Christina Hollis: A Writer's Life Is (Usually) A Happy One...

Writing for a living must be the best job there is. To paraphrase Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady’s The Big Bang Theory, being a writer involves thinking about stuff and writing some of it down. 

The snag is, when you’re an author the day-job comes with a whole load of excess baggage. 

Non-Fictional Paperwork

By this I mean the boring everyday toil, rather than useful non-fiction writing work, like my current project about Women’s Lives In Bristol. Accounts and tax returns are only too real. Planning, cross-checking diaries with my OH to make sure our appointments don’t clash, and scheduling work all has to be done. Keeping on top of it all helps reduce the total time I spend on non-writing tasks—for example, I carry a plain white envelope in the back of my purse with the month and year written on it. I stuff all my work-related receipts and parking passes straight into it as I get them. Then it’s a simple thing to sit down at the end of that month and enter all the receipts on my Current Accounts spreadsheet. That’s a lot quicker than scrabbling around the house and car for paperwork once a year, but it all eats into my writing time.

Nobody Believes You...

… when you say it’s your career. It’s hard to believe it myself sometimes. I jump out of bed every day of the year (yes, Monday mornings included!) and find it hard to tear myself away from my desk when the family needs feeding, or they’re in danger of running out of clean clothes. Imagine how tough it is to keep smiling when somebody asks me to take on a task or join a committee which only meets during working hours “…because you’re at home all day…”.

I'm Writing Non-Fiction At The Moment, So This Really IS Bristol

Or They Believe Too Much...

One of the first thing every writer learns is the danger of putting real people into their books. We live in litigious times. If you hate your landlord and the feeling is mutual, they’ll comb your published work for any trace of a similarity between them and a villain in your book. Eye and hair colour, build, habits, speech patterns—change them all, to be on the safe side. Everyone uses real events and personalities as a springboard for their fiction—even JRR Tolkien, whose fantasy world of hobbits, trolls and dwarves is about as far removed from real life as it’s possible to get. Both he and his wife have an important part in his story universe, but they both knew exactly what he was up to, and it was consensual. Moral: only include a real person in your book if both of you are involved in an eternal, true-life love story. 

With each other, obviously. 

When writing is your career rather than your hobby, it’s a wonderful life but there are a few niggles. Thank goodness for family, friends, and understanding visitors to sites like AuthorSound Relations, that’s all I can say!

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, gardening, 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: Miriam Daniell—No Angel In The House...

Miriam went from having friends like these...

Until I started researching women's lives in nineteenth century Bristol, I thought Victorian life was dull, and without any sort of excitement. Miriam Daniell shows there are exceptions to every rule.

Born Miriam Wheeler in 1860, she was the daughter of a grocer from Northampton. The family moved to Bristol to import tea. Miriam's father became treasurer of a Congregational chapel in the fashionable Bristol suburb.of Clifton. The Wheeler family was conventional, and religious. Their children were educated by a governess brought from Zurich, and Mr Wheeler's networking in chapel circles eventually led to Miriam marrying Edward Daniell, a solicitor.

 Both Miriam and her husband were keen artists. Her work was more highly praised than his when they both submitted paintings to the Bristol Academy Fine Arts Exhibition of 1884.  Miriam's talent brought her into contact with the Stacy family, who were important figures in the Bristol Art circles. Bristol was alight with political debate at the time, and the writing of American socialist Laurence Grönlund convinced Miriam she should join the fight to end class inequality, and work toward the social and cultural emancipation of women. 

In 1886 Miriam underwent an operation. The reason is unknown, but newspaper coverage of the Daniell’s eventual divorce in 1894 suggests salaciously that from the time of the procedure the Daniells stopped sleeping together, on medical advice.  In 1888 Miriam joined the Bristol Women’s Liberal Association. Around this time she  met Helena Hope, who lived not far away in the same fashionable area of Bristol. The two women were the perfect illustration of opposites attracting. The highly-strung, rebellious Miriam was complemented by the steady, warmhearted and level-headed Helena. While Helena took inspiration from the work of the famous thinker and philanthropist John Ruskin, Miriam wanted to absorb knowledge directly from the lives of ordinary working people. They both came to the conclusion it was the exploitation of labour that made working people losing heart.

...to friends like this.

Helena and Miriam’s study of Henry David Thoreau’s Walden made them increasingly dissatisfied with Clifton life.  They  became vegetarians. That was an act of rebellion as shocking in their social circle at the time as living naked in the woods would be today.  

In 1888, the Bristol Sunday Society was formed as a focus for discussion on science and literature. The following year, Miriam was elected onto the committee—the only woman. On March 8th 1889,  a combination of melting snow and heavy rain  flooded the poverty-stricken low lying areas of Bristol. Victims were stranded in the upper storeys of buildings, reliant on the police to deliver bread and water by rowing boat.

