Tag Archives: Margaret Graham

Business of Books: So Much to Give – Part 1

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Jane Cable on how authors get together to support charities

It’s that time of year again. The time when Chindi Authors stand outside the Cancer Research UK shop in Arundel for ten whole days during the town’s festival trying to sell books. Not an easy task when the second hand offerings inside are so much cheaper, but we stick at it because we can add to the coffers of this excellent cause, promote our own books and meet readers.

We know we’ll be well supported by our members and local people, but organiser romantic novelist and kidlit writer Carol Thomas was asked by author contacts up and down the country if they could donate too. While she did the charitable thing and set up a donation page – http://www.carol-thomas.co.uk/Chindi-cruk/ – her generosity simply got me thinking about how much writers achieve when they band together for good causes.

The most high profile recent example of this was the Authors for Grenfell online auction which attracted pledges of more than £150,000, over £30,000 of which was for Philip Pullman to name a character after one of the young victims of the fire. Quirky lots did well too, with conductor and writer Lev Parikian putting together a package which bridged both his worlds: “I offered signed books and (more importantly on this occasion, I think) conducting lessons. A bidding war between three people meant we raised £1,700.”

 

CLIC Sargent runs an annual ‘Get in Character’ eBay auction where authors such as crime writer E V Seymour and novelist and poet Claire Dyer have offered bidders a range of lots including – you guessed it – having a character in a book named after them. Critiques prove equally popular and previous Business of Books guest Karen King (https://www.frostmagazine.com/2017/04/how-to-have-more-than-100-titles-published/) offered one in the Authors for Refugees auction last year, an initiative which raised £22,000.

 

Another way of writers getting together to raise money is by giving their time to contribute to and to edit anthologies for causes as diverse as cancer and heart charities, earthquake appeals, women’s rescues and hospices. Some have very personal links to the cause, including saga writer Elaine Everest (also a previous Business of Books guest): “I organised and edited the anthology ‘Diamonds and Pearls’ (Accent Press) to celebrate my 30th anniversary of surviving breast cancer (7 years ago) with funds going to Against Breast Cancer.”

 

Crime & thriller writer Jane Risdon is a serial contributor to anthologies, supporting amongst others Women for Women, Breakthrough, Women’s Aid, The Norfolk Hospice, The Princess Alice Hospice and Save The Children. She was slightly upset when there was no thanks from certain charities, but would still do it again. Other authors say that smaller charities are more responsive than the larger ones so they prefer to work with these.

 

Some writers go the whole nine yards and get together to form charities of their own. A prime example of this is saga writer and Frost contributing editor, Margaret Graham, who together with Jan Speedie and Penny Deacon set up Words for the Wounded which exists to raise funds for injured service personnel through writing prizes and events. It’s a wonderful organisation and every penny goes directly to the people who need it. Authors can help in a variety of ways – Chindi raised almost a thousand pounds by organising a litfest, others give their time to speak at events or in my case I donate £1 for every Amazon review of my book Another You. Find out more about W4W here: http://www.wordsforthewounded.co.uk/.

 

 

The Business of Books: Jane Cable Gets Distracted But Finds She is Not Alone

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Jane Cable gets distracted but finds she is not alone

It’s a small miracle you are reading this article at all, to be honest – and great credit to writer friends who have rallied around to provide me with some content. The thing is, last week I moved house. Long distance and for the first time in over twenty years. Not only did time become an issue, but the mental effort turned my brain into a huge mass of Cornish clotted cream.

I am not the only author suffering from a life event at the moment. Frost’s own Margaret Graham has been in the wars but in typical fashion is seeing the positive: “Falling into a wall recently and breaking my shoulder not only put one hand out of use but a whole brain, it seems to me. I feel that actually giving it a rest is probably not a bad thing. You will find that creativity is better for a bit of a holiday.”

Writer of historical fiction, Rosemary Noble, is also good at seeing the upside of potentially distracting events. “Sometimes you can avoid the stress by burying yourself in writing. I’m thinking of trying to sell my mother’s flat to pay for her care home. The only way I got through that 12 months was writing,” she told me.

There are some everyday distractions which make the list too. Day jobs (most writers have them), family commitments, lack of sleep, paying the bills – even social media – all sap creative energy. Sometimes the good things do as well. Ghost writer and freelance wordsmith Sue Kelso Ryan cited her dog as the biggest culprit – and it was a great excuse to use her lovely picture as well.

