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Where does author Rosie Travers get her ideas from?

~ Paula Williams ~ 3 Comments

On my blog this week, I’m delighted to share with you an interview with author Rosie Travers who appeared in my Ideas Store column in the December issue of Writers’ Forum.

Ideas Store. Issue 206. December

IMG_3510In the current issue of Writers’ Forum,  (Issue 206, December 2018) my column, Ideas Store features two authors whose books I have recently read and enjoyed.  They are “Theatre of Dreams” by Rosie Travers and “The One That I Want” by Lynne Shelby

Because I’m always pushed for space in my column, I’m only able to use a small part of the interview I did with these writers.  But here, on my blog I can  bring you the interviews in full.  

This week I’m focussing on romantic novelist, Rosie Travers and hope to bring you Lynne Shelby’s interview next week.

Rosie Travers

Me 

Hi Rosie, and welcome to my blog.  So, where did you get the idea for your debut novel, Theatre of Dreams?

Rosie

In my debut novel, The Theatre of Dreams, a devious octogenarian recruits a disgraced actress and a bankrupt architect to play a part in an elaborate plot to save a historic seaside pavilion from demolition. The idea was partly inspired by a building – the Lee Tower entertainment complex in Lee-on-the-Solent in Hampshire. The Lee Tower was built in 1935 and demolished just 40 years later by the local council. When I learned about the existence of this vast art deco pavilion in what is a small, sleepy coastal town my imagination was well and truly captured.  I wondered why the complex hadn’t been preserved for future generations and decided to re-write history. I already had the character of a veteran performer with a somewhat chequered past in my head and now I’d found her a purpose – saving her family’s seaside theatre.

Me

What is your genre?  Is it a series or standalone?

Rosie

I like to think of my writing as feel-good fiction. The Theatre of Dreams covers many themes – friendship, family loyalty, ambition, as well as containing a family tragedy, an unsolved mystery and a romance – it’s hard to put it into one box. It is a standalone story although I haven’t discounted the idea of a spin-off in the future!

The blurb

Book 2.jpg
The stunning cover of Theatre of Dreams!

Musical theatre actress Tara is down on her luck and in desperate need of a job. When terminally-ill octogenarian Kitty invites her to take over the running of her former dance academy in the old-fashioned resort of Hookes Bay, Tara thinks she’s found her guardian angel. But it soon becomes very clear Kitty is being far from benevolent. Too late, Tara realizes helping Kitty will signal the end of an already tarnished career, unless she can pull off the performance of a lifetime.

Me

It’s a lovely book and I really enjoyed reading it.  So tell me, what inspires you and how do you plan your book?  

Rosie

IMG_0076 (1).JPG
Rosie Travers

I tend to start with characters. I am a pantser not a plotter so once I have come up with a character I play around with various scenarios until I find one which works. The planning comes later and once the characters start telling their own stories, they don’t always stick to my plan at all. The Theatre of Dreams ‘evolved’ with plot twists and back stories way beyond my original idea but that’s how I like to write. 

Me:

And how did you writing journey start?  

Rosie

I scribbled numerous stories as a teenager but didn’t start writing seriously until I was in my forties, when I gave up working to accompany my husband overseas. My first published piece was a short story in a local magazine.

Me  

Thanks, Rosie, That was great.  So, finally, what are your future plans?  I’d really love to read more from you.

Rosie

My second book, Your Secret’s Safe With Me, a romantic suspense set on the south coast, will be published by Crooked Cat in 2019.  

Author Bio and social media links

I grew up on the south coast of England and after initially training as a secretary I juggled a career in local government with raising my family.  I moved to Southern California with my husband in 2009 and began a blog about life as an ex-pat wife which re-kindled a teenage desire to become a writer. On my return to the UK I took a part-time creative writing course and following some success in short story competitions, I joined the Romantic Novelists Association New Writers’ Scheme. My debut novel, The Theatre of Dreams, was published in August 2018 by Crooked Cat Books.

Buying link: https://mybook.to/theatreofdreams

https://www.rosietravers.com

Twitter: @rosietravers

https://www.facebook.com/rosietraversauthor/

Instagram: @rosietraversauthor

https://romanticnovelistsassociation.org/rna_author/rosie-travers/

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.co.uk,/rosie9257/

Daily Prompts.  December 1st to 15th

1. Write about a particularly evocative scent.

2. Broken promises

3. “If only I hadn’t….”

