I've been to a marvellous party.

The Romantic Novelists' Association throw a good party. The summer one, which took place last week at the Royal Overseas League in London, also included the presentation of the Joan Hessayon Award for the best new novel this year. (Won by Clare Harvey for The Gunner Girl). Yes - that's the award I won, four years ago for Never Coming Home.

That trophy

A lot has happened since then and not much of it to do with writing. As regular readers know, there has been a whole heap of personal stuff, culminating in an operation in March. I'm recovering slowly, and beginning to think about my writing career again. So the party was something of a stepping stone. A promise to myself that it would happen. I sat down for most of the proceedings, and was teetotal, but still had a great time. I saw loads of friends, my publisher and my editor and prospective editor. I got to hold the Joan Hessayon trophy again for a few minutes (thanks Jan). That is always a big thrill and part of the promise that I will get back out there, with more books. I also have to re-start my academic career, which is another story and a potential challenge for the writing, but I'll have to sort that out somehow.

Kate's Untied Kingdom shoes and
mine are the spotty one with the bows. 

Chatting with Roger Sanderson - 

So - it was a start. I still have a long way to go.

One step at a time.

The pictures here are courtesy of RNA New Writer and photographer extraordinaire John Jackson. As always after an RNA 'do', there are dozens of photos sloshing around the Internet which give a real taste of the atmosphere, I've been totally vain and picked two that I'm in from the many John took.

The official RNA photos are also to be found HERE  Including one of me as a Choc lit editor sandwich - between Lusana, who has done a fab job on the novella, which will see the light of day - we promise - and Jane, who will edit my new romantic suspense, when I manage to produce one. I don't remember it being taken, but I'm glad it was.

Another little piece of that promise.

One step at a time.

Killing your darlings

Another piece of advice to writers that I have a little trouble with.

Do you really know what you're doing?

I think originally it was intended to apply to what might be called 'flowery' writing and I understand that long descriptions and repeated phrases are something that a writer needs to avoid. But I've also heard the phrase offered in a way that seems to imply that if there is anything in your writing that you feel particularly pleased with, then it is bound to be rubbish and you should delete it immediately.

All writers have black moments. Writing a coherent story is not easy. The book on the page is never the perfect book that existed in your mind before you started to write it. And it's easy to think that the whole thing is c**p when you are maybe one third in and are really having to work to keep the plot straight, and the characters motivated and when the reason for keeping the hero and heroine apart, which seemed to be so substantial at the beginning, now seems wafer thin. Like I said, hard work. And moments of doubt happen, but it usually all comes right in the end.

I'm wondering if a better way of looking at that 'darlings' phrase is not that you must let things go, but that you can be ready to let them go.

I'm currently playing around with a new novella in a lighter vein than my romantic suspense. I'm doing it for fun, and maybe something will come of it. It was meant to be a simple plot, revolving around a wedding.

Simple? Can I do simple? Hah!

And, of course, it has got me in a pickle. Happily steaming along, I realised that a fairly memorable encounter between the hero and villain in the first few pages meant that they were not going to be meeting as strangers later in the book - at least, not unless I did some serious sorting out. So I had a choice. Get rid of the first encounter, or change the plot. Now that was killing a darling, if you like.  I've changed the plot. Even so, I'm going to have to trust on the readers' goodwill and a bit of suspension of disbelief along the line, but the whole thing is pretty preposterous anyway and doesn't stand up to close scrutiny, so here's hoping.

Of course, if I decide that it is only for fun, and will not get anywhere near a reader, then it won't actually matter.

It's keeping me amused.

Write what you know.

A piece of advice frequently offered to writers.

And one that caused me an awful lot of problems. For a considerable time. 

A blameless career in local government is not often the material of which novels are made. And the bits that were not blameless were far too confidential ever to be used in a book.

So where did that leave me? Confused, dear reader. 

The advice is kindly meant and possibly bound up with the idea that all author's first books are largely autobiographical.   

But - when you think about it, the advice really does not hold that much water. Crime writers don't rob banks and commit murder - at least, not the ones I know. Fantasy writers do not live in a world populated with strange and fairy creatures. Well they do, but it's all in their head, and probably best not go there. 

Of course, if you are an expert on something, or live an exciting life that gives you a whole heap of experience to draw on, then that's great. But the rest of us?

You do not have to write only what you know. It took me a while to work that one out. You can substitute ‘knowing’ with research, which is one way round the problem, and a delightful and much praised source of procrastination beloved by authors everywhere. But even that only gets you so far.

Scary stuff?

That’s where imagination comes in. But also ‘knowing’ on a different level. You may not ‘know’ how it feels to be pursued by a serial killer, but you probably know about being afraid – even if it is only for a few moments on a fairground ride.  Emotions. We can all call them up. Love, hate, embarrassment, longing, loss.

So - I’ve given up grieving over the fact that I don’t take this advice. I do grieve over the time spent in the past grieving over it though.

For me, now, it’s the story that counts. I worry about getting facts right – and the very worst kind of worry is about the things you don’t know you don’t know – think about it.  

The book has to entertain, and preferably keep the reader on the edge of their seat.

But if I haven’t actually lived it?

These days, I try not to let that worry me.

What are you writing at the moment?

You mean apart from this blog?

It's an interesting question, one that writers get asked a lot. That's because they are, you know, writers.

So I'm a writer. So what am I writing?

Well ...

Like I said, that's an interesting one. It's not that I have not been working, it's just that it's not in any organised fashion. As regular readers will know, a lot of stuff has happened recently to impair my output, from pressure of other responsibilities to lack of brain matter.

So at the moment I have a totally different type of novella suspended in editing. I don't want to complete that process until I can be sure of doing my absolute best with it before I sign it off. At present I can't, although I hope that I may eventually be getting there. This summer? I hope.

