Linda Gillard
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Posts posted by Linda Gillard
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Hi LoopyLoo100
I was fascinated by your mind map! (I'm the author of EMOTIONAL GEOLOGY and have dropped in to BCF now & again.)
Looking at your map of EMO GEO I can see that this software could be brilliant for planning novels! It looks like a sane and efficient alternative to sheaves of tatty A4 littered with post-its. Thank you so much for alerting me to this free download. I shall tell my author friends about it.
(Now if anyone wants a real challenge, they could attempt a Mind Map of A LIFETIME BURNING.
)Happy New Year to everyone at BCF.
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Just dropping in to say Hi (and many thanks to Miss J for saying she enjoyed STAR GAZING twice!)
You might be interested to know, GraGra, that I couldn't find any fiction told from a blind protagonist's "point of view" apart from Brian Keenan's TURLOUGH, so this isn't exactly an overcrowded field!
All the more reason for you to write your own book. Good luck! -
I might well be up your way Inver because I have friends in the Banchory area and recently did a workshop for Deeside Writers. They seemed keen for me to go back and do another.
I'll pop in now and again I should think, Kate. Now I've mastered The Technology it would seem a shame to waste it.
If anyone wants to contact me you can get to me via my website. Do let me know what you think of my books if you get around to reading them.
In the meantime, 'bye for now, thanks for having me and happy reading!
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Thank you, Icecream! What a compliment!
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Thanks Jules.
And thanks to Michelle for inviting me to participate. It's been really interesting and so useful to hear how readers choose and respond to books.I'll check out the site later today in case anyone has any last-minute Qs.
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Inver, I'm in the Press & Journal today! And they've spelled my surname wrong not once, but twice!
It's a nice feature apart from my name being wrong. (GILLAN instead of GILLARD.) Ho hum...
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I'm featured today on my publisher's blog answering Qs about writing. See http://tinyurl.com/5rkuaw
Not sure why they didn't post a photo of me. Maybe they think I'm too old and wrinkly?...
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Yes, that was a shame, wasn't it?
I've heard rumours that the next BC UnConvention might be in Edinburgh or Glasgow. So maybe there?...
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I couldn't begin to estimate what I owe Lyzzybee and BookCrossing, something I always acknowledge when I speak publicly. There's a photo of some BookCrossers (incl Liz) on my website under the Credits section, and many BookCrossing reviews are quoted in my Reviews sections, alongside those from press and bookblogs.
I was honoured to be asked to speak and teach at the 10th Anniversary BC Convention in London earlier this year which was terrific fun and a wonderful opportunity to meet readers and BC friends.
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OK, consider my arm twisted.
Do you want me to send it to you, Michelle, or to the address of someone waiting to read? (You could send me that offlist.)
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Btw, Michelle, which book of mine isn't offered in a BCF book ring? Twist my arm and I'll donate a copy to the cause. I still have your address somewhere.
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the bookrings here have lovely short queues, so they're a much better bet! (And I think most are registered on bookcrossing too.)
Yes, I wasn't sure about the overlap between the 2 sites - BCF and BC. I've come across Michelle on the BC site.
To be fair to BC, I think it's probably only the queues for STAR GAZING that are loooong and that's because there aren't many copies registered yet.
Thank you, Madcow, for reserving ALB. I hope you'll think it was worth the 60p investment!
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Linda, the problem with marketplace books is that you have to add
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Is it true that you do get a payment whenever a book is taken out.. even though it's TINY?
Yes. This is known as PLR - Public Lending Rate - and it is a major contributor to the pathetic income that most authors earn. (Average author's income is estimated by the Society of Authors to be
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Have you ever thought about creating a main character and doing a series of books? Or do you prefer doing something different every time?
I would love to create a character who could sustain a series of books! This would be wonderful for a variety of reasons...
1. I miss my characters dreadfully when I've finished a book. It's a form of bereavement. (Some of them I'm still not over and don't suppose I ever will be, eg Rory and Flora Dunbar in A LIFETIME BURNING.)
2. It would halve the work in creating a new book since character creation is something that takes a lot of thinking time and emotional input.
3. Publishers and readers like series and so do tv production companies, so a book that is part of a series is probably going to be more commercial.
But I suspect it will never happen for me. (If I could manage a sequel, I'd be chuffed!
) I have a suspicion series characters don't on the whole develop very much, they just get older and life happens to them. (Some pretty much stay the same like Lord Peter Wimsey, Jeeves & Wooster, Inspector Rebus.) Series books are mainly about the plot - often a formulaic plot, like a crime novel - less about the central character. My books are always about character and plot is secondary. (This is a gross generalisation I know and you might not agree, but I think it serves for the purposes of discussion.)
I think too in a book I'm trying to resolve a character's issues in a way that feels emotionally satisfying, sometimes conclusive. That doesn't lend itself even to a sequel, let alone a series.
There are exceptions to my generalisations above: Dorothy Dunnett's and Patrick O' Brian's historical novels where there are characters of such complexity and depth that they can be explored over a series of books (although it's generally thought that P O'B was spreading his material rather thin by the end. I'm currently reading no. 11 in the series and there's no sign of that yet.)
The only character of my own I've ever felt inclined to write a sequel for is Rory Dunbar in A LIFETIME BURNING. I considered it and then realised it just wouldn't work. There's no doubt in my mind that Rory would have been dead within the year after the conclusion of ALB!
