Novelicious.com | The Women's Fiction Blog for Readers and Writers

Novelicious Chats To...Karen Clarke

Karen Clarke, author of, My Future Husband, recently answered a few questions for our Novelicious readers.

Can you tell us a little about your average writing day?

My writing day can be a bit erratic as I’m not very disciplined!  I do some housework then go to my local Costa and write for a couple of hours without internet distractions, and if it’s going particularly well I’ll often carry on at home in the evenings. I really work better first thing and I’m trying to cultivate a habit of writing as soon as I wake up, but it’s not working out so far!

When you are writing, do you use any celebrities or people you know as inspiration?

I rarely base appearances on celebrities or people I know as I find it too distracting. All my main male characters would be inspired by Josh Holloway, who played Sawyer in Lost, but as soon as I picture him they start behaving like Sawyer, which isn’t right for the story! I’m sure personality traits of people I know creep into my writing though.

What is your favourite Women’s Fiction book of all time and why?

This is difficult, as I love so many female writers.  Bridget Jones’s Diary and Catherine Alliott’s The Old Girl Network –which both made me laugh out loud – had the biggest impact on me in terms of wanting to write humorous women’s fiction, but the only women’s fiction book I’ve ever read twice is Rachel’s Holiday by Marian Keyes, which made me laugh AND cry.

Do you plan first or dive in? How many drafts do you do?

I’ve tried detailed planning, but get bogged down.  It doesn’t work for me.  I do have an idea of a beginning, middle and end, but like to dive in and be surprised along the way.  I wrote about five drafts of My Future Husband (there was a time machine in the first one and far too many characters) three drafts of my second novel - maybe with my third I’ll get it down to one!  I actually enjoy rewriting – I know I’m making the story better.

Five Cracking Kindle Covers

As a die-hard book addict (as objects, not just what's inside them), I wasn't at all sure when e-readers first appeared on the market. Then, I was bought a Kindle as a gift and fell in love; my very own portable library. It's no wonder the gadgets have taken the world by storm but, in my humble opinion, they do feel a bit odd in the hand. That is, until you pop them into a nice cover. 

1. This Kindle Fire cover is handmade in England from recycled leather and it’s a beautiful shade of peacock green. I adore the ‘satchel’ styling; the blue pocket on the front and the buckle fastening (which has a press stud to make it easy to use). £29.99 from Waterstones.

 

2. Run For Cover case for the Kindle Touch featuring Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. The case is made from PVC, and is lightly padded to keep your Kindle safe and costs just £14.99 from TruffleShuffle. 

 

 

3. Pretty floral cover by Nica in a fresh mint green. Made from coated canvas with a faux suede inner. £25 from John Lewis.

 

4. Staying with the floral theme, how about this fabric case? Handmade to order using Cath Kidston Provence Rose fabric, the case is lightly padded and is flexible enough for you to bend the front cover back if required. It's available in different sizes to fit the various Kindle models and in either a coral pink or grey colourway. £36.50 from NotOnTheHighStreet.

 

 

 

5. For people who want their e-readers to look and feel as much like a book as possible, Klevercase have developed a beautiful range of covers. They use material that looks like cloth and leather (although it isn't) and bookbinding paper to make Kindle cases that look like real hardback books. They have an interior made from 'moulded TPU' and, as your Kindle fits snugly in this, there's no need for a closure on the cover (which would spoil the illusion of a 'real' book). The cases are handmade to order in England and there are lots of styles available including Dracula (a cloth-look blue book), Einstein's Theory of Relativity (tooled, leather-look), Peter Pan, and a James Bond range. Pictured above is Emma by Jane Austen, priced £24.99 from Klevercase.

My Book Deal Moment - Alexandra Brown

Luck and ladyballs….

And a passion for writing of course, are essential when you dream of being a published novelist, and I should know... I’ve practically spent my whole life pursuing the dream.

There I was sitting at the kitchen table, scoffing a Flake and reading about TOWIE people on the Daily Mail website, like you do when you’re bored and can’t be arsed to actually do something productive. Some people call it ‘displacement activity’, I call it wasting time, and I’m the self-appointed queen of wasting time.

