Home Thoughts Weekly

I’m chatting today to Morton S. Gray , whose debut romantic suspense novel, "The Girl on the Beach" was e-published by Choc Lit in January 2017. I asked her a few questions about romance. Why did you choose to write romantic suspense novels? I think the romantic suspense genre chose me! When I decided to explore creative writing, I studied for a Certificate of Higher Education in Creative Writing with The Open College of the Arts and the courses explored poetry, short stories, flash fiction, plays and memoir writing. During the same period, I went to a weekly creative writing class with Sue Johnson in Pershore, Worcestershire. Sue encourages you to explore too. After this time of exploration, I concluded that I wanted to write longer fiction with a strong romantic element. I began to read a lot of books published by Choc Lit and couldn’t believe I was lucky enough to get a publishing contract with that publisher for my debut when I won their Search for a Star c...

The first of our fixtures in what’s going to be a busy week finds us in De Beauvoir Town at former library and community centre, Open School East . We’re here for a seminar on Posthumanism and The Arts, in part because the speakers include one of Tom’s PhD supervisors, David Roden. A trickle of attendees turns into a flood and soon it’s standing room only for what proves to be a thoroughly enjoyable evening with fascinating presentations and lively debate. If you’d like to hear more about it you can listen to David Roden’s post on SoundCloud here. Tom and I are probably the oldest people in the room, however there’s an interesting outbreak of #GrannyHair, both here, and on the streets of trendy East London, which makes me wonder why I bother hiding mine – except, of course, that the young women will still be young and I’ll look even more like a granny! St Leonard's. Shoreditch Thanks the non-appearance of trains on the London Overground, there’s plenty of opportu...

The view when I returned from my run this morning. ‘So,’ says our postman, handing me a thick wodge of A5 envelopes, ‘you’ve got a good bundle today; all these are for you!’. Smiling weakly, I wait until I’ve closed the door before giving a little sigh at the latest deluge of paperwork. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my two years assisting with the Romantic Novelists’ Association ‘Romantic Novel of the Year’ awards it’s the value of a good postman, one who’ll keep your parcels out the rain when you’re not in, takes a sensible approach to the occasional underpaid envelope and, er, provides feedback on your running times. And two minutes later! Last year I was fielding parcels of books; receiving them from authors and sending them out to readers for judging, but it seems I was a bit optimistic to think that taking over as official score keeper for the awards would be any less time-consuming. Every entry is read initially by three readers who award ...

‘ Your blog,’ admonishes my dear friend, Julia , gently, ‘is appearing far less frequently. I settle down for a bit of ‘Chris Time’ and you’re not there!’. It feels a bit limp to say I’ve been busy when everyone’s busy now. A glance round the table at The Thursday Girls - my lovely friends of twenty-eight years - gives a snapshot of what we’ve been juggling between us; family illness, ageing parents, grown-up children, separations, reconciliations, bereavements, a house move, a house renovation, job applications, careers, new relationships, new babies, weddings and every emotion from the depths of despair to utter joy.  Today though, the five of us are making the most of this rare opportunity to get together. After a lunch filled with laughter, Ann suggests a walk in the bright sunshine. The bright perishing-cold sunshine, as it turns out, in a truly bitter wind along a path which is suddenly crowded with hulking great schoolboys on a cross country run! Defeated by ...

Hurray! With a lot of help from the bride-to-be, I’ve managed to find the makings of an outfit for my daughter’s wedding.   Basically the secret seems to be to try everything on, something I’m not very keen to do by myself but which was much more fun with Lily to help.   Along the way we rejected The Intestine Dress (a dusky pink shade which I love but which drains me of all colour, in a tube design which was probably meant for someone seven foot tall) several Frumps R Us numbers (just because you are the mother of the bride doesn’t mean that you’re ready to look as, only Milla  could put it, like a sofa cover) and a couple of Trying Too Hard dresses (just because you can, doesn’t mean you should). In the end I bought a shift dress and jacket in a sea-green colour (which, by amazing coincidence, MiL tells me is just the colour she’s been looking at) that seems to hit the right note between mumsy at one end and mutton-dressed-as-lamb at the other....

My sense of direction, never wonderful, fails completely when I’m in London so, despite detailed instructions from Tom, I still end up walking in the wrong direction and have to phone to be reoriented. Still, at least I’ve got as far as St James’s Park without falling down the gap boarding the train at Epsom, laddering my tights or snapping the heel off my shoes – all fears which have been haunting me. Reaching the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, the venue for the RNA summer party, my next fear is that no one will talk to me and I’ll be left standing on the side like the girl nobody wants to dance with. Fortunately this too becomes a needless worry. The problem isn’t about having no one to talk to, but rather the opposite; there just isn’t enough time to catch up with everyone. It’s a great delight to meet my fellow Choc Lit authors Sue, Christina and Margaret for the first time (Jane and Juliet, we missed you!) and to catch up with Lyn, Publisher Extraordinaire. We share a few...

So there we were, fish and chips from the Hake Inn at, er, Hakin, balanced on our laps watching the fondant colours in the sky and an unusually flat, calm quicksilver sea. ‘We’ll always remember this evening, won’t we?’ we said, pausing only to blow on piping hot chips. A romantic tryst at Milford Haven? Not as unlikely as it sound, I’ll have you know. We’ve spent many happy hours on or around the Haven. In fact, we’ve come to some of our best decisions bobbing around in a little wooden boat there. But this time we were looking across the Haven pleasantly passing the time whilst the country made a decision. Well, we will remember Election Night 2010, not because we sat up through the night (all right, I did grab a couple of hours kip at 3.am, but Tom was a real trouper) to watch the dawning of a new government, but for reasons that everyone’s all too familiar with by now. Ah well, what Laura Kuenssberg (what a star!) has been referring to all day as the ‘fluid situation’ is playing ou...

THIS is happening to 'Turning the Tide' at the moment! If you click on the picture it enlarges... not sure 'Turning the Tide' will reach any schools though! Ooh! Sorry to do a bit of Trumpet Tootling but I feel very honoured to have my own Author's page at Hilary Johnson's Authors' Advisory Service. I was very fortunate to meet Hilary through the Romantic Novelists' Association's New Writers Scheme and used her service when I wanted a professional opinion of my initial draft of 'Turning the Tide'. I can honestly say it was Hilary's belief in my work since those early RNA days that gave me the tenacity to keep going!

Blended families come with conflicting loyalties and at Christmas time nearly everyone has somewhere else they feel they ought to be. Throw partners into the equation and it gets even more complicated. Since Tom and I aren’t especially hung up about Christmas we’re happy to let our children go with the strongest flow, but I have to say it was a great delight to have the girls and their partners staying with us this year. When such moments are few and far between they become very precious. My stepsons weren’t far from our thoughts either, not least because we had the very happy news on Christmas Day that my elder stepson and his girlfriend had become engaged. Congratulations Dan and Gill, here’s wishing you every happiness together. Tom and I end a year that has seen the fruition of many years work, both of us crossing important thresholds within weeks of each other. I’m really looking forwards to seeing Turning the Tide published next year and it’s been so satisfying, after al...