Maureen Flynn's Blog, page 15
March 6, 2014
A Quick Interview with Myself!
I had some questions left over from my Freshly Booked Interview which unfortunately didn’t fit into the (very generous) sixty minute time slot. I have decided to put the five most interesting here in case people are still hungry for more!
Who are your favourite authors?
I really, really hate questions of this sort. I usually find, and I say this with all due respect because I am friends with a lot of wonderful writers, that authors let me down. Sooner or later. They let me down. Even the best ones. I much prefer listing favourite books for this reason. Having said that, I go crazy for Agatha Christie. I love what she says about the human condition and I even love her Mary Westmacott novels. Absent in the Spring may be one of the best unexpected reads of 2013. I love Juliet Marillier for her writing style. She really personifies her ‘I.’ I also love the imagination in most Isobelle Carmody novels. I love everything by Lemony Snicket and can’t understand why everyone else doesn’t love him alongside me. I love most things by Philip Pullman and I even have a postcard from him(!) but I wasn’t a fan of The Goodman Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ and he hasn’t written anything of note in some time. I really want more of those Sally Lockhart mysteries. Surely I’m not the only one!
What do you like to do when you are not writing?
I love working with children. I tutor in high school English and I also work for an NGO with children and adults with a disability. I am so lucky that I love both my jobs! I love listening to weird music like symphonic metal. I also have a shameless obsession with all things Doctor Who. The latest thing in my CD player is Big Finish’s Dark Eyes 2 with Paul McGann. Great stuff!
How did you come up with the title for your book?
My Heart’s Choir Sings is a metaphor. My debut book is a verse novella about a relationship gone wrong, with the 25 poem sequence serving as a eulogy. The main character, Stewart, who is penning the poetry, is ‘singing’ in poetry form of his heart’s loss. That’s how I see it, anyway.
Does your main hero/heroine have an interesting quirk?
What I really like about having Stewart as the narrator of the poetry pieces, is that we learn just as much about him as we do about the object of his eulogy. Each poem reveals something about his partner, yes, but also something about Stewart’s own muddied and lost soul. The quirk is that Stewart doesn’t see this.
What message do you have for your fans?
Thanks so much for supporting me, thanks so much for your constructive criticisms and lovely words. Thanks so much for putting up with my bad days and my good days. Thanks so much for sticking around! Here’s to many more and to one day, the next J K Rowling 
xx
InkAshlings
PS: You can buy My Heart’s Choir Sings on Amazon and Smashwords If you’d like a copy for review on your blog, goodreads, or website, or if you are interested in ‘paying with a tweet,’ please email me at inkashlings@gmail.com
March 4, 2014
I’ve been Freshly Booked!
Check out my first ever Author Interview with Freshly Booked! Ever wanted to know how Nicola Walker influenced my writing? Or the kinds of stories I wrote as a kid? Or if I’m a pantser or a planner? Tune in for 60mins to find out!
Maureen Flynn on Freshly Booked
February 10, 2014
Author Interview: Sarah Hilary
It’s been awhile since I’ve done an author interview and I am very lucky indeed that Sarah had some time to talk to me about her debut crime novel, Someone Else’s Skin. I have known Sarah online for a few years and had the pleasure of seeing her picked up by an agent and later a major publisher. She is talented, edgy, has a wicked turn of mind and a wonderful passion for her chosen genre. Today, she gives us the low down on her experience in the crime genre for the blog. Thanks again for taking the time to answer these questions, Sarah!
1. How did you first discover the crime genre and what is it about crime writing that appeals to you?
I was about nine or ten, and someone introduced me to Sherlock Holmes. I love the complexity and the neatness of the genre, the way it sets up expectations and then perverts them. At its best, it’s a very anarchic genre.
What are your favourite crime reads?
Innocent Blood by PD James. The Collector by John Fowles. The Silence of the Lambs and Red Dragon by Thomas Harris. More recently, Fred Vargas’s Adamsberg series.
3. You write wonderful, and award winning, crime flash fiction, established the Flashbang competition, and support other flash writers. What is it about micro crime fiction that appeals to you?
The discipline and the wickedness: telling a story in the time it takes to smoke a cigarette; it shouldn’t work, but it absolutely can and does.
4. What advice do you have for aspiring flash fic writers?
Take us straight to the detail of the story. Think of those long zoom shots at the start of Hitchcock’s films – the cityscape, the street, the building, the room, the desk, the knife… Now jump-cut to the knife. But – and here’s the trick – do it without losing the story. You need to be a bit of a magician to pull it off. It’s why I admire stories like Iain Rowan’s Search History so much. Iain won the first ever Flashbang contest and his story is magnificent. Check it out: http://flashbangcontest.wordpress.com/2012/06/09/winning-story-2012/
5. Your debut crime novel, book one in the DI Marnie Rome series, comes out at the end of the month with Headline. I know that Someone Else’s Skin took a bit to get to print. How many years did it take from first draft to publication date and how many times did you rewrite your manuscript?
