The Blog
Writing a Better Leadership Election + An Announcement
Picture this: an author sits in her favourite writing haunt in the spring of 2017. With her second novel Valerie almost ready for release, an irresistible thought has begun prickling at the back of her mind. What if there was a sequel? What if it was the start of a series?
Since that thought didn’t disappear, she started writing the sequel. The plot, as it turned out, was based around a leadership election in the Conservative Party that would elect both a party leader and a prime minister. After all, there had been an aborted attempt at a leadership election in 2016 that’d led to the coronation of Theresa May as PM. The likelihood of there being another one before the novel was ready for publication was fanciful. Right?
Fast forward some two years later and I’m almost ready to release Amy. In the spirit of not rushing a novel’s development, it’s taken a while to get to this point. Unfortunately – and you might have seen this one coming – I’ve been caught in something of a topical storm.
Back in May, Theresa May resigned as PM and triggered a leadership contest in the Tory party. There was foul language at Kit Eyre HQ, especially since the Tories began tinkering with the rules to accommodate the large number of candidates. Two things spring to mind:
- Candidates previously needed just two nominations from fellow MPs, but the 2019 contest increased that to eight.
- The elimination rounds to trim the candidates down to two previously took place twice weekly on Tuesdays and Thursdays. To streamline the process this time, an extra Wednesday elimination round took place.
Naturally, it irked that the Conservative Party was torpedoing all my careful research, but I’ve elected to ignore it as Amy is set in early 2016. Something else, however, was harder to ignore.
Spoiler alert for the UK: Boris Johnson is now Prime Minister.
Second spoiler alert for the UK: the final three candidates in the race were all privileged, middle-aged white men.
Now, whatever your personal view on the Conservative Party, it’s undeniable there are female MPs and ethnic minority MPs representing the party in the UK Parliament (67 and 19 respectively as of the 2017 election, though the figures have altered slightly). What I’m saying, though, is that the Tory party isn’t completely male and white. It was disappointing to see another leadership election dominated by the same tired faces who think they were born to rule.
Alas, I’d already completed several drafts of Amy before this race kicked off and I’d imagined an altogether different scenario. What if an Asian woman could really challenge for the top job? How would that play out and could she win?
I might not have intended to write a novel critiquing the Tory Leadership Election of 2019 when I began writing this novel back in 2017, but I think I might just have managed it.
Oh, and Amy will be released on Friday 13th September – how’s that for the perfect release date for a novel based in Westminster?
Get started with the series now and read Valerie, available in paperback, on Kindle and in Kindle Unlimited.
Looking Beyond Rejection
I had a conversation with a friend recently where they lamented their lack of writing success so far. At the point, I did the only thing I could do – brought up my nice list of rejections dating back to around 2013 when I was submitting short stories and other things pretty regularly. I’m happy to say it turned into a great learning experience for the pair of us.
All writers experience rejection. If you submit short stories to magazines and collections, those rejections come thick and fast. Many of my short stories didn’t include lesbian or bisexual characters, and that was a choice at the time because I was focusing my novel-length energies on some complex relationships. My short stories tended to focus on a small moment in a life that didn’t necessarily relate to any character’s personal life. My attitude (whether it was wrong or right) was that those stories were more likely to be published in mainstream publications if they didn’t include extraneous relationships unrelated to the plot. You can get away with that when writing short stories, but I’m not kidding myself I could do justice to a love story involving a woman and a man – at least, not right now.
So, my short story rejections mounted up, and that was fine. I knew what I was getting into when I started this writing lark. Even if you work solely on lengthy works of fiction and decide to self-publish, rejection is still going to haunt you. There will be bad reviews, rejection from readers that may or may not be warranted. You won’t get away from that, even if you sell thousands of books.
Let’s be clear – rejection hurts. Even if it’s just a twinge of regret or frustration when you read the email, there’s always a reaction. Sure, for a while you might want to give up, but rejections are rarely as personal as they feel. If you react to a rejection by carrying on, you’ll become a better writer.
Opening that spreadsheet gave me some perspective on how far I’ve come as a writer. It also gave my friend the opportunity to see that you can be rejected and move on and on and on. To be honest, it brightened up their day. Just think – one day your rejection stories might brighten someone else’s day!
