Being a writer isn't all about sitting in a garret

Being a writer isn't all about sitting in a garret or some other lonely and isolated place, producing words and hoping that eventually you will end up with a book that people want to read. Sometimes they let us out. The past weekend was one of those times. 

Last Thursday morning, with excitement and expectation levels considerably raised, I met several friends at Euston Station in London and travelled with them to the Romantic Novelists’ Association annual conference in Lancaster. I knew I was going to have a good time. I always do. The amazing Jan Jones has been organising this event for years and her attention to detail is unbelievable. I honestly don’t know how she does it but I do know she has to put the rest of her life on hold to achieve what she does. We owe her a debt that’s impossible to exaggerate.

The Incomparable Jan Jones

On arrival, we collected the keys and went to our designated flat – student accommodation with eight bedrooms and a shared kitchen. Since everyone else was in the same fever of anticipation as I was, any observer might have been forgiven for thinking we were of the age when the majority of students would be attending university. Our majority was something we’d all attained several years ago! We were familiar with the campus, having been there three years earlier and that gave it, for me at least, a feeling of coming home. It not being term time and the facilities being self-catering, we found ourselves without any equipment in the kitchen and I’m sad to say I purloined some plastic cups when we went back to the hub at the George Fox building. Well, students we may have been for the weekend but too old to drink from the bottle. The wine bottle, that is. Somehow it’s different when it’s beer.

Nicola Cornick

I'll skip over the next twelve hours or so as we bedded in and move to Friday when the conference proper began, starting with the AGM. It being an election year, the chair passed seamlessly from Nicola Cornick (huge thanks for everything she's done for the organisation during her tenure) to Alison May (good luck to her and looking forward to seeing her achievements over the next two years). 

Alison May

And this is where in many ways it all becomes a bit of a blur. Panel talks; Q&As; workshops; Quiz the Agents; In conversation with… So many choices and mostly three at the same time. Now you tell me, how do you choose when you want to go to everything? No, I didn’t know how to either! In between all that, if you were lucky enough to have booked, there was the opportunity, organised again this year by Elaine Everest, of having a ten minute one2one with Industry Professionals. Arranging this too is a monumental task and I know Elaine spends hours and hours liaising with IPs and delegates to ensure it all runs smoothly. This particular element of the conference is priceless to any writer and several very happy people were given invaluable advice or asked to submit their full manuscript. And that’s how it was, full on, with a lot of food and visits to the bar, until suddenly it was Saturday evening and time for the Gala Dinner. Below are my dinner companions and flat mates.

Elaine Roberts and Viv Brown

Viv Brown, Rosemary Goodacre, Sarah Stephenson and Catherine Burrows

Natalie Kleinman and Francesca Burgess

Rosemary Goodacre, Sarah Stephenson, Catherine Burrows and Elaine Everest

AND THEN THERE WAS THE FLAT PARTY! Nobody hammered on the wall or banged on the ceiling so we can’t have been THAT noisy. This was the best flat party ever although it might have been quite painful to any listener with an ear for music as we sang our way around the table time after time with songs from the shows, films and popular solo artists and groups. Failing to answer a question or identify a song resulted in having to take a sip of wine. There was one member in our flat whom I wouldn’t dream of naming, who professed she didn’t know the answers and was therefore obliged to drink during every single round. She’s only a little person. I am in awe of her capacity.

Sunday came and once more we were up with the lark, though possibly a little jaded, only to return once more to the hub for more sessions during the morning. And all at once, for those not staying for the Sunday Extra, it was all over and time to go home. Hugs and goodbyes to friends old and new and we were on our way, very tired, very happy and up to here with an input of information which it will take (me at least) some time to assimilate.

Thank you to everyone who worked so hard to make this thing work and thanks to all the delegates, without whom there would be no conference. We did have fun, didn’t we?

All photos courtesy of John Jackson. Thank you, John. 

So now I’m back in my garret but filled with inspiration

See you next year.

Natalie

PS My apologies for the strange formatting. I tried. Honestly I did!

Where did the time go?

It’s been a while. Far too long. But not for one moment does it mean I have nothing to say – as if that was ever going to happen!

Like the whole of 2019, these past few weeks have whizzed by and I find it hard to believe that it’s been eight weeks since I last posted. As I write this evening, it is now July and half the year has gone. So what have I been doing?

Something monumental (for me) happened on 18^th May which I splashed all over Facebook and Twitter but in my excitement omitted to shout about here on my own page. So, are you ready? Here goes then. I entered into a four book contract with Sapere Books. FOUR! I really wanted to put the whole of that sentence in capital letters because that’s what it feels like. Okay, I must lower my voice and calm down a bit. But that’s easier said than done. Why? Because these are my Regencies. 

This fabulous publisher is going to launch my books in a way that a debutante might have been launched into Society in the eighteen hundreds and I could not be more excited. You can find my page on their website here

This is the genre I most like to read, but I began my career by writing contemporary romantic fiction. With three books published I needed a pretty good reason to change direction. I enjoyed working in ‘real’ time. For one thing, there was little intensive research involved. I could rely on things I knew and could see. All I had to do was tell the story. I say all but, as any author will tell you, it isn’t quite that simple. Nevertheless it was fun, it was rewarding and I would have been quite happy to have continued in that vein.

Only something was pulling me in another direction, and tugging hard. As a teenager, my mother introduced me to the novels of Georgette Heyer, me and my sister both. Over the years my taste in reading has been quite catholic, though I gave up on horror a long time ago as it gave me nightmares. A good thriller, though, a Sci-Fi, comedy, tragedy…they were all in the mix but never have I encountered another author whose books I have read time and time again with equal and sometimes increasing enjoyment. Heyer does that for me.

As a romance writer, there is to me no more romantic age than that of the English Regency. Could I dip my quill into the inkpot and produce something of the era? The question demanded an answer and I had to try and it seemed that once I began to write I couldn’t stop. On 25^th April last year, The Ghost of Glendale was published. There are now three others waiting to follow and the next is already begun.

Sometimes life hands us a gift. There are occasionally days when I do not write but they are few and far between. Weaving stories is a delightful pastime but when it’s your work as well you are truly lucky. I hope you enjoy mine.

Till next time

Natalie