Gwyneth Williams - Onwards and Upwards

Gwyneth Williams shares her journey through the New Writers' Scheme and out the other side.

Gwyneth works full time as a Scientific Officer in the University of Leicester’s medical school and writes in her lunch breaks. She is inspired to write about places she knows and loves, and her first novel, Echoes in the Sand, is set mainly on the Greek island of Zakynthos. She lives in Leicester with her husband and daughter when she’s home from university, and two stray cats who moved in one day and refused to leave.

Securing a place on the New Writers' Scheme has certainly been a pivotal moment in my writing career, and I have to thank my fellow members of the Leicester Chapter for encouraging me to join. My journey began in 2011 and despite suffering from a terrible post-Christmas cold, something made me fill in that form and send it off with fingers firmly crossed. Receiving that confirmation email made me whoop with delight - it doesn't take much!

I worked on my novel from January to July – I was only two thirds of the way through but knew it needed cutting – and sent it off as a partial typescript. My first reader's report was forthright and honest and gave me the kick I needed to tackle a particular problem with my main character. I finished the novel and sent off a full typescript the following year, and was astonished and delighted to have it put forward for a second read.

The reader's report had my cheeks glowing at the praise – a total contrast to the previous year, but proof that my original reader had been right – thank you, whoever you are. The second reader felt it needed more work, but again the comments I received were invaluable and I set about editing the novel before sending it out to agents.

At the 2012 Winter party I prepared to pitch to anyone who would listen, whilst trying to hide my nerves behind a smile. Agents ARE human and very nice too as I have discovered, and I received some great feedback and one even suggested I added a snappy prologue – which I did and sent it out again. I received several nice rejections, but rejections all the same.

Then at the 2013 Summer party I met my agent – although neither of us knew it at the time! I spied Kate Burke from Diane Banks Associates from across the room and duly sent off my submission. Ten days later Kate emailed asking to see the whole typescript and after several nervous weeks of waiting, she emailed again asking to speak with me to discuss it. As soon as I heard her voice I knew she was the agent for me and although she wanted several changes – including a different title – I felt confident we could work together.

And we did. Nine months later we had a novel we were both happy with and then followed several more weeks of anxiety as we waited to hear back from editors. My book deal moment was quite exceptional as I was in Cyprus on the last day of my holiday when Kate emailed, saying that a Serbian publisher wanted to buy foreign rights. It's unusual to sell foreign rights before UK rights, but a week later she sold English digital rights to Endeavour Press and I had my UK publisher.

Graduating from the NWS and becoming a full member of the RNA was just as exciting as my book deal moments. It was the result of four years hard work and proves that it can happen to anyone!

Links:

Amazon UK 

Amazon US  

Facebook:

Your excitement shines through, Gwyneth.Thank you for sharing and, I am sure, inspiring our readers.

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

Anita Chapman: Getting to Know the RNA Through Social Media

Today we welcome, Anita Chapman to the blog to talk about social media.

Thank you for hosting me today. I’ve been a member of the New Writers’ Scheme (NWS) since 2010 and plan to send in a full manuscript for my second novel this year. My work in progress is set during the eighteenth century and present day, in Venice and in two country houses in England. Being part of the NWS has helped me to move forwards with my writing and the last report for a partial of my second novel gave the most encouraging feedback I’ve received. Plus, the report was written by an author who clearly ‘knows her stuff’ when it comes to the eighteenth century. Where else would I find such specialised advice for the same fee?

With Liz Harris

When I first joined the RNA, I went to a few parties without knowing anyone, apart from my friend, a fellow NWS member. At these parties, I met other members, but we didn’t stay in touch. In October 2011, I set up the neetswriter blog on writing, joined Twitter and Facebook; and mentioned this on the RNA forum. Being a supportive bunch, several RNA members followed me on Twitter and commented on my blog. At the next RNA Party, I knew quite a few people in the room, many of whom have since become good friends. Some of us had talked on Twitter the day before, using the hashtag: #RNAWinterParty. This is always a great way to find out who’s going and to see photos and news during and after the party.

My blogging and social media experience helped me to get a role at National Trust Property, Polesden Lacey as a part-time website and social media volunteer, where I created history pages; and updated the Polesden Lacey Twitter and Facebook accounts.

