The Cornflakes that Turned Into Gold- Interview with Roisin Meaney

Today I am thrilled to welcome bestselling Irish novelist Roisin Meaney, acclaimed and much loved author of women’s fiction.

Roisin discovered the power of words when, at the age of 18, she entered a competition she found on the back of a packet of cornflakes. She wrote the winning slogan and won a Ford Fiesta. She then entered every competition she came across that required a slogan and won again and again, from holidays and mountain bikes to air miles and watches. This could in itself have been a career but Roisin was more serious than that, so she became a teacher.

Not finding the fulfillment she wanted in the classroom, Roisin then went on to work in advertising in London, where writing slogans was very much part of her everyday occupation. She found she was good at this, making anything from butter to teabags sexy and appealing. She briefly flirted with writing at this stage and put together a children’s book but after many rejections, gave up on the idea and decided to go back to Ireland and her teaching career.

It was during this time that the urge to try her hand at writing adult fiction became increasingly stronger. When she won a trip to San Francisco (another winning slogan)  where her brother lived, she decided to take a year off to write her first novel.  This turned out to be The Daisy Picker, which earned her a two book deal and the rest is Roisin’s ongoing history.

Eleven years, eight adult novels and two children’s books later,  she is now a full time author. Some of her books have been translated to several languages and two of them have been published in the US. In her owns words, here is her writing life in a nutshell:

I feel I’m doing what I was put on this earth to do. Starting each new book terrifies and thrills me in equal measure – it’s the hardest and most exciting thing I’ve ever done. When I write, time loses significance. I miss appointments, skip meals, forget to feed the cat or put out the bins. My sleep is seriously disrupted as I tease out a plot or tweak a story line  Because I can’t afford to be less than fully alert when I write I’ve resorted to sleeping pills to get me through the broken nights, and have grown quite fond of warm milk before bedtime. Throughout the process of writing a book I’m extremely focused  I get up in the morning and work at the kitchen table till my brain says stop. I always arm myself with a plot before I start: sometimes it’s quite sketchy and I fill in as I go, and other times it veers seriously off-course and ends up miles away from where I was aiming. I become ridiculously attached to my characters as I write and miss them desperately when the book is finished. I’m devastated if someone I’ve grown attached to dies. I often write through floods of tears.  But really, it’s all good. I wouldn’t change a thing. I love being a writer. I get beautiful messages from happy readers. Truly, I am one of the lucky ones.

I asked some of her readers what they would like to know about Roisin and her writing and here are the questions:

Q: What’s it like having books published in the States. Has it made a big difference to your career?

A: Not a whole lot, to be honest. I was thrilled to hear a US publisher was interested in publishing one of my books, and since then they’ve taken another, but apart from those two books being on US bookstore shelves, life has continued pretty much as before! Apparently they’ve sold pretty respectably, and my royalty payments have improved a little as a result (and I’ve got some lovely messages on my website from American and Canadian readers) but apart from that, no change.

Q: Have you got a favourite out of all your books?

A: Um, very hard to say, but if I was tortured until I caved, I’d probably say it’s a tie between Half Seven on a Thursday and One Summer. I loved writing both of those, got totally emotionally involved with the characters, and hated letting them go at the end. Mind you, I feel that way about all the books, but I think slightly more with these two, for some reason.

Q: I would like to know how you keep the thread of your stories when you’re writing, they interweave beautifully and you can see when you look back the relationships developing.

A: The answer to this one is: with a lot of difficulty! I’m not sure how it came about, but somehow my last few books featured a huge cast of characters (in fact, my US editor asked that I cut a few out of The Things We Do for Love, which as you can imagine was no mean feat.) So invariably I tear my hair out regularly as I write, trying to keep track of where everyone is, and what they’re up to. It’s great when it eventually comes together, but I can assure you a lot of blood, sweat and tears is involved…..by contrast, my next book, which is due out in the spring, has just two main characters, with everyone else very much in the background – a very pleasant change, and a lot less hair got torn out!

