Thursday 7 April 2016

MEET CUTE BLOG TOUR | Katey Lovell on Diary Writing!


Hey readers! I hope you all had a lovely Easter and are just about settling back into work and the strains of everyday life. Lucky for you I've got two gorgeous new books to share with you- and a guest post by the author Katey Lovell on the wonderful art of diary writing! 

These two new stories look brilliant and I hope that you guys enjoy them.


Katey Lovell is the author of The Meet Cute series, published by Harper Impulse. The Boy with the Boxes and The Boy on the Bus were both published today- April 7th!

Katey Lovell is fanatical about words. An avid reader, writer and poet, she once auditioned for Countdown and still tapes the show every night. Getting the conundrum before the contestants is her ultimate thrill. She loves love and strives to write feel-good romance that'll make you laugh and cry in equal measure. Originally from South Wales, Katey now lives in Yorkshire with her husband and their eight year old son.


The Meet Cute series is a gorgeous set of short stories that follow 'meet cute' tales where two unsuspecting individuals fall in love with each other, in various scenarios. With these stories Katey hopes to bring romantic fiction back into the mainstream and allow readers to discover stories that are beautiful, romantic, and generally feel-good.
  
Intrigued? Here is the blurb for The Boy with the Boxes...

A gorgeously romantic short story, part of The Meet Cute series. 
Rosie's starting afresh. Her best friend and former housemate is starting a new life in Australia leaving Rosie to move into a new flat on her own. But when she meets her next door neighbour, Rosie realises she may not be quite so alone after all…

And here is the blurb for The Boy on the Bus...

A gorgeously romantic short story, part of The Meet Cute series.
Lucy's morning bus journey is the highlight of her day – it's the only time she sees her crush. But how can he take up so many of her thoughts when she doesn't even know his name?

Also, did I mention how utterly gorgeous the covers are for these books! Check out the art... stunning!

And here is Katey Lovell talking about diary writing: what it means for her, why it's important in her life as a writer, and how this all links into blogging and the social media phenomenon that has exploded in the past few years!

I’ve always seen The Meet Cute series as somewhat experimental.  Short stories in their truest form (ie. stories that are not serialised nor novella length) are still relatively rare, even in an age where reading on tablets, phones and e-readers is increasingly popular, and I found that most publishers were wary of pushing the boundaries of fiction and taking a chance on these mini-romances.

However, when writing The Boy on the Bus I took the experiment one step further – I wrote it in diary format.  Diaries in fiction are nothing new, in fact some long standing best-sellers are told this way (Bridget Jones’ Diary, the Adrian Mole series for instance), but in short stories they’re not often used.  I was really keen to try this out as I’ve always loved to read stories told via diaries because they give the reader a real insight into a characters thoughts and feelings.

I’ve also written a diary myself for many years. My first diary was a small red leather pocket-sized book when I was ten – I couldn’t fit more than a sentence about my day within the miniscule dated boxes (good practice for Twitter!).  

I then progressed to much thicker journals, where I’d swoon over boybands and talk about my own insecurities to my heart’s content, and I kept a lockable journal until I left home and went to university aged eighteen.  It was through keeping a diary that writing became an integral part of my day, and I found there was something therapeutic about reflecting on events and emotions before going to sleep. During my late teens and early twenties I didn’t keep a diary at all, but I’ve been blogging on and off for the past fifteen years now.  Live Journal, MySpace, Blogger, Wordpress – I’ve tried them all.  I’ve blogged about my life, my health and fitness and predominantly about books in that time, and it’s taken over from diary keeping (Books with Bunny is the longest running of any of my blogs and I’m still updating it sporadically at www.bookswithbunny.blogspot.co.uk.)

With the advent of social media, recording our daily lives changed.  How many people do you know who photograph every meal they eat?  I’d hazard a guess at a few.  And what about those that tweet their Outfit of the Day?  It’s a modern form of keeping a diary in this technological age.

The Boy on the Bus has changed slightly since I originally wrote it back in 2014, but it’s still told over a week with Lucy’s feelings for the attractive boy on the bus who she wishes she knew more about as the key element in the story.  It’s got a different feel to the rest of the Meet Cute series, but it’s still all about the romance – which is just what my loyal readers have come to expect.

Thank you so much, Katey, for appearing on my blog! Readers make sure you check out the Meet Cute series- you will not be disappointed <3

Check out Katey Lovell here: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14046680.Katey_Lovell

Check out the Meet Cute series here: http://www.amazon.com/Katey-Lovell/e/B00YLIBPRE


 Until next time :) 

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