At the RNA Conference in July 2014, I met Richard Lee, Chairman of the Historical Novel Society (HNS), who asked me to manage the social media for September’s HNS Conference. Since then I’ve been Social Media Manager for the Historical Novel Society (Twitter @histnovsoc).

Over the past couple of months I’ve done some social media freelance work for Corazon Books, and I’ve set up a website: www.neetsmarketing.com to show which training, assistance and promotion social media packages I can offer to individual writers, small publishers and organisations. I’ve set up an accompanying blog on social media for writers: www.neetsmarketingblog.com and the first post, published recently is ‘My Beginner’s Guide to Twitter for Writers’. On 6 February, RNA Member, Alison Morton will appear with a guest post, ‘Alison Morton on Twitter’. And on 6 March, RNA Members, The Romaniacs will appear with a guest post: ‘The Romaniacs on Blogging and Using Social Media as a Group’. The aim of my neetsmarketing blog is to help writers who are starting out on social media with tips, written in layman’s terms.

Details of upcoming RNA events can be found here. You can follow the RNA on Twitter at @RNAtweets as well as the RNA blog twice weekly here.

Here are some RNA hashtags to look out for, and use:

#RoNAs

#RNASummerParty

#RNAConf15

#RNAWinterParty

I’m on Twitter: @neetswriter, and at @neetsmarketing. Thanks again for hosting me, and I look forward to another year of fabulous RNA events.

Thank you for your interesting insight into Twitter and the RNA, Anita.

The RNA blog is brought to you by

Elaine Everest & Natalie Kleinman

If you would like to write an article for the blog or be interviewed about your latest publication please contact us on elaineeverest@aol.com

Christina Hollis: Writing a series

We are delighted to welcome Christina Hollis to the blog today. Many writers would like to know about writing a series of books and how to carry characters forward to their own stories and books. As well as writing this information blog post Christina has generously offered one of her books as a prize to our readers.

I’d always wanted to write a series of novels with characters in common, but I was so happy writing one-off romances (you can find a selection here, http://www.millsandboon.co.uk/christina-hollis), it never happened. Until—

It Was A Dark And Stormy... Afternoon

The idea for His Majesty’s Secret Passion came out of the blue, or rather, out of the murky February gloom. I needed sunshine and warmth, but holidays were a distant mirage (or possibly a hypothermia-induced hallucination).

When you’re a writer, you can always escape into your imagination. I wanted pampering, and spa treatments, and oranges picked fresh from the tree. The nearest I could manage was turning up the central heating, switching on the SAD light, and getting down to work. You can read a short extract from  His Majesty’s Secret Passion at http://bit.ly/1BBzb8L, and find out more at http://amzn.to/1DF99Dv.

I really enjoyed creating Sara and Leo’s passion in the sun. As a result, I’ve never written a book so quickly. It was a shame to type “The End”, so when my Beta reader asked me what I thought would happen to King Leo’s personal assistant Krisia in her challenging new job, I had a flash of inspiration.  I’d use this book as a springboard for others. And so the Princes of Kharova series was born.

Holding Out For A Hero

In His Majesty’s Secret Passion, career-woman Sara and Leo, King of Kharova, develop a successful working relationship, and turn their emotional fireworks into a co-ordinated display. Krisia the PA is promoted out of the king’s life, disappearing to sort out the chaotic paper-trails left by Leo’s charismatic younger brother, Prince Athan. Their story forms the basis of Her Royal Risk, which will be published later this year.

Looking Forward To The Past

Before putting finger to keyboard to start writing His Majesty’s Secret Passion, I’d filled out character sheets for both Sara and Leo.  These catalogue every snippet of information about my characters, from their physical appearance, to their position in the family birth order (If you’d like a copy of these useful forms, email me at christinahollis(at)hotmail.co,uk with the words Character Sheet in the subject line).

Using Scrivener (you can read more about that at http://bit.ly/1sWLNUs) I created a central store of these completed character sheets, together with timelines, and the images and notes collected while I worked. This meant I could keep tabs on my characters appearances—both physical, and where they pop up in the story. It makes checking continuity easy.

