A-Z Blogging Challenge: O is for Overdoing it….

Oh dear, I think I rather tried to overdo it this month…



Not only is April the month of two important birthdays in our household, it is also the month of The London Book Fair, so when you honestly think about it, trying to also blog every day was a little bit overambitious. Welcome to my world!

So I'm afraid I will have to accept defeat (not an easy task). Please can all of you lovely A-Z Bloggers, accept my apologies for a spectacular A-Z Fail. I promise to do it another time (as long as it doesn't co-incide with LBF).

Look out for several post here about the Fair in the coming days. I know its no consolation, but it's something..? I will also not forget to post about MA in Creative Writing, something I was meant to do a few days ago under M.

A-Z Challenge: K is for Karelia

My theme: writing and the business of writing

"Karelia: a region of NE Europe, formerly Finland but annexed in several stages by the former Soviet Union."

Picture from Paradox

In Finnish history, Karelia is a contentious issue. It's not mentioned in the above quote, (from Collins dictionary 2003) but Finland still has a region called Karelia. Many Karelian Finns also consider the area now belonging to Russia as their rightful homeland, because during the 2nd World War many people lost their land and property during bitter battles fought between Finns and Russians.

What has Karelia got to do with writing?

For a writer, historically dramatic events and regions are important, and you ignore them at your peril. Even if your book is set in modern times, there are always characters whose lives, or whose relatives' lives, have been affected by a historical event. This is true especially for Finland, whose short history has seen many wars and tragedies.

In my latest spy novel, The Red King of Helsinki, the main protagonist's Karelian family lost their home in the Winter War. This tragedy has repercussions when Pia's mother Maija decides to study the Russian language in the 1950's.

Maija’s degree in Russian language had always been a problem. First her mother was against it. Maija’s grandfather fought the Reds in the Civil War in 1917, and her father the Russians twenty-five years later in the Winter War. His family were from Karelia.

Maija’s aunt talked often about the two evacuations from Karelia, where 400,000 had to leave their homes and livelihoods. Her home as well as the childhood home was near Viipuri, now beyond the border in the Soviet Union. Auntie Eija's husband had died in the war; how, Maija wasn’t ever quite sure. She had visions of Uncle Kaarlo in a fist fight with a tall Russian while their large farmhouse with beautifully carved porches was in flames in the background. Aunt Eija carried pictures of the farmhouse they had lost as well as a black-and-white portrait of her dead husband in her purse. She never passed an opportunity to take the pictures out and decry the Soviet state.

‘We lost our homeland, but Finland kept her independence, unlike those poor Baltic states.’

Even though I don't have any close family connections with Karelia, I've always been fascinated by the Karelian people and its history, which has so coloured Finnish life. I guess that's why Karelian characters often seep into my fiction.

The Red King of Helsinki came out 30 March is now available on Kindle as well as iBooks and other e-reading devices. 

A-Z Blogging Challenge: G if for Genre

My theme: Writing and the Business of Writing

Before I started taking my writing seriously, I was almost allergic to the word genre. For one it just seemed so pretentious somehow; it was a word used by Melvyn Bragg on the South Bank Show, not a word an ordinary person who loves books would ever utter. I mean, how often do you go into a bookshop and say, 'The genre I'm particularly interested in is…' OK, as a former bookseller, I know there are people who'd say just that, but I hope you know what I mean?

During my MA in Creative Writing, however, I became aware that genre was something I needed to take seriously. During my first tutorial, I was asked what my genre is. The tutor must have noticed my panic because she said, 'Who's the writer you most love and wish to emulate?'

At the time I was obsessed with Ian McEwan and William Boyd. The tutor gave a lopsided grin. 'Ah, literary fiction.'  I was glad I'd at last found what my aspirational genre was, but was a little puzzled by the tutor's reaction.

It was much, much later when I discovered, that:
a) Literary fiction is the most respected and high-brow of any literary genre
b) It's the most difficult genre
c) It's a genre you have to earn like a badge of honour
d) All authors considered part of this literary fiction genre were at the time (and still largely are) men. (More about women v men in the publishing industry under another letter).

I have since written several books which, if you ignore the literary fiction genre, could be classed as:

1. Romance (The Englishman) 

2. Family saga (Coffee and Vodka)

3. Spy thriller (The Red King of Helsinki)

To have written books in several genres poses many problems for a writer (unless you're of the William Boyd or Ian McEwan ilk, when whatever you write is literary fiction).

First of all, if you do wish to seek representation with an agent, he or she will want to know your writing genre. Same with a publisher.

It's also universally acknowledged that readers prefer authors to keep to one genre only. Readers, according to the publishing industry gurus, want to read the same book (only slightly modified) over and over again. I would strongly refute this, but at the same time, anyone who knows anything about marketing knows that, while building a brand, it's difficult to sell products which fall into totally different categories.

So, with all this in mind, the next big question I should ask myself is not which of the 3 or 4 half-finished manuscripts I should complete, but which of the above three genres I should concentrate on?

And you thought all a writer needs to do is put pen to paper…