A slight change of direction
When I started this blog, back in March, it was only intended as a record of my faltering steps towards publication of my debut crime novel Murder Served Cold which was published in October. Link here.
The publication date is the reason for the longer than intended gap between posts as I completely underestimated the amount of time the marketing/social media aspect side of the writing business would take – not to mention the fact that I’m busy writing the second in the series, provisional title Rough and Deadly, to a very tight December deadline. (No Christmas shopping for me this year! Yayy!)
Having achieved my publication date goal, I would now like to change the emphasis of this blog slightly and include interviews with other writers. I shall still continue to post about my own progress (or lack of it) as I get down to what I am fast discovering is the really hard bit about writing a novel – ie getting it ‘out there’.
The blog will still include my daily prompts and the current ones (albeit slightly late, for which I apologise) are, as always at the end.
Why a guest post?
When I’m not writing crime fiction, I also write a monthly column, Ideas Store, for the UK magazine, Writers Forum. (Link here). I have been doing so for eleven years and have ‘met’ so many great authors in that time who patiently and generously respond to my question: Where do you get your ideas from?
But there is never enough space in my column for all I would like to include, nor room for author pictures or book links. So I’ve decided to include some of them as guests on my blog on a regular basis.
One of the big bonuses for me when Crooked Cat Books agreed to publish my first book, Murder Served Cold, was being introduced to a galaxy of new to me writers, one of which is my first guest, crime writer Val Penny.
Val is the author of the Edinburgh Mystery Series featuring Detective Inspector Hunter Wilson. I have read and very much enjoyed the first two books in the series and am looking forward to the next one.
My interview with Val Penny’
Me:
Hi Val, Thank you so much for agreeing to appear on my blog. Now, that question that all writers dread to hear:
Where did you get the idea for your book from?
VP:
I always find this question the most difficult to answer, but I will try! I first began writing novels when I was being treated for breast cancer. I was very ill and had little energy except to read, watch daytime TV and try to beat the disease.
As anybody who has been poorly and subjected to daytime TV will attest, it gets very old very fast, so I began a blog to review the books that I read www.bookreviewstoday.info
When I began to recover, I still had little energy, but needed something to occupy my mind. It was at this point that he who is known as Handsome Hubby suggested that, if I knew so much about what made everybody else’s books good, or not, I should write one of my own. (If only it was that simple!) Anyway, I accepted the challenge and, as my favourite genre to read is crime, I decided to try my hand at writing a crime novel.
The first character to be created was Joe Johnson: he came about from a throw-away comment made by an assistant in my office many years ago. She said she liked to be able to see the customers before she could smell them! So Joe Johnson was born and the rest of the story in Hunter’s Chase was created around him.
Me: Tell us a little about your book. What is your genre? Is it a series or standalone?
VP:
I write crime thrillers: the sub-genre is probably police procedurals. The novels I write form a series, The Edinburgh Crime Mysteries. I like to be able to tell the stories of the individual character’s lives as well interesting my readers in the crime DI Hunter Wilson and his team have to solve.
Crooked Cat Books published the first in the series, Hunter’s Chase, on 02.02.2019 and the second, Hunter’s Revenge on 09.09.2018. The links are:
The third in the series, Hunter’s Force will be published in Spring 2019.
- The book’s blurb – Hunter’s Chase.
Detective Inspector Hunter Wilson knows there is a new supply of cocaine flooding his city, and he needs to find the source, but his attention is transferred to murder when a corpse is discovered in the grounds of a golf course.
Shortly after the post-mortem, Hunter witnesses a second murder, but that is not the end of the slaughter. With a young woman’s life also hanging in the balance, the last thing Hunter needs is a new man on his team: Detective Constable Tim Myerscough, the son of his nemesis, the former Chief Constable Sir Peter Myerscough.
Hunter’s perseverance and patience are put to the test time after time in this first novel in The Edinburgh Crime Mysteries series.
- The book’s blurb – Hunter’s Revenge
Who would want to harm the quiet, old man? Why was a book worth £23,000 delivered to him that morning? Why is the security in George’s home so intense?
Hunter must investigate his friend’s past as well as the present to identify George’s killer.
When a new supply of cocaine from Peru floods HMP Edinburgh and the city, the courier leads Hunter to a criminal gang, but Hunter requires the help of his nemesis, the former Chief Constable, Sir Peter Myerscough, and local gangster, Ian Thomson, to make his case.
Hunter’s perseverance and patience are put to the test time after time in this taut crime thriller.
Me: That’s great, thank you. Now, tell me a bit more about your writing life in general, please. What inspires you most? Characters? Settings? Books you have read?
VP
I am most inspired to tell the story of my characters and how these play into the crimes investigated in the novels. Having said that, the setting of the beautiful city of Edinburgh is also important and it is a treat to have to research areas of the city that I would not have a chance to visit otherwise.
Me: How did you writing journey start? Have you always written? What was your first published piece.
VP:
I have always enjoyed writing and telling stories. Even when I was a little girl I used to make up stories for my little sister. However, my first published pieces were all non- fiction articles published in dry, dusty old journals and my first creative pieces, were poems included in national poetry anthologies.
Me: And your future plans? More in the Edinburgh Crime series, I hope!
VP:
I am now about to start the edits for the third book in The Edinburgh Crime Mysteries series, Hunter’s Force and I am writing the fourth in the series, Hunter’s Blood.
I was also asked to speak at The Swanwick Writers’ Summer School this year and I, as I lectured at Heriot Watt University for years, I would be thrilled to get more involved in speaking at writers’ conferences.
…………
Thank you so much for that, Val. That was fascinating and I wish you the success you so richly deserve with the Edingburgh Mystery Series.
Would you like to be featured here?
If you’re a writer and would like to be featured either in this blog or my column in Writers’ Forum (or preferably both!) please get in touch. Or, if you have read a book that you really enjoyed and can’t sleep at night until you find out where the author got that particular idea from, do let me know and I’ll do my best to find out..
And finally….
And no, I hadn’t forgotten the daily prompts. If this is your first visit to my blog, check back to this page for advice on how to use them.
Daily Prompts. 16th October – 15th November
October
16. My heart leaps up when I behold/A rainbow in the sky (Wordsworth)
17. “This time,” he croaked, “I’m really, really ill.”
18. There’s a first time for everything.
19. You wake up – and everything is different.
20. Write about falling. In love? Down a hole? On a dream? You decide.
21. She was wearing my ring.
22. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks (Proverb)
23. Catching someone in the act of cheating
24. “It’s all you could expect,” he said.
25. An abandoned house.
26. Your first car.
27. It’s too soon to tell.
28. Being lost along the way.
29. Returning takes too long.
30. The difference between men and women.
31. This is what was left when he had gone.
November
1. On this day in 1848 the first WH Smith railway bookstall opened on Euston Station.
2. I hate this time of the year. It’s so …….
3. Write about a time someone said yes.
4. Before I was born…..
5. Rising early to begin a journey
6. One man (or woman) and his/her dog.
7. “Love comes from blindness, friendship from knowledge. (Comte de Bussy-Rabutin)
8. She who must be obeyed.
9. The stranger
10. An overheard conversation
11. Out of the corner of my eye I can see …..
12. To everything there is a season
13. The end of the street.
14. Every man is his own worst enemy (proverb)
15. Write about an island.
PAULA WILLIAMS 
I love the new angle. As I’ve found myself feverishly reading and analysing a host of authors lately, this will be very interesting to follow. And the nice list of prompts has my brain already whirring in the background!
LikeLike