Have I ever told you about the time I wasted well over twenty minutes sniffing the potted hyacinths on my desk? It was a tricky writing day, didn’t know what was going to happen next, was having one of those “it’s all crap anyway, so what does it matter” moments, but anyway, twenty whole minutes... I bet Jackie doesn’t do that. No, she probably has someone to sniff her hyacinths for her. I can’t imagine Lucky Santangelo hanging around waiting for her author to write the next bit.

Review - One Last Thing Before I Go by Jonathan Tropper

Reviewed by Cressida McLaughlin

Silver knows that he’s done a rubbish job of taking care of his family. He knows that because he’s 44, living in an efficiency (monthly-rate) hotel called The Versailles, and divorced. He was lured into the world of fame and fortune when his band, The Bent Daises, had a one-album-hit following their song ‘Rest in Pieces.’ The celebrity life-style was short lived, but Silver couldn’t stop riding the wave and lost everything in the process.  Now his ex-wife Denise and daughter Casey live with Denise’s new doctor fiancé Richard, and Silver occasionally plays drums for an orchestra and languishes by the Versailles pool, ogling women much younger than he is with his friends Jack and Oliver.

It is on one of these pool days that Casey turns up, tells him that she’s pregnant and asks for his advice. Silver can’t decide whether he’s more surprised about his daughter’s news or the fact that she has come to him rather than Denise. Silver resolves to do the right thing and help his daughter, but it’s not as easy as it looks. Soon afterwards, Silver receives some news of his own that makes him reassess his outlook on life, and look back over where he has gone so wrong.

Review - The Midwife of Hope River by Patricia Harman

Reviewed by Jennifer Joyce

Though only in her mid thirties, Patience Murphy has endured enough drama to span several lifetimes. Originally named Elizabeth Snyder, Patience has changed her name and hidden her past to protect herself. Her mentor and best friend, Mrs Kelly, has died and now Patience is alone, working as a midwife in Liberty, a small town in West Virginia, and the surrounding area. Nobody knows about her past and Patience, wanting to keep her old alias buried, doesn’t allow herself to become close to anybody and lives in constant fear that she will be found out. Mrs Kelly was Patience’s only friend for a long time and so Patience puts up Bitsy Proudfoot when her employer can no longer afford to keep her on. She teaches young Bitsy about midwifery while Bitsy teaches Patience about gardening, hunting and fishing. Soon the two women form a bond and a strong relationship.

Set in 1929/30, just after the Wall St crash and the ensuing Depression, Patience struggles through poverty as she helps the women around her deliver their babies. Many cannot afford to pay Patience for her services, but she doesn’t turn any of them away.

Novelicious Chats To...Nick Alexander

Nick Alexander, author of The Case of the Missing Boyfriend, The Half-Life of Hannah, among others, recently answered a few questions for our Novelicious readers.

Can you tell us a little about your average writing day? I've always had a bit of a lazy streak, and I find it terribly difficult to get down to work. In the old pre-social-media days I would do anything to avoid getting down to work: housework, cleaning windows, polishing my keyboard, brushing the cat. Any excuse was a good excuse. These days some clever soul has invented facebook for the exact purpose of wasting time, so my windows stay dirty and my cats are unbrushed. I tend to go down to my office (it's a shed at the bottom of the garden) with a cup of tea at about 9:30 and pfaff around on facebook and twitter till eleven, where I finally get down to some work. I'll reread and correct what I wrote the day before, then write about five hundred words longhand before breaking for half an hour for lunch. By 2:30 I'm back in the office typing up the morning's work, and then I usually manage to write and type another thousand words or so in the afternoon. Once I finish, about six, I try to do something different to get out of my head and back into my body: gardening, or chopping wood, or going for a run are all good. Anything physical will do the trick.

When you are writing, do you use any celebrities or people you know as inspiration?
I'm not much of a celebrity watcher, but many of the story-lines in my novels come from things that have happened to me or to my friends, so often there will be characters in my novels who have similarities with real people. A writer friend has a plaque on the wall that says, "Warning, bystanders may be written in," and that's very true, I think, for all novelists. Exciting fiction requires stronger more defined characters than the complex mixtures of good and bad one tends to come across in real life, so I generally group together the character traits and adventures of a number of people to create a single, defined character. So even though the people in my novels may look a little like friends and acquaintances sometimes, it's very rarely the case that that similarity bears close inspection.
 
