Thirst - Kerry Hudson - Blog Tour

Today I am very pleased to share a guest post by author Kerry Hudson, whose second novel Thirst is published by Chatto & Windus on 17th July 2014.

I reviewed Kerry's debut novel here - Tony Hogan Bought me an Ice-Cream Float before he Stole my Ma.

Writing rituals by Kerry Hudson

It’s no secret that I travel a lot. Even when theoretically based in London, my recent years have been punctuated by short trips here or there, sometimes for writing work – as happened recently when I was writer in residence in Seoul for a month – or sometimes just because my wanderlust became irrepressible.

Photo by Nick Tucker Photography

So how do I keep writing? With different routines, environments and demands on my time? Well I have my little ‘writing rituals’ built up, without even realising it, as I wrote my books. In the last few years I’ve come call quite a few writers friends (I knew none when my first book came out) and what strikes me is, though we usually have strikingly different lifestyles and often write very different timescales for book delivery, there are commonalties in those writing rituals.  

Here are the most popular writing rituals:

Get some Freedom…yes the time kind but hopefully that’s been carved out already by making writing a priority, by explaining to family, friends and partners why it’s an important part of your life. But in this instance, I mean Freedom that’s the app that turns of the internet. No sneaking to Twitter of Facebook to look at Gifs of kittens when you get bored, no giving up your story halfway through to check your Amazon sales rank. Nothing. Just you and the page and the beautiful silence of returning to circa 1993.

Accept that sometimes you’re writing when you’re not…some people go over their impending scenes in the shower, some on long drives at night time. I favour long city walks, plugged into some good music, a hot cup of coffee. Whatever city I’m in, I walk until hunger or achey limbs force me back to the land of the living. Inevitably something comes ‘unstuck’ on those walks though. I learned to accept that not all writing time is spent at your desk but I take care to conscious about this and stay with the story whatever else I’m doing.

Shake your ass…or whatever part of your body you’d like to, but do exercise. I try to never go a day without. Yoga is popular amongst writers because we are all terrified of end up as hunchbacks without it (my whole body clicks like a percussive instrument when I stretch and that’s *with* regular yoga). I also run, swim laps or just go for that long walk above every day. This is without a doubt – except, you know, WORDS – the most common writer’s practice…do it for your posture, to stop you from going mental or because you believe defined abs sells more books but it’s a good, healthy practice to get into.

Booze and coffee…I got very fond of hot-toddies made with lime while I was in Vietnam finishing my second book Thirst. Some writers like to write in the pub, some have a bottle of wine chilling in the fridge as incentive (dangerous game, that one). A glass – note, singular – at your elbow seems to act as a ‘loosener’ and a treat all at once. And it goes without saying coffee is the lifeblood. I don’t have kids and keep my own schedule (which involves more sleep than the average tranquilised kitten needs) but coffee spikes my adrenalin beautifully, keeps me going when I feel ‘on it’ and boost me when I’m feeling ‘very much not on it’.

Revisit the well…writers read, I think this goes without saying. But most of the writers I know make time for other culture. They are excited by good music, telly, theatre, art and photography. Me? I’m a film junkie and music obsessive. When I need to refresh myself I go to the cinema, see a photography exhibition or go to a gig. Art informs art and I’ve lost count of the amount of time I’ve come home after seeing something beautiful determined to try to honour my ideas and make something as good as it can be.

Words….yes, those too. I find setting a number of words a day the best technique and the most prolific writers I know also do this. Some set themselves a certain time target  – one uses the ‘Pomodoro Techinique’. Others write longhand or dictate and then type up. Many, myself included, use Scrivener for redrafting while lots stick with post-its. There are lots of different techniques for getting the words on the page and then making those words into something you might want other to see, but ultimately this is the most important ritual of all. After all, writers write.  

About the novel

The beginning of a relationship is usually all about getting to know one another, sharing stories far into the night, comparing experiences, triumphs and heartaches, until we know each other inside out.