King Leo wants to modernize his country, the fictional Kharova, which is still suffering from the fall-out of a family rift generations before.  I drew up a family tree based on this, then went back to His Majesty’s Secret Passion and copied every snippet of information about Krisia and King Leo’s younger brother Prince Athan into a new character spreadsheet. Then I pasted in all the details about Sara and Leo too, which gave me the basis of a series bible. This helped me keep track of everyone’s appearance, their likes and dislikes, friends, relationships, and their respective timelines. This was important, as the events in some of the four books overlap.

Beginning, Middle And Happy-Ever-After...

At this point I decided the mending of a broken family would be the overarching theme for my series. Each novel in the Princes Of Kharova series is a complete romance in its own right. Leo, his brother, sister and a pretender to the throne of Kharova each have a book to themselves. While they’re involved in finding their soul mate, there are hints of what is to come for the whole family. In the same way, their country of Kharova moves from war to peace.

...And After...

I loved writing the Princes of Kharova  series, but it would have been a lot easier to commit to writing a series from the start. When I wrote His Majesty’s Secret Passion, I never expected Leo’s sister, Princess Maia, and rebel leader Mihail Dukagjini to come into contact. They had other ideas, and in Heart Of A Hostage (Book Three), they have a torrid affair. It’s never a good idea to have the names of characters begin with the same letter—there are twenty-five other letters to choose from, after all!—but it’s too late now for Maia and Mihail. And “Dukagjini” is a great surname for a minor character, but a hero shouldn’t be saddled with such a tongue-twister.

Have you written a series? Did you find it harder to say goodbye to characters when they’d appeared in more than one of your books?

A comment picked at random after 10th February will win a copy of His Majesty’s Secret Passion.

About Christina

Christina Hollis writes contemporary fiction starring complex men and independent women–when she isn't cooking, gardening or beekeeping. Her books have been translated into more than a dozen languages, and she’s sold nearly three million books worldwide. You can catch up with her at http://www.christinahollis.blogspot.com, on Twitter, Facebook, and see a full list of her published books at http://www.christinahollis.com. Her current release, His Majesty's Secret Passion, is published by Wild Rose Press on 4th February, and is available from http://amzn.to/1DF99Dv (UK) and http://bit.ly/1ujX5zc (US)

Thank you so much for this informative blog post, Christina.

The RNA blog is brought to you by

  Elaine Everest & Natalie Kleinman

If you would like to write an article for the blog or have a book due to be published please contact us on elaineeverest@aol.com

The Romantic Novel of the Year Award

Welcome to RNA Chair, Pia Fenton who has popped by to tell us about The Romantic Novel of the Year Award.

For over fifty years, the Romantic Novelists’ Association have been giving out awards for the very best in romantic fiction each year, celebrating excellence within our genre.  The list of past winners of The Romantic Novel of the Year Award includes some well-known and beloved authors – (there is a full list of previous winners on our website here) – so anyone lucky enough to win will be in very exalted company indeed! 

The awards were revamped a few years ago in order to showcase the wonderful diversity within romantic fiction and to give more authors a chance to shine.  Instead of just one main award and one for category romance, six new categories were created – Contemporary, Epic, Historical, Romantic Comedy, Young Adult and the RoNA Rose (for shorter/category romance).  Together they form the RoNAs – Romantic Novel Awards (the name was chosen to reflect the awards’ affinity with the US RWA’s prestigious RITAs and the Australian RWA’s RUBY award), and each category winner receives a beautiful glass star trophy.  They also go on to form the shortlist for the overall prize, the coveted Romantic Novel of the Year Award, which at the moment consists of a cheque for £5,000 plus this beautiful glass trophy created especially for the RNA.

 

 

The RNA had a record number of entries again this year and also a huge number of readers wanting to be part of the judging process.  Every entry is read, in the first instance, by three readers – ordinary members of the public who love our genre.  They are sent up to five books each and have to send back scores for each one.  The total of these scores determines a shortlist of six books for each category.  The top six are then read a fourth time by RNA members who have no vested interest in that particular book (the organiser makes sure of this), and the fourth score added to the other three.  This final total gives the winner for each category.

 

Finally, the six winning titles are read by a panel of independent judges who decide on the overall winner.
 

