A short stop from Orna Ross on her world blog tour...

I love the idea of a 'blog tour', being able to reach lots of people all over the world without leaving home (or, in Orna's case, popping in to see me while at the London Book Fair!) Orna should hopefully be stopping by later to answer my questions (see below) but in the meantime here is what her agents have to say...

“Orna Ross is currently touring her first novel “Lovers’ Hollow” and is excited to bring her book on-line via various blogs. Orna spent fifteen years in freelance journalism in Dublin and London before settling down to write fiction. This is her first offering, and a bumper read at 668 pages. It deals with Jo, a 38 year old woman who returns to Ireland for her dead mother’s funeral, to find that she has been left a suitcase of papers and letters from the past. In unearthing undreamt-of family secrets – of love and revenge in a time of war, of the conflict between happiness and duty, and even of a murder that has haunted three generations – Jo begins to understand certain truths, not only about the women who came before her, but about Rory O’Donovan, the man who she loved in her youth and who is now back in her life. This novel weaves effortlessly between past and present and evades all attempts at pre-empting its stunning conclusion. A must for lovers of historical fiction everywhere."

You can find out lots more information about Orna on her website here and buy Lovers' Hollow here.

But as she's taking the time to visit I'd like to take the opportunity to get to know her a little better by inviting her to share some of her favourite things about writing below...

Sarah x

5 Favourite Things...

1. Writing Tip (the best piece of writing advice you've been given)

Write Every Day.

2. Character (the one fictional character you wish you'd created)

Heathcliff -- dark, passionate, mysterious, clever, complex and devoted, even beyond death. (And, thought this is never explicitly said in the book, I reckon he was Irish!)

3. Inspiration (the thing most likely to get you reaching for your notepad)

Meditation and FREE-Writing (for more on FREE-Writing, see www.ornaross.com)

4. Motivation (the best way to lift yourself from despair and write through a difficult patch)

At the risk of being a bore, meditation and FREE-Writing!

Also, it's my experience that most writers become despairing when they are neglecting themselves creatively (I also teach & mentor other writers). I recommend Julia Cameron's solution of an Artist's Date, a fun, solitary outing doing something creative and enjoyable --see The Artist's Way. It works.

5. Moment (the highlight of your writing life so far)

Writing my favourite two words (THE END)on the last page of "A Dance in Time", my second long novel, just completed. It was very important for me. Writing becomes more and more rewarding as I go on and my writing highlights are always such private moments, rather than the public successes, though of course they are lovely too.

Research at its most fun

Yikes, just realised how long it's been since my last post! Been having a lovely time though. Went off on a research trip (ahem, family holiday!) to North Norfolk, where book 4 is set. It's such a lovely place, lots to do yet so relaxing. The pic above is where we caught a boat to see the seals at Blakeney, definitely recommended! It's a bit weird doing this kind of research. I saw a lot of the countryside/coast which really helped me picture scenes, and I took a few surreptitious photos in a boat yard and of a lifeboat crew (not because I'm weird but because it obviously helps with descriptions!) but there were some things I was too shy to do. I really wanted to go to a particular museum and grill a few people but there were questions I wanted to ask that would would have required explanation. This would have involved me having to say something along the lines of 'I'm a writer doing some research...' and I just couldn't bring myself to do it. It feels a bit fraudulent somehow. How I wished to be an established author of authority, someone like Stephen King or Jilly Cooper who can go along and work shadow people or interview them and glean lots of juicy information. Maybe I'll be brave and go back in the summer...
Also in Norfolk is a new kind of adventure park created by the children's author, Tom Blofeld. It's called Bewilderwood, and is really the magical land that his book is set in, 'made real' (how many authors would love to do that!). It's a brilliant idea and really well done - look at these funny houses in the swamp, it's like being in a film set! The kids loved it, of course and disappeared up a rope ladder before I could hold them back!


Anyway, it's back to reality now. I have another essay to write by Friday and a short story to tackle before I can even look at the works in progress! Next Tuesday (15th April) I shall be hosting a 'blog tour' for writer Orna Ross, so do pop back to read my interview with her and if you have any questions you'd like to ask just let me know!

