Morton S. Gray's Blog, page 43

Exciting Stop Press News

Whoo hoo! Jumping up and down here!

My debut novel, which won Choc Lit Publishing’s Search for a Star competition in association with Lovereading earlier this year, will be e-published on 24 January 2017.

The lovely cover will be revealed on 29 November and it is a beauty!

The novel had the working title of Who is Harry Dixon?, but is to be published with the title of – The Girl on the Beach.

[image error]

Already available for pre-order at an exclusive price on iBooks, it will be for sale on Kindle, Kobo and other electronic platforms when it is released.

Watch out for my cover reveal next week, meanwhile check out the blurb for The Girl on the Beach below.

[image error]

 

Spotlight on Guest Author Liz Harris

Continuing with my series of interviews with fellow Choc Lit authors, this week it is the turn of Liz Harris to join me on my blog.

[image error]

After graduating in Law in the UK, Liz moved to California where she led a very varied life – from cocktail waitressing on Sunset Strip to CEO of a large Japanese trading company. Upon returning to England, she completed a degree in English and then taught for a number of years before developing her writing career. She is published by Choc Lit.

Her debut novel, THE ROAD BACK, was voted Book of the Year 2012 by US Coffee Time & Romance, and in the same year, EVIE UNDERCOVER was published, first on kindle, and recently in paperback. A BARGAIN STRUCK, published in September 2013, was shortlisted for the RoNA for Best Romantic Historical, and later in the year, THE ART OF DECEPTION, a contemporary novel set in Italy, was published digitally. A WESTERN HEART, a novella set in Wyoming 1880, was published digitally in spring 2014. THE LOST GIRL, her most recent full-length novel, was brought out digitally in 2015, and in paperback in 2016.

Liz has a story in each of Choc Lit’s anthologies: ANGEL CAKE in Choc Lit Love Match, and CUPCAKE in Kisses & Cupcakes. Each anthology is a collection of short stories by Choc Lit authors, with a recipe accompanying each story.

I asked Liz some questions:-

You seem to be a very busy person, when do you find time to write?

I know it’s a cliché, but I’m going to say it anyway – if you want a job well done, give it to a busy person. A busy person knows how to organise their tasks, how to prioritise and how to get going on what has to be done, and those skills are necessary if you don’t have unlimited free time, but still want to write.

As a writer, my current writing project is always something that ‘has to be done’. More than that – it’s something desperately want to be doing. After all, I’ve created a fictional world and given birth to the people who live in that world; I’ve placed obstacles in the way of them reaching the destination I intend for them, so it’s natural that I want to spend as much time with them as I can.

If I’m kept too long from my work in progress, I get really tetchy and bad-tempered, and am generally very unpleasant to be around. So in order to make sure that I stay calm, even-tempered and laid-back (ahem), I have to strive for the right balance each week between must-do tasks and my writing.

Sadly, that balance goes off kilter at times, and when that happens, I look at what it is that’s keeping me from writing, and put things right.

Where did your interest in the American West come from?

I’ve always loved Westerns. From a very young age, I used to go with my father to the cinema whenever there was a Western playing, while my sister and mother went to something rather more gentle. My love of films set in the American West, and of the cinema generally, may have been among the reasons why I chose to spend a few years in California after university.

During my time in Los Angeles, I did a course on American Studies at the City College, and I loved every minute of learning about life in the West, and the lives of the people who lived in the isolated homesteads that stood proud beneath the wide blue skies of Wyoming Territory. I found that period inspiring and romantic, and I knew the day would come when I’d set a novel in Wyoming.

And indeed it did. A Bargain Struck, A Western Heart and my latest novel, The Lost Girl, are all set in Wyoming in the 1870s and 1880s, and going to Wyoming to complete my research was one of the best trips I’ve ever made.

[image error]

What advice would you give to aspiring writers?

To write. That’s the first of my two pieces of advice.

That may sound mad, but it’s so easy to put off writing because there are other things you can be doing. While some things do, indeed, have priority over everything else, including writing, there are many others that can be put on the back burner and left for another time.

