The Travels of Tweet Treats! Warning: contains Neil Gaiman

If you follow me on Twitter (and if you don't, why not?) you would know that I'm a total fangirl when it comes to Neil Gaiman. You would also know that he donated a recipe to Tweet Treats. Finally, you would know that my hubby @ukegnome and I had a fit of insanity and decided to fly to Seattle last week to see Neil and his wife @amandapalmer on the final night of their west coast tour.

There are plenty of bands, actors, comedians, writers who could be appearing in my own hometown, who I wouldn't bother going to see. There are a few for whom I might travel as far as Dublin; or, if they were really special and I fancied a shopping trip as well, maybe even London. But for Neil Gaiman I was willing - nay, happy - to travel half way round the world.

Why do I love Neil Gaiman so much?

To be honest, I don't fully know the answer to that myself. There are probably better writers out there; certainly, there are better-known writers out there. (Sorry Neil, but most of my family and friends would have no idea who you are if it wasn't for me raving about you constantly.)

Really, I think it's his voice. No, not his singing voice (though that's not half bad, and I'm still wandering around the house singing 'You Think I'm Psycho Don't You, Momma' to the dogs. They love it.) I'm talking about his writer's voice, that thing that every creative writing coach tells you you have to develop for yourself. Before I'd ever seriously thought about writing myself, before I'd wondered if I could develop a 'voice' of my own, I was aware of Neil's.

I was a damn good essay writer when I was in university - A's and A+'s were the norm. However, as the result of my own peculiar brand of warped logic, I convinced myself that if I could write non-fiction well then I would only ever write fiction poorly. All my dreams of being a writer - forget it. Maybe I had the ability to review books, spend my life parasitically feeding on the creativity of others, but I certainly didn't hold any of that creativity myself.

Then, around about 1999 I read Gaiman's The Price. I held my breath the whole way through, then read it again. And again. My hair stood on end; not only at the story, but at the fact that this story was VOICE, pure and simple. To paraphrase Yeats, it was impossible to tell the dancer from the dance, or where the author ended and the story began. I read The Price and felt like I knew the author, as though he had sat beside me and told me the story directly. The Price is a simple tale, written in simple terms, and it changed my whole mindset on writing. Suddenly I thought, "I can do this too." It was a whole new concept for me. (And yes, it is the mark of any good art that it makes you think "but I could do that". I know that. Don't burst my bubble.)

So, now I have Tweet Treats published and that's terrific. I'm fiercely proud of this cute little blue book - it was creative in its own way, in its concept - but I want more. I want to publish a work of fiction that is entirely of my own creation. Frequently I feel the fear, that old conviction that I'll never write good fiction; but when I do, I re-read The Price. Or any other Gaiman short story - or novel. His voice rings clear through them all. It comforts me, and I know I can find my own.

So what has this post got to do with Tweet Treats, you ask? Well, I did get to give Neil a copy of Tweet Treats - and got him to sign mine. A spurious excuse perhaps, but I'm ok with that.

You can find Neil's contribution to Tweet Treats on page 159, called Cthulhu Crumble. Will I copy the recipe here for you all to have a look at? Will I heck. Go buy a copy yourselves, you wastrels (or look closely at the pic above!). If you live in Ireland, you can visit Irishfoodbloggers.com who are giving away five copies this week - just leave a comment.

And thanks for tolerating my fangirlisms. (What? It's a word if I say it is.)

Yes, I know this is a Cthulhu Cookie, not a crumble. So sue me.
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Last Day of The Tweet Treats Blog Tour!

Morning all! (What? It's still morning. Somewhere.) You'll no doubt be thrilled and delighted to know that today is the last day of the Tweet Treats blog tour! I'm sure I've bored you all senseless dragging you all around.. What's that? You've enjoyed every minute of it? Aw, shucks.

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Anyway, today in many ways I'm back where it all began. The first thing I ever had published was a tiny piece called My Mother Wears a Car on the Third Finger of Her Left Hand in the anthology A Pint And A Haircut, True Irish Stories For Haiti edited by Garret Pearse. It, too, was for charity and was to directly benefit Haiti. At the time I'd finished collecting the recipes for Tweet Treats but had no idea if I'd ever get it published, so I was delighted to be contributing in some small way.

Garret very generously offered to host a stage of the Tweet Treats blog tour, so it seems very fitting to end it all on his blog. Read about it here, and there's also a link to buy A Pint And A Haircut if you haven't done so yet. You can still win a copy of Tweet Treats on @jonpinnock's blog too, or click the link below to buy your own. Thanks for reading, everyone!

