A NIGHT FOR ROMANCE

All roads led to London for the annual Romantic Novelist Association’s Romantic Novelist of the Year Awards (RoNA’s) held this year in the Gladstone Library at the Liberal Club, One Whitehall Place.

Bubbly

Members, guests and finalists met to chat over a glass of bubbly before the main event of the evening got under way. We had a chance to peruse the books that were up for awards under the six sections as well as catch up with friends and fellow members. The RNA is nothing if not friendly and we love a celebration and a party. Who would win and what else was in store during the evening ahead?

Canapes and Introductions

Jane Wenham Jones & Barbara Taylor Bradford

After finding our tables and partaking of the delicious canapes our Chair, Pia Fenton welcomed everyone to the event. Agents, publishers, established authors, new writers, friends and family clapped enthusiastically as Jane Wenham Jones started the evening’s proceedings by introducing our special guest, Barbara Taylor Bradford. There was more than one author in the room who had dreamt of becoming a writer after reading Barbara’s A Woman of Substance. Barbara was warm and encouraging offering advice to any would be aspirant to be focussed and concentrated. Those of us in the room were focussed on Barbara, looking as immaculate as any heroine.

Category Winners

This year, books shortlisted for the RoNA Rose, for category/series and shorter romance, competed for the first time with all other categories for the overall prize of Romantic Novel of the Year. Prior to announcing the overall award winner, Barbara Taylor Bradford revealed the winners of the individual categories and presented them with star-shaped crystal trophies.

Historical – Hazel Gaynor, The Girl Who Came Home

William Morrow, (Harper Collins)

For novels set in a period before 1960

Hazel Gaynor

RoNa Rose – Louise Allen, Scandal’s Virgin

(Harlequin Mills & Boon Historical)

For category/series and shorter romance.

Epic – Ella Harper, Pieces of You

(Avon)

For novels containing serious issues or themes, including gritty, 

multi-generational stories.

Contemporary – Lucy Dillon, A Hundred Pieces of Me

(Hodder & Stoughton)

For mainstream romantic novels set post-1960, and can include chick lit, 
paranormaland romantic suspense.

Lucy Dillon

Young Adult– Joss Stirling, Struck - formerly Storm & Stone

(Oxford University Press)

Featuring protagonists who are teenagers or young adults.

Joss Stirling

Romantic Comedy – Lucy-Anne Holmes, Just a Girl Standing in Front of a Boy

(Sphere (Little, Brown)

For consistently humorous or amusing novels.

Lucy Holmes

The categories and the award winners with Barbara Taylor Bradford.

The Romantic Novelist of the Year Award would be announced later in the proceedings. Who would be the winner?

Outstanding Achievements

A high spot of the evening was the presentation of Outstanding Achievement awards to two of our favourite authors, Jill Mansell and Carole Matthews, both ladies having reached the pinnacle of their careers by having twenty five books published. In her acceptance speech Jill revisited her twenty-one year old self when becoming a writer wasn’t even yet a dream and Carole attributed her fat bottom (not true) and repetitive strain industry to her career. Naturally – because that’s the sort of people they are – they heaved praise and thanks upon all the people who had helped them along the way.

Team of Judges

All too soon the official part of the evening was drawing to an end. A panel of independent judges read the six category winners’ novels before meeting to debate the finer points of each book. The panel included Sarah Broadhurst, formerly The Bookseller; Alison Flood, Guardian.co.uk; Jane Mays, The Daily Mail; Karin Stoecker, ex-Editorial Director, Harlequin Books and Matt Bates of WHSmith Travel.

The Big Moment!

Barbara opened the red envelope and announced the winner of the Romantic Novel of the Year Award to be…Joss Stirling with, Struck. A fantastic achievement and the first time the prize has gone to a novel in the young adult category. Barbara Taylor Bradford presented Joss with her trophies and a cheque for £5000

 

Praise

The five judges were fulsome in their praise of Struck:

            “A fast -paced novel, full of adventure and danger, as well as a satisfying romance with an instant attraction.”

            “Mean Girls meets 21 Jump Street, navigating life and themes of school cliques and bullying.”

            “Main characters were well drawn.”

            “A satisfying developing relationship between heroine and hero. A provocative read which delivered on the romance. Good plot. Great hero and heroine.” 

            “An absorbing read that really pulled you in – I admired the energy and pace.”

Our heartiest congratulations to Joss and indeed to all of the contenders and winners.

