Life is a Beach - well, sometimes anyway

I make no apology for posting the same image here as I did last week. I do love Whitstable. It has character, personality and a house to let which enabled four of us to lose ourselves in our writing. There were times when I was almost unware of the others, so involved was I in my own story. It was obviously the same for them too. A pin could have been heard to drop if anyone had been moving around to do so but we weren’t. While the intensity of our endeavours was beyond question, it also was obvious that at some time we would need to take a break. Not just an hour or two but a whole day. Would this be counter-productive? Not a bit of it. With renewed enthusiasm we returned from our day out to attack our work again. Where did we go?

We went to Margate. It’s many years since I visited this seaside town and with all the talk of regeneration I had expected to find a run-down place that was just a shadow of its former self. Not a bit of it. We followed the wall which curved around the edge of a honey-coloured sandy beach to where we stopped for elevenses and from where this picture was taken. The architecture is varied and some of it very beautiful. I wish I could say the same for the Turner Gallery. Talk about blot on the landscape. No way did it fit in with its surroundings – but then we went inside. Firstly it was bigger than I’d expected. There was much of interest but not too much. We spent some considerable time there and left, if not wanting more then well satisfied with what we had seen.

Lunch turned out to be a late affair after which, passing some beautifully inscribed standing stones, we returned to Margate Station and thence to Whitstable. Though we arrived at our ‘holiday’ home by 6.30pm, we were so full that the most I could manage was half a cup of tea. I don’t think anyone ate anything for the rest of the evening.

Work continued apace until it was time to return home to reality. We had eaten out (several times) in the comfort you find with companionable friends with whom don’t need to make conversation. Goals were achieved. New plans made. Would I do it again? You bet!

Retreat and Advance

We arrived in Whitstable on Saturday afternoon in glorious sunshine, four writers away for a week with the aim of leaving distractions behind and getting on with it. Entering into the spirit of the thing did we begin working immediately? Of course not. Instead we walked along the front and drank in the atmosphere, going out in the evening for a first class meal at the Samphire prior to starting work in earnest on Sunday morning…and start we did.

This isn’t the first retreat I’ve been on and I’m well aware of the benefits of dedicating time to a particular project, and we all have one of those. With a study, lounge, conservatory and large kitchen accommodating a large table, all inter-connected, we sat, each of us, in a different part of the house and all that could be heard was the clicking of keys as Elaine Everest, Francesca Capaldi Burgess, Elaine Roberts and I lost ourselves in our own little world. A new novel was begun, the first three chapters of another finely tuned and a third, at something over ten thousand words in, expanded upon. My own work in progress is a first draft and I am hoping to use the time to develop my characters, maybe to introduce a new sub-plot and generally to complete the first edit, though I have no expectation of finishing it in the time available. That said, it’s amazing how much can be achieved in a morning when the phone isn’t ringing or, with one designated coffee break, one isn’t jumping up to make a drink or feed the cat or, well, anything other than writing.

I looked up at one point to see the other three in rapt concentration and I realised that I had no idea what they were seeing or where they were. In this country? In Australia or the US? Our stories would all be different, the only similarity being that they would all have an element of romance. We are, after all, romantic fiction writers.

I know crabs walk sideways
but this is ridiculous

Whitstable is a quaint seaside town, one we’ve all visited before.

Having satisfied ourselves that we’d used the morning wisely we set out to explore the High Street, not populated by chains but with individual shops carrying individual wares. We indulged in a little window shopping. Back at our holiday home (holiday?) we resumed our positions and that is where I am now, writing this ready to post tomorrow morning so that the rest of the week can be dedicated to what I came here to do – to work. Tonight though we will of course be watching the final episode of Poldark!

Let no-one underestimate the potential of taking this time out to get away from it all. From past experience I know that by the end of the week we will have achieved far more than had we been at home. We will have worked together, eaten some fine meals together, drunk a glass or two of wine and, by next weekend, will I am sure have formed the intention of doing the same again at the earliest opportunity. If you have the opportunity try it. I can’t recommend the experience too highly. 

You Wait for a Bus and Two Come Along at Once

You may have wondered if you follow my blog what happened to Monday’s post. I have been waiting until today so I could share my wonderful news with you.

One of the dictionary definitions of kaleidoscope is a continually changing pattern of shapes and colours - and that's just what my life feels like at the moment, but in the best possible way. It's customary, I know, to start at the beginning but in this case there isn't one, not really. Actually I'm wrong, there is. Or at least a platform from which to bounce.

