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Tag Archives: historical novels
Remember, remember…
Memories are getting shorter, I guess. Halloween has taken over our British celebration of Bonfire Night, the one I remember from childhood, when after dark on November 5 we lit bonfires in our back gardens (I can still smell and … Continue reading
Writer’s holiday?
A busman’s holiday is one that involves doing the same thing that you do at work. Maybe writers are a bit like busmen—however hard they try they can never really leave that essential part of themselves behind. We’d had a … Continue reading
More than a pause…
Things don’t always go according to plan. There must be a good many people who’ve thought that over the past year—David Cameron and Theresa May among them. But it’s not just out in the wide world that life can scatter … Continue reading
Critical pause…
I’d forgotten how much work is involved in writing a historical novel. It’s not just the research, but the need to immerse yourself in the minds and hearts of people living in very different times, with quite different hopes and … Continue reading
Ruthless Revision
I should have known it was mistake. Being married to a man with an aversion to history, and no historical sense at all, is not perhaps ideal for a writer of historical novels. What’s more, I never, ever, let anyone … Continue reading
Posted in Authorial voice, Self-publishing
Tagged editing, first draft, Historical fiction, historical novels, new novel, revision, rough draft, self-publishing
4 Comments
We are what we wear?
‘Mabels’, they used to be called, at least when (as Caroline Martin) I was being published by Mills and Boon back in the late 70s/early 80s. That stood for ‘Mills and Boon in a Long Skirt’, which was the publishers’ … Continue reading
Posted in Authorial voice, Self-publishing
Tagged changing attitudes, corsets, historical costume, Historical fiction, historical novels, miniskirts, romances, ruffs
1 Comment
Taming the ‘wild child’
Bestselling author Wendy Robertson calls it the ‘wild child’. A good name, I think, for the impulse a writer draws on for the first draft of a new novel. Wendy herself does her first drafts in longhand, with pen and … Continue reading
The critical self-publisher?
Does self-publishing make one more critical of one’s own writing? Or is that something that inevitably comes with age and experience? Maybe it’s simply that most of the books I’ve recently self-published were written long ago (and formerly published by … Continue reading
A Kind of – Ending?
At long last! After almost two years, every one of my out-of-print back titles has at last been scanned, edited, sometimes revised, and finally converted to ebook format. All 19 of them are now launched in the Kindle store, along … Continue reading
A long time to write…
There are a couple of questions writers are often asked – ‘Where do you get your ideas from?’ and ‘How long does it take you to write a book?’ The first question has no definitive answer – except ‘I don’t … Continue reading
Helen Cannam 