Reconnecting with family and friends in the UK

Sadly, in the last week of April 2017, after Trav and I had been living and working in Bucharest Romania for a month, we heard news from family in the UK that Trav’s dad had become gravely ill. It had been less than three months since the death of his mum.

Trav immediately returned to the UK to be with his dad during his last days.

Just a few days later, after his dad had passed away peacefully, Trav returned to Bucharest and together we packed our bags to leave Bucharest and travel back to the UK to be with family and to prepare for the funeral.

First, we flew into Scotland to meet with our son Iain who lives in Glasgow and our son Ben who lives in Edinburgh.

The silver lining in the dark cloud of our bereavement was that for the second time this year, and in a short space of just three months, we would get to spend more time with our sons, with my own mum, and our much-missed family in the UK.

Blue skies over Glasgow

Our son Iain and his lovely girlfriend Alice

During our few days in Scotland, I also took the opportunity to attend a Romantic Novelist’s Association lunch in Edinburgh. It had been several years since I’d met up with my friends in the RNA Scottish Chapter. When I saw on our group Facebook page that a lunch meeting was being arranged for the morning I arrived back, I jumped at the chance to go along. I took the train from Glasgow and it was wonderful to see blues skies over Edinburgh and all my Scottish writer friends again face to face.

Edinburgh Castle in the sunshine

Blue skies over Princes Street Edinburgh

With Rosemary Gemmell in Edinburgh

With Eileen Ramsay - chair of the Romantic Novelist's Association 

It was wonderful to catch up with my Scottish writer friends in Edinburgh

Also, while we were in Edinburgh, we got together with our son Ben and his lovely girlfriend Hayley and all her family.

Trav and I with Hayley and Ben at the bowling club

Hayley is a ladies champion bowls player and there was a match being played that day at the local bowling club. It was a fun day and a welcome chance to spend quality time with Ben and Hayley especially when in just a few day’s time – the day after his grandad’s funeral – they were looking forward to their three-week holiday in Orlando Florida.

Hayley in action

Hayley's mum Andrea and Graham

Fun at the bowling club with Ben and Hayley and her family

Trav and I travelled down to England by train and were once again so grateful to our best friend Dina, who had generously offered to share her home with us again while we were in the UK.

Hanging out with my best friend Dina

In the days before the funeral, we managed to have some fun times with Dina in our old home town of Widnes and we also got to spend a great day out in Liverpool - exploring all the tourist sites like the Albert Dock and the Caven Club.

The day of the funeral was an emotional one for all the Horton family. For Trav and his brothers, Rob and Stuart, to lose both parent’s in such a short time was heart-breaking. As it was for all eight grandchildren to lose their grandparents. Their legacy of course will live on in them all and also in their one great-grandchild, Aaron, who lives in South Korea and whom they sadly had never met.

A short time after the funeral, on a solemn grey and rainy day in May, Jimmy and Dot’s ashes were buried together in the same Runcorn cemetery where their parent’s had been laid to rest. A small and intimate service was held with just their three son’s and wives present. Trav, being the eldest of the brothers, said a few words over his parent’s grave while we all held hands and said our last goodbyes.

For mid-May, initially from Bucharest, I had booked flights to London in order to attend the Romantic Novelist’s Association Summer Party. This writer’s networking event is a great opportunity for writers to get together with publishers and agents and other writing professionals. As I had been out of the country off and on for almost four years, I also saw this event as a great opportunity, not only for me to meet up with my writer friends, but to put my finger back on the pulse of the writing industry and to see what had changed over the past few years.

I had hastily re-organised my travel arrangements and I was very excited to be accompanied to the event and staying with my lovely writer friend Linn B Halton, who lives outside London. Linn and I hadn’t seen each other face to face (if you don’t count Skype) since the Festival of Romance several years before so you can imagine how much we had to talk about!

Ready for the RNA Summer Party -with my lovely friend Linn B Halton

Linn and I travelled to London together by train, had a fabulous lunch in an Italian restaurant in Piccadilly, and then caught up with other Romantic Novelist’s for pre-party drinks. It was so great to see everyone again. Below are a few photos with my lovely writer chums!

