the state of me. I'm sorry I didn't have time to put pretty pictures or links in this post, but I need to get back to my pesky deadlines so I can afford to eat this month.

Why it's great to be a girl...

After the Avril-gate that erupted after the last post, I got called a lesbo, a feminazi and a retard, among other things. None of which persauded me to see the error of my Avril-disapproving ways. And FYI, words are never meaningless especially in a pop song, which is why I can be moved to tears when I listen to a 3 minute slice of pop perfection.

But what really disheartened and disappointed me was that my post was about standing up for other girls and why we shouldn't hate on them. And instead I get hated on in the most ungirlfriendly terms. I realised the unpleasant truth that our biggest enemies can be other girls when we should all be sticking up for each other, and agreeing to disagree about corporate puppets co-opting our culture so they can shift more units.

So to get the nasty taste out of my mouth, I compiled a list of all the things I think are great about being a girl, from the serious to the frivolous. You can add your own in the comments. It's fun. And I'm so over the whole Avril thing - this week I'm mostly incensed about carbon emissions, so offload your hate somewhere else, because I have a delete option and I know how to use it.

WHY IT'S GREAT TO BE A GIRL




Because we’re made of sugar and spice and all things nice.

Because we can talk for hours about nothing at all or debate environmental issues if we feel like it.

Because nail varnish looks better on us.

Because we get to benefit from being the daughters and grand-daughters of feminists.

Because we always have the last word.

Because pink is a viable colour choice.

Because no-one can ever say to us, “Stop acting like a girl.”

Because it’s physically impossible for us to ignore a ringing phone.

Because we’re statistically smarter (as well as just about every other kind of smarter) than boys

Because we can scream very loud, very frequently.

Because we can have babies if we really want to. But only if we want to.

Because we can wear vintage dresses.

Because we number such illustrious personages as Dorothy Parker, Elizabeth 1, Beth Ditto and Marie Curie among out ranks.

Because we get to have the most amazing girls as our friends.

Because we experiment with eye shadows not drugs.

Because we live in an age where there is Marc Jacobs and Primark.

Because if all else fails, we can always accessorise with a smile.

Because we have fantastic role models all around us from Lisa Simpson to Hillary Clinton.

Because we know that 99% of all pop songs are written about us.

Because together we're strong.

Because the only reason that boys don't think we're funny is because our sense of humour is way more sophisticated than fart jokes.

Because we know the cathartic benefits of a good weep and a bucketload of chocolate.

Because no one and nothing can stop us from being who we want to be.

Why fling this filth at our pop kids?

Busy. So very busy. With a bigass freelance commission and book-writing. I'm behind on everything and have a ton of outstanding messages on MySpace that I may get round to replying to one of these days. At this precise moment in time I'm waiting for someone to come round and turn off my leccy so he can install a fetching new kitchen light and take the kitchen door off so I can actually shift my 1940's dresser in there. It's going to be a wonderful moment when I can finally arrange my limited edition Andy Warhol glasses where people can actually see them.

Despite the general chaos and mounting deadlines, I did just want to rant about Avril Lavigne. She's not someone I have a lot of time for and her 'music' says nothing to me about my life. Also, I'm not buying the disaffected loner girl thing. When I was 16, I listened to Patti Smith, then Kristin Hersh and Courtney Love who wrote songs about what it was really like to be a mixed-up girl in a world that didn't like the mixed up. But I have to say that Ms Lavigne's new single, Girlfriend, has really got my hackles rising.

Hey Hey You You
I know that you like me
No way No way
No, it's not a secret
Hey Hey You You
I want to be your girlfriend

I can see the way
I see the way
You look at me
And even when you look away
I know you think of me
I know you talk about me all the time
again and again

So come over here
and tell me what I wanna hear
Better, yet, make your girlfriend disappear
I don't wanna hear you say her name
ever again

Because...

She's like so whatever
And you can do so much better

OK, it's catchy as a classroom of nits but the sentiment of the song is so un-girl-friendly that it makes me depressed. Avril Lavigne is just another cookie-cutter blonde starlet and all the carefully chosen Torrid-esque accessories and the fact that she can play three chords on her guitar doesn't change that. Because I think a girl who cared about her music and wanted it out in the world to change people's lives would use her powers for good. And slagging off other girls for daring to date boys who are cute is wrong. A whole damn load of wrong.

I'm not a riot grrrl (do they even exist any more?) I'm a feminist. I'm all about sticking up for girls, giving them a voice, inspiring and being inspired by girlkind. I don't always get it right but I think one of the most fundamental rules about being a girl is that you don't hate on other girls or steal their boyfriends or do other skeevy stuff that reflects badly on the rest of us.

And that's why this song royally pisses me off. God, don't even get me started on the video....

Are you a British internet superstar aged between 15 to 24?

• Do you spend all your time flitting between your Facebook, MySpace, Flickr account and Livejournal?
• Do you have your own website?
• Have you ever been recognised on the street because someone's seen your picture online?
• Do you run a messageboard or forum?
• Do you have an MP3 blog?
• Do you post pictures of your daily outfits?
• Have you ever dumped a boyfriend by changing the relationship status to single on your Facebook?
• Do you have more than a 1000 friends on your MySpace?

If the answer is 'yes' to more than two of these questions, I'd love to hear from you.