Q: How do you set the story out to write….for example do you map it out roughly with stick it notes, or just rough notes written to refer to occasionally…do you know the complete plot when you start or does it evolve as you goes along? When you are writing, does the line of the story change often from the line you had first intended? How long does it take you to write a full book (excluding editing etc), and what time per day is devoted to just writing? Do you ever suffer a block where you just sit and nothing comes to mind to write? Do you write the whole story first then go back and edit or do you edit as you go along like Ken Follett has said he does?

A: Before I begin a book I plot it loosely. I deliberately keep it broad and general, because I like to flesh it out as I go, but I always have an ending in sight – having said that, the ending can and does change sometimes. I keep track of the progress as I go in the form of an overview document that sits side by side on my computer screen with the narrative, and in this document I list every scene, the pages they occupy and a summary of what happens, as in ‘p45-48: Nell and Tim argue about living in the room beside the salon’. It sounds tedious but it’s so automatic with me now that it doesn’t cost me a thought, and it’s invaluable if I need to check back on something, or have to tweak something to tie in with a later change. A first draft takes on average six months, and from start to finish a book would probably take up the best part of a year. When I’m in the middle of a book I sit down with it as soon as I finish breakfast and work away until my brain begins to scramble, usually between 6 and 8 hours. I don’t take weekends off as such, but if something comes up and I need to be away from it for a day it doesn’t faze me. Similarly, if I find I’m having a slow day, where not much creativity is happening, I’ll leave it and go back the next day. So far I’ve met my deadlines. When I’m in the mood, and it’s going well, I can get a lot written in a relatively short space of time, so it gives me a bit of leeway for the things that get in the way. I edit as I go, in the sense that before I begin a day’s writing I generally reread what I’ve written the day before and tweak it a bit, and when I come to the end of a draft I’ll go back to page one and go through the entire manuscript again, tightening and polishing as I go. I like to have my drafts as good as they can be before sending them off.

Q: How do you challenge yourself and your writing skills with each new book? How would you say your writing has developed since you wrote your very first novel (which won the competition)?

A: I think, and sincerely hope, that with each book I develop a little as a writer – partly going on the ‘practice makes perfect’ principle and partly because with each rewrite of a book (following my editor’s recommendations) I feel I learn a little more about what not to do, or what to try and avoid in the next book. I think my first book was very much a learner book – when I open it now (which I try to avoid doing) I cringe at the overwriting. I said much more than needed to be said. Maybe that’s the biggest thing I’ve learnt – not to tell the reader everything, to let her figure it out for herself.  I try to show rather than tell, and to leave a little unsaid.

Q: What would you say is the most challenging and difficult aspect of creating a novel that works?

A: Creating believable characters. If you can do that, I think they’ll help to give you story lines  I spend a long time getting to know my characters before I begin a book – I give them faces and backgrounds and personalities and families. I can’t write about people I don’t know. My characters come first, always have.

Q: How do you feel about this special ability you have to touch so many people’s lives?

A: It’s lovely to feel that something I write might brighten someone’s day – I’m humbled and delighted when I get a message in my guestbook from readers who take the time to let me know that they liked one of my books. I feel grateful to have been gifted with the ability to write stories that please, and I live in hope that I can continue to do it for a long time to come.

Many thanks to Roisin for this interesting interview. You can find out more about her and her books on her website

Thoughts under a face mask

During my recent visit to America, I had what is now known as a ‘virgin experience’. No, not THAT kind but a ‘first’ in my life all the same. A facial. I had never had one, I confessed to my US BF (=American best  friend) when we were discussing beauty treatments and who had had what ‘done’ (aka plastic surgery). “Me? I have never even had a facial,” I said in a throw-away remark. US BF bounced across the room (metaphorically speaking) in shock and awe and stared at me as if  I had just announced I had never been to the dentist. “What?” she exclaimed, “are you serious?”

I nodded, slightly taken aback by her reaction. “I, uh, exfoliate and tone and do all that stuff at home.”

Now she looked as if I extracted my own teeth. “You can’t go on like this. You need help.” She picked up the phone and immediately connected with her beautician, who she had on speed dial. “Irina?” she said. “I have a friend here who needs immediate attention. Pause. US BF: “I know you’re booked up but… but… THIS WOMAN HAS NEVER HAD A FACIAL.” Another pause. “Yes, that’s right she is a virgin,” US BF continued with a giggle.  Then they both agreed I needed urgent attention and was booked in for that afternoon.