With Linn having lunch in London

Pre-party cocktails with lovely writer friends

With Mandy Baggot

With Talli Roland who also writes as Leah Mercer

With lovely Liz Harris

Soon, Trav and I felt ready to move on again. As we don’t have a home of our own in the UK anymore and, as we still have wanderlust to travel, we were keen to take up our nomadic adventures again and there is nothing like losing people to remind us of the fragility of life and how quickly time passes.

Our flight from London to KL via Singapore

Trav and I want to travel the world together while we can, while we still have our health, and before we get too old to do so. Of course, we love and miss our family and friends, but we appreciate they have busy lives too and being close geographically to them is no guarantee we would see them often as we'd like anyway. So I'm so grateful to the times in which we live; when we can keep in touch with our loved ones whenever we like on the internet and, thanks to affordable air travel, no place and no one in the world is much more than 12 hours away from us.

A farewell meal with my family before leaving for SE Asia

So we left the UK to fly back to Asia. We took a flight back to Kuala Lumpur and, while in a taxi to our hotel in KL, we had some wonderful news from Orlando Florida, where our son Ben was on holiday with his girlfriend Hayley. He had proposed and Hayley had became his fiancée.

The newly engaged Ben and Hayley in Orlando Florida

We were thrilled and so excited to see their proposal on video and to see how happy they are together. Our driver must have wondered what was going on when he heard me squealing and tearful on the back seat of his taxi!

After a good night’s sleep in KL, the next morning, we headed straight for the Perhentian Islands off the east coast of peninsula Malaysia. We flew with Air Asia from KLIA2 to Kuta Bharu - a 45 min flight and then took a bus and a boat over the Perhentian Besar (the larger of these islands). It’s a place that has been on our radar for a couple of years now but we have never been in Malaysia during these island’s short season - between May and September – after which all boats stop going there and all accommodations close down.

What is special about the Perhentian Islands you may ask?

Well, for one they are incredibly beautiful - the beaches are white sand beaches and said to be some of the best in the world - and the diving and snorkelling too is said to be amazing. But there is one other very special reason that we headed out to the Perhentians at this time and that is to do with my current Work In Progress. I needed to go to these islands for research purposes.

In my next book, I have a heroine who is establishing a turtle conservation sanctuary on an island– and so for a week I was going to be staying at a turtle conservation center to learn all about sea turtles and turtle hatcheries and baby turtles while Trav went diving.

If I was really lucky, I hoped that on Perhentian Island I would get to see baby turtles hatching and then help to release them to the sea. If I was really really lucky I would get to see a nesting turtle returning to the beach that she had been born on at least thirty years before, to lay her eggs under the light on the moon, before making her way back into the sea.

Please do join me here on the blog next time to find out more about the beautiful Perhentian Islands and to find out exactly how very lucky I was!

Love, Janice xx

Virtual parties, cyber pizza, internet ice-cream - and food fights!

I’m excited to be over at the Romantic Novelist’s Association Blog today – talking about virtual parties, cyber pizza, internet ice cream and food fights!

 

I'd love you to pop over and keep me company by clicking HERE

 

Then haste ye back here next week when I’ll have more fun news to share!!

Janice xx

 

My thoughts on #rnaconf12…

I'm still awash with conference-lag, happy friend thoughts, writerly inspiration and of course, wine - after spending three whole wonderful days at the Romantic Novelist’s Association conference - held this year in lovely Penrith Cumbria.

The conference was well attended by Romance Authors, Editors and Literary Agents. The workshops were interesting, thought provoking and varied. First up on Friday afternoon, straight after the welcome get together, there was an Industry Panel that tackled the subject of International Sales, which in our global economy was incredibly valuable. On the panel were Top Agent Carole Blake, Bestselling UK/US Author Nicola Cornick, Irish Author Ruth Long, and Author and Translator Henriette Gyland.

