Category Archives: Writing

JANE CABLE INTRODUCES ANGELA PETCH AND THE IDEAS BEHIND THE TUSCAN HOUSE

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I have known Angela since we were both indie authors in Chichester, so the success of her gripping World War Two novels with Bookouture has delighted me more than most.

Every summer she moves to Tuscany for six months where she and her husband own a renovated watermill which they let out to friends and family. When not exploring their unspoilt corner of the Apennines, she disappears to her writing desk at the top of a converted stable. In her Italian handbag or hiking rucksack she always makes sure to store notebook and pen to jot down ideas.

The winter months are spent in Sussex where most of her family live. When Angela’s not helping out with grandchildren, she catches up with writer friends. Obviously we haven’t been able to do so this year, but I am still hoping.

Now, over to Angela.

It’s interesting how new ideas for novels germinate. I love that moment when I am grabbed by an event or a person and the desire to write a story is born. It can come from a newspaper article, an obituary, a photo or from somebody’s memories.

A few years ago, I cut out a magazine article with the title Swatched at birth. When babies were left at the Foundling Hospital in the 18th century, the only things identifying them were tiny scraps of fabric. The details on these swatches spoke to me: “A girl, about one day old, admitted 4 March 1759”. A piece of fabric pinned to her dress with a pattern of blue and burgundy flowers was the only link with this child’s past.

I’ve had this article for more than six years, but it gave rise to a detail in my new novel, to be published April 7th by Bookouture: The Tuscan House.

Similarly, on a shopping trip in Tuscany to our nearest town, I came across a simple exhibition of one family’s possessions. There were several outfits on mannequins and a wide-skirted 1950s dress was perfect for one of my characters. Click, click went my phone. And then I caught sight of a pair of slightly grubby booties. Click, click.  My characters come alive for me through such props and I hope to transmit the same through my words.

Maurice and I were persuaded in September 2013 to take a parish coach trip down to the Maremmana Tuscan coast. Most of the passengers were elderly and this annual Sunday had become a kind of pilgrimage to the past. Up until the 1950s, the men and boys of their families trekked down from our mountains to the sea to find better pastures for their sheep and cattle. I had never heard of the transumanza before (transhumance) and found myself scribbling down their stories. How could families bear to be separated for five long months every year? How did the women cope? What did the men get up to? My imagination went into overdrive. This led to my husband and I planning our own twenty-seven mile walk along part of the route and then another book was written. Originally, I self-published, but Bookouture acquired the rights. A Tuscan Memory  is a bit niche but a book I felt compelled to write.

We have to be in love with the stories we write and hope that our readers love them too.

 

Find out more about Angela and her writing on her blog: https://angelapetchsblogsite.wordpress.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Worth

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Frost fiction, short stories, poems, non fiction, fiction.

The woman flicked the notes carefully through her fingers, tapping the stack of cash against her desk and peering up over her horn-rimmed glasses.

“Not police?”

The man shook his head.  There was a note of threat to the question and he turned away, fixing his gaze through the doorway, his heart racing.

Silken bronze skin swept beneath long curls of onyx hair.  Asian eyes were lidded and docile.  The woman he desired tugged her skirt over a blackened bruise.

“You like?” the Madame slipped the money into a draw, her finger stroking a pistol.

“Yes.  Very much,…”

Note from the Author:  “This story is based on an event I witnessed personally many years ago, while in Soho for an audition. I didn’t catch much of the conversation – just a man and a woman trying to tempt him into a doorway. The words “Not Police” are forever etched in my mind. It made me so sad.”

Another in our series of 100-word short stories by Tim Austin. Whatever genre you love, there’s a story you’ll enjoy over at onewordonestory.org.

Come back on Tuesday for another. See you then!

Torn

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Frost fiction, short stories, poems, non fiction, fiction.

Eddie’s mouth was hanging open.  He wasn’t entirely sure what had happened.

Around him people were staring, forks held comically close to mouths, awkward coughs and murmurs circling the room like sharks.  Behind him a door slammed closed.

“Can I get you a towel, sir?”

The Maître D remained professionally aloof but Eddie could see sympathy in his eyes.

“I,…. think I’ll have the bill, please.”

Eddie picked up the two halves of paper, her telephone number shredded.  They’d been talking about their blind date.  She’d asked what he enjoyed.