It all began with me joining the Romantic Novelists Association's (RNA) New Writers' Scheme (NWS) and graduating in my first year with my debut novel, Safe Harbour. In spite of having had several short stories published, there was nothing like the thrill of seeing my book and name in print for the first time; to see the product of my labour of love sitting in pride of place on the bookshelf. 

This morning the RNA announced the shortlist for the Joan Hessayon Award for 2015, a prestigious and coveted recognition given by the lovely Dr David Hessayon in memory of his wife to the graduates of the NWS. You can see the announcement here. To be named as one of the contenders is a huge thrill and you will see from the link that I am in wonderful company. There are fifteen of us in contention this year - what a tribute to today's romantic novelists and to the RNA for running the New Writers' Scheme and giving so much opportunity to its members. For those of you who would like to read it and haven't yet done so, here is the link to Safe Harbour. 

A writer is never idle. If we aren't actually putting pen to paper or fingers to keyboard we are busily turning plots around in our heads. My apologies to anyone who sees me staring off into the middle distance when I am supposed to be taking part in a conversation. Now you know the reason. So I am just as thrilled to announce the publication today of my second book, Honey Bun. You can find it here. It's more a novella than a novel but I think it has a genuine 'feel good' air about it - well, it does for me. I hope you enjoy it as well. 

I shall be in and out of Facebook and Twitter today where some lovely messages have been posted to me and my fellow contenders. The writing community is one I am happy and grateful to be a part of. Oh, and with my third manuscript in the hands of my agent, Lisa Eveleigh, I am now in the process of writing my fourth book.

Watch this space! 

Jean Fullerton - Carry On Nurse

How better to celebrate Easter than with the lovely Jean Fullerton telling us about her new novella, Easter with Nurse Millie

I have to say Student Queen’s Nurse Daphne Villiers has done the rounds a bit. She first appeared in Call Nurse Millie as a nurse on the ward when Millie visits her mother – she’s still on Truman Ward if you want to see her in an earlier manifestation- then when the wordage count went over the 145,000 mark she had to be pulled.

I tried to tell her and Father Christopher’s story again in All Change for Nurse Millie but this time it wouldn’t fit. The plot line of Millie’s heart-breaking personal life meant she wouldn’t have been in a position to supervise Daphne so I had to remove her again. I even tried to slot her into Fetch Nurse Connie, out on 4^th June, but again Connie wouldn’t have been able oversee both her and Student Josie Baxter who I’d already developed a sub-plot around so poor old Daphne had to sit it out again.

I was just musing over whether I could finally tell her story in Connie’s second book – as yet untitled – when my publisher approached me to write a Spring novella. Finally, I thought, Daphne would have her day! However, when I came to review the half dozen scenes I had already written I could see quite clearly that while Father Christopher would survive the transplant Daphne, as I’d originally written her, would not. The original Daphne was prim and proper and Millie is a bit tongue in cheek, sometimes inviting the reader to share the joke. This is quite all right for a secondary character with just a walk-on part but it wouldn’t have readers warm to Daphne or cheer her on so there was nothing for it but to re-write.   

  

Unlike my last novella Christmas With Nurse Millie, which is set between the end of Call Nurse Millie and the start of All Change for Nurse Millie, with reference to both I decided to write Easter with Nurse Millie as a stand-alone story. 

I’m in the process of pulling together a blog tour for Fetch Nurse Connie’s release and I’ve just written a piece for my chum Alison Morton’s blog about how authors both build and then inhabit the worlds they create in their minds. How even when we are not using them or writing about them our characters continue to live so if we decide to add to their story the world we created moves forward with them. With this in mind, instead of setting Daphne in the pre-NHS world of 1945-48 that I’d explored in my previous books, I decided to shift my East London nursing world forward six years to 1954. Millie has been married for five years now and the old Nursing Association’s Munroe House has been swept away in the 1950s slum clearances and has been replaced by a modern NHS building called Munroe Clinic with the nurses’ home, Robina House, behind.   

Also instead of a generic spring novella I decided to set Daphne and Fr Christopher’s story during Holy Week 1954 and make Father Christopher the curate at Stepney parish church the hero.

I think it’s a nice twist and I hope, if you feel inclined to read Easter with Nurse Millie you will agree.

Easter with Nurse Millie.

