My Writing Process – Margaret Graham

Posted on June 14, 2019 by Catherine Balavage

I think a lot before I even put fingers to keyboard. I have a rough plan, and character, and get to know them, and the plot, and theme, which of course will drive the plot.

I have been writing for over 30 years, under three different names. Novels, and series, features, plays including a community play. And helped to research a TV documentary that grew out of a novel, Canopy of Silence.

I have written the first of a series The Girls on the Home Front set in WW2. There is fashion in writing, or should I say publishing. At the moment there is a thirst for series about 2nd WW!!. When Downton Abbey was on, it was 1st War. The thing is, a writer must write for the market, we produce a product. Sound basic, but there you are. Packaging is key. You will note there are fashions in packaging too. Sagas seem to be three women against a library photo shot of a street or something.

Tell us about your process

Sit down and do it! I get the idea, research the period etc. make notes, and all the time one’s mind is working, and arriving at a plot. Then you have to BE the characters, all of them, so they come alive.

Do you plan or just write?

I plan but not nearly as much as I did. I think that’s experience, I know now what is necessary.

What about word count?

Women’s fiction is usually about 100,000 words these days, but if you have a publisher they will tell you what they want.

How do you do your structure?

There is of course, only one structure: one shape, Normal world, then a point of change, then a rising arc to two thirds through the book, when there is a climax and it seems all is well, but like Cinderella the ball, the clock strikes, and it all goes wrong, so the last third is about resolving it finally, though no need to tuck it up neatly, just to show that the characters have developed enough to find a way through.

One main character and protagonist and antagonists. There has to be a theme, or message or it’s without depth.

And exposition, scene setting, showing not telling because we live in a visual age, so people are used to seeing things, not to wading through lots of telling. So create scenes, and it’s best if it’s through the eyes, (or point of view) of one person only in a scene. It helps with empathy.

What do you find hard about writing?

Actually doing it, I suppose. The day to dayness of it. I write two a year, as well as being a Frost Magazine editor, and running my charity, Words for the Wounded so it’s a rush.

What do you love about writing?

Creating other worlds, and being in control of those worlds. As a parent I realised long ago I was in control of very little, but in fiction the characters have to do as they are told.

Advice for other writers.

Learn the skills – go to a credible writing class, or mentor group. It’s an apprenticeship and as such, you need to learn the craft. It is a craft, a nuts and bolts craft, not an arty farty Art. Basically, get down and dirty, and keep at it, share your work with a group, listen to constructive not destructive criticism, read to see how others do it. And don’t rush.

My first bit of writing, a novel, After the Storm was published. My very first bit of writing, so I had to learn in full gaze of the public. I switched point of view within scenes, and put in too much research and not enough dialogue. But it worked. My later books, however, are considerably better and easier to read. And of course, enjoy it. No point otherwise is there, life is too short.

http://www.margaret-graham.com

www.wordsforthewounded.co.uk

https://www.facebook.com/margaretgraham4/

My Writing Process – Carol Thomas

Posted on June 13, 2019 by Catherine Balavage

I live on the south coast of England with my husband, four children and lively Labrador, Hubble (never give a dog a name that rhymes with trouble!). I taught in primary schools for over fifteen years, before dedicating more of my time to writing.

In the summer of 2017, I was delighted to gain a publishing contract with Ruby Fiction, an imprint of Choc Lit, for my second novel, The Purrfect Pet Sitter. Currently out as an ebook, with paperback and audio editions due for release on August 6^th, it is the story of what happens when you rediscover the one you let get away.

Prior to pitching The Purrfect Pet Sitter, I had self-published a contemporary romance novel, Crazy Over You, and a children’s book, Finding a Friend. Self-publishing taught me a great deal about the publishing process, building an author platform and promotion.

My latest novel, also published by Ruby Fiction, is Maybe Baby, a romantic comedy. It is the sequel to The Purrfect Pet Sitter, but can be read as a standalone story. Having recently completed a blog tour, I am delighted to have received reviews such as:

“Incredibly entertaining, this book has everything, animals, humour, romance, an old flame and a pregnancy test!”

It is always scary when you send a new book out into the world and so receiving lovely reviews really does mean a lot.

My work in progress is a contemporary romance, unrelated to my previous books. I started it before the idea came to me for Maybe Baby, and I have to say returning to it and regaining the same focus, is proving difficult. Though as my husband likes to point out, actually writing instead of being on social media would help.

Self-discipline is not my strong point, but I am working on it and intend to prepare more of my social media posts up front. Having said that, I do think it is important to interact and be present too – with an allocated time limit, of course ;-)

My writing process varies depending on the story. For Maybe Baby, I had a spreadsheet for dates, and plotted precisely, because the story required it. Ordinarily, when I start work on a novel, I buy a new notebook (who doesn’t love a pretty new notebook?) that will eventually contain everything related to that story.