Somehow “Chilling to Netflix” was the wrong answer.

 

Another in our new series of 100-word short stories by Tim Austin at onewordonestory.org. Whatever genre you love, there’s a story you’ll enjoy.

Come back on Friday for another. See you then!

WELSH WRITING WEDNESDAYS: INTRODUCING JAN BAYNHAM AND HER WRITING

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I was born and brought up in the tiny mid-Wales village of Newbridge-on-Wye and moved to nearby Llandrindod Wells when I was fourteen. Fortunate to have had a very free and happy childhood, growing up in such beautiful rural surroundings has always stayed with me. Although I have now spent more years living in the south of Wales, first in Swansea and then for the most part in Cardiff, I still call Llandrindod ‘home’. For as long as I can remember, apart from a very brief spell of wanting to be a glamourous model or an airhostess, I always wanted to become a teacher, my two main loves being English and Art. Having studied in Cardiff, I have taught in a wide range of settings – from opening and running my own nursery, teaching all year groups in primary school, secondary school English and Art and Pottery up to A level, and teaching art, crafts and pottery in adult evening classes when my three children were small. For the last six years of my career in education, I became a Teacher Adviser for English.

You will notice that I have not yet mentioned writing. I was extremely late to the party and it wasn’t until I joined a writing group at a local library when I retired that I wrote my first piece of fiction. In my job, I was passionate about children’s writing but this was for me, for my enjoyment… and I loved it. I was hooked! Soon, I went on to take a writing class at Cardiff university and began to submit short stories for publication. In October 2019, my first collection of shorts was published.  My pieces started getting longer and longer so that, following a novel writing course, I wrote my first full-length novel. My debut novel, Her Mother’s Secret was published in April 2020, followed by Her Sister’s Secret, a few months later, by Ruby Fiction. The third novel in the three-book deal is due out in the summer.

So, what do I write about? My dual-narrative novels are about families and their secrets. The strapline for my publisher is ‘Stories that Inspire Emotions!” and I hope that my books do just that. They are character driven. I have always been fascinated by long-held family secrets and skeletons lurking in cupboards and these form the germs of ideas to develop into a novel.

Fascinated by the ever-present link between past and present, I try to explore how actions and decisions made in one era have an impact on subsequent generations. In all my novels, I want to tell two stories showing a special bond between mothers and daughters. The daughters’ stories are written in first person and I’ve tried to get inside their heads, feel their emotions and show the reader why they act in the way they do.   In each novel, setting plays an important role, too. There is always a journey to a contrasting setting vastly different from the area in mid-Wales where my characters are from. I hope I manage to transport the reader not only to the heart of Wales but also to Greece, Sicily or France. I’ve also tried to capture the different times during which my characters lived.

Having a lot of catching up to do, I take every opportunity I can to learn more about the craft of writing by attending workshops, talks and conferences. Joining that small writing group in Whitchurch library was the best decision I could have made to start me on my writing journey.

 

You can link up with Jan on Twitter – @JanBaynham https://twitter.com/JanBaynham or Facebook – Jan Baynham Writer https://www.facebook.com/JanBayLit or you can follow her blog – Jan’s Journey into Writing https://janbaynham.blogspot.com/

 

 

 

 

 

My Writing Process KL SLATER

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After years of unsuccessfully trying to get my stories noticed from the slush pile, I went back to university to study for an MA in Creative Writing at the age of 40. Before graduation I’d secured both a literary agent and a book deal. I’m now a full-time writer and live in Nottingham. Sounds quick but it took a long time, if you count the ten long years of prior rejections.

What you have written, past and present.
I wrote four Young Adult books between 2014-2018, published by Macmillan Children’s Books. Then in 2016 I moved back to writing my first love: adult psychological crime fiction and that’s what I write exclusively today for Hachette’s Bookouture, a digital-first publisher. Audible publish my audiobooks and I’ve also written two Audible Originals exclusively for them. I’ve just written my fifteenth adult thriller.

What you are promoting now.
THE EVIDENCE, a psychological thriller I’ve written exclusively for Audible published 11th February 2021.

A bit about your process of writing.
I work best during the morning. This discipline is a throwback to working a full-time day job and writing between 6-8 am before I went out to work. Sometimes I write in bed immediately after waking and, on a good day, I can get a couple of thousand words down before I get up. But usually, after reading and surfing online for a while, I go downstairs to my office and start work between 8 and 9 am. In pre-lockdown days we’d go out somewhere in the afternoons. Remember that?

