An Interview With the Teen Authors of St. Mallory’s Forever!

In January, the bestselling writing duo Saffina Desforges released a new novel – with two unknown and previously unpublished teenage girls,  Miriam Joy and Charley Robson, whom I have known for a while. The ebook has already received a bunch of 5* reviews and much praise from reviewers for being a “light and engaging read” amongst others praising the humour.

You can buy the ebook ‘St. Mallory’s Forever!’, a novel about friendship, boarding schools and mysteries, here on Amazon.com as well as other Amazon sites. Print books are also available on demand. Also, check out the St. Mall’s blog.

Since I have not yet had the chance to read the novel myself, I’m interviewing Charley and Miriam on what it’s like to be a teen published.

Hi! First off, well done for publishing. I bet that’s an amazing feeling.

Thanks!

 

AB: St. Mallory’s meant writing in a new genre for you both. What was the trickiest part of making this change?

CR: I think it was having to adjust my language and mindset. I write a lot of high fantasy, science fiction, and historical works , so having to adjust to a modern setting was a bit of a leap, especially with regard to words I tend to avoid in my habitual writing. That, and having to deal with a mindset of a teenage girl – oddly, not something I’d do instinctively, as I generally use older characters – meant having to make sure the character wasn’t just a reflection of my own personality (something which, I find, is a lot easier with characters who are further removed by age and background).

MJ: Not killing anyone. (You think I’m joking? I have a habit of killing off my main characters. The narrators, sometimes.) No, it was mainly an issue of narrative voice and plot. I usually write things with some elements of fantasy, even if they’re in an urban setting, and having to keep everything very realistic, as well as having characters who were fourteen-year-old girls instead of age-old fairies, was a change.

Haha, I definitely can relate to that.

 

I’ve read that you met on a collaborative writing site [Protagonize.com, where I first met Charley and Miriam], which must have helped with the collaborative nature of St. Mall’s. But did you have much writing experience before that?

CR: Plenty! I’ve been writing properly since I was about 13 (though I shudder to look back on those early monstrosities. All that purple prose!), and lots of scribbles and silly things before that. I’ve done NaNoWriMo three times, as of this year, as well, so I’ve got plenty of experience in the novelling department. To varying degrees of success.

Varying degrees of success?

The trouble of producing novels is my inner procrastinator. I’ve got a pretty hectic life as it is, so when it comes down to time when I might novel I feel too lazy to apply myself. Inspiration is a rare commodity for me, so I often move quite slowly unless someone’s badgering me. 

MJ: I’ve been writing as long as I can remember. I wrote a play called … um, I think it was called ‘Escape’, and I turned it into a story later, but I wrote that when I was eight. I started turning it into a ‘book’ when I was nine. I was already interested in writing for publication when I was twelve, but it wasn’t until I joined Protagonize when I was thirteen that I really started committing myself to writing, and even then it wasn’t until NaNoWriMo that I wrote my first novel.

 

If you had had to do something different on the journey to completing St. Mall’s what would it have been?

CR: Less procrastination. I used to dither over the writing of chapters because I was worried I’d scuff everything up. With hindsight, I know now that my lovely co-authors wouldn’t have allowed me to get away with anything horrific, and I really needn’t have worried so much over it. Even if I deserve to be stoned to death for my incurable comma addiction. 

MJ: Probably prioritise it a bit. It slipped to the bottom of our lists a lot of the time, with exams and whatnot, but it would have been nice to finish it a bit quicker. And not leave proof reading until 1am on publication day.

Yeah, that’s a bit of tip for anyone self-publishing: don’t leave things to the last minute!

 

Apart from St. Mallory’s, what has been your favourite piece of your own writing to date? And, of course: why?

