An Interview with author Linda Gillard

 Linda Gillard

I cannot tell you how excited I am to have you as a guest author on my blog today, Linda, thank you so much for agreeing to come. 

The first book I read of yours was UNTYING THE KNOT and I was immediately impressed with your authorial voice, your multi-faceted characters and the competent manner in which you addressed the issue of post traumatic stress. I have since read everything available by you and I’m still not sure which is my favourite as each one is so different. I find you and your books so interesting it was dead easy for me to think up questions for you.

Scotland and the Scottish isles form a backdrop for many of your novels. Do you have connections with the area?

I’ve lived in Scotland since 2000 and for most of those years I’ve lived in the Highlands. I spent six years on the Isle of Skye, the setting for two of my novels, STAR GAZING and THE GLASS GUARDIAN.

Several of your books feature textile artists and the insightful way you describe the art suggests to me that you have some knowledge of this art form. Is that correct?

Yes, I love textiles of all kinds and I’ve made a lot of quilts and wall-hangings (most of which I’ve given away as I’m never satisfied with what I make.) Making two of my heroines textile artists (in EMOTIONAL GEOLOGY and UNTYING THE KNOT) is a sort of wish-fulfilment fantasy. Rose and Fay are both much more skilled with fabric & thread than I’ll ever be!

‘Sometimes we think we’re over the worst, we think we’ve finally put the past behind us, then – wham! – we run up against something, some memory, some feeling we thought we’d buried long ago and we’re back where we started. The wounds are open and bleeding again. It’s a cyclical process - a sort of spiral in fact - and it takes a long time to get to the end of it.’  This is from The House of Silence and the theme of healing shows up a lot in your work, a shattered soul pieced back together like a patchwork. Do you think that by illustrating the painful process of healing, whether physical or mental, you are in some small way, helping real sufferers to overcome similar problems?

I know I am, because readers get in touch with me to tell me. A troubled teenager contacted me after reading EMOTIONAL GEOLOGY to say that she’d managed to stop self-harming and had started writing poetry instead. (The narrative of EMOTIONAL GEOLOGY includes poems written by me and the hero is a poet.) EG features a bipolar heroine and over the years people have contacted me to say they didn’t realise someone in their family was bipolar until they read the novel. At an author event a woman approached me with a copy of EMOTIONAL GEOLOGY and, with tears in her eyes said, “My husband was bipolar and took his life. Now when I want someone to know what it was like living with a manic depressive, I can show them your book.”

I’ve written about depression and post-traumatic stress disorder because I’ve had my fair share of mental health problems and they interest me, but I also think mental health is a very big issue about which most people are woefully ignorant. (I wrote EMOTIONAL GEOLOGY in response to a survey that indicated 26% of the people questioned thought mental illness wasn’t a genuine illness.) I’ve also tried to highlight the problems of carers and the strain that mental illness puts on marriage and families. UNTYING THE KNOT looks at what happens when the carer cracks.

In EMOTIONAL GEOLOGY the two main characters are drawn together through their art and they work together toward mutual healing. How important is your own creativity and how much of it is ‘therapy’ for you?

I think all writing is to some extent therapeutic. I put a lot of myself into my novels, but they aren’t autobiographical. They do express my personal concerns. Readers assume because I’ve lived on islands that I must have written EMOTIONAL GEOLOGY (set on a Hebridean island) while I was living on Skye, but I wrote it in a Norwich suburb while recovering from a mental breakdown. I was dreaming of living on a remote island, rebuilding a shattered life and I wrote about someone doing that. It was pure fantasy. But a couple of years later, I decided to live the dream and moved to Skye.

Creativity is very important to me and to my mental health. I get cranky when I’m not writing. I’ve had careers as an actress, journalist and teacher, so I’ve always worked with words and ideas.

The first Linda Gillard novel I read was UNTYING THE KNOT and I was immediately struck by the realistically drawn characters. Where do you find them, are they based on people you know or have known?

