Jane Lovering's Blog, page 4

Most bestestest ever! Heroes - do they really have to be QUITE so fabulous?

Right. Christmas is over - so put down that tin of Celebrations and stop drinking double cream straight from the carton with the fridge door open to cover what you are doing... I am going to force you in to a discussion here, because it's either write this or take the dogs on a three mile run, and there's freezing fog out there and a fire in here, plus two packets of unopened biscuits and the tail end of a Christmas pudding, so...discussion it is!

Reading a lot of blurbs of a lot of books lately, has made me realise that there is a whole stream of books, maybe even a sub-genre, where the active participants in the story seem to have beamed down from the planet PERFECTO.  I'm not talking about the multi-billionaires here, they are a different species already, we all know that.  I'm talking about the ones that aren't just ordinary dog-trainers for the average person in the street whose terrier won't stop widdling on the mat (and yes, Teal, I AM looking at you...and no, insanity is not a defence, so I'm told)


No, they have to be training dogs for military defence work. Or mountain rescue work. Now, I have a reasonable grasp on dog training (although, evidenced by my mat, not a complete one), but have no knowledge whatever of what it takes to train a military dog. More sturdy mats, perhaps. So are these men more attractive by virtue of doing a job that I don't understand?  Dog training is just an example - these men seem to have jobs that are so far outside my normal comprehension of the world that I find them vaguely unrelatable. Of course not many people are going to be interested in reading about a man who cuts lawns and plants potatoes for a living, but there's surely some ground in between him and the TV landscape gardener with the limitless budget who can get five acres of turf down without blinking?

So, my post Christmas question to you is - when does a hero become more than his job? Is a man more attractive because he test drives Lamborghinis rather than Fiats? OK, he might get paid more, but is that all it is - a rich man in a borrowed Lamborghini is more hero-worthy than the bloke down the road in his Fiat 500? How much of who he is is affected by what he does?

Yeah, okay, not doing myself any favours with these pictures, am I?
And now I'm back to mopping the carpet and trying to pretend that the last of the pudding just happened to fall out of the fridge and be eaten by the dog. Or cat. Yes, the cats look slightly guilty. let's blame them..

My day out with not-evil-sock-puppets!

On Wednesday I had the most brilliant day. Partly in the interests of research, but also because I'd been given a voucher as a Christmas present. Yes, last Christmas. Yes, I am a trifle disorganised when it comes to arranging things like this. Yes, it would be entirely my own fault if I got soaked, frozen and then dragged through nine foot mud by a deranged llama.

Anyway.  Last year my lovely OH Steve (who doesn't get nearly enough credit for quietly enabling me) bought me a llama walk for Christmas, and this Wednesday was when I got to go. And everything conspired to make it the most wonderful day... the fog that had prevailed lifted, the temperature was a ridiculous (for North Yorkshire in December) 13 degrees, the sun shone...and there were llamas!  (For reference, we went to Nidderdale Llamas, which I can thoroughly recommend), and we walked around the dales... with llamas!  Although I had an alpaca, called Paddy, so not a llama, but basically the same only smaller and cuddlier and with more fur.
I am the one on the right. Slightly less furry and a lot less cuddly
Steve had a proper big llama called Toby.
It's like the Little and Large of the camelid world
And, even though it was December, we walked around in sunshine and looked at llamas...although sometimes they do look a bit like evil sock puppets...
...they are nothing of the sort. And it was great, and I even found myself assessing my bit of rough paddock out the back to see if I could fit the odd llama out there (the answer was 'yes', but you really need to keep them in pairs, and two of these would drive the terriers into fits).  And now I want to go again...(PS, there was also tea and cake, which were instrumental in no small part in my desire to revisit...)

What have I been up to? Well, I am glad you asked...

I know I've been very quiet lately (well, quiet for me, that is. Which means you could probably only hear me from the moon). And I have to say sorry for that, but I've been quite busy, one way and another. There's been the day job, book type thingies (hello, Lowestoft!) and spending time with DD2, who is moving out to Australia at Christmas, so I'm packing in as much seeing her as is reasonable.

