Category: ROMANCE

Aspiring to write good romance fiction

Grab your sun hat, come with me, and let’s go to the beach with #RomanceAuthor, #KileyDunbar

May 31, 2020

I haven’t been to a beach since, oooh now let me think about this … at least a year, and with my desire to stay Covid-free, I shall not be joining the ranks of those presently flooding to the coast now restrictions have been lifted. We also haven’t been to visit our relatives in the Cairngorms in Scotland, having scrapped plans to spend a February weekend with them.

However, I can take a virtual tour to both Scotland and a beach simultaneously, via a new novel by Kiley Dunbar … Summer at the Highland Coral Beach. And having been away from blogging for a few weeks, what better way to resurface than with a Q&A with the author of this enticing first book in the Port Willow Bay series?

I am so excited that Kiley, a fellow Romantic Novelist Association member, and a Joan Hessayon Award finalist in 2019 (for her debut novel One Summer’s Night) agreed to pause in her writing to speak to me.

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1. What was the first piece of fiction you ever wrote?

At primary school we did ‘composition’. It was my favourite time of the week – we’d just free write for a while. I remember writing a (possibly nicked) story about a girl who lived with a dinosaur that wouldn’t stop growing! I always loved writing stories but as I got older I felt embarrassed about them and stopped, that’s when I became an obsessive reader instead. I only seriously started writing again in my late thirties.

I can relate to the embarrassment thing. I was always being told ‘You have an overactive imagination!’ as if it was something negative. Thank goodness you got over that and started to write again.

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2. How long does it take you to complete a rough first draft?

To get a really rough draft down on paper (about 77-80 thousand words) takes four months usually and I really have to push myself to write that quickly. Good planning at the beginning helps me a lot.

I’m relieved to hear I’m not alone in that planning helps the first draft come together for you. My first, unplanned, unplotted title took eighteen months to get to 70k!

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3. If you could have dinner with three guests, dead or alive, who would they be and why?

OK, I want this to be a fancy dinner party after months in lockdown so I’m going all out: Champagne, choccy truffles, a gold lamé dress and heels – the lot! I’ll invite a young Rudolph Nureyev (because hot, tortured genius, guaranteed good over-dinner anecdotes); Kate Bush (because goddess); and my lovely friend, the writer Michael McGill (because I miss him so much and he’s the best company I could ever wish for).

Wow. I’m so bagging a place at that table; or perhaps I can pour the champagne and simply listen in… I heard a Kate Bush on Radio 2 last week and had forgotten how atmospheric her songs are.

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4. How do you like to relax when you’re not writing?

I like to read hot off the press romances. I walk with Amos, my little Bedlington Terrier, I watch a lot of drama (Netflix’s Itaewon Class is a favourite of 2020), and I’m on season three of Schitt’s Creek and it’s making me happier than I can say.

Oooh, I need to see Amos – did you bring him? No? He’s back home, guarding your next project? Oh, bless…

HAPPY 4th BIRTHDAY, AMOS 🦴

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5. Where did the inspiration come from for your latest title?

Summer at the Highland Coral Beach came from wanting to write a book in my favourite genre that realistically dealt with miscarriage and showed that happiness and recovery, love and romance can come after grief and loss (other romances have done this in the past, I’m not saying I’m the first by any means). Plus I wanted to set a book in a place I fell in love with – the little coral beach near Plockton in the Scottish highlands – it is a little piece of heaven on earth, so I created my own version and called it Highland Coral Beach.

I’m so happy you’ve planned a series here, so we can revisit!

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6. What are your top three reasons for being an RNA member?

Making new friends in the writing business; getting great advice and support; the annual conference is nothing but fun and informative from start to finish.

I couldn’t agree more!

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7. What have you missed most during lockdown?

I miss going to cafes to write. What a simple pleasure that was, and I could be so productive sitting there with my decaf and my red-velvet cake. I’ll never take that freedom to work outside the house or to move freely for granted again. I will, however, still get annoyed by loud-opinionated men who always seem to sit at the table right beside mine!