Until Next Year

Guests lingered to sip wine and chat before heading for home and your intrepid blogging team took the opportunity to chat to potential interviewees for the blog. Yet another fabulous RNA event had come to an end. Well done to the organisers and the committee for pulling off another fabulous and memorable event. Farewell until next year – but first we have the Summer Party, our Summer Conference and the Winter Party. See you there!

Elaine & Natalie

Barbara Taylor Bradford at the RNA Awards 2015

Members and honoured guests are looking forward to the annual Romantic Novelists Association's Romantic Novel of the Year Awards on Monday 16^th March 2015 at the Gladstone Library, Whitehall place, London. Our special guest who will present the main award is well known author. Barbara Taylor Bradford

Barbara Taylor Bradford is the bestselling author of the enduring novel A Woman of Substance, which has sold over 32 million copies since its publication in 1979 and launched the career of one of Britain’s most beloved and iconic story-tellers. Barbara’s novels have sold more than 88 million copies worldwide, in more than ninety countries and forty languages, and no less than ten mini-series and television movies have been made of her books. Born and raised in England, Barbara began her writing career on the Yorkshire Evening Post and later worked as a journalist in Fleet Street. She is a forthright and popular commentator on everything from marriage to fashion, and her journalism has appeared across the national press.  Barbara lives in New York City with her husband, television producer Robert Bradford. 

We asked Barbara her thoughts as she prepares to be the guest presenter at the Romantic Novelists Association's Romantic Novel of the Year Awards event. “I’m filled with curiosity to know who the winners will be and am looking forward to it. I know there will be a lot excitement and anticipations from the shortlisted authors.”

What would her advice be to the many writers just starting out on their writing careers?

“To do what Ernest Hemingway once said: ‘put your bottom on a chair and sit at a desk for as long as it takes in order to start and finish a novel’. That is how it gets done!”

Barbara’s much awaited 30^th novel, The Cavendon Women will be published on 24^th March 2015 by Harper Collins. A sweeping multi-generational saga for fans of Downton Abbey is set around the stately home of Cavendon Hall as the roaring twenties change the family’s fortunes forever.

The Cavendon Women:

1926. One stately home’s future lies with four very different young women …

On a summer weekend in 1926 the Ingham family gathers at Cavendon Hall, the great house in Yorkshire that has been their home for centuries, summoned by the Earl.  With them are the Swanns who have served the house for generations – and know all their secrets.

The estate is under threat: the aftermath of the Great War has left Cavendon facing ruin.  Its heir is pushing for divorce so he can follow his heart.  And the Earl has a surprise of his own. 

Four young women from both sides of the house will be the ones to shape its future – Daphne, fighting to modernise her ancestral home; Cecily Swann, forging a path as a fashion designer in London; Deidre, the career girl, and Dulcie, the outspoken debutante.  They will change the estate’s future for good or ill as the roaring twenties burn towards the Great Depression. Nothing will ever be the same again …

Thank you for sparing time to contribute to the RNA blog, Barbara and we look forward to seeing you along with all writers at the awards evening.

The RNA blog is brought to you by

Elaine Everest & Natalie Kleinman

If you would like to be featured on the blog please contact us on elaineeverest@aol.com

Alison Morton: To Split or Not to Split

Alison Morton tells us why she decided to have two blogs - one for her books and one for writing.

The scientists who split the atom had an easier job. I spent weeks testing and preparing, and on S (for Split)-Day, I worked for hours to ensure the smooth transition to two separate and fully functioning blogs. I’m not sure everything is in place yet!

When I started my blog in 2010 on World Book Day, I called it ‘Write a Novel? – I Must Be Mad! I had just signed my indentures as a mad newbie writer so it seemed an appropriate title.  But three years later on 1 January 2013, a few weeks before my first book, INCEPTIO, was published, I took on all the wisdom of the Internet(!) and changed the title to include my name and the series name, hence ‘Alison Morton’s Roma Nova.’ I had survived the initial apprentice phase and was passing into the journeyman one where I hoped to produce novels on a reasonably regular basis.

In those first three years, I had combined my blog and former website to produce a blogsite. As well as maintain the static pages  (About, Contact, etc.), I posted about my writing, people I’d met, writing craft, courses, conferences, literary social events (the posh name for RNA parties!), decisions, disappointments, things I’d learned, guests and Roman-related posts. I carried on with these topics, when I changed to ‘Alison Morton’s Roma Nova’ but added in posts relating to my books – excerpts, launches, background, reviews and events.

Then it reached That Point.

