Guest Post: Author of Small Blue Thing, S.C. Ransom

A little over a week ago I posted a “Book Dreaming” article about my hopes to read Small Blue Thing by S.C. Ransom sometime in the very near future. Well, thanks to the marvel that is Twitter I was put immediately in contact with the charming author herself! Sue is wonderful and instantly offered to write up a post about how her novel came to life and also became Nosy Crow’s first published book. It’s a brilliant story and I can’t wait to share it! So, without further hesitation on my part, author of Small Blue Thing S.C. Ransom…

I used to read every day as I sat on my commuter train into London, England. I love reading, and it was a great opportunity to catch up with my favourite books and discover new ones. One day when I was in a hurry I picked up one of my daughter’s books. I thought it would be interesting to see what she was enjoying, and I found that I really liked it. It was set in the US and was all about vampires. I read through more on her shelf, and was struck by the fact that everything she seemed to enjoy was set in the States. I thought she would also enjoy something which was set in her world, with places she had knew, but books like that were hard to find.

I started wondering if I could write something myself. I’d never written any fiction, not since school anyway, but I decided to give it a go. It was February 2009, and Ellie, my daughter, would be 12 in September. I could write her a birthday present. I used the time on my commute to start planning, working out how I was going to structure my story and who was going to be in it, and soon had everything sorted in my notebook, but then I hit a snag. I had to get the story written on the laptop, but it was really too big to be carrying around London. Writing at the weekends wasn’t an option as I was too busy with family stuff – it had to be done on the commute. I was thinking about the problem one day as I was writing an email on my BlackBerry. As a smartphone it was really just a very small computer – maybe I could use that?

I tried a few test files, and once I got my thumbs into gear it was fine. Using the notes function I tapped away, and as I reached the final station every day I emailed the file to myself. When I got back on the train in the evening I re-read what I’d written in the morning and carried on. I found that I could manage about 300 words or so per journey, so the pages soon built up. At the weekends I took all the little email files and patched them all together into chapters. Finally I printed out a draft copy and edited it, and with a few days to spare, got the final copy printed out and bound into a proper hardback book. On the morning of Ellie’s birthday I handed it over nervously, really hoping that she would like it. I had written a story about a 17 year-old girl, Alex, who discovers a mysterious bracelet in the River Thames, and finds that it allows her to talk with Callum, a drowned soul. Callum is gorgeous and Alex quickly falls for him, but then things start to go horribly wrong and Alex has to decide – is he lying to her? And if so, what does he want?

Luckily Ellie loved it, and it was soon being borrowed by her friends and we had to loan out some loose leaf copies to keep up with the demand. Eventually someone suggested that I try to get it published. I wasn’t sure at first, because it was Ellie’s story and very personal to her, but when we talked it over she was keen, so I made some enquiries. It seemed pretty time-consuming to submit manuscripts, so after one refusal from an agent I spoke to the colleague of a friend, just to get a feel for whether I was wasting my time. She loved it so much she set up a company to publish it!

A year to the day after my first meeting with Kate Wilson, Small Blue Thing came out as Nosy Crow’s first book. Six month later the sequel, Perfectly Reflected, was published, and in January the final part, Scattering Like Light, goes on sale. My daughter’s birthday present is now being sold around the world and has been enjoyed by tens of thousands of girls. I still can’t quite believe it!

Thank you so much Sue! I adored this post! It’s amazing that you were able to write the entire first novel on your Blackberry and then to have written it solely for the purpose of giving it to your daughter is brilliant. Now I’m dying to read the series even that much more! Thank you again, this was wonderful!

Find Small Blue Thing by S.C. Ransom at the following spots:
Amazon | Powell’s Books | Book Depository | Goodreads

Today’s post is part of our month long celebration of all things Nosy Crow. Make sure to stop by the Nosy Crow site for more information about this title and more. For more information about our Book Publishers 101 feature take a look at this month’s opening post.

Thank you so much to the publisher, Nosy Crow, for coordinating many of this month’s features and reviews! Connect with them on Twitter and on Facebook!
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