No, I make them up - even the congenitally blind heroine of STAR GAZING. I can’t think of any character I’ve created who’s based on a real person, though obviously as a writer you steal bits and pieces from people you know or have read about. Real people have inspired some of the characters I’ve created. (Flora in A LIFETIME BURNING arose from a radio interview in which John Peel talked to a female vagrant.)

I do base all my major characters physically on real people. I collect photos of people who look something like the character I’ve imagined. I used to make a scrapbook for a novel with photos of characters and settings, but now I use the internet and have desktop collages.

I prefer to work with photos of real people because I don’t think I’m very good at description. If I have a clear picture in my head of the character’s appearance, I’m less likely to be vague or fall in to descriptive clichés. Once I’ve nailed what a character looks like, in detail, I feel free to get on with creating his/her personality (which of course has no bearing on the person whose appearance I’ve “borrowed”.)

As to where my characters come from – I’ve no idea! My son once referred to my writing as playing with my imaginary friends, which is a pretty good description of what I do. I’m only interested in writing about people I like or find interesting, so I think I just make up people I want to spend time with. (And it’s a lot of time. I might spend two years working on a book, so my characters need to be complex to absorb me for that length of time.)

Your heroines are grown ups, not nubile twenty-somethings. What made you decide to feature the problems of older women?

It’s a lot to do with the age I was when I started writing fiction. I was 47 and couldn’t find the sort of thing I wanted to read. (Bookshops which were awash with chick-lit at the time.) I was fed up with middle-aged women being portrayed as somebody’s mother/somebody’s wife and only allowed to pull the hero if they were thin and attractive. So I decided I’d write a thinking-woman’s romance that dealt with real issues, had believable characters, a gorgeous hero, but no easy answers. That book was my first novel, EMOTIONAL GEOLOGY. I wanted to put an intelligent, creative woman in the spotlight and ignore her age, just look at her heart and mind. As a matter of principle, I made her the same age as me – 47.

But I’ve continued to feature women in their forties because I think it’s an interesting age, a watershed decade. Women have completed their families and many are starting a new career or a new relationship. By the time a woman reaches her 40s, she’s gained a lot of life experience - some of it painful - and she knows there’s rather more to life than finding Mr. Right.

I’ve been dying to ask you where your male characters come from. They are fabulous. Anyone you know or are they just wishful thinking?

Edward Watson

Just wishful thinking! But as I mentioned earlier, I do always have a physical prototype in mind – someone who exists but has nothing to do with my character. When I created a ghost hero for THE GLASS GUARDIAN it took a while to find my idea of an attractive ghost! But I came across Edward Watson, a flame-haired classical dancer whose pale, ethereal looks were perfect. There’s something quite unearthly about him and this helped me visualise my ghost.

I think it was novelist Kate Saunders who said, the secret of creating an appealing romantic hero is to put a woman’s mind inside a man’s body. I think that’s often what I do. My heroes and heroines become friends before they become lovers. There’s a lot of talk and sharing of experiences. There’s usually humour too and often that’s a front masking a horrific past or guilty secret.

If there’s a recipe for a Gillard hero, it’s a kind, complex, sensitive and vulnerable man, with a wacky sense of humour.

I consider you to be a brave writer, a bit of a risk taker – and I love that about you. But tackling a taboo subject like incest in A LIFETIME BURNING was a particularly bold move. Can you tell us how that came about?

The incest was just a by-product of what I wanted to write about, which was twins who were so close, they almost didn’t have separate identities. I’m not a twin but I’ve always been interested in twins and I did a lot of research which was fascinating

I considered writing about same-sex twins, so incest wasn’t on my agenda originally, but in the end I decided to write about boy/girl twins, so their sexual feelings for each other became a possible issue. But sex (when they’re 22) doesn’t bring the twins together, it drives them apart for ever because the union they crave isn’t sexual, it’s something they had as children and it’s gone for ever - that sense of being two halves of one person. Aristotle defined friendship as “a single soul dwelling in two bodies” and that’s what A LIFETIME BURNING is about - trying to be a complete human being.

