cora’s christmas kiss

In which Cora gets shortlisted for an award

Yesterday the shortlists for the RoNA Awards were announced, and (cue much jumping up and down and squealing) Cora’s Christmas Kiss is shortlisted for the RoNA Rose prize for best short or series romance. Here it is alongside the other four shortlisted titles:

Being shortlisted for the RoNAs is ridiculously exciting. The RNA, which organises the RoNA awards, is the organisation that made me think that maybe I could be a writer. Doing my degree in creative writing was what made me determined that I wanted to try, but it was the RNA that made me think it might actually be possible.

It was through the RNA that I met fantastic, inspirational working writers like Julie Cohen, Rowan Coleman, and Katie Fforde. It was through an RNA party that I first met my current publisher, and off the back of a really constructive RNA New Writers’ Scheme report that I actually got up the nerve to submit my first manuscript to her. It was through the RNA’s local chapter groups that I made some of my closest writing friends (one of whom – the utterly fab Janice Preston – is also nominated in the same category). So to be shortlisted in the RoNAs is particularly pleasing. It’s like having an especially valued teacher or a mentor tell you that you did ok. In her own post about the RoNAs Liz Fenwick describes the RNA as her tribe, and I can’t think of a better way of putting it. Although writing is, in many ways, a disgustingly solitary endeavour, it takes a village to get a book from idea to publication – especially a first book – and the RNA were my village.

It’s also particularly pleasing to see Cora’s Christmas Kiss shortlisted for this award. Cora has already had one shortlisting for the Love Stories Awards, and I’m ridiculously proud of the positive response to the book. While I was writing Cora the book had the working title of ‘Ridiculously Complicated and Stupidly Over-Plotted Novella’ and the moments of self-doubt as to whether I could pull off the idea that I had were many, deep and lasting. Part of me thinks that I shouldn’t need the validation of shortlistings and nice reviews, but I really really do. Ultimately books are for readers, not for writers, so hearing that readers liked a book is both massively gratifying and a huge relief.

So there you go. I’m quite excited, and prone to much giddiness at the moment – I haven’t even started on the list of people who’ve previously won RoNAs (JoJo Moyes, Jenny Colgan, Veronica Henry to name just three – squeeeee!) Anyway, I do hope you’ll excuse the light gushing.

I hope you’ll also excuse me mentioning that there are still places on my June Developing Your Novel Workshop and the May Novel Writing Retreat I’m running with Janet Gover, and that they’re both now taught by a RoNA nominee so are totally better value than they were yesterday…

In which writerly things always happen in threes

That post title is a lie. Writerly things don’t always happen in threes, but this is a post about writerly things and there are three of them, and I’m a creative type and thus prone to exaggeration.

Anyhow, ‘what writerly things?’ you cry. Well these writerly things actually. All three of them.

1. Cora’s Christmas Kiss is shortlisted for an award

Great excitement and joy I tell you. I’m particularly pleased to see this book in the running for an award. I absolutely don’t have favourites amongst my own books. It’s terribly poor form and makes the other books sad, but I have a real soft spot for Cora and Liam, and for Cora’s random bonkers housemates, so it’s lovely to see that other people are loving them too.

Cora is shortlisted in the Love Stories Awards Best Short Romance category along side some awesome writers including my RNA buddies Jean Fullerton and Nikki Moore. The awards are presented in London town on November 18th. Yay!

2. I’ve been allowed out of the house

Writing is often a rather solitary activity so it was very exciting last week to spend a couple of days staying with my writing chum, Janet Gover, and talking all things writing and book related with a real human being, rather than just shouting plot ideas at the wall on my own.

And on Saturday is was trebly exciting to venture even further afield to go and chat about romance writing on a panel of Choc Lit authors at Redbridge Central Library.

The main excitement amongst the panel was discovering that some people approach this writing malarkey completely wrong. By which I mean that we all do it differently and that is of course completely fine and lovely (but my way is right.)

3. And finally, Midsummer Dreams news!

The paperback edition of my second full length novel, Midsummer Dreams, will be out early next spring.

Now, I absolutely don’t have favourites amongst my own books *whistles innocently* It’s terribly poor form and makes the other books sad, but I have a real soft spot for Emily, Helen, Dom and Alex, and for dopey Nick and lovely Theo and Tanya, so it’s rather exciting that non-ereading people are going to get the chance to hold Midsummer Dreams in their hot little hands and get to know all those characters as well. You can pre-order the paperback here.

And that’s all my news. Join me next week when I’ll endeavour to find something way more interesting than my own life to witter on about.

In which I reread an old classic

I’m currently rereading Emily Bronte’s masterpiece, Wuthering Heights. It’s probably the fourth or fifth time I’ve read the book – the first was when I was about 17, and the most recent was seven or eight years ago when I read it as part of my Creative Writing degree course. Having read it so many times and studied it at university I would have said, with confidence, that Wuthering Heights was a novel I knew pretty well, but here’s a newsflash from the current rereading: it’s absolutely nothing like I remember it. There are whole sections that I don’t remember at all, and some of the bits I thought I did remember are quite quite different from how I remembered them. This is odd, because it’s, obviously, still the same book. In fact, in this case, it’s physically, literally, actually the same book that I’ve read before, but the experience of reading it is completely different.

I think there are reasons for this, and I don’t think any of them are that aliens have come to earth and rewritten bits of Wuthering Heights, which is a shame, because that would have made an awesome blog post.

