Today's guest is Louise Kennedy, author of Trespasses. Set in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, a shattering novel about a young woman caught between allegiance to community and a dangerous passion. Louise joined me to talk about how her own life informed the novel. Also covered: Coming to writing later in life, and short stories vs. novel writing.
Release the Idea of Getting Published and Focus on Your Craft
By: K.E. Bonner
Ruby, my dog, has an internal clock that chimes at exactly four o’clock every afternoon alerting her that it’s time for a walk.
“Let’s see if we can get past Bob,” I say as I struggle to slip the leash over her head because she is dancing with pre-walk glee. Bob is my neighbor and has an international best seller brewing in his brain. He is forever pressing me for the secret to getting published or suggesting that I ghost-write his novel.
“You ready to get started on my book yet?” Bob calls out when he catches sight of Ruby tugging me past his yard. Dried leaves crunch as he walks towards the street.
“It’s hard enough getting my own words on paper, much less yours,” I retort. “You need to write that book yourself.”
Bob lobs his rake from hand to hand so that it passes before his face like a windshield wiper.
“Exactly how hard is it to find an agent?” he asks for the third time this month. I can’t decide if he is teasing me or not, so I ignore the question.
“Have you started writing yet?” I ask.
“No. It’s still in the idea stage, and work has been crazy.” He pushes the rim of his glasses up his nose.
“What’s the plot?” I ask. Ruby roots around, sniffing at the grass at the base of his mailbox.
“How do I know you won’t steal my idea?” He pulls the rake to his shoulder and steps back.
“It’s hard for me to write your book if I don’t know the characters or plot points.” I chuckle, then repeat the advice I’ve given him ten times prior. “Start working on an outline, then a first draft.” Ruby and I begin walking away.
“How long will that take?” He asks.
“A few months,” I shrug. “A year?” How many times do we need to rehash the same conversation?
“I don’t have that long,” he calls after me.
“See you later.” I wave.
“I don’t have time to write his book for him,” I mumble to Ruby, who pants back at me.
Reading taught me how to write. By the time I was forty I’d read approximately three books a month for thirty years. Through literary osmosis I learned story structure, pacing, and characterization. Once I discovered that I loved to write I took classes and attended conferences where I signed up for critiques and pitch sessions. I joined a critique group and bravely read my work aloud every week, only to have my fellow writers tell me to cut out unnecessary descriptions and dialogue. Quickly, I learned to edit and rewrite. Once I got my first draft complete, my critique partner congratulated me then told me to start the second draft from scratch. The discoveries I made about myself while working on my novel were innumerable. I became more observant. When it rained, I ran outside and held my face to the sky taking note of how the raindrops splattered against my cheeks and ran over my jaw in rivulets down my neck. I began to listen, rather than speak. The universe placed fascinating people and hurdles in my way, leading me in new directions. At some point, at a writer’s conference, an editor suggested to the audience that we focus on our craft, and publication would follow. That simple advice rang true for me. Once I released the idea of getting published and made the craft of writing my priority, my writing leveled up. The more I write, the better I get.
K. E. Bonner, author of Witching Moon, was always the first kid to sit down during a spelling bee. It wasn’t until she was an adult that she was diagnosed with dyslexia, which explained why she always had to study three times harder than her peers. Being dyslexic taught her perseverance and kindness, her two favorite attributes. She lives in Georgia with her husband, two sons, and two dogs. When not writing, she loves to read, swim, explore new places, and meet fascinating people. If you have a dog, she would love to scratch behind its ears and tell it what a good pup it is.
Writing Holiday Romances
By: Jenny Bayliss
I sort of fell into writing holiday romances through a love of reading them. Each Christmas my mum and I would buy a holiday romance each, read them, swap, and then discuss, like a book club for two. I hadn’t tried writing romance before I wrote The Twelve Dates of Christmas – unless you count a cringing attempt I made when I was fifteen, after secretly reading Lace by Shirley Conran - if anything, I leaned towards gothic/sci-fi as a writing genre. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to write romance, it was simply that I didn’t know if I could.