Not so for Dave and Alena. He’s from London, she’s from Siberia. They meet in a sleek Bond Street department store in the frayed heat of high summer where she’s up to no good and it’s his job to catch her. So begins an unlikely relationship between two people with pasts, with secrets, they’ve no idea how to live with — or leave behind. But despite everything they don’t have in common, all the details they won’t and can’t reveal, they still find themselves fighting with all they’ve got for a future together.

Thirst is the heart-wrenching, life-affirming second novel from Kerry Hudson, whose debut Tony Hogan Brought Me an Ice-cream Float Before He Stole My Ma was one of the most talked about UK debuts of 2012 and was shortlisted for an array of prizes, including the Guardian First Novel Award and the Sky Arts Awards.

The Senior Moment - Eva Hudson

Degrees of Separation Book 2

'What's a woman got to do to get some attention around here?'

What an opening to this crime story! Jean Henderson has no sooner arrived on her first visit to New York City from London, suitcase still in hand, than she is witness to a fatality at a grocery store robbery, and what's more, she catches sight of the face of one of the two criminals as they remove their mask when they are about to speed away on their motorbike. Jean tries to inform the police of what she has just witnessed moments before, but those on the scene pay little heed to her; she feels like she is invisible to them all, so she ventures to the nearest police station, where she meets a fellow senior, Stanley Rozello, who is on the cusp of retirement from the force.

'Less than four hours in New York and it seemed she had become transparent, dissolving into the background wherever she went. Could it be her age? Surely sixty-five was no age at all. Ever since her last birthday she'd told everyone who'd listen it was the new fifty.'

Jean is there in NYC to visit her son and his partner who is due to give birth. But when she reaches their home, she finds neither of them there and a strange message left for her from her son. It becomes clear that he is in deep financial trouble.

This is a compelling read by Eva Hudson, an enjoyable and entertaining crime story that turns accepted notions about ageing on their head and has something to say about the financial crisis to boot. She has created a strong, determined and unconventional heroine in Jean; a mature, older lady who certainly won't stand for being ignored and being made to feel like she is invisible because others may consider her as less significant in society now, somehow, just because of her age. 

'Getting older had never bothered her, she actually quite enjoyed the licence it gave her to behave badly and get more of her own way, but this new invisibility thing was becoming tiresome.'

She embarks upon a plan with others who feel the same to make their voices heard, using the very thing that has irked her - the way she has been treated as if she is invisible and unimportant - to her advantage, whilst at the same time aiming to help her son out of the deep trouble he has found himself in. 

The story skips along at a good pace throughout, with drama, tension and humour, and the lead characters are engaging; as well as Jean, I particularly liked the dogged Detective Luisa Rodriguez and her former partner in the NYPD, the aforementioned Rozello. Both find themselves involved in Jean's activities as she sets about righting the wrongs she encounters in NYC. There's a point made here about alienating a section of society at our peril - if they were to rally around like Jean, who knows what might happen. I haven't read the first novel by Eva Hudson yet but it is on my kindle and after reading this one I am looking forward to it.

This is an independently published novel.

Thanks to the author for kindly sending me an ebook copy of this novel to read and give an honest review.

You can follow the author on twitter @Eva_Hudson and visit her website here.

Kerry Hudson Blog Tour - Author Guest Post & Competition

I am delighted to welcome author Kerry Hudson to the blog today!

Kerry's debut novel, Tony Hogan Bought Me an Ice-cream Float Before He Stole My Ma, was shortlisted for The Guardian First Book Award 2012 and is now published in paperback on July 4th and she is celebrating with a #TonyHoganTour - below is a guest post from Kerry about the amazing past year of her life since publication! There's also a great competition, plus you can read my review of this novel and find out where Kerry is off to next on the tour.

A year after publication, by Kerry Hudson

This time last year I was up until 3am baking 75 cupcakes. They were for the launch of my first novel Tony Hogan Bought Me an Ice-cream Float Before He Stole My Ma. The next day I took those cakes, and my sleep-deprived self, to my local bookshop to read my entire book aloud in one day with the help of friends, family, actors and brave passers by. That evening (it took us eight hours in total, by the end I sounded like Marlon Brando) on my way to a celebratory to dinner in Soho I went into Foyles, saw my book on the shelf and burst into tears. I had no idea what to expect from having a novel published, particularly such a personal one, but seeing it on a shelf in a shop was dream come true enough. 

