Getting to Know You: M.J. Arlidge

Hope you’re all keeping well. If you’re looking for something new to read, M.J. Arlidge’s eighth Helen Grace novel ‘All Fall Down‘ is due out next week (Thurs, 11th June) .

Matt has joined us today to give us a little insight into his work as a writer and some advice for those of you out there who’d like to give it a go yourselves.

I’m hoping to host Matt at a Virtual Noir at the Bar in the coming weeks so make sure you’re first to find out when he’ll be appearing. Sign up to our newsletter now.

Big thanks to Matt and Orion Books for making this happen.

Vic x

M.J Arlidge

What do you like most about writing? What do you dislike (if anything)?

I love the escapism of it. I never get tired of sitting down at my desk and opening up my laptop. There are dozens of different characters and numerous interweaving stories in each of my books, meaning I have a whole host of different people to climb inside and bring to life. I love working out what makes characters tick, what’s important to them, what would drive them to do reckless or desperate things. It’s so enjoyable to escape from my normal life, especially so during lockdown! 

There’s not much I dislike, though there’s no question writing a novel is a hard slog. I’ve just written the first chapters of a new one this morning and the road ahead seems long!!!

What inspires you to write?

Anything and everything. Just life really. I find ideas come to me unbidden and at the strangest times – in the middle of the night, when I’m in the shower, when I’m shopping in the supermarket. And once a really good idea pops into your head, it has you, you have to write it. 

Do you find time to read, if so what are you reading at the moment?

Yes, of course! I love reading and always find time, usually at the end of the day. Generally I read novels, but at the moment I’m making use of lockdown to consume the works of Yuval Noah Harari – Sapiens, Homo Deus etc. I find his work absolutely fascinating. 

Which author(s) has/have had the biggest influence on your writing?

So many authors to choose from. Thomas Harris, James Patterson, Harlan Coben…but I think I’ll have to plump for Stieg Larsson. When I was writing Eeny Meeny (my debut novel), Lisbeth Salander was very much in my mind. She was the most unusual, most interesting crime fighter I’d ever come across. There are shades of Lisbeth Salander about Helen Grace – I was desperate to make her as unconventional and intriguing as Larsson’s brilliant protagonist. 

If you weren’t a writer, what would you be doing?

Wow. Good question. I would have loved to have been a photographer. Or a chef. I still harbour fantasies about the latter, but I’m probably too old…

What do you think are your strengths and weaknesses?

That’s probably not for me to say! I’d say I work hard and am very committed to my writing and my readers – to the extent that when I’m writing a novel I find it hard to resist creeping back to my office late at night or as the sun is rising.  

What are you working on at the moment?

I’ve literally just started writing Truth or Dare, the ninth novel in the Helen Grace series. Usually the first few chapters are utterly terrifying, but actually I’ve really enjoyed starting this one. 

Where can we find you online?

At my Facebook page or on Twitter.

Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?

To borrow a phrase from Nike, just do it. Don’t spend too long prevaricating – pretending to research stuff, when actually you’re just putting off writing. Just be disciplined and get that first draft done. Only then do you have something you can work with, something you can potentially sell. When I was writing my first novel, I still had a day job, but managed to carve out one hour a day (5pm-6pm) to write. It was slow progress, but I got there in the end, and, boy, was it a good feeling!

What’s been your proudest moment?

The day Eeny Meeny was published by Penguin. To have joined the ranks of authors at such an impressive and important publishing house blew my mind!

What was the best writing advice you received and who was it from? 

When I delivered the first draft of Eeny Meeny to my agent, she declared that it was good, but needed “more emotional cruelty”. It was sage advice and something I bear in mind every time I’m penning a new Helen Grace novel!

ALL FALL DOWN by M.J Arlidge is published by Orion Fiction and out in hardback on 11^th June 2020.

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**Bones in the River Blog Tour**

I’m thrilled to be taking part in the blog tour for Zoë Sharp’s “Bones in the River“. I’ve known Zoë for many years now but here’s a little bit of background to the enigmatic writer.

