Christina Hollis—What A Holiday!

Who says conferences are boring? The Romantic Novelists' Association's 2018 Conference held at Leeds Trinity University over the weekend of 13th-16th of July, was anything but dull. 

Our annual get-together is the perfect excuse to meet up with like-minded writers from all over the world. Most of the delegates are from the British Isles, but this year we had three stellar writers visiting from the United States; Andrea Penrose, Mary Jo Putney and Patricia Rice. They and their fellow member of the Word Wenches blog, current RNA Chair Nicola Cornick, held a panel entitled  "Two Nations, One Language of Romance?"

The RNA does a fantastic job each year, putting together a programme of talks, panels and entertainments. They make sure there's something for everyone. The only problem is, with so many things on offer it's often hard to choose. I made a big mistake in choosing a talk about self-publishing instead of one called From Baby-Wipes to Burlesque.  My friend went to the burlesque session and it turned out to be a workshop! There was dressing up and dancing involved, which was a lot of fun. 

There's been some bad news this week about my own dancing (although "dancing" isn't quite what I'd call my efforts!) which I told you about last month. After four weeks when attendances at Adult Ballet were down to me, one other dancer and the teacher, classes in our village have sadly come to an end. It's such a shame. Twenty-two people signed up when classes were offered, but no more than four of us ever turned up. That was on the first night—and three of those four were me, DD, and Son Number One! Are local events better supported where you live?

Christina Hollis: A Country Conference

Last month, I and around two hundred and fifty other members of the Romantic Novelists' Association converged on the Harper-Adams University in Shropshire for our annual conference. From Friday 14th July until Sunday 16th, we enjoyed three days of talks, workshops, and networking.

There were sessions on the role of an agent and how to write the perfect submission letter, using images from embroidery and tapestry as inspiration for historical fiction, how to make social media work for you, how to revive your backlist, how technology can help writers and many more. The  Gala dinner gave us all a great excuse to dress up and act like romantic heroines.

Harper-Adams University is set in glorious English countryside, and the fresh air gave us all big appetites. Luckily the catering team are geared up to feed hungry farmers, so there was a huge range of food on offer every morning.  After a croissant followed by porridge and fresh fruit, then tea and biscuits mid-morning, a cooked lunch and dinner in the evening, I came home quite a bit heavier than I left.

All the sessions on the craft of writing were fascinating. Hearing the stories of other writers' roads to publication was inspiring. Jill Mansell has a very civilised way of working. She writes her first draft longhand with a gold Parker pen, on the right-hand side pages of a Pukka Pad. Her editing notes are made on the left hand side pages. When she's happy with the result, she has her draft typed up by somebody else. I hate sitting at a computer screen, so if I can come to some arrangement with my offspring, I'll sub-contract my word-processing and go back to writing on paper, which I love.

After hours, the University campus came alive with people socialising at the students' bar. Residential delegates stayed in student accommodation with one communal kitchen to every six flats. That meant the fun went on after hours, too. great opportunity to meet up with old friends and make new ones. I enjoyed every minute of The Romantic Novelists' Association's Conference 2017. IT's being held in Leeds next year. I'm already looking forward to it.

I'll be posting my notes from the conference at http://christinahollis.blogspot.co.uk over the next few weeks, so follow my blog to read more about individual conference sessions.

Christina Hollis writes contemporary fiction starring complex men and independent women. She has written six historical novels, eighteen contemporary novels, sold nearly three million books, and her work has been translated into twenty different languages. When she isn’t writing, Christina is cooking, walking her dog, or beekeeping.

You can catch up with her at http://www.christinahollis.blogspot.com, on Twitter, Facebook, and see a full list of her published books at christinahollis.com

Her current release, Heart Of A Hostage, is published by The Wild Rose Press and available at myBook.to/HeartOfAHostage  worldwide.

Christina Hollis: Creative Writing To Order—NaNoWriMo 2014

I love writing romance (you can find some of my titles here) but I also enjoy reading Ian Rankin's crime fiction and the Montalbano stories by Andrea Camilleri. For quite a while, I've had a couple of characters in mind whose backgrounds are a bit too close to my own to make them a good fit for a romance.

I've never had time to give these characters the space they need to develop. Then along came a Romantic Novelists' Association Workshop, organised by Ann Ankers of the Marcher Chapter. There was a call for samples of work-in-progress, but as I'd just turned in a book and hadn't  started writing my next romance, I didn't have anything to hand. With the requirement of only a few pages, this workshop felt like the ideal place to try out something new, so I produced the first few pages of a—what? Crime, or thriller? The sample was so short I wasn't sure how the story would develop, but everyone at the workshop loved the sample opening. That made the project worth pursuing. There's nothing like the response of readers to improve a writer's work, so I was happy to take their suggestions for improvement on board, and start thinking about a plot to ensnare my two unusual suspects.

My Next Release, from Wild Rose Press

I like to work within a framework of targets and deadlines, and it just so happened NaNoWriMo 2014 was about to kick off. I signed up. It gave me the chance—or is it the excuse? ;) —to put everything else aside, and concentrate on producing a rough first draft of this new work in progress over the thirty days of November.

