A post about how apparently unrelated day jobs can help hone your writing skills
It’s never too late to start writing
In a recent WhatsApp discussion with some author friends, we were talking about starting writing relatively late in life. One kindly said to me, “Oh, but you’re a natural”, assuming that my capacity for storytelling had got off to a flying start without any training in 2017 when I published my first novel.
I explained to her that spending decades in a series of day jobs had honed my writing skills, giving me a head start when I began to write fiction. Composing news stories, features and articles as a journalist, and brochures, website copy and press releases in public relations provided a fine apprenticeship in writing prose. Oh, and my degree in English and Related Literature probably didn’t do me any harm either!
This year, my last blog post of every month will be a conversation with one of my author friends, talking about an aspect of their writing life that I hope will interest my readers too.
Today I’m delighted to welcome JJ Marsh. Jill is a prolific author of critically acclaimed thrillers set all over Europe and also in South America.
This year, my last blog post of every month will be a conversation with one of my author friends, talking about an aspect of their writing life that I hope will interest my readers too.
Meet my friend Alison Morton!
This month, thriller writer Alison Morton is my guest. Alison and I have had parallel careers as novelists, with us each writing two series, all falling under the broad heading of crime fiction. But whereas mine is lighthearted cozy mystery set in the comfy Cotswolds, Alison’s is serious stuff, pan-European thrillers, one series of modern stories, and the other alternative history.
I’m always interested in what Alison’s up to, but the reason I’ve invited her onto my blog today is that she is celebrating the launch of her eleventh Roma Nova book: Exsilium.
But where’s Roma Nova? I hear you cry!
Alison, if Roma Nova were a real country, how would its Wikipedia entry read?
Alison:
Roma Nova (ˈrɒmə ˈnəʊvə), officially Colonia Apuliensis Roma Nova is a landlocked Latin-speaking country located in the Eastern European Alps. It borders New Austria and Italy. Roma Nova is a semi-constitutional monarchy headed by an imperatrix who rules in association with an appointed Senate and an elected People’s Assembly.
With an area of 2,950 square kilometers (1140 sq mi), it supports a population of 1.5 million (2019). Economically, Roma Nova has one of the highest gross domestic products per capita in the world based on mining and processing minerals, especially silver, powerful technology and engineering sectors, financial services and specialist agricultural exploitation. It maintains military national service and a unique matrilineal social structure. It belongs to the European Economic Area and the United Nations and often acts as an intermediary between nations.
Alison enjoying a visit to Virunum, the real-life location for her fictitious Roma Nova
Alison:You might also like to read this tourist guide to Roman Nova, written by a certain Claudia Dixit, which I’ve shard on my blog here:
Debbie: That’s great fun, thank you! Now, speaking as someone who has written two series of novels in chronological order – the first seven Sophie Sayers books run the course of a village year from one summer to the next, and the Gemma Lamb series, when complete, will cover an academic year, with two books per term – I am intrigued by the more complex order in which you wrote your books. Please enlighten us!
Alison: this chart gives a clear picture of when each book was published, when it was set, and where it falls in the chronological order of the series.
Title and date published
Time story set
Chronological order
INCEPTIO – March, 2013
Approx 2010
7
PERFIDITAS – October 2013
2016
9
SUCCESSIO – May 2014
2023/4
10
AURELIA – May 2015
1968/9
3
INSURRECTIO – April 2016
1984/5
5
RETALIO – April 2017
1986/7
6
CARINA (novella) – November 2017
2013
8
ROMA NOVA EXTRA (stories) – October 2018
AD370-2029
Mixed
NEXUS (novella) – September 2019
Mid 1970s
4
JULIA PRIMA – August 2022
AD 370
1
EXSILIUM – February 2024
AD 383-395
2
And here are the covers in all their glory!
The complete works of Alison Morton, across both her series of thrillers
Debbie:How did you come to write the Roma Nova novels in this order? Was it a process that evolved or did you plan it this way from the start?
Alison: Totally chaotic and unplanned! In late 2009, I set out to write a book to express ideas I’d had bubbling in my head for decades – Romans, woman hero, military, thrilling story with a dollop of romance. That was Inceptio. Before it was even polished up and when I was ignorant of the publishing and book world, I had written the manuscript of Perfiditas. The characters were starting to push me to write the ‘what happened next?’’ story so I wrote Successio, which brought in the next generation. I thought that was it. Trilogy done.
Then Aurelia, the elder stateswoman mentor of Carina, the heroine of my trilogy, started nagging me, so I had to write her story, Aurelia. But what had she done in the Great Rebellion the other characters kept going on about? What were the secrets of her younger self? So I went back to 1968 and the series time anomaly opened…
I ended up writing about the Great Rebellion in Insurrectio and the resolution in Retalio. Right, that was it! No more.
