Reflections from a hermit in West Wales

This is where I live. Miles from the shops, miles from the bus. Of course, it isn't always snowy but since I don't drive and the bus service is non-existent, it might as well be. Sometimes the only person I see all day, other than my old fella when he comes home at night, is the postman. This time of the year, when I order more parcels I sometimes see several different delivery men in a day. Oh what a dizzy life I lead. My lifestyle does have its drawbacks. I can get a bit cranky, a little too introverted, especially if the phone rings and disturbs my peace. You see, I have come to rather like my solitude. I can be totally selfish all day, do exactly as I please, as long as that doesn't involve going out. It also enables me to give 100% attention to my work. I write four days a week, from nine(ish) to five(ish), researching, writing, marketing and networking and I am so grateful to be able to do that. So many of my writer friends have to fit their writing around work commitments, I know I am blessed. 

My life hasn't always been like this. For years I was a full time mum, running a smallholding, trying to keep the house in order. I spent years chasing children, chickens and (most of all) my own tail.

Then one day, I turned around and they were all grown up and I hadn't a clue what to do next. So, after months of indecision, I went to uni, took a degree in English literature and Creative Writing. Fortunately our local uni is just eight miles away in Lampeter. I loved University, the buildings, the lectures, the students, the staff ...the library. It was by the far the scariest step I have ever taken but also the very best decision of my life. I loved it so much that after graduation I signed up for a Masters, this time in Medieval Studies. But, of course, time doesn't stand still and I soon found myself in that 'now what?' situation again. This time though I was better armed.

I have always written stories and poems but never let anyone read them, only  my children who loved to be the protagonists in the adventures I wrote. Even today I slot their names into my novels if I can. Anyway, I digress. I wrote two novels (dreadful things) before I produced Peaceweaver and decided it was good enough to run with. I did the usual battle with agents and publishers before I decided to go it alone. Another challenge, another set of skills to learn but the result was well received but not widely read. A little discouraged initially but undaunted, the reviews it had received were encouraging enough for me to write a follow up,The Forest Dwellers. Again it met a luke-warm readership, those that read it liked it but there was not the buzz I'd hoped for. I sorted out some formatting problems, re-issued it, stuck my head down and wrote another, The Song of Heledd. 

I love this book. It is very Welsh, very romantic and ends in horrible tragedy but once more, it wasn't met with overwhelming acclaim. During this time, on the back of a small very short pamphlet I'd published about Henry VIII's wives, I had lots of people asking if I'd written any full length 'Tudor' novels and since I was between projects I decided to do so.  

The Winchester Goose stands out from anything I'd written previously. For a start, once you've written five books you are more in control, know what  you are doing and so I think it benefited from author confidence. This book breaks rules but I am like that. I like to be different. 

It is written first person, present tense and tells the story of Anne of Cleves and Katherine Howard

from the perspective of a prostitute from Southwark. But it doesn't stop there; Joanie Toogood's story contrasts the life of a woman of the night with the life of a queen, and concludes that there is very little difference.

This book, along with my blogging both on this page and the English Historical Authors Blog won me lots of fans, lots of facebook friends and twitter followers and I began to get the exposure I needed.

Of course, I am by no means famous or even well-known but I am too introverted to crave real fame. I am much happier here chatting to my virtual friends and plotting, well-researched stories for my readers. The idea of  public speaking, radio or television interviews fills me with horror. I love the internet because it allows me to make my living without having to confront my deepest phobias. My fifth published novel, The Kiss of the Concubine; a story of Anne Boleyn has been out for three weeks (I think) and much to my surprise has shot into the Amazon Kindle Historical chart. The reviews so far are immensely encouraging, my back catalogue is also selling and for the first time in years, I can afford to have the heating on all day if I need to.

So, really this blog is to say 'thank you' to all those people who kept the faith in me, have bought and read my books; it is to say thank you for all the good reviews, the sharing of links, the recommendations to friends, for supporting me in my battles. Thank you to all those readers who asked me to write 'Tudor'. I am eternally grateful.

Have good Christmas, Holiday, Yule etc. and a fantastic New Year.

Watch this space for Intractable Heart: a story of Katherine Parr, coming to a book shop near you in 2014.

Photographs: wikimedia commons, author's own.
All my books are available in paperback and on Kindle.
For more information about me and my work please visit my webpage: 
Some of my non fiction is included in the superb collection from the English Historical Fiction authors, Customs, Castles, and Kings, click here for a preview.

Paula Lofting, author of Sons of the Wolf

Today I am pleased to introduce you to Paula Lofting, author of Sons of the Wolf. As well as telling you all about herself and her work she will also be giving away nine eBooks and one paperback. All you have to do to enter is simply email Paula at sonsofthewolf1066@googlemail.com for a chance to win. The drawing will be held on June 25th, and winners will be notified shortly after.

What inspired me to write my novel: My journey

Thank you Judith, for allowing me to do this guest blog on your fabulous blogsite. I am Paula Lofting and apart from writing I am a Psychiatric nurse and mum to Connor 17, Catherine 18 and Ron 25. I write historical fiction and I also re-enact the period I am currently writing about, with an organisation called Regia Anglorum. 

I have always loved history right from a small child when I started reading books like Dawn Wind and The Eagle of the 9^th Chronicles by Rosemary Sutcliffe and then as an older child, Leon Garfield and Charles Dickens. Later influences came from Jean Plaidy, Bernard Cornwell, Mary Stewart, Edith Pargetter and Sharon Penman. I’m sure there are many more I have forgotten. After dabbling in different eras, I think I found my niche in the medieval period when I became an avid reader of Sharon Penman’s books. 