Which just goes to show that good things interrupt our writing too. “Having twins,” says media medic and women’s fiction author Carol Cooper. “That knocked writing on the head for a few months. And illness/surgery. You resent having to rest or slow down because it stops you writing.” Although she did manage to create a top-selling practical parenting guide about her experiences once she was able to find the time.

Crises involving other family members which hit without warning seem to have the biggest effect, as fantasy & romance writer and brand strategist Amy Tipper-Hale has just found out: “My boyfriend breaking his leg in Milan after being run over by a motorcyclist, and me having to fly over to be with him so he wasn’t entirely stranded…I thought I’d have plenty of time to write, but it ended up being stressful and exhausting – my mind all over the place, and not a single word written…except this.” Luckily the patient is now at home – and hopefully Amy will get back to writing again soon too.

As for me, now I have unpacked my desk and settled it into its new location, I need to have a plan. I’ve been sitting on the edit notes for my current manuscript for a month or so and my brain is just starting to tick over them. And one thing this house move is meant to achieve is more time to write. Fingers crossed I can make it happen.

As well as those mentioned above, my thanks also go to Barbara Copperthwaite, Victoria Cornwall, Morton S Gray, Wersha Bharadwa, Carol Thomas and Clare Ruel for their contributions.

 

 

A Day in the Life of Victoria Fox

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I wake up, wondering why I’m not on a beach in the Seychelles. Where is the sound of the ocean, the gentle sway of my hammock? This is the life a bonkbuster author ought to have: glamour, cocktails, lazy mornings spent penning a chapter in my satin bathrobe, all elegant turban and painted nails… Or maybe a gilded office in an LA mansion, surrounded by glossy ornamental panthers, à la the late, great Jackie Collins.

A Day in the Life of Victoria Fox1The reality is neither of these things. Instead, it’s downstairs in my Bristol cottage to warm a bottle of milk for my one-year-old. She’s already singing to herself, talking to her toys Michael, Jean and Trudi (I have to give proper names to every toy she owns, I don’t know why: she has a Duncan, for heaven’s sake). It takes us a long time to get dressed, interspersed as this is with removing every book I own from the bookshelves and having a good rummage in my underwear drawer), and all the while I’m imagining what happens next in my book. This was a trick an author friend told me a while back: when time is tight and opportunities are few, write the story in your head. That way, when you do get a chance to sit down and get to grips with the word count, it’s all there waiting for you. (This is advice I’d give any aspiring writer, by the way. Whether you’re on the bus, doing the washing up or queueing at the supermarket, write it in your head. It makes that blinking cursor much less scary.)

 

We go for a walk in the morning, up the hill to look at the lake. It’s beautiful, sunny, and there are a few sailboats on the water. I’m hoping she’ll drop off to sleep so I can sneak back and do an hour’s writing, but invariably she’s still babbling about something or other by the time we get home. Perhaps we’ll see a friend before lunch, or build that tower of colourful blocks for the six hundred and sixteenth time.

A Day in the Life of Victoria Fox2Ah, a nap! Early afternoon and I sit down to write. It pours out – and, oh, it’s nice to think about something that has nothing at all to do with babies. For a precious forty-five minutes, I’m whisked away to Italy (where my next book is set), drifting through the grounds of a fragrant Tuscan villa and getting lost in the lemon groves. Maybe I’ll answer some interview questions on my latest novel The Santiago Sisters, and immediately I’m transported back to Argentina, where the story begins and where I went on honeymoon. It seems a world away, before I even knew my daughter. In Patagonia, we rode horses and camped beneath the stars. I was always destined to know her, I realise: she was always in my stars.

 

Speaking of which, there she is, a squeak from upstairs. I’ve missed her a little and scoop her up for a hug. We decide to go to the zoo. She enjoys pointing at a gorilla, who is not impressed, and then she talks all the way home in the car: there are important messages to communicate but I have no idea what they are. I make the most of playing my music, because before long I’ll start getting requests from the crowd.

 

My husband comes home early evening. He asks me about my day. Judging by the washing up in the sink and the remnants of supper on the high chair, it looks like any other day. But I did get a mini-break to Italy, and to South America…and maybe tomorrow will be the same.

 

Victoria Fox’s The Santiago Sisters is out now.

 

 

Best Endeavours Book Blogging Best: Jane Cable on what happens once that digital publishing deal is in the bag continues.