On Saturday morning, I did a recorded interview for BBC Radio Cumbria and spoke about the business of being an Author and the importance of Romance. I’ll let you know as soon as I have an audio link to the show when it gets aired!

My first workshop of the day was with Talli Roland, my lovely online friend whom I got to actually meet for the first time at Penrith. Talli’s workshop was entitled ‘Online Marketing for Writers’ and proved to be a fabulous masterclass.

Then it was straight into ‘A Woman’s World – the future of Women’s Fiction’ by Kate Harrison. This was an in-depth look into the research Kate had done on reader trends in the current women’s fiction market. The talk was attended by top industry professionals but it was also very useful session indeed for an independent writer like me.

Other highlights of Saturday were the Author Panel on being ‘In For The Long Haul’ with Judy Astley, Freda Lightfoot and Anne Ashhurst (who writes as Sara Craven), who between them have published hundreds of books over their long and prolific careers to date, and a session with the knowledgeable and incredibly humorous Moira Briggs, from the top book review blog, Vulpes Libres.

Then, just before wine o’clock we were treated to An Audience with the fabulous Carole Matthews, who spoke to us about her amazing career, her books, her ups and downs and who afterwards generously answered lots of questions from the audience and then shared valuable writer tips.

The Gala Dinner was a chance to dress up, catch up with writer friends and generally have a fantastic time while consuming lots of wine. I’m pleased to report that the bar did not run out! (The staff at Penrith know us all too well by now!)

Me and Talli Roland on Saturday's Gala Evening

On Sunday morning, in the hangover slot, we were soon splitting our sides with laughter in the fabulous Jane Wenham-Jones’s session ‘What a Way to Earn a Living…’

If I had to pick out just one session as a real highlight then it would have to be the last session I attended on Sunday, which was Julie Cohen’s workshop on ‘Learning Story Structure from Pixar Films’. It not only had me in tears (there were lots of Pixar film clips to demonstrate building emotional content!) but it was certainly the most valuable lesson on creating a story arc that I’ve ever had. Julie really knows her stuff and she is SO much fun!

The fabulous Julie Cohen

So what did I ultimately get from attending this conference…?

Well, aside from the absolute thrill of catching up with my wonderful writer friends and meeting new ones, it was getting to chat in the coffee break queues with people like top literary Agents Carole Blake and Dorothy Lumley, and Gillian Green - an Editorial Director at Random House, Heather Osborn from Samhain Publishers, and Editors Linda Filgrew, Sheila Hodgson and Megan Haslam from Mills & Boon. I came away not only inspired to get on with my writing but feeling entirely optimistic about my writing career.

I felt that I’d put my finger on the pulse of the industry – and found it to be alive and kicking!

Jane Wenham-Jones and me at the Gala Evening

Scottish friends Rae Cowie (me) and Jenny Harper

Celebrating my lovely friend Liz Harris's debut book deal with Choc Lit Publishers

More Scottish friends - Joan Fleming, Gwen Kirkwood & Rosemary Gemmell

Me and my loveahappyending.com buddy Sue Fortin

Enjoying the Penrith sunshine

Enjoying wine and the company of new friends

The Romaniacs - who from their singing efforts really should be a girl band!

Writer friends from Annie Burgh Group - Katy, Bex & Pippa 

The conference dining room where the food was always so yummy!

STOP PRESS NEWS

I just heard the exciting news that magazine style blog FRONTROWLIT is featuring my novel 'Reaching for the Stars' this week. If you get a moment, please do pop over to read an excerpt from Chapter One. Any Comments, Shares and Tweets will be most appreciated!

Click here to go to Front Row Lit

#rnaconf12

I’m off to the Romantic Novelist’s Association Conference in Penrith Cumbria this weekend and I’m very excited about it. There is nothing quite like spending a whole weekend – from Friday to Sunday - in the company of other writers talking non-stop about books, novels, writing and publishing.

