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Article: Introducing Jean Gill

23/10/2018

MY New 'Partner in Crime'

I would like to tell you a little more about my new writing partner, award-winning author, Jean Gill. We’ve been great friends for over eight years and although our new joint venture, Life After Men, is more cosy chicklit than hard-boiled police procederal, Jean is still, very much, my new partner in crime. The reality of this situation was vividly brought home to me two years ago when we crashed my car in Northumberland. We are Thelma and Louise without the cliff edge - and shouldn't be allowed out on road trips together. But hopefully, on the literary front, we can still rustle up a decent cliff hanger, or two, between us.

A professional photographer as well as a writer, Jean lives in the south of France with her husband, two scruffy dogs, a Nikon D750 and a beehive. She is the mother or stepmother to five grown-up children. Jean taught English for many years and was the first woman to become a secondary school Head Teacher in the Welsh county of Carmarthenshire. With Scottish parents, an English birthplace and French residence she can usually support the winning team on any sporting occasion.

Jean’s literary career has been as varied and eclectic as her life. Alongside dog training, photography and translations, she’s published all kinds of books, both with conventional publishers and by herself under her own imprint, The 13th Sign. If you take a trip to her Amazon page here, you’ll find everything from prize-winning poetry, novels and military history, to a cookery book on goats' cheese.

My own particular favourites though are her historical fiction novels, the Troubadour’s Quartet. Set in the period following the Second Crusade, these spellbinding romantic thrillers evoke medieval France with breathtaking accuracy. The characters leap off the page and include amazing women like Eleanor of Aquitaine and Ermengarda of Narbonne, who shaped history in battles and in bedchambers. Jean captures the soul of the age and the characters who lived in it.

But delve into any of Jean’s books and, whatever the genre, you’ll soon discover the thrilling power of her writing and understand why I joined forces with such a talented and professional author. Happy reading.

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Article: The Story Behind 'Life After Men'

3/10/2018

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Why I've moved into Cosy Chicklit

(The Story Behind Life After Men)

I love Stephen Lavender, Ned Woods and my mystery writing. Those guys have kept me warm and entertained throughout some of the darkest days of my life. Creating exciting new mysteries for them to solve for them has been the highlight of my last six winters. The thought that I will have Stephen Lavender’s company is often the only thing that gets me through a cold British January. I still have several untold criminal investigations rumbling around in my imagination and I don’t ever foresee a time when I will abandon my intrepid crime-fighting duo.

However, a little part of me has always wondered if I could write something else, something modern. But that’s a scary thought for a woman whose head is permanently stuck in the Regency period. Was I ready for such a challenge? And if I did leap forward two hundred years into the twenty-first century, what the devil would I write about? I know nothing about modern policing and there’s an awful lot of people out there writing better contemporary crime fiction than I could ever create.

Jean Gill

‘Write about what you know’, people say. Really? Do folks really want to read about the life experiences of a fifty-plus widow from northern England? I remained unconvinced. But then my good friend, and fellow co-author, Jean Gill, persuaded me otherwise.

I first met Jean Gill on the (now defunct) online writers’ website, Authonomy about eight years ago. We made friends with a few other girls and eventually formed our own very supportive little private writers' group. We call ourselves the Historical Fictionaires because, amongst other genres, we have all written historical fiction. We chat every day via FB messenger and are sometimes hysterical rather than historical.

The girls and I have holidayed in Provence, Northumberland and the Canary Islands and we’ve attended a number of literary conferences together. Jean and I also famously crashed my car in Alnmouth. If friendship can survive that, it can survive pretty much anything – even co-writing fiction.

At the HNS Conference with Jean Gill & Jane Harlond

The idea for The Silver Sex Kittens Series came about during an excellent meal in a pub in Northumberland. While lubricating our creative brain cells with a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc, we bemoaned the lack of novels starring women of our own age having fun without a man in tow. It appeared to us that most single, middle-aged female characters were portrayed as either eccentric or miserable and were only happy when a new romance blossomed.

‘But I know many successful and fulfilled, single women aged over fifty, who do remarkable things and lead fun-filled lives,’ Jean said.

‘Me too,’ I agreed. ‘Everyone seems to be giving it a go these days. Even their disasters are impressive.’

We decided that the world needed some cosy chick-lit featuring some of these remarkable women and the characters of Carys, Moira and the rest of the girls were born. We finally found time to start work on our first warm-hearted comedy this spring. In our hands, these stories would never be anything but comic; we just don’t take life seriously enough to get heavy.