Zoë Sharp began her crime thriller series featuring former Special Forces trainee turned bodyguard, Charlotte ‘Charlie’ Fox, after receiving death-threats in the course of her work as a photo-journalist. Zoë opted out of mainstream education at the age of twelve and wrote her first novel at fifteen.

Zoë’s work has won or been nominated for awards on both sides of the Atlantic, been used in school textbooks, inspired an original song and music video, and been optioned for TV and film.

When not in lockdown in the wilds of Derbyshire, she can be found improvising self-defence weapons out of ordinary household objects, international pet-sitting, or crewing yachts in the Mediterranean. (It’s a tough job, but somebody’s got to do it.) Zoë is always happy to hear from readers, reader groups, libraries or bookstores. You can contact her via email.

My thanks to Zoë for having me on her blog tour.

Vic x

Don’t Quit the Day Job:
Zoe Sharp

I suppose there was half a chance that writing fiction might have been my day job, right from the start. After all, I penned my first novel at the age of fifteen—and I do mean ‘penned’. I wrote the entire thing, long-hand, in a month, and gave myself the most appalling writers’ cramp in the process.

That early effort did the rounds of all the major publishers, where it received what’s known in the trade as ‘rave rejections’—everybody said they loved it but nobody actually wanted to publish it.

Looking back, I’m rather glad about that.

Because, in order to be a writer, you need different experiences under your belt. At the age of fifteen, I’d had few worth mentioning. Apart from living aboard a catamaran from the age of about seven and leaving school at twelve. But that, as they say, is probably another story.

Having failed at my first attempt to be a novelist, I became side-tracked by a variety of jobs in my teenage years, including crewing boats and learning astro-navigation. I was mad keen on horses, rode competitively, and once even took part in a rodeo. I learned to shoot—did a little competing there, too. Long guns, mostly. I considered myself an average shot with a handgun but, as I discovered on my last visit to a US indoor gun range, most people can manage to miss the target entirely at less than ten feet.

As for jobs, I became a freelance motoring writer at the height of the classic car boom of the late 1980s. That quickly transmuted into being a photojournalist, having taught myself both how to write commercial magazine articles and also how to take images good enough for numerous front covers and centre spreads.

It was hardly surprising, then, that eventually I’d have to start writing a character who was a photographer. Enter Grace McColl, first in Dancing on the Grave and now in Bones in the River. Grace started out as a keen amateur photographer, who became involved in providing evidence for the defence in a court case. She was then approached by the Head CSI at Cumbria police, who asked her if she’d ever thought of joining the side of the angels. Always nice to be able to write any parts of the story concerning photography without having to do lots of research.

My time spent writing about cars also played a part in Bones in the River, which begins with a hit-and-run incident. Understanding how the mechanics of a vehicle work makes writing scenes with them in so much easier and, I hope, more accurate.

Plus, all that time spent with horses came in very useful for a book that takes place during the largest Gypsy and Traveller horse fair in Europe. There were still plenty of times when I had up to a dozen different scientific research books laid on the table at the side of my desk as I wrote, though. Fortunately, forensic science and pathology are such fascinating subjects.

They tell you to write what you know. I disagree. I think you should write what you’re desperate to find out instead.

“Bones in the River“, the second book in the Lakes crime thriller series, was published worldwide on May 26 2020 by ZACE Ltd. You can grab a sneak peek of the first three chapters, and is available from all the usual retailers.

Getting to Know You: Emily Koch

Today I’m delighted to be joined by Emily Koch, author of ‘Keep Him Close‘ and ‘If I Die Before I Wake‘.

My thanks to Emily for taking the time to chat to me during these very strange times.

Vic x

©Barbara Evripidou2015; m: 07879443963; barbara@firstavenuephotography.com

Tell us about your books.
My debut, If I Die Before I Wake, is a psychological thriller about a man with locked-in syndrome, who discovers that the accident which put him in hospital was no such thing – someone tried to kill him. My second novel, Keep Him Close, just came out and it’s more of a dark domestic drama than a thriller. It’s about the friendship between a woman whose son has died and the mother of the boy accused of his murder.