In January 2015, a vague unease that had been grumbling away for a few months was confirmed by an outside assessment of my blogsite.  As I read the report – similar to reading the dreaded NWS report – I wiped away a mental tear and realised the awful truth. I was trying to please two distinct groups of readers at the same time. People looking for my books had to wade through a raft of writing topics; others looking for writing and publishing post fought their way through Roman and Roma Nova stuff. My site resembled two chariots trying to race in opposite directions, but tied to each other at the back. Neither could win. The stark conclusion: sharpen up my message and ditch the writing part if I wanted to focus on selling books.  Sob. All those posts about writing, publishing, parties and people into the bin?

Being an author today means developing entrepreneurial skills, especially marketing ones - setting out your wares, and creating an environment that supports that. But being a writer also means sharing accumulated knowledge, experience and techniques. While in no way setting myself up as a guru, I wanted to pass them on as well as exploring new topics.

Now with the fourth book, AURELIA, on the way, it was decision time. I put my site-splitting gloves on and decided to develop in both directions. I purchased another domain name, alisonmortonauthor.com, to become my new writing blog and installed WordPress on it. Next, with my IT expert husband’s help, I exported a copy of the original blogsite to that new domain. Although it was live, I didn’t tell a soul about it as I needed to redesign the site, write a new front page, upload new photos, check and change all the links, the graphics and reformat pages as well as make sure the content was appropriate for a writing blog. I didn’t zap any old posts in case they were linked elsewhere in the digiverse.  

As a relief from all that, I drafted and formatted new pages for the re-vamped Roma Nova book site. I used an old spare domain with WordPress installed to practice and fiddle with the new pages. Originating graphics and new content, checking every single link, learning the arcane lore behind tables and buttons took time. My HTML skills increased exponentially…

On S (for Split)-Day day, armed with a large cup of coffee, I glued myself to the keyboard (almost literally) and performed the split. The writing site was relatively easy, the new book site was more fiddly, but I had all the coding ready on my practice domain to transfer over. The worst bit was agonizing about what to zap on the books only site but the newsletter managed to keep its place!

Now I have two separate sites, serving two distinct sets of readers and sending out two different messages.

On Writing Blog you’ll be able to find my posts about writing, independent publishing, marketing, fabulous guests, research, author-entrepreneur skills, writing life and what I’ve been up to!

The darker Roma Nova Thrillers features my books, plus this is where I’ll concentrate my photos and posts about Rome, alternative history and background about Roma Nova. And I have a very serious photo and tough new bio there…

SUCCESSIO – Roma Nova (Book 3) Available on Amazon UK and Amazon US

Roma Nova – the last remnant of the Roman Empire that has survived into the 21^st century – is at peace. Carina Mitela, the heir of a leading family, but choosing the life of an officer in the Praetorian Guard Special Forces, is not so sure. 

She senses danger crawling towards her when she encounters a strangely self-possessed member of the unit hosting their exchange exercise in Britain. When a blackmailing letter arrives from a woman claiming to be her husband Conrad’s lost daughter and Conrad tries to shut Carina out, she knows the threat is real.

Trying to resolve a young man’s indiscretion twenty-five years before turns into a nightmare that not only threatens to destroy all the Mitelae but also attacks the core of the imperial family itself. With her enemy holding a gun to the head of the heir to the imperial throne, Carina has to make the hardest decision of her life…

Book trailer

Links:

Website

Blog

Facebook:

Twitter:

Thank you, Alison

The RNA Blog is brought to you by

Elaine Everest and Natalie Kleinman.

If you would like to appear on the Blog please contact us at elaineeverest@aol.com

Jane Holland: 21 Ways to Write a Commercial Novel

Today we welcome Jane Holland who tells us how she went ‘From Blog to Book’

Last year I went a bit crazy and decided it would be fun to write a How-To blog for writers who were not necessarily beginners but felt lost within the publishing industry. I called it 52 Ways To Write A Novel, with the cheerful thought that I could blog a few hundred words every week for a year, and it wouldn’t hurt too much or distract from my novel-writing.

I was wrong, of course. Writing intelligently about our unforgiving industry is not easy to do in a soundbite, and I didn’t like putting out posts that felt rushed or unpolished. So it did take more time than I liked. But the feedback I received from other writers encouraged me to keep going.

52 Ways doesn’t deal specifically with romantic or historical fiction, both of which I have written in abundance, but any kind of commercial novel. However, many of the writers who chatted about their own experiences in the comments section are fellow members of the RNA. So the blog developed a slight kink, if you’ll pardon the word, in the direction of romance. But I was writing a crime novel at the time, so crime crept in too. My hope was that the blog would help commercial writers, so I focused on that rather than genre.

