SISTER SCRIBES: CASS GRAFTON ON WHY WRITING IS A NEVER-ENDING ADVENTURE

For me, pursuing a career as a writer is not just a journey; it’s an expedition into a world I’m still discovering. It’s ‘the world inside my head’ meets ‘the world out there’, and they are only on their third date. It seems fair to say, therefore, that I’m not only a writer but also an explorer.

I’ve been published since 2013, a combination of solo and co-writing across seven novels, some indie published and some with a publisher, Canelo Escape. Everything I’ve written so far has had, at its core, a love story —I love romantic storylines.

So, how is my writing career now on its third ‘date’? It’s to do with the genre of romance and the many categories that further define it. I’ve published in two of these ‘sub’ categories: historical romance (Regency era) and time-travel romance. These were the first two ‘dates’, and they went quite well—I’m certainly going to be seeing them again—but for now I’m rather excited about my upcoming third. This date is with contemporary romance.

When I was young, I dreamed of writing love stories, but always in the present day. No breeches and fluttering fans; no flitting to and fro through the centuries courtesy of a charmed necklace. My dream was of writing modern romances—relatable, believable and with characters doing everyday things, but always, ultimately, falling in love.

I’ve been toying with the idea behind The Cottage in a Cornish Cove since the days when my hair was a box-shaped perm, my shoulder pads needed scaffolding to support them and keeping in touch with non-local friends was done by a landline phone or with good old pen and paper.

Although the story I’ve now written bears little resemblance to those initial ideas other than the inciting incident that sets the plot in motion, I view it with the affection of an old friend, one of those worlds inside my head that simply took a long time to emerge and meet the world outside.

So what’s it about, I pretend to hear you cry?

It’s a heart-warming tale of discovering all you never wanted is exactly what you need.

Much of Anna Redding’s happiness as a child came from the long summer holidays spent with an elderly family friend, Aunt Meg, in the charming village of Polkerran.

With Aunt Meg’s passing, Anna is drawn back to the West Country, relocating to the Cornish cove where she was once so happy. Settling into her new life, and enjoying her work for the older, reclusive and—to be honest—often exasperating Oliver Seymour, Anna is delighted when Alex Tremayne, an old crush of hers, reappears in Polkerran and sweeps her off her feet.

The stars finally seem to be aligned, but just as Anna thinks all she’s ever wished for is within reach, a shock discovery reveals she’s living a dream that isn’t hers…

 

As for those other dates, is the adventure over? Definitely not! They are part of my on-going expedition, my journey as a writer, so I won’t be deserting them. Ada Bright (my co-writing partner) and I still have a third time-travel romance up our sleeves, and I have two Regency romances in the works, which I hope to finish soon.

In the meantime, though, if you’re up for a bit of eavesdropping on my third date, come and join us in gorgeous Cornwall, wallow in the quaintness of Polkerran, get to know the locals and fall in love with romance all over again.

The Cottage in a Cornish Cove will be released on 11th February 2020.

 

SISTER SCRIBES: JANE CABLE ON PLANNING FOR CREATIVITY

It’s the first morning of the decade and I’m making plans. Or rather I’m ordering dreams and prioritising my wish list, licking them into some sort of order. But shouldn’t the magic of creativity just be allowed to flow?

To my mind that’s a ridiculously self indulgent approach when you have chosen writing as a career. Having some sort of plan is so much better than sitting at a crossroads scratching your head. I have so many ideas for books I’ll probably never write them all – but which should I be following up? And what else needs to be done to make them successful?

Over the last few years I’ve developed a plan for planning – an easy ‘to do’ list for January 1st (or thereabouts), which keeps me on track.

