Miranda MacLeod's Blog, page 3
October 25, 2017
Q&A TAG: The Debut Novel
Thanks to Niamh Murphy for suggesting this and asking me to play along!
Did you know you can get a free e-copy of my debut novel, Telling Lies Online, just for signing up for my newsletter? It’s true! Sign up today and start reading right away!
This is a ‘Tag’ post, so if you’re an author yourself, check out the end of the post to see how you can get involved!
What is the title and genre of your debut Novel?
My first novel, Telling Lies Online, is a romance. It’s written as a romantic comedy in the style of some of my favorite rom-coms, and I pictured it as being made into a movie that Sandra Bullock could’ve starred in circa 1990, had Sandra Bullock lesbian rom-com movies ever been a thing. They really should have been a thing, right?
What gave you the idea to start writing it?
Actually, it was a much darker news article I read about a catfishing scam, where a woman had made up a man and posed as him online, and eventually “killed him off” through an illness, both to mess with the woman she’d been corresponding with and also, presumably, to scam her out of money to help with the fictional illness. It wasn’t funny at all, but I immediately thought, “What if someone accidentally found themselves in this type of situation?” And then the potential for humor was pretty clear.
How long did it take you to finish?
I started this book as a NaNoWriMo project, which is National Novel Writing Month. I did the outline in late October of 2015, and then tried to write 50,000 words in November, as the challenge demands. I failed at the challenge, but I finished the first draft later in December, and after editing and proofreading, the final 72,000 word novel was published in February of 2016.
What was the biggest challenge you had when writing it?
There were two. First, the time constraint of the NaNo challenge was nothing I’d attempted before, especially when it coincided with a cross-country driving trip to Texas for Thanksgiving. It is very hard to type on a highway. But second, the premise of the main character getting caught up in so many lies was difficult because I wanted her to be a generally likeable and honest person and someone the reader could easily see themselves in. She didn’t try to lie about who she was, but when an error resulted in the perfect woman essentially landing in her lap, the temptation to hide the truth was overwhelming. It was a very fine line between making her keep up the pretense, which after all was the whole premise of the story, and knowing that the longer she took to come clean, the less sympathetic she might appear to readers. Ultimately, I hoped that readers would think, “I don’t like that she’s doing this, but can I honestly say I would do it differently?”
How did you get it published, Indie or Trad?
I had opted for indie even before I wrote the book. I attended a conference hosted by my local chapter of RWA (Romance Writers of America) and heard a very successful author of straight contemporary romance extolling the virtues of indie publishing. For years, I had played around with the idea of writing more seriously, but the whole traditional publishing process made me hesitate. I hated the idea of spending months or years on a book and being at the mercy of a publisher to decide if it would ever see the light of day. Knowing I could make it happen on my own terms was a huge incentive to finally following through.
What was the most important thing you learnt from the process?
The creative process requires discipline! When I told myself I could just write “when I feel like it,” I had a couple of unfinished manuscripts that lacked direction that I had been poking around with for two years or more. I thought finishing a whole book would take forever. When I set a goal of 50k words in a month and worked from an outline, I ended up with an actual book in 3 months, and have completed seven full-length novels in two years! And let me tell you, the latest one is a doozy, at over 90k words.
What are you working on right now?
Right now, I am working on getting my final draft of Stockholm Syndrome formatted for publication, and will be following it up with a sequel due out in early 2018. Stockholm Syndrome is the story of a seasoned spy, Leigh, who joins forces with a surprisingly savvy office temp, Amanda, as a result of dialing a wrong number. It started out as an entry in my Americans Abroad series, where American women travel abroad and find love on the road, but it soon took on a life of its own and is now the first book in a new series, the Agency of Secret Agents. It’s a silly name for a series, but hopefully you’ll see the humor in it by the time you get to the end of the first book. Oh, and if the names Leigh and Amanda seem familiar to you, first, you are probably as old as I am, and second, you may have been a fan of Scarecrow and Mrs. King back in the 1980s. I sure was, so using the same character names was a little tribute to the show.
If you’re an author, why not play ‘Tag’? Cut and paste these questions into your own blog with a link back to me, and provide your own answers to the questions! Then drop me a comment below with the link to your blog and I’ll check it out! I can’t wait to hear about all your debut-novel journeys!
And don’t forget to check out Niamh Murphy’s answers on her blog, and to sign up for my newsletter to claim your free copy of Telling Lies Online!
September 13, 2017
#EpicLesficWin
Have you heard about the huge indie author lesfic paperback giveaway? Have you entered yet?
I don’t know about you, but I never win contests, which is why I usually don’t enter them. It’s not a great policy, after all, how can you win if you don’t enter?
This is why I’ve decided to guarantee that if you sign up for this contest, you absolutely will win something. Sign up to win, and once the drawing is over, even if you weren’t one of the lucky three big winners, I’ll send you a link to download the ebook of my debut book, Telling Lies Online, for free.
So, no more excuses. Sign up today because you’re already a winner! But hurry! Contest ends September 15, 2017. If you missed the deadline, be sure to sign up for my newsletter to find out about the next contest.