So, what do I have to say to you?  Right. Well you might not be aware, but I have a Christmas Novella due out on 06 December!  At the moment you can only pre-order through iBooks, but it will be available for all platforms. Here's the blurb...
Who are the boys of Christmas?
Mattie Arden has just escaped from a toxic relationship so when, a few days before Christmas, she receives a letter informing her that she has inherited a house from her great aunt Millie, it’s a welcome distraction.
Except it comes with a strange proviso: if Mattie wants the house, she must fulfil Millie’s last wish and scatter her ashes over ‘the boys of Christmas’.
In the company of her best friend Toby, Mattie sets out for the seaside village of Christmas Steepleton in the hope of finding out the meaning of her aunt’s bizarre request.
Whilst there, a snowstorm leaves them stranded for Christmas, and still no nearer to finding ‘the boys’. But as the weather gives Mattie time to reflect, she realises the answer to the mystery might have been under her nose all along –and that’s not the only thing …

It's a very 'rompy' sort of book, if you see what I mean, lots of dashing about in thigh-deep snow, as much as one can dash in thigh deep snow, looking for clues.
And it has a cover that is just sooooo Christmassy it almost makes me want to get the tree up (and I am well known for not putting up the tree until Christmas is practically over). There's something about lighted windows in the snow that just shouts 'presents! Eggnog!', although if anyone actually does shout Eggnog! at you then I think you are allowed to hit them with a reinforced Stollen.

And here is a lovely picture of three of my offspring, Fern, Will and Addie, during a long winter walk!
Now. Have you finished your Christmas shopping yet?

Reviews. Show an author some Amazon love...not, like, big women with bows and arrows though. Unless you like that sort of thing.

Do you know how important it is for authors to get reviews?

Probably not, because if you aren't an author, ie, you are one of the sane 93 % of people who take one look at what's involved in writing a novel and, very wisely, decide that that kind of torture is not for you and you'd rather eat another Fondant Fancy and watch Strictly, then reviews are almost always bad things.  In most jobs the only kind of review you get - apart from when a rather nice customer says that he (or she) always enjoys your custard slices - is a performance review, when management try to think of things to say to you and you try to think of ways to answer them.
Stick to the Fondant Fancies. It's the only sensible thing to do.

But to authors, ah, to authors reviews are Very Important Things.

Not for us to read, of course. Sometimes we do and sometimes we don't.  I mean, the reviews aren't for us, are they? They are for readers to tell other readers what they thought of the book, which is fine. Even if they hated it, it's still fine.  If an author does read their reviews, then they react in the following way:

"I loved the bit where..." 'they liked that bit. That means they hated all the other bits and are just being polite. I am a rubbish writer.

"I really enjoyed this book." Only 'enjoyed'. They didn't love it. Why didn't they love it? I am a rubbish writer.

"This book made me laugh and cry." I bet they laughed at all the sad bits and cried at how bad it all was. I am such a rubbish writer.

"This was the best book I've read since The Wasp Factory." They didn't say when they read the Wasp Factory. It was probably yesterday. This is the best book they've read since yesterday. I am a rubbish writer.

So really, when you leave a review, try not to think of the author...  Instead, think of Amazon.
No, not that one. This one..
Because Amazon has Algorithms. Which aren't a kind of intestinal parasite. Or pithy sayings from Al Gore. It's some kind of number magic, by which they calculate which products get shoved in the face of their millions of perusers. So, the more Amazon Reviews a book has, the more it is wafted in the direction of other people who might buy it. The more popular it is, the more popular it becomes. Because, Maths.

So, if you have read and enjoyed a book, even if you have read a book and thought 'I liked that bit where...', even if you only think it's the best thing you've read since The Wasp Factory, last Wednesday, then please leave a review. It doesn't have to be a long one, just 'a good read' will do. 

Because we can't fight Amazon.  It's the crocodiles, you see.
 

Are you ready for Christmas yet?

Okay, I apologise for the goady title...I am not trying to make you feel guilty for not having all your presents bought and wrapped, mince pies made and in the freezer, cake ready to ice...all that.  Mostly because I am a person who, despite loving Christmas in all its 'tasteless decorations and more food than you can safely eat' glory, waits until approximately the tenth of December before realising that there is nothing to eat in the house, and that tree won't roll itself in glitter...

