Friday 13 October 2017

Anything You Do Say Blog Tour

Hello everyone and welcome to my stop on the Anything You Do Say blog tour! I'm thrilled to have a brilliant Q&A with Gillian McAllister to share with you today on writing, what to expect from her latest book and how her life has changed since becoming a Sunday Times bestselling author.


1.) Hi Gillian, welcome to the blog! How has your life changed since becoming a bestselling author after the release of your debut novel Everything but the Truth?
Wow, what an interesting question. It’s quite strange and paradoxical. It’s changed in loads of ways and hasn’t changed at all: both are true at once. I still live in the same house, have the same boyfriend, friends, job (I’m a lawyer).

On the other hand… I now work part time. That’s been a big change. I see my book in a lot of places – it’s still in all bookshops and was in the supermarkets for ages, too. I get a lot of messages from readers and strangers – several a day. I get a lot of proofs sent to my house to read in advance of their publication (which is awesome). At anything social that’s outside my immediate inner circle, I get a lot of questions about being an author (and being a bestseller), some of which can be slightly awkward and personal or financial in nature… One of the most peculiar things, I think, is having a reputation that precedes you. Not that strangers know who I am when I walk into a room – of course not – but friends of friends and acquaintances often are aware that I am an author when I know nothing about them.

 2.) What’s been your best moment as an author so far?
God, another great question! I have two: the moment my agent left me a voicemail in February 2016 saying that I should call her. I did, and Penguin had pre-empted my novel. I will remember that moment for the rest of my life; it’s not often you feel so very far from achieving a life ambition, and then, one voicemail later, you achieve it. It was very special.
The second is really in the every day nuts and bolts of it: the writing. Sitting in a Starbucks and making things up and knowing it’s my job. Feeling totally in love with a work-in-progress as it nears completion. The dynamite feeling of an idea arriving while you’re brushing your teeth. All of that.

 3.) What can fans of Everything but the Truth expect from Anything You Do Say? In what ways are they similar or different?
I would say that Anything You Do Say is more of a thriller than Everything but the Truth. While the relationship takes centre-stage in both of them, Anything You Do Say has a denouement and a resolution that stands apart from the marriage between my main protagonists.
They both explore morally grey areas, guilt, lies and relationships in turmoil. Both also have medical and legal elements.
Anything You Do Say is definitely more ambitious – it is two books in one and an unusual structure.

 4.) What sparked the idea for Anything You Do Say and what made you decide to tell it in a Sliding Doors narrative structure?
I had wanted to write a Sliding Doors novel for ages and had been toying with ideas. I thought about having a woman in an unhappy marriage whose husband does/doesn’t die on the way home from work in a car crash, and exploring both strands, but really, I’m a crime writer and I wanted to write novels with that interesting criminal/legal element.

I had been trying to think around the idea of a Sliding Doors novel. I was putting the bins out one night and, and I reached down to pick up a piece of rubbish that had rolled out of the bin bag, I thought: Sliding Doors plus crime. I left that thought alone and, the next night – in the middle of the night – I woke up and thought about a woman who hands herself in and leaves the scene of a crime. Anything You Do Say was born at half past two in the morning.

 5.) If you were your main character Joanna which path would you choose?
Definitely Reveal. I am very law-abiding. Waiting to get caught would actually be worse than getting caught, for me.

 6.) Was writing a second novel harder or easier than writing the first?
Both. It was easier because I knew I knew how to do it. It was harder because Anything You Do Say was so ambitious – it is the longest novel I have ever written, and what I didn’t realise when I had the initial idea was that there would be double the character development. In each strand, Joanna’s husband, best friend, brother and parents have totally different character arcs. At one point it felt out of control and sprawling. Luckily, I wrote it before my first novel was published, so I never felt the weight of the readership (that came later).

 7.) Do you have any advice for aspiring thriller writers?
Finish a draft. It’s as simple – and as difficult – as that. Sit on the chair, most days, until it’s done. This is the biggest hurdle - I have observed - that aspiring writers fall at. I did, too - for years.

 8.) What books would you recommend to fans looking for similar stories to your own?
Interesting question. Imran Mahmood writes in the crime sphere, though is more literary than me. Jodi Picoult and Liane Moriarty both occupy (brilliantly) the Venn diagram where women’s fiction meets crime.