  • Scrawl a quick review of the previous year in two sections – what went well, and what didn’t. Coming straight off the top of your head helps focus on what’s been important to you; what you need to do more of and what needs putting right.
  • Consider how you’d like to develop your writing life this year in each and every direction. For me the most important things are to understand more about (and hopefully write!) books with stronger hooks, and to find out more about winning at Amazon. Once you’ve worked out what your priorities are, allow yourself to dream a little – where would you like to be in five years’ time? How will this year’s plans help you to get there?
  • Now you have the basics you can set out your goals for the year. In my business life I had many clients who used the SMART system (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and timely) and they’re a pretty good rule of thumb for writing too. Except I quibble a little with ‘attainable’ here, because I like to think in writing we continue to grow beyond our current skill sets – and what’s wrong with stretching ourselves anyway?
  • Next write down what you’re not going to do this year. It may sound a bit negative, but most people are prone to a bit (or a lot) of time wasting so cutting the draining tasks from your life is actually one of the most productive things you can do. One of my weaknesses is volunteering for too much so I’ve promised myself nothing new this year.
  • Then write down what you are going to do – the things that will make the biggest difference to your reaching your goals. What works in your writing life? What makes you feel good about it? What do you have to do more of to succeed?
  • The last part of my plan is to break down my goals and put them on a timeline. I do a rough quarterly guide, then an action plan for the first few months of the year. This will develop as projects move on. I also use quite small boxes for each month so I’m not tempted to overfill them and tackle too much too soon. I have a tendency to want everything to happen now, so this is very useful in spreading the workload. And, of course, it leaves room for some all important flexibility. Because even in the most ordered of worlds, real life happens.

So all this comes with a caveat: you can only plan everything when you are in control of everything. And in writing, as with most careers, you’re not. I was expecting my next book to be out by now, but it isn’t. Nobody’s fault – just one of those things. And I suspect when I look back this time next year there will be other things that haven’t happened too. But without any plan at all, I wouldn’t even know where to start.

 

 

A PUBLISHER’S YEAR: DECEMBER – PUBLICATIONS AND PROSPECTS

Hello and welcome to the final Sapere Books update of 2019! We’ve had a fantastic year and it’s all thanks to the incredible authors who have trusted us to publish their books. We aren’t signing up many new authors at the moment because we already have such a great list we are looking after, but we are leaving our submissions page open in case anything pops up that we just can’t say no to!

We are rounding up the year with the publication of some more brilliant fiction. Over the past few weeks we have reissued three of Alan Williams’ classic espionage novels, published THE OCCUPATION – a brand new Second World War saga by Deborah Swift, launched the last book in David Field’s Tudor series and republished PATERNOSTER – the first book in Kim Fleet’s time slip thriller series. We also reissued THE WARNING BELL – a historical novel by award-winning author Lynne Reid Banks.

All of our authors are busy with new works in progress and we have lots of exciting projects to launch in the new year. As well as our thriving fiction list, we will soon be launching our non-fiction list. Richard Simpson, one of my fellow co-founders is currently looking for military history books, in particular backlist titles, and he is preparing the first few to launch on our second anniversary next March.

Thank you to everyone who has been following these update, and to Frost Magazine for hosting us, and we hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and a prosperous New Year! We are very excited to see what will happen in 2020. Watch this space!

 

Amy Durant

SISTER SCRIBES’ WOMEN’S WRITING WISDOM 2019

During 2019 Sister Scribes were lucky enough to welcome women writers we admire and have some connection with to Frost and in the process we learnt a great deal. With a new year approaching, here as some of the choicest nuggets to mull over.

 

Alexa Adams: My network of women who I can depend on, confide in, and trust has exploded, and I have a hard time recalling how I ever got by without them. These friendships are the most unexpected gift that writing has bestowed on me, and for them I am immeasurably grateful.

Carol Thomas: Three top tips for working collaboratively:
1) Take a little time to find your way, but also be prepared to step up. Somewhat obvious but … the key to collaboration is collaborating.
2) Be prepared to compromise. Working as part of a group will require it at some point.
3) Be actively supportive of others; you’ll get more from it than you might think. Rightfully so, when it comes to working in a group, you tend to get out, what you put in.

Catherine Boardman: Telling stories is what I love to do.  The solitary nature of sitting down to write suits me perfectly.  Yet it is the support and friendship of fellow female writers makes the procrastination so much more fun.