What is your favourite Women’s Fiction book of all time and why?
It would have to be Puffball by Fay Weldon. The tension between the heroine's unborn child and her murderous neighbour is a stunning literary invention, and I never tire of reading and re-reading it.

Review – Forgive Me by Lesley Pearse

Reviewed by Debs Carr

Eva Patterson arrives home from work to discover her mother, Flora, has committed suicide in her bath. Andrew Patterson has always been a little controlling over his wife and children and never very loving towards Eva, but his attitude towards her deteriorates almost immediately after the suicide is discovered. He becomes spiteful and suspicious towards Eva, acting as if he loathes her and blames her for what her mother has done. Eva’s younger siblings, Ben and spoilt Sophia are as stunned as Eva when Andrew drops the bombshell that not only is Eva not his daughter, but that their mother has left her a studio in London that none of the youngsters had ever known existed. She’s also left her half of the family home to Ben and Sophia. Unable to do what he wishes with their house, Andrew slowly turns against them all.

As soon as the funeral is over Eva leaves and moves to live in a nearby bedsit where she meets Todd. When their relationshop falters, Eva, heartsore and unable to cope, leaves hurriedly one night and goes to live in her run-down studio. She has a traumatic encounter, but is helped by a stranger, Phil. With his support and contacts Eva begins to turn her squalid studio into a beautiful home. She then decides that it’s time to track down her real father, discover as much as she can about her mother’s past, and hopefully understand what could have happened to make Flora want to kill herself.

Feasting on Romantic Comedy - Chocolate Chip Scones from Good in Bed by Jennifer Weiner

Good in Bed by Jennifer Weiner is stuffed with food references. Cannie Shapiro -possibly one of my favourite fictional heroines -has been humiliated by her ex-boyfriend in a national publication. According to the ex, Bruce:

'Loving a larger woman is an act of courage in our world.'

 Cannie, the larger woman he is referring to, is, obviously, rather upset about this, and one of the consequences is a visit to the 'University of Philadelphia Weight and Eating Disorders Center'.  Filling out an application form about her weight, Cannie thinks about all the delicious things she likes to eat. Spring rolls, tiramisu, calamari, mashed potatoes and roast chicken. Chocolate bread pudding, fried chicken, grilled stuffed grape leaves, brownies, chocolate tarts...it makes my stomach growl just reading page thirty six!

Review - Falling For You by Giselle Green

Reviewed by Jenny Banks

When a snowstorm traps two strangers in an old ruin on Christmas Day, neither realises how will it affect their future or bring their pasts together.

Rose longs to leave the village of Merry Ditton and experience independence at university. But as the sole carer for her fragile father, her dreams look lost. Lawrence has been working in Sri Lanka, treating the injured while atoning for an awful accident. As their lives collide the possibility of love opens up for them both. But Lawrence has a secret, one that entwines him with Rose and her family in an unimaginable way. Their families are also bitter enemies and neighbours, threatening to destroy any hope for them both.

The first line I read on the back page of Falling For You proclaimed, ‘What if you find the love of your life…only to discover he’s your enemy?’ Giselle Green’s novel sounded so intriguing I couldn’t wait to start reading it. It took me a little while to get into it; each chapter alternates between Rose and Lawrence, and it feels like the novel only really gets going when they come together. This is definitely where the novel works best. Having two people as the only characters for two hundred pages and keeping the book fresh and exciting might’ve been difficult, but Giselle Green pulls it off well. I was hooked as they get to know each other and they slowly begin to fall in love. As enemies and lovers though, it was never going to be plain sailing, and throughout their time together there is impending trouble in sight.

Novelicious Chats To... Sue Moorcroft

Sue Moorcroft's novel Love & Freedom won the Best Romantic Read Award 2011 and Dream a Little Dream has been nominated for a RoNA in the Contemporary Romantic Novel Award category. She's a Katie Fforde Bursary Award winner.

Check out her website www.suemoorcroft.com 

Can you tell us a little about your average writing day?