Sarah x

Human Again

Yeay, I'm back! Finally I can sit at the computer and work and concentrate and get-things-done! It's horrible having such a break from writing, I feel a bit anxious to start again in case I've lost the plot. For over a week I haven't been able to sit at the computer chair or conjure up anything vaguely fictional. Instead I had a week on the sofa working through my Open Uni course. A week of reading about the Colosseum and - more boringly - Wembley Stadium (how this leads to a lit and language degree is obscure at best!) I haven't been able to walk the dog or go running, which has given me terrible cabin fever, but yesterday, at last, I bounced out of bed and felt 'back to normal' (albeit a new kind of normal with a small part of me missing - a part I didn't really need anymore, and which, in my drugged-up, post-op daze prompted me to ask the surgeon if it 'weighed a lot' in the hope that its loss would aid my summer diet - alas I am just a few grams down!)
Anyway, it was a lovely day to be feeling all new and vital. We woke up to find snow falling fast and a couple of inches on the ground already - the first time it's snowed in a year and a sight I had given up hope of seeing this winter! So, we went straight out with the dog and the sledge and spent several hours getting progressively more numb then came home and ate like it was Christmas. After an indulgent day like that it seems only fitting that I crack on with the work load today - even larger now as I've been asked to write a short story for a magazine - but tricky, as the children are on holiday for a fortnight and fussing about computer games and play dates. I shall have to be particularly cunning with my time, I think. If only it was still snowing, I could hide the kids Easter eggs in it, that'd keep them occupied for a few hours!
Happy holidays, folks!

Sarah x

In case anyone was wondering...

Had a bit of a break and won't be back for about a week, had quite a week last week. Won't go into the gory details but had emergency surgery that was all rather dramatic and gave hubby a good excuse to see how fast his car would drive down the A14 (hmm!) Everyone at the hospital was very good and caring and sorted me out a treat (I got a real taste for morphine and the tea trolley!) Back home now and quite sore, can't stay at the computer for long but all is fine, I see these things as quite life affirming and good book material (has being a novelist turned me slightly masochistic??!!)

Back soon...

Sarah xxx

World Book Day

Yep, it's the 6th March so it must be world book day again - sounds so exciting (well, to me anyway!) - a whole day devoted to books! This morning was spent dressing my daughter up like Tonks from Harry Potter - the school have asked the kids to 'dress as a favourite character from a book', and Ellie got immensely excited about the idea of turning up to school in a Weird Sisters rock T-shirt and bright pink hair. Oh dear, I'd always assumed she'd be the sensible one and I'd be a bit embarrasing (like Saffy and Edina in Ab Fab) but seeing her dressed like a rockstar and looking really very happy about it made me think again! Anyway, the doorbell went and Alice in Wonderland, Mrs Trunchball, a two-headed headmaster and Tracy Beaker turned up and they all went off for what I'm sure will be a great day at school.
After they'd gone I decided to mark the occasion by going 'Amazon surfing' (I haven't got time to browse a bookshop unfortunately!) and I found the longlist for the world book day competition to find the best current writing talent. Wow! What a fantastic list of intriguing books, grabbing plots and terrific cover art! I got myself in a real quandary, there were so many good ones - I wanted to spend several hours using 'search inside' to see which had the most grabbing first page, but I really must get on with some work today! Eventually I chose Electricity, but keep looking at The Stornaway Way and wishing I'd got that too - ahh, naughty, indulgent bookshopping, I feel guilty now, shall work hard on my book all day to compensate!
Have a fab day,
Sarah x

The good, the bad and the downright revolting...

How is it that every day I get up at 7-7.30 am and am busy all day till about 9pm and yet somedays I achieve nothing and somedays I can do everything on my list and a little bit extra for luck?

Tuesday was great, I got the kids off to school, walked the dog, did two hours worth of O.U coursework, dug the front garden in my lunchbreak, and wrote book 4 in the afternoon. I picked up the kids, tidied the house, cooked the tea, did a bit more o.u work, finished the ironing watching Masterchef (gripping telly!) Wrote a plan for my book that meant I can finish it by Dec 20th by writing as little as 2,250 words a week - easy peasy. Went to bed feeling very productive indeed.