I genuinely didn't have any expectations but I did have hopes. I hoped people would read it, I didn't expect a lot to, but I hoped at least a few would. I hoped people would understand the characters actions, that they'd see how hard I worked to bring both laughter and honesty to the story. I hoped mothers would pass it to their daughters and vice versa. I hoped I might get to see a review of it in a paper; a nice one so I could show the people who'd supported me. 

In the last twelve months I've travelled to Poland, France, Scotland and umpteen other places to read my work. I have written articles for national newspapers and magazines. I travelled to back Vietnam (where I first wrote Tony Hogan) to finish my second novel and while out there discovered I'd been shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Prize, Green Carnation Prize and Southbank Sky Arts Award and so I got to put on a nice dress and drink some free cocktails at some ceremonies. Tony Hogan was sold to Editions Phillipe Rey in France and then to Penguin in the US. People did buy the book, all sorts of people, and they sent messages saying they laughed and cried, that the book had touched them in some way, that they'd passed it to their sister/mother/daughter/great-grandmother. I got good, thoughtful reviews and got to show them to people who'd been so kind and supportive to me before I'd ever written a line. Best of all, I met incredible, smart, decent, interesting, kind people; I've never met so many lovely people as I have this year.    

I have been very, very lucky and I don't forget it for a moment, I'm still grateful every day. Most of my luck has come from the kindness of others; bloggers who let me talk to their readers (thank you Lindsay!), readers who championed the book and passed it on, an agent and editor who first found it and first loved it. I have been lucky thanks to others.

Almost exactly a year later I am about to make more cupcakes to deliver to hard-working booksellers to celebrate the Tony Hogan paperback. I have finished my second novel Thirst (it's out this time next year – so more baking to be done!) and am working on a one-woman play of Tony Hogan which I  hope to tour around the council estates featured in the book. Many things have changed for me but what hasn't is that every day I sit down all by myself and make things up and I hope to God that I'm writing something worth reading, that it is as good as it can possibly be....and, of course, that my luck holds for a wee while longer.  

Competition!

Want to win a signed copy of Tony Hogan? I'm  trying to put together a Tony Hogan soundtrack. Simply submit your song suggestion to me @kerryswindow on Twitter with the hashtag #tonyhogantune by the end of Monday 8th of July. If your song is one of the ten selected for the soundtrack (and you were the first to suggest it!) I'll send you a signed copy of Tony Hogan. 

Thanks to Kerry for her post and for the great competition!

Links

Amazon | Waterstones | Kerry's website | Kerry on twitter

Review - I reviewed this novel last year - here's a link if you'd like to read my thoughts (I thought it was very good!) 

Follow the #tonyhogantour - here are details of all the stops, the next one is at Writer's Little Helper tomorrow!

Tony Hogan Bought me an Ice-Cream Float before he Stole my Ma - Kerry Hudson

'We were a glass family, she was a glass ma and I needed to wrap us up, handle her gently.' 


The fragility of this family's existence is evident early on, and throughout this wonderful debut novel, which arrested my attention from the very first words, as little Janie Ryan first comes into the world. She joins the family of 'Ryan Women, with filthy tempers, filthy mouths and big bruised muscles for hearts.' 

Janie recounts her very personal story to us throughout the whole novel, and this is certainly a warts and all account. She endures a very unsettled childhood, moving often from flats to B&Bs to tower blocks, and never staying in any one town very long, and her and her ma are always poor, scraping to make ends meet.  Men come into her mother's and therefore Janie's life too, and leave more than one kind of scar behind when they disappear again. 

The intensity of her life and the rough treatment she has witnessed is mirrored very effectively in the language used by the author to describe Janie's perceptions of nature and things around her: 'The wind pummelled angry fists against the windows and threw its weight against the walls and the oven burner jumped and sighed, like a scared girlfriend.' The images that these descriptions conjure up are harsh and violent, and therefore fitting interpretations by Janie of these aspects of the world that surround her, because these are things that she has heard and seen. Janie is often left to take on the role of looking after everyone, caring for her ma when she can't cope with the world anymore, and looking after herself as best she knows how.

