The Joan Hessayon Award and Romantic Novelists' Association

Colour Clash!

Hopefully every day of one’s life has some special element about it but for me last Thursday was way up there.

By now there have been many posts, pictures and comments on the Romantic Novelists’ Association’s Summer Party but I’d like to give you my take on it. The build up to this particular event has been long – and I’m not referring to all the hard work put in by the organisers. I won’t mention names here as I’m bound to leave someone out and I don’t want to upset anybody.

RNA parties are always great! Always! Well, the five I’ve been to anyway. The Royal Over-Seas League, London is a fantastic venue and the atmosphere ever electric. This time was different though. This time I was a contender for the coveted Joan Hessayon Award, so kindly sponsored every year by Dr David Hessayon in memory of his wife Joan.

Class of 2015

There were fourteen of what should have been fifteeen in the line-up this year (sadly Heather Rosser was absent due to ill health) and we’d all known for some time that we would be on the list. The competition is for members of the New Writers' Scheme who graduate with a novel that went through the scheme to publication. Having one’s first book published is monumental and I don’t imagine any writer would deny the magnitude of the thrill of knowing your work has been recognised. To stand in a large reception room with the other graduates in a space that was filled with our peers, some published, some yet to be, as well as agents and editors, all happy for our success, was an experience I will never forget.

The photo shoot (I believe that’s what it’s called) was an experience in itself as the contenders gathered before the event for individual and group pictures. Some of the authors I had met before, some I hadn’t, but the bonding that took place in that short time was tangible and it was a thrill to be in the company of such lovely people. The photographer, and I’ve seen her at previous parties, is amazing. A lovely personality and so good at her job.

With my agent, Lisa Eveleigh
of the Richford Becklow Literary Agency

We moved into the reception to mingle with the more than two hundred people attending. There are a few prerequisites to attending an RNA party. One needs to be able to hold a glass in one hand and a canapé in the other; have a keen eye or the ability to ask people their name without embarrassment - even if you have met them several time before - if you are unable to read it on their badge. I know this will touch a chord with others as I am aware I’m not the only one who can’t put names to faces. Nobody is offended. It is also sometimes necessary to get close up and personal as it’s almost impossible to hear oneself speak, never mind the man or woman who is talking to you.

Little groups of friends often form themselves naturally but past attendees were on the lookout for name tags with a gold sticker attached. These indicated first timers and organiser Sally Quilford (okay, so I have mentioned a name after all) had thoughtfully asked us to be aware and make welcome anyone who might be on their own and a little bit anxious. What a thoughtful thing to do.

With my certificate
Proud or What!

In due course the contenders for the award were called to the front of the room and assembled before a large white board. Fourteen glammed up ladies in a row, everyone a winner just for being there, each stepping forward one pace as new Chair, Eileen Ramsey, read a short blurb about their book, the cover of which was flashed up onto the screen together with an image of the author. My own book, Safe Harbour,can be seen here in the right hand banner.

Brigid Coady
Winner - Joan Hessayon Award 2015

Then Eileen announced the overall winner, a delighted and emotional Brigid Coady, for No One Wants to be Miss Havisham – how fantastic a title is that. I wish her every luck and success in the future.

It’s very difficult to put into words – and me a writer – the pride I felt at being part of this wonderful annual event. It felt like an American-style graduation, standing up there with the rest. Hell, it was a graduation! If we’d been wearing mortar boards we would have flung them into the air. Well done everyone in the Class of 2015.

My thanks to the RNA, Elaine Everest and Vivien Hampshire who supplied images for me. I didn’t take a single one myself. 

Finally, were you there? I'd love you to share your own experience. You weren't? Then I hope to see you next year or perhaps at the Winter Party on 18th November. I can promise you a great time.

Natalie Kleinman

And Now For My Next Trick

There comes a time when you have to push the send key. You’ve laughed with your characters. You’ve cried with your characters. Sometimes you may even have wanted to wring their necks. You know your book inside out. You’ve been pouring your heart into it for months – if you haven’t you shouldn’t be calling yourself a writer. But the day arrives when, like a child, you have to fire it off into the outside world. And then you wait. This piece is not about what happens to it next. It’s out of your hands, at least until the time (you hope) when someone says they are interested. By then of course you are totally immersed in what happened after you hit the send key and perhaps you struggle even to remember the names of those characters you knew so well. You are several chapters into your next book.

A week ago my finger was hovering. All my courage was not in both hands but in that suspended digit. Could I do more? Almost certainly I could but there comes a time…I pushed. I was comforted by the thought that I might be able to some extent to put it out of my mind rather than open my mailbox first thing in the morning and look at it last thing at night in a fever of anticipation. Who am I kidding? I always boot up at the start of the day and stay on line till I go to bed. Only a week later it’s far too early to become feverish – and in any case I have work to do.

In the weeks leading up to submission I was quite sure I knew what my next project was going to be. A book, all eighty-two thousand words of it, not hidden in the bottom drawer but laid aside because I knew it needed a lot of work and what I thought was destined to be my entry for the Romantic Novelists’ Association New Writers’ Scheme (NWS) couldn’t possibly be finished in time. I turned to another ‘laid aside’ manuscript and I’m delighted to say it afforded me publication and graduation from the NWS.  

Now, I thought last Tuesday, almost rubbing my hands together, I can get back to Daisy. Only something happened to rock that particular boat. In the novel class at The Write Place Creative Writing School, Elaine Everest set us some homework. Regardless of what we were working on at the time we were tasked with writing an outline of our next novel. Of its own volition a new idea jumped front and centre into my mind. Where did that come from? Do we write our own books or do they write themselves. I don’t know. What I do know is that poor Daisy has once again been laid aside as excitement mounts. Even in this short time my hero and heroine are familiar. Already I know their hopes and fears, their strengths and weaknesses. So chapter breakdown is next on my agenda. I’m less of a planner than a panster but I do need some sort of structure. Hopefully it won’t be long before I’m typing Chapter One at the head of the page.

Added to all this I have to admit to being as human as the next person. Of course I will be scanning my inbox. Of course I’ll be waiting and hoping to hear good news of the child I’ve sent into the outside world. At the same time though I will be nurturing my new baby. It may not yet be on solid foods but I will be working to ensure it follows its big sister into the outside world. Come on, Sweetheart, just another spoonful.