Spring is in the air for the nurses of Munroe House and as Easter approaches Nurse Millie is playing matchmaker. Daphne Villiers, a student nurse, is still suffering from the heartbreak of losing her fiancé two years earlier. A new arrival to the East End has the potential to brighten her spirits and turn her life around, but will she be able to let herself love again? With the help of her friends, Daphne might find that Easter really is the time for new beginnings.                                             

Orion Fiction 99p

‘A delightful, well researched story that depicts nursing and the living conditions in the East End at the end of the war’ (Lesley Pearse)
‘...The writing shines off the page and begs for a sequel’ (Historical Novel Society)

‘…you will ride emotional highs and lows with each new birth and death. Beautifully written with some sharp dialogue.’ (THE LADY)

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Facebook: Twitter: @JeanFullerton__

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It seems I have a lot of catching up to do, Jean. I am at present in the middle of (and thoroughly enjoying) Call Nurse Millie. I may be some time.

Kathleen McGurl - In Her Own Times

I am delighted to welcome Kath McGurl to the blog this week. I put some questions to her.

I was reading one of your own blog posts recently – the one that was NOT about moving from short story to novel writer. What amazed me was learning that your recently published book, The Pearl Locket, developed from a 2,000 word story into a 70,000 word novel. I remember struggling to add 500 words to bring something up to the required magazine word-count. How on earth did you do it?

Hi Natalie – ooh thanks for reading my blog!  And thanks for inviting me here. Yes, it was a huge job to turn a 2,000 word story into a 70,000 word novel. But that story lent itself perfectly to a dual-timeline novel (the genre I write) as there was a historical story hinted at in the original tale. I used about 35,000 words to tell the historical story – which is essentially a Romeo and Juliet love story set during the second world war. Then I needed to write the contemporary timeline to weave in and out of the historical. The first draft of this was quite close to the original short story, fleshed out to 35,000 words. I obviously had to add a lot of extra scenes and characters, and let the story develop naturally. It was certainly a challenge but I knew there was enough story there to do it.

Did you use essentially the same characters, apart from developing them obviously, or did their personalities change completely?

In the contemporary story the three main female characters Ali, Kelly and Ali’s grandmother are essentially the same as in the short story. Joan, from the historical story, is also the same. I even kept the same names for them – they already felt real to me, so I didn’t want to rename them! But I needed quite a lot of extra characters – Ali gained a husband and son, Kelly got a boyfriend, there’s a next-door neighbour. Joan gained parents and friends. And Jack – well he’d only been mentioned in the original story but was obviously crucially important, so I worked hard on creating his character before starting to write. He turned out to be a truly lovely person. You know when you fall a little bit in love with one of your characters? That happened with Jack!

Are any of your short stories screaming ‘Me, me, me’ for the next book?

There are a couple more which could become novels, but none I intend writing. I have far too many other ideas to write first! Although – you’ve got me thinking now – there is one which would make a good dual-timeline short novella, and I might have a go at that next…

I believe you also have a day job. And a family. How do you create a balance and still find time to write?

Yes, I work full time in IT for John Lewis. Thankfully I work from home most days, so when I switch off the work laptop at 5pm I can switch on the writing one almost immediately afterwards. My sons are grown up – one’s at university and the other is 17 – so they don’t need a lot of mummying these days. I also need to support my elderly mother.

Balance is always difficult to achieve, and I don’t always get it right. But I think the trick is, to think hard about your priorities. If you want to write, then writing must be a priority, and that means your first thought when you get up in the morning must be, ‘when am I going to write today?’ My husband never lets me say I didn’t have time to do something. ‘You have the same amount of time as everyone else,’ he says. ‘What’s important is how you choose to use your time.’ (I wrote at length about these ideas in my book, Give Up Ironing – a Writer’s Guide to Time Management. Blatent plug.)

What is ‘down time’ for Kath McGurl?

I love to read. Lying on a picnic rug in the garden on  a sunny day with a good book or my kindle – bliss. Or the sofa, a throw and a roaring fire if the weather’s not so good.

I also love mountains. So our holidays often involve walking up mountains or skiing down them. I rarely do any writing while I’m on holiday, but will let my batteries recharge in the fresh mountain air.

Will there be any more ‘How To’ books or is your focus now on novels?

I have no more planned, but who knows – if I had a great idea for another book for writers, I’d write it! But yes, having just accepted a second two-book deal from Carina, the novels have to come first. And I love writing them!

Congratulations on the book deal, Kath. Have you abandoned short stories or are they still part of the mix?

I have abandoned them, I’m afraid. I wrote short stories for women’s magazines for about eight years, and loved the buzz I got when I made a sale. But my time is limited, and I am enjoying novel writing more, so the short stories have had to be dropped.