Don’t wait for a stretch of several free hours in which to write. If you do, you might end up never able to get started. If your life is such that you can write for an hour a day only, then so be it. It’s better to do that than wait in vain for three clear hours, for example. It’s amazing what you can achieve in a focused hour, and you’ll be establishing an excellent routine for writing.

My second piece of advice is that you should think carefully about how you’re going to write the novel before you start. I’ve heard people say they write the whole book without stopping – maybe 90,000 words – and then go back and check it. You might be able to do this, but I couldn’t.

I would find it a formidable task to go through so many words, checking the character development, the pacing, the punctuation, the continuity, the writing – seeing that it’s tight as it should be – the occasions of repetition, checking that cause and effect go hand in hand, and so on. And I’d hate to have reached the end of the book and then, when I’d started to edit it, find that early in the novel I’d got things wrong with a key plot point, for example, and would have to make substantial alterations to the rest of the book

If you feel ideas for a story crowding into your head, you can always write them down as continuous prose, but not attempt to write it in the form of a novel. When you’ve done that, you’ll know where you’re going with your book, and you can take a clean sheet and transform that outline into a page-turning novel.

Many thanks for hosting me today, Morton, and for your questions. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed answering them.

Liz X

You are very welcome, Liz.

To buy her books click on any of the titles in this blog to be taken to buying pages. The books are available from Amazon, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Apple iBookstore and Google play.

[image error]

Blurb for The Lost Girl

What if you were trapped between two cultures?

Life is tough in 1870s Wyoming. But it’s tougher still when you’re a girl who looks Chinese but speaks like an American.

Orphaned as a baby and taken in by an American family, Charity Walker knows this only too well.  The mounting tensions between the new Chinese immigrants and the locals in the mining town of Carter see her shunned by both communities.

When Charity’s one friend, Joe, leaves town, she finds herself isolated. However, in his absence, a new friendship with the only other Chinese girl in Carter makes her feel like she finally belongs somewhere.

But, for a lost girl like Charity, finding a place to call home was never going to be that easy …

You can contact Liz on the following links:-

Twitter: @lizharrisauthor

Facebook: Liz Harris

Website: www.lizharrisauthor.com

Spotlight on Guest Author Berni Stevens

Choc Lit  author Berni Stevens is joining me this week on my blog.

[image error]

Originally Berni wanted to go to dance college, but that idea was firmly vetoed by her father. He wasn’t terribly enthusiastic about art college either, but Berni won that ‘round’ and trained in graphic design. It seemed her father was worried she might fall for a ‘long-haired type’ at art college and marry him – which of course she did. They are happily living in a small, ancient cottage with a black cat, four goldfish and their son when he comes home for some TLC.

Berni has been designing book covers for more than twenty-five years, having worked for most of the big UK publishing houses in London at some point in her career. She now works as a freelance designer, and enjoys designing both for publishing houses and directly for authors who like to self publish.

Books, art and dance remain her passion, and her love of the paranormal began after reading Bram Stoker’s Dracula when she was fourteen. She is on the committee and book panel of the Dracula Society, a literary society for fans of the Gothic genre in books, film, theatre and TV.

Berni has had several short stories published, and her first novel, Dance Until Dawn, was published by Choc Lit in 2014. The sequel, Revenge is Sweet was published by Choc Lit in July 2016. A third book is almost finished!

[image error]

I asked Berni some questions:-

What fascinates you about vampires?

Initially it was a love of Stoker’s Dracula, which inspired me to read as many vampire books as I could find. At first, I always preferred the Gothic tales from Dracula’s era and before – and then along came Buffy!

I think the fascination with vampires began with the attractive idea of immortality, coupled with the whole ‘bad guy’ theme. I have always felt the bad guys were so much more interesting than the squeaky clean heroes. Of course immortality has a lot of pitfalls – watching loved ones die for a start. I wanted my own hero to have a  certain vulnerability, which even Dracula has.