Imagine Paradise for Authors
Have you heard of the Leeds Library? With a history dating back to 1768, you’ll find it in the heart of Leeds, right above Paperchase on Commercial Street. It has a collection of over 140,000 books, plus the interior is about as close to a perfect library as you can get. Panelled wood, spiral staircases and lots of books – what’s not to love about that?
Joining has been a dream of mine for maybe ten years now, but there was always something in the way. Partly it was financial (although membership is only £132 for the year), and some of it related to my travel anxiety and general stress issues over the past few years. There was also an element of feeling as though I didn’t belong in such a beautiful library. I know many authors suffer with impostor syndrome, and it’s not difficult to pinpoint that as being a major issue when I thought of joining the Leeds Library.
However, this weekend was the tipping point. I decided that I was going into Leeds on Saturday morning to join the library, and I did just that. I’ve signed up on a joint membership with my wife, ensuring that at least she has a fighting chance of spending some time with me when I’m researching novels. Plus, we both get 20 book loans at a time, and I bet I can persuade her to get the books I want her to get!
Ultimately, I reached a point where I decided joining was no longer an optional luxury. I tend to scrabble around in used bookshops and charity shops for research books and, while that’s great, I don’t always find the books I need. My local library isn’t all that great these days, and an interest in staying solvent keeps me from buying all the books I need to conduct the amount of research I deem necessary. The library membership will more than pay for itself, plus I’ll have somewhere to go and edit when it gets to the sharp end of redrafting.
I’ll let you know how I get on once I start visiting more regularly. In the meantime, if you’d like to know more about the Leeds Library, please visit their website. If you’re in Yorkshire, they run tours that will give you chance to look inside this gorgeous building, even if you’re too far away to countenance joining.
Long Division 2019
It’s sometimes described as Wakefield’s best kept secret, and many people who’ve lived in Wakefield all their lives still don’t know what the Long Division Festival is all about. Put simply, it’s an annual music festival where intrepid music lovers travel within city centre venues to listen to an eclectic mix of bands in some iconic Wakefield locations. Some of Long Division is free, some of it’s ticketed. For the second year, I bought a ticket for the main event on Saturday 1st June and proceeded to walk around in rather enjoyable circles.
Since my wife had a press pass (and I have her old camera), one of the main aims of the day was to get as many good shots as possible. I’ll admit I’m a newbie where all this photography lark’s concerned, but I definitely got some excellent photos of Liela Moss. I hadn’t come across her before, but she’s one of the most expressive and entrancing singers I’ve ever had the privilege of seeing. Check out one of her songs below – it definitely showcases her talent.
Part of the beauty of Long Division lies in the locations. Wakefield has some beautiful buildings and some hidden gems. For instance, while Wakefield Theatre Royal is well-known for being a gorgeous venue, did you know the refurbishment of the Mechanics Theatre had left it looking sumptuous? I’d also recommend paying the upstairs of The Counting House a visit if you get the chance. As well as being a Long Division venue, I also went to see Floodhounds there a few weeks ago and it’s a great space.
There were pockets of calm during the day. Early on, I decided I wanted to write some poetic reflections as I went through the day, intending to couple them with my photographs. Well, I got at least nine done, so I’ll be editing those into something pretty in the next few days.
I love the atmosphere of Long Division. I love waving at people I know as we pass on our way to different venues. I even love how much my feet ache by the end of it all. It isn’t often you’ll find me part of so many big crowds, but I’m glad I do this…once a year anyway!
Kindle Unlimited – I’m In!
If you follow me on Twitter, you might already be aware that I enrolled both But By Degrees and Valerie into Kindle Unlimited earlier this month. It’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while, so I finally took the plunge. With any luck, some KU readers who might not have considered trying one of my books will now give me a shot. Of course, if you wanted to encourage your KU friends, there’d be no arguing from me!
So, what else is going on? Well, I’m getting bits and bobs written. My next release is in a resting phase at the moment, so I’m hunkering down on a second draft of something that epitomises the darkness within humanity. It seems to be one of those stories I need to write, but who knows when it’ll see the light of day?