Life After Men is the result of that collaboration. A second short story, Moira's Highland Fling, is planned for 2019 – and all five of the Silver Sex Kittens will eventually reveal their full potential as the series continues.

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ARTICLE: WRITERLY FRIENDS

29/4/2018

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"Birds of a feather Flock together"

We’re all familiar with the stereotypical image of the lonely and isolated author scribbling away in a cold garret – but after five years as a full-time author, I know that nothing is further from the truth. Writers rarely work successfully in a vacuum. They need other writers – and actively seek them out.

The scaffolding behind a literary work can appear baffling to the non-writer. Authors need each other for support, inspiration and sometimes for collaboration. Only our fellow scribblers truly understand our obsession with plot holes, narrative structure and character development. Writers need to be able to put aside their fear of competition and intellectual theft and reach out to their peers. They need to find the confidence to ask each other for help and find the time and energy to offer mutual support. It’s a foolhardy and ego-centric writer who believes they can create a masterpiece in complete isolation, negotiate the complex world of publishing alone – and retain their sanity.

Oliver Goldsmith with James Boswell and Samuel Johnson

From Shakespeare to the Bloomsbury group, the history of literature is full of strong and supportive friendships between writers. When Shakespeare's first folio was published, his friend and fellow playwright, Ben Jonson , wrote a glowing introduction to the manuscript. In the eighteenth century, James Boswell, Samuel Johnson and Oliver Goldsmith were great friends and the first two toured Scotland together. A few years later, Lord Byron and the Shelleys were travelling through Europe together when Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein. Meanwhile, Wordsworth and Coleridge were inspiring each other’s poetry and co-wrote The Lyrical Ballads.

In the mid 19th century, Charlotte Brontë and Elizabeth Gaskell exchanged candid views on literature and publishing and shared artistic and professional concerns. Charlotte also acted as a sounding board for her friend’s literary ideas. Wilkie Collins and Charles Dickens were friends for over twenty years and collaborated on short stories.

With friends and fellow- authors at The Theakstones' Crime Festival, Harrogate.

Modern writers flock to literary festivals and conferences like migrating birds. Happy to be released from the solitary confinement of their gilded writing cages, they chatter like starlings while they gather information about rogue publishers; audio-book narrators and the latest developments in successful self-publishing. They share their marketing concerns and their fears about the dreaded mid-list. Virtual friendships are consolidated and promises of future collaboration are made. It’s impossible to shut up an excited group of authors who’ve escaped from the office for a day or two. My jaw often aches when I return from the Harrogate Crime Festival.

At the moment, three of my best writing buddies are reading the manuscript of my seventh book. A fourth friend, who owns a horse, has already looked over every scene where my police officers are on horseback. The girls will come back to me with an honest evaluation of the novel’s strengths and weaknesses before I submit it to my publishers for official editing. I’ve sold over 350,000 copies of my books in the last five years but still feel I need their validation. These girls are all successful Historical and Crime Fiction writers in their own right and they are my rocks. I couldn’t have done any of it without their support. And this relationship works both ways; I’m always happy to take time out from my own writing to help them.

With two of my best writing buddies, Jane Harlond and Jean Gill at the Oxford Historical Novelists' Society conference

But how can an aspiring author build up a network of like-minded professional authors? Where do you start making writerly friends? After all, Ian Rankin, Lisa Hall and J.K. Rowling won’t become your best buddies just because you drop them an email and ask them to befriend you. That approach is more likely to get you arrested for stalking.

Most unpublished, aspiring authors start off with the local writing group for peer support. It can be a beneficial experience and many writers make life-long friends through these groups but it can also have drawbacks. It depends on the group. The other writers there might not understand or appreciate your genre – and you might not like theirs. My local group leader wrote erotica and another member wrote gruesome crime novels, full of horrific murder and graphic rape scenes. While I appreciated the constructive criticism they gave me, I squirmed with discomfort when it was time to listen to their latest chapters.

A far better approach is to join an online writing group and pick and choose what you want to do and whom you want to know. I met three of my best writing friends through the now-defunct online writers’ community, Authonomy. We exchanged many emails then arranged to meet up face-to-face and became good personal friends who holiday together. They’d just started out like me and our careers have grown together. Most online writing groups also offer a critique section, and although it’s time-consuming to read and critique other people’s work, the payback is huge if you get involved. I feel I learned more about the writers’ craft from the other members of Authonomy than I would ever have learned from a master’s degree in Creative Writing. Thanks to the advice I received, I adjusted the opening chapters of my debut novel and found my first publisher.