Do you plan or just write?
I used to just write a short blurb and that was the extent of my natural urge to plan. But writing commercial thrillers and a few a year, means I now have to plan the book more thoroughly … thoroughly for me, anyway. I’ll do a long outline which I agree with my editor and then add to it as I start writing. I don’t know a lot about the story at the beginning of the process, I just have my initial idea and a sense of how I want it to feel. It doesn’t mean the plot can’t differ from the outline – it nearly always does – but in order to provide the twists and turns the modern reader expects, there has to be some element of planning.

What about word count?
I write a few books a year so it’s essential I’m disciplined about achieving minimum daily word counts when I begin a first draft. I try and get a basic draft down in no more than a couple of months so I’m looking at 1-2k a day. I often add substantial word count during structural and line edits. Sometimes I like to use an app on my phone called Focus Keeper. The ticking timer drives some people crazy but it keeps me … well, focused.

How do you do your structure?
I tend to draft out my initial outline in the form of five acts to start writing to a recognisable shape. But I’m not a slave to a turning point at 10%, another at 25%, that kind of thing. I just find it a useful template to get me started.

What do you find hard about writing?
Stopping. I find it so hard to break off or have a whole day off so I have to force myself as there’s a real world out there and real people I care about and want to spend time with. I’ve found getting out of the house is key to breaking the spell. I’m constantly striving to achieve that illusive but tempting cliché: work-life balance.

What do you love about writing?
I love how the world and characters I’m writing seem so real. I love that I’m earning a great living doing something I would do – and for many years did do – for free. And I love writing digital-first; it’s incredible that 6-8 months after having a new idea, the book can be out there.

Advice for other writers.
Write. Sounds obvious but most writers I know, myself included, have a precarious state of mind that is prone to self-sabotage and procrastination. So many new writers – I used to be one of them – spend too much time striving for perfection instead of getting the book down and then using editing as a powerful tool to refine the story. It’s really hard to get something good the first time around. I like to think of the writing process as a kind of sculpting: starting with a lump of clay and through many stages and revisions, finally ending up with something good.

The Evidence by K.L. Slater is available exclusively on Audible now.

Faith

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Frost fiction, short stories, poems, non fiction, fiction.

Jeanie held her arms out to each side.  The balls of her feet balanced against the edge of the stage: her heels hung in the air.

“That’s it, Jeanie: now fall back and the other girls will catch you,” the teacher cooed.

“Well of course they will,” Jeanie thought.

She knew them.  Jeanie knew they’d do exactly as they were told.  Jeanie had dunked the geeky one’s head in the toilet just last week.  The spotty one still had a bust lip.

She closed her eyes and fell backwards.

There was a giggle.

Promo Image by Charlie Foster via Unsplash.

The first in a new series of 100-word short stories by Tim Austin at onewordonestory.org. Whatever genre you love, there’s a story you’ll enjoy.

Come back on Friday for another. See you then.

WELSH WRITING WEDNESDAYS: EVONNE WAREHAM ON WALES AS A SETTING FOR FICTION

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You’ve probably noticed that many romance novels and some crime stories are set in picturesque locations in the British Isles – Scotland and Cornwall are particular favourites.You don’t get books set in Wales quite so often, although dramas like The Pembrokeshire Murders are putting Welsh settings on the screen.

I’m a Welsh writer, living on the South Wales coast, who once worked for the National Parks. That’s a lot of baggage. I’ve set books in Wales in the past and am ambitious to do more. I write in the genre romantic suspense, which is better known in the USA, less so on this side of the Atlantic. If you’ve read books by Nora Roberts, Karen Rose or Karen Robards you’ll have an idea of what I am talking about. Those books are set in places like Sacramento, Washington and New Orleans, or sometimes in the American farmlands or backwoods.

It’s not so much the Welsh urban settings that appeal to me – although I’m sure that Cardiff and Llandudno can be interesting locations, if not sounding quite as glamorous as New York or Los Angeles. The attraction of Wales for me is the potential of the rural and coastal landscape, and the way that it can be turned in two directions. Wales is blessed with mountains, big skies for cloud watching and star gazing, and a beautiful and dramatic coastline, accessible from a coastal path that circles the entire country.