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Assuming cost is an issue, Kate, you might like to know that all my books are available "used" (which often means new) on Amazon starting at
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No, I don't really have holidays. I travel around the UK quite a bit for author events and writing workshops, so I do get away.
I don't ever stop writing for long. I finished Book 4 a couple of weeks ago and I've already started making notes for Book 5. I'm waiting for a delivery of books so I can start doing some research for it. Usually I have an idea for the next book as I finish writing the previous one. You know how some book lovers worry about being stranded somewhere without anything to read? I worry about not having a book to write. I like to always have one on the go.
I make a point of not working on Christmas Day!
The thing is, I don't really see it as work, because there is nothing I would rather be doing. -
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I think A LIFETIME BURNING is a book that repays re-reading. Once you know all the twists you can read it in a "Ohmygod - look out behind you!" sort of way.
One of the things people like about the book when they re-read is discovering that the whole story is already there in the Prologue (which was extremely difficult to write without blowing the plot!)
If you re-read nothing else, take another look at the Prologue. You might be surprised!
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There were two basic ideas that were jumping-off points for A LIFETIME BURNING. One I can mention, the other will have to have a spoiler warning!
The first thing that came to me was Flora's voice: a middle-aged woman, sardonic, blackly comic, very damaged in some way... dead, in fact. I liked the (not very original) idea of opening the book at a family funeral, but decided to have the deceased narrating. I didn't have a story at that point, only a narrator. Once I developed a plot, Flora's voice seemed the obvious one to tell the extraordinary story of the Dunbars.
The other inspiration was a radio interview I heard on John Peel's HOME TRUTHS. A middle-aged woman was speaking and I knew by the end of an interview that her life was a novel. She hadn't talked much about her earlier life, just about how she lived now, but my imagination was able to conjure up a back-story for her and that became Flora's life.
In the interview the woman talked about her life thus:
she was a middle-aged, middle-class vagrant, well-spoken and educated, rather genteel. (She could have been a vicar's wife!) She'd ended up living on the streets through a series of unfortunate circumstances, one thing leading to another on the typical downward spiral that leads to homelessness. She clearly felt abandoned by her family and preferred life on the streets.
John Peel asked her how she thought her family would react to her going public on Radio Four about her vagrancy. He said, "Don't you think your family will feel ashamed?" She paused and then replied, quite calmly, "I do hope so."
That was a novel waiting to be written!
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Glad to hear you enjoyed A LIFETIME BURNING, Jules.
Some readers haven't liked the backwards and forwards in time narrative, but perhaps you can see how that gave me scope to manipulate the story so that the reader is kept in suspense about certain key events. I couldn't have done that with a chronological narrative. It was technically a very challenging book to write and trying to keep tabs on everything - 58 years of an extended family's lives - wasn't easy!
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I've talked here about pressure from publishers to produce a book a year. There's also a certain amount of reader pressure...
I suppose this is an instance of where publishers and readers are of one accord.
But it begs the Q... If you could have longer (and probably better) books produced every other year, or a shorter book, maybe somewhat rushed, every year, which would you prefer? Is it about quantity or quality?
For a lot of readers I think it's about quantity because we live in a culture where books are "consumed" and disposed of very readily. Not everyone treats books with the respect that I'm sure readers in this forum demonstrate towards them.
We have fast food, fast everything practically. Do you want fast books?
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Sorry! I'm producing a book a year at the moment. Can't do it any faster!
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I forgot to answer another bit of Michelle's post...
The next book, provisionally titled FAMILY SHADOWS, is out next May so you have a long wait for that one I'm afraid!
This is the blurb I've written for it...
Orphaned by drink, drugs and rock n’ roll, Gwen Rowland is invited to spend Christmas at her actor boyfriend Alfie's family home - a ramshackle Tudor manor in Norfolk. She's excited about the prospect of a proper holiday with a proper family, but soon after she arrives, Gwen notices something isn't quite right. Alfie acts strangely towards his family and is reluctant to talk about the past. There's the enigma of an old family photograph and Alfie's mother, a celebrated children's author, keeps to her room, living in a twilight world between past and present, fact and fiction.
When Gwen discovers fragments of forgotten family letters sewn into an old quilt she starts to piece together the jigsaw of the past and realises there's a lot more to the family history than she's been told.
And a lot more to Alfie.
I've put the opening up on my website under News. Go to http://tinyurl.com/r4d8e and scroll to the bottom of the page.
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That's fine! Go ahead.
There are book rings for all my books on BookCrossing.com. I see there are 93 copies of my books registered and many are doing the rounds in rings and book rays.
Linda Gillard missed out on the prize!
in Women's Fiction / Chick Lit
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Just dropping in to say thanks to Inver, and everyone else for their commiserations.
Sadly STAR GAZING didn't win Romantic Novel of the Year (which was won by Julia Gregson's EAST OF THE SUN) but SG did win the www.LoveReading.co.uk readers' poll of the shortlisted books. SG polled over 50% of the votes.
It was a great honour to be shortlisted but I had mixed feelings about being labelled an author of "romantic" books. That's not how I see myself. Winning an award would be great, but it puts you in a genre pigeonhole and so far all 3 of my books have been very different.