After Week 20, it occurred to me that I was totting up thousands of words of free advice on my blog, and wouldn’t it be nice to publish an ebook of my wisdom so far and charge a few pennies in return? (I’m a mercenary type, you understand.)

But when I sat down to convert my blog into an ebook, I discovered that it wasn’t as simple as transferring all the posts into one file and publishing it. For a start, I had dozens of photos and captions in my blog. All that needed to be stripped out and the formatting simplified. Furthermore, my blog was not in a coherent order. For instance, I had given advice on making friends with other writers before advice on how to write a chapter opening, and while we all like to relax at RNA lunches, I thought I had better put business before pleasure!

So I cut and pasted the posts into a more logical order, wrote an Introduction and an Afterword, then expanded each post into a full chapter. I had used short paragraphing on the blog, but that looked odd so I increased paragraph length. To keep things dynamic, I got permission to use a selection of comments left on the blog by other writers, then sprinkled them throughout the text.

The result is 21 Ways To Write A Commercial Novel, a combination of my blog posts with other writers’ comments, plus a fantastic letter of advice to new writers by Rowan Coleman, addressed in the first instance to our mutual friend, Sarah Callejo. ‘Write the damn book!’ Rowan urges Sarah … advice even the most experienced writers can take to heart.

Jane Holland writes as herself, plus Victoria Lamb, Elizabeth Moss and Beth Good among others. Her archived blog is here and you can chat with her most days on Twitter: @janeholland1

21 Ways To Write A Commercial Novel is £1.99, published by Jane’s imprint Thimblerig Press, and is ONLY available on Amazon Kindle (but can be read on most devices): Amazon:  

Thank you joining us today and good luck with the book.

The RNA Blog is brought to you by

Elaine Everest and Natalie Kleinman.

If you would like to appear on the Blog please contact us at elaineeverest@aol.com

DENSIE WEBB: A Thanksgiving Feast

Today we welcome Densie Webb who likens writing a novel to preparing Thanksgiving Dinner

Densie Webb (not Denise) has spent a long career as a freelance nonfiction writer and editor. Her debut novel “You’ll Be Thinking of Me” was released by Soul Mate Publishing in January 2015. She is an avid walker (not of the dead variety), drinks too much coffee and has a small “devil dog” that keeps her on her toes. She is currently working on a second novel.

So, Densie, why preparing Thanksgiving Dinner?

When my debut novel, “You’ll Be Thinking of Me,” came out in January, I spotted a common theme among the comments I received: “I couldn’t put it down. A real page-turner. I read it in two days.” That’s a good thing, right? No, it’s a great thing. But there’s also this thing: It took me five years from first sitting down at the computer to my publication date—five years of climbing the learning curve of writing fiction, researching, writing, rewriting, editing, and submitting to agents and publishers.

Let that one soak in for a moment. Five years vs. two days. That’s when it hit me: Writing a novel is akin to preparing Thanksgiving dinner. Each year, on the 4^th Thursday of November, the majority of Americans sit down to “give thanks for the blessing of the harvest.” At least that’s what Wikipedia says. Whatever the symbolism behind the traditional Thanksgiving meal, the ingrained image is that of a Norman Rockwell painting in which the family savors the once-a-year feast together.

I’ve noticed, however, there are no Rockwell paintings depicting the long hours logged in the kitchen in front of a hot stove, getting the ingredients and timing just right as you make sure the pumpkin pies are chilled by the time the meal is done and the dressing isn’t dry or the turkey undercooked. Neither are there depictions of the grocery lists or last-minute return trips when you’ve forgotten that one essential ingredient.

And that’s where my writing analogy comes in. Anyone who has ever prepared, served and cleaned up after a traditional Thanksgiving meal will attest to the planning, labor, skill, patience and the hours it takes to get it right. And that feeling of “is that it?” when the meal is scarfed down in twenty minutes flat. While I’m thrilled beyond words that readers have found my novel “unputdownable,” I’d be lying if I said I didn’t get the same “is that it?” feeling when I heard it was being gulped down in two days.

Then there’s the cleanup. The turkey carcass is waiting to be picked over and the leftovers bagged and frozen. That’s when you realize you don’t have enough storage containers and there’s not enough space in the refrigerator anyway. The dirty dishes are waiting to be washed by hand because you used the good china, and the pots and pan have remnants of gooey tradition stuck on the bottom. I liken this phase to promoting your book. It may feel like all the hard work is done, but it’s just beginning. You have to clear your mind and your desk, roll up your sleeves and put everything in its place so you can post, blog, tweet, and advertise in the hope of reaching more prose-hungry people.

