Half Bad Blog Tour: Sally Green's Writing Day

Hi guys! Today I'm super excited to be the stop on the Half Bad blog tour. You guys know how much I adored this stunning UKYA debut novel but in case you missed my rave review you can check it out here. Half Bad is the book that everybody is talking about at the minute and I'm honoured to have the author Sally Green on the blog today talking about her writing journey and how a short story ended up becoming Half Bad.

 My Writing Day by Sally Green

   

Oh dear, I can’t even get past the title of this piece without feeling a bit panicky, because my writing day is hardly ever the same and thus is hard to describe. Perhaps I can try to give a flavour of the different types of writing days that I’ve had over the last few years, since I began writing in 2010.

1. Birth of a writer (June 2010 to December 2010)

The days of innocence. I began writing one afternoon with the idea (I thought) for a short story, but by the end of the week I realised I was writing a novel and that I didn’t want to (and couldn’t) stop. I wrote mainly in the evening (as I still prefer to do) until 2a.m. if it was going well. When I wasn’t writing my novel I was thinking about my novel - it really did take over my life 24/7. It may have looked like I was driving/ironing/cooking/gardening/running-on-the-treadmill but really I was working on the next scene. I would work all out in my head before writing it down. I wrote a lot by hand in those days too.

2. Student writer (January 2011 to February 2013)

Ah yes, I have fond memories of these days. I was a student of Creative Writing with the Open University, trying to improve my writing, finish my novel and get an agent. So I was writing short stories, poems and even scripts for my OU course, writing/editing my novel, reading as many books as possible, ironing, shopping, doing the school run, making dinner. There were lots of burnt meals I seem to remember as I was writing whilst cooking and forgetting about the sausages in the frying pan bit.

For most of this time I did have a routine of getting up half an hour earlier than normal to keep a writing diary (as the OU suggested we students do), but as I was staying up much later than normal to write my novel in the quiet midnight hours I was a wreck (and living on burnt sausages).

3. Writer - Post-publishing deal/pre publication (March 2013 - January 2014)

This seemed hard at the time but actually it was a doddle. I got an agent in February 2013 and a publishing deal in March 2013. For most of the period I was working on the edits of HALF BAD. This was not too painful (no red marks slashing across the page - but more ‘I really like this but’, which actually is the polite equivalent of red marks across the page). I would sit in a room at home, in the sun and work out the changes I needed to make. My husband had taken over a large part of the cooking - he never burns the sausages. In September 2013 I started writing HALF WILD, the second book of the trilogy and was dismayed that there was still some editing to do on HALF BAD. It seemed quite difficult to juggle the two (now I laugh at trying to juggle just two different aspects of writing). Generally I did either one or the other on a given day.

By November HALF WILD had taken over my life. I set myself goals of 1,000 words a day. I didn’t mind if these weren’t perfect words, I just wanted to get the story down. I was relaxed after I was over 10,000 words but didn’t want to let up on the pace of writing. I was word count fixated. I finished the first draft (80,000 words) in December and took a break for Christmas, before starting to edit in January.

4. Published Author - (January, 2014 to today)

My desk is in utter chaos

HALF BAD was published in the UK on 3rd March, but this period really started at the end of January when the PR began. I had a few weeks away from editing HALF WILD for a 8 night tour of the USA and 4 night tour of the UK and then a lot of PR in the week of the launch of HALF BAD. I thought I might write as I travelled but was usually too tired and really just not in that zone. I was worried that it was too long a time away from HALF WILD but I think it might have helped to step away and see it all a little clearer.

Now, I grab time where I can to write whatever I need to (this piece, numerous Q&As, writing tips, blog posts etc.) and I edit HALF WILD in equally short or longer bursts as the mood takes me.

I’ve got my deadline for HALF WILD looming, so I’m trying to establish a routine of writing/editing in the evening, usually until about 1am, when it’s quiet. I try edit in my head as I do other things too - so, for example, at the moment I’m not happy with the plot at the end of the book and I’m working out various possible solutions usually as I drive somewhere.

End

Thanks for stopping on the blog today Sally! I absolutely loved reading about the evolution of Half Bad and how your writing habits changed along with it!

Half Bad by Sally Green is published by Penguin £7.99 www.halfbadworld.com 

Be sure to stop by the other posts for the blog tour! Info in sidebar.