With friend and fellow author, Kristin Gleeson, on a 'working holiday' in Gran Canaria.

Most new authors join some of the associations set up to promote their genre. I’m a member of both the Historical Novel Society and the Crime Writers’ Association. There are also more generic societies out there who provide legal and business advice like The Society of Authors. Most of these organisations have a members’ area on their websites and related Facebook pages where you can chat about your work with like-minded souls.

The fellow authors in your first publishing house are another great source of writerly friends. Some publishers actively encourage their authors to get to know each other and set up a community forum where they can share news of promotions and ask each other for help. Unfortunately, my own first publisher was a paranoid crook who discouraged any form of communication between her authors in case we found out the truth about her operation. Desperately worried that I’d made a huge mistake, I contacted several of them anyway. They felt exactly the same as me and we formed a tight-knit group which helped us to deal with her and our disappointment. Eventually, we worked together to get her to release us from our contracts and return the publishing rights of our novels. We’ve remained good friends ever since – and she’s gone out of business.

My miserable first experience of the publishing world highlights another reason why writers can’t survive in isolation. Publishing is one of the most corrupt businesses on the planet. There’s plenty of sharks out there who prey on the naïvety and desperation of aspiring authors. There’s safety in numbers and genuine consolation available if your publisher folds and disappears into the ether with your royalties. Most authors have had at least one bad experience like this.

But, on a more positive note, when all your scribbling works out and your precious stories start to sell, writing for a living is still the best, most rewarding job in the world. Writers really do live the dream.

Provided, that is, you’ve got some mates by your side.

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News: Researching in Ely

16/10/2017

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Researching Lavender Book #5

The summer is over, the academic year has started again and I've gone back to work.
I've recently spent four days researching for the fifth Detective Lavender Mystery in the tiny cathedral town of Ely in the watery fenland of Cambridgeshire.
Armed with a notebook and my phone camera, I've pounded the city streets; visited three museums and a nature reserve and taken two boat trips through the rural countryside.
I take photos of anything and everything which I think may come in useful from rush matting on the floor of ancient cottages to information plaques about the flora and fauna. My quest was to get 'a feel' for life in this remote and harsh area in the early part of the nineteenth century. I wanted to know about the social history of the people and their lifestyle. No detail was too small to note, whether it was the diseases that plagued them, how they survived the winter or how their gaols/jails were run.
Anyway, here are a few of the photos that will inspire my writing over the next few months. Enjoy.

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Article: Thoughts about book covers

23/10/2016

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'PLAGUE PITS & RIVER BONES':
BOOK COVER MUSINGS...

One of the most enjoyable things about writing a novel is playing with ideas for the book cover. Usually, by the time I'm half-way through a manuscript (which is where I am at the moment) I've some idea about what I would like on the front cover of the finished book. For me, it's always about the location of the story.
My publishers don't ask me for ideas until I've handed over the manuscript. The book cover design usually runs concurrently with the editing. APub use a very talented designer, called Lisa Horton, for my novels and I love everyone of them. Lisa rose to my challenge and created a fictional Northumbrian pele tower for 'Heiress' but I was more helpful with 'The Sans Pareil Mystery' and gave her pictures, pulled from the Internet, of the original Sans Pareil Theatre. Last year, I walked along the Market Harborough canal tow path and took photos of all the old bridges to help her with the design of the book cover for 'The Sculthorpe Murder.'

The River Thames was always going to feature on the front of 'Plague Pits & River Bones' because it's the river mentioned in the title. Originally, I toyed with the idea of using the stretch at Greenwich with the Royal Naval Hospital in the background. However, I've now changed my mind and decided that the old Westminster Bridge and the old Palace of Westminster will grace the cover of this new novel.
Both the bridge and the parliament buildings have been rebuilt since 1812, the year of this novel. Fortunately, there are plenty of paintings from the period to show us what it used to look like - many of them are painted by Canaletto. They're fascinating. I cannot get over how empty the banks of the Thames were two hundred years ago - and how wide the river seems to be without skyscrapers looming over it. Once upon a time, London was a city with a big sky.
Anyway, have a look at the inspirational paintings below and see what you think.

