C'est Incroyable

France 'as got talent, roight

Last night I caught the end of 'La France a un Incroyable Talent' which, in my mind, doesn't exactly trip off the tongue like 'Britain's got Talent' and I think tends to be reduced to 'Incroyable Talent'. Anyway, I suppose it's basically the same programme - a qualifying 2-minute round before 3 judges, semi-final and final.

One of the judges is Sophie Edelstein, artistic director of Pinders circus which means certain acts might not only get through to the next round but are told, "the doors of my circus are open to you". The singer Dave is another judge, and the third one is Gilbert Rozon, creator of the festival 'Juste pour rire' (Just for Laughs).

I'm not a great fan of talent shows, but my boys like watching this and it makes for a cosy family moment watching it together; having a laugh, giving opinions on the acts, and guffawing at the crap. Enhanced, natch, by the fact that there are some very talented people out there.

One of the acts yesterday was Sacha la Grenouille, an amazing 36-yr old contortionist who gave a stunning show that had everyone on their feet. Sophie had already seen him in action and told him the doors to her circus were open. His act was colourful, funny and charming. And we squirmed as he achieved impossible positions.

There was an hilarious impersonator, Jérémy, who gave a slick show where he imitated 20 voices in two minutes. At the end, Gilbert said he was disappointed he hadn't done Frank Sinatra whereupon Jérémy broke into song with New York New York, and had everyone on their feet again. He has a really funny face, is full of humour and seems like a very jolly guy. Brilliant! Off stage, he imitated a camp gay man in the post-show interview which had us in fits.

We don't have any show-worthy incroyable talent in our family, but my youngest is set on becoming the voice of Floppy the Monster. I've been writing flipcharts to go with the book and story-builder this week. As they are aimed at pre-school children who can't read, they are full of images and sound. I've been doing one on maths, counting up to four, and a language one describing Floppy's house and garden. My youngest is doing the voice in French, and counting in English.

I was thinking this morning how I loathe children in adverts with their cute voices saying how much they love ham and yoghurt,and how I refuse to buy anything that's been advertised using a child to manipulate me into wanting it. Advertisers don't understand that we find our own kids cute, not everyone else's, and especially not those in adverts. Or maybe I'm in a curmudgeonly minority...

Which brings me (enfin) to my niggling doubts that I should not be using a child to be the voice of Floppy the Monster in French, but maybe a more mature, professional-sounding native Frog. But then I say to myself that small children might identify with a child's voice more than with an adult voice, and listen to the words more enthusiastically because it would be like playing with the child rather than learning from an adult.

For the moment we'll carry on, trying to overcome the raspberry sound that accompanies every 'ppy' and speaking slowly and clearly: Voici Floppy le Monstre. Il a un grand sourire...

You never know, we may make a voice-over/dubber incroyable talent of him yet! It's about time there were more voices used to dub films. I hear the voice OuiOui (Noddy) in all sorts of films and tele shows, it's most bizarre and distractingly irritating.

Sarah Hague, Writer

Right folks, I have the pleasure to announce that you are now reading the blog of an official, published writer. Yep, I know I've been wittering about this for a while now, and it may have seemed like it was one of those events that would never actually get off the ground and believe me, it sometimes felt like it. BUT it has happened thanks to the amazing work of the Bongo LLP team.

So, announcing with the Bongo drum roll:

• - Slim the Vegetarian Ogre book. Available here whilst awaiting the referencing at Amazon (en cours).
• - Slim the Vegetarian Ogre Story builder software (education) available here for PC (also available for Mac). Coming soon the home version.
• - Slim the Ogre Interactive Flipcharts published by Promethean available here.
• - Floppy the Monster is Nearly Lost Forever. Available here whilst awaiting Amazon referencing.

I can confidently say that they are all fab. The Slim software is amazing for helping children write their own stories in class and get the whole lot published as a class book on lovely paper with a hard cover that parents and grannies can buy for posterity. They also serve to make money for the school for other interesting projects. My youngest has been one of the testers and loved it!

The flipcharts are for school use and support the literacy aspects of the story builder - adjectives, point of view, setting the scene, writing speeches etc.

The Slim the Ogre book is an extended jolly version of what the kids could end up writing, with lots of references to disgusting ogrey things.

Floppy the Monster is a super book for little kiddies aged about 4. The illustrations are just fabulous; we are so lucky to have Sybil Harris on board to bring the stories to life. This is the first one in the series where Floppy is nearly lost in the supermarket and is captured by the mean and horrid Momo Morris who is out shopping with his witchy granny.

It's only Floppy's determination not to be kidnapped forever and be called 'Lucky Teddy' that saved the day, proving that love (and a little magic) keeps people and monsters together.

You can't imagine how proud I am to be part of it all. And it's just the beginning!

Once the Amazon reference is up, I'll be asking all those who volunteered to write a review. It's the sales on Amazon that make the buzz, so... watch this space!

Exciting News x2

I have to report two exciting pieces of news:
1. my agent, Steve, has bought the domain names of www.floppythemonster.com and www.floppythemonster.co.uk.

This was not par hasard... I've been reading 'Plug Your Book' by Steve Weber (on my spanky new sunbed, in the sun, with either a cuppa or glass of chilled rosé to hand depending on the time of day) and it's got a ton of good suggestions. It set me thinking about a Floppy website so I checked the availability of .com and it was free. I contacted Steve and he bought up both .com and .co.uk.

All I have to do now is decide what to put on it! To get an idea, I went and had a look at the tip top Gruffalo website. You can't really get any more comprehensive than that! Quite scary really, and a Lot of Work. Good thing I've got a boy-free July coming up.

Not only do we have domain names, but our illustrator, Sybil Harris is doing a brilliant job with her illustrations. This is terribly important as you can imagine. As soon as I can (am allowed...) I'll post up a piccie of Floppy the Monster. Sybil has really managed to capture the spirit of Floppy and Emily and her images make me smile, they're so charming and funny.

Other Floppy news is that it's being translated into American English. HAHAHA I find that terribly funny for some silly reason.

2. I just checked my Technorati ranking and St Bloggie de Riviere is there at authority 119, number 38,743 out of over a million (1,187,727). The top authority is 961 (not 1 as you might expect), which is The Huffington Post. If you want to have your blog ranked and followed on Technorati, all you have to do is sign up. If you would like to understand what Technorati authority is all about, read this article which reveals all! It's something to do with 'standing' and 'influence'.

I'm excited by this because it's actually pretty high. I mean, there are 1,148,984 blogs behind mine. So like, WOW! I'm sure Steve Weber would approve. It's a step in the right direction at least.

If you have written a book, I would strongly recommend reading Steve Weber's book on plugging it. His advice works for self-published books as well as published ones. It seems now that even if your book is accepted by a publisher, he will not set about plugging it much unless you're a Big Name. It's up to you. Luckily there's a lot you can do thanks to the internet. Steve has a website too where he updates his advice with the latest news.

I'm off to subscribe to the website. (Why do I keep thinking it's Tuesday?)