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 - 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