The twins’ love is just one thread in a very complex story that covers sixty years and the book examines many different kinds of love, including forbidden love. I don’t think it was particularly brave to put incest centre stage. It was possibly brave to do that without any hint of judgement. ALB upset a few readers and I think they’d have found it an easier read if I’d condemned the twins for their unnatural love. But I don’t. Nor do I condone incest. I just present the story and leave readers to come to their own conclusions.

In this multi-genre world how would you categorize your own work?

I think it’s impossible to categorise my books. They’re very different from each other and each book blends different genres. When asked, I say I write contemporary fiction, aimed mostly (but not exclusively) at women. I think some of my books verge on literary fiction, but of an accessible kind. If my books belong to any category, I think it’s a non-existent genre called Rattling Good Yarns!

Well, they are certainly that! Can you tell us something about your experiences in changing from traditional to self-publishing? What pros and cons you have found?

Genre issues have always been a problem for me professionally. Publishers didn’t know how to market my books and tried to pigeonhole me as a writer of romance. Two out of three of my paperbacks were handicapped by unappealing covers and I’d had a title foisted on me which I hated. For years I’d been told my books would be hard to sell and I’d been asked to simplify storylines and make female characters more likeable. So I wasn’t happy.

When I was dropped by my publisher (“disappointing sales”), my agent tried to find me a new one, but after two years of rejections, I decided to indy-publish. I put HOUSE OF SILENCE on Kindle where it rapidly became a bestseller. I put four more novels on Kindle and they sold too.

E-publishing on Kindle has found me thousands of new readers. I now enjoy complete artistic freedom, I have covers I love and I earn a modest living from my writing. So I won’t be going back to traditional publishing. Why would I? It was just getting in the way of my books finding their readers.

Thank you, so much for spending time with us, Linda. I am very grateful. I’m sure my readers will join me in wishing you lots of luck with your future projects. I am not the only one waiting for your next release. You can find more information about Linda Gillard and her books on her website: http://www.lindagillard.co.uk

Interview with Helen Spring - historical fiction author

The simplest question often receives the most unexpected of answers. Usually, if I ask an author what inspired them, they reply, ‘Oh, a sentence in a novel,’ or ‘an unexplored subplot in a film I saw,’ or ‘a character I noticed at a train station.’  All of these things are drawn from the writer’s life experience, a small trigger giving birth to something more. So, when I asked Helen Spring what inspired her to write The Chainmakers, her answer was all the more unexpected.

‘My Grandad,’ she said, ‘I have always been a little in love with him, which is surprising because he died fifteen years before I was born.’

I put down my pen and leaned forward in my chair. ‘Tell me about him,’ I said. And so, she did.

 ‘Grandad was a blacksmith, and Mother recalled running from school to watch him working at the forge. She would stand there, a little afraid of the noisy clamour of hammer on red hot metal, as showers of fiery sparks surrounded him and fell onto his bare arms. She was sure he would be burned but he never was.

Mother described her father as tall, strong and sinewy, with very dark good looks, and curly black hair. His eyes too, she remembered, were  ‘Irish eyes, deep blue with long dark lashes.’

It is perhaps then not surprising I find myself a little in love, but I think it was the stories of his kindness that really sealed it for me. Mother was the youngest of seven children, she had three brothers and three sisters and so was doted on, not only by her parents but all her older siblings too.  Mother recalled vividly being with her father when he finished work, and they called at the local shop where he bought a punnet of strawberries . What a treat!  He hoisted her on to his shoulders and strode home, with his youngest astride his neck, stuffing herself with strawberries. 

This was the essence of the man, strawberries were a luxury they couldn’t afford but he had the kindest of impulses and would always make life fun, whereas of course his poor wife had the difficult job of bringing up all the children on very little. I can’t help feeling for her.