Then every one of my writer friends started writing novellas.
Debbie:Guilty! I confess!
Alison: I had a nagging feeling there were gaps in my trilogies when we knew nothing of the lives the Roma Novans were living between the books. Why didn’t I have a go at some short fiction for a change?
Carinain 2017 filled in a gap between Inceptio and Perfiditas and highlighted the conflict of duty, love and loyalty and Nexusin 2018 filled the fourteen-year gap between Aurelia and Insurrectio and set up a few things for Retalio. Both were short at 38,000 words.
In between, I put together eight short stories that really blasted the time continuum apart, varying between AD370 to 2029 in the future!
Why did I go back into the deep past of the late fourth century with Julia Prima and now Exsilium? Because the fans kept on asking me. And it was fun to write straight historical fiction.
Debbie: With the publication of Exsilium, do you now recommend readers new to your series start with that book, or is it better to read them in the order you wrote them? I know they all work as standalone novels too.
Alison:It doesn’t really matter. I’ve woven in references between all the books, so those reading from start to finish of the will enjoy little ‘Easter eggs’ (and possibly go, ‘Aha!’) when they see the connections. Perhaps the four Carina books set in the present – Inceptio, Carina, Perfiditas, and Successio – could be read in succession as could the 1960s/80s group of Aurelia, Nexus, Insurrectio, and Retalio. Historical fiction fans might like to start with Julia Primaand Exsilium.
Debbie:With my novels, I’ve had my sights set on the very specific genre of cozy mystery all along, although there are strong romantic and comic elements too. By contrast, the Roma Nova novels bend and blend genres. Some are purely historical novels, and others are alternative history (or alternate history, as our American friends term it) – although of course all ‘althist’ must at least be founded on historical fact. What are the challenges of mixing up the genres within a single series?
Alison: This goes back to what we discussed earlier – chaos! I had no idea that the standard approach was writing in a set genre. I just wanted to write my story.
It dawned on me later that that the book world, especially marketing and selling, ran on strict structural lines. So it’s been a very difficult marketing road.
But once people read one in the series, they very often go on to buy all the others and I’ve had some very heart-warming emails and letters from readers expressing their love for Roma Nova.
That I’ve touched people, and sometimes inspired them, works for me.
Debbie: Sometimes, to both readers and writers, it can feel as if a series has gone on too long. The best writing advice I’ve heard on that score is from our mutual friend, Orna Ross, who told me, “One must be careful not to keep writing the same book over again”, and every time I plot a new addition to my series, I bear that advice in mind. You’ve obviously found a very good way of keeping each novel fresh by changing the timeframe. What other advice would you offer to aspiring authors planning to write series?
Alison: I say this with no irony – plan! I don’t mean a hard and fast structure for your series, but work out a setting/book world that can absorb a lot of different stories.
The second thing is not to write one book, then go slightly more outrageous in the next one, and by Book 10, you’re over the limits of probability and into space cowboys.
Thirdly, interlink the books in some way apart from ‘what happened next’.
Lastly, NEVER finish one book in a series with a cliff-hanger.
Debbie: The Roma Nova novels span many centuries, taking us up to the present day. Would you ever consider writing a speculative futuristic take on Roma Nova? Any thoughts on how that might pan out?
Alison:I wandered a few years into the future in ‘Allegra – An Unusual Love Story’, one of the short stories in the Roma Nova Extra collection and quite enjoyed that, so something to think about. In the future, of course.
Debbie:Anchored firmly in the present is your contemporary Mélisende pan-European thriller series, which currently stands at two books, Double Identityand Double Pursuit. Are you tempted to write a prequel for Mélisende that would take us back in time in that series too?
Ah! I have. ‘The Sand Beneath Her Feet’ is a short story exclusively available as part of a thank-you ebook for signing up to my newsletter. It tells of Mel’s last mission before leaving the French Army. Like many a thriller, it all blows up in her face.
Debbie: It seems every time I publish the latest in one of my series, readers ask when the next is due out, but at the request of my publisher Boldwood Books, my current work-in-progress is a new trilogy. It’s still cozy mystery set in the Cotswolds, but all-new in every other respect, but there will be more stories about Sophie and Gemma too. So, now that EXSILIUM is out in the world, what’s next for you? More in either of your series, or do you have any plans to branch out? If your readers will let you, that is!
Alison: I’ve started the first chapter of the Mélisende ‘Doubles’ series and I’m longing to see what she’s going to make of it. However, I have a feeling my Roma Nova readers won’t let it go that easily…
Debbie: Where can readers find out more about you and your books?