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News: 'The Sans Pareil Mystery' is one year old

6/10/2016

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HAPPY FIRST BIRTHDAY TO
‘THE SANS PAREIL MYSTERY’

One year ago today, The Sans Pareil Mystery was published. This was a huge moment for me. Yes, The Heiress of Linn Hagh had enjoyed significant success when I self-published it in 2014 and had gathered wonderful reviews – but could I do it again with this second book in the Detective Lavender Mystery Series?

Sans Pareil was the first novel I’d written in three years. During that time, my beloved husband, Chris, was diagnosed with terminal cancer and died. After a year of grieving, I’d started to run out of money and needed to return to teaching. Recklessly, I abandoned that plan and pursued my creative dream instead.

I also had new publishers to worry about. Thomas & Mercer had taken over Heiress earlier in 2015. Could they repeat its success with The Sans Pareil Mystery? Would they want any more books in the future? Everything from the mortgage payments to my dream of remaining a full-time author depended on the successful publication of this new novel and I was full of nerves on publication day. What would the fans of Heiress make of Detective Lavender and Constable Woods’ latest adventures? Could I really make it as full-time author?

Fortunately, the answer was ‘yes’. Sans Pareil gained wonderful reviews, sold well and was long-listed in a prestigious historical fiction competition. Thomas & Mercer published the third book in the series, The Sculthorpe Murder last month. I’m now writing the fourth book in the series and my teaching career is definitely over. I’ve so much to be grateful for, and the publication of The Sans Pareil Mystery was a turning point in my life.

A series of novels on Amazon or in bookshops always look very similar to the reader. They have book covers in the same style and the same font and typesetting throughout. Homogeneity is the key to success in publishing.

But to the author, each novel is as individual as a child. Born and created out of a unique set of real-life experiences, often written in difficult circumstances, each one holds a special place in the author’s heart and is loved for different reasons. The Sans Pareil Mystery is a precious baby to me.

Happy first birthday, sweetheart.

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News: Sales of 'Heiress' reach a milestone

14/3/2016

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50,000 SALES OF
'THE HEIRESS OF LINN HAGH'

I have just received a congratulatory email from my publishers, Thomas & Mercer. They tell me that since last June I have sold 50,000 copies of the first novel in The Detective Lavender Mysteries: 'The Heiress of Linn Hagh.'
This is on top of the 20,000 copies I sold before that when the novel was self-published.
I am completely over the moon about this but am having trouble visualising such incredible sales! Happy author here.
You may also be interested to know that when the book was first published by Knox Robinson Publishing back in 2012... it only sold a miserable 35 copies in twelve months.
Ah, the difference a decent publisher can make... ;)

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Artical: Writing Habits

27/1/2016

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Spring Clean

The Inner Sanctum (after a good clean.)

Feeling very proud of myself today. I've just filed away all my 'Sculthorpe Murder' notebooks and tidied up my desk and office. It needed it. While I had my head immersed in the edits and rewrites of ‘The Sculthorpe Murder,’ my study started to resemble the bottom of a hamster cage (minus the poop droppings.)

I was surrounded by torn scraps of paper, a mountain of reference books, random piles of notes and the lingering smell of rotting food. Evidence of absent-minded snacking and my coffee addiction were everywhere. I found dirty crockery behind my thesaurus, an unwashed spoon in an empty yogurt pot and a mouldy pear festering at the bottom of my over-flowing waste paper bin. If I’d harvested all the white fluff on its surface, I would have had enough penicillin for the Fever Ward at the local hospital.

IMHO housework and the intense concentration needed for novel writing are not natural bedfellows. While deeply immersed in my fiction, I don’t see the rubbish mushrooming like a wild organism around my work space or the thick layer of dust settling on everything that doesn’t move. And as my cleaner is scared of damaging or moving something she shouldn’t in my inner sanctum, it rarely has a thorough clean. Fortunately, a bit of muck never did anyone any harm.

Anyway, today I’ve emptied the bin and wiped everything down with damp cloth. I've got 'Fleetwood Mac's Greatest Hits’ playing in the background and a Ylang Ylang candle burning on the window sill to mask the lingering smell of rotten pear.
I also made a brand new job list and itemised all those boring admin things I need to do at this time of the year. I wonder how far down this list I will get before I abandon it and start writing another book?

