Blog Tour: My Writing Process

Blog Tour: My Writing Process

Thank you Elizabeth Ducie for asking me to follow you in answering four questions on Cathie Hartigan's fabulous blog tour about my writing process.  Elizabeth's answers were fascinating.  If you'd like to read them, you can find them HERE  

Here are my questions.

What am I working on?

Although I present radio and write articles, I have spent the last month developing and editing my second novel, Applause, which I shall publish on March 25.

                                                             Mock-up of the book cover.

Applause is the story of Margaret Dudley.  It's the second in a quartet about the lives of four very different sisters during World War II.  Margaret, the second sister, moves from Leicestershire to live in London with her husband who works for the MoD.  Fiercely ambitious she works her way from being an usherette in a West End theatre to the Talk Of London. To achieve her childhood dream of becoming an actress, singer and dancer, she learns the show's songs and dances and when a tragic opportunity arises, takes her first step to success and fame. 

As an Indie author I have to work hard on publicity.  The first thing I do in the morning, after flicking on the kettle, is turn on the laptop.  While it's boiling - the kettle that is, not the laptop,  I check my emails.  With my first cup of tea I look through Twitter and while I eat my breakfast I check Facebook.  The novel I'm promoting is my first, Foxden Acres. It's about Bess, the oldest of the Dudley sisters.  Although it takes us to London and Dunkirk, the main story is set on a country estate in Leicestershire with characterful land girls and recuperating servicemen in World War Two. 

How does my work differ from others in the genre?

That’s a difficult one to answer. I'm not sure it does differ.  My process of creating characters might differ because I was an actress for 35 years. (I'm still am member of Equity). I get the same buzz finding the truth in the characters I write about as I did in the characters I played on the stage or television. For me the two processes are the same. Characters have to be real.  I need to know them and find the truth in them; make them believable. Characters in a play aren't born the second the curtain goes up, any more than the characters in book are born on the first line in a chapter one.  I write my characters a biography, give them a history, all of which may not come out in back story. They've had a life right up until the moment they step onto the page. When the curtain rises, or the book opens, the characters have lived for twenty, thirty, or however many years.  It should never be the first minute of their life.

 
Also about genre: My first four novels are set during and just after the Second World War, so I guess they are Historical, and part of a Saga.  Having said that, they are all different in the respect that Foxden Acres is a about the strength of a woman and how they cope and move on after loss. Applause is about ambition and what lengths a woman will go to to achieve it.  China Blue is a real love story set in the worst possible conditions, and Bletchley Secret is about secrecy and crime.  So, genre is an odd thing, don't you think?

Why do I write what I do?

They tell you to write about what you know. So, if I was to tell you that the first novel I plotted and outlined was a contemporary story about an actress of forty and an actor of thirty, you might put two and two together and make a racy five. Forty-Two Into Twenty-Eight Won't Go was going to be the book I couldn't publish while my mother was alive.  Reading it today it's more, Jack and Jill than Fifty Shades.    

     The second book was a biography about my mother.  I was fascinated by how much women had grown, come into their own, between and during the wars - and with mum being a young woman in World War II she told me all about her life at that time.  She'd talk for hours about her friends, her job degreasing magnetos, and how after a day in the factory they'd all bicycle off to a dance in one of the nearby villages.  I sent her biography to a literary place and they said it was strong and interesting.  However, because my mother was unknown, and so was I, I should turn it into a fiction.  
     At the same time my mother said she’d like to give back a brass aeroplane to the young Polish pilot who had made it for her in 1940. Unfortunately, he had died, but I found his son. He was delighted to have the plane because it was a Wellington Bomber, which his father had flown in the RAF. It was this, as well as stories she told me about her siblings and the groom’s cottage she lived in on a country estate that gave me the idea to write four different stories, about four different sisters.  So that's why my first four books (two written and two plotted) are set in the Second World War.  

How does my writing process go?

