As always, the book-cover departments of Sphere (UK) and Berkley (USA) have done me proud. Though the images on the jacket of Under a Blood Red Sky (UK) and The Red Scarf (USA) are very different, both are very striking. Both should jump out at you on the bookstore shelves.
I have the two covers pinned up in my study and I try to look at them objectively, but fail. Instead I see my characters moving through the scenes depicted. I hear their voices and smell the Russian pine forests or catch the sound of St Petersburg's church bells.
When you have spent months, even years, creating the world in your book, sometimes it's hard to let it go.
Saturday, 16 February 2008
Wednesday, 13 February 2008
Disaster and Delight
February started with a disaster.
My computer crashed. Those are the three words every writer dreads. But because I am totally paranoid about losing material and don't trust myself not to wipe my whole world off the hardrive with the touch of a wrong button, I back up everything of importance.
So the new book is safe. Sighs of relief. That's the good part. The bad part is that I have wasted hours and hours on the stupid machine and eventually we parted company with much ill feeling!
Despite that setback, progress on The Red Scarf/Under a Blood Red Sky is steaming ahead. In January both Berkley (USA) and Sphere (UK) provided copyedited manuscripts for me to check through. This is a process some writers regard as tedious, but I actually enjoy it. After so many months away from it, working on other projects, it is interesting to return to the book with fresh eyes - and with a big fat red pen.
This was my last chance to alter anything before it is set in stone for the printer. So I took my time trimming and tightening. I defy any author to read his/her own work without wanting to alter something - even when it's the final published book in their hands. But at some point you have to say Okay, that's enough, and hand it all over to the publisher who, by this time, has a tight schedule to lock it into.
That's when your work stops and your publisher's work starts. So I am eager to hear initial responses from sales force etc as the finished book passes through more hands prior to publication.
This is when the excitement begins to build - and the nerves kick in!
My computer crashed. Those are the three words every writer dreads. But because I am totally paranoid about losing material and don't trust myself not to wipe my whole world off the hardrive with the touch of a wrong button, I back up everything of importance.
So the new book is safe. Sighs of relief. That's the good part. The bad part is that I have wasted hours and hours on the stupid machine and eventually we parted company with much ill feeling!
Despite that setback, progress on The Red Scarf/Under a Blood Red Sky is steaming ahead. In January both Berkley (USA) and Sphere (UK) provided copyedited manuscripts for me to check through. This is a process some writers regard as tedious, but I actually enjoy it. After so many months away from it, working on other projects, it is interesting to return to the book with fresh eyes - and with a big fat red pen.
This was my last chance to alter anything before it is set in stone for the printer. So I took my time trimming and tightening. I defy any author to read his/her own work without wanting to alter something - even when it's the final published book in their hands. But at some point you have to say Okay, that's enough, and hand it all over to the publisher who, by this time, has a tight schedule to lock it into.
That's when your work stops and your publisher's work starts. So I am eager to hear initial responses from sales force etc as the finished book passes through more hands prior to publication.
This is when the excitement begins to build - and the nerves kick in!
Friday, 1 February 2008
My Next Book
2008 is well under way now, so it's time to talk about my new book which will be published this year.
It's called The Red Scarf in America and Under a Blood Red Sky in the UK.
The reason for this is that my two publishers couldn't agree on one title. Apparently it's quite a common occurrence - look at the great Phillip Pullman with Northern Lights also called The Golden Compass. Annoying for an author? My lips are sealed.
Let me say first that my new book is not a sequel to The Russian Concubine. That one is coming out next year, in 2009. But The Red Scarf/Under a Blood Red Sky is also a sweeping epic story. It is set in Stalin's Russia in 1933. At its heart is an intense love story but it is also driven by the powerful bonds of friendship between two young women, Sofia and Anna. It is a mix of tsarist glamour, gulag suffering and rural life in a Urals village which Stalin's fist is slowly squeezing ever tighter. In this book I explore the extraordinary strength of the human spirit and tell a story of love, escape, revenge and redemption.