Sweet Charity

Morning all! Today the Tweet Treats blog tour heads to Bolton in England to talk about charity and how it doesn't just have to be dull and boring and stuff. And junk.

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The tour host today is @BoltonBulls, themselves a charity trying to raise funds for their wheelchair basketball team. You could donate to them while you're there, if you felt so inclined; or you might even win a pair of tickets to the see the Stone Roses! Read the Tweet Treats guest post here.

Remember, all this week you could win a free signed copy of Tweet Treats over at @jonpinnock's blog here. There are some good entries so far, stretch your brains and keep them coming.

If (when!) you try a recipe from Tweet Treats, let me know what you think! Tweet an opinion with the #tweettreats hashtag, or even take a pic to tweet or to tag Tweet Treats on Facebook.

As ever, you can just buy your own copy by clicking the link below. Thanks and happy tweeting! :)

Tulle, Tentacles and Tweet Treats

Today the Tweet Treats blog tour touches down - with some trepidation - on @jonpinnock's blog. Pinnock is responsible for the terror and dreadfulness that oozes from Mrs Darcy Versus The Aliens, which is a stonking good read and I recommend it rather highly.

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Anyway, over to Jonathan we go. I really hope he's not too mean to me... Read all about it here. There's also a chance to win a free signed copy of Tweet Treats, but you need to be witty! Failing that, you can still buy your own copy by clicking the link below.

The Dinner Dilemma

Today the Tweet Treats blog tour is flying all the way to Germany, and without even needing our passports! That very lovely, encouraging and supportive lady @Mariam_Kobras asked me all about the genesis of Tweet Treats, about dinner dilemmas and favourite foods. Read all about it here.

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This just in: a terrific interview with me me me by @iainbroome for writeforyourlife.net. You can read it here, if you're so inclined.

Remember, you can still win a free signed copy of Tweet Treats all this week at @mduffywriter's blog here. Or click the link below to buy your own!

Flying High - And Down To Earth With A Bump!

Greetings all!

Today was rather spiffing I must say. I dragged the ever-petulant dd to the Whitewater shopping centre in Newbridge, where we beheld THESE two behemoths! (They're genuinely mahoosive!)

Purty...

Snogging teens used for scale

Even dd took a good look at the posters and said "The Script? You got a recipe from The Script?! I love them!" "Yes," I replied, serenely. "Very nice boys they are, too." I swear I saw something close to respect in those 9 year old blue eyes...

Just as well I had something so lovely to brighten my day, since today the blog tour stops off at @Chiddle84's blog, where she's not terribly nice to me. Not at all as nice as I deserve, anyhow. Go on over and have a read.

But @mduffywriter is still being all gushy, and you can still win a copy of Tweet Treats here. Or buy one yourself by clicking the link below!

Nostalgia and Sleb-Sluttery

Huge thanks to @NettieWriter for hosting last week's giveaway, and generating lots of giggles along the way! You can check to see if you've won here. If you didn't, don't despair - there's another chance starting today!

Now, today I'm feeling nostalgic. Ah, nostalgia! Doesn't it make you feel all warm, fuzzy and, well, nostalgic?

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Today's stop on the blog tour (with a new giveaway) is with the original sleb-slut @mduffywriter. While collecting recipes for Tweet Treats, Maria found she had a rather uncanny (read: scary) ability to chat to celebrities and to bring them around to her way of thinking. I owe her a lot of thanks since a goodly proportion of the celebs who feature in Tweet Treats wouldn't have been there without here. Anyhoo, you can read her version of events here.

Having Maria blogging today reminded me of another piece of writing that she did about Tweet Treats. I blogged about it a year or so ago, but just thought I would reproduce it here. Enjoy!

In Twitford all the fairies came

to hear their fairy queen.

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She had a great idea and

was hoping they’d be keen.

So Fairy Jane began to tell

her real exciting news.

She needed help to form a plan;

they didn’t dare refuse.

Although they quite admired their Queen;

an energetic fairy,

she sometimes donned a grumpy face

that made her seem quite scary.

She never wore the sparkling stuff,

or fairy wings so pretty;                                                              

preferring dark & gloomy clothes

to make her seem more gritty.

She didn’t drink the fairy dew

but loaded up with coffee.

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Instead of nibbling magic stars,

she just chewed gum and toffee.