I was delivered to the salon half an hour later and was greeted by Irina, who, with a strong Russian accent, invited me into the treatment room, told me to strip to my waist, put on a towel and a head band, scrape my hair back and lie down on the couch. I nervously obeyed orders. Irina put out the light and switched on a spotlight and proceeded to examine my face. “What is this…stuff?” she asked,  scraping at my chin with a spatula, “some kind of self tan?”

“It’s a real suntan,” I said, knowing I had just confessed to a deadly sin. “I spend a lot of time outdoors, swimming and walking and so on.”

“A suntan?” Irina exclaimed with a shudder. “Have you never heard of sunblock?”

“Yes, of course,” I said, “I do put it on but, well, it could be that it comes off with sweat and water.”

“Uh, okay,” Irina mumbled. “You seem to have quite sallow skin though despite your fair hair. This is very strange.”

I felt like joking that I was an alien from outer space but, being slightly nervous of Russians wielding spatulas, I changed my mind. “I’m from Sweden and Scandinavians usually do have quite dark skin despite our fair hair.”

Irina was not impressed. “I’m going to peel off the dead skin,” she said, ” and then I will put on a hydrating mask and then apply a very strong Vitamin C lotion that will boost your cell renewal.”

Needless to say, the peeling off dead skin, followed by squeezing blackheads, was not a walk in the park. I endured it all without screaming out loud, of which I am quite proud. But after the suffering came the reward; the hydrating mask. When she had applied this, Irina dimmed the lights, put on classical music and left the room, telling me to relax for twenty minutes. “Go to sleep if you want,” she suggested.

The moment the door closed behind her, I felt my whole body slump in a kind of after-shock relaxation state. Not exactly falling asleep, I nevertheless went into some kind of meditation mode, where my mind drifted.  I felt as if I was floating and I went through all kinds of things I had experienced during the past few months. I started a conversation with myself, where the sensible part of me analyzed what the immature, impetuous, impulsive part had done and said and felt.  What I had written. What I had said to people. Decisions I had made.  People I had foolishly connected with online. Things that had troubled me and had been at the back of my mind were suddenly vivid and important and demanding to be dealt with. And I did. One by one, each issue was sorted, rejected or filed away in the right compartment.  As the last notes of the nocturne by Chopin faded away, I slowly woke up, feeling not only physically cleansed but mentally spring-cleaned, exfoliated, toned and ready to start afresh.

When Irina came back and finished off the treatment  I got off that couch, feeling as if I was stepping into a new, uncluttered life, reborn, stronger and ready to go out there and face the world again.

“Don’t forget to exfoliate,” Irina ordered, as I walked into the sunshine, my face glowing and my spirits soaring.

“Promise,” I said, feeling suddenly very fond of her. She had, after all, cleansed all of me.

Will I do it again? Will I spend what it would cost to have dinner in an expensive restaurant scraping dead skin off my face?  Definitively.  Life needs a good going over now and then.

The next big thing

I’ve been tagged in The Next Big Thing by fellow writer Emily Harvale, who writes terrific womens’ fiction. I’m instructed to tell you all about my next book by answering these questions and then to tag five other authors about their Next Big Thing. So here I go!

What is the working title of your next book?

Virtual Suspects.

Where did the idea come from for the book?

This is the sequel to my first co-written detective story, Virtual Strangers, that I wrote with fellow author Ola Zaltin. The idea or perhaps, the theme, in our books, came about because we met on the Internet on a writers’ site to be precise. We wanted to explore the connections people make online, how you can become strangely intimate and even fall in love with someone you have never met. And when you do meet, like the man and woman in the story, there is a strange feeling of having met before, of knowing each other intimately, even though you have never seen each other in the flesh.
What genre does your book fall under?

Romantic suspense/detective

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

Jude Law would make a great Seabee. And maybe Reese Witherspoon for Annika?

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book? 

