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The excitement… and the fear

The first of my novels is out today… Hoorah! And I’m filled with a mixture of excitement, and fear. Obviously, it’s thrilling to see so many months of research and writing, editing, and re-editing, come to fruition, in the form of an actual novel. But now, other people will get to read it… and therein comes the fear.

One obviously writes a book to be read, not just to sit on the shelves and gather dust, but once it’s published, one also starts to worry about whether people will like it; whether the characters are plausible; if the plot actually works.

I suppose I must be either: reasonably confident, or a glutton for punishment because I’ve already worked my way through several edits of the second book, and am currently writing the third. They’re due out in June and October, respectively, by which time I hope people will have come to love the characters and settings just as much as I have.

In the meantime, all I can ask is that people read them, and – if they get the chance – leave a review. And that they be kind!

Atmospheric Fiction in Historical Novels

Writing atmospheric fiction which is set in a time that some people can still remember is always going to be fraught with problems. But I knew right from the beginning that I wanted the setting for my Rufus Stone novels to be the Second World War. I wanted to give him and the characters surrounding him something to think about, other than their own lives, and the problems they were having to solve.

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