I then plan the outline, build character profiles, and commence research – which I know will continue as I write. Once my new notebook is armed with these essentials, I start writing on my laptop. As the characters develop and the story progresses, I am happy to be led in new and exciting directions.

I love it when the story is flowing, and I feel I can’t type fast enough to get it all down. Conversely, when the ideas are not coming, and the word count is hovering in one place for too long, it can be frustrating. At times like this, I endeavour to keep going and get something down. I can always edit it – once, twice, or twenty-seven times – later. I don’t generally have a set daily word limit I try to reach as I have a busy house and life, but if I am away to write, I set myself goals.

My advice to writers, including myself, would be focus on getting your book written, there are plenty of distractions, but the only thing that will make that word count grow is actually writing!

Five Reasons to Maintain a Healthy Gut

Posted on June 6, 2019 by Aidan

How many times have you actually given thought to your gut health and taken steps to ensure it is as healthy as possible? Probably not very likely, as gut health tends to be one of those things people just take for granted and don’t really think much about until they are having issues. Instead of reacting to potential issues, experts recommend taking a preventative approach when it comes to your gut health.

Doing such things as eating a diet high in fiber, probiotics, plant-based foods, and using extra-virgin olive oil all while avoiding processed foods can do wonders for your gut health. Rather than look at it as a diet, approach it as a lifestyle choice so that you learn to follow these basics all the time. So why go to all this trouble? Here’s a look at the top five reasons to maintain a healthy gut.

Help to Maintain a Healthy Weight

One benefit that can hit home with a lot of people is the fact that a healthy gut can help you to also maintain a healthy body weight. When your gut is out of balance, it can lead to weight gain. This is because there are unhealthy microbes that are called gut dysbiosis, which start to flourish and aid in that weight gain. Perhaps you’ve been trying to shed a few pounds and aren’t having much luck. It may actually be that your gut is out of balance.

A Healthy Gut Helps with Heart Health

Did you know that each year there are more than 600,000 people that die of heart disease in the United States alone? That works out to be about 25% of all deaths in the country. In other words, heart health is an important issue that everyone should be aware of. While there are all kinds of factors that contribute to your overall heart health, a healthy gut is one of them. A healthy gut aids in the production of triglycerides and good HDL cholesterol. Also, when your gut contains the healthy microbiome called lactobacilli (a probiotic), it can help to reduce the amount of bad cholesterol.

Help to Ward Off Certain Skin Issues

Skin issues such as psoriasis, eczema, and acne are all very common, and while you may think it’s just something you have to deal with, there may actually be a solution. Maintaining a healthy gut can actually help to lessen these issues, and even clear them up completely.

Feel More Comfortable After You Eat

Eating should be an enjoyable experience and you shouldn’t feel bloated, deal with acid reflux, or heartburn after you finish. If these are problems you commonly suffer from, your gut health could be to blame.

Enjoy a Better Mood

For those who suffer from anxiety, depression, and periods of low moods, it can be quite frustrating and even debilitating at times. Obviously, there are all kinds of ways to combat these issues and cope with them, but a healthy gut is a step you’ll also want to include in your treatment plan.

A Side Note on Probiotics

As mentioned, probiotics are one of the items you’ll want to be sure you’re eating in order to promote a healthy gut. Now before you go and fill up on them, you may want to check this post from Vitamonk, as not all probiotics are built the same. Ensuring that you are getting low-histamine probiotics is showing to be a wise route to take, with some really impressive results.

Well Worth Taking Control Over

Rather than just ignore the many signs and symptoms of an unhealthy gut, or one that is out of balance, it’s best to be mindful of your gut health and take proactive steps towards achieving it.

Sponsored Post.

My Writing Process – Caroline James

Posted on June 4, 2019 by Catherine Balavage

I am proud to have author Caroline James be the first writer to be part of our new series. How I Write gives readers, and other writers, an insight into the minds of writers. Not only how they think, but how they work. Enjoy. Catherine Balavage, Editor-in-Chief.

I always wanted to write from a very early age, but never thought that I was good enough. A few weeks short of my sixteenth birthday, much to my parents’ horror, I left school, and also home, to work in Cornwall, doing anything from pot-washing to waitressing. In that time, I realised that I loved the hospitality industry and if I couldn’t write, I would work hard and one day have my own business. Fast forward several years and I achieved that dream. After catering college and working for a large hotel group in London and abroad, I eventually owned a pub and then a country house hotel. When I sold the hotel, I became an agent representing celebrity chefs. It was a fabulous career but still I wanted to write and decided that I wouldn’t die wondering and pinned my bum to a chair to write my first book.