Is it all worth it? It must be, because I’m already planning for the next “Thanksgiving feast.”

Links:

Website

Amazon US

Amazon UK

A wonderful analogy, Densie. Good luck with You’ll Be Thinking of Me and with the next Thanksgiving feast.

The RNA Blog is brought to you by:

Elaine Everest and Natalie Kleinman.

If you would like to appear on the Blog please contact us at elaineeverest@aol.com

Hazel Gaynor: A Memory of Violets

Today we welcome, Hazel Gaynor to the RNA blog to tell us something of the research into her latest book.

Roses are pink …

The idea for A MEMORY OF VIOLETS was first planted back in 1988, when I was seventeen years old and played the role of Eliza Doolittle in the school production of My Fair Lady. There was something about this character and about London in 1912 that really struck a chord with me. Many years later, I started to write notes for a novel set around London’s flower sellers, and began to research street life in the early 1900s in the hope of discovering the real Eliza Doolittles. I was

astonished to learn just how many young children and women were selling flowers and watercress, many of whom were orphaned, blind or physically disabled.

 

Early in my research, I discovered the fascinating history of Christian preacher and philanthropist, John Groom. Groom wanted to find a way to help the flower sellers who sold bunches of flowers and watercress on the streets near his Clerkenwell home. He established the Watercress and Flower Girls Mission (commonly known as the ‘crippleage’) housing the young women in a row of terraced houses in a street in Clerkenwell, North West London and establishing an orphanage in Clacton for the youngest children.

 

With a dozen occupants in each home, under the care of a Housemother, these women and young girls lived and worked together making artificial flowers in a nearby factory. It took them off the streets, gave them employment that wasn’t dependent on the seasons or the weather, and improved their quality of life immeasurably. The artificial flowers produced were mostly sold to the wealthy to decorate their homes, but the work of the ‘Flower Girls’ was eventually noticed by the Dowager Queen, Alexandra of Denmark (widow of King Edward VII).

 

Queen Alexandra was to commemorate fifty years since she had first arrived in England from her native Denmark and rather than the usual processional drive through London, she wanted to use the occasion to raise funds for the city’s hospitals. Aware of the work of the girls at Groom’s ‘crippleage’ she commissioned them to make thousands of artificial pink roses for buttonholes which would be sold all over London.

The event on 26^th June, 1912, was a huge success, supported by a thousand titled ladies who took to the streets to sell the roses. As The Times reported of the event, ‘the most noticeable sight was the enormous number of men who wore [a rose]. In the City and West End, at any rate, nearly every second men had at least one bloom and often had two or three in one buttonhole.‘ In total, over £30,000 was raised for charity (several million pounds in today’s equivalent). This was the very first ‘flag’ day of its kind, known as Queen Alexandra Rose Day, and the capital had never seen anything like it.

 

From its inauguration, Alexandra Rose Day became an annual event in London and was greatly supported for one hundred years. The flower girls also went on to make some of the first poppies for the Royal British Legion after the Great War. Although ‘Rose Day’ is no longer held annually, Alexandra Rose Charities is still running today, and from 2013 has focused on food-related issues affecting lower-income families. The charity’s Patron is Princess Alexandra, the Honourable Lady Ogilvy – great granddaughter of Queen Alexandra of Denmark. John Groom’s work also continues to this day under the organisation known as Livability, the UK’s largest Christian disability charity. Her Royal Highness, The Princess Royal, is the charity’s patron.

 

As we approach the annual Daffodil Day on March 27^th (an annual fundraising event for Marie Curie Cancer Care in the UK and the Irish Cancer Society in Ireland), I will think about the blind, crippled and orphaned girls and young women who made those first little pink Alexandra roses, and started the concept of selling artificial flowers for charities. It is quite incredible to think that their legacy lives on over one hundred years later.

 

To get involved with Daffodil day, contact

 http://www.mariecurie.org.uk/en-GB/events/ in the UK.  

http://www.cancer.ie/get-involved in Ireland.
 

Link to hazel’s blog: http://www.hazelgaynor.com/books/memory-of-violets/
 

Thank you, Hazel for the informative insight into the world of the flower girls.
 