4. Write about something that makes you go hot with embarrassment.

5. Catch a falling star.

6. Opening line.  It was at 6.45am on Monday 21st December that I decided to kill…. (You choose)

7. An invitation refused

8. It’s later than you think.

9. “A sad tale’s best for winter.  I have one of sprites and goblins”. Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale.

10. Write about a time you gave in to temptation and stole something.  Truth or fiction!

11. At the other end of the street.

12. “The frost performs its secret ministry/Unhelped by any wind.” ST Coleridge, Frost at Midnight. 

13. Passing time.

14. An overheard remark.

15. You’re in a supermarket and you realise someone is following your every move.

Where does romantic comedy writer Lizzie Chantree get her ideas from?

~ Paula Williams ~ 4 Comments

Lizzie Chantree

I’m thrilled to be introducing the second author in my new series “Where do writers get their ideas from?” and featuring her two most recent books.

I bought Lizzie’s first book, Ninja School Mum, because I was intrigued by the title. (And it has a brilliant cover!) And it did not disappoint.  It was a great read.

NSM cover small

Me. Hi Lizzie, Thank you so much for agreeing to be on my blog.  Now for the question every writer is said to dread:  Where did you get the idea from?

LC:

I got the idea for my book Ninja School Mum after looking around the school playground and thinking how strange it would be if someone had an incredible secret and they weren’t who they said they were.

Me: What is your genre?  Is it a series or standalone?

My genre is romantic comedy. This book is a standalone at the moment, but in the future, it will be part of a series.

The book’s blurb.

Obsessive-compulsive school mum, Skye, is a lonely elite  spy,  who is running from her past whilst trying to protect the future of her child. She tries hard to fit in with the other parents at her son’s new school, but the only person who accepts her unconventional way of life is new mother, Thea.

Thea is feeling harassed by her sister and bored with her life, but she suspects that there is something strange about the new school mum, Skye. Thea has secrets of her own and, although the two become unlikely friends, she hesitates to tell Skye about the father of her own child.

Zack’s new business is growing faster than he could have dreamed but, suddenly, he finds himself the owner of a crumbling estate on the edge of a pretty village, and a single parent to a very demanding child. Could he make a go of things and give his daughter the life she deserved?

When three lives collide, it appears that only one of them is who they seem to be, and you never know who the person next to you in the school playground really is

Me: What inspires you most?  Characters?  Settings? Books you have read?

LC:

From this list, I’m inspired by all three! When I read a wonderful book, it’s usually the setting, characters and often previous books from the author that make me want to write more of my own stories.

Me: How did you writing journey start?  Have you always written?  What was your first published piece?

LC:

My writing journey began when my youngest daughter was unwell for many years (she’s fine now). I had to stay up at night to listen to her breathing, so I decided to write a book full of sunshine, to keep my sanity and my eyes open during those dark hours. We have recently found out that she has severe allergies, but she’s coping really well.

I’ve written since I was quite young and always had a passion for reading. 

My first self-published work was my first book. I was offered a book contract for the manuscript, but had to turn it down due to my daughter’s health. I have published two books with Crooked Cat Books this year. 

Me: What are your future plans?

I plan to keep writing more books as I really enjoy my job and I’ve met so many supportive readers and writers. I’d love to see my books made into films too. A girl can dream! 

Ninja School Mum can be found at this link here.

Me: And your second Crooked Cat book?

LC

This was published in July 2018 and is called ‘If you love me, I’m yours…’ 

IYLMIY cover small

The ‘blurb’

Maud didn’t mind being boring, not really. She had a sensible job, clothes, and love life… if you counted an overbearing ex who had thanked her, rolled over and was snoring before she even realised he’d begun! She could tolerate not fulfilling her dreams, if her parents would pay her one compliment about the only thing she was passionate about in life: her art.

Dot should have fit in with her flamboyant and slightly eccentric family of talented artists, but somehow, she was an anomaly who couldn’t paint. She tried hard to be part of their world by becoming an art agent extraordinaire, but she dreamed of finding her own voice. 