What inspired them?
If I Die was inspired by a news item I heard on the radio one day about someone in a coma. It made me wonder about the family around that person, and what they were doing with their lives. Keep Him Close was inspired by the prison I live near to in Bristol. Some houses back on to the prison wall – it is surrounded on all sides by residential streets. I started thinking about what you’d do if you lived close to it and there was someone inside who had done something terrible to your family. How would you cope with that proximity?

What do you like most about writing? What do you dislike (if anything)?
When people read something I’ve written and get it. Sometimes that’s my editor, or a friend – but often I get the best feeling of connection from a totally unknown reader. With both books I’ve had reviews online, sometimes only a few lines, that have made me feel – yes, you really got what I was trying to do. I love those moments! I dislike the constant self-doubt, but I try not to listen to that voice in my head too much.

Do you find time to read, if so what are you reading at the moment?
Ha! Yes, I do find some time, but not a lot at the moment with two kids to run around after. I’ve just started Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid.

Which author(s) has/have had the biggest influence on your writing?
In recent years the biggest influence has been Celeste Ng. I love her two literary thrillers, Little Fires Everywhere and Everything I Never Told You.

Where do you get your ideas from?
All sorts of places! Newspapers, radio news items, things I hear people say out and about, and the usual ‘what if…?’ situations that I think most people have running through their heads. Writers just know how to notice these and harness them. I firmly believe we all have great ideas – it’s knowing how to spot them and develop them that writers do more than most others.

Do you have a favourite scene/character/story you’ve written?
The ending of my debut is my favourite section I’ve written. It’s hard to talk about without giving the plot away! There’s also a scene in Keep Him Close where Alice, the mother of the dead boy Lou, is out in her garden looking at the prison wall with her surviving son, Benny. I loved writing that scene, and what they do in it to deal with their grief and anger at Kane, the young man in the prison accused of murdering Lou.

What are you working on at the moment?
Coming up with an idea for my third novel! Or, rather, developing it. I have the basic premise and I’m really excited about it – now it’s just a matter of fleshing it out bit by bit.

What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve been given (and who was it from)?
Just keep turning up at your desk – that’s what my lovely agent Peter Straus told me eighteen months ago when I was exhausted and full of the aforementioned self-doubt, trying to work on a second draft of Keep Him Close while running around after a toddler, and in the first trimester of my second pregnancy. He said I just had to keep chipping away at the novel, day after day, and it would come together. It did!

Are you a plotter or a pantster?
Plotter. I love a good spreadsheet to plan out my novels. I find the planning part of the process incredibly fun and creative – and I feel confident when I start writing because I know the plot is solid.

Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?
Keep reading, keep writing – it’s basic but so true. Get some friends who are writing, too. 

What’s been your proudest writing-related moment?
When my mum texted me to tell me she’d finished If I Die Before I Wake and said she’d loved it.

Don’t Quit the Day Job: Neil Broadfoot

It’s my pleasure to host my very good friend Neil Broadfoot on the blog today.

Neil’s latest book, ‘No Place to Die‘ is available now. ‘No Place to Die‘ is the sequel to ‘No Man’s Land‘ (you can read my review of the first book in the Connor Fraser series here).

Once a controversial venture capitalist, Blair Charlston reinvented himself as a development guru after a failed suicide attempt when a business deal went disastrously wrong. So when he decides to host a weekend retreat on the outskirts of Stirling for more than 300 people, Connor Fraser is drafted in to cover the security for a man who is both idolised as a saviour and hated as a ruthless asset stripper.

For Connor, it’s an unwelcome assignment. He’s never had much time for salvation by soundbite, and Charlston’s notoriety is attracting the attention of reporter Donna Blake, who’s asking more questions than Connor has answers for.

But when an old colleague of Donna’s is found brutally bludgeoned to death, and the start of Charleston’s weekend of salvation becomes a literal trial by fire, Connor must race to unmask a killer whose savagery is only matched by their cunning.

‘No Place to Die‘ is available now and Neil is here to take part in our ‘Don’t Quit the Day Job’ series.

Vic x

Don’t quit the day job?