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8. What piece of advice would you give to a new writer (I’m all ears!)

Believe in your own writing. Take it and yourself seriously (even while having a total blast writing adorable romances) and don’t let setbacks dishearten you. You’ve got this!

I’d get up and hug you for saying this, if we were sat together in my garden today!

Thanks, Kiley, for popping over and chatting. You’ve given me a fabulous reason to dust off my much-neglected blog and I’ve loved chatting books and writing with you.

Kiley Dunbar is the author of heart-warning, escapist, romantic fiction set in beautiful places for Hera Books.

Blurb:

Escape to the Highland Coral Beach – where broken hearts can be healed

Beatrice Halliday needs a break from life. Booking a trip to the Highlands on a whim, Beatrice hopes learning Gaelic in a beautiful Scottish village might help her heal her grief after losing her baby, her husband and her much loved job in a space of months.

But Port Willow Bay isn’t exactly as the website promised. Instead of learning a new language, she’s booked in to learn the ancient skill of willow weaving, her hotel room is Princess and the Peathemed (with a stack of mattresses for her bed!) and worse still, her tutor is Atholl Fergusson, grumpy landlord of the hotel where Beatrice is staying – and she’s the only one doing the course.

But as Beatrice finds herself falling in love with Port Willow Bay and its people, and as she discovers the kind heart beneath Atholl’s stony exterior, can she really leave?

Escape to the beautiful Scottish Highlands with this utterly romantic, feelgood book; one visit to Port Willow Bay and you’ll want to come back! Fans of Sarah Morgan, Carole Matthews and Holly Martin will be captivated.

If you’d like to snatch a copy of Book 1 in this series, you’ll find it on Amazon and Kobo 🥂🏖

And you can find out more about Hera Books here

(I promise I won’t leave it another six months before I post again 🖌📚)

Tuscany, reading, writing and archery – so much common ground! #RNA

May 28, 2019

Found this Christmas card in the cupboard when I was tidying at 3am this morning, five months too late to send. It depicts Il Duomo in Milan and when I spotted it, it took me back to my weekend with my travel buddy Hannah last March. I knew she’d appreciate the card – so perhaps you’ll remind me to send it this coming December 🙄

Italy Italy is everywhere it seems .. and a very popular location for romance novels. I give you this link … 💒 … in which you should find the wonderful blog by Angela Petch. A fellow-RNA member, writer and all round kindness-filled lady whom I met and clicked with at last year’s Conference near Leeds.

In this post Angela chats to Daisy James, author of the Paradise Cookery School series and now the Limoncello series, published by Canelo Escape Publishing.

I enjoyed reading about Daisy’s writing day, seeing her summer house where she writes when it’s warm enough. The archery link is something I’ll bring up when I see her next time at an RNA event. (We sat next to each other last autumn at the York tea ☕️)

Perhaps now is the time to submit my Tuscan novel to these guys at Canelo to see if they fancy a little romance/mafia 🖤😅

No. For now, we wait. The manuscript is with the New Writer’s Scheme for its read-through by one of the multi-published authors of romance. Receiving the feedback report will be a double-edged sword; petrifying and exciting! To see what the reader thinks works or not. eeeeek!

Have a great day folks!

One tattoo, two elevator pitches, three synopsis and much advice

March 24, 2019

I make excuses but there’s only one reason I don’t clean the house my husband bought us last year; I dare not disturb his rotting body.

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OMG – it’s been too long my lovely friends on WordPress – how the devil are you all?

I’ve been doing lots of studying on The first line hook. How did I do?! Did that catch your attention? 🤣Man of the Woods is safe and well, I assure you.

The old fallen trees in our woods have been receiving his attentions all winter and we now have enough fire wood stored to run a small island.

So, what have you all been up to with your writings recently? You tell me yours and I’ll tell you mine.

I was editing last time we spoke, and since then I’ve sent the manuscript to fresh eyes for a viewpoint and some feedback about whether the story ‘works’.

