Writer's Life

When I tell people I'm a writer, there is usually a short silence of surprise as where I come from it is not a common career path. Mostly it's almost indiscernible, just enough time to think of a suitable reply. I don't blame them. We've all watched writers being depicted in films. They are usually laboured with every negative character trope going. They are either socially inept or introvert (Melvin Udall in As Good As It Gets), flawed (Dix Steele in In A Lonely Place), obsessive (Jack Torrance in The Shining), struggles to recapture or achieve success (Barton Fink in Barton Fink) or/and depressed and lonely (Virginia Wolf in The Hours). Perhaps the latter does not exactly fit as Virginia Wolf was a writer and did suffer from mental illness so I'll use another example - Mort Rainey in Secret Window.

I'm not saying that writers don't suffer from one (or all) of the above as no one has a perfect life... but most of the writers I know are pretty normal people with ordinary lives. How do they prevent their creative imagination (which is capable of creating stories that can involve anything from disasters and murder to finding your perfect soulmate) from causing havoc in their personal lives? How do they stop becoming isolated from society after they have spent thousands of hours, months, years, putting words together in what they hope is an interesting order that will stop a reader from throwing their book in a bin?

I have just returned from the Romantic Novelists Association’s 2023 Conference which was held at the Imperial College in London. Despite being a member of the RNA since 2016, this was my first conference and I’m pleased to say that I thoroughly enjoyed myself. So, what is the conference all about?

"TV gives everyone an image, but radio gives birth to a million images in a million brains."
-Peggy Noonan

In April, I was delighted to join radio presenter (and fellow Choc Lit author) Chris Penhall on her show, Books and Tunes. Books and Tunes is a weekly West Wiltshire radio show, where Chris talks to writers and readers about books and publishing. Needless to say, the friendly, informative chat is interspersed with music. I was one of two guests in the hour long show (episode 5) and although it’s always daunting to be a guest on a radio show, fortunately Chris made it feel as if we were just chatting over a coffee and not recording a show.

Research is an integral part of writing historical fiction. Accurate historical details will anchor the plot firmly into an era and invite the reader to immerse themselves into this alternative world. I enjoy reading well-researched historical fiction. Learning about our history helps us to understand how the past has influenced the society, environment and beliefs of today.