I wrote Twelve Dates ostensibly for me and my mum. I wanted to write the joy that I felt when reading holiday fiction. It was my love letter to Christmas. I had no idea that writing about a subject I loved would be the thing which finally enabled me to become a published author. I adore Christmas. Everything about it. The colours, smells, music, cosiness and let’s not forget the food! It is my favourite time of year, not even so much the day itself but the build-up; it’s cold, you can drink hot chocolate with cream and sprinkles at 10am with no judgment and people are nicer to each other. It feels like a hopeful juncture, a small window of time in which we are granted the power to change and become better people if we want it. And it needn’t be limited to Christmas; Jean Meltzer’s The Matzah Ball is a Hanukkah romance which beautifully captures all those holiday feels.
I have a confession to make; I don’t much like summer. There I said it. I prefer the cooler seasons. Spring is exciting, the light it brings after the winter darkness is wonderous and welcome, but for me it is Autumn and Winter that makes my heart sing. Perhaps it is because I am a November baby, born, so I’m told, when the ground was covered in thick white ice. Or maybe it is because of the winters I remember from my childhood; coming home from school on snowy days to hot soup bubbling on the stove and Christmas eve’s which felt so charged with magic that sometimes if I close my eyes and concentrate, I can still feel the tingle of it.
I think to write any genre, you’ve got to love it and that is especially true for a holiday romance. You must evoke all the cosy, physical things about the holidays, and invoke the spirit of the season too. A better writer than me could probably conjure a brilliant holiday romance even if they hated Christmas, but I draw heavily on my unquenchable love of the holidays when I write.
One of the best things about the holidays, from a writer’s perspective, is how contentious they can be. For all the candy-canes and fairy-lights, they can be an emotionally charged time. Alongside the sense of hope that I touched upon earlier, comes a stripping back of our protective layers; if we are to change our futures, we must first come to terms with our pasts, and goodness knows that can be difficult. The ache for those we have loved and lost becomes more acute during the holidays. And let’s not forget the obligatory family get-togethers; all those little niggles, so easily tamped down from a distance, suddenly become sharp and prickly when you are locked in a room together. For me as a writer this juxtaposition of yearning for the elusive most wonderful time of the year set against the myriad of our complex human emotions trying to scupper the whole thing is a gift. It means I can pour all my adoration for the holidays into a story but also root it in truth so that it is not only relatable but the happily ever after – the happily ever after is essential in my mind – feels attainable. After-all, shouldn’t we all be allowed to have a crack at a supremely magical moment?
And therein lies, I think, the reason why holiday romance is such a popular genre; it allows us to dream. The holidays are a wildly busy, often stressful time for most of us and we not only need but deserve a few blissful moments of escapism. Where better to find it than in a book. Like millions of others, I wear many hats in my life; wife, mother, daughter, working woman, chef, cleaner, general fixer of all crises, and sole provider of my families ‘perfect’ Christmas. It is a wonderful life, but it is also bloody exhausting. We turn to holiday books and movies to help get us in the mood and hold us there as we strive to juggle more baubles than a circus performer. Holiday books keep the love light gleaming, as we shop and cook and peace-keep our way through the season. They are the voice that assures us that it will all come good in the end.
In the last few years, between the global pandemic and the world generally feeling as though it is going to hell in a hand basket, I think we are turning more and more to books which make us feel cosy. And why not? We need it! It’s tough out there and if holiday books can bring us some much-needed respite, I say bring it on. I don’t think the recent explosion of holiday novels into the book market is a coincidence. During the first lockdowns I started reading holiday books in September and I didn’t stop until March. Those hopeful romantic novels helped me deal with my anxiety for the outside world. And I don’t think I am alone in that. Whatever your opinions on the holiday romance genre, they are books which sing loud and proud about hope, joy, forgiveness, redemption, and above all love; all the things we need in our emotional toolbox to help change the world for the better.
A former professional cake baker, Jenny Bayliss lives in a small seaside town in the UK with her husband, their children having left home for big adventures. She is also the author of The Twelve Dates of Christmas and A Season for Second Chances.