I'm writing a feature for a Sunday newspaper supplement about teenage girls and their internet usage; what they get up to online, what they blog about and their experiences both good and bad, whether they worry about who's reading their blogs or MySpaces, how important their online privacy is and simply, what do they love about the interpipe?

Alternately, I'm also looking for someone who's only just dipping a toe into the online world.

Like, I say, you must be in the UK, aged between 15 and 24 and female and willing to be interviewed in person or on the phone. We may also need to photograph you. (And if you're under 16, then you must get parental permission, them's the breaks!)

If you're interested, please leave a comment with your age, your email addy and a brief description of your online habits.

Love

Sarra x

Research 101

Happy Sunday to you my little darlings

It's very soggy, chilled and grey here in London. I wish Spring would just hurry up and sprung already.

As ever, thanks for all your comments, particularly about my new series Fashionistas. I can't wait for you to read the first book when it comes out in June. Or is it July? I never can remember! And thanks for all your other comments, though I have to remind you that leaving a comment here or at MySpace is the best way to contact me. If you do manage to dig out my email addy, I send back a pre-written email, which is a bit of a FAQ and also a reminder that this blog or MySpace are the official ways to contact me. While I'm on a reminding tip, there are a list of tags on this blog that will direct you to previous posts on writing tips, why there will never be a sequel to Diary Of A Crush and all sorts of other exciting topics. And links to all my interviews on the interpipe.

So at the moment I'm hard at work on the third book in the Fashionstas series, Irina, all about a surly Russian model, which is proving a great way to channel my aggression as I stick to my 2500 daily word quota.

It occurs to me that I haven't talked about the writing process for ages so I thought I'd do a post about research and how important it is to a writer. Being neither Russian or a model (and in this case, never having visited Japan which takes up a significant few chapters), to write this book and make it convincing meant that I had to do a lot of research. In an ideal world, I'd make enough money and have such great connections that I could just jump on a plane to Moscow or Tokyo or call Kate Moss for a little chat, but I don't so here are the less glam tricks of my trade.

Interviews

I'm really lucky that I have a lot of contacts in the fashion industry so I've been going out for coffee with people who know more about this stuff than I do. (A little tip, I bought this little gizmo that I stick into my iPod, which turns it into a voice recorder.) My good friend Jill Wanless gave me loads of great stuff about modelling and what happens behind the scenes on fashion shoots. I was shocked that all the dramatic scenes I came up with weren't half as outlandish as some of the things that actually go on. I'm also incredibly lucky to know Iain R Webb, a really influentilal fashion writer and living legend. Iain actually worked for Russian Vogue and has visited Moscow so could give me a first hand account that I just couldn't get from my Rough Guide To Moscow. It's also been really helpful to be able to phone Jill up and ask inane questions like, "Is there anything that models usually take to go-sees?" Or "Could a size 10 girl realistically be a successful model?" I have to say that all my years of workong on fashion magazines and being bored stupid at photo shoots were also invaluable as I could use tons of things that actually happened that I've been saving up for ages.

Internet

I love the internet. You're all too young to remember life before it but it involved going to libraries and wading through card indexes or using cuttings agencies and still not finding what you were looking for. Google is a writer's best friend. Thanks to Google I could find out the time difference between here and Russia and how long the flight takes. Where the Prada in Moscow is and what does the street look like? Even what MacDonalds tastes like in Tokyo! I have to confess I get a bit eye-rolly when I get emails and messages, usually on book reports, asking me tons of questions and usually ending with the words, "I couldn't find anything about you on the internet!" In a fraction of the time, they could have put "sarra manning" in a google search and found out everything they neded to know, which is what I tell them to do when I reply!

My favourite two research webby tools are Wikipedia, which pretty much has the facts on anything and everything. Someone's even Wiki-ed me! My other must-have is the bookmark site delicious. When I find a site or an online article (even a cookie recipe) that I know I'll need at a later date, I just click on the del.icio.us button I've installed on my toolbar and bookmark the site, but I can also organise all my bookmarks into tags like 'Russia' or 'Fashionistas'.

Media

I think peple can be really up themselves about research. It can be fun too! Fr'instance I got to re-watch Lost In Translation to actually see what Tokyo was like and watched the special 'making of' feature on the DVD too. Hey, it gave me lots of colour that I could put into the book as well so who's to say that it's not proper research? I also watched a way dark film called Lilya 4 ever, which was a great insight into the seedy side of post-Soviet Russia. What's weird is that all of a sudden everything you watch is relevant. Like, this week's episode of UK teen drama Skins saw them going off on a school visit to Russia, while there's that really annoying Russian girl on the new series of ANTM! When I was writing the second book, Hadley, about a former child star turned partying club kid, there were bits of gossip I read on celeb blogs that went straight into the book, including the fantastic quote, "Urgh, don't talk to me like I'm a normal person!" I guess Hadley is based on a composite of maybe three or four different celebrities and the crazy shit that they got up to while I was working on the book was absolute writer's gold.

Something else I've always done is have a big stack of magazine articles in a folder - for the last 18 months that I've been writing Fashionstas, I've kept every interview I've found with a model, or a feature on the fashion industry, or the New York club scene or 'internet It girl' Cory Kennedy. Though I've stopped reading pieces on the size zero debate because, hello, so over it.