Daisy Tate: THERE ARE NO FOES in the world of women’s fiction. Along this windy path I’ve walked, I have only met people who are there to help others.

Dr Gaby Malcolm: Ignore anything other than constructive criticism and admire your own work.

Jessica Redland: So far, our joint venture [The Yorkshire Rose Writers] has worked well and we love working together. We’re both excited to see where it could go in the future. My advice to anyone thinking about such a venture, though, is be really clear on your aims and your time commitment right at the start so you’re on the same page.

Maddie Please:  I try to keep the boxes of stationery under control but boxes of pencils, Sharpies and Post-it notes are like cat-nip to me!

Merryn Allingham: When several members of my book group announced recently they didn’t like historical fiction, I was disappointed. But stunned when one went on to say she couldn’t see the point of history. For me, discovering the past doesn’t just illuminate quirky corners of a bygone age but helps understand the world of today….. Researching history complicates that first simple ‘take’ on a culture and a period, changes our perspective, makes connections. And, crucially,  illuminates our own troubled present. Worth paying attention then!

Rachel Brimble: I could not write without women from the past, the present and undoubtedly, the future. Here’s to the strong women who have gone before us and who continue to walk with us today!

RL Fearnley: I realise that I don’t have to write ‘women’ in my stories, I just have to write ‘people’. It should not be a revelation to see that these two things are not mutually exclusive. After all, in worlds where anything is possible, why can’t the quiet, plain girl at the back of the class be the one who takes up the sword and slays the troll?

Tracy Rees: Exploring our dreams as far as possible makes us happier, fuller people, which in turn allows us to help and support others.

 

DAZZLING DIAMOND YEAR OF ROMANCE

 

We are more than delighted to announce that Frost magazine will play a part in the Romantic Novelists’ Association’s Diamond Anniversary celebrations in 2020. On the last Wednesday of every month we’ll be running articles about the RNA’s year, written by their fabulous authors, which we’re sure will be fascinating insights into the world of this incredible organisation.

 

The Romantic Novelists’ Association was started in 1960 by a group of six romance writers amongst them Catherine Cookson, Barbara Cartland and Rosamunde Pilcher and today we have over one thousand members. Our focus has always been to raise the prestige of romantic fiction, and to encourage romantic authorship. 2020 is our Diamond Anniversary year and we are marking this celebration with a year packed full of events.

  • Alison May (MLR photo)

    We’re launching new bursaries to encourage writers from underrepresented groups to join the RNA

  • In February we’re launching the inaugural Romance Reading Month
  • We’ll be hosting and promoting romantic fiction events with literary festivals and universities – starting on 15th February when we’ll be in Manchester http://www.manchesterwritingschool.co.uk/events/the-love-writing-manchester-series-launch-event-with-special-guest-author-d
  • On 4th June there will be a virtual romance festival where we will be live streaming a series of events from a prestigious London location before our 60th birthday party in the evening
  • And we’ll also be asking what is the nation’s favourite romantic novel of the last 60 years

And that’s on top of the events and activities the RNA undertakes every year. We have our New Writers’ Scheme that allows 300 unpublished authors to join the RNA and get a critique on their novel in progress. We also organise and present the annual Romantic Novel Awards, and also our Industry Award which celebrate publishers, agents, booksellers and bloggers who champion romantic fiction. We host a conference for romantic authors and industry professionals every year, and present the Joan Hessayon Award to a debut author who has ‘graduated’ from the New Writers’ Scheme. We also publish a quarterly magazine for our members and have a network of local chapter groups across the UK and Ireland.

Bella Osborne

All of that takes planning and organisation, and the RNA, like many arts and literary organisations, is run by volunteers from amongst our own members. The planning for the 60th Anniversary, for example, started in 2017 when Bella Osborne joined the RNA’s management board as Special Projects Officer for the Diamond Anniversary. Since then Bella has recruited a team of volunteers to work with her developing guidance for members on approaching literary festivals, organising events, and planning for Romance Reading Month.