Is there anything more romantic than a deserted beach at sunset on a warm summer evening? A place for lovers to discover each other. But give the story a twist – the same beach in winter, or at night, with a storm blowing, and you have the backdrop for mayhem. A seaside or country cottage can be an idyllic bolt hole from the world or a deserted and lonely trap, with a heroine on the run. Writers think about these things. I’m often told that taking a walk with an author who is sizing up the surroundings for a good place to bury a body is a disconcerting experience. You get the picture.

The historic legacy of Wales, from castles to folklore, is another attraction. Welsh castles range from Castell Coch, a quirky Victorian Gothic Revival built on thirteenth century foundations, to massive medieval fortifications like Caerphilly, which were anything but quirky. The myths and legends of Wales are rich in magic and the supernatural. Traditional customs, like the Mari Lwyd, a poetic wassailing party featuring a horse’s skull, have plenty to tingle the spine.

There is also the attraction of the natural world. One of the perks of being an author is the ability to make your own weather, and Wales has plenty of that to choose from. If you need a fierce storm to strand your hero and heroine together, you’ve got it. Two of the things I like to play with as a writer are the impact of silence and writing against expectation of the setting. The silence of a lonely location can be peaceful or sinister, or even better, progress from one to the other.  A setting can echo a character’s mood – like a wet day reflecting bad news, but it can be very effective when bad things happen in good places. Being surrounded by beauty and sunshine can make a threat even more devastating.

Those are the things I get from setting a book in my home country. For me the landscape has romantic beauty and a wild and potentially sinister edge. As a Welsh writer, I want to be able to share that with readers.

 

 

 

SLOW AND STEADY WINS THE RACE – JANE CABLE ON HER NEW PUBLISHING CONTRACT

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I have never particularly seen myself as a tortoise, but boy oh boy, has this been a long time coming. Today it was announced that I will be writing emotional women’s fiction for One More Chapter, a digital first division of Harper Collins, under the name of Eva Glyn.

I think all writers have an idea of where they want to be, and for me, no doubt influenced by Harper Collins being the sponsor of The Alan Titchmarsh Show’s People’s Novelist competition in which I was a finalist, they were the publishing house at the top of my wish list.

Having failed to win the competition and so any short cut to publication, I might have guessed I was in for the long haul, but at that stage I didn’t realise quite how long it would actually be. But fairly early on in my career I had a near miss when after a one-to-one at Winchester Writers’ Conference a young editor called Charlotte Ledger requested the full manuscript of The Faerie Tree.

Nothing came of it, and the book became my second indie novel. And as my career progressed I was aware of Charlotte’s rapid rise through the ranks of Harper Collins’ digital imprints and wondered if perhaps at some stage it would be worth submitting to her again.

In the meantime I had the opportunity to work with Amy Durant and when she set up Sapere Books was happy to follow her there. And while I am happy to stay with Sapere too, I still hankered after what a bigger publisher could offer in terms of multiple platforms and international clout.

By the time the Romantic Novelists’ Association conference came around in 2019 I had a new manuscript in my locker that I knew wasn’t a Sapere Book. I saw Charlotte Ledger was offering one-to-ones and I was lucky enough to grab one. We met again. And again she asked for the full manuscript, but this time to be sent to her personal email. I felt I was one step closer.

In the end Charlotte didn’t take that book, but the door was kept open. Last March I had a fifth anniversary blog tour for The Faerie Tree and the response was so overwhelmingly positive I brought the title up to date, gave it a little polish, and after much encouragement from Susanna Bavin, sent it off to Charlotte.

She asked me to do some rewrites and they were so in line with my own thinking for the book that I did. The next thing I knew we were talking about author brand and slowly it dawned on me she was offering me a contract. And the author brand she was suggesting was exactly where I wanted to be – emotional women’s fiction.

There would be no ghostliness, no looking back at the past, so these would be different to my books for Sapere, so we decided they would be published under another name. I chose Eva Glyn – Eva for my father’s mother, and Glyn for Glyn Jones, the Welsh author who was a great friend of my parents.

Today is a proud day because for the first time I can talk about the deal as the cover for The Missing Pieces of Us has been revealed and the book is available for pre-order. And it’s only taken me nine years…