I met with two industry professionals who (without reading a word of our books) attempted to show and teach us the magic of an elevator pitch. How to condense your 77,000 word novel into two sentences. Jeee whizz, have you tried that recently?

‘Well, there’s this woman ….’ is not going to cut it 😂

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Two worlds collide when English carer Martha is left a vineyard by Blanche, whose extended family in Tuscany have deep rooted links to the mafia.

Secrets start to unravel, as does her resolve to never fall in love again, when she meets Antonio on his release from prison.

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I didn’t think that was too bad, but what it showed the profressionals from the outset was that my story crosses two genres and they asked me where I saw my book sitting in a book shop, i.e. next to which authors?

The sizzle of excitement which the question evoked was short lived when no-one could think of anyone, and I came away with the advice to think hard about what primary story I wanted to write;

1. Antonio’s crime thriller tale

2. Martha’s romance

But I want both. Am I being greedy? I don’t think so; it’s simply not the same story without the grit.

I did come away with a possible new title – and everyone I’ve spoken to seems to like it.

So I sent it on to two people to read whose opinions I trust to be honest and constructive. I’ve since received one feedback report which makes for fascinating reading. I believe it all, and now I’m stuck. On how to start the necessary changes I mean.

I’ve walked away from it while I take a breather, doing that thing all writers go through when they question what on earth they are actually doing.

I think one of the biggest problems is that I never had a plan, a plot, let alone an arc for Martha to follow. I pantsered my way towards the midpoint and ground to a halt last summer; you watched me. Then slowly the wheels of the cumbersome steam train shufftied (my new word) round and we made, with loud efforts full of steam, steady progress through to autumn.

Reading ‘Save the Cat’ was a game-changer. I wished I’d had it eighteen months earlier. Even though I typed THE END in early January, and have happily skipped through it twice pretending to know what I’m doing during a phase called ‘editing’ I’ve never been truly convinced I knew what this was about. And the message is coming through loud and clear – IT SHOWS.

Can I really do this?

Meanwhile, you know me, I had to keep typing. My writing buddy over at alitlebookproblem said pretty much the exact words I’d been thinking – TAKE A BREAK FROM THE WIP.

Last autumn I thrashed out a 17,000 erotic piece and submitted to carina press, remember? A polite rejection 8 weeks later hasn’t put me off trying again and I remembered how I enjoyed the words pouring from my fingers, so last week I typed another. Except this time, I did more research.

Mills and Boon’s Dare line has been around for a little over eighteen months now. Some talented writers have produced many great tantalising tales. They are still love stories but with far more explicit sex on the page. Pure and simple unadulterated sex (is that a conundrum?). I read four titles and certainly saw the ‘pattern’ which some call formula. Meet the hero and heroine in chapter one, none of this fiddling about taking the reader on a long arduous journey to find him/her. Settings are exciting cities around the world, New York (been there once and got stuck in a motel outside JFK), London (go there a lot), Milan (yup, tick), Paris (twice – hey I could do this).

So I’ve typed the first three chapters and a synopsis of a sexy little tale involving an independent and sensual businesswoman on the verge of expanding her business into LA (been there four times). She just needs a massage before she leaves. Except Scott gives more than the sports therapy his business card portrays….

Out came the 8,000 words like ants to a jam spillage. I printed off the pages, found the pink pen, made some grammatical changes, played with syntax. Lucy and Scott are there in the first chapter, I disturbed by mere mentions of third parties. The internal dialogue pov is from them both, split 50/50 like many M&B titles and the pacing I believe is worthy of what would be the next 42,000 to complete the expected fifty total that is a M&B category romance in this category.

This time I have a story arc in mind, a HEA and a change of mindset across the book for both characters. All we need now is for the peeps at M&B to like my voice, amongst the thousands of submissions they will be receiving weekly for this line, because everyone probably thinks they can write a sex scene….. don’t they?

Don’t know how he got there, but can we just take a moment 🖤

My tiny tattoo.

My reminder that I’m a little shining star within my world.