When the First World War began, Grandad was just too old to be called up, although the two eldest boys went right away. However, the skills of a blacksmith were in great demand, and very quickly grandad was directed by the War Office, to the Belfast shipyards to help build the ships which were suddenly so badly needed. There was no choice in the matter and he was away for four years, and his family missed him sorely. Money would arrive from him every week, but letters were few, and there was no leave during that whole time.

When he eventually came home he was not the same person. He was half his previous weight, having been overworked and underfed all the time he was away. He had lived in a hostel, where food was scarce and poor, and he slept in a kind of dormitory, where you dared not take off your boots to sleep or they would be taken in the night. When he came home he was as broken down as many who had been at the front, due to the heavy work and long hours, and lack of food and sleep, all of which was justified as being ‘for the War effort.’  In truth he was a casualty of war, and died shortly after he returned home.

Mother recalls that even in those last few weeks, he was full of fun and jokes, and would take great joy in hearing her recite the poems of Longfellow, which she was learning at school, his particular favourite being  ‘Hiawatha.’

He was a man of huge heart and loving kindness, who loved his family and always did what he considered to be his duty. I wish I had met him but even without the privilege of knowing him, I find him so easy to love. That was why it seemed so natural to draw upon him when I wrote my first novel The Chainmakers.

Each time I read The Chainmakers I find something different to say about it. You might expect a novel inspired by a grandfather to be rather staid, safe or domestic but this book encompasses a broad horizon and evokes a catalogue of emotions. In the days of Helen’s grandfather men had to be tough to survive and that is what The Chainmakers is all about; ordinary people in a harsh world. Just as Helen’s grandfather had to work hard to forge his chains of iron so do we all have to forge a path for ourselves. Whether we craft a flimsy, weak-linked chain or an iron strong one, is down to how well we learn to wield the hammer.

Set against the blistering heat and grinding poverty of the chainshops of the Black Country, this compelling love story charts the struggle of young Anna Gibson to forge a new life from the remnants of betrayal by her lover and a tragic marriage of convenience.

A simple offer of work as a model proves to be the catalyst for complete change, taking Anna from the sunny beaches and liberal attitudes of an artist's colony in Brittany to the struggle to survive and make good in the immigrant community of downtown New York.

Anna learns her lessons well, and she finds herself still making chains, but now chains of restaurants, leading to wealth if not happiness. Then comes Prohibition, and Anna's decisions involve her in a gangland feud which threatens her family and friends in a frightening web of intrigue and violence.

How do we recover from the agony of a lover's betrayal? What is true love anyway? Can we befriend lawbreakers without getting hurt?

These questions are at the core of this unusual and compelling book. Written with humour, colour and passion, Helen Spring weaves an absorbing tale of obsession and complex emotions, and their far-reaching consequences.

The Chainmakers is available at just 77 pence on Amazon Kindle.

UK readers click here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Chainmakers-Helen-Spring/dp/0595447651/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1339663261&sr=8-2

Kindle edition here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Chainmakers-ebook/dp/B004OYUF1C/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&m=A3TVV12T0I6NSM&qid=1339663261&sr=8-2

US readers click here: http://www.amazon.com/The-Chainmakers-Helen-Spring/dp/0595447651/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1339663408&sr=1-4

Kindle edition here: http://www.amazon.com/The-Chainmakers-ebook/dp/B004OYUF1C/ref=la_B003CTKPL0_1_1_title_1_kin?ie=UTF8&qid=1339663448&sr=1-1

Helen Spring’s other works include: Memories of the Curlew and Strands of Gold, both available on Amazon.

A reflection on two weeks of social netsquabbling

I don't usually complain. Well, maybe I do but I try not to complain too much on here. I want my blog to be light, interesting, informative and sometimes it is ...sometimes it isn't. Above all I am determined it won't be nasty. I never use it to demean other writers or blast other people's opinions because, quite frankly, it isn't in me to do so.

I hope that the people who visit this page are, or will soon become, my friends and that they feel that way too. Those people who don't like it here, don't have to come back. That is the beauty of a free world.