The RNA blog is brought to you by,

Elaine Everest & Natalie Kleinman

If you would like to write for the blog please contact us on elaineeverest@aol.com

HELEN J ROLFE: The Friendship Tree

Welcome to the blog, Helen and many congratulations on the publication of your first novel.

The Friendship Tree is a delightful title. Can you tell us how you came to choose the title and what came first, the title or the book?

The idea came first. I initially wanted to write a book set in a small town and I wanted a way for the town to come together in times of need, and so the idea for a friendship tree was born. Thank you so much for saying that it’s a delightful title.

Would you like a friendship tree in your own life?

I’d love to live somewhere like Brewer Creek, the fictitious town in my novel, and at the moment as we have recently moved back to the UK, a friendship tree would be fantastic! I think I’d even volunteer, like my character, Tamara, and be the coordinator. It’s a wonderful way to bring people together socially and in times of trouble.

Some writers carry an idea with them for a long time before putting words to paper. How was the process for you and did it take long to write?

I don’t remember having the idea for that long. I think once I thought of it, I couldn’t wait to get going and write the story. I was in a good position to do so, because my first novel was very much a learning experience. I put that novel completely aside and somehow I knew that I’d never go back to it, and with everything I’d learnt I had time to focus my efforts on The Friendship Tree.

It took me a couple of months to do the first draft, but the editing process took much longer. I put this novel through the NWS twice and had many rejections along the way, but I used my time to rework the book so it ended up a much better version of what it was initially.

You are a member of the well-known writing group, The Write Romantics. How important do you feel it is for a writer to belong to such a group?

I honestly think that my journey to publication would’ve been so much harder without my writing group. We met, via the RNA, and for a while only knew each other online. Most of us met at the conference in Shropshire in 2014 and it was amazing to meet all these women who have supported each other in the low times and toasted one another’s successes, not only with writing but with anything else going on in our lives too.

There are ten members of The Write Romantics and we have a closed group on Facebook which acts as our virtual office. Most of us are in the ‘office’ seven days a week, if only to say a quick hello, and having that support there is the most amazing thing a writer can have. I’d recommend it to everyone.

What do you have planned to celebrate the publication of your book?

When I signed my contract initially, it was champagne and oysters on Sydney Harbour. On publication day, Tuesday 24th February, I’ll be opening champagne and making some very special cupcakes. I’ll enjoy celebrations with my family who have never let me give up on the dream of being published, there’ll be celebrations at my online launch party and of course online with The Write Romantics, and next weekend I’m getting together with extended family for more celebrations, more cake and more champagne.

So what is next for Helen J Rolfe, author?

I have another novel which is almost ready to go for submissions, then another after that which I’ll be passing onto my beta readers in a couple of weeks. I’m hoping that both of these can be out during 2015 or at least, early 2016. I’ll keep you posted!

I already have my next idea in my head and in various notes on my phone and computer, and I’m itching to start that one but I’ll focus on the launch of The Friendship Tree and finalising my other two for the next few weeks … until I can’t resist any longer!

About Helen:

Helen J Rolfe worked as a computer programmer until her passion for writing refused to be ignored any longer. She studied journalism, left the I.T. industry and embarked on a career as a freelance journalist. In 2011 the fiction bug bit and Helen has been writing fiction ever since. 

In the year 2000 Helen answered her call to adventure and bought a one-way ticket from the UK to Australia, but after fourteen years of calling Australia home, Helen decided to return to the UK with her husband and two children. She now lives in Bath.

Links:

Amazon.com

Amazon UK

Website

Facebook

Twitter

Goodreads

Thank you, Helen, good luck with The Friendship Tree and enjoy your celebrations.

The RNA blog is brought to you by:

 Elaine Everest & Natalie Kleinman

If you would like to appear on the Blog please contact us on elaineeverest@aol.com

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 [EE1]Portant is the group to you and would you recommend 

Amanda James: Time Travelling Author

Today Amanda James tells us about her journey:

I first started writing when I was eight and never stopped. Well, I did have a rest now and then or my hand would have dropped off. J I mostly wrote short stories and then songs and poems particularly when I was a teenager. After that adult life got in the way but I never stopped writing. It wasn’t until around 2002 that I decided to try and write to get published, but even then it was a bit pie in the sky and haphazard. I was teaching full-time and it was a triumph to just have actually finished it.