Nice thought. But thanks to this virus, that’s what we’ve all been forced to do. The old ways of working are gone, society reshaping itself to this new bizarre reality we find ourselves faced with. A reality where book festivals and mass gatherings are fondly remembered dreams, and meeting your pal for a pint seems like a life goal rather than a normal occurrence. 

And yet, the crime writing community has risen to the challenge. With bookshops closed, festivals axed and book launches scrapped (I was meant to be doing events in St Andrews, Edinburgh, Glasgow, London, Stirling, Newcastle and Durham to launch No Place To Die), writers, bloggers and event organisers are getting creative. Virtual Noir at the Bars are being held, authors are holding online launches, bloggers are flying the flag for books more enthusiastically than ever. And while we may all be in social isolation, social media has never been more robust in getting the message out about books and new works.

Case in point. Thanks to Vic and this blog, you’re hearing about No Place To Die. The second Connor Fraser thriller, this time it’s set in a hotel just outside Stirling, where a self-help weekend for a couple of hundred people is being held (without a face mask or a mandatory 2-metre gap in sight). As ever, things go south and, as the bodies, pile up Connor is hot on the heels of a killer who will go to any ends to fulfil his plan. 

It’s a book that reflects the time it was written but, as the old lyric goes, the times they are a changin’. I’m due to start my next Connor book, out next year,  later this week, but every time I go near the keyboard I’m haunted by a thought – how do I reflect what’s going on right now? What will the world look like when Connor returns? Will he still be providing close security for clients, or will that business have gone belly up, driven into extinction by social distancing and the fact that no-one leaves their house any more? Which then raises a question – what would tempt someone to break the lockdown, to venture out? And what happens if that person is then found dead? 

(Sorry, sorry. I’m a writer. I’m always thinking stuff like that up. Especially now, when I’ve a lot more time to think than normal. Whether that’s for good or ill, I’ll leave you to decide.) 

But despite all this uncertainty, there’s certainty too. Connor will still be Connor. He will not stop until he solves the mystery. Along the way he’ll get into fights, do a bit of cooking, hit the gym and continue his will-they-won’t-they dance with Jen. Donna will be her ruthless self while Paulie will lurk in the shadows, a friendly psychopath just waiting for his moment to strike. I hope you enjoy No Place To Die, I had a blast writing it, and, in these uncertain times, that’s about as much as we can hope for, isn’t it?  

Virtual Noir at the Bar

Noir (noun): a genre of crime film or fiction characterised by cynicism, fatalism, and moral ambiguity. 

Bar (noun): an establishment where alcohol and sometimes other refreshments are served.

In these interesting times, where many of us are confined to home due to COVID-19 restrictions, I’m hoping to keep readers and writers of crime fiction entertained by hosting a weekly Virtual Noir at the Bar. OK, so you’ll need to bring your own booze but it beats another night of flicking through the TV looking for something half decent to watch. 

Although we are hoping that the restrictions may be relaxed in the coming weeks, I anticipate that public gatherings will be prohibited for quite some time and therefore, I’ve committed to running a Virtual Noir at the Bar every week until we can meet in the flesh again! 

Noir at the Bar began in Philadelphia in 2008 thanks to the legend that is Peter Rosovsky. Since then, it’s become an international phenomenon with events taking place all over the US and UK. I began running Noir at the Bar in Newcastle (UK) in 2016 and have since hosted a range of compelling writers in Newcastle and Harrogate. 

One of the many great things about Noir at the Bar is that it’s inclusive: we showcase writers who are just starting out all the way up to those who are published, award-winning and bestselling. In the past eighteen months at the Newcastle event, we’ve hosted two writers who are in this year’s Richard and Judy Book Club. That said, we’ve also been a springboard for many new writers who are just getting started. 

February’s Noir at the Bar crew in Newcastle.
L-R: Christie Newport, Rob Parker, Vic Watson, Gytha Lodge, Trevor Wood, Sarah Jeffery, AM Peacock, Jackie Badwin and Robert Scragg.

In February this year, I returned to hosting Noir at the Bar in Newcastle after nine months maternity leave. As I drove to the venue, I worried that no one would turn up to the event, that we might have lost our audience by taking such a long break but I shouldn’t have worried. The pub was packed out as usual and the thirst to hear writers reading their work had only gotten stronger. 