 I start work early, about 7.30am, but I often don’t write until after lunch because I spend the morning working with students and competition entrants. To divide my day this way seems to keep me working well in all areas. I tried writing all day one day and working with students etc the next but it didn’t work nearly so well. On writing days I was all written out too early and on student days my attention began to wander. I finish about 6pm but I sprinkle Zumba, yoga and piano classes through my week, to break things up.

 

When you are writing, do you use any famous people or people you know as inspiration?

 For characters? A bit. Mainly for looks, and then it tends to be a bit of a pastiche of more than one person rather than a straight visual copy. For personality, rarely, but I do use situations that come up and I certainly study the way that people react to events and utilise that in my writing. When I was a tutor for a university I went to a meeting and the creative writing tutors were on the next table to the counselling tutors. I discovered that we thought about things in exactly the same way – it’s just that they worked with real people and we made ours up. (Sorry, strayed from the topic a bit!)

My Writing Room - CJ Lyons

Today we have a very unique and slightly dangerous writing room today from CJ Lyons! CJ is a New York Times and USA Today Bestselling thriller writer. You can find out more about CJ's books here.

My Writing Room by CJ Lyons

During my 17 years as a pediatric ER doctor I faced down gang-bangers, drunk guys three times my size, bomb scares, fires, two hard landings in helicopters, and numerous irate parents. I even once came face to face with a serial killer.

Nick Spalding's Top 5 Writing Tips

Omit needless words.

Write as naturally as you can.

Don’t worry about offending anyone.

Remember: it’s a job like any other.

Sit in a comfortable chair. You don’t want back ache.

Nick Spalding's latest book is Love From Both Sides and you can read our review here.

 

Writing Comps and Opportunities Roundup 19/02/2013

 By Cesca Major

Every other Tuesday I will be compiling a list of competitions, courses and opportunities on offer for wannabe writers and those of you who might want to work in publishing. If you have a competition, course or opportunity you would like us to shout about, send info to: cesca@novelicious.com. If you can't see your comp here we might be saving it for a later date.

 And please, Novelicious readers, let us know how you get on! We'd love to hear your success stories . . .

 

Competitions:

 There are some fabulous writing competitions, particularly if you're writing women's commercial fiction or chick lit coming up in the next few weeks and months. Here are just a few . . .

 ~ The 2013 Bristol Short Story Prize is open to all writers, UK and non-UK based, over 16 years of age. Stories can be on any theme or subject and entry can be made online via the website or by post. Entries must be previously unpublished with a maximum length of 4,000 words (There is no minimum). Fee to enter is £8 and there are a panel of judges.

 Deadline: April 30th 2013.

 Prizes: 1st £1000 plus £150 Waterstone’s gift card. 2nd £700  plus £100 Waterstone’s gift card. 3rd £400  plus £100 Waterstone’s gift card

17 further prizes of £100 will be presented to the writers whose stories appear on the shortlist. All 20 shortlisted writers will have their stories published in the Bristol Short Story Prize Anthology Volume 6. The winning story will, also, be published in Bristol Review of Books magazine.

The 20 shortlisted writers will be invited to an awards ceremony in Bristol in October 2013 when the winners will be announced and the anthology.

 

~  West Sussex Writers are running a short story competition. The theme is open so get scribbling in any genre you fancy! They are accepting stories up to 3,000 words long. It costs £5 to enter. The judge for this one is Simon Brett.

Deadline: 31st March 2013

Prize: £200

 

~ Jenny Colgan and Little, Brown have teamed up with National Express to launch a short story competition to win a chance to become a published author!

To enter, they would like you to write a short story no more than 2,000 words long with the premise of 'take us on a journey'.

Prize: The winning short story will be published in the back of Jenny Colgan's, The Good, The Bad and The Dumped, e-Book edition published in August 2013.

Deadline: Midnight, 28th April 2013

If you want to talk to others about the comp on Twitter use the hash tag: #NXColgan

 

~ Lucy Robinson has teamed up with the writersphere.com to judge a 2000 word short story competition. Writers can submit multiple entries and can write in any style and on any topic. Stories will be read by a panel and the winner will be chosen by Lucy.

She said, "I'm looking for authentic voices; writers confident in their own style, and snapshots of worlds that intrigue me without leaving me feeling like the story's only just begun once the 2000 words are up."

Prize: £500 and the story will be published on the website and the writer will join the other faces in the writers' section!