Yes I can do this because I could self publish – any of – these titles at any time. However…

When I process my clients’ horse rugs, I do them to the best of my ability. And I want the same for my writing. I want each piece to be the best it can be, and alone I’m not convinced I can make it so, hence the confusion as to what help I should take.

Do some blogs again, said Julie.

She was correct – I’ve so enjoyed sharing this with you this morning. I love chatting and shall make a cuppa and read some of your blogs now.

Oh, and Michael? I’ve killed Matsu, it’s a complete disaster 🙈

This notification from WordPress cheered me up though 🎉

Countryside -v- City. Tina Turner and Sunsets 🌅

February 15, 2019

This isn’t a post about battles between farming folk and city-dwellers.

Sorry if you were expecting one but as I find I have a foot squarely in both camps, I can see both sides of most arguments waged around subjects here.

I’ve been married to a farmer for 24 years and 4 months (do you think he’s planning something big for October) but I’ve never lost my yearn for city-life and exploring new places.

We know that Man of the Woods is happiest when surrounded by his trees and clods of dirt (some of which fall from his boots when he pops his legs up on the corner of the kitchen table after most meals.

He’s very specific about his food. I used to moan he was difficult because I couldn’t just rustle up a sandwich of my choosing and deliver it to the tractor. It had to be whatever his thing was at the time. His thing at the moment is “ten of my special biscuits sandwiched into 5 with peanut butter, no butter, thank you. And a coffee.”

Once I’ve made sure the ingredients are in the cupboard, it’s surprisingly easy to keep him happy so I’ve altered my view of him being awkward to predictable, and that’s quite refreshing to work with. Imagine having a husband who wanted a gourmet dish designed and prepared each day?!

It always amazes me that within minutes of turning a foot’s depth of soil over on a field which has been stubble all autumn and winter – ploughing – that seagulls appear from nowhere and swoop in for worms.

I mean, the coast is fifteen miles away. How can they smell, see, sense that a farmer has hitched up his plough rather than a drill or a sprayer? Do they send a scout out to roam the skies for brown fields?

Covent Garden last night. Walking towards Leicester Square; just that whole West End lights and buzz vibe. You can’t beat it in my book 💙

Luckily these days, MoW accepts (rather than let’s me go) that I adore being there and knows an occasionally ‘fix’ makes me happy, so no longer do we have the conversations where he would query the need to leave the village boundary and I would get defensive from the feeling of judgement or being restricted.

Does that make sense?

This was a roiboos tea in a cafe in the centre of Covent Garden, before we ‘women of the family’ garnered for a show to mark the 70th birthday of my mother in law.

I’d assumed for years that I knew Tina Turner. I was aware of someone called Ike being a ‘big name’ in music a long time ago and I’ve been vaguely aware of their union.

I was wrong.

All I knew was the facade which Anna Mae Bullock chose to portray to the world during the 80s onwards once she had finally split from Ike.

She’s been through the bloody lot. The crap that is racism and which was still ruling those times; domestic abuse from her husband of 16 head including regular beatings. She was ‘used to’ the way of life having been brought up by her father who commanded his way in the home via violence, which her mother walked out on but leaving Anna Mae with her father.

I did clap. Here and there. But not like most of the audience who saw it at face value.

I felt the expected vibe towards the end when she finally found love with a man sixteen years her junior, a white German to whom she is still married.

But the majority of the show I found incredibly disturbing. Five years ago I’d have watched it at face value also. But spending those weeks doing self esteem courses at the Women’s Aid refuge two years ago meant I no longer see things at face value.

I’ve been alongside, sat next to, women who have suffered physical abuse at the hands of their supposed protectors/husbands and seen the emotional damage those wounds still cause long after the bruises have gone.

I’ve never experienced physical abuse. Although it is only one of seven recognised forms of the domestic abuse umbrella … listed in the 2015 Coercive Control Law which was passed in the UK in December of that year. Makes for incredibly interesting reading if you are unfamiliar with what constitutes being assertive and breaking the law.