I had planned to host another Noir at the Bar in Newcastle at the end of April as part of Newcastle Noir but we’ve had to postpone all events due to the pandemic. Like many readers and writers, I was disappointed but knew it was the right thing to do.

I know lots of people will be missing Noir at the Bar, book launches and literary festivals so I’ve teamed up with Simon Bewick of Bewick Consulting to bring Noir at the Bar straight to your home.

Thanks to the wonders of technology, you won’t have to download anything to view Virtual Noir at the Bar, you simply sign up for the newsletter. The newsletter will contain a link for you to click. Once you click the link, you’ll be taken to the event. We are trying to keep things as much like the usual Noir at the Bar events as possible so audience members will be able to “chat” and there’ll be the potential to win free books.

We’ve already got lots of amazing authors scheduled so you won’t want to miss these super events! Sign up to our newsletter to be kept up-to-date.

In addition to our weekly Virtual Noir at the Bar events, Honey and Stag Literary Events will be broadcasting Noir at the Bar Edinburgh’s online virtual events on Facebook from 7pm on Thursday 2nd and 30th April. Chaired by the inimitable Jacky Collins, AKA Dr Noir, there is no sign up required for these events, just tune into their Facebook page at 7pm on the 2nd and 30th April.

So if you’re a fan of crime fiction, being at home might not be quite so bad after all. Remember to sign up to our newsletter for information on the weekly Virtual Noir at the Bar events.

Vic x

Don’t Quit the Day Job: Philippa East

OK, so COVID-19 is a thing and the UK is enforcing social distancing – thank goodness. With that in mind, lots of bloggers are trying to help people get through the partial ‘lockdown’ with book recommendations as well as introducing you to some new authors.

As part of that, I’ve decided to resurrect my ‘Don’t Quit the Day Job’ series.

Lots of people don’t realise that although you may see work by a certain author on the bookshelves in your favourite shop, many writers still hold down a day job in addition to penning their next novel. In this series, we talk to writers about how their current – or previous – day jobs have inspired and informed their writing.

Today it’s the turn of Philippa East to tell us about how her work as a clinical psychologist helped her writer ‘Little White Lies‘. My thanks to Philippa for sharing her experience with us.

Stay safe, everyone.

Vic x

I first got the idea for Little White Lies when I caught a snippet of a news story on TV – a teenage girl in Spain had disappeared then re-appeared a few weeks later, all under mysterious circumstances. There were many question marks over the case: had she been abducted, or was something else going on? The TV showed the family in a courtroom and I found myself thinking – what on earth are these people feeling now? Do they trust each other at all?

I knew I wanted to write a book about a missing child, I also knew there was a solid precedent of popular books on the shelves exploring this topic. But as a psychologist and therapist, I have always cared most about the pieces of the story that never usually get told. Tragically, children go missing all the time; I was fascinated by what might happen once a missing child came home. 

But what did I really know about this topic? Heartbreakingly, cases of children being found alive months or years after their disappearance are incredibly rare. My story started where most other ‘missing person’ books ended. So how on earth was I going to write about that?

The question really quite stumped me until I realised that, while I had never been involved in a real-life case like Abigail’s in Little White Lies, maybe I did have expertise that could help me, via my work with adult survivors of childhood trauma. In Little White Lies, against all odds, Abigail has escaped and survived her abduction. In the same way, the clients who I was seeing in my work had (physically) survived their childhood experiences. For both Abigail and my clients, a whole new journey would now begin. 

Little White Lies is about a family trying to heal after the very worst of traumas. The book focuses on the relationship between Abigail and her family – her mother Anne especially – both before and after her abduction. The more I wrote, the more I found myself delving into issues of responsibility and guilt, the instinctive desire to avoid what is most painful, and the healing power of acknowledging what went wrong – all themes I had encountered many times in my therapy work. Little White Lies went through many, many drafts as I wrote it, but it was when these themes came together as the heart of the novel that I was able to shape the story into the book you’ll read today.

