Fame, glory and… foul play!
Jessie was a shop worker dreaming of the big time, then YouTube found her. But staying in the limelight requires meticulous management: pop stars are made not born.
With awards night approaching, the pressure’s on for Tito, Jessie’s manager, to whip her into shape. Getting so close wasn’t in the contract, but then neither was him being murdered in Spain.
Alone and scared of the negative publicity, Jessie turns to Mack, her account manager at Eternal Forever, the UK’s first digital legacy management agency. But Mack’s got his own issues: the company’s fast running out of cash, his key developer’s on the turn and a blogger’s suicide looks suspicious.
With the assistance of J-Pop, Mack’s assistant and wannabe reality TV star, Jessie turns sleuth. But in a world where everybody’s watching, it’s hard to escape. Reputation is everything and some people will do anything to protect it.
Guest Post
How to write when you don’t feel like writing.
Syl Waters
The thing about the muse, is that it is very capricious.
Lots of famous authors and artists have heralded their muses throughout the years, whether it’s an actual person or an alcoholic drink, or some other vice of some description, the idea of a muse is romantic.
Very romantic.
But the idea of a muse, dispels the notion that there’s any work involved in the act of writing. If you’re visited by the muse, so the popular narrative goes, your fingers tip and tap and produce stellar work (allegedly your best work) in crazy short time periods. This work will likely go on to being the acclaimed work you later have to confess you wrote with the assistance of the muse. Thus boosting the legend of the muse.
Every writer (whether they admit it or not) longs to be visited by the muse. The muse, we are told, is a magical mythical being that solves every writing problem in a flash.
Sadly, most writers never get the flash.
Most writers have to accept the grim fact of life that writing is a chore that is to be cherished, but also done.
Regularly.
Indeed, many an epic tale has never been told on account of the writer waiting around for the fabled muse to turn up.
Tomorrow, they tell themselves, tomorrow the muse will arrive and all will be well in the world.
But then tomorrow arrives and the muse gets delayed like a bus. And the writer is waiting, hanging around like a discarded cigarette butt at the bus stop.
It is at this stage when downbeat and disheartened, a writer may give up. Why write when I don’t feel like writing? You tell yourself. Writing should be about joy and happiness, it shouldn’t feel like a job! Is another popular belief that enables a further path to procrastination.
Because that, really, is all this thought process is. Writers are renowned for procrastinating – hence the function and purpose of the mythical muse. And the wait for its arrival.
But writing when you don’t feel like writing, can be a pleasurable pastime. Writing because you have to is the only way to get to writing because you want to. And that may sound counter-intuitive, and likely it is, but the process works.
Words work. And the more you get down (whether you’re in the mood or not), makes you feel better. Thus starts the virtuous circle of writing: the more you write, the more you want to write, and the more you want to write, the more you write, and the more you write, the better you become, and the better you become, the better you become!
And that may sound such a simplistic cycle and like some trickery of the mind, and likely it is. But the fact remains; when you write, when you don’t want to write, you end up writing when you don’t want to write. And if you followed that: that is how you trick your brain into writing when you don’t want to write!
Thank you, Syl Waters and Rachel’s Random Resouces
About the author
Most people know crazy cat ladies are a ‘thing’, but I’m a proud crazy guinea pig lady! I love fun in the sun and plenty of cocktails. My happy place is flip flops. I write stories to keep me company – my characters ensure I’m never lonely and always smiling (when I’m not tearing my hair out!)
Author Links
twitter: @waters_syl
insta: @mrbob.guineapig
facebook: https://www.facebook.com/syl.waters.54
Book Links
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08D6RNR18
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Eternal-Forever-gripping-turner-rethink/dp/1916424554
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