Joke



I've also been listening to The Research a lot! But I think the two things may be unconnected.



Love Sarra x

Announcement: Fashionistas Book One out on July 17th

Finally, after months and months, I'm absolutely chuffed to be able to tell you about my latest book. I've been working on a four-novel sequential series called Fashionistas about four girls sharing a flat in London who are all signed to the Fierce Talent Agency; two of them are models, one of them is an ex-child star trying to re-launch her career and one of them is a reality TV celebrity with punk rock icons for parents.

The first book, Laura is published on July 17th, 2007, with the second book, Hadley on 20th September 2007, then Irina, which I've just started writing in January 2008 and finishing up with Candy in March 2008. (As yet, there's no news of US publication dates.)

All the covers have been illustrated by the talented Ray Smith who also did the UK covers of Pretty Things and the beautiful Let's Get Lost.

And this is a little taster of what you can expect from the first book:

Beating 12,000 other girls to become the newest model on Fierce's books is Laura's dream come true. But she knew it was bound to happen sooner or later. She's gorgeous – everyone thinks so.

But once the thrill of winning has faded, Laura is alone in London, in a shoebox bedroom with three fame-hungry flatmates. Being beautiful doesn't seem enough now… not when her booker thinks she's way too fat, and her devoted boyfriend isn't the rock she thought he was.

Laura's got to make some difficult decisions. And time is running out…

I'll be posting some sneak previews from Laura in the next few months but right now I'm about to go off and make myself purty for a big night out!

Love

Sarra x

Why I heart Lisa Simpson

There's really nowt going on. Well, there's lots going on but as I still can't tell you anything about my new series and I refuse to do the whole "there will NEVER be a fourth Diary Of A Crush book" speech for the umpteenth time, I've been trying hard to think of anything interesting to post.

But this week, I was searching through my hard disk and realised that I have a ton of articles that might amuse and entertain you. Most of them were written for UK magazines that have since closed. (Such is a writer's lot in life!) This is one of my favourite ever pieces, written for the wonderful Minx magazine, which was like a cross between Bust and old skool J17. There'll be more to come...





Head/ Minx of the month
Sell/ Lisa Simpson: she's yellow but she ain't yellow…

Lisa Simpson is a paradox. We're talking about a girl who's yellow, has weird pointy hair, favours strapless, orange dresses with uneven hems and has three fingers on each hand. She also has Homer Simpson as her paternal signifier. But despite (or maybe because of) these insurmountable obstacles, Lisa has triumphed.

Unswerving in her feminist beliefs, Lisa's still uncynical enough to believe that she can really make a difference. When her favourite doll, Malibu Stacey is marketed with a voicebox which utters such Pammyisms as "Don't ask me I'm just a girl, ha ha", it's Lisa who takes on the might of Malibu Stacey Inc and persuades the pseudo-Barbie's creator to make a new doll with a feminist conscience.

Lisa's righteousness - that same righteousness that we used to have before we discovered the magical diversions of expensive cosmetics and vodka - knows no bounds. She debunks the myth of Jebediah Springfield, even though her teacher labels her a PC thug. She trains Bart in the ways of Zen to make him a crazy golf champion. Hell, she even enrolls in a military academy when the second grade of Springfield Elementary School fails to stimulate her intellectual neurons.

The only blip in Lisa's otherwise faultless world is that she doesn't have many friends. Her yearbook is nowt but a collection of loser accolades and pristine pages lacking autographs, but after a fortnight at the beach (in the Summer Of 4ft 2), Lisa makes buds, not with her newly acquired wardrobe of happening threads, but because she teaches her new pals "about nature and why you shouldn't drink sea water."

Without wanting to be too tree-hugger about it, Lisa ain't afraid to get real - she doesn't shield her oddness, she wears her oddness like a shield. Like, Lisa's still young enough to write really bad poetry ("I had a cat called Fluffy, she died, she died/Mom said she was sleeping, she lied, she lied". But she's mature enough to realise that even brainiacs need to shake their thang too, whether she's duetting with Bart on The Theme From Shaft, guffawing at the slasher antics of Itchy And Scratchy or persuading her prototype riot grrrl acquaintances to capture Bart and slather him in make-up.

What makes Lisa so cool is knowing that when she grows up she's going to totally rock, either as a lipstick feminist with a controversial theory about date rape or as an angst ridden, guitar-wielding pop-type. OK, the reality is that Lisa is perpetually eight, but we can wish all our wildest teen ambitions on Lisa's sloping shoulders.

So, how come Lisa turns out to be such a Grade 1 wuss? In Lisa's Wedding, set in 2010, La Simpson's a "humourless vegetarian" post-graduate about to marry a Hugh Grant-alike who's had a copy of Burke's Peerage inserted up his rectum. And, way worse than that, she lost her virginity to Bart's terminally geeky pal, Millhouse. Sorry, Mr Groening, we just don't buy it.

We might have lost our faith but Lisa will always ooze conviction from every single one of her little, saffron pores. Maybe that's why we love her - 'cause there's a little bit of Lisa in us all.

Lisa Simpson, iconoclast, poet, idealist, feminist warrior - we salute you.

Whatever gets you through...