These days, I am struck time and again by how much being a writer and being a psychologist have in common. Both therapy and writing are all about words and narratives; these truly are the “tools of our trade”. In both fiction writing and in the process of therapy, we share and absorb stories in order to make sense of the world, and try to understand our own complicated human natures. And both characters in stories and the clients in my practice go on profound journeys of change. 

Looking back now, I wonder whether I would ever have had the confidence to write Little White Lies without my background in psychology. To be honest, I am not sure that I would! 

**Running in Circles Blog Tour**

 

Today we welcome to the blog Claire Gray to the blog as part of the blog tour to celebrate the release of her new novel ‘Running in Circles‘.

Claire Gray lives in the South Lakes with her husband and two small children. She studied Creative Writing at the Cumbria Institute of the Arts. She graduated in 2006 and then went on to complete a journalism course at Darlington College. 

That same year, Claire won a Northern Promise Award from New Writing North, and her work was featured in their anthology, ‘Ten Years On‘. Claire now works as a freelance copywriter and continues to write short stories, some of which have been published in magazines and online. 

Sapere Books published ‘Running in Circles‘ in 2019 and Claire is really excited to have published her first novel! My thanks to Claire for sharing her experiences with us.

Vic x

Don’t Quit the Day Job: 
Claire Gray

It’s difficult for novelists to make a living purely through their writing. I’m probably only a Google search away from the official statistics, but I would guess only a tiny percentage of authors are able to sit at their desks every day, working on their latest manuscript, without worrying about paying the heating bill or feeding the kids. 

Many novelists supplement their income by working in education, or by editing other people’s work or writing for newspapers and magazines. That’s the tier of professional writing that I aspiring to reach, and it still seems very far away. But I don’t think it’s necessarily bad to be in the position that I, and many other writers, are in. We’re the writers who have day jobs; jobs completely unrelated to the creative work we do. While it can be challenging in terms of time management, and occasionally dispiriting because of how far removed it is from what we really want to be doing, having a day job is valuable. To write you need to have life experience. Working is one of the most natural ways to achieve this. 

I studied Creative Writing at college and then found myself working in betting shops across Cumbria and the north-east. What started as a weekend job rapidly became full-time as I realised (and probably should have realised much earlier) that Creative Writing is not a vocational course. But it wasn’t all bad. I met some interesting characters amongst the staff and the customers. There was a period in Newcastle-upon-Tyne where I narrowly missed a number of armed robberies, which was horrible but also great fuel for short stories. One of my co-workers was a published poet, and I still have the signed book he gave me as a leaving present. The writing and gambling industries seem to go well together, somehow. 

Eventually, I enrolled on a Journalism course at Darlington College. Once all the exams were over I was qualified to work as a junior reporter. For various reasons, this didn’t happen. I’d moved to North Devon with my husband who was in the Royal Marines, and there weren’t many local newspapers or junior reporting jobs around. But I’ve worked as a freelance copywriter and my journalism training was certainly not a waste of time. I discovered the power of an opening sentence, how to firmly grab the reader’s attention, and the importance of editing. The main characters in my novel are journalists, and it is good to have background knowledge about the industry.

Since then I have moved around the country a fair bit, working on my novel, doing the odd piece of copywriting, and working in a succession of NHS administration jobs. Much like the betting shop period of my life, this is a line of work I fell into accidentally, but somehow it stuck. I like working for the NHS because I feel like I’m doing something worthwhile, and it is inherently unpredictable; things rarely get dull. There are stories everywhere inside hospitals. You hear about, and see, some horrible things and some wonderful things. These polar opposites help to fuel my writing when I find time to switch on my laptop in the evenings. 

 

‘Running in Circles‘ is available now.

Don’t Quit the Day Job: Desmond P. Ryan

Lots of people don’t realise that although you may see work by a certain author on the bookshelves in your favourite shop, many writers still hold down a day job in addition to penning their next novel. In this series, we talk to writers about how their current – or previous – day jobs have inspired and informed their writing.

Today it’s the turn of Desmond P. Ryan to tell us about how his work has influenced his writing. My thanks to Des for sharing his experience with us.

