This is my last post here on 'Its Only Words...'
Because I have a new Website & Blog over at The Wonderful World Of Ali McNamara
I will be updating this new site daily with photos, updates, and other bits & pieces that catch my eye.
Thanks for joining me here over the last few years. Hope to see you on the other side...
A x
Monday, 2 May 2011
Tuesday, 5 April 2011
From Notting Hill to Chile...in a month!
Hello,
Thought I’d better write a very quick catch up blog for March. Now where has that month gone again and what did I get up too?
Last week I went down to London. In the morning I headed over to Notting Hill to the Travel bookshop to sign 150 books for them! Lovely to be back there again, the last time was for my launch party way back in November. It's amazing to think that ‘From Notting Hill with Love...Actually’ is still their best ever selling book!
Everything in publishing works so long in advance that I’m now working on ideas for a book that will come out late in 2012, while occasionally editing and talking about publicity ideas and covers etc for a book that comes out at the end of this year, and still getting lovely messages from people who are enjoying my first book.
Talking of which I had this fascinating email from someone who found my book in a bookshop in Santiago, Chile! And Adele has kindly agreed I share it with you.
" Hi Ali, I have a tale I wanted to tell you of how I came across your novel 'From Notting Hill.. With Love Actually'. I'm currently on a one year travel in South America. My partner and I left our lives in Australia (however I'm English-Cornish in fact and he's Italian..) came to south America, bought a vw camper van and intend on driving the distance of Ushuaia to Vancouver in Canada...! Providing the van can get us there of course. We have all the will power in the world.. 'Betsy' our van, maybe not so much.. Anywho, we had driven from Santiago to Ushuaia and was heading 'the long way up' and I had already read the books I'd brought. So we stopped back through Santiago as I wanted to try and find some English reading books.. An impossible task.. However, luckily I found a very quirky 2nd hand book shop down an alley in Santiago and there in the window, as new, was your novel. I knew as soon as I saw it, it was a definite for me and I grabbed it! The woman told me, (in what little Spanish I could translate) it had just come to her. God knows how, most of the other books were very old romance novels.. ect. To my amazement after I'd left the shop and opened to read the first couple pages, you had also personalized it 'To Geza, with love.. Actually.. Ali McNamara!! Perhaps you had a book launch or maybe you know her? The book also had a fold 1/3 of the way in, so I think she must have lost it! If you know her I would be pleased to return it. Although.. I have read it.. and thoroughly enjoyed. Hopefully she won't mind if you do know her...? "
Fantastic story! And this is their wonderfully visual website if you’d like to follow their travels http://www.thelongwayup.info/
And if you’re Geza or you know Geza please get in touch!
Also March was Comic Relief night and if you didn’t see my escapades for Red Nose day here’s a link ;-)
So here’s to a fun-filled April....Mine starts with a wedding over in Germany next week. More on that next month...
Until the next time,
A x
Thought I’d better write a very quick catch up blog for March. Now where has that month gone again and what did I get up too?
Last week I went down to London. In the morning I headed over to Notting Hill to the Travel bookshop to sign 150 books for them! Lovely to be back there again, the last time was for my launch party way back in November. It's amazing to think that ‘From Notting Hill with Love...Actually’ is still their best ever selling book! Then in the afternoon I met up with my editor, Caroline to discuss my third book, which I’m just about to start writing. I’m glad to say Caroline loved my ideas, so it’s now all systems go for book three! I’m very excited about this one. I’m loving the research I’m already in the process of doing and I’ve got some very exciting research still to come...
I also got to see the new cover for my second book ‘Breakfast at Darcy’s’ which comes out in November this year (I’ll hopefully be able to share this with you soon...) http://www.alimcnamara.co.uk/9.html
Everything in publishing works so long in advance that I’m now working on ideas for a book that will come out late in 2012, while occasionally editing and talking about publicity ideas and covers etc for a book that comes out at the end of this year, and still getting lovely messages from people who are enjoying my first book.
Talking of which I had this fascinating email from someone who found my book in a bookshop in Santiago, Chile! And Adele has kindly agreed I share it with you.
" Hi Ali, I have a tale I wanted to tell you of how I came across your novel 'From Notting Hill.. With Love Actually'. I'm currently on a one year travel in South America. My partner and I left our lives in Australia (however I'm English-Cornish in fact and he's Italian..) came to south America, bought a vw camper van and intend on driving the distance of Ushuaia to Vancouver in Canada...! Providing the van can get us there of course. We have all the will power in the world.. 'Betsy' our van, maybe not so much.. Anywho, we had driven from Santiago to Ushuaia and was heading 'the long way up' and I had already read the books I'd brought. So we stopped back through Santiago as I wanted to try and find some English reading books.. An impossible task.. However, luckily I found a very quirky 2nd hand book shop down an alley in Santiago and there in the window, as new, was your novel. I knew as soon as I saw it, it was a definite for me and I grabbed it! The woman told me, (in what little Spanish I could translate) it had just come to her. God knows how, most of the other books were very old romance novels.. ect. To my amazement after I'd left the shop and opened to read the first couple pages, you had also personalized it 'To Geza, with love.. Actually.. Ali McNamara!! Perhaps you had a book launch or maybe you know her? The book also had a fold 1/3 of the way in, so I think she must have lost it! If you know her I would be pleased to return it. Although.. I have read it.. and thoroughly enjoyed. Hopefully she won't mind if you do know her...? "
Fantastic story! And this is their wonderfully visual website if you’d like to follow their travels http://www.thelongwayup.info/
And if you’re Geza or you know Geza please get in touch!