But for the moment, I’m clean and efficient. I’m ready for the rest of 2016 and whatever literary challenges this sparkling New Year may bring.

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Article: Musings About Writing

21/12/2015

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Heaven...on a canal towpath

Today has been one of the most satisfying writing days I have ever experienced.

Last August, a dramatic finale for ‘The Sculthorpe Murder’ started to form in my mind. The full scene was sketched out with the help of my Dad out on his garden patio one hot, memorable night. We’d both had a bit to drink and giggled and laughed our way the process.

A few days later in Leicestershire, on another glorious summer day, I took a long walk down the tow path of the canal in Market Harborough. I sat in the soft grass beside the still, green and opaque water watching the ducks and the narrow boats pass by and decided to commit the first tentative words of this scene to paper.

Saunt's Bridge, Market Harborough Canal Arm

Today, the shortest and darkest day of the year, was the culmination of this creative process and a day I’d been looking forward to for months. I ignored the gloom outside and surrounded by three notebooks, with numerous Internet webpages open on my computer for further reference, I sat down and wrote 2,500 words, the final version of this momentous scene.

It’s dramatic, action-packed and scary. It’s wonderful to finally release the tension, write something that has formed and reformed in my mind for so long and wind up the two sub-plots I’ve threaded like embroidery thread throughout this novel.

But it’s not quite ‘The End.’ Not yet. Lavender’s final words today were: “I think it’s about time we arrested the murderers of William Sculthorpe.”

And that, my friends, is what Detective Stephen Lavender and I will be doing tomorrow.

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News: #AMWRITING

23/8/2015

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'The Sculthorpe Mystery'
20,000 Words and Counting

When I'm writing a novel I try to set myself a target of 20,000 words a month. I'm happy to announce that I achieved this over the last 32 days. (Yes, I’m one day out this month, but I will forgive myself.) My reasoning behind this self-imposed objective is that if I worked Monday to Friday then this target roughly equates to 1,000 words a day. This is generally accepted in the writerly world to be good going on a work-in-progress.

But of course I never work Monday to Friday on my writing. I'm a single parent with family responsibilities which often come between me and my writing and I'm also a notorious totty-head (Regency slang for giddy and hare-brained.) It doesn't take much to distract me from my work or to entice me away from my desk. A bit of sunshine will draw me to the beach for a long walk and the prospect of being a lady that lunches with her friends is often far, far too much to resist.

So it's always a relief to find that I've somehow managed to reach my monthly target. By this time next month, both children will have settled back at their respective universities and I have a cunning plan to up the pace of this novel writing business.

Mmm, on second thoughts maybe I should see what invites come my way first before I do that? ;)

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Article: Introducing Jean Gill

MY New 'Partner in Crime'

Article: The Story Behind 'Life After Men'

Why I've moved into Cosy Chicklit

ARTICLE: WRITERLY FRIENDS

"Birds of a feather Flock together"

News: Researching in Ely

Researching Lavender Book #5

Article: Thoughts about book covers

'PLAGUE PITS & RIVER BONES':
BOOK COVER MUSINGS...

News: 'The Sans Pareil Mystery' is one year old

HAPPY FIRST BIRTHDAY TO
‘THE SANS PAREIL MYSTERY’

News: Sales of 'Heiress' reach a milestone

50,000 SALES OF
'THE HEIRESS OF LINN HAGH'

Artical: Writing Habits

Spring Clean

Article: Musings About Writing

Heaven...on a canal towpath

News: #AMWRITING

'The Sculthorpe Mystery'
20,000 Words and Counting

Archives

Categories

MY New 'Partner in Crime'

Why I've moved into Cosy Chicklit

"Birds of a feather Flock together"

Researching Lavender Book #5

'PLAGUE PITS & RIVER BONES':BOOK COVER MUSINGS...

HAPPY FIRST BIRTHDAY TO ‘THE SANS PAREIL MYSTERY’

50,000 SALES OF'THE HEIRESS OF LINN HAGH'

Spring Clean

Heaven...on a canal towpath

'The Sculthorpe Mystery'20,000 Words and Counting

Archives

Categories

'PLAGUE PITS & RIVER BONES':
BOOK COVER MUSINGS...

HAPPY FIRST BIRTHDAY TO
‘THE SANS PAREIL MYSTERY’

50,000 SALES OF
'THE HEIRESS OF LINN HAGH'

'The Sculthorpe Mystery'
20,000 Words and Counting