The whole ‘creature of the night’ idea has fascinated me from the age of fourteen. I’ve always loved ghost stories and I think vampires are an additional piece of captivating folklore.

A friend sent me a quote once (allegedly) by Angelina Jolie: ‘When all my friends wanted to be ballerinas, I wanted to be a vampire.’

Kind of sums it up.

Where do you get the inspiration for your novels?

I try to incorporate the traditional paranormal into today’s world. I know several authors have already written similar ideas, not least Joss Whedon with Buffy, but nearly all of the books, film and TV are set in the US. Buffy, True Blood, Vampire Diaries etc. Most books in the paranormal romance genre are also set in the US. It wasn’t until Toby Whithouse’s Being Human that a TV series with vampires and werewolves was set in the UK (Bristol). I met Toby once and thanked him – and also thanked him for casting a young Aidan Turner as Mitchell the vampire. Inspired casting! Of course the US remade Being Human and set it in Boston! (I always thought that was like the UK doing a version of True Blood and setting it in Cornwall).

But I really wanted to write about a North London paranormal community, so that was my starting point. I am a North Londoner, and we only live thirteen miles from the centre of London, so walking the streets of Highgate and Hampstead is easy for me if I want to get the ‘feel.’ I loved the idea of vampires travelling on the tube. One reviewer of Dance Until Dawn said if she ever saw really good-looking people on the Northern Line, she immediately thought they were vampires and it was all my fault!

A lot of my inspiration came from the fabulously Gothic Highgate Cemetery. It’s such an incredible place. If you don’t believe in ghosts, a visit to Highgate might convince you otherwise. http://highgatecemetery.org/

You are the cover designer for most of Choc Lit’s titles. How do you combine writing with this other career?

My cover work has to come first, so if I’m very busy, the writing takes a back seat. When I’m working on edits, I’ll do them in the evenings or over a weekend whilst keeping the days free for cover work. If ever the time comes when my writing makes more money than the covers then I might change it around, but I think we need a new surge of interest in the paranormal genre before that happens.

Sometimes I get on a roll with writing, and as everyone knows it’s difficult to stop when that happens, so I tend to work on covers until 6pm, and then switch to writing.

Although if my husband wants to watch football in the evenings, or play his drums, I’ll sneak off to write. The bad news is, the room where his drum kit lives is right above my office …

Thank you, Berni. Lovely to have you on my blog.

[image error]

Blurb for Revenge is Sweet:

Hell hath no fury like a vampire seeking revenge …

Life hasn’t been exactly normal for Ellie since she became a vampire. Although joining the legion of the undead was always going to take some getting used to, even if you are the partner of Will Austen, the Elder of London.

But when Daniel, a fifteen year old fledgling vampire, unexpectedly turns up at Ellie’s and Will’s Highgate home, things start getting very strange – and more than a little scary. 

Events take a devastating turn as a mystery troublemaker leaves behind a trail of carnage – and it soon becomes clear they will stop at nothing to get the Elder’s attention, even if it involves hurting the person he cherishes most .

When it comes to Ellie, Will Austen is the wrong vampire to mess with.

You can catch up with Berni on the following links:-

http://bernistevensdesign.com/

http://bernistevens.blogspot.co.uk/

Twitter: @Berni_Stevens1

https://www.facebook.com/berni.stevens.5

To buy Revenge is Sweet click here

To buy Dance Until Dawn click here

 

Spotlight on Guest Author Jan Brigden

This week, Jan Brigden is joining me on my blog. She is another fellow Choc Lit author.

[image error]

Jan Brigden

Jan lives in South London with her husband & motley crew of cuddly toys.

After attending many author talks, literary events, connecting with writers and readers on Facebook and Twitter, Jan learned of and subsequently joined the Romantic Novelists’ Association’s New Writers’ Scheme.

She proudly signed with Choc Lit after winning the Choc Lit & Whole Story Audiobooks Search for a Star competition 2014/2015 with her debut novel As Weekends Go.