We're just about half-way through November now, and I'm currently forty-seven percent of the way toward the fifty-thousand word target set down by the NaNoWriMo organisers. It's been hard work, but definitely worthwhile. Plotting my word-count progress in public on the site is pretty scary, but it also acts as a great spur. The sense of achievement is amazing!

The best thing of all is, whether or not I qualify at the end as a NaNoWriMo winner, I'll have the basic structure of my story in place. I can build on that. It's so much easier to edit, rework and rewrite text than it is to start from cold, with the equivalent of a blank sheet of paper.

Writing is all about turning castles in the air into a real story world. Have you ever taken part in NaNoWriMo? How did you get on? You can follow the progress of my current writing project by hitting the "Like" button on my new Facebook Author page, here.

Christina Hollis writes both contemporary and historical fiction–when she isn't cooking, gardening or beekeeping. Her books have been translated into over a dozen different languages, and she’s sold nearly three million books worldwide. You can catch up with her at http://www.christinahollis.blogspot.com,on Twitter and Facebook, and see a full list of her published books at http://www.christinahollis.com Her next release, His Majesty's Secret Passion, will be released in early 2015. 

Christina Hollis–Work In Progress

The view Sophia gets from the top! (Photo:B.R. Marshall)

A few months ago, my chapter of The Romantic Novelists' Association held a workshop. You can read about that here. It was so successful, we've just held a second day–school with the same format.

Once again, we hired a room in Hereford's Courtyard theatre, and each of the seven writers who took part submitted ten pages of their current work–in–progress. Mine's a romantic thriller, but I can't settle on a name. The working title has been both The Barrow Wake and Bright Danger, but I forgot to ask the working party which one they preferred! I'm now toying with the idea of Tasting The Peach as the title, since heroine Sophia, is part of a witness protection scheme.

As Chapter One opens, Sophia Hope is being hassled by a man originally detailed to protect her. He's the secretive new boss of damaged hero Josh, who is prepared to break the rules to expose him. Josh turned to law-enforcement after a tragedy in his turbulent past, but Sophia turns out to be more dangerous to Josh's peace of mind than any murderer...

Here's the final draft of the opening paragraphs of my current work in progress, polished according to the encouragement I got from our latest workshop:

‘...and I love TV, but I don’t want to watch it every day!’ Sophia called back over her shoulder as she put on a spurt. 

Would this guy never take the hint?  It felt like she’d been trying to get away from him all her life. In a way, she had. She’d moved here to get away from it all and start a new, blame-free existence from scratch. Despite everything, he’d refused every instruction, kind word and firm refusal. As her determination increased, so did his puppyish adoration.  What was wrong with the man? He stuck to her like human chewing gum. Sophia was running out of options.

The time’s coming when I’ll have to get nasty, she thought. Really nasty. 

The track ahead of her was a bony limestone spine, rising almost vertically. Kicking on, she outpaced him. Scrabbling forward she almost fell, clawing at the path in a fever of excitement. She was getting away from her unwanted minder, leaving him for dead. 

For dead...

The cold, clean air burned her face. She dragged it in like vodka.

‘I’m serious!’ His voice rose from some way below her, as insubstantial as cigarette smoke.

Sophia stopped, stuck her hands on her hips and screwed round to confront him again. 

Every day, something always managed to stop her sprinting for the summit. Today it was this–this fawning fruit-loop. He was still ten yards behind, and wheezing like an asthmatic ferret. She found it too painful to watch him labour up the slope, so she raised her head and scanned the horizon instead. It was a perfect morning. The atmosphere was gin-clear from here to Hay Bluff, sixty miles away. 

I could run all the way there and be back before this loser’s caught his breath, she thought. 

This was a day to feel the lust for life powering through your veins. A life that was too short for promises. Sophia wanted to get on. 

She dropped her gaze again, meaning to confront him. It snagged on the city, down in the vale. From here, the confusion of tiny buildings was a dark smudge on the countryside. It was a necessary evil–as vital, ugly and inescapable as the feelings locked away inside her. She glanced at her feet. When she pivoted, her trainers had inscribed perfect circles in the damp grey grit. Down in the city, the heaving mass of humanity would soon be climbing on to the treadmill of another new day, getting ready to run around in the same old circles, in the same old way. 

She pursed her lips. Digging her toes into the ground she scuffed hard, destroying the neat marks.

‘You’re beautiful,’ he gasped.

‘I’m trouble, you mean,’ she ground away at the divots with her toes and heels, ‘especially for a man like you. If you think I’m falling for that old line, forget it. It’s only the thrill of the forbidden you’re finding beautiful.’

‘How many times do I have to tell you?’ He caught her by the arm. The action narrowed her eyes to searchlights.  Releasing her, he flung his hands up in a gesture of peace.

‘Nobody,’ she said in a low voice, ‘does that to me.’ 

Christina Hollis writes both contemporary and historical fiction - when she isn't cooking, gardening or beekeeping. You can catch up with her at http://www.christinahollis.blogspot.com, on Twitter and Facebook, and see a full list of her published books at http://www.christinahollis.com