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janecablenewbookwriterBEST ENDEAVOURS

Jane Cable’s blog about what happens once that digital publishing deal is in the bag continues.

BOOK BLOGGING BEST

It wasn’t how I’d expected to find out that Another You was live on Amazon. It was just a hint, really, in an email from Endeavour. The lovely Dorset author Rosanna Ley had given me a cover quote for the book so I’d passed it on. Only to receive the reply that the Amazon description would be changed but it might take twenty-four hours to update.

I was straight on the internet and searching. Yes – there it was. Pristine, undownloaded, unnoticed. Just how I wanted it to be.

Nevertheless I sprang into action. My Amazon author profile needed updating and the book linked to it. My web designer needed a prod… but only because she’d been moving house and once she realised the urgency she rushed to publish the updates.

I also needed to tell the bloggers signed up for the tour. I’d envisaged tying it in with a January launch but it was becoming clear there was no way I could keep my promotional powder dry for that long. So I consulted and we’ve agreed that it doesn’t matter so very much and we’ll probably go for early February. It’s an enviable line up of premier British book bloggers including Rosie Amber, Liz Loves Books, Linda’s Book Bag, Being Anne and Jaffa Reads Too.

The next question was review copies. With my previous titles I relied heavily on Netgalley – and Netgalley promotions – to reach anyone who may want to review the book. Matador had made them available for four to six weeks but Endeavour’s policy is just seven days – and the clock started ticking on Friday. My next task was to reach every blogger who’d shown an interest in my books in the past; by email, through Twitter – even Goodreads (although Goodreads frown on this sort of behaviour) just to let them know the book was there. Some weren’t interested but overall the response has been really good. And of course I’m tweeting the link to the Netgalley download as often as I dare.

Jane Cable, publishing, writing

Regular readers of Frost will know my connections with Margaret Graham’s charity, Words for the Wounded, and I had always intended to use the book to raise funds and awareness. Not just because I believe in it, but because a major character in Another You is a soldier suffering from the aftereffects of combat. So what I have decided to do is to donate £1 for every review of the book on Amazon in the UK and the US. For more information on the hows and whys, please visit my article on Words for the Wounded’s own blogspot:http://wordsforthewounded.blogspot.co.uk/

In the middle of all this activity, sometime on Sunday evening, the book escaped. It was being downloaded, beginning to achieve an Amazon ranking. So there was no point in keeping quiet about it anymore. Which leaves me with quite a long to do list for this week.

Happy Christmas everyone!

Jane Cable is the author of two independently published romantic suspense novels, The Cheesemaker’s House and The Faerie Tree, and a sporadic contributor to Frost. Another You tells the tale of how chance meetings on the 60th anniversary of D-Day help forty-something Marie Johnson to rebuild her shattered confidence and find new love. Discover more at www.janecable.com.

Gransthread: Roots, and how many of us revisit them? By Margaret Graham

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It’s strange to return to our ‘roots’. This weekend we took a train to Newcastle, which is where my mum, a Geordie, had one of the few pleasurable experiences in her young life. Her dad took her to see Peter Pan in between the wars, and a short while later, he died.

 

Mum was born in 1914 in the pit village of Washington, which was then in County Durham. Her Da wasn’t a pitman but he and his brother ran a couple of shops. Mum’s was in Brady Square, which still exists in Washington Station, though as a house. Her mum died when mum was two. My grandma, Annie, was off her head with sepsis and took poison. Mum’s dad was at war, Mum’s brother, my uncle Stan, was seven.

 

We think times are hard now, but you ain’t seen nothing, if you weren’t living then. The depression was in high gear, war trauma was rife, jobs were scarce. My grandfather killed himself when mum was eleven, soon after he had taken his children to Peter Pan. Post Traumatic Stress, which is one of the reasons I started the charity Words for the Wounded.

 

I’m not really sure of sections of my mother’s life, but I do know she ran amuck as an orphan until a cousin came to Washington from Gosforth, looking for her. This cousin took mum, now 14, to live with her, sending her to school. Into a class of 7 year olds little Annie Newsome (as she was called) went, to learn to read and write. In time Mum, also an Annie, trained as a nurse.

 

She worked at the Royal Victoria Hospital as the 2nd World War broke out, and is mentioned in Brenda McBryde’s book, A Nurse’s War. Mum became a military nurse, travelled to India to look after the troops in the Burma campaign, meeting my dad, an RAF pilot, on the convoy going over.