I'm a strong believer in plotting.  I'm not sure how many writers have the plot of the next book wake them up in the night before they've finished writing the last, but it happened to me.  

Usually the ideas knock about in my head for a while.  I'm nearing the end of one project when the next tries to get in.  For instance, I was line-editing Applause last week for twelve hours a day.  Stupid I know.  Sitting for that long is so bad for your legs, and after working that intensely it's impossible to wind down when you get to bed.  However, two nights running I was kept awake by the plot of China Blue, the third book in the saga.  I was so tired the first night it happened that I tried to ignore it.  I tossed and turned and didn't get up. The second night I put my glasses on, took my notebook and pen from he side of my bed, switched on my small torch and stuck it between my teeth. Can't be doing with a light on at three o'clock in the morning. After writing down what was in my head I still couldn't get to sleep because I was too excited about it.  

     I plotted Foxden Acres and Applause.  However, both changed as their stories developed. The characters changed as well, as you'd expect them to - I'd have been disappointed if they hadn't.  So story and character can change, but not the timeline if a novel is set in a well-documented time in history like the Second World War.  That is a strong foundation which you have to use and embrace.  And of course, the other three books in the quartet have to be time-lined – and not only with events in WW2, but with each of the other sisters stories. Although each book will stand on its own, and can be read in any order, there are times when the sisters are together.  Especially in the first novel, so I keep a tight day-diary.  One page per event and chapter, times four.  One page for each book, labelled with a different coloured tag.

Day book

The most important thing to me, after I've written the story and edited the first draft on screen, is print it out and read it aloud.  As I'm reading  I mark what needs to be cut in red, and what needs to be developed in blue.  Then I write and rewrite.  Happy with it now?  No.  I  print it out again and I edit it again. The final edit is a line edit.  When I get to the stage where I can't see anything wrong, I send it to a proofreader.  I also have it professionally uploaded to Kindle and CreateSpace.  Then guess what?  I proof read the Kindle version, and also the book version.  l want my book to be as well written as I can make it, and as well produced as any other book.  

So that's my writing process. I'm handing the baton on to my good friend and author, Jill McDonald Constable - aka Gil McDonald and Amos Carr.  Jill is published on both sides of the Atlantic.  You can read about Jill and her novels from February 24, HERE

Foxden Acres on Amazon, Paperback & Kindle: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00BCX59LE/ref=rdr_kindle_ext_tmb

Foxden Acres website: https://sites.google.com/site/foxdenacresbymadalynmorgan/home

Madalyn Morgan - Fiction Blog: http://madalynmorgansfiction.blogspot.co.uk/

Madalyn Morgan - Non-Fiction Blog: http://madalynmorgan.blogspot.co.uk/

Madalyn Morgan - Website: www.madalynmorgan.com

The Next Big Thing, my WIP, is Applause

The Next Big Thing!                

Last Wednesday, my lovely writer friend, Debbie Viggiano tagged me in her post entitled, The Next Big Thing.  Today, Wednesday October 10th, it is my turn to participate.

I shall answer ten questions about my Work in Progress, and then tag five other writers.  The Next Big Thing is a Wednesday thing, so the writers I tag today will tell us about their latest novels next Wednesday.  So here goes…

 • What is the working title of your next book?

Applause, because the story is set in a theatre, and because applause is what my protagonist, Margaret, craves at any cost.     

• Where did the idea come from for the book?

My lovely mum, relaxing after dinner with a cup of coffee and a cigarette talking about life in the Second World War, inspired me to write the first book, Foxden Acres.  Applause is the second book.  It’s set in the theatre world of London’s West End; a world that, as an actress for over thirty years, I know well.  Book three, China Blue, is Claire Dudley’s story.  It’s about bravery, and love and loss, in England and France.  And the last book is about the youngest sister, Ena.  It’s called Dixie Dean and is set in a factory that secretly manufactures parts for machines at Bletchley.  The last two novels have been plotted, but not written.  All three books evolved from the first.