I’ve also been supplementing my writing with painting and photography. The perk of having a wife who’s a camera obsessive is that you get her cast-offs. I’ve now acquired my own camera and I’m getting to grips with it. Just like when I’m painting, I’m finding the time spent practising photography to be a nice way of completely switching off. That’s never been something I’ve found easy, but when I come back to the computer screen after some time spent with a brush in my hand or a camera wedged around my neck I’m refreshed.
Wakefield’s annual music festival is next weekend and the wife has wangled herself press accreditation. Last year was my first Long Division festival, despite living in Wakefield most of my life. I’d never felt it was the kind of thing I wanted to do, yet I really enjoyed the exhaustion of last year. Traipsing back and forth between venues and getting to the point where even the bouncers are laughing at you boomeranging around is fun.
There’s also an art display by one of my friends as part of the festival which I’m greatly looking forward to checking out. Helen Thomas was commissioned to create Mappa Music, with streets of our city transformed by the names of musical legends from the past and present. It’s going to be brilliant and you can check out her process and progress here.
All in all, life is pretty good. Now, if only the rain will have the courtesy to go away before we go to the coast on Bank Holiday Monday…
P.S: Both But By Degrees and Valerie are in the I Heart Lesfic sale which runs from Monday 27 May through to Friday 31 May. That means they’re already discounted in preparation. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.
SCLHO 2019 Retrospective
It’s hard to believe that it’s two weeks since I attended SCLHO (South Coast Lesfic Hang Out) in my first event alongside other lesfic authors. There was so much literary talent in the room that I felt a little in awe rubbing shoulders with the likes of Kiki Archer and A.E Radley.
For those of you who don’t know what the heck I’m talking about, SCLHO was the brainchild of the marvellous Claire Highton-Stevenson and it involved getting loads of lesfic authors together in a room in Crawley. Authors got to mingle with each other, readers got to cross-examine authors in the politest way, and we all got to listen to some fab readings from books.
I have to say, I had a brilliant time. It’s always nerve-racking walking into a room when you don’t know what to expect, and I hadn’t met any of my fellow attendees in the flesh before (except my wife, of course). But from the moment I walked in there and got my name badge, I felt at home.
Being situated between Jenn Matthews and Lise Gold definitely helped! They dispensed words of wisdom (not to mention chocolate and sweets – thank you, Jenn), plus they were amazingly friendly to someone who definitely wasn’t sure of her place in the room. The calm corner devised by Jenn worked well too, and I enjoyed hiding for five minutes at a time to regroup!
My stall was evenly split between But By Degrees and Valerie. Gerberas play an important role in But By Degrees, so that’s become the unofficial emblem for the novel. For the other side of the table, I owe the rosettes idea to my wife. Buy a book, get a rosette encouraging you to vote for Valerie Smythe.
The day went so well that we’re already planning on doing it again next year and I’ve already signed up. It’d be great to see some fresh faces there and – hopefully – there’ll be more books and goodies on my stall next spring. See you there?
Photo credits: Marie Keen
Thinking Bibliographies for Novels
This is a case of my two personalities crashing headlong together and waiting for me to put the pieces back together.
Some of you will know that I’ve got a PhD in Victorian Literature. As a consequence of that, I’ve spent a lot of time in my life wrestling with research and referencing – generally the things that make grown women cry if they think about them for too long.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I love research (even if it can be a never-ending mountain with adjoining molehills to sift through), but referencing remains painful. If there is another me in a parallel universe who followed her original plan to be an academic, I suspect she’ll be sat in a corner somewhere weeping over article referencing mishaps.
But that isn’t my life. So why am I talking about it?
The truth is, the two projects I’m working on at the moment are heavy on the research. I announced last year that I’m writing a sequel to Valerie, but I’m also working on something historical that I’ll explain about really soon.
So, basically, I found myself stuck in between two towers of research. On the one hand, I was stacking up books about the British political system in the 21st century and why it doesn’t work. Over on the other side, there was a teetering pile of books about Victorian England (some, admittedly, recycled from my PhD). It struck me that I was going to have to do what all reputable academics do when I finished these books – write a bibliography.