And finally, what are you working on now?

I’m writing another dual-timeline novel for Carina. I can’t say too much about it as I’m still awaiting approval of its synopsis from my editor! It’s nearly half written so I hope she’s happy with the idea. Then I have another three or is it four dual-timeline novel ideas in various stages of gestation – should keep me busy for the next couple of years…

Thanks so much for having me on your fabulous blog, Natalie!

It’s been my pleasure, Kath. Good luck with The Pearl Locket.

Kathleen McGurl lives near the sea in Bournemouth, with her husband, sons and cats. She began her writing career creating short stories, and sold dozens to women’s magazines in the UK and Australia. Then she got side-tracked onto family history research – which led eventually to writing novels with genealogy themes. She has always been fascinated by the past, and the ways in which the past can influence the present, and enjoys exploring these links in her novels.

When not writing or working at her full-time job in IT, she likes to go out running or sea-swimming, both of which she does rather slowly. She is definitely quicker at writing.

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Twitter @KathMcGurl

The First Day of Spring

Friday, 20^th March 2015, was a pretty special day from the word go.

In a grey southeast London I had no sight of the eclipse and was barely, if at all, aware of a change in the light. The television coverage though gave me almost all I could have wished for. One of the things that amazed me, and others too I believe, was the very small window between light and dark. With over 85% coverage in my area I would have expected subdued lighting for some time but even in the Faroe Islands I understand there were only two minutes of total darkness. It seems just a little bit of sun peeping out from behind the moon is enough to flood our home planet with light.

Friday was a day of light in more ways than one. On this first official day of spring the clouds cleared quickly leaving a bright blue sky and a warmth in the air that refused to be ignored. After lunch my husband and I drove the one and a half miles to Greenwich Park and entered another world. Our first port of call via the flower garden was the Wilderness Park which is home to two herds of deer and is the oldest of London’s deer parks. The herds are small – sixteen fallow and fourteen red – and they were as far away from where I was standing as they could possibly have been. No photo opportunity but a lovely memory to take away.

Back in the flower garden we stopped at the large pond to watch the ducks and take in the very spring-like atmosphere. It being spring they were showing off all their best colours. Walking on we were approached by fearless squirrels whose kingdom is the garden, dogs not being allowed in this area.

Leaving the enclosure we crossed the park and passed the bandstand, devoid at this time of musicians but inhabited by mothers and toddlers instead. We were heading for the Pavilion Café and a shared scone with cream and jam. Half a scone didn’t seem to be too naughty and we sat outside in the sunshine watching the world go by. There was a very pregnant young woman contentedly reading a book, some children and their parents who had also come out for tea.

As we walked back to the car we stopped again and sat on a bench to catch the last warm rays of the sun. Such a contrast to the excitement of the eclipse that morning but a day that eclipsed many that had come before in many ways – and definitely a good to be alive day.

The RNA Honours its Best

It’s Thursday as I write this and I’ve just received news of the death of Terry Pratchett. While this piece is not dedicated to him I couldn’t let his passing go unacknowledged. Others far more qualified than I am have written dedications to this prolific writer who gave so much pleasure to so many millions. May he rest in peace.

Hard to change moods but if anything can lift the spirits it’s a Romantic Novelists Association’s event and I am looking forward immensely to the next one which will take place on the evening of Monday, 16^th March (the day this piece will be posted). The RONA awards will be presented, as they were last year, in the Gladstone Library at the National Liberal Club. One needs only to step into the building to know it’s a special place and it’s going to be a very special occasion. I can say this with assurance as I attended the event last year so I have a very good idea of what’s in store.

From left to right
Natalie Kleinman, Elaine Roberts, Elaine Everest, Vivien Hampshire & Francesca Capaldi-Burgess
at the 2014 Romantic Novel of the Year Awards Evening

As the world of romantic fiction prepares to gather to acknowledge its own I will not pick out any individual names. There are five categories with six short-listed in each, plus the Rona Rose for a shorter novel. Each contender has gone through a rigorous assessment by readers to be chosen initially in their own group and finally one will be chosen as the best of the best from all six groups as winner of the Romantic Novel of the Year. But already all are winners. The rest of us will be nourished by delicious wine and canapes, entertained by presenters and speakers and enjoy again an evening of glitz and glamour such as only the RNA can do.

I hope to see many of you there later this evening. In the meantime…what on earth shall I wear?