Category: A Life in a Day

A Life in a Day of a Writer: Author Maggie Christensen @MaggieChriste33 shares a typical writing day #writing #books #reading #romanticfiction

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Today it’s the turn of romantic fiction writer Maggie Christensen to give us a glimpse into the sort of days that make up her life as a writer.

Maggie’s latest book is A Granite Springs Christmas – this is the sixth book in the Granite Springs series – but it can easily be read as a standalone – and I recently read and very much enjoyed it. You can find out more about the book below. But first over to Maggie.

Maggie Christensen’s Writing Life in a Day

When Anne asked me to take part in this, I wished I could be like a famous Australian author I once heard speak. She told how she dresses, puts on full make up and works for four hours each morning, takes a lunch break, then works for another four hours. But that isn’t my day. I do write every day, but my days vary.

Since most of the time, I’m writing one book, editing another and marketing yet another, I tend to juggle my time between them. Do I get confused? Yes.

I always start the day by checking email and my ads. Then, after breakfast and an early morning walk with my husband, I get down to work. While this may be working on my current manuscript, it may also be writing a newsletter for my readers, sending out advance reader copies of my next release, or choosing images for my next cover on Shutterstock – I can get lost there for hours at a time.

If I have returned edits from my editor, I do that before beginning my day’s writing.

Once I sit down to writing for the day, I start by re-reading what I’ve written the day before to get back into the story and reconnect with my characters – despite them having been in my head all the time. Then I start to write. I aim to write 1000 words before taking a break when I enjoy a snack with a cup of tea and the opportunity to catch up on my reading.

My goal is to write 2000 words each day. Some days, if I have arranged to meet friends for coffee, it may be less, while others, if I’m on a roll, it may be more.

When I started to write, my goal was to publish two books each year. But after doing that for a few years, and I decided to become more productive and now aim to publish four books each year and actually plan ahead. I have already written the book which will be published in January and am I the midst of what will probably be the last in my current series and be published March or April. Then there will be a new series which will have at least two books released in 2021, one of which may be another Christmas story.

It may sound a lot of work, but I find it difficult to settle to anything when I don’t have a book on the go. I never stop thinking about my current work in progress and can get some good plot ideas when I’m ironing, driving, reading – or falling asleep!

My most recent book is book six in my Granite Springs series and my first Christmas story. Magda is a character who appears in the earlier books in my Granite Springs series – a feisty seventy-something widow who lives on an acreage with the three former racehorses she saved from the knacker’s yard, and two rescue greyhounds. A masseuse and a touch otherworldly, I decided Magda deserved her own happy ever after.

I love writing this series about older characters living in a fictional Australian country town where it’s never too late to fall in love and everyone deserves a second chance.

Anne: Wow, Maggie! I think we can let you off for not being perfectly made up and sticking to a rigid writing schedule 🙂 Your work ethic and productivity rate are awesome. And I know I’m not alone in loving your later life, second chance romances. Thank you so much for taking part in this feature.

And now as promised, here’s more about Maggie’s latest book:

From the back cover:

A RETURN TO GRANITE SPRINGS. A FAMILY CHRISTMAS. A TIME FOR LOVE AND JOY…OR IS IT?

A year after a devastating bushfire destroyed Magda Duncan’s home, she returns to Granite Springs determined to resume her life and organise a wonderful family Christmas. But the elation of her homecoming quickly turns to disappointment as she discovers not everyone is in tune with her plans.

George Turnbull was Magda’s late husband’s best friend. A bachelor, he has always carried a torch for Magda and remained close to her and her sons. When he finally musters the courage to reveal his true feelings, a life changing surprise from his past threatens to ruin any chance at happiness.

Emotions are high as Christmas Day approaches. Will this be the most wonderful Christmas ever? Or will the hopes and fears of the past come home to haunt them? A poignant story of a Christmas friends of Granite Springs will never forget.

