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| Courtesy of Mills & Boon |
Today we are
delighted to welcome Carol Townend. We put some questions to her:
When did you decide to write your first book and how
long did it take?
The first book I finished was Sapphire in the Snow
which I probably wrote in 1987. I can’t quite remember because it’s so long
ago! After some revisions Mills & Boon published it in 1989 and to my
delight it won the RNA New Writers' Award. I think it took around six months to write,
although I’d been thinking about the plot for a while before I began. It was
written on an Amstrad, which was entirely different to a modern computer. I
loved my Amstrad, but it struggled to cope with files larger than about 10
pages. Also, the novel took an age to print and came out in one long sheet. You
had to separate the pages manually! I wrote about five novels on an Amstrad.
Have you always wanted to be a writer?
Yes, although it took me some time to really get down to
it. I played about with various writing courses which were great except they
kept trying to make me write articles when all I really wanted to write was
medieval romance. When my daughter went to school, I wrote three romances quite
quickly and was thrilled when they were accepted by Harlequin Mills & Boon.
I guess the message there is to write what your heart tells you to write!
How do you fit your writing around your home life?
It’s a job and I treat it as such. After various
displacement activities in the morning – putting on the washing machine,
tidying up, dealing with mail etc – I try to get started on the WIP around
coffee time. Ideally this is five days a week. I finish at 6. Sometimes I write
at week-ends, but it’s important to have a life too…
How good are you at planning your work? Do you prefer to
wing it?
A lot of planning goes in. I have a set of coloured school
notebooks and pick one for each novel. They say ‘Oxford’ on the covers, but we
buy them in French supermarkets on research trips. By the time the notebook is
full, it’s usually time to start writing. Having said that, the story never
goes to plan! My characters are wayward and tend to run off in all directions.
In The Stone Rose, a medieval saga I wrote for Headline, one character
got up and walked out of the book half way through. I tried to pin him down by
breaking his leg – ha! It kept him in place for a short time, but as soon as
the leg was healed he was off again. I let him go and in the end he came back
again, and the book was better for it. So I’ve learned that the characters know
best, and let them have their head. It makes for a more interesting journey. It
also makes me wonder why I do all that planning!
Do you enjoy research?
I love it. I read history at university, so the interest in
anything medieval has always been there. A great joy of writing medieval
romance it that it give you an excuse to visit castles all over Europe. I like to
explore the town/area where a book will be set and get the medieval map firmly
in my head. It’s not always possible, but a visit to Istanbul resulted in the Palace
Brides trilogy set in eleventh century Byzantium. Places are very
inspiring. When visiting Quimperlé in Brittany, a whole novel popped into my
head. An Honourable Rogue was inspired by the church at the confluence
of two rivers.
What
did you enjoy most about writing your novel and how do you relax when you're not working?
Finishing
it! Writing is hard work and I am lazy…then I can enjoy reading,
walks in the countryside, chatting with friends, cinema.
If
you were a guest on Desert Island Discs what would be your chosen book?
This
varies. This year it’s Transcendence by Shay Savage, an unlikely
time-slip romance between a teenager of today and a cave-man. The cave-man
cannot speak or understand language, and the idea that the heroine comes from
the future is quite beyond his grasp. The entire novel is told from his point
of view and there is no dialogue. It’s hard to pin down why I adore this book,
but the fact that the hero constantly misunderstands the heroine makes for an
extraordinarily poignant and moving read.
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Pass.
I think it’s important to let readers make up their own images of the
characters. Suffice to say that Lord Gawain has sun-streaked hair and brown
eyes. He’s a knight, so he is strongly built. Elise, aka Blanchefleur le Fay,
is dark, the cover image fits her very well!
What
is next for Carol Townend?
I’d
like to write two more stories in the Knights of Champagne mini-series.
After that, Sicily is throwing out lures. Spain is too. Who knows? I can’t plan
too much in advance, but it’s likely to be medieval. And romantic, naturally!
Publication day of my next title: 1st March
2015, Lord Gawain’s Forbidden Mistress. It is Book 3 in the Knights of
Champagne mini-series.
Carol Townend writes medieval romances set in
England and Europe. Born in Yorkshire, she went to a convent school in Whitby
and studied history at London University.
Her first novel, Sapphire in the Snow, won the RNA New Writers' Award. In 2013, Betrothed
to the Barbarian was shortlisted for the RoNA Rose Award.
Carol's non-fiction writing includes dozens of
articles for Writing Magazine and Writers' News, and a portrait
of the Romanovs using photographs from the Imperial albums. Carol lives in
London with her husband and daughter.
Lord Gawain’s Forbidden Mistress will be published
in March 2015, it is the third book in the Knights of Champagne mini-series
set in twelfth century France.
Thank you for joining us today,
Carol.
The RNA Blog is brought to you by
Elaine Everest and Natalie
Kleinman.
If you would like to write about the craft of writing or
perhaps be interviewed about your writing life please contact us at
elaineeverest@aol.com
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truth of their disappearance. Was it murder, as her father suspected, or a
suicide pact as the police believed?
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