Yesterday was bad. I got up to find we had no bread so had to send the kids to school with no lunch then run about doing 'emergency shopping' then make another trip to both schools to drop off lunchboxes (I gave them both a scone with jam instead of the usual cereal bar to make me feel less guilty about being crap - they liked me a lot for that!) Then I took the dog for a short walk (I can't go far because Edith's had an operation -- more about that later) and when I came back I realised I didn't have my house keys, my neighbour who always lets me in when I'm locked out (yes, it happens regularly!) was at work, there were no workmen around to break in for me (I ask them regularly too-they're really helpful if you give them a smile and a bottle of beer). I didn't have my phone to call hubby or my car keys to drive and get his set so I really was starting to panic. What was I going to do for 4 hours with a dog with stitches and how would I get my son from school etc etc. The postie took one look at me and said 'Oh, Sarah, not again!' then I realised someone was at my neighbour's house on the other side - a very nice decorator who let me in and let me use the neighbour's phone to call hubby to ask him to borrow a bike and cycle his keys over to me. He laughed at first, then got a bit cross, but bless him he came to my rescue. By the time I'd done all that I only had two hours left of my day and I spent all of that editing a book I'd started writing for my daughter which involved a lot of cutting out scenes. Went to my O.U tutorial and felt completely out of my depth as this week it's analysing pieces of music , my worst subject, not because I don't like music I LOVE music, but I have discovered that I cannot hear a beat. It's awful, they were all saying 'this is a 2/4' and 'did you hear the change to 6/8' and I am thinking eeerrrr, nope. There is a whole new vocabulary for talking about music which is all completely bewildering to me; contrapuntal, timbre, double-stopping, glissando. Aargh! Bring back sonnets, I loved doing that. At least it's philosophy next week...

Still, this week is infinitely better than last week, which brings me to the 'downright revolting', because Edith was rushed to the vets after hubby thought he'd seen her swallow a tennis ball whole. Yep, not uncommon apparently, but very serious, because if they try to bring it up it could block their airways (emergency!) and if they swallow it down it could damage their intestines (v.serious). Took her straight in and they couldn't find the ball - everyone in the waiting room thought it was really quite funny till the vet came out and said they were going to have to admit her and maybe open her up. They called the next day and said she wasn't well and they were 'going in to have a look'. They never found a tennis ball but they did find a large balled up piece of cloth that was blocking her stomach exit. It had been in there a few days so it was spookily fortuitous that we'd taken her in . Anyway, they kept the revolting rag for us to look at and I didn't recognise it - Edith did though. Even in her sore and sorry state she tried to jump up and gobble it down again - she'll never learn! So last week was spent going back and forth to the vets and nursing one very sore dog.

Okay, enough chit chat, I've got to analyse 'Dove Sono' The Marriage of Figaro and write 800 words of book 4 if today is going to be one of the good days!

Sarah x

Genre bashing...

Today I went shopping on my own - ooh, the luxury of wandering around without small people complaining about being bored or begging for chocolate! - and I had a good old browse in a couple of bookshops. In the second one I spotted a shelf, a whole entire shelf, of books with white covers and pale, sketchy drawings, mostly of children looking sad. At the top of the shelf was a sign saying 'Real Life Trauma Stories' I was really surprised. I'd read A Child Called It and heard of a few similar books but I hadn't realised there was a whole genre of these books. I felt a bit uncomfortable about them all being lumped together under the same heading with almost identical covers. After I left the bookshop I went and sat with a cup of coffee and had a think about that shelf - was it the genre that bothered me? Was it the content? Or was it the fact that they'd been packaged up like clones of Dave Pelzer's book?
In a way it's no different from chick Lit, right? All those bright pictures with quirky drawings of women in great shoes drinking wine, with titles in playful writing. Hmmm.
Then I opened my paper and nearly choked on my coffee when I read an article about Hic Lit - a new genre born from the 'Trauma Stories' category, or as they called it 'mis[ery] lit'!
Hic lit is apparently real life stories about people who have given up drinking (with hic supposedly referring to the post-alcoholic hiccup). It's apparently of-the-moment and it will no doubt have a shelf of its own soon too - what kind of covers will they give these books?? Blurred out faces seen through empty glasses, perhaps? The close-up view of a washed-out pavement?
Then I realised what it was that had felt so uncomfortable about the shelf of 'Real Life Trauma Lit' - it's the lack of individuality. The way that by slotting it in a genre and wrapping it in its regulation cover stops it being a story for story's sake. It takes away its right to excel or fail on its own merit. People will be picking it up or dismissing it with all the preconceptions its genre lumps onto it.
I'm sure it sells more books and makes it easier when you're shopping but to me it just seems lazy. Mix them up I say, have different covers, don't label things 'mis-lit', 'chic-lit', 'mum-lit', 'lad-lit', just put them under 'fiction' and let the blurb tell us what it's about!
Okay, no more soapbox, back to writing some fiction,
Sarah x