An avid reader and all round book devotee, Jan is also one eighth of the on-line writing group The Romaniacs (www.theromaniacs.co.uk) who in November 2015 received the Romantic Novelists’ Association’s Industry Media Star award.

I asked Jan some questions :-

When do you write?

I’m home-based so able to chop and change the hours I write around my other commitments, so no typical writing days, really. In my dining room is mainly where I work, either at my little desk or at the table.

Where do you get the inspiration for your books? 

The idea for As Weekends Go stemmed from a creative writing course I completed a few years back via The Writers Bureau.

I had to create a tense scenario involving two characters only. I chose a husband and his wife’s best friend. He’d secretly invited her to his house on the pretence of discussing his wife’s surprise 30th birthday party. Instead he confronted her about some gossip he’d heard regarding a recent weekend trip the two women had taken together. Which afterwards begged the question in my mind:  ‘Well, what did happen during that weekend?’ And so the story evolved…

The inspiration for my fictional footballer came from having met a few players over the years, a couple of them so far removed from the stereotypical image we so often read about in the press, (often justified, I hasten to add, as some players do themselves no favours!) that it made me wonder how these particular players cope with the pre-judgement. This sparked the challenge to create a footballer who could hopefully buck the preconceived assumptions about him and endear himself to the reader.

What are you working on at the moment?

The sequel to As Weekends Go which has involved lots of eyebrow-raising research. It’ll be a standalone novel, though, so can be read without having to first read Book 1. We’ll see Rebecca (my main character from As Weekends Go) facing a whole fresh set of challenges in the new world she’s stepped into. Plenty of glitz, glamour and drama, which is all I can really say at the moment without giving too much away.

Thank you, Jan. It’s been a pleasure having you on my blog. The new novel sounds intriguing.

[image error]

Blurb for As Weekends Go

What if your entire life changed in the space of a weekend?

When Rebecca’s friend Abi convinces her to get away from it all at the fabulous Hawksley Manor hotel in York, it seems too good to be true. Pampering and relaxation is just what Rebecca needs to distract herself from the creeping suspicion that her husband, Greg, is hiding something from her. 

She never imagined that by the end of the weekend she would have dined with celebrities or danced the night away in exclusive clubs. Nor could she have predicted she would meet famous footballer, Alex Heath, or that he would be the one to show her that she deserved so much more …

But no matter how amazing a weekend is, it’s always back to reality come Monday morning – isn’t it?

You can catch up with Jan on the following links:-

Contact Links for Jan Brigden

Twitter

Facebook

Jan Brigden  Writer Blog

The Romaniacs

To buy As Weekends Go click here

Spotlight on Guest Author Rhoda Baxter

Continuing with my spotlight features on fellow Choc Lit authors, this week I have Rhoda Baxter‘s guest interview.

[image error]

Rhoda writes romantic comedy with a hint of geek. She likes to write about people who make her laugh. She is a firm believer in tea and cake. Her latest book Girl Having a Ball is available to buy now.

I asked Rhoda some questions:-

When do you write?

I have a day job and a young family, so things are pretty full on during the day. I work only four days a week, which means that I have a ‘spare’ day to do my chores and catch up on the essential stuff. I usually rush around like a mad thing in the morning, so that I have a bit of time in the afternoon to squeeze in a bit of writing before the kids get back.

The rest of the time, I write at night, between 9 and about 11pm, sitting in bed with my laptop on my knees. Apart from the occasional interruption to put a small child back in their bed, or to turn the beeper off on the tumble dryer, it’s pretty solid writing time. I do sometimes fall asleep at the keyboard – but that’s fine. I just delete the bit that goes alkjfowhanvalsdnpuoh before I start the next day.

When I was as school my Physics teacher once told me that to make up an extra hour of revision time every day, I should try and do four fifteen minute bouts of it. An hour is hard to find. Fifteen minutes is much less daunting. I still use this advice (thanks Mr Nixon!) and try to get bits of work done when I can find 15 minutes. This is especially useful when editing.