I have lots of ideas on the boil. Too many, probably, but I actually also have two full length romantic suspense novels which are both one third written - one a stand alone, which is a plot I have been nursing for some time, and one which is the first of a trilogy and which I hope will become part of an interconnected series. They are ready to pick up, when I am, but that's not yet.

And I also have a few chapters of another light romance, featuring some of the characters from the novella that has not yet been released into the wild. The light stuff is fun, and not quite so demanding as the romantic suspense, but still demanding enough.

So that's what is on the table. You'll will notice that there is a word recurring in all this.

Hope.

Red herrings and other techniques.

As I keep saying - a lot of reading is going on chez Evonne at the moment. Some of which is holiday brochures, hence the lapse into French.

But I digress.

I'm eating my way through 'To be reads' and old favourites/classics and have noticed a few things.

First off - red herrings. You don't seem to get so many of them any more. I don't think it's global warming, but it could be the type of thing I am reading, or just that it's not happening. A good red herring is nice piece of craft. Just enough to tantalise. The ripple above the surface, so that the reader asks themselves - Is that really a clue, and am I clever to have spotted it, or am I being suckered? This one came about when reading a fairly new Liza Gardner. I won't say too much for fear of spoilers, but it was a really lovely fish, and made me think how long it was since I'd spotted one in the wild. It seems now as if books start with a big-bang set-piece that totally grabs  - much smoke and mirrors - and go on from there  I read more thrillers than mysteries these days, so maybe that is it.

I've been reading older stuff off the shelf too - and those can have very linear narratives. I'm thinking 39 Steps, which  is a manhunt/chase, and Dornford Yates's Blind Corner, which is a treasure hunt. No sub plots and very few females - certainly no heroine in either of those. Not even a damsel in distress. Stiff upper lip ripping yarns. And interesting that they can still be gripping even with such simple structure. I always promise myself this time I will do simple. Never works.

The other thing that we don't do so much now, and I've commented on this before, is quotes at the beginning of chapters. I wonder if the e-book format has something to do with this? I take my hat off to those who can manage it. We can probably all come up with one or two - Othello for jealously, Merchant of Venice for mercy, but to do it for 20+ chapters? The one that brought this to notice was Ain't She Sweet?, which  has quotes from Georgette Heyer at each chapter opening. Many from Devil's Cub. Which sent me happily back to my copy to re read it, so thank you Susan Elizabeth Phillips.

That got me trying to remember if Cub was the first Heyer I read. It might have been, but I think it was The Black Moth.

So now I've found my ancient copy of that ...

Critical reading

Writers are picky readers - at least, this one is. Applying the internal editor alongside the reader - assessing technique, tropes, thinking about how you would have written that particular scene. But perhaps is just me. As I have said, loud and long, there is a lot of reading going on at present - so a lot of inner editing. And envy, when the book is good.

Books and tea. What more do you need?

Reading in bulk, as it were, brings up repeated themes and raises some interesting questions. And pet hates. One of my 'favourites' on that score is the unread letter. You know the one - the one that if it had been read on page 20 would have sorted the whole thing out there and then. I must say a book has to show a very great deal of promise for me to get past that one. Otherwise it is straight in the charity pile. I also get irritated by the appearance of children or pets for some reason of the plot - who are then totally in the way and are repeatedly shuffled off to minders, or even worse. not mentioned at all.

But it's not all negative. Trying to work out how the good stuff is done, and the stuff that makes you think about the craft side of writing, is always welcome. But like I said - that's where the envy comes in. I've read a number of time slips - they are perennially popular and I'd love to write one. They almost inevitably hinge on old letters or journals. I'm now trying to come up with something different. I'm not sure whether there can be anything that does not involve the written word - although a piece of art sometimes makes an appearance, but it's keeping me amused. And I've also read a couple of books that feature what I think Alfred Hitchcock referred to as a McGuffin. It's an article or a plot detail that kicks the story off but becomes less and less important as it progresses and by the end has sometimes completely disappeared. Now this does offend the control freak part of me that demands the tying up of lose ends, but it's clever, and done well it works, So that is food for thought too.

You see, all this reading - it's not just entertainment.

My kind of heroine.

A heroine can be a delicate flower. Or not.

As a convalescent I've been reading a lot. A LOT. When I'm not sleeping, that is. All sorts of stuff - TBR pile, recent award winners, old favourites, a few classics off the bookshelf. And quite a lot of new romantic suspense, because that's what I like to read and write, and if you can't indulge yourself when you're getting over an operation, when can you?

I've enjoyed most of it, but I have noticed a tendency in some parts of the genre for what is known as the kick-ass heroine. You know - runs, jumps, shoots, fights - all that stuff. And I have to say she is not usually my cup of tea. I was never the sporty sort, and I simply don't relate to it. I like my heroines capable - they have a career that they are good at, are able to organise their lives, are not shrinking violets. But not superwomen. The sort of woman who can deal with a tricky situation when it come along, but is not expecting to meet it every day. And they appreciate a little help from the hero, rather than trying to get him in a headlock. (Not that sort of headlock!)

At the other end of the spectrum, there is the TSTL 'heroine'. The Too Stupid To Live. I don't like those, either, and am likely to be found yelling, 'Get a grip, woman!' when I come across one. These can vary from the kind who goes into the dark cellar without putting on the light when the serial killer is wandering the neighbourhood with his sharpened axe, to the just plain wet, who don't know how to change a light bulb.

I think you are supposed to identify with the heroine, or at least want her for a friend. My heroines can be misguided, bossy, argumentative, occasionally give way to tears, but all things in moderation. But that's me. It takes all sorts. A heroine for every hero. Exactly as it should be.