Tracey Warr's Blog, page 6

Celebrating medieval women

It’s Women’s History Month. My novels celebrate real medieval women who receive slight (and misogynistic) mentions in medieval chronicles. I have tried to imagine my way into their lives and experiences from a few sentences in the historical record.

The Viking Hostage is based on the true story of a French noblewoman kidnapped by Vikings and held hostage for three years.

Almodis: The Peaceweaver tells the story of the scandalous 11th-century countess of Toulouse and Barcelona.

My Conquest trilogy recounts the story of the Welsh noblewoman, Nest ferch Rhys, during the period of Norman invasion and conquest. Celebrate a medieval woman!

Details on my website: https://meandabooks.com

Beyond the Writer’s Block

I used to think writer’s block was a nonsense, until my publisher went into liquidation and the COVID 19 pandemic disrupted my usual sense of momentum and planning for a couple of years. I went through a looo-oong period of writer’s block. I had written and published five historical novels and a lot of other fiction and non-fiction, but now I started things and couldn’t take them anywhere. I tried many strategies but nothing seemed to work. 

I like L.M. Twist’s advice to writers in an interview posted today on the Historical Novel Society website:

‘Just keep swimming. Keep picking away at the story, the research, anything. Even if it feels like you’re hardly making any progress and it will never come together in a finished project; you can make it there, inch by inch.’

Launch: L.M. Twist’s Louis Mie and the Trial of Hautefaye

The book launch interviews on the HNS site contain many nuggets of good advice from writers to writers.

At last, I am on a writing roll again now, thanks to a decision to serialise my new novel, Love’s Knife, publishing one chapter a week on Substack. Chapter 3 coming this Saturday. You can subscribe for £5 per month giving you access to the full novel as it unfolds and a free ebook or paperback when it’s completed. Serialising has given me real writing momentum. You can also subscribe for free to receive occasional posts on my medieval history research and to read the novel prologue.

I also took the decision to set up my own imprint, Meanda Books, and have my backlist of five historical novels (and other writing) available again in hardback, paperback and ebook.

Now, I’m seeing Love’s Knife as the first in a series of ten books in the Trobairitz Sleuth series of medieval murder mysteries, and I’ve pick up the biography I’ve been working on (stop-start) of three medieval sisters. It’s good to get beyond the block and feel I merit the title of writer again!

Image: Alice Butt, c. 1895, by James McNeill Whistler, National Gallery of Art, Washington, public domain. This is one of Whistler’s paintings of London’s street children. The painting was stolen from Whistler’s Paris studio in the 1890s and he recovered it in 1901. Joseph Biden had the painting on loan and on display in his office for six years 2009-2015. The painting is the inspiration for my trobairitz sleuth character, Beatriz of Farrera. I first started imagining Beatriz in 2014 when I was writer in residence in Farrera in the Pyrenees.

Serialising a new novel

Today, I started serialising my new novel, Love’s Knife, on Substack. It’s the first book in my Trobairitz Sleuth Series and is a medieval murder mystery set in Toulouse in 1093. 

You can subscribe to my Substack for £5 a month and receive one chapter a week on Saturdays (that’s £1.20 a chapter).

There are 30 chapters, so we will reach the end of the book together at the end of August. When the serialisation is completed, subscribers receive a free ebook or paperback (for you or to gift to someone else).

traceywarr.substack.com

The book will be published on 3 September and will be available on preorder in May.

The view from Farrera of the Santa Eulalia Romanesque chapel in Alendo in the Catalan Pyrenees, where I first started writing this novel.

New Novel

You can read the prologue to my new novel, Love’s Knife, as a free subscriber to my Substack.

Starting this month, I will be posting a chapter a week for paying subscribers (who also receive their choice of a free paperback or ebook when it is completed).

The novel is the first book in the Trobairitz Sleuth series.

It will be published on 3 September 2024 and will be available on preorder soon.

Novel Writing Competition

If you are a writer, you may be interested in this new historical fiction competition.

