Tag Archives: books

The Extraordinary Life of Lara Craft (not Croft)

Posted on January 20, 2013 | Leave a comment

I’m super excited to share the news that my first adult book is out now!

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It’s published under the pen name Lola Salt and it’s a comedy romance. Think Bridget Jones if Jackie Collins wrote it.

It’s a collaboration with the fabulous Becky Wicks. We met when Becky was in Bali writing a travel memoir and, over a bottle of wine and a rant about 50 Shades, we decided to have a go at writing erotica – I mean, how hard could it be?

Turns out, very. We giggled too much writing the naughty scenes, so eventually we decided to quit trying to write erotica and stick with comedy…and so The Extraordinary Life of Lara Craft (not Croft) was born. We sent our Lara off on a series of adventures, mostly inspired by actual events that had occurred to me and Becky. We even had Lara visiting the Island of the Gods where I had particular fun drawing from all the whack job crazy folks I’ve met over the last three years. Obviously, for the record, it’s ALL A WORK OF FICTION, ahum.

Here’s the Blurb:

When ex-circus employee Lara Craft is dumped for a contortionist, there’s no point in sticking around. Delivering packages to random global corners for a mysterious concierge company seems like the perfect way to hide from her humiliation.

As she travels, a suitcase full of whips and props might well prepare Lara for proposals by Arabic princes, advances from Christian cowboys and kidnappings by pirates, but nothing can prepare Lara Craft (not Croft) for what happens when she discovers that the best and most exciting thing about her life is right where she least expected to find it. 

And you can buy it from AMAZON in every country NOW!

And follow us on Twitter @LolaSalt

And to wet your appetite further, some of our favorite lines from the book, including this one which actually happened to me in Bali:

“I hope you’ll stay for Blissology?’ the man suddenly said, grabbing for her hand.

‘For what?’

Davidoff smiled serenely at her. ‘I’m a holistic escort. I have a PHD in Blissology from the Maharishi Kundalini University of Carlsbad. I’m about to hold a session.’
‘Right,’ said Lara. ‘What do you do exactly?’
‘Well, I interpret our human purpose by looking at quantum physics, an individual’s astrological alignments and the I Ching.’
‘And what does that mean exactly in English,’ she questioned, feeling herself zoning out.”

—

“This isn’t just any shirt,’ he told her. ‘This shirt was worn by he-who-must-not-be-named in the first of the Twilight films.’

Lara’s mouth fell open. She blinked several times. What was he talking about? Voldemort wasn’t even in Twilight.”

—

“Somehow, perhaps because of the way he spoke in a manner reminiscent of Jack Bauer from 24, Lara calmed down.

She repeated his words in her head. Wait. Assess. Intel. Yes, OK, that sounded sensible.

Then the hysterical coward in her reared up unannounced and she tried to run for the door again.”

—

“Don’t you want to find your purpose?’
Lara glared at her. ‘Right now my purpose is to get the hell out of here and then I’ll figure the rest of it out the normal way; by drinking vodka. Or maybe I’ll read Eat, Pray, Love all the way through…”

—

“He took her around the place, pointing out the hybrids and divulging a few of their clients. Lara could barely believe so many celebrities she knew were actually sick and in need of medical marijuana. She tried to make a mental note of their names but knew she’d forget them later, given that she’d already forgotten her own middle name.”

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Posted on August 30, 2012 | 8 Comments

Another reason for my blogging silence has been just how bloody busy we are. I spend an average of eight hours a day writing and so the thought of writing a blog post afterwards makes my head spin.

This year I’ve written four books already and have been doing a lot of copywriting too just to pay the bills. It pays the bills but is slowly destroying my soul. To compensate I’ve started screenwriting.

Thanks to everyone who has bought a copy of Hunting Lila or Fated. The sequel to Lila came out in August and has had brilliant reviews (phew!). There’s some exciting developments happening with the film which is in the early stages of development with a fantastic company. I’m soooooo excited about that I’m practically needing defibrillators.

I can’t post too much about the film or about my future book contracts as the official announcements haven’t been made but will let you know in the next two months.

Suffice to say it’s all very positive and I’m still reeling from just how fast my writing career has got off the ground. Next stop California.

Here’s a pic of John and I working in our studio. We might live in paradise but it’s not all coconuts and sunshine.