Very busy right now. Very, very busy. Every time I turn my head there's another manuscript that needs editing or a big piece for a magazine to write. Not that I'm complaining. Except actually I am. Loudly and frequently because it's that very special time in a girl's month. I think you know what I'm saying!

Right now though, the video above is causing me much joy. Little Korean kids playing marimbas really fast. I've never tried adding a video this blog, so fingers crossed it works. And I've bagsied the little one on the end, playing the tambourine.

I've also added a couple of links to the list on the right. My friend Kate now has her own blog raving about all the weird, esoteric stuff she likes. And my friend Amy makes beautiful, customised purses that you can buy.

Now I'm off to listen to ELO and do some work...

Love

Sarra x

Just like Camille...

My beloved fashionistas

I have a bad head cold. I am blaming this squarely on majorly cutting back on my nicotine consumption. Yes, I smoke and actually it's not as big and clever as I used to think it was. Also really expensive. Don't start, OK?

Anyway, I'm a bit sinus-y and headache-y and very snotty and I feel sorry for myself but I kinda like having colds; they're quite comforting maladies I always find because:

1. I like my sexy, croaky phlegm voice.
2. I go really pale.
3. It doesn't matter if I don't have my usual three showers a day as I can't smell myself if I am starting to hum.
4. I lose my sense of taste (that happened at about 2.30 yesterday afternoon), which means I lose my appetite which cancels out not being able to go to the gym.
5. I like the challenge of chic comfort dressing. Today I'm wearing a long-sleeved thermal vest under a black and white polka dot sundress with a bright red cardiegan, thick black tights and Uggs. Plus my skinny scarf (that looks like it could have come from Sonia Rykiel) wrapped around my neck. Though I am resisting the urge to climb back into my modal sleepwear.
6. I sleep a lot when I have a cold. Instead of five to six fitful hours of slumber, I get between eight and nine. This is why I buy the only cold caplets I can find that have no caffiene in them - this is harder than you might think.
7. Plus, I make a concerted effort to go to bed with two furry hot water bottles; one for my feet and one for my chest.
8. It would also be a good excuse not to do any work but I have a frighteningly over-developed work ethic. Luckily reading Nancy Mitford's biography of Madame de Pompadour counts as work, if you're me. Our Nance knows how to write a biography. It's gossipy, trivial and I get the feeling that historical accuracy was not her main priority, which suits me just fine.

Having been all glass half-full, I should point out that I also feel like a raw-faced zombie.

And I should also point out that I added some software to this blog so I could reply directly to comments posted and it's wiped all the comments instead! All of them! Every single one! And I still can't reply to individual comments but such is the price of progress.

Finally, though I can take or leave their music, I currently have a massive crush on the lead singer of The Feeling. Oooh, he's so stern-looking and whippet-like.

Tell me who YOU have a massive crush on? It will take my mind off the huge pile of soggy tissues I'm collecting...

Live on

Sarra x

All change!

Waving, not drowning...

Why yes, there is a shiny, new look to this blog with many added features. For good reason.

I've been absolutely swamped with emails and comments and MySpace messages over the last few weeks. I love, love, love hearing from you. I do. And I appreciate that you pour your hearts out and that my books mean a lot to you. It makes me feel very humble and honoured.

But the amount of things hitting my in-box has reached critical mass. I'm up to my elbows in my new series, but I'm also a jobbing journalist with freelance articles to write to keep the mortgage paid! This adds up to not a huge amount of time.

There's also the very thorny topic that I get asked the same three questions over and over and over again.

1. Please, please, please write more Diary Of A Crush/Guitar Girl/Let's Get Lost books.

2. I'm doing a book report and need some vague information on you that I haven't bothered to google.

3. Can I have some writing tips?

I have answered these questions many, many times on this blog. Many times. But I realise it can be very hard to trawl through the archives if you don't know what you're looking for. So, at first I considered just writing a FAQ and giving up the blogging, or else I would just be replying to the same questions all the time.

But I didn't want to do that. I like blogging. And I like blogging to you and reading your comments and finding out about what's going on in your life. I don't get time to reply to everyone but I read them all. I can't stress that enough.

LABELS
So, I decided to use the new features at blogspot to hopefully make everyone happy. As well as a new layout, I've spent two whole days of my life going back and labelling all of my entries. You can see the labels to the left of you. Now, to find out why there are no more Diary Of A Crush books you can simply click on the labels: Diary Of A Crush or NO MORE SEQUELS and all will be explained.

LINKS
I've also added a links list (also on the left, though you may have to scroll down to find it) with lots of me on the interpipe, from interviews to podcasts to my publishers' micro-sites. There's also a whole ton of other links for my favourite bands, magazines and people.

THE MYSPACE BLOG
I've decided to stop cross-posting to my blog at MySpace. I'm still on MySpace and always happy to add new friends and read (and even reply occasionally!) to messages there. But the blogspot template with the labelling and whatnot makes it more pratical to just blog here.

I hope that these nifty little things will help you find what you're looking for and it will make it easier for me to direct people to the right place. Though if I get one more email about a fourth Diary Of A Crush book, my brain may just leak out of my nostrils.

I guess the one thing I hate about blogspot is that there's no option so I can reply to specific comments. I either have to add a comment to my own post or try to pick up your questions on the next blog posting.