I was delighted to read of Janie's joy as a little girl at discovering the library and a love of books, of pictures and of words, all available to her without cost. 

'Running to sit at the little plastic chairs I felt the library's warm, still air push inside me to slow my thumping heart and the second-hand-shop smell snake up my nostrils, winding itself snug around my insides. When I opened the books, and I could open as many as I liked because it cost us nothing, the pictures lay on my eyes like oil on water and the dancing letters settled on my tongue with the smell and the taste of black-jack sweeties. While Ma bit at her lips, ripped at her cuticles and read old magazines, I was learning how stories could make me feel safe. '

I was amused by the humour that could be created even in the midst of yet another move to another temporary home. 'Ma said it wasn't a proper B&B, even though it was called the 'Pride of Shields B&B', but a halfway house, and when I asked halfway to what, she told me to 'shut it, smart-arse.'

Many of the references to the culture of the time as Janie was growing up really struck a chord with me, the trends like everyone wearing adidas gazelles, and remembering the character Zammo's addiction in Grange Hill. Unlike those for whom this was a plotline in a television show though, Janie has to cope with a close relative's similar addiction at first-hand, witnessing the desperate, tragic lows.

I was absorbed in this story; I was so hopeful for Janie when things started to go a bit better, then so worried for her when they took a turn for the worst again. Kerry Hudson has painted a convincing picture of Janie's life, one that I believed, and I was keen to turn the pages and discover her fate. I don't think a life like Janie's is one that is often depicted in fiction, or certainly not in the fiction I have generally come across. I think it is an important novel in this regard. It gives a voice to someone who is on the fringes of society, living a harsh brutal existence, but nevertheless growing and developing and somehow getting through each day and even sensing that there could be a better future out there - and that's a wonderful thought.

This is a frank account of a difficult childhood and adolescence, at times very sad, yet it is written with such honesty and grace and it is certainly not without optimism, humour and even joy. Janie is looking back at where she has been, what she has lived through, and then she is looking to the future, as the very last words in the book indicate. She is a resilient girl, now a young woman, and she has a good head on her shoulders despite, and perhaps because of, what she has learned about life thus far. As her ma says, 'you're smart enough tae take the good bits and leave the rest, Janie.'

Published by Chatto & Windus

Thanks to the author and the publisher for kindly sending a copy of this novel to read and review.

You can read a special guest post from the author here, which appeared earlier in the year on my blog.

You can follow the author on twitter @KerrysWindow and visit her website here.

Tony Hogan bought me an Ice Cream Float before he Stole my Ma - Kerry Hudson - Author Guest post & Competition

I am delighted to welcome Kerry Hudson to the blog today! She is visiting as part of the Blog Tour to launch her debut novel Tony Hogan bought me an Ice Cream Float before he Stole My Ma 

I have been a published author for a whole three days now. You might be surprised to know that nothing feels that different. I still always miss that kinked bit at the back of my hair no matter how carefully I blow-dry it, I still have to eat a bag of crisps the minute I leave work though I always swear I'll eat an apple and I'm still sat at my keyboard struggling the words out like I have every day for years now. The only difference is that now I can visit Amazon while I'm doing that and gratefully look at my little novel there (and try to avoid checking the sales ranking because therein lies the road to madness my friends).

So, Lindsay asked me to share the best and worst bits of getting to the point where you still can't blow-dry your hair properly or avoid snacking but you can nip into a book shop and lovingly stroke the spine of the Book What You Wrote:

Starting is very hard – a novel seemed such an out of reach thing for someone like me, but once I'd faced the fear and decided to go for it I discovered that 1000 words a day really could make a novel.

Finishing is INCREDIBLE – printing out pages and pages of a world you have created is one of the best feelings in the world. I left my first draft print out in New Zealand as I had too much luggage. I regret that now because it felt like such a massive achievement to have even gotten that far.