The same applies to my books. You don't have to like them, you can just take them to a charity shop, pass them on to someone you don't like much or, if you really hate them, put them in the bin. That is your choice. I read lots of books that aren't to my taste but you won't see me shouting to the world that they are 'crap' and the author has no idea what she is talking about. Courtesy, it seems, is a dying art.

It isn't just my books and opinions that have received some harsh criticism lately, the social networking sites that I visit have  been awash with snide, sometimes vicious comments about self publishing, historical accuracy, the correct positioning of a comma and it all leaves a nasty taste in my mouth. Everybody seems to think they know it all and leave no room for other opinions or other agendas. A very good friend and fellow writer of mine was in tears the other day over some spiteful comment from a so-called reviewer and, whereas she might not be the best writer in the world, you tell me who is.

There seems to be a new way of reading these days. It isn't enough to open a book and appreciate the story for what it is. No, we must all look for reasons to call it 'shit.' We ignore the prose, the engaging characters, the rich, heady atmosphere and squeal in disgust, 'Oh my, look that comma shouldn't be there and the stupid author hasn't justified the margins!'  If you walk through a lovely park or garden looking for dog pooh, dog pooh is all you will see.'

We all write for different reasons, some of us want to educate our readers, some of us want to make them feel all warm inside and some of us want to provide escapism, some of us want to make them laugh. For every type of writer there is a group of readers who will love their work and look forward to each new publication. Even I have a trusty little band of followers who constantly ask me 'when my next one will be out.' You see, it takes all sorts. Equally there will be those that don't enjoy it. and that is fine. So if your thing is fantasy or high brow history don't label steamy romance as 'crap' just because it isn't to your taste. And that works both ways. Everyone is different. It might be a good idea if some of the people who spend their days nitpicking other people's work, sat down and attempted to write their own perfectly formatted, historically accurate, realistic, expensively bound, grammatically perfect novel. I, for one, will buy it like a shot.

The one thing that all writers do share (even crappy little self-published no-naughts) is that they all want to improve their writing. That is what good writers do everyday. They sit at their computer and strive to get better. Writing is a learning curve, a pretty harsh one sometimes and ALL writers need help and support to be the best they can.

When my children were small, if they made something or wrote a story, I told them how marvelous the good bits were and then pointed out how the not so good bits could be improved. I didn't slap their hands and tell them they were useless. That is what I think the writing world needs. Self-publishing and e-books aren't going to get away and,  yes, the standard needs improving but there are ways and means of achieving that. Ok, some of us have a long way to go but it is a road we all travel together and, it seems to me, that driving past in fancy juggernauts and splashing the little people with mud isn't the best way to go. Why not pull over and offer them a lift instead?

Please excuse the typos :)

Interview with historical novelist Karen Aminadra

My guest today is Karen Aminadra (pronounced Amin-ah-dra) who is the author of Charlotte: Pride and Prejudice continues. She also teaches English language. Karen was born in London and grew up in Hertfordshire, 'the land of Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice’.

Most of us are familiar with Pride and Prejudice and will recall the character Charlotte Lucas who wed Lizzie Bennet’s rejected suitor Mr Collins.  Karen’s novel follows Charlotte’s story and gives us the chance to be reunited with the characters we came to know and love in Jane Austen’s classic novel.

 Charlotte did not love Mr Collins when she married him but had at least secured her future. However, she soon begins to feel trapped and discontent. The easiest thing to do would be to do as she is told. But Charlotte must decide to remain as she is or to begin a chain of events that will change not only her life but also the lives of those around her forever.

Hello Karen, thank you so much for agreeing to appear on my blog. I really enjoyed Charlotte; Pride and Prejudice Continues but rather than hear my opinions I’d like you to tell us all about it. For instance, what inspired you to begin?

I began to write Charlotte ~ Pride & Prejudice Continues after a conversation about her.  I had always wondered about her, and what her life would have been like after she married Mr Collins.

I think it would be far too easy to be cold-hearted towards Charlotte and say, “well she made her bed, let her lie in it.”  I was never happy with that.