Anyway.  Yes. Christmas.  So, in an attempt to make myself feel the whole 'Christmas' thing, and perhaps communicate a little Christmassy spirit to everyone else, I have just completed this year's Christmas Novella!  (You may remember last year's 'The Art of Christmas'...)
 Well, this year's novella is called 'The Boys of Christmas'.  I've sort of painted myself into a corner now, with this alphabetical titling thing, I suppose next year's novella will have to be called The Crotch of Christmas, or possibly, if based on personal experience, The Chaos of Christmas, although I find myself now rather liking The Crotch of Christmas and trying to work a story out around it...

So. Let's take our minds off crotches, and focus on boys, shall we?

The Boys of Christmas features Ruby Arden, who is hiding out with her friend Toby, from her emotionally abusive boyfriend. Ruby receives a rather unusual bequest, which takes her and Toby off to a snow-bound village on the Dorset coast, to solve a mystery...
Richard Austin pictures, by the way...
This is Lyme Regis, which isn't a village, but it's on a steep hill - and the village in the novella is very much like this, only much, much smaller.  Well, not smaller, the houses are the same size and everything, but it has a lot less shops in it.
And the scenery is a bit like this...

I used to live not far from Lyme Regis, so it's a town I know well, although I don't think I've ever seen it in the snow. However, living where I do now, in the rural wilds of North Yorkshire, I see a lot of snow, usually from the front.

This novella features such christmassy things as snow, the world's tattiest Christmas tree, carol singers, emergency helicopter food drops and a knitted octopus called Cthulu.  There's also chalk figures cut into a hillside, a pre-prep boys' school, and an Aga of malevolence.

To find out how these all fit together - well, you'll just have to read the book, won't you?

Writing

I am often asked by people who want to write a book, how to go about it.  I mean how DO you write a book if you've never written one before? 

You go into Waterstones and pick up those thick paperbacks with the glossy covers and you turn them over and read the author's name and you wonder how the hell they ever did it.  You see them interviewed in newspapers and on TV and they seem like ordinary people, if slightly better dressed and cleaner and with their hair brushed.  So what makes them special, what makes their words worthy of publication and how do you get to be one of Them?  What arcane skill do they have that gets them on TV and in Waterstones and Smiths and on the bestseller lists, and how do you acquire that skill, and can it be done on Saturday afternoons between one and four because that's the only time you have free?


The answers, in order are: nothing, luck and persistence, reading a lot and no, not really.

Writers aren't Special People. I've met lots of them - and, indeed, am rumoured to be one myself - so I know they are just ordinary human beings who worry about getting the hoover fixed and when the car is due its MOT and where that mysterious hole came from.  'If you prick us, do we not bleed?'  Well, yes, we do, but then we make a note in our book about how it felt to be pricked, how much blood there was, and the reaction of the person who did the pricking when we punched them soundly on the nose.

Because the only difference between writers and non-writers?   Writers write things. And if the thing they wrote doesn't get accepted anywhere, they write something else.  And then send that out.  And if that one doesn't get anywhere, they write something else. Or self publish.  What they don't do is sit about telling everyone how they will be published 'one day', when they have time to write something.  Writers don't talk about writing, they do it.  Over and over.  And when they get accepted for publication, they know they are lucky.  Not better, just lucky.  They wrote the thing that person wanted and got it on the right desk at the right time.

And then they go away and do it again.  And again.  They forgo watching TV (well, most of it) and having hobbies because most of them have to go to a day job and write in their spare time, which there isn't much of if you want to watch Emmerdale, Corrie, EastEnders and the Great British Bake Off.  They sometimes have to be reminded to eat, and other times eat nothing but biscuits because they fit in that slot beside the laptop.  They drink tea and coffee to excess, because walking to the toilet is the only exercise they get.  They blink in bright sunlight because they usually don't see much of it.  But they write. 

That's how it's done, I'm afraid.  There's no magic, just bum on seat, fingers on laptop, and keep doing it until it's right. Or as nearly right as we can get it.

In which I meet Sir Tony...yes, really...

Well.  That was a weekend to remember: on Saturday Rhoda Baxter and I did a day of workshops on writing romantic comedy at the Beverley Literary Festival (with many thanks to Beverley Library, where everyone was brilliant, and so efficient that I felt quite out of my depth, and also to Rhoda, who put up with me blundering my way around, getting lost and interrupting and being, quite generally, me).