Dot’s brother Nate, a smoulderingly sexy and famous artist, was adored by everyone. His creative talent left them in awe of his ability to capture such passion on canvas. Women worshipped him, and even Dot’s friend Maud flushed and bumped into things when he walked into a room, but a tragic event in his past had left him emotionally and physically scarred, and reluctant to face the world again.

Someone was leaving exquisite little paintings on park benches, with a tag saying, ‘If you love me, I’m yours’. The art was so fresh and cutting-edge, that it generated a media frenzy and a scramble to discover where the mystery artist could be hiding. The revelation of who the prodigious artist was interlinked Maud, Dot and Nate’s lives forever, but their worlds came crashing down. 

Were bonds of friendship, love and loyalty strong enough to withstand fame, success and scandal?

If you Love Me, I’m Yours can be found here

Having read and enjoyed Ninja School Mum,  this one is definitely on my To Be Read Pile.  I’m really looking forward to it.

Thank you, Lizzie, for a great interview.

Lizzie’s Social media links 

Website: www.lizziechantree.com.

Author page: viewAuthor.at/LizzieChantree

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Lizzie_Chantree

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lizzie.chantree.3

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lizzie_chantree/

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/LizzieChantree/pins/

…. And finally, the Daily Prompts for November 16 -30

I’m setting out below the daily prompts for the second half of November.  Please check out this post (link here) for details on how to use them.

Who knows?  One of those prompts might lead to a full length novel that I’d be delighted to feature on my blog.

16. The sound of loneliness.

17. Write about making beds.

18. Praise makes good men better and bad men worse (Proverb)

19. If I could have my time again.

20. It was her idea of a good time.

21. Trying to break a bad habit.

22. A postcard

23. A bundle of old letters found beneath the floorboards.

24. So it has come to this.

25. On this day in 1952, Agatha Christie’s “The Mousetrap” opened, the world’s longest running play.

26. Write about passing time.

27. “I still can’t say goodbye” (song title)

28. An invitation to dinner.

29. Write about asking for mercy.

30. A time you laughed so hard it made your sides ache.

Do let me know if these, or any other prompts, have inspired you.  I would love to hear from you.

Dog walks, hurdles and a murder mystery.

~ Paula Williams ~ 3 Comments

I’m later than I meant to be getting down to work because today’s dog walk took even longer than usual.  Several of the fields around our village have been cut and baled and our Dalmatian Duke insisted on stopping to wee on every one of them!  (It was a big field and there are a lot more bales out of shot, all duly marked by Duke).

DukeBales

The first hurdle – and how I fell at it.

I started writing this blog after reading “The Author Blog: Easy Blogging for Busy Authors” by Anne R. Allen  ( Anne’s blog) which is crammed full of useful advice for newbie bloggers such as myself.

Unfortunately I’ve  fallen at the first hurdle because one of Anne’s pearls of wisdom is  about being consistent.  Blog regularly, she advises.  

Ah yes, I thought.  I can do this. So  I set up a schedule (I’m very good at setting up schedules.  Keeping to them, however, is another matter) and decided I would blog fortnightly.  I then entered the fortnightly publication days in my diary.

I chose to post fortnightly (a) so that I wouldn’t clog up your inboxes and (b) it would give me some breathing space to get on with my life… and, of course, the day job.

But that is where the problems started.  Life , the day job and the local farmer’s hay making (see above) got in the way which is why, according to my schedule, I am now two  postings behind.  So, if you’ve been waiting impatiently for the Daily Prompts from May 16th onwards, please accept my sincere and grovelling apologies.  

To make up for it, I’ll put the Daily Prompts from May 16th – June 15th  at the end of this post.  And if you’re new to this blog and wondering what on earth I’m going on about, check out the post (Writers’ Prompts.  A limitless supply of story inspiration) on how to use the prompts.  

I’ve written a pantomime.  Oh yes I have!

In my post of 25th March The Path Less Travelled and why it (sometimes) pays to take it I described the fun I was having writing our village pantomime.  This year, we’re doing The Fladdams Family – the Panto, which is based, very loosely indeed, on the TV programme The Addams Family.

I have finished it.  Almost on schedule.  And if you’ve ever wondered what goes on during the creative process of writing a pantomime, take a look at a (totally unedited) page of my notepad which  sits beside me when I’m writing.  It’s either a snapshot of the creative mind at work – or the ravings of a madwoman.  You decide.

notebookpage.jpeg

A new serial.