 

As children my sisters and I used to go to Uncle Stan’s shop for our school holidays. It was the shop where my grandfather died. It is now a house and we were shown round by the current owner last year. My mother would have been sitting up on a cloud roaring with laughter, because he told us the shop was bought on my uncle’s death by a Madam, who ran a knocking shop, until closed down by the police. She spent a bit of time in clink and featured in a national newspaper. Tall story or the truth? Who knows.

 

Anyway, now I go up north as often as I can. It has changed beyond measure. The pits are gone, the slag heaps too. It is steadily regenerating. Though it has changed it is still ‘home’ and to arrive is a relief, to leave is not. It is an area that informed my writing. Indeed, my first novel After the Storm was based on events in mum’s life. My writing gave my mum immense pleasure. She liked to paint, my father wrote poetry. Perhaps between them they gave me a talent, but it was the north east which gave me inspiration, and continues to do so.

 

www.wordsforthewounded.co.uk

www.margaret-graham.com

 

 

Legacy by Hannah Fielding Review by Contributing Editor & author Margaret Graham

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legacy-by-hannah-fielding-reviewAward winning romance novelist, Hannah Fielding, has written the third book in her Andalucian Nights Trilogy and her readers will be relieved and excited to know that this epic, Legacy, is written with all the verve of her previous novels.

 

I say epic because it has a sweeping plot and setting. The author’s ability to sustain the story line and amalgamate the two main characters is impressive. Her setting is active. By this I mean that her descriptions don’t just sit like a sack of potatoes, but are interwoven into an action so they don’t stop the pace. She doesn’t however ignore the need for a pause to empathise with the setting, or for the reader to process a scene. This is something I try to encourage in those I mentor: pace is important, but so is pause.

 

She also ‘holds back’. This means that the reader has to wait for facts, secrets, feelings to be revealed, and this is an excellent use of tension. Fielding does this extremely well.

 

So, the plot in a nutshell: Luna Ward, a beautiful blonde journalist based in New York is commissioned to investigate – undercover –  the head of an  alternative health clinic in Spain. As one might expect she finds the man she has been asked to expose irresistible but  is he good, or bad? And what does her deception make her?

 

Secrets and lies threaten to destroy their lives, not to mention their love. So…?

 

Oh no, read it and see.

 

Hannah Fielding’s novel The Echoes of Love won first place in the Romance category at the Independent Publisher Book Award in New York in 2014, and in 2015 Indiscretion won 2015 USA Best Book Award for Romantic Fiction, and in April 2016  Gold Medal and Masquerade won silver medal for romance at the IPBA Benjamin Franklin Awards.

 

Frost Magazine is really excited that Hannah will be telling our readers of A Day in her Life very soon. Make sure you keep an eye out.

 

Legacy by Hannah Fielding  is published by London Wall Publishing.  £7.99

 

 

BEST ENDEAVOURS: Best Of Days: Jane Cable’s Digital Publishing Journey

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Jane Cable, publishing, writingBEST ENDEAVOURS

Jane Cable’s blog about what happens once that digital publishing deal is in the bag continues.

BEST OF DAYS

That’s it – the manuscript has been emailed to Endeavour and acknowledged. In four to six weeks I’ll know how much more work I have to do.

So how do I feel? Exhausted – and suddenly very uncertain about my book. Of course the logical part of my mind tells me to get a grip; all I’ve done is a little tweaking and tidying up – they’ve read The Seahorse Summer, for goodness sake – and they’ve bought the rights. So of course it’s going to be fine. The tired, emotional part of my brain, however, is so mashed up I got motion sickness on the elevator in Sainsburys. No kidding.

But last night in my favourite pub, The Victory Inn at Towan Cross in Cornwall, an important aspect of my book was validated when conversation around the bar fell to a former soldier who was going badly off the rails. In so many ways they could have been talking about one of the two GIs in my book, Paxton.

Now when you tackle a subject like combat stress it’s important to get it right. I was lucky enough to be introduced to a former para turned fitness instructor who was prepared to tell me what he’d seen and heard from the soldiers under his care in Afghanistan after they came home from setting up Camp Bastion. The sense of isolation when separated from their unit on leave. The struggle returning to normal family life and relationships after all they’d experienced. How combat can scar a man in ways unseen. How fireworks are never the same again.

publishing, writing

Readers of Frost will be no strangers to Words for The Wounded, the charity set up by author and contributing editor Margaret Graham. The charity supports soldiers suffering from combat stress and I very much hope that I can do something with The Seahorse Summer that can help them in this work.