HNS UK First Chapters Competition

Closing date: 15 February 2024

The HNS UK 2024 First Chapters Competition is for the first three chapters of a historical novel that has not been previously published in any form. The chapters should be accompanied by a synopsis for the novel.

The competition is aiming to recognise and promote excellence in storytelling and the craft of historical fiction. 

Overall Winner: £1,000

Category Prizes: £500 and an HNS UK 2024 conference ticket*

The categories are: 

historical romancehistorical crimehistorical adventurebiographical historical fictionchildren’s and young adult’s historical fictionhistorical fantasy, timeslip, and alternate historyhistorical fiction ancient to 16th centuryhistorical fiction 17th to 19th centuryhistorical fiction 20th century.

The overall judges are:

author Kate Quinn

author and publisher Jane Johnson

agent and publisher Lisa Highton

*HNS UK 2024 conference is taking place 6-8 September 2024 at Dartington. Keynote speakers include Kate Quinn, Bernard Cornwell, Diana Gabaldon, Jane Johnson, Paterson Joseph, S.G. Maclean, Elizabeth Chadwick and Ian Mortimer. The category prize free ticket can be awarded for onsite or online attendance.

Competition Entry fee: £40 or £30 for HNS members.

Full details and the entry form are at:

https://hns2024.com/hns-uk-2024-first-chapters-competition/

January Discounted Books

Signed copies of my Conquest trilogy (first edition) are on offer at £1 per book plus postage and packing. A perfect birthday present for a historical fiction lover (or for you!). They can be posted to anywhere in the world.

meandabooks.com/home-2/free-book-offer/

Medieval Christmas

I’ve recently posted a series of three Medieval Christmas extracts from my novels, each accompanied by a medieval recipe.

The Christmas medieval recipes to have a look at are dariole, wassail bowl, and Cawl.

You can subscribe to my Substack free for occasional posts on medieval history and fiction. In the new year, I will be serialising my new novel, Love’s Knife, on Substack for paying subscribers. Love’s Knife is a medieval murder mystery set in Toulouse.

Happy Christmas to you!

The cover image is Old Christmas, Illustrated London News, 24 December 1842, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Mickwidder, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons

Library Love

Hurroo! Hurrah! Very excited that my mum has just bought me a stay at Gladstone’s Library for my Christmas present. Just over the England/Wales border, Gladstone’s is the UK’s only residential library.

I will be attending an event on deaf history. A character in my new novel is deaf – so I will value discussing that with others attending the event. My grandfather, William Warr, was deaf and willed me his small library. He is the main reason I became an avid young reader, and hence a writer.

Like many readers and writers, I am a serious fan of libraries. My own library-love experiences include the British Library* and the Bodleian and the many libraries where I have been welcomed to speak about my historical novels, including the London Guildhall Library and Downham Market Library in England; Pembroke Dock and Tenby in Wales; and Laguepie Mediatheque, Parisot Library, and the Villefranche de Rouergue English Library in France. 

You might be interested to read my booklist on lovely libraries and idiosyncratic bookshops on Shepherd.com

East Barnet Library (now closed) was the library I ravished my way through as a child and teenager. Do tell me about your library love!

Thank you, Mum!

*I am horrified by the damage done by the recent cyber-attack on the British Library and wish the staff well in their recovery efforts. I’m not inclined to malice, but an attack on a library is unconscionable. I do wish the doers their just deserts.

Yo Ho Ho! Special Offer Books for Christmas presents

I had a great day at the Laguepie Christmas Books Market yesterday in France (pictured). You can take advantage of my online Christmas Special Offer. Signed copies of my Conquest trilogy (first edition) are on offer at £5 per book or £10 for the set of three, including UK postage and packing (that’s practically free!).

SEE THE CHRISTMAS SPECIAL OFFER

Hurry while stocks last and to make it in time for Christmas posting.

Medieval Murder Mystery

New post on my Substack.

Christmas Sale of medieval fiction books on my website at the ridiculous sale price of £5 a book or £10 for a trilogy.