A Sunny Day in Cornwall

The clouds lifted as we set across Cornwall leaving the Lizard and heading north almost to Devon to join the festivities of the Charles Causley Festival. My signing was for noon and to be honest I really didn't expect anyone to turn up for an event by a début novelist at lunch-time on the Thursday before a bank holiday weekend. But they did!

The Bookshop is located in the heart of the town opposite the most lovely church.The owner greeted me warmly with the news he'd already sold 5 books! And sure enough a steady stream of people came into chat - this is Cornwall after all and many bought the book including a lovely librarian from Australia here on holiday.... Then there was a group of German tourists outside and writing down the title of the book...so I hoped outside and told them it was coming out in Germany in November...

I met a local author and was able to find some more research books...a  brilliant day. Tomorrow I'm in Falmouth Booksellers at 2PM if you fabcy a chat and a piece of fudge...

But while driving across Cornwall I've been elsewhere...

I've also been interviewed by Eleanor Fitzsimmons on writing.ie about how location plays an essential part in The Cornish House.

The lovely Claire Marriot reviews The Cornish House on her blog here.

I'm chatting to the fab Emma Lee Potter here

An interview with Trashonista here.

Emma Lee-Potter - One Thing I've Learnt

I never dreamed I’d say this but the main lesson I’ve learned over the years is that I love deadlines. Whether it’s a news story in 20 minutes flat or a novella in a month, writing is so much easier if you have one.

My first real experience of deadlines came when I worked as a news reporter for the Evening Standard. I’d just arrived in London from a sleepy weekly newspaper in Devon (where the most exciting thing that ever happened was the council’s planning meeting) and I nearly fell off my chair in shock when my boss sent me out of the office at seven a.m. with instructions to file my story from the other side of London by nine. I didn’t even have a mobile phone, so I wasted loads of time hunting for a phone box. But my story was in the paper by noon.

A couple of months ago a publisher asked me to write a novella. “When do you need it by?” I asked. “Four weeks,” he replied. The eye-wateringly tight deadline sealed the deal and made me get cracking immediately. And yes, I delivered my novella, Olympic Flames, bang on time.

As for other lessons I’ve learned, here are a few more:

If you want to do something, just do it (well, within reason).
Trust your instincts.
Think big, work hard and laugh lots.

http://housewithnoname.blogspot.co.uk

Emma’s new ebook, Olympic Flames, is out now. Showjumper Mimi Carter is desperate to win an Olympic gold medal at London 2012. But as injury threatens and an enigmatic old flame arrives back on the scene, can she put her feelings to one side and realise her dream?

The Importance of Being With Other Writers and Inner Voice

I know I've written this before but it is so important....as writers we are alone and in our heads day in and day out. Characters and setting fill our minds. We live in a make believe world. Wonderful, yes, but hard to explain or share with other who don't have the same creative passion. When we are away with the fairies, we might indeed be or we might be figuring out why Jane left her husband and ran off with the hairy biker....not real people but characters we've created...

So its a treat to get together with like minded souls who spend there days listening to voices in their heads. On Tuesday I went to the RNA's Oxford lunch. Bliss. I finally had time to properly meet the wonderful Emma Lee Potter. We know it each other from Twitter and have met at some event, but have never had the chance to chat. As with these things, it happened once chatting there were less that six degrees of separation....her wonderful blog House With No Name is up for an award from Cosmo. Go and vote for it please...

Also at this month's lunch was Becky from Isis audio books and a 'squee' moment happened for me...she recognized the title of my book! She'd been in Orion's offices and had heard about it and thought it sounds perfect for them. Definitely 'squee'! As we all introduced ourselves around Becky shared some insights into audio books at Isis...

- their big market is libraries...so any work that authors do in libraries is key
- it's the author name - name recognition that is so important in libraries for audio books
- they do 28 titles a month
- they still produce cassettes and they do do downloads which appear on Audible etc.
- it's the highest honour when an author says it's the 'right' voice for the reading

As we went round the everyone chimed up with what they were doing...the key thing that came up again and again was trusting your Inner Voice...not the critic that tells you it's all sh*te, but the voice that tells you it's right and the voice that says you don't need that bit no matter how lovely the prose and the voice that reminds you not to chase publication for the sake of it, but listen to the what you really want to write. I really believe this and I was a cheer leader for Anita Burgh sitting beside me. She couldn't say listen to your Inner Voice enough and the more I write, edit, re-write....the more I believe she is right. JoJo Moyes mentioned this same thing in her talk (my notes here). Initially it's hard to trust, but it is your best friend. It will hold your hand as you kill your darlings and write the books of your heart....

Last night I saw the latest version of the cover for THE CORNISH HOUSE...it's lovely but I still can't share...hopefully soon