If you think that perhaps a get together of Romantic Novelist’s will be sedate affair with lots of pink feather bowers on stiff shoulders and cups of tea balanced on 50 denier covered knees - then think again. These girls (and some men) certainly know how to party. I do remember at one RNA conference I attended that the bar ran out of booze within the first hour. From the shock on the bar staff’s faces I’m confident that’s never going to happen again!

There’s a full programme of events, talks and workshops to attend. There will be lots of Literary Agents and Editors to talk to as well as friends I haven’t seen for ages and those who up to now I’ve only chatted with online. The highlight of the whole conference though will be the Gala Dinner on Saturday night. I really must remember to take lots of photographs - oh - and to be on my best behaviour of course!

If you’d like to follow the event on Twitter – the hashtag is #rnaconf12

I’ll be back here on Monday, as I’m hosting my lovely friend and fellow Loveahappyending.com author Stephanie Keyes in a special blog spot to celebrate the cover reveal of her debut novel The Star Child. PLUS there will be a fabulous giveaway hosted by her publishers Ink Spell Publishing.

Arresting Your Reader…

A couple of years ago, I attended a writing masterclass hosted by the fabulous Diane Pearson, acclaimed author and recently retired President of the Romantic Novelist’s Association. Diane was also Senior Editor for Transworld Publishers where she edited - among many illustrious others - the wonderful Jilly Cooper and, in 1994, she won the British Book Award for Editor of the Year.

The subject of the workshop was getting the opening lines of your novel exactly right in order to immediately arrest the attention of your reader. I learned so much from Diane on that day about opening lines that I now work hard to make sure the start of my novels adhere to her wise words.

I learned that ideally the first lines should indicate the mood, tone and content of the book, as well as setting the time and place. Controversially perhaps, it was suggested that dialogue should be avoided in the first paragraph, as it makes it difficult to capture period and place quickly. To see how this is done effectively, I suggest we look at the one of the most powerful, most recognised opening lines in all of literature, that of Daphne du Maurier’s novel ‘Rebecca’.

“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again. It seemed to me I stood by the iron gate leading to the drive, and for a while I could not enter, for the way was barred to me. There was a padlock and chain upon the gate. I called in my dream to the lodge-keeper, and had no answer, and peering closer through the rusted spokes of the gate I saw that the lodge was uninhabited.”

 

Using Diane’s advice, I tried to use this principle of mood, tone, content and sense of place with the opening lines of my own novel ‘Bagpipes & Bullshot’. To my delight, she read out my work in class that day as an approved example!

“When the Greyhound bus pulled over in Baytown Texas, Innes Buchanan stepped off. He dropped his tartan backpack and bagpipes onto the boardwalk and inhaled deeply, feasting his eyes on the shimmering white sands and glittering blue waters of the Gulf of Mexico.”

So writers, let’s get to work on our own opening lines – please do feel free to let me know how you are getting along by leaving a comment.

And readers, what are you reading right now? Why not flip back to the opening few lines of the novel you are reading and let us know if you get a sense of mood, tone, content and sense of place from those first few sentences?

Love, Janice xx

Author Showcase – Sue Johnson

I’m delighted to introduce you to Sue Johnson, a wonderful and talented writer whom I’m known for several years through the Romantic Novelist’s Association and now as Associates at the innovative reader/writer website Loveahappyending.

Sue was born in Kent and has had a variety of jobs during her working life including training administrator, vicar’s secretary, cinema usherette and running her own patchwork quilt-making business. She is now a writer, artist and musician and most of her work is inspired by the stunning Worcestershire countryside where she currently lives. She is a Writers’ News Home Study Tutor and also runs her own brand of writing courses.

Her short stories have appeared in Woman, My Weekly, Woman’s Weekly, Chat: it’s fate, Take a Break, The People’s Friend and That’s Life – Australia. She is published as a poet – including a joint collection with her partner Bob Woodroofe entitled ‘Tales of Trees.’

Sue has produced four booklets and two CDs in her ‘Writer’s Toolkit’ series, designed to help writers of all levels of ability. Her first novel ‘Fable’s Fortune’ was published by Indigo Dreams in August 2011. ‘Creative Alchemy: 12 steps from inspiration to finished novel’ was published by HotHive in October 2011.