Anyway, there's lots here for you to take in. But, I'm still here. I'll still be posting all sorts of lists of stuff I'm into and a whole other bunch of rambly crap and book news, excerpts and gossip. I'm not going anywhere and please don't you either! I would be interested to know what you think of the new look blog and if you have any other tips or ideas of things I can do to make your blogging experience better.

Much love

Sarra x

Inaugural 2007 post

Happy New Year!

I crawled out of bed at noon today after a very late night. I had a little party where I stuffed my guests full of an ungodly amount of food. Then we walked up to Ally Pally (the second highest point in London) for midnight and watched all the fireworks across the city as we drank champagne. Then back to my place for more Cava and pomegranate juice cocktails – because I am old enough to drink alcohol! Anyway, I hope that however you celebrated New Year's Eve, you had a good time and that 2007 brings you everything you want from health and happiness too foxy boys and styling frocks.

As promised this is an excerpt from Let's Get Lost that didn't make it into the final version.



And Rob really had been the best of a truly bad bunch. At least he'd hit puberty. We'd drunk these two super-sized bottles of cider quickly enough to qualify for the world record before Rob had dragged me off in the direction of the hut behind the Crown Bowling Green. He'd fancied himself quite the raconteur and regaled me with all these stories about how he could break into a car in five seconds and steal the stereo and the sub woofers, whatever the hell they were, before anyone realised. He was quite the charming conversationalist.

"People are real twats," he'd sniffed. "Most of the time they leave the doors unlocked."

"You don't say."

"Yeah. I've never really talked to a posh bird before."

I arched one of my eyebrows. "And how's it working out for you?"

"Dunno," he'd said, after a minute's thought. "So you gonna let me feel you up then?"

Out of the corner of my eye, I'd caught a flash of pink and I knew Nancy was in the vicinity already to report back. "C'mon, then," I'd sighed. "You can kiss me if you like."

After Rob had thoroughly rinsed my mouth out with his tongue for a good few minutes while I carefully manoeuvred him out of the line of fire, I'd had enough. Then he'd mauled my tits like he was trying to tune in one of those purloined car stereos and I'd had more than I could stand.

I'd gently extricated myself from his octopus-like embrace and firmly removed the paw that was clamped around my left buttock.

"What did you do that for?" Rob had asked, trying to worm his leg between mine while I thrust my head back to evade any more spit.

"Don't get me wrong, this has been real and stuff but I have to go," I'd said very pleasantly given the extreme mauling I'd just suffered. "Maybe I'll see you around."

He'd reached for me again as I'd adroitly side-stepped out of the path of his questing hands. "You're tight, you know that," he'd told me furiously.

"Gosh, thanks awfully for enlightening me." He didn't seem to be getting the message that I'd rather have my skin removed from my body with a rusty potato peeler than kiss him again. He'd kept lurching towards me with his lips puckered and Jesus, those hands… They should have had a government health warning tattooed across the knuckles.

"You know you want to," he'd cajoled, grabbing my wrists and it's so annoying that even the weediest boy can overpower me. But even weedy boys don't have nails as sharp as mine or know how to use them.

He gave a girly squeak when I dug them into the back of his hands and finally let me go. "Sorry about that," I'd chirped. "Did I mention that I was a Mormon?"

And then I turned and ran while he was still scrolling through the empty files where his brain should be to understand what I was saying.

A Christmukkah gift to you

Happy Chrismukkah, dear readers!

I have a little present for you. Think of it like a DVD extra feature but with words. I'm posting some excerpts from Walker's bit of Pretty Things that never made it into the final version. I thought they might amuse you.

And then we had to stop because Lavinia strutted in and started screaming like a fishwife at us.

I had Charlie practically in catatonic shock next to me and over the other side of the room there was Daisy, curling in on herself as she bore the brunt of Lavinia's wrath.

Daisy has this really annoying thing about how she's fat. It's all "No, don't touch me there, I'm so lumpy." And even though I'm besotted with the evil little bitch, even I could never call her exactly sylph-like. But as she sat there, her lips, her shoulders, her everything drooping further down as Lavinia got going with her invective, she seemed to shrink before my eyes. Disappear into herself.

When she got up and tore out of there, it was like she was taking another piece of my soul with her.

***************************************************

"Um hang on a second," Charlie said from behind his fingers. "Don't take this the wrong way but I… well, I… that is… I like it when you flirt with me. I know it's not going to go anywhere. Believe me, I'm painfully aware of that but it doesn't mean you have to stop."

"I can't help it," I tried to explain. "It's like this inevitable reaction once I know someone fancies me. But I could try to stop…"
Charlie pushed the sun-bleached tips of his hair out of his eyes and frowned. "Didn't you just hear what I said? I don't want you to stop flirting with me. It's about the only sexual contact I get."

"Or you can stop," he hastily amended. "But only when I'm madly in love with someone who has the good sense to be madly in love with me back."
"I think the back of my head has just fallen out."

***********************************************************

"So I guess you told Charlie," Daisy said calmly to Brie who refused to back down. I was getting really pissed off with V.02 of Brie, the bolshy remix.

"Charlie's my friend." The tone of Brie's voice redefined the word 'petulance.'

"Yeah and you didn't want him to find out like you did and be upset. I get that." Daisy put a hand up to shield her eyes from the sun and smiled at me.