 What was it like to take characters that someone else (and one of our greatest authors too) had originally created and bend them to fit your story?

I wished to stay as true to Jane’s work as possible.  I did not want to change Charlotte’s personality at all.  She is witty, intelligent, and strong and I wanted that to come out in the book, but I also wanted her to grow.
She learns a lot about herself, that she can manipulate her husband a little and that she is not as strong as she first thought.  She battles with emotions, due to her loneliness and that leads her to places she should not be.

 What changes have you implemented as Charlotte matures from a girl to a woman?

I also never believed a word of it, when she said she was not romantic, and that she would be fine without affection in her marriage.  There is not a human being alive who can live without affection.  Charlotte had said that to Lizzy before her marriage, when she was surrounded by friends who cared for her and a large family who must have shown their affection some way or another.
I thought that upon arriving in Kent that she must have felt lonely.  She encouraged Mr Collins to be out in the garden, in the parish, at Rosings or in his book room.  How lonely! 
I also wondered about her need for conversation.  Mr Collins was never shown to be the kind of person you could talk to for hours or bare your soul to, and Lady Catherine would likely bite your head off and scold you for some trifling matter, so who did Charlotte have to talk to?

Charlotte is not perhaps everyone’s idea of a heroine, what was it about her that made you choose her?

Charlotte might not be most people’s idea of a heroine but I was always drawn to her and I always remembered Jane Austen’s own words to her sister Cassandra that every girl should marry for love if possible.  I wanted love for Charlotte too.
And what about Mr Collins?  Who could be married to him and not try to change him in some way?  The least a wife would do is point out his errors or flaws, delicately. 

 Yes, I wanted to ask you about Mr Collins. He is a bit of a toad to begin with, isn’t he? How did you manage to understand how his mind worked?

Jane wrote a wonderful character in him.  He is a real parody of the people she had obviously encountered but I wanted to ask, why was he like that? We all change over the years, and due to things that happen in our lives, could the same happen in the Collins household?

 I can see it must have been quite a challenge. Which of the characters did you enjoy writing the most?

Once I had introduced new characters in the shape of Hunsford Villagers, they took on their own personalities and they were quite entertaining to write.  I personally love Mr Abbot.  I think he is a blend of Charlotte’s own father Sir William Lucas and King George III “what, what!” and possibly one of my husband’s many characters!  I found that those characters also wanted to help Charlotte, so together we hatched a plan!

Well I for one loved Charlotte: Pride and Prejudice continues and I’m busily recommending it to all my friends. I wish you every luck with it. Can you tell us a little about your next project just so we have something else to look forward to?

The new one is begins in 1911 and goes into 1912... and is a historical crime/ mystery.
Driven by jealousy, greed and desire, nothing will stop Gregory Rogers from taking that which he believes is his. He'll do anything to gain money, Bancroft Hall and the power that comes with the title of Baronet. Including murder.
....Until his eyes fall upon the beautiful Jane. Can she rescue him from himself? Will she be the one thing that he cannot ruin in order to have?

Sounds excellent. I will wait with baited breath. thanks once again, Karen, for sparing time for us today and I hope you will be back to talk more about your next one very soon.

Charlotte: Pride and Prejudice Continues is available on Amazon Kindle and will be available soon in paperback.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Charlotte-Pride-Prejudice-Continues-ebook/dp/B0080ELL9M/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1

http://www.amazon.com/Charlotte-Pride-Prejudice-Continues-ebook/dp/B0080ELL9M/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1337080814&sr=8-1

A Star fell from Orion

Lampeter Writer’s Workshop was founded in 1984 and is now one of the most successful writers groups in Wales. It has encouraged and promoted several authors who have won international prizes and published a number of collections.

The workshop is chaired by the internationally renowned writer and National Poet for Wales, Gillian Clarke.  The group have recently published an anthology of poetry and prose called A Star fell from Orion which reads like a merging of souls. Since the poems describe themselves far better than I could, a few samples are included below.