I think that’s what tipped me over the edge into panic mode. Perhaps it was just this vision of my two worlds colliding or the fear that I felt throughout my PhD of “getting it wrong”.
Now, the thing is, you can always get it wrong. Just because you research it carefully, it doesn’t necessarily mean your sources are accurate. An anecdote told about a politician in a book about government blunders may be funny, but it still might not be true. Short of getting primary sources for everything (and I’m not a time-traveller so I can’t fill in the gaps around the things I really want to know), you have to try a little trust sometimes.
Accuracy matters to me. Research matters to me. Heck, even my bibliography matters to me. But if I get so bogged down in that bibliography that I’m scared of typing anything, what am I doing all this for?
It’s time to strike a balance.
Power of Feedback
It’s the time of the year when writers are asking readers to leave reviews as presents, while still reminding them that feedback is for life, not just for Christmas.
In all seriousness, writers often squawk about how important reviews are to them and that they’d love you to leave one as a present at any time of year. It’s not just about rankings and sales, though. Sometimes, those reviews can be just the nudge a writer needs at a difficult time. I’m not just talking about the rave reviews either. Thoughtful feedback that offers suggestions on how the author can improve are more than welcome. We want to keep developing and we take every bit of feedback on board, even the bad stuff.
This was brought back to me in two conversations I’ve had this week with friends, one who’s read one of my books and the other who saw me perform at an event last month.
The first comments came from my childhood best friend who’s read But By Degrees and not Valerie. She says she keeps getting halfway through Valerie but can’t finish it – and not because she thinks it’s terrible. It’s about the book and what it represents to her.
She said that she sees my books as helping her to end chapters in her life, that But By Degrees was the book that closed a particularly nasty chapter and that she’s not quite ready to close another one by finishing Valerie.
To me, that’s incredible. The idea that my books have such an impact on one of the people I love most is amazing, and I don’t care how long it takes her to close those chapters and continue her story. Valerie will be waiting when she’s ready.
The second conversation I had was with someone I know through attending a life drawing class (where, coincidentally, my best friend was the model this week). He’d seen me “in action” for the first time during the November Artwalk (Wakefield’s bi-monthly evening of culture) and approached to tell me how good it was.
He didn’t stop there though. Instead, he gave a bit more detail about why he thought it was good, namely that the delivery was packed full of emotion and that it combined with quality writing to create something special (I’m paraphrasing but he won’t mind).
For someone who enjoys that type of dramatic writing but doesn’t think she’s very good at delivering it, that was beautiful to hear. It’s given me the confidence to consider performing more in the future, not to mention recording more for posterity.
So, while the kind of feedback that promotes sales and spreads the word about my work is more than welcome, this type of quieter, more personal feedback is also welcome too. It can give writers the encouragement they need to continue and develop. And that is a truly a great present at any time of the year.
Here’s that performance that my friend was talking about:
Write What You Wish You Didn’t Know
Office politics gets me down. To be fair, I suspect the politics of any workplace is equally as frustrating, but office politics is the one that I’ve had experience of and, therefore, office politics is my bogey.
I’ve written previously about the initial ideas for But By Degrees and how offices played a big part in the evolution of that novel. What I wanted to discuss in this post is how I channelled my frustration about that environment into the development of a story and – most importantly – the point where the story broke away from my reality.
Maybe I should preface this by saying that I’ve made some great friends from working in offices. They’re places you can have a real laugh and have fun while working. Maybe my problem is that, like Danni (the protagonist in But By Degrees), I’ve got a bit of a short fuse. For me, that’s coupled with an intolerance of procedures that are just there to increase bureaucracy. If you can’t answer my simple “why” when you’re enforcing a rule, it’s a pointless rule. As well as that, if your explanation includes being a micro-manager and not trusting your team… Let’s just say I don’t like that either.
Can’t have the door shut while you’re doing some printing? Why not? Oh, because you don’t trust that I’m working. Great. I’m so thrilled about this trusting relationship we’ve got.