You can connect with Maggie online at the links below:

Facebook

Twitter

Goodreads

Instagram

A Life in a Day of a Writer: Author Kate Blackadder @k_blackadder shares a typical writing day #writing #books #reading

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Kate Blackadder’s writing desk

Today it’s the turn of romantic fiction writer Kate Blackadder to give us a glimpse into the sort of days that make up her life as a writer.

Kate’s Novel Stella’s Christmas Wish is a lovely story at any time – but especially so at this time of year– more about that later – along with information about Kate’s many short stories, magazine serials (for UK magazines The People’s Friend and Woman’s Weekly) and boxset. But now over to Kate.

Kate Blackadder’s Writing Life in a Day

When you asked me back in June, Anne, to take part in this series I did hope that things would be more normal come November but alas our lives are still restricted by Covid-19.

So, furloughed from my part-time job and with an almost non-existent social life for seven months, have I done lots of writing? Yes and no.

When lockdown looked likely in the middle of March I started to keep a diary. Sadly, things that seemed so extraordinary back then don’t seem so now. Fights over toilet rolls. Bars closed in Dublin on St Patrick’s Day. Holidaying friends unable to fly home. One day I may mine the diary for story ideas but not now.

I found physical activity excellent distraction (no one more surprised than myself about that). Newly acquired exercise bike, Joe Wicks workouts, walking the permitted hour a day. Even, belatedly in my life, gardening. Those invasive grape hyacinths didn’t know what hit them. The glorious weather added to the unreality of the whole situation.

Indoors, I did various writingy things without actually writing. Mostly I write short stories and serials for women’s magazines – so I made a fourth collection of previously published stories and put it on Kindle. I published three magazine serials, all set in rural Scotland, as a Kindle boxset (see below).

I dusted down a couple of more literary stories and entered them for competitions. I typed up seven holiday diaries and had copies printed.

My thoughts did turn eventually to new writing but I don’t have a typical day. Sometimes the more time you have the less you do. To give myself a push I set the kitchen timer for twenty minutes and attempt to write without stopping. My inner editor has a hissy fit but I try to ignore her.

Picking up either of two embryonic novels would require concentration I didn’t have. So I wrote a short story from a young lad’s viewpoint – he was aggrieved at his mother roping him into gardening for an elderly neighbour. Inspired in part by my own newfound interest – all is grist to the writing mill. Done. Sent to The People’s Friend.

The People’s Friend has a special, larger edition every three weeks and in every second Special there’s a long cosy crime story (9500 words), new territory for me. I’d had an idea for ages but couldn’t see my way into it, eg who the viewpoint characters would be. However, once I got going I loved writing it. Gardening also featured … my green-fingered sister was enlisted to fact-check. Sent.

Another story – this time set on Hogmanay, 1963, one of the worst UK winters on record. (No gardening in this one… ) Sent to The People’s Friend.

I’ve always been fascinated by names and I thought it would be fun to write a story where the characters have the same names as those recently given to storms. Sent to The People’s Friend.

No acceptances or rejections received to date for these four – for completely understandable reasons. The People’s Friend fiction staff work from home too now. Plus, they get an increasingly enormous number of submissions. They’ve always had an open-door policy for new writers – and now are one of the few remaining markets for short stories as so many magazines have stopped publishing them or have folded altogether, including two since March who between them published 350 stories annually.

Shopping habits have changed recently, concentrating on food essentials. A subscription to your favourite magazine whatever it might be could help it survive.

Not all doom and gloom though! My fellow Capital Writers and I published a collection of Dark Stories https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08LTGH358

in time for Hallowe’en.

And I got an acceptance surprisingly quickly from Woman’s Weekly for a short story so that was a boost, and a proposal for a new PF serial, my fifth, got the go-ahead two weeks later. It’s great to have something to focus on. Each instalment is 5000 words, divided into five ‘chapters’. Because you have to wait for instalment approval you can’t really write ahead and you can’t go back and change previous instalments. I do have trajectories for each of my main characters though so I work towards those. It’s a different way of writing but I find it exhilarating.

