Reading to an audience = scary!

First things first. Fab picture came from here. I only found this site when I googled looking for a cool image but actually wish I had read through it earlier!

Tonight the Murph and I risked life and limb driving along the icy roads to Flowerfield Arts Centre for a special evening. "Say the Word" was a gathering of writers from all over the area, including local writing groups. The standard was intimidatingly high.

It's hard to know what to read in public sometimes - something short is usually good! That's easy to say but when you're picking an extract from a full-length novel it can be tricky finding a scene that is complete in itself, especially when it's 'fantasy'. After all, the audience haven't had a chance to read the book - they don't know the 'rules' of the world you've created.

I kept it as simple as I could and read from the Prologue to Book 2. It's a nice scene with Javan as the central character. He plays a much bigger role in this book than in The Watchers so I wanted to start things off with a bang. It got a fairly good reaction as it has a scary twist and got some "Oooooooh's" at the end - always a great sign! Job done and back home in one piece - all is well!