And then on Sunday, with much trepidation...I donned my disguise and went to York, where Sir Tony, I was most reliably informed, was signing copies of his book.
It's not much of a disguise, but I was clean and presentable, and usually when I'm stalking...I mean, following him, I tend to be wearing less clothes and more shrubbery, so I knew he wouldn't recognise me.  We got one nice picture, where my daughter distracted him by snuggling up, and I managed to sidle in and actually get in the picture...
..and then he recognised me.


..and then, you know, the screaming and the sirens and all that began, and the running away.
But he signed my book.  So that was nice...
But I'm just going to keep my head down for a while...you know, just in case....

Sex. Yep, you read that right. I talk about sex...

I recently had a review for one of my books which went along the lines of  'there wasn't any hot sex in it. I read books for hot sex, so I didn't like this story'.  And this made me a little bit sad, not because the reader didn't like the book - he or she is entirely entitled not to like what I write, but because he (or she) was reading a book sold as 'romance', and therefore obviously equates 'romance' with 'hot sex'.
Hot cocoa. Because I am not putting a picture of hot sex on my blog...And then I was reading a well known review site, which was trailing some 'forthcoming book offers'.  You know what?  EVERY SINGLE BLURB went along the lines of 'they met, he (or sometimes she) didn't want a relationship (usually for some spurious reason such as a previous ex cheating), but the heat between them was undeniable. Can the way they set fire to the sheets indicate something more serious than a one night stand?'

This made me shake my head a little bit.  You see, when you get to my advanced age, you realise that the ability to have hot sex is absolutely no indicator of a good relationship. Okay, these books are dealing with the beginnings of relationships, where two people are just getting together. It is reassuring to know that the hotness of the sex shows that they are compatible in bed.  But, let's face it, we've all had someone we fancy something terrible, with whom the sex is great, but after a few months, when the hotness of the sex begins to wane, when being groped at every available second has lost its power to enthrall and charm and has become a complete nuisance.  When you want to talk about that leak in the kitchen ceiling or whose turn it is to cook dinner without attempts to fondle your bosom it makes you want to shout THIS IS NOT REAL LIFE!
Very nice dear, but who's doing the washing up?
Many people don't want to read about real life, I suppose.  They want their romantic fiction to be swoony, gorgeous men sweeping women off their feet and into bed.  And this is fine and perfectly normal.  But it's not the kind of fiction that I write. Because I don't find sex very romantic, to be honest. It's nice as part of a romance, but building a whole life on how hot the sex is between a couple just seems a bit...short sighted. Okay, so he can make you swoon in ecstatic ecstacy every night, well that's lovely dear. But does it mean he will stand beside you and hold your hand when you get bad news?  Will he cuddle you on a cold night, and keep you company during your insomnia?  Will he cook dinner and keep the house tidy and look after the animals when you are confined to bed with a vomiting bug that is not the least picturesque?

And often I read books where I think the answer to any of these questions is 'nah'. And that's not romance, that's hormones.

Forthcoming releases - one knitted octopus and some birds

What have you been working on so diligently, Jane? 

Well, thank you so much for asking... I knew if I went quiet for a while someone would come wandering along to see what I was up to.  Either that or you wanted to steal my biscuits, which, ha!, is NOT going to happen and don't think I didn't see you trying to lay hands on my HobNobs...

I have been working. Hard.  I've just submitted my Christmas Novella, which will hopefully make it out onto your e-readers in time for Christmas (the short fiction doesn't come out in book form at present, it's too short.  It would basically be all cover).  It's called The Boys of Christmas, and it's about a young woman who inherits a house from a Great Aunt, on the condition that she (Ruby, the young woman in question) scatters the said aunt's ashes in a particular place.  Trouble is, that there are lots of places that fit the criteria, and Ruby and her best friend Toby have to find out which place her aunt had in mind, whilst dealing with some terrible weather, a kitchen range of malevolence, two snowed-out archaeologists, an abusive ex, and a knitted octopus called Cthulu.
A bit like this. Only jollier.
And if that isn't quite up your street (or even if it is, but you also want something longer), then my newest novel will be out in the New Year (date as yet unspecified, but, don't worry, I shall be telling you soon!).

