Two-Faced - But in a Good Way

It’s been said that as one door closes another opens. Janus, Roman god of gates and doors was depicted as having two faces, one casting his eyes back and one looking to the future. It takes no great stretch of the imagination then to understand why the month of January is said to be named for him.

Looking back 2017 was another busy year for me and I was thrilled when my third book, Escape to the Cotswolds, was published by HQ | HarperCollins on 21^st June. Here is the blurb:

Artist Holly Hunter is turning her life upside-down! She’s leaving the bright lights of London (and a cheating husband) behind her and hoping for a fresh start as she escapes to the peaceful Cotswolds countryside.

Men are off the cards for Holly. Instead, she’s focusing on her little gallery and adopting an adorable Border Collie puppy named Tubs. Or so she thought…

Because no matter how hard she tries to resist him, local vet Adam Whitney is utterly gorgeous. And in a village as small as this one, Holly can only avoid Adam for so long!

Later in the year and never one to turn down a challenge, I picked up the gauntlet and in November completed the NaNoWriMo challenge to write 50,000 words in a month. You can read about my before and after experiences here and here.

Now it’s a new year and, like one of Janus’s faces, I am looking forward. And with no little excitement either. I have renewed my love affair with short stories and today sees the publication of Some Time Alone in the People’s Friend Special #151. This, appropriately enough, is about a new beginning and is set in my favourite area of the country in the same fictional village as my book, Escape to the Cotswolds, but with different characters.   

The exhilaration continues next week on 11^th January when my Pocket Novel, The Ghost of Glendale, will be on a supermarket shelf near you. DC Thomson have produced this beautiful cover for my romantic Regency ghost story. Here is a taster:

At twenty-four years old, Phoebe Marcham is resigned to spinsterhood, unwilling to settle for less than the deep love her parents had shared. That is until adventurer Duncan Armstrong rides into her home wood, larger than life and with laughter in his eyes and more charm in his little finger than anyone she has ever previously known. Far from ridiculing her family ghost, Duncan resolves to help solve the mystery which has left Simon Marcham a soul in torment for two hundred years.

For those of you who know me or follow my blog it will come as no surprise that I am particularly thrilled with this one as I have a lifelong love of the period having been practically weaned on Georgette Heyer’s wonderful novels. And I have recorded the whole series of Pride and Prejudice (Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle) to watch yet again. And I watched Sense and Sensibility and Persuasion during the holiday period. What can I say? I’m a total fan.

So what, you might ask, has happened to all those words written for the NaNoWriMo challenge? This is still a work in progress. I’m hoping to complete the first draft by the end of the month. The synopsis is written, the first three chapters are ready to go but there are subplots and editing to deal with before I have a completed manuscript.

All the while in the background are short story ideas and novel plots waiting to take shape and form. Then there is the RNA Conference to look forward to together with workshops and writing retreats. A busy 2018 in prospect. Would I have it any other way? Definitely not. I love what I do. I hope you do too.

Wishing all my readers, friends and family aspiration, inspiration, joy and peace. Happy New Year to one and all. 

Before NaNoWriMo

Don’t you just love a challenge? Well I suppose really it depends on the nature of the task in hand. If it’s physical violence you can count me out straight away. If it’s a crossword or a puzzle of some nature bring it on. But what if it’s a challenge that you want on the one hand to embrace and on the other to run away from, a very long way away from. Such for me is the nature of NaNoWriMo.

NoNoWriMo Shield
I'm loving the steaming
mug of coffee

For those who don’t know, this is an abbreviation for National Novel Writing Month. It happens in November and has done for several years now. The aim is to write the first draft of a novel. The target fifty thousand words. To save you doing the calculation I can tell you that equates with 1,666 words a day, every day. Take a day off and you have to make up the shortfall, though to prevent this happening it’s better if you can stack some extra words away in the first few days. Much easier than having a deficit and trying to catch up.

My first attempt at this challenge was in 2012 and I reached over thirty-seven thousand words before having to withdraw for personal reasons. I am happy to say that the book I began then went on to be published…eventually. There are many helpful pointers on the website https://nanowrimo.org/about so if you too like a challenge I’m throwing down the gauntlet. It focuses the mind and the feeling of achievement is well worth the effort involved.

If, like me, you write by the seat of your pants, with maybe just a few notes and pointers, then NaNoWriMo will suit you down to the ground. I have done some plotting but it isn’t detailed so perhaps I’ve got to the stage where I fall between two stools – neither plotter nor pantser but something somewhere between the two. There isn’t really time to refine the writing as you go though, as with my daily grind, I always read the previous day’s work before continuing. For one thing it takes you straight back into the plot and for another, well actually I can’t work without doing some editing as I go along.

If you are a plotter then I’ve left this post a bit late for you. However, it may be that you already have plans in place for your novel in which case go for it if you can. I only decided a week or so ago to participate again this year and I already had several commitments in my calendar for the coming month, but then it’s difficult to clear any month completely. I shall be scribbling furiously on my laptop – yeah, I know, doesn’t make sense – at every opportunity because falling behind is the one thing I really don’t want to do.

I sincerely hope that by 11.59pm on 30^th November I will have reached my goal. That is my aim but even if I don’t achieve it I expect to have a large chunk to take forward that will eventually become my next novel. I’ll let you know how I get on.