The non-alien related reasons are twofold:

1. I’ve changed

Well given that the book hasn’t changed, that leaves the reader as the only remaining variable, so if the thing I’m looking at isn’t different, but the experience of looking is, then that must be down to me. The things I’m picking up on during this reading are far more to do with the characters and far less to do with the brooding atmosphere and oppressive moor. This might be because I’ve moved on as a writer since I last read the book, and am currently fixated by character in terms of how I plot and revise my own writing. I’m noticing, for the first time, how complex, and essentially unpleasant, the minor characters are. Joseph, Nellie Dean, Mr Lockwood are all astonishingly self-involved in their own different ways.

I’m also noticing how dated the prose style is, and how slow the opening chapters are, which I don’t remember picking up on before. I’m actually quite impressed with my seventeen-year-old self for sticking with it. Again – that’s the writer in me coming through, and noticing deviations from the contemporary received wisdom about how to start and pace a novel.

It’s not the first time I’ve had a book change in front of me on rereading. I started Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day about eight times and couldn’t get past the first chapter, until one random day when I sat down and read about two-thirds of the book in one sitting. The book hadn’t changed, but something about my mood on that one given day married with the story and away we went together.

2. Some novels end up bigger than the novel itself

Wuthering Heights is the poster book for novels that exist in the public imagination in a completely different form from how the are on the page. Wuthering Heights has been adapted and retold in films, on TV, in musicals (thanks for that Cliff), and nearly all the retellings underplay the bleakness of the original novel. Somehow that perception of Wuthering Heights as a romantic story of star-crossed lovers on a windswept, but ultimately picturesque, moor, seeps into our consciousness, even if we’ve read the actual book and know it isn’t really like that. The idea of Heathcliff and Cathy as a slightly more consumptive Romeo and Juliet is stuck in our collective memories, even if none of us actually remember where it came from.

So there you go. Wuthering Heights – it’s not at all how you think you remember it. After this I shall be going to see Romeo and Juliet again with fingers crossed that I might have misremembered that ending. In the meantime, feel free to chat to me in the comments. What do you think of Wuthering Heights? Are there any books that have surprised you on rereading, or have turned out to be completely different from your expectations?

And finally, a quick reminder that my new Christmas Kisses novella, Cora’s Christmas Kiss, is out now for kindle.

In which I have a shiny new book out

Waaah, and indeed, yippedee-do-daaa. It is beyond exciting to be able to confirm that my new novella, the second Christmas Kiss story, Cora’s Christmas Kiss, is now available for kindle pre-order. It’ll be live and properly available from 4th December.

Hurrah! Let the festive, romantic, joyousness be unrestrained.

And just for you lovely blog reading types, here’s what the cover looks like.

Like all my covers, so far, it was designed by the awesome Berni Stevens. Thank you Berni for doing such a great job.

So there you go, that’s lovely Cora launched into the world. I hope people enjoy reading about her.

In which things are published, or almost nearly imminently published

Some time has passed since my last blog post. Traditionally at this point I offer some sort of excuse or random self-flagellation for my failure in this area. Today I’m going to go down the excuse route. You see, there was this dog and it ate my homework right off the computer screen, or possibly it was a magpie and it stole my keyboard’s unusually shiny semi-colon key, and I do like a semi-colon so that was very limiting, or maybe I became briefly obsessed with watching old episodes of The Biggest Loser on youtube even though it is unquestionably terrible for my soul and wasn’t able to write blogpost because of all the time that took up. At least one of those things is true. Or possibly all. Anyhow I’m back now. Let’s get on.

This week I shall mainly be sharing news of recent and upcoming publications for they are cropping up all over the place and there is much excitement chez Alison.

I’m going to kick off with a short story anthology I’m super-proud to be involved with. The Write Romantics who are either a single multi-headed romance writing creature from another dimension, or a group of lovely individual romance writers who blog together and support one another (it’s definitely one of those) have put together a short story anthology in aid of The Cystic Fibrosis Trust and The Teenage Cancer Trust. I was terribly flattered to be asked to contribute a story, and I pretty much will do anything if sufficient flattery is offered. My story is ‘The Handsome Stranger’, and like all the stories included, it’s has a vaguely wintery or festive theme.

The anthology, ‘Winter Tales’, is available to pre-order for kindle now and will be available in paperback later this month. You can also join the Write Romantics at their online launch party this Saturday (8th Nov 1pm-3pm) where there will be competitions and much virtual wine drunk, and possibly real wine, but you’ll need to provide that for yourself.

Secondly, two more short story anthologies. It’s a little bit late in the day, but if some of you want an excuse to keep hold of your pumpkins (oddly not a euphemism) a little bit longer, you can still download or order the Halloween anthology, Hocus Pocus ’14, that I was involved in back in October. My story, Haunted House, is about a young divorcee, Melly, her best friend, Max, and an interfering old man called Ebenezer. As it’s a Halloween story, at least one of those three is, unfortunately, dead.

The final short story anthology I want to tell you about is Kisses and Cupcakes, from my publisher, Choc Lit, which features short stories and fantastic recipes from eighteen Choc Lit authors, including my good self. My story is ‘Imperfect Timing’ and it features a couple of characters that you might get to meet again next year. Possibly… I’ve also included the most awesome cupcake recipe in the whole wide world. Kisses and Cupcakes is available to download now.

And finally… drumroll please… my second Christmas Kiss novella is nearly ready to be launched onto an unsuspecting world. Cora’s Christmas Kiss is going through its final tweaks and edits at the moment. We’re finalising the cover design, and it should be available to order very soon indeed. Squeeee! In the meantime I recommend that you all prepare yourselves fully by downloading book 1, Holly’s Christmas Kiss, forthwith.

*takes a deep breath* So there you go. That’s all my publication news at the moment. And with that I shall stop thinking about books that are already written and turn my attention back to the books that are yet to come.