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mefwioigniegnoeigneing

Posted on February 28, 2012 | Leave a comment

Picture this: A girl. The top of her skull ripped off. A zombie shuffling away into the distance, having eaten her brains for breakfast along with a nice, ripe tomato.

This is how I feel.

I have just finished my seventh book. It takes between 4-8 weeks for me to write a book (this one took about 7 but only because for the first 4 weeks I was simultaneously writing another book) and for that time period I am a hermit, a monster, a bitch, a recluse, a one-track minded, irritable, ecstatic, curmudgeonly (always wanted to use that word), overtired, grouchy mess who craves only sushi, quiet and uninterrupted PEACE. And the occasional margarita.

I don’t get it. Peace that is. Because there’s a five year old in my life. Mummy, can I have a yakult? Mummy look a fairy! Mummy come and play onokoly (monopoly). Mummy today I have a new boyfriend.

The day after I finish a book I’m the girl whose brain got eaten by a zombie who then shat in my empty horror of a skull. I’m dull and lifeless, glassy-eyed and vacant. My brain can’t focus on the to-do list five thousand entries long, all postponed from the first day I started writing.

I am lying in bed right now, can’t sleep, can’t read, can’t think straight, can’t follow coherent thoughts to any one point or purpose. Things need to be done. I cannot do them. I just want to lie here. But my fingers feel like they need to keep tapping and my brain feels like it’s still moving (like being on land after having been at sea for weeks, my body is still in writing mode, still swaying on the waves).

John walks into the bedroom, where I lie festooned amongst an armada of pillows, limbs flung melodramatically across the sheets as though they’ve been tossed aside by aforementioned Zombie.

‘mewighishgighoe’ I mumble.

I feel alive. I feel dead. I feel relieved. I feel burdened.

John pauses to look down on me.

‘Coconuts,’ I murmur. ‘Send Kadek for coconuts.’ A pause, ‘And cake.’

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YOU ARE FATED TO BUY THIS BOOK

Posted on November 15, 2011 | 3 Comments

Out January 5th….in the UK and in Canada and Australia…my latest epic. This one isn’t about people with mind powers or crushes on their brother’s best friend. No. This one is about a demon slayer. Think Buffy but with some children of the corn type action thrown in and way hotter boys. Yes, hotter than Angel (cos let’s face it he got a bit jowly towards the end didn’t he?)


This I hope will tide you over until the sequel to Hunting Lila is released in August next year.

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On the table

Posted on July 30, 2011 | 11 Comments

 

Look here I am!

I’m right there on the table next to Stephenie Meyer and beneath the fantastic Divergent.

If the camera panned upwards you’d see my grinning like a loon. I’m on the table NEXT TO STEPHENIE MEYER.

My book.

Is on the table next to BREAKING DAWN.
And did I mention DIVERGENT?

If you’d have told me this a year ago I would have laughed in your face at how ridiculous you were being. But look people – there it is. In Waterstones no less.

I signed my first copies in store (Brighton Waterstones). The staff in Waterstones were brilliant and invited me back to do a reading or signing. (The girl who works there looks just like Keira Knightley.)

I am still grinning like a loon. It’s particularly funny because Stephenie Meyer was the reason I started writing in the first place. I loved Twilight and then when I was struggling to think of something to do to make some money I thought, ‘I know I’ll write a book! Stephenie Meyer’s a gazillionaire and all for writing about vampires. How hard can it be?’

Turns out, very hard, but look, I still made it.

I feel like this story should be in the fairy tale section of Waterstones.

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Don’t wake me

Posted on July 17, 2011 | 3 Comments

My first book Hunting Lila comes out in just over two weeks’ time, and joy, it’s getting rave reviews and will be on the 3 for 2 tables in Smiths and Waterstones throughout August.

It’s been a long journey and if you were with me from the start of can we live here you’ll know how I only first started writing when we decided to leave the UK because I couldn’t think of any other idea for how to make money. And thank God I didn’t google how much writers actually earn. But anyway fast forward 18 months and I actually have not one, but THREE books coming out in the next year.

ahahahahahahahahaha

There’s a line in Lila where she thinks that maybe she’s lying on a pavement in south east London comatose because she can’t believe the reality of her life and that’s pretty much how I feel every single day. I walk around grinning like a simpleton. (When you do this it’s surprising how many men smile back at you). I also drink a lot of wine because a) in Indonesia there isn’t any (or none that I can afford) and b) I feel I have an excuse to celebrate every minute of the day. I also buy a lot of things (more on this later) kidding myself that one day I’m going to be rich and will be able to afford to pay it off.