Miriam swung into action, issuing an appeal for donations in the local newspaper. She turned her genteel home into a collection point. Miriam and Helena's  work with the flood victims exposed them to the desperate circumstances of the city’s poor and underprivileged. Through her work in politics, Miriam met Robert Nicol.  Robert was a one-time Edinburg medical student turned socialist who became secretary of the militant Gas Workers and General Labourers' Union.

In the autumn of 1889, Miriam, Helena, Robert and others formed a strike committee in response to an outbreak of industrial action in Bristol's factories. When Miriam's husband tried to stop her publishing stories of poor treatment of factory girls, she left him and her beautiful home. Together with Robert and Helena, Miriam went to live in a cottage in one of the poorest parts of Bristol. Not long after, Miriam discovered she was pregnant with Robert Nicol's baby. 

In August 1890, Miriam fled with Robert and Helena to Boston, USA. There, they “declared their free love union” had a daughter, Sunrise. That was shocking enough, but when Miriam’s husband petitioned for divorce it meant her reputation was ruined forever in the eyes of Victorian society. 

That's quite an impressive record for a time when women were supposed to be The Angel In The House!

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: Thank Goodness For Holidays…

This year started with a bang for me. First, I was asked to write Women Of Bristol for publisher Pen And Sword’s major series on women’s lives between 1850-1950. Then a few weeks later, my crime novel Love Lies Bleeding was accepted by Endeavour. That’s great news, but it means I’m researching and writing non-fiction at the same time I’m trying to create a follow-up to Love Lies Bleeding. Dead Woman Walking is slowly taking shape in the odd moments when I take a break from Women Of Bristol.

OH timed a week’s holiday to include the recent Bank Holiday, and was going to spend it working on the house.  Then the rain stopped, and we had some fine, dry weather. It was too good to waste, so we both escaped into the open air for once. The first thing we did was to go out for our 2016 Christmas dinner. Yes, really! I love partying but OH hates it, so the deal is I drag him to his office’s Christmas party each year, then treat him to dinner at our favourite local restaurant. Work and other commitments (including a tooth broken at the last minute) meant we haven’t been able to have our dinner-for-two until last week. It was well worth it, with four courses of local, seasonal food. Mushroom soup was followed by pigeon, then slowly roasted pork with lots of colourful vegetables and finally cheesecake. 

Find out more at myBook.to/HeartOfAHostage 

After that, our holiday went from good to great. We caught up on lots of reading, took a lot of long walks in the wood with the dog, and did quite a bit of retail therapy. 

I ended the week with a word count of zero, but the garden is looking a lot better as I was able to spend plenty of time outside working on it.

I was a bit worried about the work piling up and deadlines approaching, but it turned out a break helped me focus. I was so keen to start writing again, I soon caught up. 

What’s your idea of a perfect holiday?

When she isn't cooking, gardening or beekeeping, Christina Hollis writes contemporary fiction starring complex men and independent women.  Her books have been translated into more than a dozen languages, and she’s sold nearly three million books worldwide. 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—Research: It's A Tough Job...

Bristol Docks, via Pixabay

...but somebody has to do it.

I spent last week in Bristol, laying the groundwork for my next book, Women’s Lives In Bristol, 1850-1950. I was born six miles outside the city, and worked at its financial heart for fifteen years. It’s changed so much since I moved across the Severn to live in rural Gloucestershire, I hardly recognised the place. 

Once I’d checked into my hotel and got out onto the streets, I had a bit of a wobble. What on earth had I done? Everywhere looked so different, and I no longer had any contacts in the area. Luckily, some things don’t change. Bristolians are as friendly now as they always were. The first person I asked told me to follow the Blue-Signed Path (as opposed to the Yellow Brick Road) to the old bond warehouse which now houses the Bristol archives. That made me nervous for a different reason. The places around what’s known in the local lingo as the Float Narbour (Floating Harbour) used to be avoided by lone women, unless they were on “business”. 

I was in for another surprise—the whole dockland area has been transformed. It now has sunny plazas, and the water is hemmed with smart apartments. Little front gardens spill flowers onto a wide, level walkway. 

Designed by Brunel (with a little help from Sarah Guppy)
via Pixabay

The Bristol archive was exactly two miles from my hotel room, door-to-door. The weather was glorious, so the walk was easy. It was also safe, although I had to keep an eye out for cyclists and skateboarders. 