FABLE’S FORTUNE is a modern romance built on a fairytale structure. The back cover blurb reads: Fable Mitchell is born under a roof of stars in a Kentish plum orchard, and her early childhood is spent in a house called ‘Starlight’ where she lives with her mother Jasmine and Gangan the Wise Woman. However, her life is not destined to remain like a fairytale. When she is ten, she is abducted by her estranged father Derek, now a vicar, and taken to live in his austere vicarage at Isbourne on the banks of the River Avon. Fable is unable to escape. When she is sixteen, she falls in love with Tobias Latimer but he dies in mysterious circumstances and Fable’s happiness is once again snatched away from her. She tries to rebuild her life and marries Tony Lucas because she thinks the omens are right. Fable soon realises he is abusive and controlling, but is trapped because she fears losing contact with her daughter. Nearing her 40^th birthday, Fable hears Gangan the Wise Woman’s voice telling her to ‘be ready’ – magic happens.’ That is certainly true, but does Fable have the necessary courage to finally seize her chance of lasting happiness?

The story (originally called ‘Star Dragon’) began life in 1998 following my own marriage break-up and divorce. I didn’t do any planning and completed 85,000 words in less than two months. It was extremely therapeutic and helped me get through a stressful time without needing tranquillisers or taking to drink!

Having finished what was a very scrappy first draft (I didn’t really know what I was doing!) I put it on one side for several years while I went back to University to do a creative writing course. During that time, I wrote a lot of poetry and short stories – many of which were published in women’s magazines. I was taken on by the agency Midland Exposure who sold short fiction to women’s magazines.

When I eventually went back to the novel (in about 2002) my ideas about the story and characters had moved on. The story had never left me in all the time I’d been away from it – bits kept playing like a film inside my head. Helped by a severe attack of vertigo, I reworked the story (now called ‘Cloak of Stars.’)

By 2005, having written three more novels and failed to find a publisher, I joined the Romantic Novelists’ Association New Writers’ Scheme. I submitted ‘Cloak of Stars’ for a critique and was advised to take out the fairytale element.

I felt a bit despondent – but decided to have one more re-write. It was at that stage that my heroine, originally called Rose, decided that she didn’t like her name! I searched through all the children’s name books I could find + various internet sites, but found nothing.

In the end, I put my jacket on and walked into town, deciding to stop for a coffee at the first café I came to and the first woman’s name I heard would be the one I went for. Two women wearing fur coats and carrying wicker baskets came in. As they took their coats off one of them said: “Of course, my daughter Fable…” I paid my bill and hurried back to my computer.

One thing I learned in the process of writing this book was that I needed to be persistent and ignore the negative things some people said. I wish I’d concentrated on finding a publisher rather than wasting time trying to get an agent – especially after one admitted, when I contacted her after a long time of being fobbed off by her assistant, that she’d ‘buried my manuscript under a pile of other stuff and forgotten about it.’ The first publisher that I sent the manuscript to after that episode was Ronnie Goodyer Indigo Dreams Publishing – and he said yes! He now has the complete manuscript of my second novel and I’m keeping everything crossed.

My advice to new writers is:

1.         Write every day even if you only manage five minutes.

2.         Get as much work in circulation as possible.

3.         Create a writing C.V. – a publisher or agent may ask for one.

4.         Reward yourself for the effort you put in.

5.         Don’t stop until you achieve your writing ambitions.

‘Fable’s Fortune’ by Sue Johnson is published by Indigo Dreams Publishing (www.indigodreamsbookshop.com)

Copies of ‘Creative Alchemy: 12 steps from inspiration to finished novel’ published by HotHive Books are available direct from Sue as the publishers have gone into liquidation. Look out for special offers on www.writers-toolkit.co.uk/blog

Links: Sue Johnson

www.writers-toolkit.co.uk

www.indigodreamsbookshop.com