Madalyn Morgan's Fiction Blog: Blog Tour: My Writing Process

Madalyn Morgan's Fiction Blog: 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...

Applause by Madalyn Morgan - Book Trailer

Applause is the second novel in a quartet about four very different sisters during World War II.

Applause, Margot Dudley's story, is about blind ambition.  Set in the theatre and club world of London's West End, Applause, is the story of a young woman's climb from usherette to leading lady - and The Talk of The Town, in the Blitz.

Foxden Acres by Madalyn Morgan - Book Trailer

Madalyn Morgan's Author Biography Video

You wouldn't believe that after being in front of a camera as many times as I have (as an actress) I'd be nervous, but I was.  This was the first video, a rehearsal, which ended up as the final take, because the dress rehearsal and final shoot were out of synch.  Yes, I broke the camera!

Sun, Sea, a cold drink, and Applause.

This lovely lady sent me this photograph of her relaxing on holiday with my second novel, Applause.

  Thank you for sending me the photograph, you've made my month!

Have a great holiday and enjoy Applause.

Famous Five Plus: Five Fab Fun Answers: Madalyn Morgan

Famous Five Plus: Five Fab Fun Answers: Madalyn Morgan:



Madalyn Morgan author of gripping WWII best sellers shares the answers to five fun questions, take it away Madalyn.... First line...

Brook Cottage Books: Author Spotlight - Madalyn Morgan.

Brook Cottage Books: Author Spotlight - Madalyn Morgan.: Madalyn Morgan lives in Rural Leicestershire.   After thirty-six years, she has swapped window boxes in South London for a gar...

Fun Questions and Answers for Famous Five Plus

First lines are important in novels. What is the favourite first line you’ve written and from what work is it?

“Look out!  Stop!  Margaret didn’t look.  She didn’t stop until she was pushed into a doorway.” APPLAUSE (2^nd book in the Dudley Sisters Quartet) http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00J7Y5LCW

If someone told you your characters were sitting in the room across the hall, would you walk across to meet them? Why or why not?

I think I would.  I know them and love them, so I can’t see why I wouldn’t want to meet them.  When I was an actress I believed wholeheartedly in the characters I played, eventually (on stage) becoming them.  That way the audience would believe in them too.  I work the same with the characters in my novels.  Gosh, imagine if I met them and I'd got one of them wrong.  The protagonists in my novels are sisters and, although they have very different personalities and characters, they are all very strong women.  If I had got one wrong, I would expect her to tell me.

If you could magically become one of your characters, who would it be?

The next one.  It is always the next one for me.  When I was writing Foxden Acres, it was Bess Dudley.  Writing Applause it was Margot Dudley – and now it’s sister number three, Claire Dudley.  It is always the next lead character that I want to be, and who excites me the most.  I like beginnings, I like starting new things, and I like the unknown.  Claire’s story, China Blue, is set in France with the SOE and French Resistance.  It’s a love story and she’s a heroine. Who wouldn’t want to be Claire?

What day of the week is your favourite for writing?

I’d like to say, Monday.  I would like to say I am disciplined – and that I work on weekdays and spend my weekends relaxing, or visiting interesting places.  The truth is, when I’m writing, I am often woken up in the early hours of the morning with characters, or ideas, running round in my head.  When that happens, I have to get up and write it down, or I forget.  When the creative thoughts and ideas are flowing I write every day, sometimes for weeks.  When they are not flowing, I find it difficult to write a shopping list. 

Compare your novels to a food item or entré.

FOXDEN ACRES (2013), my first novel, is a healthy homemade crusty loaf.  It is made with homegrown ingredients, kneaded with strong capable hands, left to rise in its own time – and then baked with love.  http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00BCX59LE

APPLAUSE (2014), my second novel, is a tiered cake-stand full of fairy cakes.  Some with icing, some with chocolate, others with custard, cream, or with a cherry on the top.  The higher up the cake-stand you look, the more exiting the cake.  http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00J7Y5LCW 

CHINA BLUE (2015), which I am currently writing, is a Madeleine.  La véritable petite Madeleine de Commercy.

   

Fiction Blog: http://madalynmorgansfiction.blogspot.co.uk/

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

Website: www.madalynmorgan.com

I’ve really enjoyed this Q and A session.  It was fun.  Now I’d better write that shopping list. x

Famous Five Plus: Reviewed: Applause by Madalyn Morgan

Famous Five Plus: Reviewed: Applause by Madalyn Morgan: 

Nikki from Nikki's Books4U reviews Applause by Madalyn Morgan.

Margaret Burrell had always dreamed of being an actress, a big star in London's West End.  So when she begins working as an usherette at a theatre she hopes this will be her first step on to the show business ladder.  What follows is an emotional roller-coaster of an emotional journey, as Margaret Burrell turns herself into acting and singing sensation, Margot Dudley.

The story is set during the Second World War and all the nostalgia of the time is captured in this book.  The story is filled with the highs and lows of fame.  The desperation and determination and lengths Margot is prepared to go to, to achieve her dream made me really like the character of Margaret/Margot.  I really look forward to reading more of Madalyn Morgan's books. She is an excellent storyteller.

Thank you Nikki Bywater @Nikki's Books4U, for the fabulous review.

Happy Easter Day. Happy Easter Sunday

All the things that are important - nature and animals - and of course people.

HAPPY EASTER

To my friends and family - I love you. 

Applause - 3 5* Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Very enjoyable reading 13 April 2014

By Marianne clarke

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

I am not a big reader of books as I do get bored half way though and then just read the last few pages. I was told by my sister to read Foxton Acres so I did I could not put it down and read ever page. I waited eagerly for applause to come out and bought it on the first day of being on Amazon and sat and read it in 4 days this is amazing for me. But it as just left me wanting more I cannot wait for Madalyn Morgan s next book as they are both excellent definitely recommend it everyone even my daughter as read them after me and she really enjoyed them.

5.0 out of 5 stars Compulsive 14 April 2014

By suea53

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

Just as good as her first novel, Foxden Acres. Really lovely story, I just couldn't put it down and was reading late into the night to get it finished. Please hurry up with number 3 Madalyn!

5.0 out of 5 stars The fascinating Dudley girls.... 10 April 2014

By C.A.Lane-Dowthwaite

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

I've just started to read Madalyn Morgan's second book of a quartet and its just as fascinating as the first book, 'Foxden Acres'. I'm having trouble putting it down. 

Applause and Foxden Acres Top Billing in London's West End

Applause and Foxden Acres on Amazon Kindle, paperback, and in London's West End.

Amazing

Brilliant

Fantastic

Specially for the launch of Applause in paperback

HOLD THE FRONT PAGE

Created by Gary Walker look4books.co.uk

Famous Five Plus: Publication Day for Applause by Madalyn Morgan

Famous Five Plus: Publication Day for Applause by Madalyn Morgan: 

Today we are celebrating the publication of Madalyn Morgan's Applause, on Kindle, the second book in the Dudley Sisters Quartet. Another beaut...

Amazon.co.uk/ Madalyn Morgan's Author Page

Amazon.co.uk/ Madalyn Morgan's Author Page

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

Applause Book Cover

This is the final Kindle cover for Applause.

Thanks to Cathy Helms of Avalon Graphics who took my mock up (bottom of the page) and turned it into a professional 'jacket' for Kindle and for paperback.

The book cover below is the CreateSpace paperback cover

with design, the book blurb and ISBN number on the back

My original design created on Serif 

It is New Years Day. Happy 2014