I completed my first novel, Severe Weather Warning – now published as Dancing in the Rain and sent it off to agents expecting to get signed within the week! Yes, I was that naive and unprepared. Needless to say I was rejected many times and looking back at that first draft I can totally see why. It was awful. I wrote another and had the same response, but by now I was beginning to take the whole thing more seriously and thought perhaps short stories might be the way forward. In 2010 I had my first short story published in an anthology to raise awareness for the Born Free Foundation and read an extract to an audience of a thousand people on stage next to Virginia McKenna at the Hay Festival. I decided I could get used to that!

In terms of genre I hadn’t really thought of where I fitted in. My writing hero is Dean Koontz and Dancing in the Rain is a thriller/mystery/romance with supernatural elements as many of his are. My second novel, Nature’s Grace, still unpublished, followed this trend as did my third – Righteous Exposure. For this, I did have the help of a fantastic editor who told me about ‘show, don’t tell’ and something just clicked. I was over the moon when Crooked Cat Publishing took it on at the end of 2011.

My fourth novel was still a romance but a big departure from the others as it was time travel. I had the idea and then wrote it within six weeks – never wrote one as quickly before or since! I adored writing it as I could travel back in time with Sarah (a time travelling history teacher) to all my favourite bits of history. At the time I too was a history teacher so the whole thing was a bit surreal. A Stitch in Time was requested by four agents but then ultimately it wasn’t for them. I had also sent it to publishers and I was beside thrilled to bits when Choc Lit took it on in 2012. After that I went back to romantic suspense with Somewhere Beyond the Sea, but returned to time travel with my latest, Cross Stitch, the sequel to A Stitch in Time. Readers have already asked for a third! I have no plans to write one as yet, but you never know. Watch this space J

About Amanda:

Amanda left her teaching job in Bristol to write full time and now lives in Cornwall with her husband and two cats.

When she's not writing, she enjoys singing in the local choir, spending time with her family and two lively grand-children, and walking along the windswept clifftops plotting new stories.

Links:

Amazon author page

Blog

Thank you for joining us today, Amanda.

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

Rachael Thomas: Second Book Wobbles

Today we welcome, Rachael Thomas to the blog to talk about that second book. So many of us recall the thrill of our first published book but does it get any easier?

I’ve always loved reading romance and writing is something I’ve done since I was a child. I live and work on a farm in Wales, a far cry from the glamour of my stories, but that makes slipping into the world of my characters all the more appealing. When I’m not writing or working on the farm, I love nothing more than to visit grand historic house or ancient castles.

Book number two!

Finally achieving my long awaited dream and getting ‘the call’ was an amazing moment. I was going to be published! In 2013 I had entered my latest completed manuscript into Harlequin’s So You Think You Can Write competition and had made it to the Top 10 – the public voting round. This fantastic achievement, lead to an even better one and in January last year, I was offered a two book contract. But after the elation and the celebration came the doubt. Lots of it! I was at that point, working on a new story, but suddenly that story went from being just something I was writing for fun, to being the second book of my contract. Writing was no longer something I did if I wanted to or could fit it into the busy life of running a farm. I had to write the book.

So what did I do? Probably what most authors who are about to be published for the first time do - panic! The story idea and the characters I’d developed were suddenly under the spotlight and doubt circled overhead like threatening storm clouds. Instead of asking myself what was different about the story which led to publication to the previous eight completed manuscripts I had languishing on my computer, I wobbled. Thankfully, with encouragement from my editor and a fantastic group of friends, The Write Romantics, I managed to overcome this.

Add to this, the fact that everything about becoming published was new and there was so much to learn – and of course the small matter of deadlines. I felt like a very small fish which had been set free into a massive pond. It was thrilling and terrifying all at the same time, but I wouldn’t change it at all. Through working with my editor and making the revisions to that story, I learnt so much.

So what was different with the competition entry which brought about my dream come true? It was the story I had to tell, the story from my heart. All of my previous manuscripts were written with a ‘checklist’ of what to do and what not to do and I thought it was necessary to adhere to completely. Of course there are certain boundaries within all genres, but learning to work within them and still allow you, the author, onto the page is what matters.

Thankfully I made it through those days of self-doubt and my second book; Claimed by the Sheikh, for Mills and Boon Modern is out now.

For anyone who is having those ‘second book wobbles’ all I can say is don’t panic, enjoy the moment of knowing you are writing for real, but never lose that writing for fun feeling. Once I’d told myself this, everything settled down.

If you have tips on how to deal with that second book, I’d love to hear them!

Links:

Amazon: Claimed by the Sheikh

So you think you can write

The Write Romantics

Rachael’s Website

Thank you, Rachael and good luck with book number two!