Someone (who was it?) once said that the work you have to do expands to fit into the time you have. I think this is very true. Although, in today’s high pressure life, it’s good to remember that it is possible to have too much to do! I always try and make sure I have a good old slouch around watching Netflix at least once a week.

Tell us more about your new book release.

Girl Having A Ball was written about five years ago. I’d finished Girl On The Run and the character of Stevie was demanding that I write her story next. Stevie was very young (around 19) in Girl On The Run. Girl Having A Ball is set a few years later, when Stevie is 22 and it’s very much a coming of age story. Stevie starts off immature and a little needy, by the end of the book she’s successfully running her own business and is very much a grown up.

The book is set in a lovely manor house in Oxford. This is based on a real house in Norham Gardens that used to be a student hostel. It’s a fabulous place. In the book, Stevie and Alice find the world war two blackout blinds and use them to cover the windows in one of the rooms and turn it into a disco. We actually did this in the real house when we had a big party to welcome the year 2000.

There’s a lot about the house in the book. There’s also a bunch of barmy retired academics, a pop star, a lot of Sri Lankan food and at least one disco ball in it.

I’m fascinated by your scientific background. Can you tell us more about your training and career, and how this informs your writing?

I wanted to do English Literature and other humanities at A-level, but my parents said I should do science because it was more useful when applying for a job. Being an obedient sort of kid (and a swot), I did so. I studied Biochemistry at Oxford and stayed on to do a DPhil in microbiology. Working in a lab was really fun and I still miss the camaraderie that existed in the group, but I realised that being a full time scientist wasn’t for me.

After much dithering, I decided to get into working in intellectual property (patents and such like). I now work in university Technology Transfer, which means I get to keep the geek side of me happy by being in contact with cutting edge science… but I don’t actually have to do any of the lab work.

The logical science brain is hard to switch off, which means that I find it hard to suspend disbelief. This comes out in my writing as a hint of cynicism. I can’t believe in insta-lust for example, because the logical side of me wants to know how on earth that can last if there are no other things in common. On the other hand, friends to lovers makes complete sense to me as a path to happy ever after. I also find that I’m constantly looking out for plot holes. Everything must follow logically. Luckily, logic is a key part of story writing too.

[image error]

Blurb for Girl Having A Ball

What if you had to learn to stand on your own feet?

Although Stevie lost her parents when she was very young, she’s always been able to rely on her brother, Marsh. But now Marsh is married and Stevie feels like she is losing him too. Determined to prove her independence, Stevie sets about transforming her life, giving up her dead-end job and following her passion for events management.

Her first assignment takes her to a stunning manor house in Oxford where she is tasked with organising a charity ball on a shoestring. Between canapé worries, celebrity guests and trying to keep the hyper-critical Lady Beryl happy, Stevie’s teenage crush, Tom, resurfaces to confuse things even further.

But ‘poor needy little Stevie’ is now ‘Stevie the strong woman’ and she won’t let a man get in the way of her dreams – will she?

Thank you for appearing on my blog, Rhoda. You can catch up with her on Twitter (@rhodabaxter), on her website (www.rhodabaxter.com) or on Facebook. Please do say hello. She’d love to hear from you, especially if you want to talk about cake.

If you sign up for her newsletter, you can get a free booklet with recipes for foods mentioned in Girl Having A Ball.

Links

Website: www.rhodabaxter.com

Twitter: @rhodabaxter

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

Buy links for Girl Having A Ball:

Amazon: http://myBook.to/GHAB

iTunes https://itunes.apple.com/gb/book/girl-having-a-ball/id1146154216?mt=11&ign-mpt=uo%3D4

Kobo: https://store.kobobooks.com/en-us/ebook/girl-having-a-ball-choc-lit

Other books by Rhoda

Please Release Me (Choc Lit) Shortlisted for a Love Stories 2015 award. (I really enjoyed this one)

Doctor January (Choc Lit)

Girl on The Run (Choc Lit)