September 8, 2017
Epic Lesfic Book Giveaway!
I don't know about you, but I never win contests, which is why I usually don't enter them. It's not a great policy, after all, how can you win if you don't enter?
This is why I've decided to guarantee that if you sign up for this contest, you absolutely will win something. Sign up to win, and once the drawing is over, even if you weren't one of the lucky three big winners, I'll send you a link to download the ebook of my debut book, Telling Lies Online, for free.
So, no more excuses. Sign up today because you're already a winner!
http://bookfetti.com/contests/WinAuto...
July 5, 2017
Free Box Set This Week!
Love's Encore Series
June 15, 2017
Real Writers Don’t…
This was a guest post written for iheartlesfic.com. Check out the original here. And be sure to sign up for the wonderful new release email that their site sends out weekly!
If you were to meet me at a cocktail party, there are a few things you would discover right away. First, I love a good gin martini, very dry, with extra olives. Second, I am not actually a cartoon character like my online avatar, but I do have strikingly similar red glasses and have been known to wear pink. In fact, I have a pink dress with martini glasses all over it, and this surprises pretty much no one who knows me.
What you would probably not find out is that I am a writer, and this is because, even though my sixth novel publishes this week, I find it difficult to claim that title for myself. In my mind, real writers retreat to castles on deserted windswept coastlines, or live in sleepy villages in Maine with shockingly high murder rates, where they somehow hit their deadlines while simultaneously helping the local sheriff solve crimes.
In case you hadn’t guessed, I watch a lot of television and movies, which almost certainly disqualifies me as a ‘real’ writer. My humor is equal parts Monty Python and I Love Lucy, and I adore romantic comedies. If anyone ever tells me one of my books could be a Meg Ryan or Sandra Bullock movie—and let’s face it, wouldn’t the world be a better place if either of them had made a lesbian romcom?—I will have accomplished my mission on earth.
One thing is for certain, writers definitely do not stare at their blank laptop screens and then procrastinate for weeks by doing laundry and baking, and then stay up until 5 am three nights in a row to feverishly finish their last chapters in order to meet a foolishly optimistic and self-imposed arbitrary writing deadline. Which, I’m going to be honest, is simply how I function.
But then I went to a retreat a few weeks back—in Maine, in fact, because as we’ve already established, most real writers live there. At this point, Fifty Percent Illusion was woefully behind schedule and I was addressing the issue by ordering a gin and tonic from the hotel bar instead of sitting down to write (they had martinis, but the G&Ts were free, so…).
In walks a hugely successful romantic suspense writer. Like, so well known, I have her books in paperbacks that I bought at the grocery store. And she starts talking about her writing process. It involved a lot of dog walking, hand wringing, late nights, and wine. I could have kissed her, if it wouldn’t have been really awkward. But I did come away from it feeling like maybe, just maybe, I was a real writer after all. It still took me another month to finish my manuscript, though.
But now it’s done, and I hope people find it worth the wait. I’ll probably have a martini or two before jumping into starting the next one. I have a few planned, mostly romcoms, plus a romantic suspense I hope to tackle next year. I’m sure you won’t be surprised that it will be set in Maine, nor that I will likely take some weekend when I really should be writing and drive up the coast to do some ‘research’ instead. You know, now that I have it on good authority that real writers do stuff like that, after all.
June 14, 2017
Has anyone else noticed this trend in lesrom?
So in the past few months, there have been a huge number of prolific new authors writing lesbian romance and hitting the top slots on the bestseller list, which I found unusual. So I did some digging, and found that many of these new lesrom authors are republishing books that were originally gay romances with male characters, simply changing the names and pronouns, and the sex scenes (one would hope). 5 of them in are in the top 20 right now.
I'm feeling really conflicted about this discovery and would love to know what you all as readers think. Have you noticed? How do you feel about it? Anyone who'd like to join the conversation, I'd love to hear what you think.
December 23, 2016
Pictures of Holme!
While writing Holme for the Holidays, I had the chance to visit the real village of Holme in West Yorkshire. Though the specific people and places in the book are fiction, here are some pictures of the countryside where the book takes place, including the real pub, “The Fleece Inn,” upon which I based Fiona’s Black Fleece Inn. While the real place is NOT an inn, they do rent out a holiday cottage in case you want a getaway. Neither Paige nor Fiona are included with that rental, just FYI.
Pictures of Holme!
While writing Holme for the Holidays, I had the chance to visit the real village of Holme in West Yorkshire. Though the specific people and places in the book are fiction, here are some pictures of the countryside where the book takes place, including the real pub, “The Fleece Inn,” upon which I based Fiona’s Black Fleece Inn. While the real place is NOT an inn, they do rent out a holiday cottage in case you want a getaway. Neither Paige nor Fiona are included with that rental, just FYI.
December 4, 2016
99 cent Sale Waltzing on the Danube
July 6, 2016
What should Rorie and Cecily do next?
Email me (miranda@mirandamacleod.com) with your suggestions/requests and I'll do my best to accommodate as many as possible, and will mention you in the acknowledgments at the end of Fifty Percent Illusion (just let me know what name to use).
