Just a little update. (There's been a lot going on).

 Well there’s been a lot of changes since my last blog post. I became a granny, turned sixty, and son has finally moved out, so suffering from a bit of empty nest syndrome. The editing is going a little slower than I would have hoped, but it’s still going.

I don’t know if it’s due to the big birthday but I’ve been in a reflective mood. Looking back at some of my early writing. The first big novel, which I still love, well the idea anyway, the writing is rather grim. Characters with similar names, too many cliches, confusing chapters. One day I might go back to it, although the amount of work needed to make it good might put me off. The second novel was better, quite a bit better if I’m honest, but still would need a heck of a lot of work to get it presentable. Although a few characters have wheedled their way into the latest novel.

Now the latest one, it has legs, it will be set free on the world this year. Just one more round of edits and it’s done. To say I’m happy with it is an understatement. I love my story, my characters. What started off as a standalone crime novel has morphed into an urban fantasy trilogy.

I have a friend (well I have a few) but I have one friend who has been with me since the story was nothing more than a handful of scenes. We’ve spent hours talking, me bouncing ideas off her and her making a few suggestions that have sent the novel on a different path. Biggest one was a simple suggestion about a character who appeared in one paragraph explaining my main character's motivation. She’s now a huge part of the story, and it wouldn’t be the same without her.

This friend makes journals, and she made me one for each of the books in the trilogy. When I’m stuck, I’ll pull one out and flick through the pages and it helps me focus and get back on track.

Here are a few photos of the pages that inspire me.

I’m lucky that I have supportive friends, some who write, some who just love reading, without them I wouldn’t have got this far. Onwards and upwards.

A little late for Halloween (it's been one of those weeks).

 So I thought because of the stuff I write, I'd do a spooky post. But due to life in general getting in the way, I forgot.

Anyway.

What irrational thing makes you shudder?

For me, it's dead bugs. I don't know why, but I can move live ones, flies, spiders, you name it, I don't have a problem with them. I have a pet huntsman in my studio, goes by the name of Hector. He likes to pop out and make me jump from time to time. But there's a dead one been hanging around in there for a while, and it took me ages to get up the courage to use the feather duster to move it.

Thing is it never used to bother me, and I've been trying to work out why it does now. I think I've found the answer. Once upon a time, the cats brought me a dead frog. This wasn't the first present they had given me, nor was it the last, but it's the one that left a lasting impression, and I shall explain.

Hubby called me on the home phone just after I'd scraped the poor dead thing onto a piece of kitchen roll. So, with dead frog in hand, I answered the phone and proceeded to have a conversation with my husband. All was going well until I screamed and probably damaged his hearing. The frog pulled some sort of Lazarus move and just jumped off my hand. I quickly explained, hung up, and spent the next half hour trying to catch said frog so that I could put it outside. I did.

After a little research on this new-fangled internet thingy (yes it was that long ago) I found frogs can play dead. 

So I blame the frog for my issue with picking dead (or maybe not) things up, just in case they miraculously come to life in my hand.

Maybe this is why I also have an issue with zombies, can't watch them, read them, or write them. 

The Importance of Music and writing (well to me anyway)

I love music, yet when I edit I prefer silence (or classical stuff if the silence gets too much), for everything else there is music.

The only two things I wish I could do are sing and play the guitar, I know I could always learn the second one, but yea I think even with years of tuition my singing would be better left to in the shower and when no-one is in earshot. It doesn’t stop me though and you can’t always blame the rain on my voice.

Oh before anyone asks, I am not a music snob. I’m really not. There are a few things I’m not a fan of, a couple of bands, a certain song that will have me nipping out for a smoke if it comes on when we go to see local bands. But I’ll give everything a go at least once. I love finding new-to-me bands and artists.

I’ve gone through phases, Goth/New Romantics/Punk/Metal/Folk (and various mixtures of them all) and because of that I still listen to a wide range of music, I refuse to be stuck in an era (although I did have a bit of a walk down memory lane the other night with some eighties New Romantic stuff). 

My dad listened to classical, Tim Rice & Andrew Lloyd Webber, and Meatloaf. My mum Don Williams and Charlie Landsborough. Both of them were very dismissive of my music tastes (My parents not Don and Charlie). So I vowed I wouldn’t be like that with my own children, I don’t think I have (for the most part). 

Nathaniel Raitliff helped me stomp up Mansfield Road the other day as I walked back from watching Forest play Wolves (1-1 if anyone’s interested).