Ahhahahahahahahaahaha (that’s my publisher and every other writer in the universe bar JK Rowling and Stephanie Meyer and Stephen King laughing at my naivete).

For the last two weeks in London I’ve been meeting my agent and my publisher for posh lunches, I’ve been editing my second book, and I’ve been working hard on promoting Hunting Lila (in between shopping of course) – there’s a blog tour starting on the 1st August and I am stalking the heck out of readers on Goodreads (I figure if I friend them all they might feel more inclined to give me a nicer review – cunning huh?). My favourite question so far in the interviews: How has your life changed since getting a book deal?

The funny thing is, I realised that my life wouldn’t be that much different to how it is now – ok fewer wining and dinings probably, but we’d still be in Bali. And I think that’s a really cool thing. My writing didn’t create the lifestyle. The lifestyle created the writing. (Ok and also John paying for everything at the moment is sustaining the lifestyle – thank you thank you amazing husband).

But the really exciting news, well second after the news that I have bought the most stupendous Vivienne Westwood dress and killer shoes for the launch, is that a ten year friendship with someone I met at uni has evolved into lunch at the Ivy Club (Daaaaaarling) and an offer to option Hunting Lila by an independent production company.

It’s early days of course and I’m naturally circumspect about stuff like that, though I am going to be wearing Westwood to the premiere and have written the clause to go in the contract which gives me the right to sit on the casting couch and test drive the male actors…but as I said, I’m totally circumspect…

If I am actually lying in a coma on a street in south London somewhere, please don’t bother waking me up.

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I’m officially official

Posted on April 11, 2011 | 10 Comments

So here it is. My official website people, courtesy of my lovely husband. It’s still in beta but I’m just too excited to wait (wait? what’s that?) and had to share it with you all.

Please spend time perusing the fantasy cast list. I spent many hundreds of hours living this fantasy. It’s only fair that I should share it with you. Though boys (are there any boys out there reading this?) you might find it less interesting. I did throw you one bone in the shape of that blonde chick from Gossip Girl. But girls, don’t worry, she doesn’t get the man.

I got my first review on goodreads as well. From a bookseller at Waterstones no less. And it was five stars. And I didn’t have to pay her. Thank you Thank you.

On another note, my book launch is on August 4th in London so if any of you lovely blog readers want an invite just let me know. Would love to see you / meet you / share a glass of wine with you.

 

 

 

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Acknowledgements

Posted on March 29, 2011 | 4 Comments

Acknowledgements This is the acknowledgements page from Hunting Lila (out August 4th). I wanted to share it with all you lovely blog readers in advance. Well all of you apart from that one mean person (you know who you are). This thank you is to all of you lovely, kind people who've been with us on this journey.

 

 

 

 

Thank YOU!

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My to do list for 2011

Posted on December 21, 2010 | 1 Comment

At the start of every year I always make a list of all the things that I want to do in that year.

2010’s list went like this:

1.     Travel around the world

2.     Get published

3.     Find a new home

4.     Write two more books

5.     Learn to meditate

6.     Road trip USA

7.     Swim every day

8.     Take up yoga again

This year I achieved nearly everything. Even the yoga. Just this Sunday I dragged my sorry arse to the first yoga class I’ve been to since Alula herniated my L4 L5 discs trying to be born.

I didn’t learn to meditate. But I did get myself a maid and I think that maybe tops the meditation. It certainly brings calm, happiness and joy into my life and clears away the clutter.

Meditation has been on my list for three years running and has consistently earned itself a big red X.  I will put it on the list for 2011 again with note to self to try harder.

So, anyway, because I believe wholeheartedly in the power of a) lists b) manifestation c) telling the universe what I hope for (wait – is that the same things as manifestation?) here is my list for 2011.

1.     Have a book launch or two or three (including one at Ubud Literary Festival)

2.     Make a book trailer in LA

3.     Start to make oodles of money

4.     Do a house exchange somewhere gorgeous

5.     Go to Thailand or somewhere else in SE Asia for a little jaunt

6.     Ecstatic dance regularly

7.     Give up cooking, although this will bankrupt Bali’s aluminum saucepan producing factories.

8.     Write 3 books

9.    Write 1 screenplay (because, hell, why not?)

10.     Eat only Raw chocolate (in chocolate terms, not as in eating nothing but raw chocolate. Though that does sound tempting).