The Red Scarf will be published in June 2008 in the USA. Under a Blood Red Sky will be published in November 2008 in the UK. I'm very excited about it.
Friday, 11 January 2008
NEW YEAR 2008
A photo of visitor kittens - Loki & Jellybean - getting their claws into my Christmas.
A new year, a new start - so on with the new book.
After the indulgences of the festive season, it's hard to strap on the hairshirt of self-discipline once more, but it's astonishing how a deadline does focus the mind. My English publisher, LittleBrown/Sphere, asked me to write a piece for their monthly Newsletter and it set me thinking about New Year Resolutions.
To resolve or not to resolve?
Are they a waste of time? Who sticks to them?
Yet New Year Resolutions are part of the extraordinary optimism that is hard-wired into the human psyche, the triumph of hope over experience. And I love that. We can – and we will – improve ourselves, even if we need the January 1st deadline to make it happen. It’s the deadline factor that makes all the difference. A bit like writing really.
Writers will wait until a deadline is about to loom on the horizon and then start to panic. Don’t get me wrong. Having a deadline is a wonderful thing. It means that a publisher is ready and eager to read your latest work. The problem comes from the fact that, to start with anyway, deadlines are a long way off, then one day you wake to find you still have 20,000 words to write and only a morning to write them in.
So this coming year I have resolved to stick to my writing target each week , so that I’ll complete my manuscript early. Time to sit and enjoy the garden. To visit friends and family. To relax. Only that’s not going to happen, is it? Like everybody else, I 'll fall off that moral high ground. As nights grow shorter and days grow warmer, other activities will tempt me away from my desk. For even writers are human.
Over the years I’ve made lots of resolutions – to give up my sudoku addiction or to trim my cat’s claws more often (you should see my sofa!). At the time they all seem achievable. But now I think we should try making resolutions at a different time of year. After all, it’s very easy to think about giving up cakes or chocolate or alcohol when you’ve spent the last ten days doing nothing but eat and drink and be merry.
So that’s my resolution for 2008 – I’m not going to make any until the end of June. But by then of course, when the lazy days of summer arrive, I will decide to leave it all until next Christmas - like everybody else!
Writers will wait until a deadline is about to loom on the horizon and then start to panic. Don’t get me wrong. Having a deadline is a wonderful thing. It means that a publisher is ready and eager to read your latest work. The problem comes from the fact that, to start with anyway, deadlines are a long way off, then one day you wake to find you still have 20,000 words to write and only a morning to write them in.
So this coming year I have resolved to stick to my writing target each week , so that I’ll complete my manuscript early. Time to sit and enjoy the garden. To visit friends and family. To relax. Only that’s not going to happen, is it? Like everybody else, I 'll fall off that moral high ground. As nights grow shorter and days grow warmer, other activities will tempt me away from my desk. For even writers are human.
Over the years I’ve made lots of resolutions – to give up my sudoku addiction or to trim my cat’s claws more often (you should see my sofa!). At the time they all seem achievable. But now I think we should try making resolutions at a different time of year. After all, it’s very easy to think about giving up cakes or chocolate or alcohol when you’ve spent the last ten days doing nothing but eat and drink and be merry.
So that’s my resolution for 2008 – I’m not going to make any until the end of June. But by then of course, when the lazy days of summer arrive, I will decide to leave it all until next Christmas - like everybody else!
Monday, 3 December 2007
Yes!
A dismally wet weekend here in the UK was transformed by fantastic news from my editor, Jackie, at Berkley in the States. It had me doing a Gene Kelly tap routine down Torquay High Street - umbrella and puddles included.
The Russian Concubine has hit the New York Times (extended) bestseller list. Admittedly it's not yet in the Top Twenty (a hallowed position to achieve), but still well and truly there at # 34. This is every author's dream. Christmas come early.
