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Hello you,

Yours truly, in her study where much of Gunshot Glitter was dreamed up…

My name is Yasmin Selena Butt. I live in London, England.  And I hope to be entertaining you and tickling your fancy for many moons to come.

I am a writer.  I am in the process of editing my debut novel ‘ GUNSHOT GLITTER.’ It’s a very intense, morality tale about an incinerated boy who never quite goes away.  I guarantee it will test your moral barometer.  I will be posting the opening chapter up soon.  So you can suck it and see so to speak.  I have an amazing artist called Celene Petrulak ( http://www.celeneart.com/) in the USA painting the cover.  Her work is stunning.  It was very important to me to have artistic control of my story. I didn’t want to compromise its originality at the expense of Tesco deciding which shelf it would sit on!

The title was inspired by a great, rather lo-fi song by Jeff Buckley.

It came out on his posthumous album ‘Sketches for my Sweetheart the Drunk.’  I plan to do a post on the late, great boy soon. I’m still kicking myself for not going to see him play live in  Cambridge in 1994. Why didn’t I go?  I had an exam the morning after his gig. You’re probably thinking I should have winged it, but it was my finals and I suspect I was probably in my friend Kosta’s bedroom getting him to test me on dates in French and Italian history in a right old flap! I was a crammer.  I went to a university in west London which was miles away,  I wasn’t rock’n’roll enough back then to wing it!

As a writer though, I am extremely proud to have come this far, but it’s not been without some help and support.  There are a lot of people to thank in due course who have been with me for the ride, some for a bit, others for the long haul.  But I’m honestly grateful to all of them.  Writing is a lonely business, you’ve got to be by yourself to do it, but I don’t mind that; it can be pleasurably intense to lose yourself in your made-up world.  I love it!  Writing my novel was akin to watching a movie in my head. I even had dreams about my characters.   Once I’ve put Gunshot Glitter out there, I have many other ideas up my sleeve. I’m also a fan of telling short stories, you can read a few of those too if you like. There is a tab at the top for them just for you.

Writing is a muscle. You develop it. The only way to get good at it is to do it as much as possible and reading a lot helps too.   You don’t  become a writer to make a fortune, especially not in 2011 when book chains are closing down everywhere. You do it because you want to tell a story, have an idea, have something to say and the alternative of not expressing yourself fills you with such discomfort you end up reaching for napkins, menus and receipts to pin down your thoughts because they just have to come out. I carry a pen and paper where ever I go. It’s instinct or I use my phone. My flat is filled with hand-decorated jars filled with pens and pencils pilfered from all over the place! I am never far from one.  In fact, I’m looking at, at least 12 pens as I’m typing this sentence…

I’ve been writing fiction, poems and short stories ever since I was a tot.  I have written over a thousand poems.  I even performed a few on stage at the Hackney Empire bar on the same bill as my favourite solo artist Ed Harcourt.  It was terrifying but a buzz as it was also my birthday.  The audience were sweet to me. Phew!

My parents were endlessly told by my school teachers that I’d be a writer when I grew up.  Well, I guess they were right!  It was this or become a rockstar, but I can’t see the guitar over my 36G cup breasts.  Most frustrating.

Enjoy your stay and come back again ; )

Yasmin x x

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