"You been making inroads into my stash?" There had to be some reason why she was being so pleasant to me in front of other people.

I got another lazy Daisy smile and then she deliberately leaned forward and covered my hand with hers. None of this was wasted on Brie and Charlie who wore matching perplexed expressions like we were the last question in Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.

"Walker didn't tell you because I asked him not to," Daisy said to Charlie. "Because I was trying to pretend that me and him were just this temporary bout of insanity."

It took Brie and Charlie several millennia to eat their sausage and chips and bombard us with questions, which Daisy refused to answer. Instead she wouldn't stop touching me. Running her fingers along the back of my neck and tugging at the short strands of hair she found there. Curling her leg round mine under the table. Resting her head against my shoulder. There's only so much resistance a boy can give and in the end I stopped trying to fight it and let her do her worst.

The other two finally pissed off and then Daisy sighed. "Thank God for that. I thought they'd never leave. C'mere."

****************************************************

Next week, I will be posting a little unseen snippet from Let's Get Lost for your viewing pleasure.

Have a good one!

Love Sarra x

Competition winners!

Hey there, my little buttercups

I had a ginormous plate of spaghetti bolognaise for dinner tonight at my favourite Italian restaurant, then walked three and a half miles home and now I'm feeling rather peckish again. Dang! I hate when that happens.

Life is a huge whirlygig of whirl at the moment. I'm still working on my second and final draft of a new book, plus have two big freelance assignments to finish up this week, before I can start worrying about Christmas presents that I have yet to buy and the free-range turkey I've yet to order. And more importantly, what the hell am I doing for New Year's Eve?

So I'm handing over this post to you. Or rather to the two winners of my little mix-CD competition. To be fair, I screwed up slightly. I do that a lot! I asked for a Christmas message from one of my characters, then I asked for a Christmas message to one of my characters. Quite frankly, I don't know where my head is these days.

There were lots of entries for either option and I was blown away by the thought and humour and creativity that had gone into them. But there could only be two winners and there are Gidget with a message from the lovely Brie and Special K who wrote a sort-of sequel to Guitar Girl - because you're certainly not getting one from me! Below are their winning messages of Yuletide cheer, and Ladies, you'll be getting an email from me asking for your snailmail addy. Well bloody done! Aaargh, that's something else I need to do this week – Crimbo cards and mix CDs!

Love Sarra x

Gidget

Dearest Sarra,

Jingle bells
Walker smells
Charlie is still GAY
Daisy is a superbitch
And - oh, nevermind.

I'm just writing to wish you an amazing Christmas. 'Cause it's totally gonna be one. Next week, Charlie and Daisy and Walker and I are all going to go see The Shrew performed "professionally," together. Like as though we're the best of friends. Which, hello! Not likely.

Anyway, so what if they're professionals? I already know nothing can compare to our performance, even if the last night was . . . well, unprofessional.

On Christmas day, Charlie's coming over to do presents with me. I love getting presents, but the best part of Christmas is . . . well, the bits before it, I guess. Like, Christmas lasts all month, not just for one day. It has to do with the preparation and stuff, I think. Like, shopping for presents and listening to Christmas-y music and decorating the tree. Well, if you can get an ornament in before Henry, the wee bastard.

Everyone puts up pretty little lights and all the shops play "The Christmas Song." And it's that way the whole month! Yup. Like as though the whole world was celebrating the whole month.

Plus, everything goes all orangey and soft-focus and you feel all gooey inside like when you see that dress in the store window that's just made for you and you have exactly enough money left for it. It's the one time of year I've always felt like there were people all around me who really cared and even Henry can't ruin it when he doesn't get the present he wants or I put up the ornament that he wanted to.

So, here's wishing you happy holidays and many gooey feelings,
Kisses,
Brie

Oh and P.S., I'd really like that new Juicy Couture perfume or some more Anna Sui Sweet Dreams or possibly just that cute little top at Topshop I was going on about.


Special K

So it’s Christmas!
Once again the time for tinsel, trees and presents.
Oh and really crappy TV! Those rubbish films you only watch cos they’re Christmas premiers so you feel you have to…and reruns of Only fools and horses!
Unfortunately there’s also some bad things at this time of year that I just can’t escape.
Turning on the radio and hearing HIM. Turning on the TV and seeing HIM. Picking up a magazine and seeing HIM on the cover.
The success of ‘The Hormones’ seems to double over the holiday period. I sometimes wonder if whatever force is up there in the sky that controls this world just decided they hated me from day one.
So ye, I try to keep my friends around me constantly at Christmas because if I don’t my mind starts wandering to places I’d rather it didn’t and…well you hear about these people who’ve had mental breakdowns and done all kinds of crazy suicidal stuff cos of the holiday time blues. I so don’t wanna go down that path.
I know what you’re thinking. Get over it girl it was years ago!
Well I am over it….i just haven’t felt that way since. I mean I’ve had relationships but I’ve not found anyone that really makes me feel….like me. If that makes sense.
Maybe I’m just hanging on to a person I used to be, I don’t think I can be her anymore. Maybe I’m just hanging on to the idea of him realising he needs me.
Which…yeah right.
It doesn’t matter because I don’t need him and I’m just being sentimental because it’s holidays. I’m over it now. Smiles and mulled wine all around!
I’ll just spend Christmas hiding out in my flat with Smith. It’s all good.
Love Molly.