This is called The Little Tea Shop of Horrors.

It's set in an old stately home called Monk Park Hall, open to the public and run by the Heritage Trust.. Amy runs the tea shop with the help of her best friend Julia, cares for her grandmother (who is of the opinion that she is looking after Amy), and is forming a tentative friendship with Josh, the claustrophobic young man who lives in an old caravan and flies birds of prey.

When the Trust appoint a new administrator to the Hall, who wants to close the cafe, Amy is forced to do things she would never normally consider, in order to keep her job and her home.

There.  That's what I'm up to.  Now, if you'll excuse me, I must go and open a new packet of biscuits.  You've had your fingers in this one...

Is being free a good thing? Or is it Lidl beans forever?

It might come as a bit of a surprise to some of you, but there's an increasing wave of demand for us authors to provide our work free.  Many do, for things like 'first book in a series' or older books - just the one going free on Amazon to encourage readers to buy further books - like a sort of 'taster'; those little bits of cheese that you get on top of the cheese counter that you stand thoughtlessly eating whilst you're waiting for the man to cut you four ounces of cheddar (I know I should be asking for it in metric units, but I know what four ounces looks like and I'd probably ask for something daft like 'two micrometers of Wensleydale' and everyone would look at me strangely).




But there are other authors for whom being read is more important than earning money, and they make all their content (it's always called 'content', I don't know why) permanently free.  They just want their words to be out there, and available to as many people as possible - and that's fine.

But.  Because some authors are permanently free, there is a bit of a movement out there for all authors to make their work free.  I can understand the reasoning, if some people can do it, why not all?  Why not have all words available to everyone, with no filthy lucre involved - a kind of pure intellectual exchange?

And here's where it gets messy...

I live alone. In order to make more time for my writing, I have a job that isn't 9-5, pays just above minimum wage, but is flexible enough that I can go off and teach workshops or, as this week, spend three days solid sitting in my bed writing (I know, I know, but I'm on a deadline!  I do emerge, every now and again to feed the animals or gnaw on a loaf of bread).  Like just about every other person, I have bills to pay - rent, Council Tax, water, electricity etc.  I live in the middle of nowhere, so I have to keep my car on the road with regular injections of road tax, insurance and diesel. I also quite like food.

So, should I give my words away free?  I'd like to think that, if I were a billionaire I'd make my work available to all because I wouldn't need the income from it - the earnings from my writing are ESSENTIAL (and yes, I do mean ESSENTIAL, see all the bits about living alone and having to float an entire household worth of bills alone from a NMW job that isn't even full time), but I probably wouldn't.  Do you know why?

Writing is hard work.  It's sitting alone in a room (except for the spiders and crane flies, do not get me started on the spiders and crane flies saga), bashing away on a keyboard for so long that your fingers go all numb and your wrist does this thing where it clicks.  It's turning down extra shifts at work because you're on a deadline and have to get something to your publisher so you don't lose your publication slot.  It's wracking your brains for another way to say 'it's snowing', so your readers don't get bored; it's living off nothing but Lidl beans for a fortnight because the money ran out, and putting on more jumpers than humanly possible because you can't afford heating, but you'd rather be writing than anything else.
Also, sometimes we fall off the roof of the kennel, and that makes us crossIt's actually a bit like being a drug addict, when you come to think of it, except I can't think of many drugs where you have to turn your brain inside out to feed other people's addition.

And if I gave away those resulting words, I would be devaluing all that effort.  Not just my effort, but the efforts of all my fellow writers.  Just as I wouldn't expect a decorator to come round and paint my entire living room for nothing just so I could see whether I liked the effect, I wouldn't expect a writer to produce an entire book so I could see whether or not I like their writing.  Because, nearly in the immortal words of FAME - 'writing costs.  And right here is where you start paying'.
A writer's life is almost never anything like this.
Believe me, it isn't just readers who pay for books.  Writing the things isn't easy either (see above re no heating and there's also bum fat and lack of socialisation to take into account.  You can always tell a writer at any gathering, they are the ones with wobbly buttocks and a tendency to burst in while other people are talking and try to lick their faces).

So.  Free books, or sane and happy writers?

Tch, listen to me.  Sane and happy people don't write books...