I have printed out a copy of it and pinned it to the wall above my computer to urge me ever onwards and upwards. I know that on days when I sit at my desk in front of a blank page and wonder what on earth is going to fill the word-quota today, the sight of The List will keep me going.
The enthusiasm of readers for the book has had a profound impact on me and drives me on to want to fulfil my side of the bargain with my new book - to provide a story that touches the heart, that entertains, yet raises questions and informs. Now I am working on the sequel to The Russian Concubine and I feel pressure to satisfy each and every reader who enjoyed the original. Sometimes that pressure freezes the pen in my hand. But at others it kicks in with such force that the words flow like last weekend's rain. That's a good place to be.
So is # 34 on the New York Times bestseller list.
The Russian Concubine has hit the New York Times (extended) bestseller list. Admittedly it's not yet in the Top Twenty (a hallowed position to achieve), but still well and truly there at # 34. This is every author's dream. Christmas come early.
I have printed out a copy of it and pinned it to the wall above my computer to urge me ever onwards and upwards. I know that on days when I sit at my desk in front of a blank page and wonder what on earth is going to fill the word-quota today, the sight of The List will keep me going.
The enthusiasm of readers for the book has had a profound impact on me and drives me on to want to fulfil my side of the bargain with my new book - to provide a story that touches the heart, that entertains, yet raises questions and informs. Now I am working on the sequel to The Russian Concubine and I feel pressure to satisfy each and every reader who enjoyed the original. Sometimes that pressure freezes the pen in my hand. But at others it kicks in with such force that the words flow like last weekend's rain. That's a good place to be.
So is # 34 on the New York Times bestseller list.
Friday, 23 November 2007
Mayo Magic
Yes, that's me and Helen Dunning getting friendly with a Dalek.
Why?
Well, Simon Mayo has chosen The Russian Concubine as his Book Of The Month on Radio Five Live and I was invited to go on his show with a panel of reviewers to talk about it. So off I trotted up to London again to the BBC at White City, which is where I bumped into the Tin Terror.
Simon Mayo is an icon. A radio giant. And there my book was in all its glory on Radio Five Live's homepage - just me and the football. (We won't talk about the football disaster - crashing out of Europe. Aaargh!)
On the journey I tried to prepare myself for what kind of reception The Russian Concubine would receive from this impressive panel of reviewers, though I hoped that the fact that it was Book Of The Month indicated that my judges might not be too harsh. And it turned out that I didn't actually need that calming camomile tea beforehand after all. Instead of getting dissed, I was greeted with generous comments and thoroughly enjoyed talking with Helen Dunning, Sarah Harrison and Boyd Hilton about how I'd come to write the book and its connection with my mother's White Russian history. And Simon Mayo made the whole experience of doing a live radio show a breeze. Nerves? What nerves?
Lovely Tamsin, my PR person at LittleBrown/Sphere, came along for morale boosting and did a great job. Thanks, Tamsin. As elegant and supportive as ever.
And to top it all, sitting next to me at the recording table was the Pultizer Prize winner, the brilliant American author Richard Russo. He's a real charmer and I just love his new book - The Bridge Of Sighs. Give it a try.
But only after The Russian Concubine, okay?
Wednesday, 7 November 2007
Book signing
Book signing at Torbay Bookshop in Paignton with friend Ann. It turned into a mini party as so many people came to support it.Two high points of the morning for me were:
1) A woman came to buy a copy of The Russian Concubine because she'd heard me on Palm Radio the day before talking about my mother's White Russian history. It turned out that this woman's own White Russian grandparents had also suffered tragically at the hands of the Bolsheviks. A deeply touching story that stays with me.
2) Another woman arrived to buy the book because she has the same surname - Furnivall. Not a common name. So we're going to compare notes and see if our families are connected somewhere along the line. A new cousin?
Many thanks to all those who came to the book signing to support The Russian Concubine. It made it special.
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