The names of the lucky winners for 2015 will be revealed at a sparkling awards ceremony on Monday 16^th March, to be held at the Gladstone Library near Whitehall.  Besides being a beautiful, Victorian room overlooking the Thames, it is surely the most perfect venue for a gathering of 230 authors and other members of the publishing industry as it formerly contained around 30,000 books.

Tickets for this event are on sale now (click here for details) and it promises to be a very enjoyable evening.  Not only will the six category winners and the overall winner receive their trophies, but the RNA will also present two Outstanding Achievement Awards.

 

Last year’s overall winner was Veronica Henry with her fantastic novel A Night on the Orient Express – who will it be this time?  Why not come and join us for some pink fizz, canapés and exciting announcements? We hope to see you there!

Pia Fenton

Maureen Stenning on An Army Wife in India

We are delighted to welcome Maureen Stenning writing as Merryn Allingham.

Merryn Allingham grew up reading Georgette Heyer so when she first put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard, she gravitated towards the Regency period. Over the last few years, she has published six Regency romances under the name of Isabelle Goddard, but now has a new writing name and a new genre. Her suspense trilogy, Daisy’s War, is set in India and wartime London during the 1930s and 1940s. The first in the series, The Girl from Cobb Street, is published on 29^th January, 2015.

Historical Research – Starting from the Personal

Research has always been the part I most enjoy in writing historical fiction. I usually have a comfortable ‘nest’ on which I can build, and it’s only the smaller details that I need to discover - what kind of butter churns were in use in the Regency, for instance, or whether madeleines were eaten at the time. But when I came to write The Girl from Cobb Street, my nest was bare. It consisted of one very old marriage certificate and a single visit I’d made to Rajasthan.

The certificate recorded my parents’ wedding. My mother travelled to India in April 1937 and was married in St John’s Afghan Church, in what was then Bombay. Even now India hits you in the face with its difference. But in the 1930s the journey took three weeks and most people rarely ventured far beyond their home. I tried to imagine how it must have been for a working class girl, who had never been further from London than a day at the Southend seaside, to travel to such an alien world and marry a man she hadn’t seen for six years. Out of that imagining came my heroine, Daisy Driscoll. Daisy is reunited with her lover far more quickly, but she faces many of the same hazards in settling to her new life in India.

Memories of my Indian trip and the countless photographs I took gave me the setting – the look, the smell, the colour and texture of the region. But I had no idea what it must have felt like to live in 1930s British India. My mother had rarely spoken of it. I guess she’d filed India away as a past that was no longer relevant. We were an army family, constantly on the move, and there was always another place to get used to – Egypt, Germany, Cyprus. All I knew was that she hated the curry, was terrified of frogs in the bath and loved the cool beauty of the hill station. And that her social life as a sergeant’s wife had been great fun. By the end of the Second World War, though, my father had climbed the ranks to become a captain and she was forced to become a part of the Officers’ Mess, with all its subtle discriminations. Her reaction to this very different social world was stark. She never felt she belonged and every mess ‘do’ was an enormous trial for her.

It was into this milieu that I plunged an ill-prepared Daisy. Her husband is a very junior officer but still part of a world in which hierarchy and status are all important, and where iron backed memsahibs rule. I spent weeks reading first-hand accounts of life in the Raj: a huge amount of fascinating material most of which, readers will be relieved, plays only a minor role in the trilogy. Army life, at least in India, was narrow and insular, the main topics of interest being sport and gossip. Intellectual discussion was largely absent. The occasional Gilbert and Sullivan musical evening was about as cultural as it got. Some of the women were highly intelligent but had to pretend they weren’t, and I felt genuine sympathy for them. Admiration, too, for their fortitude in making a home often miles out in the bush, coping with the intense heat and the disease, bearing children and seeing them die.

Their attitudes to the colonised, however, though orthodox for the time, made me cringe and I couldn’t let Daisy share them. So I read on – trying to get a handle on the political situation in the late Thirties, when Europe was threatened by war and Indian nationalism sensed an opportunity to throw off the yoke of empire. Daisy’s sympathies were clearly going to lie in this camp, so for all kinds of reasons she was never going to fit the world into which she’d married. Add a deceitful and desperate husband, and you have the seeds of disaster. In comparison, my mother’s marriage was blissfully uneventful!