The pre-Conquest era, which is currently my favourite period of interest, really only came to the fore for me about 7 years ago when I attended a re-enactment of the Battle of Hastings and although I knew about this period very well, I hadn’t realised what a tragic story emerges from that fateful day, for King Harold and the people of England. I wanted to know more and I remembered a book I had read when I was about 17 called The Golden Warrior by Hope Muntz. I remembered I really enjoyed it, but back then my obsession with Harold and the 11thc was not even a twinkle in my eye. That’s also when I got into re-enactment because having been inspired enough to write a book set in this period, I also wanted to know what it felt like to live in those days.

So, my long awaited novel that I had wanted to write all my life had begun to form. The reason why it had taken so long to happen was that for much of my life I had been engrossed in other things and my creative streak had been oppressed by some difficult life events. I’m of the belief that in life, things happen when they are meant to and this was the time for me to write my book. I was ready.  I piled into loads of reference books and dug out some older books I had hanging around from earlier days, such as Frank Stenton’s Anglo Saxon England and looked for the primary sources in them. My favourite and most treasured acquisition was the Anglo Saxon Chronicles which is a fantastic guide for what happened when. The sad thing about the AS Chronicles is that it was written by some very lazy scribes, either that or the information was not available for them. It does not go into great detail of events and I have had to supplement the information with other works and my imagination.

Before I got too far into my research, I needed to think about a plot and some characters for my book. I wanted to write with Harold as the main character, however I had read the wonderful Harold the King by Helen Hollick which was a new version of his story and because she had written such a brilliant book for him, it was going to be a hard act to follow. So I began searching my mind for a character and a plot and found further inspiration in a book called 1066 Year of the Conquest which was written by David Howarth.  In it he describes the year of 1066 from the perspective of the ordinary folk, particularly focusing on his home village of Little Horsted and the surrounding areas. David Howarth has written many books on naval history but I believe this was the only one in this era. By his own admission, It was not intended as an academic book, but written very simply, relating the events to how it might have affected the people of these Sussex villages in the 11^th c. Through the Domesday book, we are able to identify who owned land in the various villages, hamlets and towns of Sussex.  Horstede (as it was called back then) belonged to a man called Wulfhere who held 5 hides and 30 virgates from King Edward the Confessor. The amount of land Wulfhere held meant that he was a thegn, (pronounced thane) and as such would owe military service to his King for his land.

David Howarth’s writings conjured up images in my mind of a strong warlike man, his longhall, the central feature of a homestead surrounded by a wooden palisade. He lived with his family, and the tenants (his villagers) who shared feasts with him around his hearth. I saw the forest which surrounded the village and the children who ran through it, playing amongst the trees and swimming in ponds damned by rocks. I pictured a man who was returning home from battle with his loyal right hand man to be met with this wonderful scene:

Smoking hearth fires billow out of the homes that line the pathway to his hall. He waves and smiles as his tenants come out of their cottages to greet him. He is filled with joy as he reaches his gatehouse and crosses himself as he passes by the little chapel, giving thanks to the Lord that he is home at last. His heart swells with delight upon hearing the laughter of his children as they run to him with excitement.  

Suddenly a story began to unfold in my head and I realised that at last, I had my main character, Wulfhere. Nothing was known about him other than what we can find in the Domesday Book. In order to add a tiny bit of realism, I have used the names from the Domesday book for some of the other characters. As with Wulfhere, nothing is really known about them, other than what they owned. So for Wulfhere and his friends, I created lives and personalities and that is how Sons of the Wolf began.

The story centres on Wulfhere mainly and his family but we also see historical characters like Earl Harold Godwinson and his brothers, Edward the Confessor and his wife Edith and various others. Wulfhere is a King’s thegn by hereditary right but he is commended to Harold and as thus is bound by oath and loyalty to serve him. When his oldest daughter, the wilful and headstrong Freyda, embarks on a forbidden relationship with the son of Wulfhere’s adversary, Helghi of Gorde, old enmities between the two men are re-opened and in order to restore peace to his jurisdiction, Earl Harold orders the two men to allow their children to plight their troth, using the ancient philosophy of a woman being the ‘peaceweaver’ in a feud. Although Wulfhere agrees, he is not happy with the situation. The rivers of resentment run deep between him and Helghi and he finds the idea of his daughter wed to the son of his nemesis unpalatable. Urged on by his demanding wife, Wulfhere has to find a way to extricate himself from the contract with Helghi without compromising his loyalty to his lord.

Sons of the Wolf is also about battles and skirmishes, love and betrayal. On bloody fields he fights for his life, but sometimes the enemy is closer to home.

You can read more on my Sons of The Wolf blog  http://paulalofting-sonsofthewolf.blogspot.co.uk/

And also http://paulaperuses.blogspot.co.uk/  and http://threadstothepast.blogspot.co.uk/ which is about the Bayeux Tapestry.

Website www.paulalofting.com

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sons-Wolf-Paula-Lofting/dp/1781320276/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1357378699&sr=1-1

Available also in the US and on kindle.

And soon to follow, the sequel The Wolf Banner, will be launched later in 2013

 

P                      Paula's  website: www.paulalofting.comhttp://paulalofting.com

Tw                Paula on twitter: http://twitter.com/paulaloftinghttp://twitter.com/paulalofting

in                  IndieBrag: www.bragmedallion.comhttp://www.bragmedallion.com