• What genre does your book fall under?

Women’s Commercial Fiction.  It is also part of a family Saga, and a WW2 drama. 

• What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?

This is a difficult one.  As an actress, I go for ability over looks every time.  Having said that, most of the showgirls are beautiful...  Okay!  

     



Ben Barnes (left) would make a great husband for Margaret


Margaret, would be playd by lovely Carey Mulligan (right)

                                                                  
Margaret’s mentor, Nancy, would be played by, Anna Friel.

Katarina Kaplinski, the hoity Russian dancer would be played by, Emily Blunt

Rachel Weisz would be perfect for the owner of the theatre's wife, Natalie Goldman

Front of house manageress who employs Margaret as an usherette, Julie Walters.  And Babs Windsor as the wardrobe mistress.
 

The Nazi, Iwan Rheon or Rupert Friend.

Artistic director, Stephen Fry. 

Peter Postlethwait, the stage doorman, Bert. 

And, the gorgeous, Jason Isaacs (right) would make a wonderful theatre owner, Anton Goldman. 

Oh dear, have I gone over the top?

                                                                                         

 • What is the one sentence synopsis of your book?

Determination as well as talent, sees Margaret climb from being an usherette in a West End theatre to the toast of London, via seedy nightclubs, Nazis, friendship, loss, pills and alcohol, and the Blitz.

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

Until two weeks ago, I would have said, self-published.  Then a literary agent asked to see my first novel, Foxden Acres.  If she represents me for the first novel, she may take the second.  If the agent falls through, Foxden Acres will be on Kindle before Christmas and Applause will follow it as soon as it is written.  I have been this close to getting an agent twice before.  I have learned not to hold my breath.   

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

Over two years, about eighteen months.  I put it away to rewrite my first novel.  This July I took it to Caerleon and did the ‘Novel Writing – Moving It On’ course with Lesley Horton.  Since then, I’ve been writing short stories and articles.  But Applause is out of the box now – and it will not be going back in!  I shall write and write, until it is finished. 

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

I wouldn’t compare, Applause to any book.  I often read books set in the 1930s, 40s, or the Second World War.  I enjoyed Connie Wallis’s, Black Out, and, All Clear, but I wouldn’t compare Applause, or any of my books, to them.

• Who or what inspired you to write this book?

As I said earlier, my lovely mother used to tell me about life during the war, which inspired me to write the first book.  After writing the first draft of, Foxden Acres, I’d given Bess three sisters.  Each had a different personality, different needs and qualities, so I outlined each of them a story of their own.  Everyone, and everything that happened, in the first book had to fit the timeline of WW2.  Applause, set in London’s West End, had to fit the timelines of WW2, in particular the blitz, as well as the first book.  And, I’ve kept all relevant dates and information to refer to when I write books three and four.  They also need to fit the timelines of WW2 and the earlier stories.  That wasn’t easy to explain.  I hope it is easier to do.

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

Excitement, energy, danger, glamour.  Applause has it all.  Set in a West End theatre, with showgirls, during a war, means there’s plenty of fun and glamour as well as danger and fear.  London is an exciting place with nightclubs and dance halls.  It's also terrifying in the blackout, and dangerous in the blitz.  Also, because Applause is the second of four books - even though it stands on its own as a story - the reader might be interested in reading the stories of Margaret's sisters, and buy their books.

My thanks to the following fabulous authors for allowing me to tag them.  Do read their wonderful blogs and even more wonderful books.  I give you....

Vikki Thompson: http://the-view-outside.com/

Kate McCormick: http://elizabethducie.blogspot.com/

Pauline Connolly: http://paulineconolly.com/

Roger Wood: http:/ http://malkintowersbookblog.blogspot.co.uk/

Jill McDonald-Constable:  http://bulletsandhearts.blogspot.co.uk/