Vic x

For almost thirty years, every day of my working life began with either a victim waiting in a hospital emergency room to report a violent crime, or a call from a bystander, witness, or sometimes even the perpetrator to a street corner or a ransacked, often blood-soaked room where someone had been left for dead. Murder, assaults on a level that defied humanity, sexual violations intended to demean, shame, and haunt the individuals who were no more than objects to the offenders: all in a day’s work. 

It was exhilarating, exhausting, and often heartbreaking.

    As a Detective with the Toronto Police Service, I wrote thousands of reports detailing the people, places, and events that led up to the moment I came along. I investigated the crimes and wrote synopses for guilty pleas detailing the circumstances that brought the accused individuals before the Courts. I also wrote a number of files to have individuals deemed either Not Criminally Responsible due to mental incapacity, or Dangerous Offenders to be held in custody indefinitely.       

    Now, as a retired investigator with three decades of research opportunities under my belt, I write crime fiction. And, when Vic asked me to contribute to her blog, you can imagine that I jumped at the opportunity to share my story of how my job has influenced (just a tad!) my writing. You could say that I have an unusual skill set that makes me particularly prone to writing crime fiction.

In fact, I started writing my Mike O’Shea Crime series while I was still working as a police detective. As you can imagine, in real life, things don’t always turn out the way youmight like, and the people I dealt with didn’t always find the justice they deserved. Writing was my way of giving voice to those whom the justice system had silenced. 

When I retired, I was a bit afraid that I’d become that guy in the corner at the pub who tells old cop stories to no one in particular. The obvious alternative was to continue on with my writing and get the series off the ground. After several months of writing, I found the police procedural format of the Mike O’Shea Crime series feeling too much like work (a good thing for my readers!), so I began a cozy mystery series featuring Mike O’Shea’s mother, Mary Margaret, as the sleuth. Now THAT was a lot of fun to write. 

Check out my website at RealDesmondRyan.com and be sure to order your copy of 10-33 Assist PC, the first in my six-book series.

**The Silk Road Blog Tour** #LoveBooksGroupTours @Mark_Leggatt @FledglingPress

I’m delighted to be taking part in the blog tour for Mark Leggatt’s latest release: ‘The Silk Road‘, the third book in the Connor Montrose series. I’ve known Mark for a couple of years and it’s a pleasure to have him on the blog to chat about how his day job has influenced his writing. 

Mark Leggatt was born in Lochee, Dundee and lives in Edinburgh. A former specialist in Disaster Recovery for oil companies and global banks, his career has taken him around Europe, especially Paris, where he lived for a number of years. History and modern global conspiracy lie at the heart of his work, and are the backdrop for the adventures of CIA technician Connor Montrose. Leggatt is a member of the Crime Writers Association in the UK, and the International Thriller Writers in the USA. 

Before that, though, allow me to whet your appetite with a little bit about ‘The Silk Road’:

Ex-CIA technician Connor Montrose tracks two suspected terrorists to a deserted mountain village in Tuscany, where he witnesses an attack on a US Air Force troop plane, using a ground-breaking portable Surface to Air (SAM) missile. Unaware that the CIA were also monitoring the suspects, Montrose is blamed for the attack and narrowly escapes. The CIA receive orders from Washington to shoot him on sight, and a shadowy organisation begins to track his every move.

Then a spate of terror attacks threatens the fabric of NATO and the entire Western alliance. Civilian airlines are the new target, and the overwhelming evidence points to a CIA false flag plan to bring down aircraft and blame it on Moscow-backed terrorists. Montrose’s investigations lead him to underground arms sales on The Silk Road, the secret marketplace of the internet, hidden deep in the Dark Web. Montrose must assimilate himself into the society of the European aristocracy and the ultra-rich fascists, assisted by Kirsty Rhys, to pose as a middleman for the purchase of arms on The Silk Road and find the remaining cache of missiles. Montrose uncovers the layers of duplicity between governments and arms dealers, leading first to the CIA in Rome, and eventually to the palaces of the last Russia Tsar and the new oligarchs. Montrose must discover the remaining cache of missiles before the CIA catch up with him, and before carnage is unleashed over the skies of Europe.

My thanks to Mark for taking the time to chat to us, and to the lovely Kelly Lacey at Love Books Group for allowing me to be part of the tour. 