Five books on and I am currently writing my sixth. The first was self-published and to my amazement, went to number three in women’s fiction on Amazon. My writing dream had come true. Two of my titles are current Amazon best-sellers and my dream of writing full-time has been achieved.

I am currently writing a follow-up to The Best Boomerville Hotel for my publisher, Ruby Fiction. I am a speaker too and give talks on various subjects including entertaining speeches for large events, such as a guest speaker on cruise ships and at various literature festivals. I write food related articles for various magazines and promote my work through social media and my website.

What is your process?

I like to write early in the morning before the rest of my world wakes up. I never find the process easy; I have to force myself each day, onto a chair and in front of my laptop. I’ve always found the writing process hard, but on occasion it has moments of relief when I simply can’t stop and may write solidly for several days. But that’s rare.

Do you plan or just write?

I always try to plan a novel before I begin the writing process, but the characters usually take over and want to do their own things. I think a framework is a good writing tool, so that there is a beginning, middle and end, however you get there.

What about word count?

Some days it may be 200 words others 3,000. It all depends on what writing demands I have. I may be writing an article or doing social media and blog posts for a client, so I have to fit novel writing in when I can.

What do you find hard about writing?

I find it hard to make myself get on with it. I envy the disciplined author who sets out a target each day and achieves it. I found it easier to write when I was working full-time running a business and had many other family demands. That old saying, ‘If you want something doing, ask a busy person,’ is certainly true for me. Since I decided to take a leap of faith and write full-time, I find it much more difficult to actually write a novel.

What do you love about writing?

The freedom to write about anything at all. The freedom to express myself. The freedom to live my writing dream. I love to be able to empower other writers and, in any way, possible and pay it forward. I love that I am living my writing dream.

Advice for other writers.

Just get on with it. Don’t waste years wondering. Glue your rear to a chair and get going, write and write and write – no matter what. You will find your muse when you least expect it.

www.carolinejamesauthor.co.uk https://www.carolinejamesauthor.co.uk

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The Doll Factory: Historical Fiction for the ‘Me Too’ Era

Posted on May 28, 2019 by Nadia Tariq

‘The Doll Factory’, by Elizabeth Macneal, is published by Pan Macmillan.

I’ve never really considered myself the jealous type. And yet, yesterday – having finished the altogether best book I have read in possibly years – I found myself to be unequivocally, admittedly just that. Jealous. But, also awed, inspired and (isn’t it always so with a favourite book?) almost satisfied.

Because, well, this. This is the kind of book I’d want to write. Because it’s exactly the book I wanted to read.

We follow Iris: twin, shop girl, would-be artist. Dreaming of escape from the drudgery of working-class respectability she feels imprisoned in. Enter Louis, a spirited young painter who could offer just that. But is that all she has to contend with? Silas, a taxidermist with an obsession, has developed other ideas. It is a tale of possession, power and intrigue, with just the right measure of romantic relief.

Set in the possibilities of 1850, smack bang in the time of the Great Exhibition, The Doll Factory captures all of the aspects of Victorian London that we are most familiar with. The poverty, the degradation, the prostitution. Charity, ingenuity, opportunity. The constant framework of class. And art. Lots of art. The nothingness and the excess.

Aside from personal penchant – as a long-time fan of neo-Victorian literature, this romantic thriller was bound to appeal to me – Elizabeth Macneal’s debut boasts all the ingredients of a stunning success. Compelling characterisation, clever plot lines, and the seamless blending of historical accuracy with imaginary detail. Macneal’s world comes vividly alive and the thrill is deliciously real.

And a success it is proving to be. Macneal’s novel won the 2018 Caledonia Novel Award, is a Sunday Times top ten bestseller, and the TV rights have already been sold. And it’s not even out in paperback yet.

But more than that. There is a very modern edge to this story. At its heart, it is a story of womanhood, it is a story of breaking bonds and forging new ones, and it is a story of escape. And of course, the universal themes; life, and death.

And it is perfectly on point for the post ‘Me Too’ consciousness that we are living in. One particularly poignant passage conveys the male power that Iris feels threatened by, the paradoxical standard that women are held to; one that women are pushing against even now, two centuries later:

‘… all her life she has been careful not to encourage men, but not to slight them either… an arm around her waist is nothing more than friendly, a whisper in her ear and a forced kiss on the cheek is flattering, something for which she should be grateful. She should appreciate the attentions of men more, but she should resist them too, subtly, in a way both to encourage and discourage, so as not lead to doubts of her purity and goodness but not to make the men feel snubbed.’

Macneal’s Doll Factory. It is romantic, it is considered, and it is thrilling. I’d go as far as to employ that feminist buzzword, ‘empowering’.

Yes. Must read.