Two former lovers meet after long absence and, being suspected of murder, team up to solve the mystery in the frozen north.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

It will be self published as an e-book.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

8 months

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

Virtual Strangers, which is the first of this series.

Who or What inspired you to write this book?

As I said above, the intrigue of people meeting on the Internet and online friendships that become real have always interested me.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

Possibly the Swedish setting and the Scandinavian crime element.

Here are some lovely authors I’ve tagged to tell you about their Next Big Thing!

Donna Fasano
Sean Sweeney
Mary McDonald
Heikki Hietala
Pete Morin

What is Twitter really for?

I have 386 followers on Twitter. This may not seem a lot to those who have 6000 or more but to me, it does. 386 human beings-okay one or two are companies, radio stations or websites-feel I am worth following on this social media platform, space, outlet, soap box or whatever you want to call it, out there in cyberspace.  They want to follow ME? They want to see my posts about anything and nothing? They are seriously interested in my sayings and doings and want to hang on my every word? That’s what I thought when I first started tweeting a year or so ago. And then, I tried my best to entertain these followers who had made such an effort to find me. How? And why? Had they seen my picture on my website and fallen in love with me? Or had they seen some of my posts on writers’ websites and found me incredibly witty? Probably a combination of those and other things, I thought, which gave me a warm, fuzzy feeling of love towards my followers. I was POPULAR, I thought.

But then, slowly, painfully, I realised that it was the OTHER way around. All those followers wanted ME to follow them, that’s why they follow me in the first place. They wanted me to listen to what they had to say and didn’t even notice my cute little posts. Just like ‘friends’ on Facebook, ‘followers’ is just a term for… well, people on the Internet connecting with you for different reasons, mostly selling. To you. And I do the same. To them.

Most people, as I understand it anyway, are on Twitter because of marketing (aka selling stuff). Just like me. They, or maybe I should say we,  sell stuff . On the Internet. We want to attract attention to our stuff, so we have to raise our Internet profile in order for our stuff to be noticed. So that those who want to buy the stuff that we have for sale can see us. And we have to make sure we tell them about our stuff in such a way that the public out there realise that ours is a lot better than anyone else’s… Now, a lot of people will say this is not so, they are on Twitter to express their opinions or to connect with the world or announce important news or discuss politics or say angry things about celebrities. Or event to be nice and say thank you for things other people have done for them. Of course. That too. But mostly it’s about selling stuff.

You see, we are told (or advised) to use social media for marketing. Everybody says that’s what you should do, especially if you are an Indie author. And anyone who knows me would also know that, short of lying down in front of a truck or posing naked in a big city department store window, I’d do anything for a bit of publicity. I have flaunted myself and my books on lots of websites, boards and fora, even where I shouldn’t have, in ways that were perhaps less than discreet. As a newbie, I spent a lot of time and effort doing this, thinking I would gain readers and raise the old profile. And maybe I did succeed to some degree.  Maybe all that effort resulted in sales for a while.  But you can’t keep this sort of thing up forever. At least I can’t. I  got tired and bored with it all. My tweets were few and far between and I went back to doing what I enjoy; writing. My posts on writers’ sites are now fairly random, concentrating on those that discuss the writing craft, life in general and anything that excites me as a writer.  In fact, I mostly post on a new site that has all of that. It’s called the Writers Bistro .

I had been away from Twitter for  while but kept getting e-mails to say I have new followers. So on a whim, I had a look what was going on. Well, it was the same old thing, writers telling me about their books. Okay, I know there is a whole science attached to Tweeting. You are supposed to use # before names of groups or outfits or websites so that you get noticed there. I know I am very BAD at Tweeting, I know I should retweet and get retweeted over and over again and all my writer colleagues will help me if I help them. I know a lot of my writer friends will not agree with what I’m saying here. They will say that they get lots of readers and sales and gain friends and influence people through Twitter. I’m sure they do, too.  Which makes me feel I’ve failed somewhere, that there is a part of my being an Indie author that I’m not doing right. I’m sure that’s true.  But isn’t life too short to do things you don’t enjoy?

Don’t get me wrong. Twitter is a wonderful invention.  But only for those who know how to work it.