Alison: The best starting point is my World of Thrillers site: https://alison-morton.com, where you’ll also find links to my social media accounts and my writing blog, as well as more information about my new book, Exsilium.
Now available in ebook and paperback – click image to choose your preferred retailer
A post about my reading habits with top tips to make your own reading more fun this year
At the turn of the year, many people set themselves a reading goal in terms of quantity, eg “I will read 52 books in 2024”.
This always strikes me as an odd approach, because surely the joy of reading doesn’t increase according to quantity?
It’s not like pledging to lose x pounds in weight: a pound of flesh = a pound of flesh, (although a pound of muscle is very different from a pound of fat).
This numeric approach can distract people from thinking about how much they’ve enjoyed the books.
It risks turning reading into a box-ticking exercise rather than the adventure that it should be.
It also encourages readers who are running out of time to reach their goal to pick shorter books towards the end of the year, even when they might rather be getting stuck into a more substantial tome.
How I Keep Track of What I’ve Read
I do keep track of the books I’ve read, but only by keeping a list (unnumbered) in a little notebook, inspired by my mum, who has been doing this for years. I like being able to look back and remind myself what I’ve read, especially if I’ve forgotten a title and want to recommend it to a friend or to read more by the same author. The only other detail I include is the month in which I’ve read it.
My reading log-book is getting a little dog-eared after four years of use
Some months I read more books that others, because I choose books of different lengths and genres. I read non-fiction books more slowly that fiction, and because I usually find non-fiction more demanding, I tend to read fiction at the same time. Often I’ll read non-fiction in the morning, when my wits are more about me, and fiction in the evening to relax.
How I Choose Which Book to Read Next
Influential factors are:
A thoughtful Christmas gift from my sister who knows how much I love and admire Laura Ingalls Wilder
what I’ve been given as gifts
(sometimes the giver will have chosen something that closely match my interests, other times it’ll be a book they’ve enjoyed)
what treasures I’ve spotted in secondhand bookshops or Little Free Libraries
(I often choose books that are out of print and obscure)
snippets of “Book of the Week” broadcasts I might have heard by chance on the radio
(I seldom hear the whole series)
what else I’ve been reading recently
(I often play book tag, following associations across different genres)
before travelling back in time to his historical novel set just after Indian independence and Partition, Midnight at Malabar House.
Although both Vaseem Khan’s books are first in series, and I plan to read the rest of the both series as I really enjoyed them, instead my next pick was Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, about a man born on the stroke of midnight of the day India gains independence.
I’m now thinking I might move on to another book that takes Midnight as its theme. Yes, I have already read Philippa Pearce’s Tom’s Midnight Garden, thank you! But I welcome any more suggestions!
It’s only now I realise that at least three of these books have won major prizes – but lists of prizewinners are never a starting point for me when I’m choosing what to read next.
How will you decide which books you’ll read in 2024? I’d love to know!
IN OTHER NEWS
A few years ago, I was surprised to discover that there are a lot of readers out there who love to read box sets of ebooks, and who will buy box sets almost exclusively. When I say “box set”, there’s no physical box involved – ebook box sets are really just a collection of books sold as a single product. (Personally, I have a great fondness for physical box sets of print books, as I wrote about here, when I was self-publishing my first box set of ebooks years ago.)
I’m pleased to announce that Boldwood Books, who now publish all of my novels, have just launched not one but three new box sets of my books – two in the Sophie Sayers series and one for Gemma Lamb. These are all now available to buy on all the usual digital platforms. Just put my name and the series title into the search box of your favourite ebook store to order your copy now.
NEXT TIME…
Next Wednesday I’ll be sharing a sneak preview of my next book, Driven to Murder, the ninth Sophie Sayers Cozy Mystery, which will be launched by Boldwood Books on Friday 26th January 2024. If you’d like Boldwood Books to email you about my new books, special offers and related competitions, you can sign up for their free mailng list here:
People who live in large, sparsely populated countries have a different definition of ‘nearby’ from ours. I know someone who thinks nothing of driving two hours for their weekly shop, including a stint on a car ferry. Another friend drives twelve hours to their ‘local’ hospital. When we asked my visiting Canadian cousin where she’d like us to take her while she was in England, she said ‘France’. My aunt, her grandmother, chose Scotland.
How lucky we are here in the Cotswolds to have so much within easy reach – not only essential facilities, but places of historic and cultural interest to enrich our lives. My latest discovery on our doorstep is the tiny, historic church of St Andrew at Leighterton. (Other tiny, historic churches are available, as the BBC might say.)