Artist like HIM, Fuel, Matchbox Twenty, My Chemical Romance, Within Temptation, James Blunt, Noble Jacks, Gaz Brookfield, The Men They Couldn't Hang, Frank Turner and many more have been playing whilst I write my first draft. Sometimes they help the train of thought, sometimes they interrupt, and sometimes give me inspiration. I either let Spotify pick me random stuff, which has introduced me to a lot of new music, or I pick something specific that leans into the mood of the piece I’m working on. There are short stories lurking on my hard drive that have been inspired by song lyrics, which will never see the light of day, but they were fun to write.

The Office Assistants (if only they had opposable thumbs)

 As I’m neck deep in editing and couldn’t come up with anything writing related that wasn’t a rant I thought I’d introduce you to my two office assistants.

Now I’ve always been a dog person, but for many years we just had cats. Cats who would lie on my keyboard, knock my screen over and walk through paint (I’d almost finished a tricky commission once when Tiger walked through orange and red paint and proceeded to walk across the bottom of aforementioned commission…oops).

But about twelve years ago I finally caved, and Freddie came to live with us. The rescue warned us he was mad, and were we sure? We were (although getting him whilst getting the garden landscaped may have been a bit of a mistake). He was the last of twenty-one dogs from a puppy farm, and I fell in love. The cats, not so much. Tiger would hide under the washing hanging over the landing banister and whack him on the nose whenever he went upstairs. He soon admitted defeat and they became friends.

He has never learnt the concept of ‘heel’ and for many years he was ball-obsessed, so a typical spanner.

Now he’s an elder statesman and spends much of the day snoring, has selective hearing, but still enjoys his walks and a treat of a ‘pigs-ear’. Oh and will occasionally put the junior office assistant in his place.

Bramble is nuts, completely nuts, but I’ve never known a dog that is so affectionate once he knows you. He came to us through a friend and it was an interesting start. He didn’t like men, barked at every noise in the house and insisted on sleeping on the bed as close to me as he could get. (He’s still very velcro, but at least he will sleep in his bed at night).

He’s scared of other people, dogs, cats and he isn’t a huge fan of the bright yellow wheelbarrow that is currently outside our neighbours house. But he’s getting better, slowly. We can have visitors, and he gets excited when his favourite people visit, presenting them with a soggy hippo (a toy one, not a real one, just in case you were worried).

They are very good at reminding me when it’s lunchtime (walkies) and tea-time (4:00pm not a moment later). So they get me to move away from the screen. Wish they could make me a cuppa though.

Actually all this has got me thinking about their different personalities and how important it is when bringing your characters to life you think about that. How they react to different situations, how they interact with other characters and the world around them. No two dogs are the same, neither are two people, but their reactions are consistent. It’s important to ensure your characters behave in a way that they would.

How do I get to know my characters? I talk to them, a lot. I listen when they talk to me (usually at three in the morning). For a character to be believable, you have to give them layers. It’s ok saying ‘He was six foot two with brown eyes and hair’ (my current MC), but what is his motivation for what he does, what are his quirks? How does he react to situations? What happens to him to change his reaction? 

I have a lot of notes on who he is, what has happened to him etc. Stuff that will never go into the novel, but because I know him and how he will react I can throw stuff at him and move the plot along. (He doesn’t always like what I do to him - and sometimes I can’t blame him for that). 

Sometimes he challenges me on how I write his reaction. ‘I wouldn’t do that. I’d do this.’ Most of the time he’s right.

Sounds like I’ve lost my mind? I haven’t (or at least I don’t think I have - others may disagree). I’ve talked to other writers and we all have something similar. My characters all sit around a huge farmhouse table, drink tea and tell me what to write, another writer friend keeps all hers in a kind of green room, waiting to be called to the stage. 

We know they aren’t real, but to make them believable they live in our heads, and we observe them, just as we would observe real people going about their business. 

So this did end up being about writing, who’d have thought it?

Embrace the weird.

 What makes you weird?

So I’ve been called weird, eclectic and sometimes just a bit strange (and in our local pub they used to call me a goth - even though I’ve not dressed like one since the mid eighties). Oh, don’t get me wrong, I don’t take it as an insult. I once said to a friend that I didn’t feel I dressed like an artist, according to them, I do.

So I suppose what I’m curious about is what makes someone weird?

The way they dress? The sort of things they like? 

What does separate the weird from the ‘norm’?

As creatives I do think we can lean towards weird, although I prefer to call it originality. But do we all? I’ve always said artists fall into two categories, those that get on with it and don’t really look any different or those that are flamboyant and purposely eccentric.

Now, before anyone says anything, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with either.

There are those whose normal setting is ‘weird’ and those who ‘put on a show’. I once remember seeing photos of a gothic rock singer's house in a magazine and being quite disappointed it was all cream leather and glass.

