First professional book review

I'm sure by now those who make new years resolutions have mostly quit them. What is it that makes us so sure that we can do things and change our lives just because it is a new year. I always try to be a nice person and help people not because it is January but because I am a human being and we have been put on this planet to look after it and help each other. It's not hard to be civil to each other.

This week I have received my first professional book review and was very pleased when the reviewer said it kept them hooked from the first page. Every author tries to grab hold of the reader and pull them into a world created in the author's head. I am no exception to that. The world of Michael Dawson is not a happy one, unwanted by his Aunt after the death of his parents and very much alone in the world he relies only on himself to get through in an environment alien to him. It is a huge compliment when someone believes in the world and characters that you create.

To watch the project come together is a truly amazing thing as ideas from my head transfer onto paper or word document and become part of a story that people will read. I am so grateful to people who buy my books and take time to read them.

Thank you.

Keep reading and I'll keep writing.

Andy

http://beckvalleybooks.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/book-review-card-school-by-andrew-milner.html

 

 

New year

Well it's here again.... Another new year, another year older but another year wiser. Another world is being created in my mind and new characters are being born. Anyone of my characters could be real as when I write my books I try and create dramas in their lives. We all know someone who is just like that.. Going from one drama to another.... Just be grateful it's not you. If you want a drama, read a book, it's easier to let someone else have the drama, crisis, call it what you want... You enjoy the peace, let me create the drama for you to enjoy.

Keep reading, I'll keep writing.

Happy new year 

Andy

Christmas

So that time of year is amongst us again. Love it or hate it there are serious consequences to this celebration. Do you know that suicide rates go up at Christmas? People suffer more depression at Christmas and this is the time of year that loneliness takes a much more leading role in people's lives. I am lucky to have a family as most of us are, but there are people who through no fault of their own do not have that luxury. Relationship break ups always seem harder to cope with when the neighbours are having fun and when the 'happy' programmes are on TV. Laughter can be heard in the streets from office parties and family get-togethers. The curtains don't block out the loneliness.

Sometimes we need to spare a thought and just keep an eye on the people who are around us all the time who's lives exist side by side with our own but yet we have no interaction with them. It's supposed to be a time for caring and sharing but how many of us actually do?

I will be working, writing, cooking, baking and cleaning, pretty much like I do most weeks

My next book is well under way and hopefully over the festive period I will be able to give it some time and crack on with it. It's around summer time in the book that I am writing at the moment so I will try and enjoy the sun a bit whilst I have the heating on and will be digging out my scarf.

Have a wonderful time people and keep an eye out for the lonely ones.

Keep reading and I'll keep writing.

Andy

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Andrew-Milner/e/B00CDA8MWI/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1417681805&sr=8-1
 

Our futures and fears

If I could go back twenty years I wonder if I would have seen myself in the place where I stand today. My life was going down a straight path there were no corners, no roundabouts, no junctions, just a plain old straight road. It's funny how we come away from that straight road sometimes without planning to. We do however we find a way, whether it be through mucky fields or going the wrong way down a one-way street we will come back onto the road to our future. It is maybe not the same one as before, but it's a road going generally in the right direction.

My third book Card School has now been released and as I approach my next project I imagine where I want to be in the future. I want to be happy and successful, don't we all? I enjoy writing books in the knowledge that people read them; that people will read about my characters and get to know them and that the things that happen in my books will be understood and accepted.

A boarding school is not always the first choice for parents or children but Michael Dawson did not have the luxury of choice. At ten years of age he had to deal with the loss of both parents who had been abroad on a church mission. He never had the chance to say goodbye only see you later. He believed when they went, they would return, but they didn't. Not only having to contend with the biggest loss known to a child he was thrust into the full time guardianship of his uncaring Auntie who he had been staying with but only until his parents came back. Now they were not coming back his future had to be decided. Learning that he can only trust himself, and faced with a dark secret in the boarding school where he is placed, he sets out to unravel the answers and find questions to fit. He has no intention of getting too close but ends up being in the direct firing line. When all hope is lost, the person he expects least of all to be there comes to the rescue, but is it all too little too late?.

Michael is a ten year old boy who loses his parents in a car accident whilst they are abroad. He didn't say goodbye, he thought he would see them again so said "see you later." All too often people are taken from us without a chance for us to say goodbye. We should remember this when we fall out with people over silly things and remember - Never go to bed on an argument.

So as people read my new book CARD SCHOOL I will be writing my next book safe in the knowledge that soon my characters will be alive in someone's living room.