Twelve months, BUT I’d written four unpublished novels before that, so I’d put in my time earlier on. Now I usually take about three or four months to do a first draft then two or three months to get it to a second draft; so one major rewrite and then fine-tuning.
6. Your publication story is one that is proof of never giving up. What helped you to keep going when the writer’s road got tough?
Bloodymindedness and a dash of defiance. Oh and some really, really good friends. I think a writer’s ego is a strange beast – you have to lose almost all the arrogance you start out with, but not so much that you give up on the (crazy, mad, impossible) dream that you will be published. The iron has to enter your soul, but not at the expense of your imagination.
7. Someone Else’s Skin deals with complex forms of sexual violence around culture, race, gender and sexual preference. How much research was required for Someone Else’s Skin to make your story believable?
I think if you’re dealing with complex and sensitive issues than your research has to be up to scratch. But it also has to end somewhere, so that you can tell your story. I’m telling stories not writing non-fiction, so I would never over-emphasise the extent of my research. I hope I did enough for the story and its characters to have integrity and to move the reader enough to engage him/her with the subject matter.
8. Can you give us a teaser for Book Number Two? Maybe a cryptic clue?
I’ll give you a couple. Have you ever played Happy Families? Well, imagine if that was a matter of life or death. Now look around you and find the most innocuous object within easy reach. How could you turn that into a weapon and who would you use it against?
9. You have said before that you find characterization easier than plotting, yet Someone Else’s Skin juggles three different multi-layered plots. Was it hard to structure your book with these three plot lines and what’s your advice for people in search of a great story to match their great characters?
I didn’t structure the first draft in that way. It developed into the multi-layered plot as I added the detail. It looks like this is how I’ll do the second book too, so perhaps that’s my best advice: add layers once you have the spine of the story in place. I do think plot comes from character, not the other way around, although obviously the more plot you throw at your characters the more they grow and change, so it cuts both ways.
10. What’s a question about your writing/work that you’ve never been asked before and you’ve always wanted to be asked? Now answer it.
The question would be, “Marnie Rome is a strong female lead. Have you always written strong women?” And my answer would be No. All my early attempts at novels had heroes not heroines. I found it really difficult to write a female lead, partly I think because I was anxious about messing up, and partly because growing up, all my favourite books had heroes not heroines. But I’m over that now; I absolutely love writing Marnie. I love writing Noah and Ed too, but it’s all about Marnie for me.
Sarah Hilary lives in Bath, where she writes quirky copy for a well-loved travel publisher. She’s also worked as a bookseller, and with the Royal Navy. Her debut novel, Someone Else’s Skin, will be published in February 2014 by Headline in the UK and Penguin in the US. A second book in the series will be published a year later. Set in London, both books feature DI Marnie Rome, a woman with a tragic past and a unique insight into domestic violence.
You can find her at her blog Crawl Space, or on twitter Sarah_Hilary
February 9, 2014
Genre Spotlight: Someone Else’s Skin by Sarah Hilary
Someone Else’s Skin, Sarah Hilary
Headline, Feb 2014.
RRP: 13.99 GBP, $29.99 AUS
And now for something completely different… Regular readers of my blog will know that I avoid crime fiction. It’s not that I don’t like mystery- in fact, I often have mystery in my fantasy novels- it’s just that I find crime that bit too unsettling. Especially good crime fiction. I once read Minette Walters and had nightmares. I’m a wuss and yet somehow it’s like fascinating creepy crawlies, once I start a crime novel I can’t look away, because crime is fascinating. It’s frightening to think that some people have certain relationships with other people that push them to murder. I would never have come across this stunning debut if I hadn’t of already known the author. I’ve known Sarah online for a few years and her prose is perfection. I knew that this debut would be one to watch for and I wasn’t wrong. If this doesn’t hit a best seller list and/or get made into a wonderful BBC crime drama I will be very, very surprised…
From the blurb:
Detective Inspector Marnie Rome: dependable, fierce, brilliant at her job. She’s a rising star in the ranks. Everyone knows how Marnie fought to come back from the murder of her parents, but very few know what is going on below the surface. Because Marnie has secrets she won’t share with anyone.
But then, so does everyone. Certainly those in the women’s shelter Marnie and Detective Sergeant Noah Jake visit on that fateful day. The day when they arrive to interview a resident, only to find one of the women’s husbands, who shouldn’t have been there, lying stabbed on the floor.