11.   Stop swearing

12. Get reviewed by Lainey Gossip (well)

13. Learn Indonesian

14. Hire a PA and a driver

15. Ensure channel 4 makes misfits season 3 by whichever means necessary

16. Spend NYE 2011 at the Four Seasons drinking magnums of champagne, toasting another superlatively amazing year.

17. Woops I almost forgot. Meditate. Daily. In order to…

18. …Find spiritual enlightenment but not if that means forsaking no. 3 (om shanti shanti om)

19. Buy furniture finally for the house.

20. And a swimming pool

let’s see how well I do at ticking these things off the list.

 

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What if…

Posted on November 20, 2010 | 3 Comments

As you know John, Alula and I left the UK in January 2010. We were looking for a new home – somewhere hot, less stressful,  somewhere with a creative, entrepreneurial vibe, somewhere with good schools and good people. And we found Bali and it’s our version of perfect living (back then I hadn’t even anticipated the full time cleaner / cook thing). For the moment anyway.

Anyway in the summer of 2009 just after we’d decided to head off on our round the globe mission and were trying to figure out how to pay for it all, I was in melt down. What would I do? How would I make money? I mean, I had no discernable skills in life whatsoever other than being a pro at buying shoes on ebay and having a withering look that could shrivel people in a matter of seconds.

Swimming one day I had a conversation with myself that went like this:

Who’s rich? Let’s see. The queen. Hate her. Err, Stephanie Meyer she’s rich. She’s like a millionaire and all for writing about vampires. Ok, I can so do that. Now think about it think about it. What could I write about? Nothing about vampires. Cliché.  Yeah, so what if there was  a girl and her name was – um – Lila and then there was a boy. Let’s call him Alex, after Alex Skarsgard – yes Alex is a good name and he’ll be the opposite of Edward Cullen – so not a vampire, not moody or angsty and he won’t have quiffy hair and / or be a mindreader. And then I started saying what if… and then about 5 lengths later I had the outline for my story.

I got home, started plotting, started writing. Four months later I had my first book written.

Then we headed off to India and the day before we went I sent the manuscript to agents.

By the time we left India I had an agent.

By the time we left Bali I had a two book deal with a publisher – the brilliant and globally massive Simon & Schuster.

I went from being a Head of Projects in a not for profit in London where the only thing I ever wrote was creative fiction of the fundraising kind to being a like PAID author.

Heehehehehehehe (sorry still have to giggle at all this occasionally).

When we got to the States (by which point I’d written the sequel to Hunting Lila – as it’s now been titled) I decided to start a new book – a whole new series with new characters altogether. I finished it about three weeks ago.

And then yesterday I got an offer for that book too (hence the shopping for a breakfast bowl). This means – and I’m still having to process – that I’ll have three books out within about 9 months of each other next year. Two young adult book series, both with an amazing publishing house, alongside some of the best young adult writers out there – other writers I love like Scott Westerfield and Neal Shusterman.

Heheheeheheheehee.

I read the offer email to John. And John looks at me shaking his head and he says, ‘the universe really does give you whatever you want.’ Or something along those lines. And I am thinking to myself well it’s not giving me Gisele’s body, Scarjo’s face and Oprah’s wallet, but hey I’m not complaining.

But he has a point. I do think I’m the luckiest person alive right now. And I had said to John on Monday ‘I’m going to get an offer for my book on Thursday or Friday’ and whaddya know? I did. Ok, ok, Susan Miller kind of indicated it too and she is the oracle.

And I’ve been reflecting on this. Because what I think it is that I’ve always made it clear what I want. I say it out loud at every opportunity – to John, to my friends, to complete strangers. I don’t just say ‘what if’ anymore. I say, WHEN.

That’s all very well you might say, I’m going to start telling every and any person I come across that I’m going to be the next Nobel Prize winning physicist but that sure as hell isn’t going to happen. (It sure as hell isn’t going to happen to me because it took me five goes just to spell it).

No but if you believe it, if you genuinely believe that it will happen, not just think ‘that would be nice’, then I think it does.

You just need to stop saying what if and start saying When.

Or maybe it’s just me and I really am the luckiest person in the world.

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