2015 COERCIVE CONTROL ACT

At the end of the show, I wasn’t so much elated for Tina Turner as sad for Anna Mae. The years spent hoping things would change, praying she would make it big because she needed to escape her ‘norm’ . The systems which were not in place then to help or recognise there was a problem. As her sunset years approach her, I hope she is still happy with the love of her life.

The romantic writer part of me is relieved she found Erwin.

The dark thriller writer part of me wants to finish Ike off in some grizzly way.

But for now, let’s just make do with a superb view of sunset over West Hampstead.

Audrey, ABBA, Tea and Potatoes. #Emotional #inspiration 💫

August 4, 2018

A quick 24-hrs in the big smoke, a combine-dust-free day. A change of scene they say is as good as a rest, and I truly believe that to be the case.

I could wonder around London’s streets, paved with concrete, much more often than I do and before my daughter reaches that I’ve done London now, and I want to get off the treadmill stage, I’ll go up as often as can without outstaying my welcome (don’t worry; I have my eye on that aspect. Nothing worse than a over -bearing parent!).

The street artists who work in chalk, for the entertainment of us mere pedestrians in exchange for a pound or two, are so damn talented! I love Audrey. I love her look and her demeanour in Breakfast At Tiffany’s. Stunning and a too-early death at the age of 63.

A window display at Fortnum & Mason, at 181 Piccadilly makes for walking past an impossibility! Each window is a sight to behold.

As we idled our way towards Piccadilly Circus and the ultimate destination of Cineworld in Leicester Square for a girly viewing of the new Mamma Mia, luckily we had some time on our hands to pause whenever shop windows invited us to take a closer look.

Another beautiful shop is the TWG breakfast tea shop; oh my word! It was enough to make me want to whiz home and ditch the Yorkshire Tea box, scoop the dull boxes from the shelf and re-decorate the whole kitchen based on some of their box designs.

We oooh’d and aahh’d and then moved on out of the tea shop, for which you’d need a Barclays loan to buy a year’s supply of anything!

My daughter and I saw the stage show of Mumma Mia about 6 years ago, then subsequently the first film with Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan. I know many said he couldn’t sing. He sang well enough for the part imho, and does so again in this new film.

I’m reading a book right now about getting emotional punch into my fiction writing (hence you’ve noticed my few recent romantic offerings 💫 I’m practicing on you guys) and this film has all the emotional punch I could take. Seriously, I used the hem of my dress to wipe away tears because I had taken no tissues, the backs of my hands had black mascara streaks on them as we travelled back to daughter’s apartment and I’m sure fellow passengers turned away in sympathy at the sad woman with the swollen, bloodshot eyes who must have suffered some severe trauma to look like that 🙈

It was .. IS .. brilliant. Heartache, anguish, internal and external conflicts up the ying yang. The perfect example, and timely, of a romantic story delivering emotional punch.

(Oh, and a few ABBA songs thrown in! 😍 including at least three numbers specially written by Bjorn and Benny for this film 👌🏼)

I’m shattered. But I’m home. The combine is cutting and Man of the Woods wants me to dig up potatoes from the field for tea. Would you like to come with me while I do that?

Oooh look, here comes the boy with a load of oats to unload. Close your eyes or his dust will blow into them! (I know. Rubbish tool. I’m no gardner).

… and from that seed-potato, all these others grew…

I think boiled gently and smothered in melting butter, don’t you?

Now, THAT’S fresh 👌🏼

They are simmering, I’m going to have a nice cup of tea 🤗

When desire takes over….

August 3, 2018

An hour ago, your skin was sparking electricity. Desire flooded my veins and the need to feel you closer engulfed me. One more day, then I will never see you again. I fear the all-too brief pleasure will not outdo the pain I know is coming.

An hour ago our legs locked in twisted sheets, your breath hot on my breasts as I arched my body towards what it knew it needed. The calm I feel now, my body sated, will last a lifetime and the heady pleasure of meeting you will guide me forever.

(Inspired by the beautiful work of Jack Vettriano 🎨)