New Year, new selling outlet!

Finally the book has landed at Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com, you can now buy from anywhere in the world! Hurrah! We are sorting out the artwork for the front cover and the files have been amended so hopefully the strange box appearing around the text will not occur on future copies. The Facebook page for the book is growing so go visit it and click 'like' to spread the word to your friends. You can see previews of the new illustrations for the calendar which is nearing completion and read excerpts. We are also on twitter, so for real time up to date notices on whats happening, join us. All the links you need are to the right on this page. Tell your friends about the book and your local bookstore to try and get it out there!

Happy new year to you all!

Thought Guardian in ink

Hi all,

Todays rambling is about my latest ink drawing for the calendar I am working on. It is an illustration of a thought guardian and its taken from the second half of the book, The Land of Lost Thoughts where Emily has entered the tower and is being led by the thought guardians to the mountain of Confusion. The idea behind this illustration is to represent the thought guardian spinning his web of intrigue as he collects up her thoughts. My previous colour version shows emily half asleep and the proportion of the thought guardian, as described in the book, is that he is able to get tangled up in her hair and in fact uses it at some points as a safety rope. The ink drawing shows more detail of his wings folded and the surrounding clouds of thoughts when Emily first encounters him. I decided to show the clouds reflecting off his clothes which I think works quite well. I actually use a fineliner not an ink pen and this one was quite a wide nib, but still with fine strokes I manage to get a variation of thickness with one nib.

My style has always been influenced by the pre-raphaelites and I recently discovered Austin Osman Spare at the Cuming Museum in Southwark. His dreamlike drawings of magical creatures and real people with spirit drawings are fabulous. Not that I would try to emulate his work, I have my own style and way of drawing but it is interesting to see another artist relatively unknown, draw in a similar fashion to myself.

Do please comment on the newest addition, it will be in the 2011 calendar. You can also now subscribe to my podcast which contains exclusive insights into the audio book which is in production, click here then click ARCHIVE to see and hear the latest entries.

S.Hill

Errors and omissions included - usually!

Hi readers,

I've just discovered that my front cover has a strange anomaly in the print. My son brought home five books from his teachers at school for me to sign and they all had a strange print error over the words. Now some of you may like to get these while you can. My father is an avid collector of stuff and he likes things like that. Apparently it makes things more collectible when there are strange mistakes or printers errors. there is of course the infamous JK Rowling Harry Potter book which has a typo inside and its very rare with only a handful being published and is now worth a fortune. I suspect you are all now googling it as I type and have searched your book shelves to se if you have that edition. Im not suggesting for one moment that my book is in the same calibre as JK Rowling's, but then again Id like to think its better written if not as popular. After all she didn't reach the acclaim she has now over night, it was a slow rise with being turned down by publishers to start with.

I have decided to leave the book alone for the moment and ask my publisher lulu.com why the printing mistake has happened after all the mistake is not apparent on the artwork or PDF. So until it is sorted out, you can purchase away to your hearts content and bag yourselves the anomaly in the vague hope that it may be worth something one day!

Well I'm off to contact lulu.com,

Siobhain Hill

Welcome to the new book by Siobhain Hill

Hi to all my readers,

This is my new blog about my work, The Land of Lost Thoughts. My first foray into children's fiction writing, my book is published by lulu.com and is available on their marketplace. Soon to follow is the Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com listings which I will keep you posted about. The inspiration behind this first novel was to create a fantasy adventure based in a real setting dealing with growing up and spiritual awareness.

The book is set in 1981 and follows a year in the life of an eleven year old girl called Emily. She lives near Crystal palace and her adventure takes her into the woods at Sydenham, a disused train tunnel and eventually continue while she is on holiday in Dartmoor, Devon.

I researched the area and also lived there as a child so there are some facts which may be appealing to people from the Crystal Palace or Upper Norwood areas and who knew the place during the 1980s.

Some of the adventure takes place in nearby Herne Hill and Brockwell Park, once again references are to places that used to occupy the High Street but most are fictional. Dartmoor was somewhere I visited often as a child and had many an adventure on the Moor. the myths and legends of Dartmoor have always been an interest of mine and when combining what I knew as hearsay with research, I found I could link my story neatly with the use of pixies and Moorland mythology.

The main character Emily, enters a magical realm of spirit walking and the book deals lightly with her first encounter of spiritualism.

I will blog again, on some of these topics, more in depth and hope to hear from you what you think of the novel. Although aimed at a reading age of 9+ my own children have enjoyed reading it and I think it is appealing to adults who like this kind of fiction and remembering the charms of the 1980s and growing up in London.

You can follow me on Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and soon you will be able to hear excerpts on Youtube. See the links opposite here!

As an illustrator I have created 12 images for the book and I am in the process of creating a further 12 for a 2011 calendar, so you will have a chance to own some prints unique to the book and its concept but not contained within the book. I will twitter when it is available to purchase on lulu.com.

NOW AVAILABLE
The book retails at £8.99, it is 244 pages, paperback. Currently at a promotional price of £8.09 for Christmas.
BUY PAPERBACK HERE.

Also available as a digital download at £2.99.
BUY DOWNLOAD HERE.






COMING SOON


Limited Edition Prints from The land of Lost Thoughts.
I also have a line of Limited Edition prints available of the books illustrations which retail at £150.00 per print. Signed by the artist and limited to an edition of 100 per artwork. They are black and white ink drawings, all titled and appear within The Land of Lost Thoughts, supplied flat with white border.

REGISTER FOR LIMITED EDITION PRINTS HERE

Coffee Table Picture Book
A book of illustrations only and text descriptions of technique and subject matter by Siobhain Hill, includes all the illustrations from The Land of Lost Thoughts and additional material from the 2011 calendar.

REGISTER FOR PICTURE BOOK HERE

2011 The Land of Lost Thoughts Calendar
A large format calendar containing new illustrations from The Land of Lost Thoughts which do not appear within the book. Also contains extracts and quotes from the book

REGISTER FOR CALENDAR HERE


That's all for today, be sure to click the RSS feed and stay updated with all the upcoming events and news about the book.

Siobhain Hill.