Also March was Comic Relief night and if you didn’t see my escapades for Red Nose day here’s a link ;-)
Until the next time,
A x
Monday, 14 February 2011
She...
I've had so many wonderful emails, Tweets and Facebook messages since my book was published I can't tell you. I printed them all out the other day for my husband to read and he was quite overwhelmed at not only the amount of messages, but the lovely things people were saying in those messages. From simply how much they've enjoyed the book, to how its mirrored things in their own life; how they see themselves in Scarlett, or amazingly how they don't usually read books but how they're going to try and keep reading now as a result of reading From Notting Hill with Love...Actually because they enjoyed it so much.
But the other day I had an email from a reader that really struck a chord because it was so wonderfully romantic and fitted in so well with the whole theme of the book. So with very kind permission that reader has agreed I share it with you here as a follow up from my last blog to prove that romance really is still alive and kicking....
Dear Ali
I have never written a letter to an author before but I have just finished you book and feel compelled to write to you.
I hope you don't mind!
Just wanted to say I love love Loved your book, it is now my favourite book of all time and it has all my favourite films wrapped up in my favourite thing to do reading.
Notting Hill is my favourite film of all time.
My now husband left me a note one morning after I had stayed over at his when he went to work saying how much he missed me and that I was to push play on the DVD player, when I did Elvis Costellos 'She' blasted out of the speakers, he had left me another note and put it in my mug in the cupboard telling me to look under the pillow on the sofa. I found a wrapped present and it was the sound track to the film with a lovely love letter inside the case, it was the most romantic thing that had ever happened to me and I sobbed and sobbed. He is always doing such lovely things for me and planning such romantic surprises that it is like being in a film.
I walked down the aisle to 'She' at our wedding and it was just perfect, we now have to wonderful miracle ivf babies and life is fab.
Your book made me laugh and made me cry and has probably the best ending to a book or film ever and I really would love to see it as a film.
My husband bought me your book as an early valentines gift and I read it in 2 days, could have done it in one but I had to play with the kids.
I cannot wait to read your next one
Love
*****
(a sucker for love and slush)
But the other day I had an email from a reader that really struck a chord because it was so wonderfully romantic and fitted in so well with the whole theme of the book. So with very kind permission that reader has agreed I share it with you here as a follow up from my last blog to prove that romance really is still alive and kicking....
Dear Ali
I have never written a letter to an author before but I have just finished you book and feel compelled to write to you.
I hope you don't mind!
Just wanted to say I love love Loved your book, it is now my favourite book of all time and it has all my favourite films wrapped up in my favourite thing to do reading.
Notting Hill is my favourite film of all time.
My now husband left me a note one morning after I had stayed over at his when he went to work saying how much he missed me and that I was to push play on the DVD player, when I did Elvis Costellos 'She' blasted out of the speakers, he had left me another note and put it in my mug in the cupboard telling me to look under the pillow on the sofa. I found a wrapped present and it was the sound track to the film with a lovely love letter inside the case, it was the most romantic thing that had ever happened to me and I sobbed and sobbed. He is always doing such lovely things for me and planning such romantic surprises that it is like being in a film.
I walked down the aisle to 'She' at our wedding and it was just perfect, we now have to wonderful miracle ivf babies and life is fab.
Your book made me laugh and made me cry and has probably the best ending to a book or film ever and I really would love to see it as a film.
My husband bought me your book as an early valentines gift and I read it in 2 days, could have done it in one but I had to play with the kids.
I cannot wait to read your next one
Love
*****
(a sucker for love and slush)
This song has special meaning for me too as it was playing at the exact same moment I heard From Notting Hill With Love...Actually was going to be published!
Thank you to eveyone that's sent me messages, I'm so very grateful to each and every one of you for taking the time to do so.
Happy Valentines Day. I hope you get all the romance you dream of today and everyday...
A x
Wednesday, 2 February 2011
To me, you are perfect....
Hello Blogs are back again!
And today since it's now February and everyone's thoughts turn to Love as the shops stuff themselves to overflowing with hearts and flowers. I thought I'd start with this little conundrum....
Why do men and women’s expectations of love seem to differ so greatly? And is it people like me – writers of romantic fiction - that are to blame for giving women false hope that their knight in shining armour is going to ride up on his white charger and scoop them up in his strong arms carrying them off into the sunset?
Actually if you ask the vast majority of women, the above description isn’t their ideal fantasy. Most women would be happy with a man that makes them laugh, keeps himself clean, tidy and presentable, and is a tiny bit romantic on occasions... all right perhaps a tad more than a tiny bit. And that’s the key boys, us women like a bit of romance. We like to be wooed.