Thank you for reading this post. And if you want, you can follow me on Twitter…

After all of that… Let’s Agree to Disagree and- Many Thanks to James Piper

I know that I  stepped on some toes in my last blog post. Which was not really my intention but being impulsive,  I often rush in where angels fear to tread.  Lots of comments, opinions, arguing and a little sniping. It was looking a little scary there for a while (and maybe it still is). The discussion is still going on if you care to follow it (I don’t. I’m hiding behind the sofa, being a big chicken).  And if not, you might  take a look at the video below which, I feel,  takes the argument to a whole new level.

Many thanks to  the wonderful Canadian writer James Piper who stepped in with some very interesting comments. Having lived and worked in Sweden, he probably felt a certain empathy with my dilemma. He is also extremely well read on the subject of the different types of English and posted this YouTube video in the comments section. But I felt it was too good not to highlight more so here it is. I urge everyone who has strong opinions on the subject to watch and get a good laugh.

You say Tomayto and I say Tomahto… Colo(u)r me confuzed

England and America are two countries divided by a common language. - George Bernard Shaw

Like all Europeans, I was taught the English language as it is spoken in the country of its origin:England. I was drilled in spelling, grammar and punctuation for many years, having my fingers slapped when I made mistakes and made to write each misspelled word ten times. In this way, British English was tattooed into my brain. When I started writing professionally, I thought that this would be a great asset. Indeed, when I worked with editors at publishing houses in Ireland, I was complimented on my clean copy and my good spelling skills. I thought then, that spelling the  British way correctly would be a  good thing when I launched my books into the e-book market. This turned out to be a mistaken assumption.

Naturally, having read a lot of American books, I know English is spelled differently in America. This never bothered me, nor did it ever ruin my enjoyment of a book. I had no idea that my British spelling would become such an issue with readers over there. I found out very quickly, however, that British spelling is considered by many Americans at best, wrong and at worst, stupid.  American readers would sometimes give me bad reviews for spelling “nearly every word” wrong. “Everyone knows that cozy is not spelled ‘cosy’”, one reviewer mocked. “Jewellery is not spelled like that even in Britain,” another sneered. Well, excuse me, it is. I use the Oxford Dictionary when uncertain about spelling and also when being slapped down about certain words. Maybe reviewers should check it too before they criticise? I am not talking about typos, which are found in practically every book and, indeed, are present to some extent in mine.

I noticed that some of my American writer friends are very annoyed when they read English books, one of them saying that “the Brits are allergic to the letter z.” And that “they have a mania for inserting the letter u where it doesn’t belong” (as in colour and favour).

Well, hello? They inserted absolutely nothing. The English spoken in Britain is the original version, is it not?

Why did Americans tinker with the English language and then say it is the only right way to spell? The British have been incredibly kind and patient not to start a political conflict after having their beautiful language “simplified” in this way. I know for a fact that British readers swallow American spelling with great tolerance and patience and hardly ever complain or call anything with American spelling a “mistake”. So I feel slightly bewildered by the militant attitude of Americans when confronted with British spelling.

I know that America is a huge melting pot and that the English language has been greatly influenced by people from all over the world, adding their touch and making the language richer in many ways. Europeans and British people are aware of this and have, in a way, become bilingual when it comes to the different ways of spelling and speaking. Why then can Americans not show the same tolerance? Why do American readers not accept that British spelling is the original version?

Feeling confused and a little bruised, I decided to ask my fellow writer Rags Daniels what his take is on all of this and how he, as an Englishman, feels about having his language tinkered with by foreigners.

 Questions:

 Me: Why did Americans remove the ‘u’ in so many words? And why did they change the letter s to z in realise, analyse, compromise and other similarly spelled words?

Rags: Simply because they felt a need to create a nations history by destroying the etymology of the English language and creating their own. Thereby casting aside thousands of years of refinement and going back to cave painting by fulfilling the need to add ‘smileys’ to express their feelings.