But when they heard her plan in full,

they all became excited.

They’d help her every way they could;

Team Fairyland united.

A plan to gather recipes

was what she had decided.

She’d surely quickly reach her goal

with all the help provided.

Now very soon the word was spread

of Fairy Jane’s new mission.

And fairies all applauded her

for having such ambition.

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The recipes were flooding in,

but Jane still wanted more.

Celebrities would do the trick;

she’d pound their Twitter door.

The wizards and the fairies who

were helping Fairy Jane,

would listen to her nagging;

(God, she really was a pain!)

The weeks went by, the team worked hard,

and Jane soon cracked a smile.

She realised her team was fab;

they’d made it all worthwhile.

No longer did the fairies fear

the fury of their queen.

For now she only ever smiled

and never more was mean.

She even tried some sparkly clothes

and ditched her gloomy cloak.

She started to endear herself

to all the elfin folk.

And so she called a meeting where

she promised all her team

she’d bring them to Avoca for

some scones with jam and cream!

Bargain of the Day

Morning folks! I did my usual trawl of the Tweet Treats listing on Amazon this morning, and lookee lookee what I found! A bargain, if ever there was one. Lulz, etc :)

Anyhoo, today's stop on the blog tour is over on the other side of the atlantic! My little cheffy twitter bird had to get a special passport (with a bird flu vaccination exemption) to go and talk to @erinfaye all the way over in Florida. And the poor lil fluffer got sunburn on his beak, too.

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Still, it was worth it. That Erin is lovely, and though she's probably still in bed and hasn't posted about Tweet Treats yet, you could wander over and take a look at her blog here - it's smashing, and there'll be stuff about Tweet Treats there in due course :)

As ever, you can buy Tweet Treats in all manner of quality bookshops. However, I wouldn't recommend paying more than €7.99 for it. ;)

"I declare Tweet Treats to be launched!"

Those were the immortal words of @patomahony1 in the Odessa Club last night as The O'Brien Press, Medecins sans Frontieres, friends, family and I celebrated the launch of Tweet Treats. It was a fantastic night, I thoroughly enjoyed myself and hope everyone who attended did too.

However, they say that a picture speaks a thousand words, so feast your eyes on the fab pics that Alan from MSF took last night.

I can confirm that the rumours of a Tweet Treats cake were not unfounded! Note actual book, for scale :)

Some people didn't believe that the cake was actually cake. Proof to the right! ->

Left to Right: Ivan O'Brien of O'Brien Press, Me, Pat O'Mahony who launched Tweet Treats 

Here's Ross, Deirdre and JaneAnne from MSF with Tweet Treats :) 

Fantastic Tweet Treats canapes from the staff at the Odessa Club, recipes from @BoyGeorge and @LouDPhillips among others ->

It was a terrific night. Pat O'Mahony did us proud and made a great job of launching the book! I managed to get through a short speech without throwing up on his shoes, so it was all good :)

Today's stop on the blog tour is at @derekf03's blog here and the fantastic @alisonwells has devoted her weekly Tuesday Interview to the book here.

Thanks everyone!

Hello? Is it me you're looking for?

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I do know a lot of nice people. There are those who would say that they only seem nice in comparison to how cranky I am, but I think they're jolly nice people.

One such nice person is @hotcrossmum who blogs for Hello! and wrote a terrific post about Tweet Treats. You can read it here. If you don't already, follow her blog Hot Cross Mum - it's a hilarious slice of modern motherhood.

Then there's the very lovely and talented @colettecaddle who said kind things about Tweet Treats on Facebook. Colette is a hoot, wait till you read her recipe! It still makes me laugh, a year after I first read it.

Most importantly of all, the really lovely people at @msf_ireland wrote this.

I have high hopes for this book. I want it to do well, stratospherically well, not just to bolster my already over-inflated ego, but because I think of every copy sold as money going directly to Somalia, Haiti, Pakistan. I want to sell thousands of copies; maybe a hundred thousand. The royalties from that many sales would make a very considerable difference to the lives of countless numbers of people.

It's all down to you, folks. The more copies you buy as Christmas presents, thank-you gifts, housewarming presents, going-off-to-college presents, or just for yourself, the closer I come to that goal. If you've already bought Tweet Treats, thank you. If you haven't, click on the link below - please.

Scream!