So it’s Christmas.
I hate Christmas. Simple as that. I have to stand in cold studios smiling at a camera, watching Sandrine embarrass herself by wearing clothes so thin and skimpy you can blatantly see her nipples through them! It’s ridiculous!
I know where I’d rather be…but it’s been too long. I wasn’t man enough to get her back then and I’m certainly not going to now. She’d laugh in my face. She’ll be having a fun Christmas with her boyfriend I’m sure of it. I don’t want to mess that up for her.
I miss her more than…I can’t even think of a metaphor for how much I miss her.
Maybe I could just send her a Christmas card.
Maybe if I did at least we could be friends again, right?

Yeah I know. I’m living in a dream world.
I’ll just spend Christmas hiding out in my room from Sandrine and her Christmas lingerie. How fun.
Love Dean.


(Cross-posted to http://blog.myspace.com/sarramanning)

Burning the candle at both ends...

Buenos dias, my sweet ones

I'm a little hurty today as I've been going out too much and possibly drinking too much as well. Last night, I saw my good friend Kate Kannibal (possibly not her real last name) and her wonderful band, The Priscillas, play their Christmas show. And very wonderful it was, plus there was spectacular fake snow that got everywhere.

I'm meant to be going out tonight but the thought of curling up on the sofa in my pyjamas and watching DVDs is looking more and more tempting by the second. Especially as the coming week promises bowling and/or karaoke plus going to see my favourite new band Lucky Soul. Then a cocktail party and more bowling. Everyone I know seems to have a birthday right about now. Including the baby Jesus.

When I haven't been drinking and getting the 134 bus home at some ungodly hour in the morning, I've been wading through the second draft of the second book in my new series. I've made a rash promise to deliver it before Christmas. I'm crazy like that.

I'm still thrilled with all your comments about Let's Get Lost, especially as it seems to be more than just a good read, but a book that stays with you after you've read it and makes you cry. Tears are good. Tears are what I wanted. And the other thing I love is when art and life collide and something in one of my books slots right into what's happening with you. Fr'instance, onewtown08 is moving to Bossier City which is namechecked in Sealed With A Kiss and Dannie has been to Bailey's Fish 'n' Chip shop in Southend, which gets a mention in Pretty Things. Actually, Dannie since you told me that I've had a terrible hankering fro haddock and chips from Toff's, my local award-winning chippie, but I'm trying to be strong and eat lots of vegetables instead.

But there are two points of business I need to clear up. I've mentioned them before but no one took any notice! If you are writing a book report or essay on me, then all the info you need is already online. All you need to do is google my name (in speechmarks) and you'll find everything you want, except my age and marital status because heck, a girl has to retain some mystery. I'm kinda bemused when told that people haven't been to find anything on the interpipe, or maybe they just didn't look! And the other thing is that if you send me a message on MySpace, then I can't reply to you if you'r settings won't accept messages from people you haven't Friended. And I can't Friend you if your settings only accept 'adds' from people who know your last name or your email addy. I'm not ignoring you!

And finally, no one seems to want an end of year mix CD from me. The offer still stands. Two lucky people will get my annual Songs That Have Changed My Life This Year CD that I send out with my Crimbo cards. All you have to do is send me a Christmas message from one of the characters in any one of my books. Make them, funny, thoughtful, creative, whatever and remember to leave your email addy.

Cross-posted at http://blog.myspace.com/sarramanning

Lagged of jet

I'm back from NYC and struggling with the dreaded jetlag. I'm going to bed late, really late, like 3.30 am late, not sleeping and then struggling out of bed at lunch-time. Oh dear!

But I had a wonderful time, so different from my London life where I live in jeans and spend most of my time in front of the computer. I went to lots of fashionable restaurants, an Edie Sedgwick book launch (I was obsessed with Edie Sedgwick when I was but a mere slip of a girl) at the swank Gramercy Park Hotel, a shop opening and tried to find the perfect vintage leopardskin coat at the Chelsea Flea Market, Fake leopardskin, I should add.

But mostly I shopped. I shopped and shopped until I could shop no more. I went slightly crazy in Anthropologie at their clearance rails, cleaned Old Navy out of pyjama bottoms and woolly socks and I don't even want to talk about what happened at Marc Jacobs. Though I managed not to buy a very expensive dress. I felt so financially and morally bankrupt that I had to have long walks in Central Park (I was staying at very posh hotel over-looking all the autumn foliage) to cleanse my soul of all the rampant consumerism.

I did also find time to go to Barnes & Noble on Union Square and sign a stack of copies of Let's Get Lost so if you still haven't got a copy and you're in the Manhattan area, that's the place to go.

Now I'm back in London, I should be working hard but actually I seem to be spending most of my time bidding on vintage cake tins on eBay and worrying that I've been contaminated by noxious poison like that Russian spy dude who's just died. Apparently, he lived just down the road from me and I do think I have a bit of a sore throat.

I've started to get the inevitable "will there be a sequel?" questions about Let's Get Lost. You know, in some ways I would love to. Against my better judgement, I re-read the book this week (it's a very painful read for me) to get myself back in the Manning head-space. I did find myself getting all over-excited about Isabel and Smith again but really, it's a complete work. There was the big mystery and the emotional conflict, but it was all resolved! So I don't really think that either of them have a story left to tell, much as I enjoyed writing about them. I'm pretty hardcore about my "no sequels" rules even if my editor (Hi Emily) would love to pin me down and force me to write a Guitar Girl 2, which would certainly not be suitable for teen readers.