Links:

Website: www.merrynallingham.com

Facebook author page: http://tinyurl.com/m322ovu

Amazon UK: http://tinyurl.com/onttjse

Amazon US: http://tinyurl.com/nveaou2

Pinterest: http://tinyurl.com/qh594av

What an interesting nugget of history, Maureen. Thank you and good luck with The Girl from Cobb Street

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

Carla Caruso: Thoughts from Abroad

Carla Caruso tells us about her adopted writing home

I have a confession to make: I’ve barely set foot inside Britain. I’m Australian, with Italian blood, thanks to my parents. There was one time, a few years back, when I was travelling through Europe with my younger sister and we were meant to stop for a few days in London. But we got the timing muddled at the travel agent’s and, after booking everything, had to make a last-minute change. Which meant we wound up catching a plane from Rome to London, heading straight to the Tube, and journeying on a train to Paris. That was it. Our big glimpse of London. All I can remember thinking was the weather was warmer than I expected and the city was so, so BIG. Much bigger than Sydney back home.

Now I have one-year-old twin boys, so another trip to Europe is off the agenda for quite some time (yikes!). Still, I’d love to give the UK a longer try at some stage. Especially because – weirdly – I’ve been mistaken for a British author before, even though I’ve hardly breathed in a lung-full of London air. Some book bloggers have admitted to thinking I was a Brit…perhaps it’s my wordiness…until they’ve stumbled across an Australian town I’ve mentioned in a story. One even likened me to Sophie Kinsella (and I promise I didn’t pay her to do so!). A book editor has also described my writing style as having a ‘gentleness’. If Americans have been generalised as ‘loud and brash’, I’m the exact opposite, which I guess makes me a little more British-sounding!

I also like to drop in words like ‘rather’ and ‘quite’ and am partial to an adverb, although many elsewhere turn their nose up at them. I just can’t do that short, sharp and snarky style.

So where has this all come from (aside from my country sharing your Queen)? Well, I put it down to the ‘diet’ of books I’ve been brought up on. It started off with Enid Blyton. The Magic Faraway Tree, The Children of Cherry Tree Farm, Five on a Treasure Island, The Secret Seven, The Wishing-Chair…I’ve read them all. Sometimes until the characters’ voice started turning cartoonish inside my head because I’d been reading far too long! I didn’t have time for the Trixie Belden or Nancy Drew books my big sister read. (Although, I did go on to enjoy the Yankee Sweet Valley and Baby-Sitters Club series – oh, and Judy Blume!)

Now I’m 35, I always cite Sophie Kinsella and Maggie Alderson as my favourite authors. (Okay, Maggie lived in Australia for a time, but she’s a London fashionista through and through.) Plus, I also adore the dry wit of British films like Love Actually and Death at a Funeral (the original UK version, please, not the American!). And no one does my beloved chick-lit better than the UK…which leads me to why I’ve recently joined the Romantic Novelists’ Association. I’ve decided it’s time I embraced my ‘adopted’ writing home with gusto. The Americans may never understand my slang. Just, shhh, don’t tell my Aussie cohorts!

Carla Caruso was born in Adelaide, Australia, and only ‘escaped’ for three years to work as a magazine journalist and stylist in Sydney. Previously, she was a gossip columnist and fashion editor at Adelaide’s daily newspaper, The Advertiser. These days, she writes romantic comedy novels in between playing mum to her one-year-old twin boys. Her books include Catch of the Day, Cityglitter, Second Chance, the ‘Astonvale’ rom-com mystery series starting with A Pretty Mess, and more.

Links:

Website: www.carlacaruso.com.au

Facebook:

Twitter: @CarlaCaruso79

Amazon:

Thank you for joining us today, Carla.

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

Romance AND Suspense with Vonnie Hughes

Today we welcome Vonnie Hughes - all the way from the Antipodes. Vonnie was born in New Zealand and now lives in Australia.

As a child she won several writing competitions. She won a pony once but her parents encouraged her to take the substitute prize. After all, there’s not a lot of room in utopian suburbia for a pony. 