Walk into my house and it looks like a typical country cottage, beams, leather chesterfield sofa etc, nice neutral colours, two psychotic spaniels. Walk into my study and it gets a bit more gothic, dark red, skulls staring out at you from most flat surfaces (not real - I promise), dragons (also not real - unfortunately), and candles, lots of candles. My bookshelves are full of books on mythology, ghosts, poisons, torture and death (I write dark fiction - what did you expect, flower arranging?). Yet I think I look quite ‘normal’ (yea, nobody believes me,even hubby has been known to call me weird).

But back to what got me to thinking about this, is it because of the parts of the brain us creatives use, or something else? 

Do we do what we do because we have to, or is it a conscious choice?

I tried my hand at writing a crime novel, as I like crime, I watch a lot of it, from Poirot to Vera. Could I do it? No. A couple of long standing characters stuck their noses in and suggested they would be a good fit and before you know it I’ve got a dark urban fantasy thriller thing going on, and on. I love it, it’s miles away from the original crime story idea, but I do still have police officers in it.

I honestly don’t know the answer to any of the questions I’ve just asked. All I will say is embrace the ‘weird’ because you never know where it will take you, and sometimes that’s half the fun.

Inspiration is all around.

 Where do I get my inspiration from? That’s an easy answer - Everywhere!

For the novel, characters are formed in my head, either from a random photo I find on Google, or someone I might pass on the street. Sometimes an actor I’ve seen can spark a character (hopefully I’ll get them to play the character in the Netflix series - a girl can dream). Or mannerisms I see from spending far too long people watching in cafes, pubs or restaurants. Most of my characters are a mixture of bits of people I’ve borrowed, with a lot of imagination thrown in.

The old adage of writing what you know, sort of works even for Urban Fantasy, you have to keep one foot in reality for it to work.

Locations can be actual places I’ve visited, or sometimes if I can’t get to them easily it’s a wander down the streets of somewhere courtesy of Google street view.

The lift in Waterstones once gave me an idea for a horror short (the good news is it’s been fixed and no longer stops an inch above the floor). Bonfire night at the Forest also became the setting for another.

There’s an important scene in the novel that is set in what was our local pub for a good number of years. 

                                             (The local)

I’ve got notebooks full of half-scribbled ideas, Google docs with half-written short stories, (one day they will be finished - or incorporated into a novel)

So yes, anyone or anywhere can spark an idea, sometimes they become fully blown stories, sometimes they sit there for years and then pop up completely out of the blue for a scene.

I like accuracy, especially with locations. Sometimes for a scene (that might only be a paragraph, or two) I’ll research the heck out of it. It has to be right.

My main character in the novel was a blacksmith back in the 1400’s, so I’ve spent hours reading about the history of smithing. He’s thinking of taking it up again, so I’ve asked a friend next time she gets her horses shod can I watch.

In a short story a character broke their leg, yea lots of research went on there too, so much so I could probably set a leg myself (not that I’m going to try).

I love where my inspiration takes me, most of the time somewhere dark and brooding. If anything happens to my nearest and dearest, I’ll have to scrub my Google history.

Who knew chickens were so loud.

 So it's two years this week since we moved to the country. Now instead of sirens wailing and waking me up. There's chickens.

Yep you heard me, chickens. Oh and if the winds in the right direction, sometimes cows.

Oh don't get me wrong, I like chickens, the ones that live across the road are very cute. I know this as they have escaped into our garden a couple of times. Confused the dogs no end.

This got me thinking about our ability to adapt to our surroundings. When I was young I lived in a house on a main road going through the town, huge lorries would come hurtling past at all hours and they never disturbed me, because I was used to it.

Then I moved to the city, as I mentioned previously, sirens at all hours, police, fire, ambulance the lot. We lived just down from the prison. I used to get asked if I was worried, no, never even thought about it. There's a convenience to living on the outskirts of the city, buses every ten minutes into the centre, which when I first moved there was thriving. Now when I go, it isn't, it looks tired.

Now I'm in the countryside in a smallish village, we have two shops, one pub and a garage. The buses are every couple of hours and don't run late into the night. There is no taxi service, the closest supermarket is six miles away. Does it bother me? No, not in the slightest.

I don't like change, but at the same time I am adaptable, throw me a situation and I deal with it, but try not to get in my way. It's the same with the writing, if something doesn't work I adapt it, I still don't change the plan, as I know where it's going, but I will adapt it to make it better. I've just spent the last week going over the first six chapters of book two, which on initial read were rather boring, so I've pulled a few bits forward, ramped up the tension quite a bit and it works so much better, but the story itself hasn't changed. Obviously there are times when it has to change, then I make sure it changes for the better, as with everything else, change can be good. (Doesn't mean I have to like it at the time though).

Ah well enough rambling from me this week, the office assistants require feeding. They are very vocal about this.