I set out on that first morning with only one problem left to solve. As I love food so much, it was a biggie. In the whole of my walk I’d only seen one place serving food of a kind I fancied eating for the whole week. Yes, there were plenty of KFC’s, Macdonalds, Pizza Expresses and the rest, but I only eat that kind of thing once or twice a year, as a treat. The rest of the time, we live on local, seasonal, home-cooked food. Eating out usually means the one or two local places that serve food of the sort I’d cook for myself and my family, if only I had the time. I’m funny that way!

Find out more at http://www.cafecreate.uk.com

It looked like I’d be existing on supermarket snacks, and visits to a teeny-tiny vegan pop-up, next to an enormous and very busy shisha lounge. That didn’t appeal at all, but I needn’t have worried.  When I pushed open the door of the B Bond warehouse, it opened into a small café serving fresh, local vegetarian food. I’m a carnivore, but as the daughter of a market gardener I was brought up to love vegetables and fruit in all their variety. A place where I could work and eat home-cooked food without doing the washing up, all under the same roof? I was in heaven.

Above, you can see a picture posted on social media by the chef. I wasn’t entirely sure about her green-pea-and-vanilla sponge cake (centre back of the pic), though. Peas in cake? That took some thinking about. I mean, beneath its frosting, that cake was green. Green cake? 

The other customers weren’t so squeamish. By the time I’d plucked up the courage to try some, the whole cake had been eaten. They said it was delicious. More fool me, for dithering!

When she isn't cooking, gardening or beekeeping, Christina Hollis writes contemporary fiction starring complex men and independent women.  Her books have been translated into more than a dozen languages, and she’s sold nearly three million books worldwide. 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: A Cure For The Homesick Blues?

Clifton Suspension Bridge, via Pixabay

This year, I’m going back to my roots—and in more ways than one. I’ve been writing all my life, but my first published pieces were non-fiction work for local papers and national magazines. These were written in my spare time, while I was employed in a huge office in Bristol. Sat behind a desk, I

was bean-counting all day then writing at home until late at night. Once I began to get paid for my writing, I left my job in central Bristol and joined Rolls-Royce. Their offices are on the outskirts of the city. The move made commuting a lot faster and easier, as my new full-time job was closer to the country cottage on the Welsh border OH and I bought just after we got married. 

Only a couple of years later, OH suggested I give up office work and become a writer full-time. Trying to make it on my own was scary, but exciting. I’ve always been grateful to my husband for supporting me in what everybody said at the time was a reckless venture. It turned out to be the best investment he could make, and the second best thing I ever did (the best thing I ever did was to marry him).

Find out more at myBook.to/MyDreamGuy

The Romance genre has been very good to me. I’ve made loads of friends and sold a lot of books, but I’ve been so busy writing fiction, there’s been no time to do anything else. I’ve missed non-fiction work—and Bristol too, if I’m honest.

That’s why I’m so excited to be starting a new non-fiction project. Women's Lives is a series of books to be published by Pen And Sword Books next year. The release will coincide with the centenary of the successful Votes For Women campaign during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Each volume of Women's Lives is devoted to a single city in the United Kingdom. I was born only a few miles away from Bristol, in what was then the Somerset countryside so I was keen to get involved with the Pen And Sword project. My family’s strong ties with Bristol go back hundreds of years, although we’ve always preferred living in the country and “just visiting” the city—usually to find a life partner! 

I've started work on the Bristol edition of Women's Lives: Women of Bristol 1850-1950, and I’m really enjoying it. The research it needs means I’m spending a lot of time combing through archives, but there’s nothing to beat the real-life anecdotes I’m gathering from women far and wide who have stories to share. Can you contribute any information about life in the City of Bristol in the years before 1950? I’m particularly interested to hear about women who left the city for life in America, Canada and Australia. Were you or your mother a war-bride, or an evacuee sent abroad from Bristol?

Find out more at myBook.to/HisMajestysSecret

The work on Women of Bristol is absorbing, and I’m unearthing a wealth of stories. They are a mixture of the happy, the sad, and the alarming. There are one or two really tragic tales, such as the new mother desperate to soothe her constantly crying baby. Not knowing any better, she followed her landlady’s dubious advice, and ended up giving her baby a fatal dose of laudanum. We’re so lucky these days, with qualified advice for all sorts of problems at the other end of a telephone, and support groups online. 

Bristol is a fascinating place. Its women are, and always have been, tough, loyal pioneers. They give as good as they get, and they’re always looking to the future. Despite the love I still have for my almost-birthplace and its people, going back there to work makes me appreciate the peace and quiet of our cottage out here in the bluebell woods. Tottering Towers may lack the conveniences of city life, but with its wildlife and tranquility, there’s no place like home…

When she isn't cooking, gardening or beekeeping, Christina Hollis writes contemporary fiction starring complex men and independent women.  Her books have been translated into more than a dozen languages, and she’s sold nearly three million books worldwide. 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.