Anne: Yes, writing a serial for a magazine certainly sounds like an exciting way of working! Thank you so much Kate for sharing what your writing life is like – and how writing shorter fiction has helped you push on through during these difficult times.

About Kate Blackadder:

Katewas born in Inverness but now lives in Edinburgh. She has had over sixty short stories and four magazine serials published, and a novel, Stella’s Christmas Wish, published by Black and White Publishing.

In 2008 she won the Muriel Spark Short Story Prize judged by Maggie O’ Farrell. Four collections of her short stories and the four serials are now on Kindle, three of them – The Family at Farrshore, The Ferryboat, and A Time to Reap – are also available in large-print library editions.

She is a member of Edinburgh Writers’ Club, the Scottish Association of Writers, the Romantic Novelists’ Association and the Society of Authors and, with three others, is part of Capital Writers. When she’s not writing or reading she likes films, baking and crying over repeats of Long Lost Family.

Kate Online:

Find out more: http://katewritesandreads.blogspot.co.uk/p/my-books.html

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KateBlackadderAuthor

Twitter: @k_blackadder

https://capitalwriterscouk.wordpress.com/

Kate’s Books and Boxset:

Stella’s Christmas Wish available from: HERE

Six days before Christmas, Stella must rush home to Scotland when her grandmother is taken to hospital. As she reconnects with her past, old flames are rekindled, and as Christmas fast approaches, Stella begins to wonder if her most heartfelt wish can come true?

Uprooted from her life in London and back in her childhood home of the Scottish borders, Stella is soon faced with relationships which have lain dormant for years. New opportunities present themselves, but will Stella dare to take them…

Family stories boxset  (information below) available from: HERE

Three family stories first published as serials in The People’s Friend. Available as e-books singly, or in this three-for-the-price-of-two collection:

The Ferryboat: Judy and Tom Jeffrey move north after buying a hotel in the West Highlands of Scotland, with their daughter and her chef husband – but have they made a terrible mistake?

The Family at Farrshore: Spending the summer working on Scotland’s north coast, archaeologist Cathryn is drawn into the local community – and to Magnus who is visiting the area for reasons of his own.

A Time to Reap: It’s 1963 on a Scottish Highlands estate. Farm manager Elizabeth Duncan has the unpleasant factor to contend with, and is unsettled by the arrival of an American visitor.

A Life in a Day of a Writer: Author JJ Marsh @JJMarsh1 shares a typical writing day #writing #books #reading

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Today it’s the turn of crime writer JJ Marsh to give us a glimpse into the sort of days that make up her life as a writer.

Jill’s latest book is The Woman in the Frame and it’s the 11th book in the utterly fabulous Beatrice Stubbs series – more about that below. But now over to Jill.

JJ Marsh’s Writing Life in a Day

Jill’s Writing Desk

Such a thing as a pure writing day always felt like a fantasy. Even though I only worked part time as an English teacher, I was also spending several days a week marketing, profile-raising, reviewing and writing articles for magazines on top of trying to write novels. Two years ago, my husband and I came to a decision. We both gave up our jobs to focus on making a success of my books. He took over the marketing, I backed out of all commitments other than my own work and threw all my energy into writing.

This gave me the gift of time. Few things are more precious and the onus was on me to use it wisely. As I type, I’m about to begin my sixteenth book, a figure I can scarcely believe myself. A quick check of my shelves verifies that assertion. By the end of 2020, I will have written and published four novels in one year. The first in the series took three years to write.

What changed? A few things.

Discipline: Without it, I could happily while away my days arguing with people on Twitter and drinking gin in the garden. That’s why I get up early, walk the pug, plan strategy with my husband over breakfast, do my daily exercise, spend an hour learning languages, then go upstairs to my study and start work. Seven days a week.