After attending teachers’ training college where they encouraged her writing, Vonnie began writing in earnest – poetry and short stories mainly. Now she writes novels and novellas in the Regency and contemporary suspense genres. She will, she says, probably write until the day she dies. Like many writers, some days she hates the whole process, but just cannot let it go.

I asked Vonnie a few questions:

I believe you haven’t always been a career writer. Can you tell our readers what brought about the change in your career?

I’ve always been a writer, just not a full-time writer. As a seven year old I won a writing contest to name a pony and I’ve been writing ever since. At first it was mainly articles and poetry. In my early fifties when I became a self-employed researcher with a houseful of overseas students, I needed a break from real life and began to write Regencies. As the Regency market has become more and more crowded, my stories are seguing more into the Victorian era. (I’ve been reading in that era since I was eleven years old and I love the sense of order and responsibility). But my preference is for writing contemporary suspense novels where I can indulge my love of convoluted plots and forensic clues.

I see from your website that you’re a ‘panster’. How does this work in conjunction with writing suspense? Don’t you need to know beforehand where your story is going?As for being a pantser and knowing where my plots are going – I think about my books for some weeks. Then I do a very small outline of the story generally, about five or six sentences. But the real planning comes from the characterisation. I spend a lot of time working out the characters’ backgrounds, motives and the likely consequences of their behaviour. Then I jump into writing the book. But I never do chapter plans or story arcs. Just go where it leads me.

Writing any period novel must entail considerable research. Is it something you enjoy and do you have any methodology?

As for the research for my historicals, I have to admit I have a LOT of hard files which I’ve compiled over the years. They contain things like bridge building in Britain, the slums near the Thames, maps of old roads etc. Also I belong to Beaumonde, a chapter of the Romance Writers of America and their archives are amazing.

Do you have a typical day?

I have no typical writing day. I write every day, but sometimes for no more than an hour. Sometimes I get restless and bored so I relax by walk/jogging with the dog, going to the gym and reading, reading, reading.

Innocent Hostage was published in December 2014. Is its successor in the pipeline?

At present, although I am part way through another New Zealand set book about a negotiator with one of the Armed Offenders’ squads, I also got started on an idea put forward by The Wild Rose Press about a mythical town in Maine called Lobster Cove. Since I’m not American I had to do some intensive research.  At the request of the Carmichael family’s accountants, their son takes over a lobster packaging business to investigate the reasons behind a consistent drain on the company resources. At the same time he is coming to terms with the fact that he is adopted and that at least one of his natural parents comes from the little town of Lobster Cove.

Innocent Hostage is published by The Wild Rose Press in both paperback and e-book form. In an Alice in Wonderland world where everything is tipped upside down and every value questioned, how do you save the innocent? Two years ago, Breck Marchant handed his son, Kit, over to his ex-wife, Tania, even though it tore him apart. She knows all about kids. Thanks to his own upbringing, he hasn’t a clue. But when the boy is held hostage, Breck steps up to the plate.

Links:

Website:  www.vonniehughes.com

Blog:

Amazon:

Facebook:

It's been lovely talking to you, Vonnie. Thank you. 

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

Margaret Kaine: From Sagas to E-books

We are delighted to welcome Margaret Kaine as our guest today.

You won the Romantic Novelists’ Association New Writer Award in 2002 and the Society of Author’s Sagittarius Award in 2003 with ‘Ring of Clay’. How did this affect your writing life?

There is no doubt that it affected my writing career. When I won the New Writer’s Award, then sponsored by the Readers’ Digest ‘Of Love and Life’ series, I managed to make a coherent acceptance speech - let no-one be misled, it’s a hugely emotional moment - and made my way through the crowd to be greeted by Carolyn Caughey, the then senior editor at Hodder & Stoughton. She asked me if the UK rights were available (Ring of Clay was first published in Ireland by Poolbeg). And as a result Hodder bought the UK rights to my first four novels. I remember her delight when the following year, Ring of Clay went on to win the Society of Authors’ Sagittarius Prize of £4,000. Would my writing career have taken off as it did if I hadn’t won the above awards? Who can say?