Deadline: 31st March 2013

~ The marvellous Belinda Jones is running a short story competition. You will have YOUR story published in a Sunlounger Anthology and win a suitcase full of travel-related goodies. The winning story will be published alongside some fabulous female writers (including our very own editor - Kirsty Greenwood!) in a book out this Summer.

 If you want to enter and receive guidelines simply email: sunloungerstories@gmail.com

 

~ Something short? How about entering a Flash Fiction Comp judged by Annemarie Neary. Details can be found here: Flash 500 run by @lomace 

Courses:

~ How about checking out a 1 day course with lovely Julie Cohen? If you want to start a novel maybe try the beginner's course or maybe you are hoping to write better sex scenes. She has it all! Check out the details here: http://www.julie-cohen.com/events

 

~ Curtis Brown are running a new 6 month writing course for writers in February. You need to apply and have a handy pot of gold to hand but if this is you then check out the info here: http://curtisbrowncreative.co.uk/course/six-month-novel-writing-course/

 

~ Hannah Davis, a YA Author is running a 6 week online course at the end of February entitled 'How to Unleash Your Authentic Voice'. Details can be found here.

 

~ Why don't you check out the Faber Academy? They have a whole range of excellent novel courses on offer. In April author Rowan Coleman will be running this one.

 

~ Sue Moorcroft is running a whole range of courses or workshops later this year. See this list below. Of particular note is a gorgeous sounding course in Italy this summer (Novelicious bats eyelids sweetly...)

 

5 MARCH 2013 - 10.30am Meet the Author talk at Beaumont Leys Library, Beaumont Way Leicester, LE4 1DS. Speaker. Book on Tel: (0116) 299 5460 or email: beaumontleys.lib@leicester.gov.uk

 

20-21 APRIL 2013 - Chipping Norton Literary Festival. Two-hour workshop: writing hot scenes. Details tba. Book: http://chiplitfest.com

 

3-10 JULY 2013 - Arte Umbria, teaching Writing Romantic Fiction writing course in fabulous central Italy: tutorials, time to write, feedback, one-to-ones and plenty of opportunity to relax on a fabulous country house estate in central Italy. Book at http://arteumbria.com/ - the course is already filling up. 28 JULY-2 AUGUST 2013 - Writers' Holiday, Caerleon. Workshop: short stories. Book: http://www.writersholiday.net/

Sue works on various courses for the London School of Journalism (distance learning): http://www.lsj.org and also runs the Writers' Forum Fiction Competition (a rolling comp with a £300 first prize each month). See the magazine for details.

Details and how to contact Sue directly can be found here: www.suemoorcroft.com

Please email Cesca@novelicious.com with any cometitions, courses and opportunities you think might be relevant to our readers!

Ask the Editor: Writing a synopsis is notoriously difficult. What are your top tips?

Caroline Hogg has worked in publishing for almost ten years. She is Senior Commissioning Editor for Commercial Women's Fiction at Pan Macmillan.

This week a Novelicious reader asked:

Writing a synopsis is notoriously difficult and I find it more terrifying than writing an 80,000 word novel. What are your top tips for creating the dreaded synopsis?

Caroline says: I’m personally not a fan of a very very detailed synopsis, though I know that some agencies and publishers do ask for them. I would personally always prefer to see a one-page synopsis (on A4, double spaced) that gives me the main thrust of the plot, without every single twist and turn explained. The purpose of a synopsis, from my point of view, is to show me what’s special and unique about the story, what kind of arc the characters go through and whether there’ll be a satisfying ending. I usually turn to the synopsis after I’ve read a chunk of the book and have enjoyed it. The synopsis should make me want to read on at that point. If it’s too dense or elaborate the effect might be overwhelming. Having said that, reading a synopsis where the author is vague about the ending, or leaves it off altogether, is very frustrating! A good thing to remember is that agents and editors have lots to read and not much time to read it in, so give them ‘the headlines’ in your synopsis – the main plot developments you want them to remember and that you think will hook them in. Make the synopsis as punchy as possible – approach it as if you were writing the blurb for the back of your book, so it ‘sells’ the novel as much as possible.

To Ask the Editor, just email a question to kirsty@novelicious.com or ask on our Facebook or Twitter!