In the meantime, with the editing finished, what now? Feet up for a while? Not a chance… there’s a huge ‘to do’ list of tasks which have been swept to one side and too long ignored; a vast amount of marketing to be done – both in advance of The Seahorse Summer and for The Cheesemaker’s House and The Faerie Tree which have been sliding down the Kindle charts while I’ve been busy editing; and, of course, picking up the threads of my current manuscript again.

But as for today? I’m on the north Cornish coast and the sun is shining. Quite honestly, I think I deserve a little break.

 

Jane Cable is the author of two independently published romantic suspense novels, The Cheesemaker’s House and The Faerie Tree, and a sporadic contributor to Frost. The Seahorse Summer tells the tale of how two American soldiers born sixty years apart help forty-something Marie Johnson to rebuild her shattered confidence and find new love. Discover more at www.janecable.com.

 

 

 

The Late Summer Sun is a Great Excuse for a Cocktail

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However, cocktails are a bit of a fiddle aren’t they? No, no,  not always it seems. Try these recipes which hit the spot and take no time at all. They are ideal for accompanying a September BBQ or, if autumn arrives, ask the gang over and have one, at least, before a roast dinner.

All Star Martini

This refreshing martini has been created by All Star Lanes, Brick Lane, East London, using J.J. Whitley Rhubarb Vodka who have created a range of spirits inspired by the British countryside. The Rhubarb Vodka really is reminiscent of freshly picked rhubarb, is a delicate colour and ideal as a cocktail base. So here we go:

the-late-summer-sun-is-a-great-excuse-for-a-cocktail-by-margaret-graham2

Ingredients (single serve): 25ml J.J. Whitley Rhubarb Vodka, 25ml J.J. Whitley London Dry Gin, dash of Fee Brothers Plum Bitters, 10ml fresh lemon juice, 5ml vanilla and passion fruit syrup, 10ml pressed apple juice, shot of Prosecco, a dried lemon wheel, dehydrated cornflower petals (or other edible dried flowers)

Method: Put all ingredients, except the prosecco into a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake and strain into a coupette. Garnish with the lemon and petals and serve with a chilled shot of prosecco.

And what about this:

the-late-summer-sun-is-a-great-excuse-for-a-cocktail-by-margaret-graham4

Botanical Martini

This gin lover’s dream has been created by popular Manchester cocktail bar, Tusk. The Botanical Martini is made using Whitley Neill, a premium gin inspired by Africa and carefully blended with nine botanicals, including the superfruit baobab which has six times more vitamin C than an orange.

Ingredients (single serve): 50ml Whitley Neill Gin, 10ml Noily Prat, dash Peychaud’s Bitters

Method: Stir the ingredients together and pour into a coupette glass- what could be more simple, especially if you have had a few of the others first!

Liverpool Gin G & T
cocktailsrecipescocktailrecipes

My parents spent quite a long time in India. In fact I was born there. They swore by a gin and tonic as the sun went over the yard arm, and trust me, this  is a very fine gin. Founded at the Bankhall distillery in Liverpool, Liverpool Gin is premium spirit handcrafted in a copper still. This small batch, aromatic gin recreates flavours of the past with the finest organic botanicals. Believe me,  you can almost see the ships masts in the port, the warehouses filled with spices, juniper, sugar cane. It really is one of the finest gins I have tasted.

Ingredients (single serve): 50ml Liverpool Gin, 100ml Fever Tree Tonic, wheel of orange and spring of mint

Method: Pour the gin and tonic over ice and garnish

Cheers everyone – enjoy.

You can buy J.J. Whitley Rhubarb Vodka from Amazon for £27.24 for 70cl. @JJ_WhitleyUK   facebook.com/JJWhitleyUK

Whitley Neill is available in Sainsbury’s and Tesco as well as Drinksupermarket.com for £23.29, 70cl. @WhitleyNeill  facebook.com/WhitleyNeill

Liverpool Gin is available from The Whisky Exchange for £44.95, 70cl. @LiverpoolGin  facebook.com/liverpoolgin

J.J. Whitley, Whitley Neill and Liverpool Gin are crafted and distributed by Halewood Wines & Spirits. (www.halewood-int.com)