Tina Reilly Monday 13th Feb. 8pm

[tina]

Wish I had a million adn one ideas Tatty - gettign one is hard enough!

Hiya Oonagh - yeah, that's hte one about the cancer all right - maybe I'm a bit macarbe but I am fascinated by disease (probably why I have people sick in loads of my books!) I used to want to be a doctor whenI was younger but just wasn't able to study hard enough. Anyway, in Flipside, the challenge for me was to see if i could make serious illness readable, sympathetic and lace it with a dark humour.
I hope i succeeded.

[Oonagh]

Well tina you definetly succeeded!! That explains all the medical problems. Im a student nurse im doing intellectual disability . Im in second year so im always fascinating with diseases and things. I read all your books i think i own all but one. I(mad crazed fan) No i think i have an addiction with buying books. i have to hide books from my mother when i come in from shopping. imagine hiding a easons bag!!! she would be like not another book!!! lol. i think we should start counse4lling for our addiction to buying books!!!

[charlene]

I think you succeeded as well in Flipside it made me laugh and cry along with the main character, I thought it was done brilliantly and I loved her new age boyfriend when she went on the protest walk all ldressed and in her heels, very funny, I don't know some books I read and I forget all about them but Flipside and most of your books the story sticks in my head and I can tell you which book is which [ MAD CRAZED FAN 2]

Oonagh I think I need to come to your counseling group ok I'm getting over the urge to buy books [ JUST] now my excuse is the libary I keep getting more and more books so the sooner this group is up and running the better.

[megan]

Hey Tina,

Thanks for coming on again and telling me that you kept your writing a secret when you were a child. It doesn't surprise me. Teachers are often not the best at encouraging creativity. ( I think they're too obsessed with spelling!). I remember being told off for reading too much Enid Blyton as a child as my essays involved quite a few stashed amounts of iron bars!

[tina]

Glad you all liked Flipside.

And yeah, Megan, my teacher was so hung up on spelling that she terrified me. I remember once getting one spelling right out of thirty. My moment of fame in primary school - the worst spelling test result she EVER had!!!

Anyway, Oonagh - can you start a support group for addiction to e-mail and the internet? That's my downfall.

[Oonagh]

I think Tina we would all be there for that too. All of us in college joined www.anotherfriend.com and we spent her free classes on that emailing strangers. i know what kind a people do i hang around with!

[megan]

Oonagh, Charlie and Tina,
I must check out Flipside. Does it begin with a girl waking up at night with the sweats and finding lumps on her body because she has got Hodgkins disease? I read a book about a girl with cancer once and I never forgot it. Is that how Flipside begins?

And Tina, I hope you're teacher can see you now!!!! And well done on the spelling test. That is quite an achievement!

[Oonagh]

yeah thats the book megan . What a page turner!

[charlene]

I can send it to you megan if you like but I would love it back as its one of my favourite books but no probs sending it to you just pm me

[megan]

Thank you very much for that offer Charlene but I think I will buy that book so that I can keep it. I enjoyed it so much that I want to have my own copy of it.

[charlene]

thats ok megan I know what you mean I could read Flipside over and over the way Tina writes it is brilliant sad and funny, one of the best books I've read

[tatty]

another question for Tina if she visits on both your books i have read Wish upon A Star and Is This Love you write in past tense's aswell as the present what gave you the idea to develop storylines that focus on this style of writing! I think its a great idea as it draws you more into that storyline of whats happening to that character and what has happened in the past! To make them who and what they are.

Hope that makes sense to you!

[Colette Caddle]

Best of luck tonight, Tina, though from the number of questions already, you don't need it!! For those of you who haven't read Tina, you're missing out and her latest book lives up to her usual high standards. If I have one question for you, Tina, it's how on earth do you get time to raise kids, write and do all the numerous other things you do!!!!

[Mary]

I've read Wish upon a Star as well as all of Tina's books and have loved every single one.
Well done, Tina.

Colette, it's lovely to see you on the site. I've also read all of yours and loved them. When is your next book out?
Changing Places was a great read.

rearing kids, and living life really gets in the way of writing alright!
Mary

[tina]

Hi everyone - especially Colette! Anyone who has read Wish Upon a star knows that Colette endorsed it for me (as well as Sarah) and I'm so grateful to them!

Hi again tatty and thanks mary for reading my books - all the writers will tell you how grateful they are to complete strangers for giving them the careers they have. I don't know what makes me write in the past and present Tatty - I did it in a teenage book I wrote too - I suppose it's the best way i can find to tell the story that I want to tell and it also shows how our pasts shape our presents (in a not too subtle way!!).
And Colette - it seems I do lots of stuff but unfortunately there's lots of stuff I don't do - my house is a MESS!! Well, it's a sort of hidden mess - everything is piled into cupboards and presses. And there are piles of washing and ironing all over the gaff. And my poor kids are very independent beings as I haven't time to molly coddle them (which i suppose is a good thing).

And while Mary was on the subject of Colette's books - I loved Colette's Forever FM - about the radio station! Brill.

Tina. x

[tatty]

Thanks for answering my question tina much appreciated