We’re hoping to make 2020 an especially exciting and romantic fiction-filled year, but it’s going to be incredibly busy as well. So it’s incredibly exciting to be teaming up with Frost Magazine to bring you an insight behind the scenes into a very special year in the life of the RNA.

Please follow the hashtag #RNA60 for the latest events and get involved during 2020.

 

Alison May & Bella Osborne

 

Anxiety and Modern Identity

Anxiety and the pressures of modern life seem to go hand-in-hand, with many describing the crippling condition as a ‘21st century epidemic’.  Author Steven Romain is no stranger to anxiety and has drawn upon his own experiences of the illness for his new literary novel, True-Life Walter, which features a central character who takes radical action to rid himself of anxiety, and by so doing also finds himself freed for the first time from the oppressive burden of social expectation.  

By Steven Romain

Caption: Author Steven Romain believes that anxiety is deeply connected to the confining expectations thrust upon us in the 21st century. Copyright Steven Romain 2019

The only people whose ideas about anxiety should be listened to are those who actually experience it. Like a wild dog, anxiety has a particular nature, conducts itself in specific ways, and is even characterised by unusually acute powers. A wild dog hears the heartbeats of a herd of springbok from a hundred metres away and selects the buck with the weakest heartbeat as his target. They have a ninety percent success rate as hunters. 

The complication with being human is that the definition of success eludes our grasp. If those walking around the world with anxiety are impaired in certain ways, and we may safely say they are, they are also gifted with special powers like artistic sensitivity; a highly suggestive imagination; and empathy. In addition, the fact of living with the condition for many years fosters wonderful species of fortitude and bravery. It is impossible for a non-sufferer to know what I mean, but it is a fact that simply getting up in the morning and dressing is, for many people, a great achievement. It’s very much like escaping from the captivity of a sadistic bandit.

The anxiety-sufferer wrestles with his angel from the moment he wakes up in the morning till the moment he falls asleep at night. To me, (especially since I am one of the club), it’s clear that this battle forges a person’s personality to a tremendous degree. And this brings us back to the question of defining a successful hunt for human beings. Who among us is living a successful life? 

Caption: Author Steven Romain, an ordained rabbi, draws strength from his faith to make sense of an increasingly chaotic and superficial world. Copyright Steven Romain 2019

Many might point to the socially adjusted, the financially successful, the intelligent, or the famous. All these I would characterize as effective in some way. I, for my part, see something wrong with this view. Look around you at the world: stars, galaxies, electrons, insects, fire, water, ice, elephants—not to mention dreams, visions and spirits. This is a world which is marvelously complex and mystical, held to together inexplicably by The Holy One. And the crown of it is man, but what was he put here for? To become something, to know his Creator, in my opinion, but the point I wish to make is that G-d didn’t make this wonderfully interconnected world so that there should be people sitting at coffee-shops punching buttons on phones. This can be a pleasant pastime and I don’t mean to sound harsh, but I do think the question of ‘What was I put here to do?’ should be one that is considered in relation to our actual lives and not just pondered theoretically. Effective people can’t be the point of the whole world, for the reason that their effectivity only solves problems, and the Creator did not make the world to solve a problem, since He has none.

If you agree with me that dressing in the morning might be a genuine achievement, you probably also agree with me that succeeding in school, university, socially, romantically, or spiritually do not necessarily make for real achievement. Just a little bit of thought suffices to prove this. Each one of the items on this list is naturally easy for thousands of people, making for little challenge, and for thousands of others an apparent success in one of these areas would really be a failure. Take, for example, someone whose life circumstances are such that academic achievement is inappropriate for him. He has a pressing need to earn money. His graduation seals a four-year-long (and costly) wrong choice. 