9.) Can you tell us a bit about what you’re working on next?
Of course. I have just delivered my third novel, No Further Questions. It’s about a woman who looks after her sister’s eight week old baby overnight. The baby dies, in somewhat suspicious circumstances, and she’s accused of manslaughter. It’s a courtroom drama, and it was an absolute joy to write.

10.) And finally, what three words best describe Anything You Do Say?
Tense. Edgy. Sad.

 Thank you for stopping by the blog today Gillian! 

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Thursday 5 October 2017

A Shiver of Snow and Sky Blog Tour

Hello everyone and welcome to my stop on the A Shiver of Snow and Sky blog tour! I had the pleasure of reading this magical book the other week and I absolutely loved it. Lisa Lueddecke's writing completely sweeps you away to an icy land where warnings are painted red in the skies so I'm very excited to be hosting a fantastic guest post from Lisa on magical world-building today and I have 3 copies of the book to give away to three of my lucky readers over on Twitter!


Magical World-Building by Lisa Lueddecke

If there is one part of writing I am here for, it’s the world-building. With A Shiver of Snow and Sky, I had elements of the world long before any of the story came to me, but because the world was so concrete and realized, the story fell seamlessly into place. I always knew that the northern lights would play a huge role, and I always knew that I wanted the sky to speak to those on the island, and so the rest of the story just followed, like it had existed all along and was just waiting for me to find it. That was very much the sense I got while writing this story: that I was discovering something that had always existed in my mind, and it was very exciting.

When I’m creating a fantasy world, I tend to picture landscapes, settings, and jot down notes on the imagery. Sometimes I scroll through pages and pages of pins on Pinterest, or do image searches for relevant words, or just free write in a notebook for a while to brainstorm ideas. For A Shiver of Snow and Sky, I wrote down a list of words that would complement the world (and I still have the list.) This was what I wrote down.

 Barren 
Biting 
Bleak 
Crackling 
Crisp 
Crunchy 
Fluffy 
Foggy 
Frosty 
Gray 
Isolated 
Leafless 
Lonely 
Misty 
Nippy 
Numb 
Overcast 
Evergreen 
Mittens 
Gust 
Shawl 
Quilt 
Layers 
Tea 
Knit 
Bundled 
Bare 
Spice 
Blue 

I knew early on that the world the book was set in would be every bit as big a character as the actual characters, and it would be the first one I’d need to fully understand before I could move on. I think the setting-as-a-character thing is true of all fantasy, if not all books! If readers can’t believe in the world you’ve created, it leaves room for them to not believe in your book. Writing down that list of random, wintry words helped me to set the tone for the book I wanted to write, even if I didn’t expressly use them in the story. It’s also very important to fully understand the parameters of the world you’re creating, because it will set the standard by which you mean to continue. If your world has rules regarding magic, for example, you need to either remember not to break those rules, or understand how those rules can be broken. (Breaking those rules does not have to ruin anything; it can be an important plot point, if you have a firm understanding of how to pull it off!)

Magic in world-building does not limit itself to books with systems for using magic, such as Harry Potter, but worlds that contain magical or fantasy elements that need to be outlined and understood. Without going into too much detail for those who haven’t read the book yet, much of that for me was based around my use of the northern lights as a voice of the Goddess, whereas much of the day to day world in which the characters lived could be explained away as an old Norse village, or similar. The most important thing for me to get right in writing this book, and which I sincerely hope I did, was to create a world in which, while daily life might seem simple and normal, there was the idea that anything could happen, and anything was possible. Whether that was through references to their superstitions or campfire tales, I wanted the world to feel richer than what they saw and lived every day, because as a reader, having that feeling that anything can happen is something that keeps me turning the pages of any book. If there’s more than meets the eye, more to discover, and more to learn, you will have my undivided attention!

In closing, I believe that building a magical world is all about layering: start with something simple, like a basic setting, and add to that slowly, fleshing out the bones. I started with the idea of a wintry island, then layered in the idea of the northern lights, the villagers’ superstitions, stories about the mountains, and I just kept going until I had a whole world (and I’m still building it!) I think I’ll always feel like I have more to add to the world, but I’m happy with what I’ve done so far, and I’m so excited to be back on the island working on the next book.

For your chance to win a copy of A Shiver of Snow and Sky head on over to Twitter to enter! 


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