The RNA Blog is brought to you by,

 Elaine Everest & Natalie Kleinman

If you would like to be featured on the blog please contact us on elaineeverest@aol.com

Gilli Allan: Writing from experience

Today we welcome Gilli Allan to the blog.

At school, as soon as we’ve mastered writing, we’re told to ‘Write about what you know’.  But what do children know?  Their world is necessarily limited, their experiences - hopefully - benign.  To a young child, the imagination can be almost more real than reality. My imaginary world was peopled with princes and princesses, red Indians, knights in armour, fairies, witches and magic.

As a teenager I was fascinated by the gothic. I sought out books about cavaliers, highwaymen and pirates; stories where the heroine is imprisoned by an evil relative; books about houses riddled with secret passages and priest holes.  To be set an essay about ‘what you did in the holidays’ was not only boring, it was also divisive.  I would have spent most of my summer in prosaic occupations - drawing, reading and writing, and taking our dog for a walk, then holidaying in Cornwall. Lovely though it was, in the one-upmanship of the playground, Cornwall was no match for sailing around the Greek islands, flirting with waiters in Majorca or camping near the French Riviera. Always far safer and more interesting, to invent something

. 

For most of us, it isn’t until there are at least 3 decades under your belt that you can understand what writing from experience really means.  By then you will have been touched by one or more of life’s big events - falling in love, marriage, childbirth, divorce, heart-break, illness, bereavement - and now have the maturity to draw something deeper from the life you have lived.  But ‘write about what you know’ is still a misleading adage.  If you were only ‘allowed’ to write truthfully about what you had personally experienced, you wouldn’t be producing fiction: you’d be writing autobiography.

Fiction is fiction because you’ve made it up.  It’s a story!  There are some authors who almost make it a point of principle to set their novels in countries they’ve never even visited.  I admire their chutzpah, but I haven’t the courage, or energy necessary to do the research. I set my stories in a world I know, but seen through the distorting glass of my imagination.  And I draw on events from my past, but only after a passage of time has filtered the rawness of the emotions as well as the irrelevant detail.  The experience is then trimmed, tucked, tailored and embroidered, to fit my story.

But ‘writing what you know’ isn’t just taking events from your own past and reimagining them. It can be a far more subtle and nuanced than that.  When creating your protagonists, you also invent a landscape to set them in; you give them their own problems and their own hopes and fears. In doing so, you are mining everything you have absorbed about life, about people, about motivation and instinct. And to make your invented characters’ experiences come to life, you call up your sense memories of sight, sound, smell, taste and touch.  These may be nostalgic - a hill top in early summer, the fields below gilded by a sheen of yellow buttercups; the scent of may blossom, lady’s lace and nettles;  the feel of the chill, dewed grass against skin; the song of a skylark; a distant tractor.   But there are some sense memories you recall which may be horrific, like the jarring impact of a car crash, the screeching tear of metal, the smell of petrol, singed rubber and asphalt, and those long, cold moments of stunned silence, before the first cry of a baby. 

Nothing is forbidden to the writer’s palette.  Everything you have ever known, seen, felt, smelt, suffered, is there to be used, to turn your imaginary world into a world the reader believes in.  

About Gilli:

As a child writing and art were Gilli’s hobbies. Writing was side lined in adulthood, when she worked in advertising as an illustrator.It was only after having her son that Gilli began writing seriously. Her first two novels were quickly published but her publisher ceased to trade. After years in the wilderness Gilli went independent with the emergence of E-book. Still a keen artist, she designs Christmas cards and has begun book illustration. Gilli is delighted to have secured a three book deal with Accent Press.

LINKS:

Amazon: Torn

TORN  by Gilli Allan

Jess has made a series of bad life choices and all have let her down. 
Escaping London, she sets out to recreate herself in the idyllic countryside, and this time she wants to get it right! 
She wants to lead a responsible, tranquil life with her young son Rory, but soon discovers stresses which pull her in opposing directions – conflict over a new bypass, between friends, and worst of all, between lovers. 

Educated, experienced, and pragmatic, James is a widowed farmer whose opinions differ from, and enrage, Jess. His young shepherd, Danny, is an uneducated and inexperienced idealist. Jess is attracted to them both, and realises if she wants her idyllic countryside life to survive, she must choose her Mr Right. 

Thank you Gilli and good luck with your novel.

The RNA blog is brought to you by

Elaine Everest and Natalie Kleinman

If you have a book to promote or would like to write a piece for the blo please contact us on elaineeverest@aol.com