A man is a very mysterious thing. Take a fresh look at him: what is he? He is made, in the sense that his powers and faculties are determined by his Creator, but he also makes himself. A very awkward man I know chose, in his youth, to devote himself to a kind of social work that entails mingling closely with tens of teenagers every day. Now, after years of habituation, no one could ever imagine him as anything else. It is what he is. And it came about purely from his choice. Plus, we all know that after the little dance we do on this earth we’ll be sailing away to a totally different place. The question that I’m proposing should at least seem like a question is: what is the dance I should do while I’m still here? The question should be asked again and again, day after day, because many of the answers we give might be straight-out wrong. There’s no point in just following everyone else’s answers: that would be like frantically neatening up an office the whole day, vacuuming and straightening and polishing, when the whole building is set for demolition.

A man like me wakes up this morning and faces the familiar forms of his anxiety, like an old enemy standing over his bed, waiting for him. Who is to say what it means—in this fantastically mysterious world—that he manages to put on his shirt, his pants, his shoes, drink a cup of coffee and drive to the supermarket? Maybe, as a result, it will rain on farms in Kenya. Maybe, when he leaves this world in his old age, the angels will tell him that the dance he did down here was just perfect: the heavenly hosts were cheering him on for every move. And maybe a man who is sentimentally eulogized as the greatest benefactor of mankind in his generation, a lifelong philanthropist, is told by the angels, on his departure from this world, that his life was a dismal failure. A totally different dance was expected of him.

Caption: Steven Romain’s new literary novel True-Life Walter features a central character suffering from extreme anxiety. His actions to free himself from the condition, and what follows, elucidate the deeper meanings of identity and purpose in post-Apartheid South African society. Copyright Steven Romain 2019

The relationship between anxiety and the crisis of identity in our age, in which many of us are divorced, for certain reasons, from our real purpose, is too complex to deal with in a short article. Like everything in G-d’s world, anxiety is not only one thing. The Divine wisdom manifests through it in many different ways. But it is worth noting that, through anxiety, we disable our own lives in their futile rush toward vain ends. We are forced to re-evaluate what we are and what we want to be. 

In my novel, True-Life Walter, I explore modern anxiety by depicting it in the setting of modern Johannesburg, where, for men of colour like my protagonist, new identity is built every day. New lives are lived in newly discovered social and economic statuses. New possibilities of achievement dawn all the time: identities shift and change. As does any writer who strives for real art, I strive to render the suchness of anxiety in modern life without reducing it to easy tropes and explanations. In this way, literature has a unique power in assisting our understanding of anxiety, which is, at this point, an issue we need to take strides toward, not so much comprehending, as appreciating.

True-Life Walter by Steven Romain is available on Amazon priced £3.47 in paperback and £2.46 as an eBook.

SISTER SCRIBES GUEST: LORNA COOK ON THE IMPORTANCE OF WRITING BUDDIES

I love this post, it sums up everything I have found to be true of the writing community. After reading and loving The Forgotten Village, I was lucky enough to meet Lorna at the Joan Hessayon Award this year, which she deservedly won. She was an absolute joy – funny, friendly and unassuming – and I cannot wait for her next book. 

 

When I started writing my debut novel, The Forgotten Village, I had zero writing buddies. Not one. I had just had my second child and we were going through that odd stage together where she slept most of the day (and not at all at night!). It left me slightly frazzled, very jaded and I was left to my own devices while my hubby went out to work and I took maternity leave. I joined lots of little groups with my tiny newborn but I sorely missed colleagues. And that joy of real human interaction that has nothing to do with nappy-chat was hard to find.

Don’t get me wrong – I did not go through the equal amounts of pain and joy of writing a novel so I could make chums. That was the happy by-product of this crazy and often misunderstood realm of fiction writing. And it is misunderstood. When I very quietly, very cagily, tell people I write novels it is only because someone has asked me directly ‘So, Lorna, what do you do for a living?’

And then begin the questions about how much I earn and if I am the next JK Rowling. Every single time. Praise be for The Romantic Novelists’ Association. I’m not sure I’d be quite as sane (manic laugh) as I am now without the RNA and the wonderful friends I’ve found there who just get it.  I joined the RNA’s New Writers’ Scheme in 2017 and no one ever made me feel as if I ‘wasn’t quite one of them’, because I was unpublished. I had found likeminded souls, who knew the pain and pleasure of being a novelist. Most of them were also unpublished like me and we’ve had many an hour of gossiping about industry one-to-ones at the RNA conference, about disastrous critiques from independent editors and the sheer joy of meeting new people.