Review for Half Bad by Sally Green

Half Bad by Sally Green
Publisher: Penguin
Release: 3rd March 2014
Genre: Witchcraft, Paranormal, UKYA
Source: Received from the publisher in exchange for an honest review




Synopsis: 

"You can't read, can't write, but you heal fast, even for a witch. You get sick if you stay indoors after dark. You hate White Witches but love Annalise, who is one. You've been kept in a cage since you were fourteen. All you've got to do is escape and find Mercury, the Black Witch who eats boys. And do that before your seventeenth birthday.

In modern-day England, witches live alongside humans: White witches, who are good; Black witches, who are evil; and fifteen-year-old Nathan, who is both. Nathan’s father is the world’s most powerful and cruel Black witch, and his mother is dead. He is hunted from all sides. Trapped in a cage, beaten and handcuffed, Nathan must escape before his sixteenth birthday, at which point he will receive three gifts from his father and come into his own as a witch—or else he will die. But how can Nathan find his father when his every action is tracked, when there is no one safe to trust—not even family, not even the girl he loves?"

Review 
I’ve been trying to decide how much I want to say about Half Bad and how much I want to hold back on. On the one hand I don’t want to set impossible standards in reader’s heads but on the other I want to be honest about how much I enjoyed this book. And so after a lot of thought I have a little secret to tell you…Half Bad gave me the Potter feels.

I imagine at this point you’re either getting terribly excited or rolling your eyes at the idea of a Harry Potter copycat and that’s where I want to come in and say that you couldn’t be more wrong. Half Bad is completely unique in its own right. With not a magical beast or wand in sight Half Bad surprisingly feels less fantasy and more realism as Nathan has to deal with many contemporary issues.

Half Bad is very much a coming of age novel only with powers and a civil war between witch kind. You have the white witches who are good, the black witches who are bad and Nathan a one of a kind Half Code who is both and so has never really fit in anywhere. With a white witch mother and a father who is the most powerful and hated black witch of all time Nathan is feared and shunned by the white witches who keep him locked up in a cage and run experiments on him.

One of my favourite things about Half Bad was how Sally Green blurred the lines between good and evil. The characters in this book are much more dimensional than their labels with some of the white witches being cruel and insatiable and some of the black witches showing kindness and loyalty to Nathan. There’s also the theme of Nature vs Nurture are we destined to become a certain way? Or do people who push labels on to us make it so?

The world building in this book was spot on. All the information we need is revealed as and when needed which is so much better than a massive information dump at the beginning of the story. The hidden world of the witches is a simple and believable one and the lonely Welsh countryside created the perfect atmosphere for Nathan’s story.

Overall Half Bad was a book that ticked all of the right boxes for me and I can’t find fault with it. Unique and compelling I closed the book with the feeling that I’d just read something truly special.

Giveaway: Win an Early Copy of Half Bad by Sally Green!

As some of you may know I’m hugely excited for UKYA author Sally Green’s debut novel Half Bad so I was beyond thrilled when, not one, but two early proof copies dropped through my letter box to review. I contacted the publisher to let them know I received two by mistake and asked if it was okay to give away my spare copy to one of you guys and they said yes! The book is out next month in the UK and I’m really excited to be able to give one of my readers the chance to read it before it hits bookshops! The publishers are really excited for this one and the early praise for it has been through the roof so if you like Paranormal YA at all you’re going to want to check this book out. Here’s a little bit more about it…

Synopsis: You can't read, can't write, but you heal fast, even for a witch. You get sick if you stay indoors after dark. You hate White Witches but love Annalise, who is one. You've been kept in a cage since you were fourteen. All you've got to do is escape and find Mercury, the Black Witch who eats boys. And do that before your seventeenth birthday.

In modern-day England, witches live alongside humans: White witches, who are good; Black witches, who are evil; and fifteen-year-old Nathan, who is both. Nathan’s father is the world’s most powerful and cruel Black witch, and his mother is dead. He is hunted from all sides. Trapped in a cage, beaten and handcuffed, Nathan must escape before his sixteenth birthday, at which point he will receive three gifts from his father and come into his own as a witch—or else he will die. But how can Nathan find his father when his every action is tracked, when there is no one safe to trust—not even family, not even the girl he loves?

Sounds fantastic right? Before you enter please read my giveaway rules first and good luck to you all! 

 Giveaway Rules 

 To enter please fill in the Rafflecopter 

 Open to UK residents only 

 End date: Friday 21st February 2014 

 One winner will be drawn and will be contacted by email with 1 week to reply else another winner will be selected. 

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