An
Implacable Woman
If a tooth costs a tooth and an eye costs an eye
When a man hits his wife, then it’s his turn to die
Furious that the courts and police
can’t prevent respected surgeon John Kirby from beating his wife, Sally Mellors
steps in to save her. Permanently…
But Grace Kirby isn’t the only one who
needs saving and Sally quickly discovers she’s taken on a much bigger job than
she’d thought.
With her unique ability to blend
justice with fun, Sally sets joyfully about the business of removing the
monsters from women’s lives, but is she in danger of becoming a monster
herself?
As her friends in the police get ever
closer, Sally has some serious questions of her own to answer.
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Author Q&A
1. What would you consider to be your Kryptonite as an
author?
That’s a hell of a question to start off with! J
What’s my deadly enemy as an author? Probably the human
voice. I can’t fully tune out conversation, not even song lyrics. There’s
always a part of me actually LISTENING to the words, and that completely stops
me getting properly into the zone. I can do research, and I can even do
detailed plotting because that’s often an almost left brained form of working,
but I can’t actually create. For the writing to go really well, my mind has to
enter a completely different place, and for that I need to be free of other
people talking. If I’m in an open plan office and I have to do something
creative at work, I put on full sized headphones that cover my ears, and listen
to some instrumental music that’s just loud enough to mask the surrounding
conversation. It might appear rude, but I get far more done, to a much higher
quality if I can let the mind just rip.
2. If you could tell your younger writing self anything,
what would it be?
This is an easy one, believe it or not. I’ve written four
and a half books in just over two years. I thought the first one was marvelous,
at least partly because an agent, in an attempt to let me down gently, told me
in her email that my book had really stood out but that she was sorry they
didn’t have a slot for it. So I thought I was pretty much there in terms of
standard, right up to the moment I sent another agent at that agency a
completely different kind of book and got back the exact same form letter… That
was an eye opener! In retrospect, that first book was more fit for fire
starters than it was for publication!
The simple truth of the matter is that I wasted a staggering
amount of time writing submissions to literary agents on books that were never
going to fly, and not one of them gave me any indication of that. So, two key
lessons to think about:
Lesson one is that when you’re starting out, you probably
have a very poor idea of how good your book actually is. I’m not suggesting
it’s rubbish. It might be absolutely fabulous. I’m just saying that most new
writers don’t have enough experience to accurately judge the quality of their
own work. You really do need other people for that, so pluck up your courage
and give it to beta readers who you KNOW are going to be honest, even if, no,
especially if, they think it has issues. It’s incredibly painful to hear, and
even more painful to accept, but you HAVE To go through this to get it to a
state fit to give to a proper editor. And then grit your teeth and listen to
what they’ve got to say too. The editor is likely to be even more hard nosed
because that’s their job! Now, they may actually be wrong, which complicates
things, but if you’re that certain of yourself, chuck it to someone else to get
a second opinion. If you need a measure, look at how much time you’re spending
on rewrites and fixes, plus the time it’s taking to edit. My first book took
longer to edit than it took to write. That should have told me something… The
last one took about 5% of the time it took to write, and that included the time
it took the editor to read the manuscript. You get better!
Lesson two is an extension of lesson one, and it’s to be
clear on how much time and effort can be sucked up when submitting to a
literary agent. Agents are swamped, absolutely swamped by submissions. I worked
out a while ago that a good agent was getting at least 5,200 unsolicited
submissions a year, out of which they might select just 2. (It’s since got a
lot worse, and frankly I have no idea how they cope.) Think about that for a
minute. You have a 1/2600 chance of any given agent accepting your book in any
given year. You’d have a better chance buying a lottery ticket. “But,” I hear
you cry, “I’m only submitting to the right agents for my book and I’m making
sure it’s what they want! I can control this and beat the odds!”
Well, to a degree, yes. But next time you do it, look at
what’s involved. You need to research an agent, reads interviews, watch videos,
examine their client list etc. and that all takes time. Then you need to craft
the email to their specifications. You need to summarise your book in a couple
of paragraphs, or maybe just one, or maybe a single sentence. 100,000 words
stripped back to a sentence. That takes time, believe me, it takes time. And
then there’s the synopsis. Your agent might give you two A4 sides, but more
likely just the one, and sometimes just a half. That takes time too. Oh, and
some want a specific font and may not want spoilers. Break any one of those
requirements and you’re gone. Fail to catch their interest in the first 30
seconds and you’re gone.
Also, they may LOVE your book! It could be the single best
book on that subject that has ever been written, but if they don’t think they
can find it a market, they’re still going to say no.
The problem is, they don’t tell you. Anything. They don’t
have the time, they honestly don’t. So most are likely to send out a form
rejection letter or just go silent. That’s understandable given the pressures
they’re under, but it’s not a very good reward for the author after all that
effort. So am I saying forget about agents? No, of course not! A good agent is
a fabulous thing to have. Just be aware of the investment it’s going to take
you to get one, and be aware of the chances of success. Go into it with your
eyes open, and if you don’t like the odds, consider other ways of doing things.
In my own case, I could literally have written a complete full length novel in
the time I’ve spent pursuing agents. Where do you want to put YOUR time?
(There are a number of videos on my website specifically
aimed at the aspiring author, that cover a lot more than I’ve mentioned here.)
3. Favorite childhood memory involving books?
Jerome K Jerome’s Three Men In A Boat, which I first read
aged six and have done every year since. It’s just wonderful, and showed me the
magic of the written word, how a book can cast your mind into a completely
different world that completely subsumes your thoughts. Wow! What a discovery
that was!
4. If you could dine with any literary character, who
would it be and why?