I'll keep writing if you keep reading.

http://www.andrewmilnerbooks.com

 

 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Card-School-Andrew-Milner/dp/1326022989/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1416475735&sr=8-1&keywords=card+school+andrew+milner

Fact Or Fiction, It's All The Same, Isn't It?

Sometimes real life and fiction are not that far apart. When I write about a character I get to know them, they become a real person with thoughts and feelings and interact with the other characters. They live, they feel, they work, they have success and failures and on top of all of those they suffer hurt.

 I am the person that inflicts that hurt on them. I am their creator. I give them the thoughts, memories, things to say and do, I like the characters that I create and I want you to like them too.

 When my characters get hurt, whether it is physical or emotional hurt, it is me that inflicts that hurt on them. I do it without a thought and there's no come back. They just accept their fate and get on with it. Sometimes by the end of the book the pain has been forgotten and they come out on top.

 In real life, we inflict hurt on each other and sometimes it's not intentional. We have things to say which may come out wrong.

Even if it is you who hurts someone else you still experience some sort of hurt yet your feelings are not considered because we tend to sympathise more with the victim.

Usually we hit out at others because we are hurting ourselves, maybe in a different way but hurting all the same. 

 
I try and analyse people the same way that I do with my characters because I spend a lot of time with them. I also put myself in the spotlight a bit too often and analyse myself way too much under interrogation. A nice quiet and peaceful life seems so easy to achieve, yet we have the ability to destroy others people's feelings all too easily.

 My aim when I write a book is to give enjoyment, to draw people close and share my thoughts with them and for them to spend a part of their life in my world. I don't put myself on a pedestal by any stretch nor do I compare myself with God in any shape, way or form, but I am a creator. I give life and I take it away. I make people happy and sad, I hurt people and I heal them. In real life I am a mere person living in the world created by a far better author than I am.

Come and share my thoughts and live with them for a short time.

Keep reading and I will keep writing.

http://www.andrewmilnerbooks.com

 

JUST DOING MY BEST

Where to take my ideas is the question asked by me. I sometimes find it hard to think of myself as a writer as I just think of myself as me. I don't particularly think I'm clever and I don't particularly think I have a talent. I like to tell a story and I like those stories to come from my own imagination. I love it when people say they like reading them and I try to take on board any criticism offered. Authors say that you should write a book for the reader and not for yourself which I find hard because you might not want to read the stuff that I want to and vice-versa, however I hope we like the same stuff as I want to please and satisfy the people who read my books.

I have started to do something today never attempted before. I have started writing a script of A FAR REACHING DREAM. I believe that this along with its sequel would make a really good TV drama (yes I know I am biased therefore maybe my opinion probably doesn't count) and the people at the TV companies won't read a book and say "Yeh it's good," however they will read a script. This is my mission alongside writing my next book. No pressure then. !!

Anyway enough ramblings, my third book will hopefully be out in October for which the title will be revealed shortly, and I hope that it is good enough for you the reader as I know you like a good read.

I hope one day that you will watch a good TV drama and say, "I have read the book."

Keep on reading and I'll keep on writing.

http://www.andrewmilnerbooks.com

Andy

Getting into character

I am half way through editing my third book which will be out in about eight weeks hopefully but my attention has already been diverted to the next one. It's funny how your thoughts change when you take on a new character. Firstly in A FAR REACHING DREAM my main character Kate Arlen was a mid-20s business minded woman, intelligent and strong yet maybe a bit insecure when it came to love. Maybe this is what drove her to the arms of her boyfriend's brother and her best friend. I'll let you make your own mind up on that.

In THE HIDDEN PATH HOME which is a sequel to A Far Reaching Dream, the main character is Pete PHILLIPS. Fresh from a trip which he never expected to come back from he has to start rebuilding his life from scratch. At first he is a private person not sharing his free time with anyone until he meets Sam who replaces the love that he lost. Fairly quickly he falls in love and has a future, yet the past holds him back.

In book three who's title will be revealed shortly,  the main character is a child, thrust onto an uncaring family member. Scared and alone and he is thrown into an uncaring world where he can only rely on himself.

And now, I am having a complete change of everything and my brain and my writing imagination have already taken on another dimension. It's hard of course I won't pretend it's not, but I am really excited about the challenge that I have set myself for my next project. I will look forward to keeping my blog updated with the trials and tribulations that I will no doubt face on this journey.

I'll keep writing if you keep reading and together we'll make a dream team.

http://www.andrewmilnerbooks.com