There’s also something about an office that brings out the pettiness in people. I’d experienced that in various ways and so, by the time I was writing But By Degrees, it was primed to flood out. It wasn’t the first novel I’d drafted, but it resonated with me in a way that the first one hadn’t. I think it was the honesty of it that made me more confident about writing and editing it. Within the novel, certainly, there are “types” that anyone who’s worked in an office will recognise.
Danni doesn’t like conflict and would rather just get on with things. Jude is the more motherly one, looking out for younger employees. Matt is the congenial guy (or gal) that everyone likes and knows will help them out. Michael is the distant manager type who doesn’t really understand the dynamics properly because he’s not exposed to them everyday. Harriet is the opposite – a manager who is forced to live amongst the people and is being driven slowly up the wall by it. As for Caroline . . . Well, she’s the troublemaker who gossips and actively looks around for backs to stab. Maybe it’s boredom, maybe it’s a personality type. However, I’ve yet to work in an office that didn’t have a Caroline in there.
With But By Degrees, I hoped to evoke the claustrophobia of an office environment and tighten the screws a little more. At the time, the idea of being trapped with the people I worked with every day was terrifying to me. How would I react? What emotions would come to the fore?
Those thoughts were part of the catalyst for But By Degrees. Those were the real emotions that helped me transform the draft into a novel that I felt confident enough to publish. So, really, I have a lot to thank offices for.
***
Whatever made Anne Hagan think she could write a mystery novel? Find out how ‘Relic’ began as a lousy novel about a lonely Sheriff and became the catalyst for a mystery/romance series and more. Anne Hagan is the author of the Morelville universe of mystery novels and spin-off romance novels. She also writes short stories outside of that universe and has plans to take the plunge into legal thrillers in 2019. https://annehaganauthor.
Seasons of Love – Plus an Apology
For the last two years, this has been the time of the year when I’ve released novels. Both But By Degrees and Valerie were released on this week in 2016 and 2107 respectively, and it was my hope to stick to that sort of release schedule. The best laid plans always turn to mush, however. The last year has brought several changes to my life and my writing plans have been derailed.
The most important development? Two weeks ago, I got married. Although it was a low-key affair, the planning and execution (pardon the word) took a little time. However, one of the wonderful things about my new wife is that she’s a writer too and is getting herself known on the local spoken word circuit. That means she “gets it”. We spend a lot of time in coffee shops, sat together yet apart in our own universes, and that’s great. There’s no chance that marriage is going to impede on my writing – she wouldn’t dream of letting it as one of my biggest supporters. Here we are just before we headed off to Scarborough for a mini-honeymoon:
There’s no denying, though, that this year has proven difficult on the writing front. I think it comes down to one fundamental point: each of the novel projects I’ve earmarked for release in the short to medium term (out of the 13 I’ve got in progress) need careful attention and I’m not willing to put them out into the world before they’re ready. These are the four:
- “Amy” – The sequel to Valerie has the benefit of coming with fully-formed characters, but I owe it to those characters to tell a story that’s befitting of them. Three drafts in and we might be getting somewhere with that.
- “Nights at the Majestic” – This was the third novel draft I ever completed, although the emphasis shifted slightly in the most recent draft. It’s an age-gap romance that deals with some messy themes about love, bereavement and a political conspiracy.
- “Make Old Bones” – Set in a residential care home, this is rather different to anything else you might have read from me. That’s why I’m reluctant to say more at this stage – it could still undergo a second metamorphosis into something else!
- “From Such Crooked Wood” – This project has the distinction of being the first one I ever completed way back in 2009/2010. Since then, it’s gone through several huge changes and, naturally, this latest seventh draft has taken it along a different tangent altogether. I’ll give you a couple of hints: painting, an old church and a good old-fashioned love triangle. That’s all you’re getting for now.
The one I’m currently working on is “From Such Crooked Wood” and, provisionally, I think this one might be my next release. But it needs attention and it needs love. Having lived with the protagonist in my head for nearly a decade, I’m not going to let her down by releasing a book that isn’t as good as I can get it. For me, if I don’t love my final piece of work (then seesaw back to hate and then love and then hate and…) I haven’t done right by my characters, by myself and, crucially, by my readers.
I’m working, I’m writing. I hope you’ll be around to read when I’m done.