Take for instance the success of rom-com movies. They have everything I’ve just mentioned above. The laughter - if they’re done well! The fairly normal looking hero – ie your Hugh Grant, Colin Firth, Tom Hanks types. I’ll agree not exactly ugly, but not Adonis’ either, with rippling six packs and bulging biceps. They’re a man we could imagine ourselves with and that’s the key. And then there’s the all important romance, which of course never runs smoothly, but usually take the course of the movie to play out, and that’s what we adore. We’d love our own men to send us romantic emails in order to woo us (Tom Hanks - You’ve got Mail) Declare their love for us silently on placards (Andrew Lincoln - Love Actually) Learn our language in order to propose – (Colin Firth - Love Actually) the list goes on...
How many times have you been somewhere and listened to someone else’s tale of their own (very sensible) partner’s romantic gesture or proposal, only to see all the other woman within earshot cooing with envy that it wasn’t them on the receiving end.
Get used to it boys, romance isn’t going anywhere. Woman love it. And if you want woman to love you, then you’d better get some practice in!
Until the next time,
A x
And today since it's now February and everyone's thoughts turn to Love as the shops stuff themselves to overflowing with hearts and flowers. I thought I'd start with this little conundrum....
Why do men and women’s expectations of love seem to differ so greatly? And is it people like me – writers of romantic fiction - that are to blame for giving women false hope that their knight in shining armour is going to ride up on his white charger and scoop them up in his strong arms carrying them off into the sunset?
Actually if you ask the vast majority of women, the above description isn’t their ideal fantasy. Most women would be happy with a man that makes them laugh, keeps himself clean, tidy and presentable, and is a tiny bit romantic on occasions... all right perhaps a tad more than a tiny bit. And that’s the key boys, us women like a bit of romance. We like to be wooed.
Take for instance the success of rom-com movies. They have everything I’ve just mentioned above. The laughter - if they’re done well! The fairly normal looking hero – ie your Hugh Grant, Colin Firth, Tom Hanks types. I’ll agree not exactly ugly, but not Adonis’ either, with rippling six packs and bulging biceps. They’re a man we could imagine ourselves with and that’s the key. And then there’s the all important romance, which of course never runs smoothly, but usually take the course of the movie to play out, and that’s what we adore. We’d love our own men to send us romantic emails in order to woo us (Tom Hanks - You’ve got Mail) Declare their love for us silently on placards (Andrew Lincoln - Love Actually) Learn our language in order to propose – (Colin Firth - Love Actually) the list goes on...
How many times have you been somewhere and listened to someone else’s tale of their own (very sensible) partner’s romantic gesture or proposal, only to see all the other woman within earshot cooing with envy that it wasn’t them on the receiving end.
Get used to it boys, romance isn’t going anywhere. Woman love it. And if you want woman to love you, then you’d better get some practice in!
Andrew Lincoln doing just the right thing in Love Actually. "Aahhh..."
A x
Friday, 3 December 2010
Lots & Lots of photos...
Photos for you of some of the events that have taken place this week: Publication day!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=50413&id=116485481722368
The Book in the Press!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=50310&id=116485481722368
Launch party One!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=50417&id=116485481722368
Launch party Two at the Travel Bookshop - Notting Hill
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=50424&id=116485481722368
Written blogs will return in the new year after things have calmed down a bit :-) Aside from publishing From Notting Hill With Love...Actually in all good bookshops & supermarkets now!! I'm currently trying to complete Book Two!
New Video diary soon though...
Ali x
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=50413&id=116485481722368
The Book in the Press!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=50310&id=116485481722368
Launch party One!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=50417&id=116485481722368
Launch party Two at the Travel Bookshop - Notting Hill
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=50424&id=116485481722368
Written blogs will return in the new year after things have calmed down a bit :-) Aside from publishing From Notting Hill With Love...Actually in all good bookshops & supermarkets now!! I'm currently trying to complete Book Two!
New Video diary soon though...
Ali x
Monday, 18 October 2010
Hello, apologies for the lack of written blogs recently. If you're wondering what I've been up to why not check out my Video Blogs here at http://www.alimcnamara.co.uk/10.html
Here's a taster of the last two.
Our visit to see my novel being printed & The Press launch of From Notting Hill With Love... Actually at the Travel Book shop in Notting Hill, London. Enjoy!
Monday, 13 September 2010
Apologies
Apologies for the delay in bringing you the 'Questions to a Publisher' video diary.
This was filmed on my publishers video camera and we are currently having a few technical problems with the film.
Hope to bring you this real soon!
In the meantime my latest video diary was made for ChickLit Blog Novelicious
Check it out here 'My Writing Room'
A x
This was filmed on my publishers video camera and we are currently having a few technical problems with the film.
Hope to bring you this real soon!
In the meantime my latest video diary was made for ChickLit Blog Novelicious
Check it out here 'My Writing Room'
A x
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