Yay! I have a new serial coming out at the end of the month.  My eight part murder mystery entitled All The Birds of the Air starts in the People’s Friend on June 23rd.  

This serial is the result of an approach by People’s Friend’s Fiction Editor, Shirley Blair, asking  if I’d be interested in writing a crime serial for them.  Now I’d love to let you go on thinking this is an everyday occurrence for me and that editors are regularly contacting me in this way.  I wish!

Usually it happens the other way around.  I get an idea for a story, write it and then spend the rest of my time and energy trying to persuade an editor to buy it.  So after I said yes to Shirley I found myself in the unusual situation of looking for something to write about.

This was where my ideas box came in handy.  It’s an old document box, crammed with tattered files and dog eared notepads, most of which make as much sense as the one in the picture above.

But then I found a notebook from a creative writing class I took at my local Further Education Centre many years ago.  I enjoyed the class very much except for those times when the tutor would set us a challenge to write something really clever which we then had to read out to the rest of the class.

I was, and still am, absolutely rubbish at that sort of thing.  My brain freezes and I  sit there doodling while the rest of the class scribbles away furiously.  That particular day, the brain freeze was obviously a full on glacier because this is what I wrote:

Who killed Jock Dobbin?

That was it.  Apart from a weird drawing of what I think was supposed to be a cat and a reminder to myself that my son had cookery in the morning and not to forget the sultanas. (He’s all grown up and sensible now and buys his own sultanas.)

But the line intrigued me and I started thinking about a man called Jock Dobbin who dies suddenly.  His death is put down to natural causes until a series of anonymous notes begin to appear around the village.  These notes are all based on the rhyme “Who killed Cock Robin?” and that, of course, gave me the title as well. Then I started thinking: “What would you do if a total stranger left you everything in his will?”

All the Birds of the Air was such fun to write and there will, I hope, be a sequel.  But that depends on whether the readers of People’s Friend enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Fingers crossed.

Daily Prompts

Today’s writers don’t have to hunt around in dusty old boxes for inspiration. At least, not the ones who follow this blog.  So here, better late than never, are the Daily Prompts, as promised for May 16th – June 15th.  And I promise I’ll be back before June 15th with the prompts for the rest of the month.  I’ve already put it in my schedule.

16. Write about being bullied.

17. When you fear the worst and the worst happens, there comes that moment when you realise there is nothing left to fear. 

18. My brother/sister had this really annoying habit….

19. Write about what you didn’t do.

20. Opening line.  Where were you last night?

21. Dark behind it rose the forest (The Song of Hiawatha.  HW Longfellow)

22. Once, when nobody was looking…

23. The end of the day.

24. You are in a hotel room.  Alone.

25. Actions speak louder than words. (Proverb)

26. Buried treasure.

27. Write about a time you felt abandoned.

28. Something you bought mail order.

29. You’re taking an exam you are totally under prepared for.

30. You walk into a bar and a sudden silence falls.  But no one will meet your eye.

31. Slipping in and out of the shadows.

JUNE

1. Married in the month of June/Life will be one long honeymoon.* (see below)

2. It was the family wedding from hell.

3. Write about an anniversary.

4. ‘I’m playing all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order”. (Eric Morecambe)

5. Write about a balcony.

6. If you won the lottery, what is the first thing you’d do?

7. The first time I saw my baby brother/sister I felt….

8. Write about being the last person to be picked for a team.

9. “Last night I dreamt I went back to Manderley…”  (Or Myrtle Avenue, or wherever)

10. He walks into a room and there is complete silence.  All heads turn in his direction.  Then he smiles and walks up to her.  “Hi, I’ve been looking for you….”  (Feel free to change he/she etc)

11. I love you because (Do you remember the old Jim Reeves song?)

12. Ann Frank was born this day in 1929.  Write about keeping a diary.

13. “It wasn’t my fault, Mum, honest.  It just….”

14. “There are two ways of spreading light. To be the candle or the mirror that receives it.” (Edith Wharton)

15. A funny thing happened to me on the way to…..

  • Footnote:  I got married in June and, on the off chance that my husband reads this, yes, it has been one long honeymoon! (Most of the time, anyway)