I joined the RNA’s Chelmsford Chapter and was made to feel instantly welcome. I try to make it to all the lunches, which are once a month so I can share in dramas and pain, excitement and what everyone is working on at the mo. It’s brilliant. I always come away motivated. As a result of the Chelmsford Chapter, a few of us have formed a breakaway writing group called … wait for it, ‘Write Club’. You think we’d be better at puns than this – what with being writers, but there it is.  And once a month we meet and share in the ups and downs, as well as helping each other with our current WIPs.

I owe so much of my sanity to the RNA and the friends I’ve found there. Honestly, I don’t know where I’d be without it.

 

LORNA COOK lives by the coast with her husband, daughters and a Staffy named Socks.  She is the 2019 winner of the RNA’s Joan Hessayon Award for her debut novel The Forgotten Village, which sold 150,000 copies and reached Number 1 in the Kindle Chart. Her second novel, The Forbidden Promise, is out in spring 2020. A former journalist and publicist, she owns more cookery books than one woman should and barely gets time to cook.

@LornaCookWriter (Facebook) @LornaCookAuthor (Twitter) @LornaCookAuthor (Instagram)  http://www.lornacookauthor.com

SISTER SCRIBES: KIRSTEN HESKETH IN PRAISE OF WRITING GROUPS

Writing can be a lonely business and much has been written about writers seeking out other writers online. I’m a member of several online writing groups. I’m writing this article as one of the Sister Scribes; five writers who met through the RNA and banded together to become – hopefully – more than the sum of our parts. Then there’s the LLs – aka the Literary Lovelies – a group of writers who met through Twitter. Over the past four years, we’ve chatted most days, virtually cheering each other up and spurring each other on in our quest for world domination … er, publication. Geographically we’re scattered from Devon to Scotland via the home counties and Wales, but everyone makes a real effort to get together for lunch in London and the occasional retreat. Then there’s the informal support group that sprang up during Nano, another one that vents about politics, writers that met at the RNA conference, others that met during a virtual editing course … Wow – reading back through that lot, it’s a wonder I have enough time to do any writing at all!

All these groups have several things in common. We are all novelists- mostly writing romance or sagas or women’s commercial fiction. We are all – with a couple of honourable exceptions – woman. Most are seeking a publishing deal. And we are all – or mostly – ‘of a certain age’!

Which is partly why I love being part of my local writing group. I’ve been a member of Reading Writers for the past three years. It meets on the second and fourth Wednesdays of the month and it is gloriously diverse …. in age, gender and writing predilections. People are writing crime and thrillers, fantasy and sci fi and genres I’d barely heard of before. Many are busy with short stories or flash fiction or poetry or memoir. Lots have – or are planning to – self-publish. Some are biding their time while they learn about the craft of writing.

It all makes for a wonderfully vibrant and exciting group, one that pushes you outside your comfort zone and makes you look at your own writing though fresh eyes. I’ve written before about our ad hoc writing sessions in Coppa Club where a small group of us will meet for a morning to put our writing worlds to rights – before cracking on with the wordcount. A workshop on poetry and another on writing using all the senses really encouraged me to reassess my prose. The one on plotting had me stocking up on multi-coloured Post It Notes. Everyone other meeting is a ‘manuscript night’ where you are encouraged to submit 1,000 words of your WIP – the feedback is robust but invaluable – for example, last time, the 20 and 30 year olds in the group told me exactly why and how the online dating world is not how I had described it #imadinosaur #whoknew?. There have been book launches and pub visits and days out and going to the pantomime that one of the members had written.

And the competitions! Twice my short stories have come second – anonymously judged by external authors or journalists – and both times it was genuinely thrilling – the first and only times my writing has ever won anything. The certificates still have pride of place on the fridge.

All in all, it’s a fabulous group and I’m very proud to be a member of it.

The current treasurer’s a bit rubbish though 😉