And for me at the time, luck was with me all the way. For instance, the Sagittarius Prize is awarded to the ‘the best first novel by an author aged over 60’, and for the first time it was sponsored by the wonderful Terry Pratchett, that fact alone bringing extra publicity. And on a purely personal but important point, the uncertain self-confidence that I think we all feel on occasions about our writing, received an enormous boost. That doesn’t mean that I don’t doubt my ability at times, but I have a framed letter from the SoA above my desk, think of how good the RNA Rose Bowl used to look on my hall table, and feel a surge of encouragement.

           

Would you advise writers to enter competitions?

I think some writers find these invaluable, especially at the beginning of their career. A competition, judged by a writer or writers you respect, can provide a useful challenge, an inspiration to perhaps attempt a different genre. Or even the incentive you need to write at all. And the word count required is often quite short, giving a budding novelist a breather from a long manuscript. But I do believe that if your ambition is to write a novel, then it is best not to allow yourself to become distracted by other writing ventures. Having said that, I know there are several writers in the RNA who combine both with enormous success, so it’s a question of finding out what suits you best.

           

What is it about writing sagas that you enjoy so much?

For me, it’s the nostalgia. I began to write Ring of Clay just after my mother died, and writing about my childhood in the Potteries and basing the character of Rose on her, proved to be the therapy I needed to get through that first year. It astonished me how many details of the industrial life there I could remember. How many facets of the people and area had seeped into my unconscious. Those years were good times.

Is there another genre that appeals to you enough to ‘have a go’? Would you ever write another genre?

I feel that I have already moved into a different genre with Dangerous Decisions, as it is definitely not a saga, and set in the Edwardian era, whereas my first seven novels were set in the 1950’s, 60’s and 70’s. Maybe a time-slip might appeal, but I am proud of being a romantic novelist, that will never change.

What sort of impact have e-books had on your back catalogue and your readership? Has it changed the way your work?

I’ve embraced the concept of e-books, and love both my Kindle and print books. As for my backlist, it’s lovely to see that some of my out of print Potteries sagas are now enjoying a new lease of life and attracting new readers. I don’t think the digital side of publishing has affected the way I write at all.

Tell us about Margaret Kaine and Choc Lit.

Ah, the lovely Choc Lit, who are the publishers of Dangerous Decisions, my romantic suspense novel set in the Edwardian era. Berni Stevens, who designs many of their covers, has given me my favourite cover of all time. If one can be in love with the cover of your book, then I’m afraid I must plead guilty. And it’s a good feeling to be ‘part of a publishing family’. 

I notice you are running a competition on your website. Is this a first and how do you hope it will impact on your readership?

Now this is a tricky subject for me at the moment. I’ve run a competition on my website for many years, and it’s promoted by leading competition forums. This means that hundreds enter my competitions, and the hope is that this leads to new readers. But I confess to feeling a little disillusioned, as it is rare that a winner gives feedback on a book. Meanwhile postage is increasing all the time . . .

As an established author, what advice would you give to new writers?

To write what you enjoy and to join a good writers’ workshop. I still attend mine and read out my chapters and value highly the constructive critiques and loyal friendship. The best tip on writing I can give is to read your work aloud, edit it, put it aside for three weeks then read it aloud again before another edit. This will give it a final polish.

What is next for Margaret Kaine, the author?

I have almost finished another Edwardian novel, set initially in a workhouse, but again with the well-loved ‘Upstairs Downstairs’, scenario. I so love the elegance of this era, although as my grandmother was sent to be a scullery maid at the age of 13, I suspect that my own place in the hierarchy would have been strictly ‘downstairs’. Sigh!

Margaret Kaine began by writing short stories which were published in the UK, Australia, Norway, South Africa and Ireland. Her debut novel, Ring of Clay, won two literary awards. Seven of her romantic sagas about life in the Potteries have been mainstream published, translations including German and French, and all are available in LP, Audio and Digital. Dangerous Decisions, her most recent novel, published by Choc Lit, is a romantic and psychological suspense set in the Edwardian era.

Website - http://www.margaretkaine.com

Twitter - @margaretkaine

Facebook - margaret.kaine.5@facebook.com

Thank you so much for joining us today, Margaret.

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

Carol Townend - Hot...or What!

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.

If your next title Lord Gawain’s Forbidden Mistress was turned into a film who would you like to play the main characters?

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: 1^st 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.

Blog: www.caroltownend.blogspot.com

Amazon UK:

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