Reviewed by Nadia Tariq

I was Abused & Called a Bitch For Travelling in London With my Children

Posted on May 16, 2019 by Catherine Balavage

Traveling in London is not fun for anyone. With children it is even harder. I have previously written about the hell off traveling with children in London but today things got a whole lot worse. On the way back from an important appointment I got on a bus. There was a wheelchair user (who should always be given priority, and I always do) and then space for the pram. There was an older woman sitting there and I asked her to swing her legs round. I was worried I would get her toes.

She ignored me so I asked again. After the third or fourth time she looked at me, pursed her lips and shook her head. At this point a person on the bus told me this woman had just fallen on the bus. Okay, I said. I did not know that. I began to get off but the wheelchair user kindly moved further back so I could fit my pram in easily.

What happened next was truly shocking. One woman had got up and was trying to help. Which is fine. But there was an older man who kept telling me to get off the bus. As well as older woman. The both started abusing me saying I should not be on the bus and that in their day they walked everywhere. The man said I should get off and run behind the bus and get some exercise. The women (who was separate from the man) was saying the same thing. I told them I had a right to use public transport and they had no idea how hard it was traveling in London with a pram. They continued to shout and abuse me. The woman who was on her feet and initially tried to help got very domineering when the bus moved off. I had to reach out and stop my four-year-old from falling over. She told me ‘look after my son’ and ‘go sit down’. While doing this she actually grabbed me and tried to push me in the direction of the seat.

When I told her I could look after own son she got offended and told me she was just trying to help. I told her she was a good person and thanked her as I did not want to escalate the situation. I told her I did not need anymore help.The wheelchair user needed to get off and I moved the pram and apologised to him and his carer for the uncomfortable experience, They were really lovely.

The man kept aggressively calling me a bitch. The older women said in her day they folded the pram up. All well and good but my 1-year-old was in the pram. Did she want me to juggle the children all the way? The man continued to abuse me, telling me to walk, calling me a bitch over and over. I told him to stop calling me a bitch or I would call the Transport Police and report him. The third woman who initially had tried to be helpful kept telling ME to be quiet even though I begged the two other people to stop talking and let it go. The third woman ended up getting off. They continued to abuse me and call me a bitch until my son started to cry. Only then did they stop. My son told me he was sad. I comforted him and told him everything was okay.

This is not okay. I was bullied and abused by three people in front of my children. I had a hellish journey getting there and only had a short time before I could give my son a quick lunch and then get him to nursery on time on the way back. We can do better than this London. We are better people. I wished the people abusing me love and light in their lives because I refuse to contribute to the pain and suffering in this world. I apologised to the woman who had fallen. I want love in the world, no hate. We can do better. We can be better. Our children are watching us.

F.I One Memoirs of a Forensic Investigator By Jack V Sturiano

Posted on May 15, 2019 by Catherine Balavage

This memoir by Jack V Sturiano is perfect for fans of CSI and forensic science. It is full of haunting stories that stay with you. Not for the faint-hearted. One of the most haunting stories is how Americans buy guns, go to the grave of their loved ones, and then just kill themselves. It makes the job easy as the receipt is still in the box, but it is very sad.

Imagine working at the morgue for twenty-four years. Every corpse has a story. This is a first-hand account of the real world of forensic medicine. It’s not the book, radio or television version, which from Poe to Holmes to Morse is entertaining fiction, but very little to do with the reality that’s being presented in these memoirs of a forensic investigator who did the work for twenty-four years. Every one of these stories has at the core an actual event witnessed by the author. Nothing is made up. It presents an alternative to all the fiction that is a billion-dollar industry. The mood, tone and emotion are included in each narrative, for their power and each filtered through the sensibilities of the forensic investigator. After a couple of hundred suicides, the minute you walk through the door you can smell the bad ones. Something an old doctor once told me about diagnosing patients, “When you hear horses’ hoofs, don’t think Zebra’s”. Like little slices of life, this memoir is presented as a collection of short stories written in the style of O Henry, Ambrose Bierce and HL Mencken.

Available here.

The Lemon Tree Hotel By Rosanna Ley

Posted on May 14, 2019 by Catherine Balavage

The weather is hotting up and this glorious, sun-drenched novel from Rosanna Ley should make its way into your suitcase. This is perfect feel-good escapism.

A story about love, family secrets, and a little piece of heaven . . .

In the beautiful village of Vernazza, the Mazzone family have transformed an old convent overlooking the glamorous Italian Riviera into the elegant Lemon Tree Hotel. For Chiara, her daughter Elene and her granddaughter Isabella, the running of their hotel is the driving force in their lives.

One day, two unexpected guests check in. The first, Dante, is a face from Chiara’s past, but what exactly happened between them all those years ago, Elene wonders. Meanwhile, Isabella is preoccupied with the second guest, a mysterious young man who seems to know a lot about the history of the old convent and the people who live there. Isabella is determined to find out his true intentions and discover the secret past of the Lemon Tree Hotel.