Waiting to hear back from an agent is enough to drive you mad – my (now) agent got back to me quickly but there are few things more terrifying than sending off your manuscript and cocking your ears for the deafening laughter ringing out from miles away across London

But signing with an agent you know will do a brilliant job for you and your book is incredible. I was living on a boat on the Thames the evening I signed with Juliet so I put my iPod on took a long walk back along the river. I knew I'd want to remember that evening for a long time after.

I take back the part about waiting to hear from an agent being terrifying, you don't know real fear until your book is being circulated around publishers because that is when opening your email (which your do about 72,465 times a day) can make your dreams come true or shatter them.

Getting a deal isn't how you expect it will be. The night I got the call to say Chatto & Windus had made an offer I was so stunned I refused to celebrate and we went, as planned, to see an awful Ben Affleck film at our local multiplex. It wasn't until two weeks later, on my 30^th birthday, while having a cream tea on a Cornish cliff top that I really realised It Was Happening. I just smiled and smiled the whole day like a loon.

My book is a novel but none the less it's a very personal one. I'm nervous about reviews like any other author but it's part of the job. You process what people are saying and get back to writing sharpish.

Last Thursday I signed books for people at my launch and watched talented actors (and my editor, agent, best-friend, my ex-partner's aunt and her dog, etc....) read the words I'd written aloud to an audience. People have started to message me to tell me that such-and such reminded them of their own upbringing. I'll see on Goodreads that someone's tearing through the book in a day. That is the priceless stuff.

But the best bit of all? Just sitting quietly at my table by the window, looking out at Hackney with a cup of tea and my elbow about to write another scene. Because the best bit about writing for me is...well, the writing.

Thank you so much Kerry! 

About the author

Kerry Hudson was born in Aberdeen. Growing up in a succession of council estates, B&Bs and caravan parks provided her with a keen eye for idiosyncratic behaviour, material for life, and a love of travel. Tony Hogan Bought Me an Ice-Cream Float Before He Stole My Ma is her first novel. Kerry now lives, writes and works in London.

Synopsis

When Janie Ryan is born, she's just the latest in a long line of Ryan women, Aberdeen fishwives to the marrow, always ready to fight. Her violet-eyed Grandma had predicted she'd be sly, while blowing Benson and Hedges smoke rings over her Ma's swollen belly. In the hospital, her family approached her suspiciously, so close she could smell whether they'd had booze or food for breakfast. It was mostly booze.

Tony Hogan tells the story of a Scottish childhood of filthy council flats and B&Bs, screeching women, feckless men, fags and booze and drugs, the dole queue and bread and marge sandwiches. It is also the story of an irresistible, irrepressible heroine, a dysfunctional family you can't help but adore, the absurdities of the eighties and the fierce bonds that tie people together no matter what. Told in an arrestingly original -- and cry-out-loud funny -- voice, it launches itself headlong into the middle of one of life's great fights, between the pull of the past and the freedom of the future. And Janie Ryan, born and bred for combat, is ready to win.

Competition!

This prize draw is open to anyone who hosts or comments on a Tony Hogan post. There is no purchase necessary. There is no limit to how many times a name can be entered i.e. if you comment on three blogs you have three entries but it's only possible to win one prize per person. The winning names will be drawn at random on Wednesday 1^st August and announced on my (Kerry's) Tumblr blog and on Twitter.

1^st, 2^nd and 3rd prizes consist of:

1^st prize - A three chapter or synopsis critique plus afternoon tea at Beas of Bloomsbury, London (at a mutually beneficial date and time) with Juliet Pickering from the AP Watt Literary Agency to discuss your critique. Plus a personalised copy of Tony Hogan Bought Me an Ice-Cream Float Before he Stole My Ma.

2^nd prize - A  literary hamper containing a personalised copy of Tony Hogan Bought Me an Ice-Cream Float Before He Stole My Ma as well as three of my most recommended writing theory books and Hotel d Chocolate chocolates to enjoy while reading them.

3^rd prize - A personalised copy of Tony Hogan Bought Me an Ice-Cream Float Before He Stole My Ma.

Author Links

Kerry's Website

Blog

Twitter: @Kerryswindow

Amazon: Tony Hogan Bought Me an Ice-Cream Float Before He Stole My Ma

Random House

AP Watt Literary Agency