 Hyperbole Among the Swedes

Charlotte Symons

Write a poem, you said,

preferably featuring a vegetable.
I stare at the page, try to dredge
sparkling simile, dramatic metaphor,
from the fruit and veg aisle of the local supermarket.
Yet, where there should be dark-skinned aubergines,
smooth, and shining as sin,
sceptred artichokes the size of a babies head,
or two-hued cauliflowers, snowy craniums enfolded,
I find only potatoes, cellophaned spinach
and mushrooms in cling-wrapped boxes.
Time’s up, you say, and I have
nothing – only these words, dug
fresh as young carrots from dark loam.

Pas de Deux

Carole Powell

 I catch you in my throat

in the tumble of the castle walls
the elegance of leaves
the trees’ half century of lean

your presence beating ever
in the swan’s slow move
above the curve of river.

Life

(for Jan)
Sue Moules

And what is life
but to look up and see the sky,
marvel still at its intensity.
Moments that will never come again,
time catches the kite tails
of our children soaring in the blue.

We have settled into the silt,
but they have life to fly,
break through the susurration
of leaves, tangle in trees.

They ghost the future for possibilities,
look up at the sky, still sharp and blue.
We are amazed at the adults they are;
still see the children they once were.

Love Potion

Brenda Old

You gave me a glass
the trace of your fingers
warm to my touch.
As you poured
the wine slipped
towards the rim.
I sipped
left an imprint
of my lips.
You took back the glass
placed yours
Where mine had been.

You can order copies of A Star fell from Orion from Amazon.

For Amazon.co.uk click here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Star-Fell-Orion-An-Anthology/dp/1908846003/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1337086577&sr=8-1

For Amazon.com click here: http://www.amazon.com/Star-Fell-Orion-An-Anthology/dp/1908846003/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1337086705&sr=8-2

Searching For The Reason Why

Available as a paper back or on Kindle

I've had some personal issues lately; nothing major or life changing but they have forced me to take a step back and re-evaluate what it is I am trying to achieve. I write stories, that much is clear and that won't ever change. I didn't think that my reason for writing them had changed either but I find the constant pressures of promotion and marketing sometimes takes away the pleasure of storytelling. I write, I publish, sometimes people read them, sometimes they don't, sometimes they love them, sometimes they don't. I can't please everyone and I don't try to.
It isn't that I don't care whether my books do well or not, it is more a case of being practical and making sure that I stay true to myself.
I am not Philippa Gregory or Hilary Mantel, I am Judith Arnopp and my books are as unique as I am. I don't want them to be like anyone else's. Sometimes I forget that.
When, after several drafts, I thought The Song of Heledd was finished, my editor said it was too short, needed something else so I duly 'added' bits, embellished what was there and sent it to her again. No, she still wasn't  happy, it was still only 50,000 words, a novelette and she advised me that it wouldn't sell. I duly sat down and wrote in a sub-plot. I find it extraordinarily difficult to meddle with my work too much once it is done but I respect her advice and knew she was probably right. The new shiny, much bled over manuscript was finally done.  I left it for a few months before reading it through and to my horror discovered that I hated it.
It was no longer what I had intended it to be. The Song of Heledd is about human folly, childish impulsiveness that brings about a catastrophy so dreadful that the narrator can hardly bear to speak of it. So I sat down and ripped out the sub plot again and, if I learned anything from the exercise it is that taking out a sub-plot is a whole lot more difficult than adding one.  I also discovered that initial plot concepts are sometimes the best ones. Now Heledd stands alone on her hilltop again, lamenting for the loss of her family, the loss of her kin and trying to bear the pain of knowing that it is her fault alone. It is a stark tale of harsh times, a fiction of how one small indiscretion can bring intolerable suffering.
It will probably never make the bestseller charts but that doesn't matter. I needed to write it and can now consider it closed and get on with my next story. The Song of Heledd was published a couple of months ago and is also available on Kindle. Already I have received several emails from readers who have loved it, who promise to share it with their friends and to me that denotes success.  It isn't a lengthy book but if the story of Heledd and Ffreur doesnt affect you, then you must be made of stone. This is why I write, to offer readers a few hours of escape, to make them think a little and it is the readers who enjoy my work and take the trouble to let me know my efforts are appreciated that makes it all worth while. Those readers make me remember what it is that I am trying to achieve.