But I am all about giving. I really am! And I haven't done a competition for a while. So, it's that time of year when I like to make a little mix CD of my favourite tracks of the year to send out with my Crimbo cards. And two of you could win a copy! All you have to do is write a Christmas message to one of the characters from any one of my books. It can be funny, heartfelt, heck, it could even be in rhyme! And I give top marks for the super-creative! Just leave your message in a comment with your email address and I'll announce the winners really soon.

Love

Sarra x

(Cross-posted to http://blog.myspace.com/sarramanning)

What's in a name

Guten tag my little strudels

My contact lenses are giving me grief so I apologise if this post is riddled with typos.

It's been quite a tumultuous week. I'm still reeling from the Britney and k-Fed split, not like it was any surprise. And even more importantly the Roland Mouret 10 dresses went into Gap, while at H&M was the quite wonderful Viktor & Rolf collection. Alas, the Viktor & Rolf pieces seem to have sold out before I could get my hands on them, but truly we live in wonderful times.

I've been super busy writing for British Elle, but I have just started the second draft of the second book in my new series (still not out until Summer 2007 in the UK.) This involves reading the first draft and being pleasantly surprised that it's not quite as craptacular as I thought it was. But mostly, I've been a whirlwind of organisation as I fly to New York next Wednesday for a short holiday, though I will be signing some extra copies of Let's Get Lost in a backroom at Barnes & Noble, Union Square, which will then be available to buy. And shopping. Lots of shopping. Century 21 has already been alerted!

As ever, thanks for your comments, especially your thoughts on Let's Get Lost. Blue Floppy Hat asked if the title was taken from the Elliott Smith song, and actually it came from the original, Chet Baker version. Well, actually that's a little bit of a lie. Originally, many moons ago, when I started writing the book, it was going to be simply called Lost. Fast forward and there just happened to be a rather popular TV show of the same name that started in the meantime. I had lots of ideas as to what to call the book, some of them still scrawled on a Post-it note on my wall (Good, Bad, Whatever…, Crazy Mixed-Up Girl, A House Safe For Tigers) until I realised that Let's Get Lost was perfect. It just seemed to encapsulate Isabel's state of mind and her refusal to face up to what she was really feeling.

I also get asked for information for book reports every now and again. As ever, I just don't have the time to be of much help. One day I will have a proper website with a FAQ and links to all my interviews – or at least update my publisher's micro-site but until then, a simple Google search of my name, will turn up anything that you probably need to know for school assignments. There are quite a few interviews I've done that are up on the interpipe and that's the best way to find them.

Right now, I really need to jump in the shower (just back from the gym) and eat some lunch before my stomach stages a protest and walks to the fridge all by itself.

I won't be able to update next weekend as I'll be in New York, but I'll be in touch soon.

Love

Sarra x

(Cross-posted to http://blog.myspace.com/sarramanning)

Blow Up!

A cheery top of the morning (or afternoon to be more specific) to you, dear readers

I am freezing. I'm sitting here with my stylin' Marc Jacobs fingerless gloves on as I type this because the central heating has yet to warm up the Arctic conditions in my flat. Despite the fact that I'm fighting a cold, tonight I will be attending a Bonfire and Fireworks Extravaganza at Alexandra Palace (Ally Pally as it's known to we North London locals,) to celebrate Guy Fawkes day tomorrow.

Non-British readers may wonder what the heck Guy Fawkes is. But basically he was a dude in doublet and hose who tried to blow up the Houses Of Parliament many centuries ago in some international master-spy plot. (Obviously I'm paraphrasing here.) He got caught and in an ironic move ended up getting burnt himself. Guy Fawkes Day teaches British children that it is neither big nor clever to stand in the way of democracy by trying to blow up Parliament. Also that burning effigies of people in big bonfires and letting off fireworks that scare household pets is cool. And this paragraph is why I will never attempt to write a historical novel.

Anyway, Let's Get Lost is finally out in North America. Hurrah! I have no idea how it's being received (apart from a few lovely comments on this blog and MySpace.) If you feel inclined, reviews posted at Amazon and Barnes & Noble are always welcome. I will be interested to see how it's received, as American reviewers tend to fixate on how much alcohol my characters consume. While I would never condone underage drinking, it's legal to buy alcohol at 18 in the UK and I have a theory that people always start doing things about three years before they're legally allowed to. Not that I did. I was a paragon of teen virtue.

As well, as working hard on my new series – the first book has been copy-edited and we're just finalising the cover and the second book is almost finished – I'm writing a couple of articles for British ELLE and getting ready to visit NYC in a few days. Mainly for the purposes of shopping, and hanging out with one of my dearest friends who currently lives there.

Right now I need to transcribe an interview tape (which is the most loathsome bit about being a journalist) and make a huge vat of chicken soup to see off my sore throat.

I hope you are all wrapping up warm and remembering to wear a hat when you go out.

Love

Sarra x

(Cross-posted to A cheery top of the morning (or afternoon to be more specific) to you, dear readers