Me: I see. But I like smileys… They make me happy… And there are, to be honest, some great sayings and expressions used by Americans that are very amusing and colo(u)rful. Which the British borrow and use with great abandon. Is this not like cherry picking? It seems a little mean to take their best sayings and then dismissing what we don’t like, doesn’t it?

But apart from the spelling, I also find their vocabulary very strange. Americans don’t remember, they “recall”, they don’t suppose, they “guess”. They call autumn “fall” and they don’t go on holiday but have “vacations”. They never wear trousers or knickers and call track suits “sweats”. Those are just a few things that differ to the English spoken across the pond.

Rags….To reiterate, ‘American English’ is a lazy man’s English. And when one has been taught, as you have, in the use of  hundreds of years of  language refinement, only to see it decimated  by a people lacking in the art of perfectionism, one can only assume it a desperate attempt at breaking with tradition and deliberately creating a mulligatawny of linguistic nuances.

Me: But that is surely not a bad thing? Mulligatawny is a delicious soup with many flavo(u)rs, is it not? So, in conclusion, we Europeans and Brits, don’t mind the odd Mexican spice or a little African herb. But Americans don’t go for British bangers and mash, or even roast beef with horseradish… Are we all going to end up in Mc Donald’s?

What is the solution? What is going to happen to the English language? Will there eventually be some kind of amalgamation of the two that we can all accept? Maybe like text speak? As in: cu l8er? Imagine a whole novel written like this. Seems impossible right now. But it might be the language of the future.

Tread carefully through cyberspace. You don’t know who you might meet

Did you ever want to cast off? Did you ever want to sail into the sunset with someone you just met; a kindred spirit, a twin soul, leaving everything behind? It is possible in the virtual world of the Internet, which can become a comfort zone you’ll never want to leave. And then you might want to meet that person with whom you have become strangely intimate. But reality is never as lovely as the dream. Be careful what you wish for…

That’s the very first paragraph of Virtual Strangers, a romantic suspense novel  I co-wrote with Ola Zaltin, an author who I met in the virtual world of a writers’ site.

At the time, I was only just dipping my toe into the deep, dark waters of the Internet, that ‘place’ that is not physical, not ‘real’ but still so much part of our existence these days. But then, when I was just discovering cyberspace, I was completely unaware of its powers or its addictive qualities. I had no idea that you can actually get to know someone and become close friends simply by chatting online. Nor did I know that you can get attacked and seriously upset by trolls and other nasty people who use the written world as a very effective weapon. All this I discovered very quickly and I experienced all of the above. As a writer, I found this fascinating and thought I would one day write a novel on this subject.

Ola and I became virtual friends very quickly, probably because we were both Swedes living abroad, even though I am a novelist and he is a very talented script writer with an impressive career. We spent something like a year chatting on this site, where Ola so elegantly dismissed the bullies that tried to virtually attack me. We also had a kind of ‘gang’ of writers who sparked off each other and spent entire evenings exchanging highly amusing repartee. Then Ola and I met in real life and he became a real person to me and a real, very close friend and collaborator. I don’t think we could have worked together had we not me in the flesh. But that was much later and we were already working together online.

As we developed the plot and connected on Facebook, I began to realise that this virtual socialising is very seductive and that it can become a kind of escape from the dreariness of one’s real life. This made me think that it would be interesting to explore the question of real versus virtual life and how some people possibly create a completely different online persona to that of their real life. My heroine, Annika, is just such a person, seeking an escape from her own horrible reality and creating an online, other ‘self’ that has a more interesting life. She gets the socialising she lacks from her virtual friends and foolishly connects with all the wrong people with frightening and disastrous results.

Cyberspace is a kind of digital sub-culture where many of us ‘live’. Ask yourself this question: Are you better looking online? Younger? Happier?  More popular? Are you better educated and have a slightly better standard of living? Of course not, you are totally honest, just like everybody else…

When Ola and I discussed the plot of the book, we felt we wanted to bring in that threat on a personal level that can often be felt on the Internet. We wanted to make the readers feel we were looking at them through their window as they sit at their computer in their underwear or pyjamas. We also wanted to create a story where virtual life spills into the real world. As it probably often does.

And… you really should get dressed. That dressing gown isn’t very becoming…