Category Archive

THREE THINGS I LEARNED WHILE WRITING – HANDFASTED TO THE BEAR with Elina Emerald 1. Write the Ending First I wrote the ending to ‘Handfasted to the Bear’ before I wrote the beginning. For me, knowing how a book ends provides an anchor for my story and everything else is a towline attached to my characters. I can throw in conflicts, turning points and twists if I guide my protagonists to that end point. When I conceptualised this book, I only had a brief backstory to work with. My heroine Orla is a mixed-race woman of colour living in a Scottish …

THREE THINGS I LEARNED WHILE WRITING – THE BABY with Sian Ceiwen 1. Sometimes you just need to keep writing The Baby took me thirteen weeks to the day to finish and it ended at 164k words. I wrote around 100k of those words in five weeks, but then I floundered for eight weeks to reach the end. I felt as though the book was simply meandering its way to a conclusion. There was some drama, and it was very enjoyable to read, but it wasn’t gripping. You can’t edit a blank page, though. One of my readers who works …

THREE THINGS I LEARNED WHILE WRITING – RENEGADE WIDOW with Jules Radcliffe 1. Historical accuracy: know when to give a little I’ve always adored historical fiction, whether it’s romance, murder mystery, or action adventure. But I don’t want a modern story with pretty frocks, I want stories to deep-dive into the era they’re set in. No matter how hard an author tries, they’ll never get everything right, but I prefer reading authors who research hard to be authentic. On the other hand, I’m not a total purist. I appreciate authors who convincingly rationalise not-quite-authentic elements if they include them. The …

THREE THINGS I LEARNED WHILE WRITING – ONCE WE WERE with Keighley Bradford 1. Writing the book was the easy bit. Writing the narrative for this book was the easy bit of the process; it was all the stages after the first draft that had been the hardest. I wrote Once We Were chronologically, becoming acquainted with my characters and their story. By the end of the first draft, however, I knew that this story wasn’t one that could be told from start to finish. So, I introduced a non-linear chaptering style (‘Then’ and ‘Now’), which added a whole new …

THREE THINGS I LEARNED WHILE WRITING – DADDY’S GIRL with Belinda Williams 1. Just because it’s hard to write, doesn’t mean it will be hard to read Daddy’s Girl is the third and final book in my romantic comedy Freshwater series. Due to Covid resulting in me working fewer hours, I was well ahead of schedule on starting the first draft. Self Made, the previous book in the series, had virtually written itself as there is a lot to be said for writing rom com during lockdown—it’s a great mood lifter! But when I came to Daddy’s Girl, things were …

We are starting Valentine’s Day with a bang – a Perfectly Paranormal Bang! In addition to three things I learned – RWA gets an inside look at the anthology and its participants with a Q&A! THREE THINGS I LEARNED WHILE WRITING – A PERFECTLY PARANORMAL VALENTINE ANTHOLOGY 1. There are so many great advantages of writing with a group of fellow authors Shared workload of self-publishing Cover – Samantha Marshall Editing – Leisl Leighton & Marnie St Clair Formatting – Georgia Tingley Proofreading – Everyone Promotional Graphics – Samantha Marshall, Leisl Leighton, Georgia Tingley Questionnaire – Helen Howe Other interested …