Monday, 29 August 2011

... played Dungeons and Dragons

Hard to believe, I know, what with me being female and in possession of a functioning social life (no offence meant, I assure you, to dedicated D&D players – I’m referring to the common clichéd idea of what they’re like …) but it’s true. Nonetheless, names have been changed to protect the – arguably – innocent in the following narrative.

As a small child I remember being fascinated by the eye-catching cover of the first ever Choose Your Own Adventure book, The Warlock of Firetop Mountain – so much so that I spent a princely £1.50 of my £5 birthday book token on it. (Yes, I know this dates me, and I also wish books were still so cheap). I read the introduction with pop-eyed, slack-mouthed fascination: it seemed to be claiming to change the nature of reading itself: (“This is not a book you read straight through, front to back, like a normal book ...”). Wow! My tiny mind was blown.

Monday, 22 August 2011

What's it all about, Katy?

Hello! This is a blog I've started to complement my main website, www.katydarby.com. I'm a London-based writer, editor and teacher, and my first novel The Whores' Asylum is coming out with Penguin in February 2012, so I thought I'd blog a bit about the pre-publication process - exciting stuff like working on the cover, writing the blurb, planning the launch party, etc. ...

However, as an exciting book-related thing doesn't happen every day, I will also be doing something I've never done before each week, and blogging about it. I'll try and make it a Monday, so that anyone who wants to subscribe or check in on-and-off can read something new on a regular basis.

For example: I have never ...
- Played Dungeons & Dragons (see post above)
- Written a book jacket blurb
- Done a reading at a festival
- Been to Spain (a la the Elvis number, which is amazing)
- Planned a book launch
- Seen Jaws (I know! WTF?)
- Created my own website (well, I have, but it was pretty recent so I'm going to write a piece about it)
- Shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die

Sometimes I'll blog more often. I promise that I will try not to blog less often. I also promise I'll try to make it interesting. Sound fair?

So, this is the first one: I have never started a blog like this before. (A bit of a cheat, I know - but just wait until I post about D&D later this week :)