My other books include:

Peaceweaver

The Forest Dwellers

Dear Henry: Confessions of the Queens

I am very pleased to welcome Angela White onto my blog today. Thank you for agreeing to appear as my guest Angela.


Scenes of the Apocalypse#1 - Horrible Struggles for Survival

If no one died, or had to fight to live, it wouldn't be called the Apocalypse. The horrible struggles for survival will happen in every town, big and small, across the world. Even isolated lands will be affected. In heavily populated cities, authority will be overrun and the citizens left to fend for themselves.

During an Apocalypse event, governments will declare Martial Law and depending on the severity, may even reinstate the Draft. Households will be stripped of their men and boys and women will be left defenseless against the hard new world. Such cruelty will result in awful battles for survival and more dead on the streets.

In the aftermath, everyone's previous career will be a highly talked about topic. For those who were military, government or one of the few valued enough to have earned a pass to NORAD, the battles for survival will be harder. Refugees will not be kind to anyone they think is even remotely responsible and most people will lie rather than face the punishment the post-apocalyptic survivors will want to hand out.

Some of the battles will be life changing, such as the one mentioned in the excerpt below. In this scene, Samantha has finally found a refugee camp full of normal survivors, but the hell she had been through has already taken its toll and she's afraid to trust.

'Seven very gifted survivors are destined to rebuild their country after a nuclear apocalypse ...if they can stay alive long enough to find each othere. Impossible to put down' - The Review Blog

Excerpt
Samantha studied his earnest expression. 'I don't talk about it because I don't think I'd be welcome if people knew.'
'I'm not everyone and I'm guessing Adrian already knows. You can trust me. I'd never judge you.'
Same allowed herself to hope. 'I worked for the government before.'
Neil's scowl spread across his face. 'The government?'
'Yes.'
'Weather tracking?'
'Seattle EPA.'
His eyes widened in understanding. 'You had a pass.'
Her haunted voice reminded him of Angela's as she confirmed it. 'The chopper crashed, got hit by an EMP, I think. It went down in Northern Wyoming. I was the only survivor.'
Neil's mind raced. 'You made it to the compound?'
Her voice was bitter. 'I didn't get the chance for a while. I had to get away from two painters first. They found the crash site. No one else ever came.'
Neil forced himself to ask. 'How long were you with them?'
'Two weeks.'
Her tense body language said that was the moment in time where she'd needed protection and Neil felt something inside shift. He would have fought for her life the same way he had his father's.
'Then I went to NORAD.'
Neil mirrored her sadness for the once great American icon, but in those blue depths lurked a knowledge of life and death that told the trooper she'd had problems there too.'

***

Full of realistic and fantasy situations, the Life After War Series is a combination of more than seven genres, so there's a good chance of everyone liking it and learning a few things about survival at the same time. You can get a free copy at the link below, of the first book in the series. It's free for all of this year to celebrate the possible end of the world on 12/21/2012.

By the way, a huge thanks to Judith for hosting me on my Scenes of the Apocalypse release tour. Have you read The Song of Heledd yet? I just downloaded a copy to my kindle. Gonna have a great summer of reading by the time I gather up all these new books!

Adrian's Eagles Three months after the war of 2012, Safe Haven refugee camp has made it to South Dakota and now holds six of the seven special survivors meant to lead the rebuilding of the country - butit cant be done until they find a safe place to settle ...and who can think of peace when there's a huge camp of foreign invaders less than a day behind their group and they only want one thing? Safe Haven and everyone inside the light.

More information about Angela and her books can be found below.

Adrian's Eagles
Angela's webpage  Free - The survivors - The bestselling novel that stared it all.

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