As Marnie and Noah investigate the crime further, the violence starts to escalate. Everyone is keeping secrets, some for survival and some, they suspect, to disguise who they really are under their skin.
Now, if Marnie is going to find the truth she will have to face her own demons head on. Because the time has come for secrets to be revealed…
Someone Else’s Skin is definitely unsettling and confronting, but that doesn’t make it bad. Instead, this novel is an unflinching look at the multiple ways people bury parts of themselves deep down. In a way this theme reminded me of Dorothy Porter’s The Monkey’s Mask. DI Marnie Rome and DS Noah Jake both see what they want to see. By the time they realize this, it is almost too late.
This is a novel about sexual, cultural and youth violence. These are themes touched on quite often in crime fiction, but Sarah has found a way to make this theme her own. She discusses these complex issues by looking at them in fresh or rare ways. Violence against women by women, violence against men by women. Violence because of race and because of culture. Violence because of a broken home and because of cycles of violence. I found this to be interesting and sensitive. I thought that Di Marnie Rome’s back story also helped to make sense of the main plot. I have read some online reviews that indicated that people found the multiple story lines confusing. I suggest that you will find the multi-story arc rewarding if you look for the ways that each story is thematically linked. It is a novel about secrets and about masks and about complicated types of violent crime. All three crimes in the novel come back to this theme.
Sarah is an award winning flash and short fiction writer, and this came across in her assured prose. Each character, including minor characters, are fleshed out deftly with a few choice lines so that they feel real. Characters react in believable ways and clues don’t feel contrived, as sometimes happens in the crime fiction genre. Finally, a note on Sarah’s depiction of minority groups. I found her handling of both Ayana and Noah Jake to be superb. These two characters leapt and sparkled. Ayana’s story may or may not be done, but I look forward to reading more of Noah’s adventures.
Someone Else’s Skin: 4/5 inky stars
A review copy was provided by the author.
This book will be available online and at bookstores.
February 8, 2014
A Guest with a Gift for Poetry and Verse—Maureen Flynn
Reblogged from Dionne Lister - Author:
Today I have my friend and poet visiting with a guest post. I first met Maureen at the NSW writers centre when I was there to talk about self-publishing. It's exciting to see that Maureen has very recently self-published her first book of poetry, and what a gorgeous one it is. Even if poetry isn't your favourite thing; if you enjoy well-written prose, you will probably enjoy this – I know I did.
February 7, 2014
Twitter has been hacked!
For goodness sake. My twitter account has been hacked and the hackers changed my email address as well as my password. I have filed a report with twitter support but so far nada. I would love to have my online identity back before the next million years has passed.
Has anyone had this happen before? What can you do?
And in the meantime, please don’t touch any links from twitter!
February 4, 2014
My Heart’s Choir Sings Sale!
Hi faithful readers. It’s been a whirlwind week for me with the release of my verse novella. I’ve only just had time to come onto the blog now and let you all know it’s on sale at Smashwords and Amazon for 99c. Get in quick!
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/402166
February 2, 2014
Author Interview with Maureen Flynn
I know I promised that Sunday Story would be returning and I promise there is a Who fan fiction waiting in the wings but today I have the first of two special guests for this week.
This one is very special as Maureen and I share a passion for the mad man in a blue box and that was how we first got to know each other so please welcome my friend Maureen......
My first ever author interview. Check it out!
February 1, 2014
#NewRelease: My Heart’s Choir Sings, by @InkAshlings
Originally posted on A Life Among The Pages:
A eulogy and a verse novella. Grief, guilt, redemption. How do you go on in a world without your other half?
Think Ted Hughes Birthday Letters meets Dorothy Porter verse and you’d have My Heart’s Choir Sings. This is the story of Stewart Hinchcliffe, a writer and an artist who loses his lover and fellow creative in tragic circumstances. As he cleans out their old apartment, each new object brings back bittersweet memories. Throughout the 25 poem sequence, grief, guilt and anger color his memories. Who is to blame for what happened? Where did everything go wrong? And how on earth does Stuart move on from his past?
You can grab a copy of of this novella from:
#NewRelease: My Heart's Choir Sings, by @InkAshlings
Reblogged from A Life Among The Pages:
A eulogy and a verse novella. Grief, guilt, redemption. How do you go on in a world without your other half?
Think Ted Hughes Birthday Letters meets Dorothy Porter verse and you’d have My Heart’s Choir Sings. This is the story of Stewart Hinchcliffe, a writer and an artist who loses his lover and fellow creative in tragic circumstances. As he cleans out their old apartment, each new object brings back bittersweet memories.