Vic x

I am, at heart, a very disorganised person. If I had to describe my normal thought process, it would be me on a unicycle, going down a steep hill, while juggling cats, while the cats are on fire, and heading for a fireworks factory at the bottom of the hill. Next to the orphanage.

I need order in my life, and in my previous role as a Project Manager, that’s exactly what I got. It’s a bit ironic that the kind of person, who when asked to describe his job as a Consultant Project Manager in Technology for global banks and oil companies would instantly reply “Spanner, cheese and monkey wibble”. But if I am prepared, and planned, I can answer in a much more professional manner, which prevents people screaming and running from the room.

I am not short of imagination. But I am short of organisation, and I know it. Therefore, all the planning and delivery skills I learned as a project manager, become very useful when it comes to writing a book. It’s all very well to start a story where a man is outside a bank with a gun, but if that chapters ends up with fourteen clowns from Fife naked from the waist down on the back of a lorry in New Orleans singing ‘Delilah’ then the story may have deviated slightly from what you had originally had in mind.

This is my dilemma. This is how my day job helps me to rein in the excesses of my imagination, and stick to the bloody story. It’s a man outside a bank with a gun. He doesn’t have a space hopper. He’s there to rob the bank, and not rub himself against the windows while reciting his own, dreadful haikus. 

So, I’ll never give up the day job. I’ll be a project manager to myself, or chaos will ensue. And I’ll never get any bloody books written.

Don’t Quit the Day Job: Jan Fortune

Lots of people don’t realise that although you may see work by a certain author on the bookshelves in your favourite shop, many writers still hold down a day job in addition to penning their next novel. In this series, we talk to writers about how their current – or previous – day jobs have inspired and informed their writing.

Today, I’m delighted to welcome Jan Fortune to the blog to talk about how she managed to write a trilogy in the last four years while holding down a day job. My thanks to Jan for taking the time to share her insights with us.

Vic x

Over the last four years I’ve been working on a trilogy of novels. A Remedy For All Things follows Catherine, who is in Hungary in 1993 to research on the poet Attila József, when she begins dreaming the life of another woman from a different time period (imprisoned after the Hungarian Uprising of 1956). Even more disturbing, she’s aware that the other woman, Selene, is dreaming her life. 

It’s a complex book that has taken a great deal of research as well as several edits, but like most contemporary writers, I don’t write full-time. How do we do it? Juggle work, homes to run and still write? And are there any benefits to writing in this way, without the luxury of all the time in the world, or at least all the time that would otherwise go into holding body and soul together?

Many of my favourite writers combined work of all sorts with writing. William Faulkner is reputed to have written As I Lay Dying in six weeks. He claimed that while working 12 hours days as a manual labourer he wrote this phenomenal novel in his ‘spare time’. Most of us need a lot longer, but it’s certainly the case that many writers don’t only write.

Anthony Burgess taught and composed music; Joseph Conrad was a sea captain; T.S. Eliot worked in a bank and Arthur Conan Doyle was a doctor, as was the poet William Carlos Williams. Wallace Stevens turned down a Harvard professorship rather than give up his 40-year career in insurance.

Women who write may not only do the lion’s share of domestic work while writing, but also hold down demanding jobs. Agatha Christie worked as an apothecary’s assistant, a great place to learn about poisons. Toni Morrison worked as an editor and for many years Octavia Butler had to write in the early hours so that she could work low-paid jobs like telemarketing or cleaning.

If working the day job is a necessity, it can also be one with benefits. Working as an editor and publisher, I get a lot of time to see how form works, how language can constantly be honed and how handing our precious book to someone with skill and objectivity and then listening carefully can make all the difference. One of my authors recently took a PR role that is giving her masses of people-watching time, none of it wasted. Writers are people who walk about the world with all their senses open and work is an endlessly rich environment for observation of the human condition.

Of course, we still need time to find that trance state in which to write and to go into deep flow. If your day job does nothing but hollow you out, it may be time to reconsider. But if your work sustains you and leaves the time and energy to write whilst being a source of experiences and characters, then writing around the day job is an honourable tradition.