CLAIRE DYER… JUGGLING

This month I want to talk about loyalty; not to our nearest and dearest, nor our publishers and/or agents but to our books.

Consider this: I have a book that’s just been published and I’m busy talking about it on social media, to library audiences and writers’ groups. I love this book. I have also written another one which is with my agent and which we’re still discussing and editing. I love this book too. And, I’m writing a new book and am at the brick wall that is 60,000 words. I don’t love this book very much at the moment but I should do, and hopefully I will when I’ve climbed over the wall and seen what’s on the other side.

So I’m carrying three books in my head all the time and this isn’t unusual, it’s par for the course for authors. Indeed, some carry even more and/or are different stages of the above process which will require them to concentrate on the intricacies of multiple novels at the same time.

And what does this mean in reality? It means we’re constantly torn; we juggle characters and settings, we have to remember who has which pet, what our heroine’s favourite food is, her deepest fear. Not only this but we have to remember with pinpoint clarity our plot lines and at all times believe in the magic: the alchemy that is writing. There are some days when my brain feels like scrambled egg, but then when it’s just me and screen and I’m back in the zone and it’s making sense, then it’s all worthwhile, believe me.

 

JACKIE BALDWIN… REVEALING

Hello, lots of excitement for me to report this month! First of all there was the Killer Reads Cover Reveal for Perfect Dead. I absolutely love the design! I’ve been getting ready for my Blog Tour, organised by Love Books Group so I’ve been busy writing guest posts, providing extracts etc.

I also had the most unexpected thing happen this month. My first novel, Dead Man’s Prayer had a one day Book Bub promotion and, to my surprise and delight, became an Amazon UK Kindle bestseller in two categories. I was absolutely over the moon! As I write this it is only three weeks until publication day on 15^th June. This is always a nail-biting time for an author as you wait with baited breath for those reviews to start trickling in. Wish me luck!

See you next month!

 

LUCY COLEMAN… PARTYING

May has been an exciting month! The Romantic Novelists’ Association Summer Party prompted a trip to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. It was great to meet up with writerly friends old and new. Which, I might add, included fellow Frost Musketeer, lovely Claire Dyer.

A pre-party meet-up with a group of Aria Fiction authors, my lovely editor – Lucy Gilmore – and Melanie Price (who is a whizz on social media) was accompanied by Prosecco. It was a great start to the evening.

The week prior to that, structural edits arrived for the second manuscript in my four-book contract with Aria fiction, writing as Lucy Coleman. I despatched those very quickly and I’m now waiting to see the cover for this Christmas novel, set in Caswell Bay on the Gower coast.

Then back to work on book no. 4 which currently stands at around fifty-thousand words. Never a dull moment!

 

ANGELA PETCH… BALANCING

On May Bank Holiday, we loaded our car and set off for our six-month stay in our Tuscan home, stopping overnight in beautiful Alsace (I am itching to include this location in my next Tuscan novel … bizarre, but I have an idea).

May has been productive. “Mavis and Dot” are with my editor and while I wait for feedback, I have sent off a serial to The People’s Friend. My wonderful editor there instils calm, reiterating that good writing comes when you are at peace with yourself. Tomorrow I should receive my illustrator’s first designs for M and D. I have organised new covers for my two earlier novels. I have an appointment with a special Museum of the Diary in the valley for research for my third Tuscan novel. And, finally, I have been approached by a publisher for my Italian books. Decisions, decisions… but, ringing in my ears are my husband’s words: “Don’t take all the fun out of your writing.” Watch this space.