Experience: The characters in my series are so familiar; it feels like my job is stage manager. I prepare the set, arrange the props, let them out of their box and watch what happens. That means I spend mornings doing research or plotting or filling in an Excel sheet of character development. Mmm, those oh-so-sexy spreadsheets.

Focus. My writing has to support two people. That scary prospect showed me what I’m capable of when not being a lazy mare faffing about on Facebook. Afternoons are for writing, nothing else. I aim for 2-3k words per day. First I re-read yesterday’s work, edit out the ‘all’s* and write the next chapter.

Well, I say write …

Dictation: Old age, as my Nan used to say, don’t come alone. Hours at the keyboard gave me RSI in my shoulder and bursitis in my elbow. Dragon Dictation has made a huge difference to my productivity. Plus I can paint my nails at the same time which makes me feel ever so Barbara Cartland. The only downside is that the pug sleeps under my desk, which is why my manuscript is peppered with at least one extraneous ‘all’ (*pug snore) per sentence.

Narrative: As an ex-actor, director and ravenous reader, the structure of storytelling is hard-wired into my system. That said, I’ve still got a lot to learn. In the evenings, after I’ve shouted at the TV news, I read or listen to an audiobook, study a masterclass or watch a film. I’m obsessed with how people tell stories.

Anne: Thank you to Jill for this fascinating insight into her writing life. I must say I admire her work ethic and commitment. And I also must say if you haven’t read any of Jill’s books, you really should – because they’re just brilliant. The Beatrice Stubbs detective series is original, entertaining and always gripping.

You can read more about Jill and about the latest book in the Beatrice Stubbs series below. And isn’t that cover gorgeous?

Note from Jill: My most recent publication is The Woman in the Frame, book 11 in The Beatrice Stubbs Series. Each novel is a stand-alone read and this particular one was a long time coming. The story has been fermenting for years but I was always nervous of fictionalising certain people’s secrets. Still, they’re all dead now.

The Woman in the Frame

Crystalline Mediterranean waters lap the rocky northern coast of Mallorca, blessing the town of Deià with blood-orange sunsets, balmy night skies and the legacy of a poet. This former artists’ colony now attracts the rich and famous, looking to party in privacy. It’s the perfect place for a honeymoon until your morning coffee is interrupted by a dead body.

Who would want to murder the muse of a world-famous artist? Why would anyone slash his artworks, but only those depicting her unearthly beauty? Suspects are in abundance and the police want a quick solution.  Enter Beatrice Stubbs, private investigator, who never rejects a job if it involves good food and fine wine.

Meanwhile, Beatrice’s old friends Adrian and Will are babysitting. Adrian doesn’t mind because he quite likes this kid. Plus the dull practicalities of parenting might act as a reality check on Will’s fatherhood fantasies. Unless, of course, it has the opposite effect.

Beatrice and her assistant Theo must sift through the secrets of a small town with a big reputation. Someone – an esoteric church leader, a wild-eyed ex-muse, the woman who forgets nothing, the artist’s agent or that covetous neighbour – knows what really happened and why. But when locals and incomers point the finger at one another, how can Beatrice distinguish between lies, truth and artistic licence?

A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.

“Sun, sand, sea … and cold-blooded murder. Addictive and emotive, this book will shake all your senses.” – Gillian E. Hamer, author of The Gold Detective Series

About JJ Marsh

Jill grew up in Wales, Africa and the Middle East, where her curiosity for culture took root and triggered an urge to write. After graduating in English Literature and Theatre Studies, she worked as an actor, teacher, writer, director, editor, journalist and cultural trainer all over Europe.

Now in Switzerland, she writes crime and literary fiction to entertain readers with enthralling stories and endearing characters.

Her Beatrice Stubbs crime series topped the Amazon best sellers in “International Mystery & Crime” in Australia, Canada, the UK and the US.

You can connect with Jill online at the links below:

Website: www.jjmarshauthor.com

Twitter: @JJMarsh1

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jjmarshauthor

BUY LINK:

You can buy Jill’s book HERE