It seems that people who pre-ordered Tweet Treats from Amazon are starting to receive their copies in the post! I'm all of a flutter as people are tweeting me about recipes that tickle their fancy. @julianstockwin (historical fiction author of the Thomas Kydd series) tweeted:

"Just got my Tweet Treats from Amazon. Great little book for v. worthy cause so well done,@janetravers!... I hope it becomes THE Christmas stocking filler for 2011."

Was I chuffed at that? Well, maybe a little bit ;)

@neversarah pointed out her favourite recipe, one from @Beathhigh (Ian Rankin, creator of Inspector Rebus)

"'Rebus' Scotch Eggs' my current fave from #TweetTreats book@janetravers @beathhigh "

to which @Beathhigh replied: 

"Haha: yes, took a lot of work in the kitchen to perfect Rebus's Scotch Eggs...."

@ClodaghMMurphy (author of Girl In A Spin and The Disengagement Ring) tweeted about her own recipe,

"Is that the fried cheese & apple sandwich one? It's dead good, but best to have the cardiac unit on speed dial.;)"

If (when!) you receive a copy of Tweet Treats, and if (when!) you try a recipe, please let me know what you think! You can take a pic and tweet it with the hashtag #tweettreats or tag me on Facebook. You could like Tweet Treats while you're there too, I wouldn't mind at all ;)

Reasons to buy Tweet Treats, Volume 5

So your little darling wants to buy a Christmas present for her teacher.What do you buy? We're all familiar with the phrase 'an apple for teacher', but these days your discerning tutor expects a little bit more. There's always one child in the class who'll present teech with a ludicrously expensive gift, like perhaps something else bearing an apple logo... But you can give something much more thoughtful. And everyone hates that child and his mother, anyway.

There's another old saying that if you give a teacher an apple, she'll eat for a day; but if you teach her how to, um, "apple" she'll eat for the rest of her life. Or something.

So you think giving a teacher a book is a bit like teaching your granny to suck eggs, do you? But teachers love books, and even more than that, they love to encourage children to buy books. With its bright cheery chirpy cover, Tweet Treats will appeal to the kids as a gift, and its useful pages within will appeal to the teacher.




Actually, maybe you should give teacher an apple along with her copy of Tweet Treats and she can learn how to make something with that apple...

Sorted :)

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons 

Reasons to buy Tweet Treats, Volume 4

Well y'all, I hoped to be able to show you something really cool yesterday, but I'm not allowed. Yet. Boo, etc. In the meantime, here is yet another reason to buy Tweet Treats:

Sam the Scrounging Student. Ok, he's your big brother (by a whole year, big whoop - in boy terms that makes him at least five years younger, right?) and you love him and all, but he's a complete pain in the ass. He's just started at university and he's coming home at weekends talking about all the cool parties he's been to and dumping all his washing on your mum (while you have to do your own! Where's the justice in that, huh?). But to add insult to injury, he raids the kitchen every Sunday night before he goes back to college, taking all the biscuits, crisps and pot noodles to get him through the week because he "doesn't cook" and "the canteen food stinks". And your mum just indulges him!

So now it's coming up to Christmas and you have to buy him a present, 'cos your mum insists. Well, why should you have to spend your hard-earned pocket money on him? He'll get away with not buying anything this year, 'cos he's a so-called poor student. It's just not fair.

So, you're trawling through the shops, determined to spend less than a tenner on the layabout, and you see - like a little blue beacon - Tweet Treats. It's small, it's cheap, it's cool and twittery; and best of all, if you give it to Scrounging Student Sam, he'll no longer have an excuse not to cook for himself! Look, there are easy recipes, and recipes for people on a budget, and everything!



Even better, you'll have change left over to nip into the chemist and buy that little bottle of twitter-bird-blue nail varnish you've had your eye on. Blue is the new black, you know. And if your mum complains about the gift you've chosen, you can just point out that all the royalties go to Medecins sans Frontieres to help people in countries like Somalia and Haiti. There's no way she can complain about that without looking churlish.

Sorted :)

Momentousness!

It's Monday, I got feck-all sleep, but I'm buzzing. Why? Because THIS arrived in the post! (Thanks Donna @OBrienPress!)

Sure, I'd seen the image dozens of times before, but there's something very special about holding it in your hands for the first time. Somehow it looks different (though still crazy cute!). For me, the best moment was this: 

It's been a dream of mine to have a book published ever since I was a little girl, and to finally see my name on the spine of a book... well, my eyes might have gotten a little moist. I'm only saying they might have, mind you, cos as we all know I'm tough as old nails. Ahem. 