I’ll assume we’re talking fictional characters here, and not
real world writers and publishers?
Lord Vetenari in the Discworld stories. He’s possibly the
cleverest politician/leader in fiction, and while he’s utterly ruthless, he’s
not a narcissist, or someone who wants power for its own sake or to bolster his
own ego. He gets his kicks out of making things work, making things successful,
despite the best efforts of other people! So you could really learn a few
things if you had dinner with such a man, assuming you survived of course…
5. Did you want to be an author when you grew up?
Yes, but I knew the odds of success. Well I thought I did. In
reality, they were actually far worse! That’s why it took me so long to get
seriously serious about it. And then I discovered there was a lot more to it
than I’d imagined. You don’t always know what you don’t know even if you think
you know, you know?
6. If you could own any animal as a pet, what would it
be?
A tiger, providing I could also have a couple of hundred
acres of properly fenced off, appropriate countryside for it to roam in. I’d
want it to be able to live as it wants to, not to be hemmed in or forced to be
something it’s not.
7. Have you ever met anyone famous?
Yes, but only in passing, not with any real connection.
8. How long, on average, does it take you to
write a book?
It depends on the other things going in in my
life. If I have to work for a living, then it takes a lot longer because the
people paying for my time and skill deserve every single bit of value I’m
capable of giving them for those hours. If that contains a lot of creative
work, then the writing’s going to be even slower because I only have so much
creative energy to give each day.
On the other hand, if I’m between engagements, as
the acting fraternity used to say, then nowadays I can complete a book in three
months, providing I’m not trying to get an agent, or answering questions for
book blog tours. J
Now the editing still has to come on top of that, but I can complete a full
novel in three months if I’m able to focus on it to the exclusion of everything
else.
9. How do you select the names of your
characters?
In the Sally Mellors series, they tend to tell
me themselves. Sally certainly did. When I was struggling yet again to push
through the block that had stymied me in this detective focussed novel for over
twenty years, she literally walked into my mind, fully formed, beautifully
dressed and said “What you want to do, is write about me. I’m much more
interesting!”
The Sally characters are like that. They just appear.
My characters become quite real to me, as real as a real life human being, with
all their little nuances and experiences, far more than ever make it into the
books.
The names in the Prince Wulfstan time travel
series are trickier. Anglo Saxon names are awkward beasts and I try to select
ones that won’t blow the reader’s mind or make them work more than they have
to. But the characters and I still have “chats” about what’s working and what
isn’t, and things get changed if a name doesn’t feel right to me.
10. If you were the last person on Earth, what
would you do?
Initially, like anyone else, I’d be right down on
level one of Maslow’s Hierarchy Of Needs, struggling to survive each day, so
collecting the books, tools, equipment and supplies needed to secure survival
would come first. Once I had that under control, with supplies of food, water
and shelter all arranged, I’d probably make connections with some of the
animals around the place, especially the mammals and birds. We humans are
highly social animals and need contact, to have a connection with other living
things. With no hope of ever meeting another human, my best friend is going to
be an animal of some kind, so I’d set about making friends.
11. Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?
I’ve answered this in the what would I tell the
younger me in the above list, but I do have a number of videos on my website
specifically aimed at the aspiring writer. Perhaps we could send them there, in
addition to my answer in the earlier question?
12. If you could live in any time period, what
would it be and why?
John Romer, the Egyptologist, was asked this
question on The Parkinson Show many years ago. Parkinson was expecting him to
say ancient Egypt, but I was struck by John’s reply and the logic behind it. He
was speaking in the late seventies, and he said “Right here, and right now.”
The thinking behind that was he was living in a country with no famine, no
threat of devastating disease, plenty of opportunity, money to do the things he
loved, access to incredible tools that had never been around before.
But, if I had to go to a different time and
place, it might just be to Birmingham England, between 1765 and 1813, on the
condition that I had loads of money AND was allowed to be a member of the Lunar
Society. Amongst its members were Josiah Wedgewood, Matthew Bolton, Erasmus
Darwin, Joseph Priestly, James Watt, James Smeaton, John Wilkinson, Joseph
Black, Benjamin Franklin, Joseph Banks and many more. It was just the most
fantastic collection of minds at an incredibly exciting time in history. There
was all that explosion of discovery going on, and they hadn’t yet completely
screwed up the environment. Maybe, just maybe I could get them to think about
that a little bit too, and the world wouldn’t be having quite the same
challenges it’s having now…
If you haven’t already read it, get a copy of
Jenny Uglow’s The Lunar Men. It’s absolutely fabulous. It could have been a
dusty dry read but it isn’t. It’s full of all their relationships, wives and
sisters (frequently every bit as marvelous as their better known menfolk),
family dramas, amongst all the discoveries and amazing business tales. When I
finished it the first time, I immediately turned back to page one and started
all over again. It’s one of the best history books I’ve ever read.
13. What is your favorite genre to read?
Oddly enough, non-fiction.
I have a voracious thirst for knowledge, of all sorts.
In terms of favourite fictional
genre, I wouldn’t say I have one as such. What really matters to me is that the
book contains a regular supply of smiles or laughs, even if it’s a deadly
serious theme. An hour without laughter is an hour wasted as far as I’m
concerned.
That’s why my own stories
have humour woven throughout, and they’re all thoroughly researched.
Author Bio
– We’ll probably have to expand this for
the tours, but this is what’s in the book at present.
K.T. Findlay lives on a small farm
where he dovetails his writing with fighting the blackberry and convincing the
quadbike that killing its rider isn’t a vital part of its job description.
Social
Media Links –
Webpage : www.ktfindlay.com
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