Listen...

Just like this was the fastest story I've ever written, the music choices were just as easy. Everything fit with Anna and Rocco. From the first word to the last, every song has meaning to each word I wrote. Yes, lots of them are boo hoo I've lost my soul songs. Alright, maybe I've shed a tear during most of them. All of them. You can cry while listening to Run by Gnarls Barkley. I know this now. Gosh, I'm a cry baby. Anyways, this is the soundtrack to The Claim. Enjoy!

1. Florence and the Machine: Shake It Out 
2. Adele: Rolling In The Deep
3. TI: Slide Show
4. Maxwell: Pretty Wings
5. Madonna: She's Not Me
6. Justin Timberlake: What Comes Around
7. Birdy: Shelter
8. One Republic: Apologise
9. Mumford & Sons: I Gave You All
10. Damian Rice: I Remember
11. Gnarls Barkley: Run
12. Gnarls Barkley: Crazy
13. Faithless: Don't Leave
14. Massive Attack: Paradise Circus
15. Arcade Fire: Ocean Of Noise
16. Rihanna ft Drake: What's My Name
17. Kanye West & Jay-Z: Otis
18. Kanye West ft Bon Iver: Lost In The Woods
19. Interpol: The Lighthouse
20. Zero Seven: Ghost Soul
21. The Rapture: How Deep Is Your Love
22. Tom Rosenthal: Take Care

Mr Mamione will see you now...

Italian Knight number 3 is out and it's Rocco Mamione's story aka the fastest and smoothest story I've ever written. Hank and I battered this out like the Mayans gave us our own deadline and the world was going to end this month. I didn't even skip to the sexy parts and fill in the rest - it just flowed, beginning to end. As fast as it was it was also cathartic. I got a quite a few things off my chest about what it means to be a woman, a friend, a daughter. There's also plenty in there that came straight from Lady London - must give her props for the Epilogue especially. I've got words in there that I have heard so many times from other women. The women I meet in my day job, that I work with, that I'm friends with and definitely women I now avoid like the freakin' plague. Ultimately, whatever interpretation people want to put on this back, it's called The Claim for a reason. I don't normally preach, because I'm a live and let live sort of woman, but whatever decisions you do make - man, woman or child - own them. Stand by them. Defend them if need be. Then you'll get the respect you are looking for. Ah, well. When you read it, you'll get it. You know what? Compared to Italian Knight number 4? This is starting to look kinda tame. Hank's been on some special ish, I can't even tell you. Onwards!

The Claim ebook

A Rose Is Still A Rose

I think I'm terrible at coming up with titles. Although Put Out The Zombie will forever be a moment of genius that will make me laugh every time I remember the eureka moment! If you ask me how I came up with @Last, that's straight forward. Internet, waiting a long time, girl who can sing - Ella Fitzgerald At Last. Took me ages though.

Windows was more complicated. Only because it started in the mind of an eleven year old Billy looking to win a writing competition. Swear down, without the sex, Windows was created twenty years ago. And now you all know how old I am. Boooooo. So eleven year old me comes up with this idea of a girl who is being harassed by loan sharks and her best friend who's desperately in love with her saves her from it all. I like to think the reason I didn't win the competition was the fact that I made my apparent hero a bad guy. This is the original ending for the story. Nick set it up so Gina would have to come to him for help. Isn't that messed up? For eleven? No, I haven't had therapy, but I spent a lot of time reading rather dodgy material.

So I thought, about things that break, things that are transparent, things that show freedom but an absence can mark entrapment. Things that are a gateway to hope and show altogether a world outside that can hold everything hurtful. Where everyone can see inside and judge and you can look out and send that judgement right back two fold. Windows. Plus if you think about it, all the good/crazy stuff happens right in view of windows. Honest. Oh come on, I was young!