Not only that, but as @barbarascully pointed out, I'm sharing the front cover with non other than Marco Pierre White! Ulp. It might sound bananas, but that had never really occurred to me before. It's a good thing I'd just eaten, or I might well have fainted :)

O'Brien Press have an amazingly talented in-house designer (looking at you, Emma!) who took the vague ramblings that passed for my attempt at describing how I pictured the layout of the book, and produced THIS! 

Pastel... Pretty...!

Anyway, enough of such gratuitous self-congratulation. I shall flagellate later in atonement. 

The important stuff - where can you buy this wondrous tome? And when? Well, it's available on 10th October, though you can pre-order now, and the book is available from all of these fab places:

O'Brien Press   Amazon    Book Depository     Easons     Dubray Books    Waterstones   

and loads of great bookshops all over Ireland and the UK! 

Tune in tomorrow for some more utter fabulousness from a really wonderful person! Until tomorrow, you'll have to guess who that is :)

Reasons to buy Tweet Treats, Volume 2

Dear old "Agony" Aunt Agatha. She means well, I suppose, but secretly she just wants everything her own way. Remember last year, when she said there was too much suffering in the world, and that she didn't want any frivolous Christmas presents? Remember how you went online and bought a goat, put the certificate in a charity Christmas card and presented it to her proudly on Christmas day? Remember her face when she opened it, and how she kept sneakily looking in the card as though she was sure she'd missed her real present? And will you ever forget her counting up her presents at the end of the day and complaining that everyone else got more presents than she did?! So much for €50 worth of goat.

There are some people who, despite their best intentions, just really want to receive a physical present to look at and ooh and ahh over. This year, buy "Agony" Aunt Agatha a copy of Tweet Treats!




 It's pretty, it's useful, it's cool and funky. It's flat and book-shaped, therefore much easier to wrap than a goat. Every copy sold directly benefits Medécins sans Frontières so that Aunt Agatha will feel that she's doing good in the world; and at €7.99 or £6.99 you'll have plenty of change from €50 to throw in a couple of chickens or even a beehive to match Aunt Agatha's hairdo. 
Sorted! 

Reasons to buy Tweet Treats, Volume 1

Oh god, it's that time again already, which comes earlier and earlier every year. The Christmas chocs are already on the shelves in Tesco (yes, really!) and any day now someone is going to tell you how many shopping days are left till Christmas. (No, it won't be me. I hate those jerks.)

Inevitably, it'll be Secret Santa time in the office, and who will you draw this year? None other than Halitosis Harry, the man who has brought egg and onion sandwiches to work every day for the last twelve years. What on earth do you get for the man who smells of everything? Why, Tweet Treats of course! There are enough alternative sandwich suggestions in Tweet Treats to persuade even Harry to try something new every day, and hopefully he'll end up with a new favourite that's altogether less stinky.

At the very reasonable price of €7.99 or £6.99 you'll even have change from a tenner to throw in a packet of breath mints. Sorted!

Of course, if you happen to receive a copy of Tweet Treats from your Secret Santa, don't be alarmed; you've obviously received it because you're cool, happening, trendy and discerning. If, however, this awesome gift is accompanied by a packet of breath mints, you should probably take the hint. ;)

Press from my hometown

Just a very short post to thank Brian Byrne of The Nationalist and Kilcullen Diary (the blog he runs in my hometown) for a lovely piece he wrote about Tweet Treats - you can read it here.

News!

Afternoon all!

I know you haven't heard much from me for some months now, but I have been sworn to secrecy. *pious face* Now, however, I can reveal all - Tweet Treats will be out soon! Those fantastic folks at The O'Brien Press are publishing Tweet Treats, which will be released on 10th October, four short weeks from today. You can pre-order it here or here or here... or look for it in any good bookshop from Oct 10 :)

In addition, the good people at Knorr have agreed to sponsor the book, and the superstar who is Marco Pierre White has very kindly donated the foreword! As you can imagine, I am currently dancing like this. :)

As I always planned, I'm still donating all royalties to the incredible organisation Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF). They are on the ground at the moment in disaster-struck places like Somalia, and every copy of Tweet Treats sold will directly benefit them.

I want to thank once again every single one of you who donated recipes, told other people about the project and helped to spread the word. Now it's time to ask you all to dig deep once again - buy a copy of Tweet Treats! Hell, buy two. Or ten. Give them to everyone you know for Christmas! G'wan, you know you want to :)

And watch this space for updates!