CR: Hmmm . . . oddly enough, I think it would have to be a story named “Ikarus”, that I wrote for NaNoWriMo this year. I love some of my first stories dearly, but “Ikarus” has really taught me a lot, and I think it shows how much I’ve changed as a person since I started writing. I’ve worked with themes and elements of setting and character that I’ve not been quite brave enough to approach before and, although I despise the writing quality and want to gouge my eyes out over the plot holes, I’m pretty proud of the story’s complexity and themes in comparison to my earlier works.

MJ: WATCHING, the first book in my YA urban fantasy trilogy (which is actually complete!) is the only thing I’m pleased enough with to be looking at publication, but I’ve got a whole bunch of first drafts waiting to be edited that I’m really proud of. One’s about the apocalypse. Another is about modern day knights.

 

If music is inspiration, what sorts of songs did you listen to get inspired for writing the boarding-school-mystery genre?

CR: I listened to the “St Trinians” soundtrack a lot, for obvious reasons. Miriam also introduced me to the joys of a band called Santiano – a German group who sing sea shanties. The bounce and energy and general happy quirkiness really put me in the right mood for writing “St Mallory’s” . . . even if I don’t understand a word of most of the songs!

MJ: The BBC Sherlock soundtrack? I don’t know. My writing playlists are fairly general: I have ‘All Writing Music’ (2 days long), ‘Death Scenes’ (6 hours long), ‘Fight Scenes’ (3 hours long), and ‘Epic Writing Music’ (2 hours long). Then I make playlists for some of my novels, too. But I didn’t make a St Mall’s playlist, mainly because I was never writing for more than about half an hour / 45 minutes at a time. I couldn’t do too much without the others’ approval.

 

I read on your blog, Charley, that you applied to Oxford University; do you think that writing a novel with end of publishing affected/effected your university applications (for the good or bad)?

Luckily, I don’t think it had much of an effect at all. I’m a pretty good prioritiser, and I definitely put the immediate needs of university application before writing (we were in a bit of a slow period during the time I did most of the application, too, so that helped). That said, I did mention the imminent publication in my personal statement, but what effect that had on my offers I cannot tell you, if it had any at all!

 

Miriam, people have asked it before, but how DO you manage multi-instrumentalism with writing?

I don’t sleep a lot. I write at lunchtimes and eat at breaktimes. I don’t practice my instruments as much as I should. I type quickly. Writing is my hobby as well as something I have to make myself do, so it takes priority. I don’t really watch a lot of TV and my social life is based around the orchestra-band-ballet-archery circuit – there’s nothing outside of that.

Okay…

 

Finally, has anything changed now that you two are published authors? Has it changed your opinions of whether to go traditional or continue the self-publishing route?

CR: Pshhht, what hasn’t changed! Forgive the cliché, but it’s a real dream come true for me – and I never would have suspected it would be achieved like this at all until now. We’ve done pretty well sales-wise, even with very little pre-publication promotion, and I think that’s taught me that self-publication isn’t as risky as I thought it was. That said, I’m still very open-minded and situationist about publishing on the whole, so depending on the book and my own needs at the time, I’d make decision about that book’s route accordingly.

MJ: Yeah. Teachers come up to me and say, “I heard about your book!” (and if I tell them I was working on St Mall’s stuff, they might let me off missed homeworks…) No, it’s not really changed a lot yet. I’ve been looking at agents for WATCHING, but I’m not making any plans about publishing. I don’t know what’ll happen next week, next month, next year … things might change my mind, so it’s best not to make it up!

Definitely! I’m glad it has gone so well for you two. Thanks for giving some insight into your published world!

(I’m Not Going to Call it) The Next Big Thing

Jae of Lit and Scribbles tagged me in The Next Big Thing blog chain post. Yay!

What is the working title of your book?

WHEN THE CLOCK BROKE…

Where did the idea for the book come from?

It started out as a 100-word paragraph assignment on a writing site with the title ‘The Broken Clock’. I happened to write this at the end of October 2010 around the time when I was first acquainted with NaNo. What followed was a month of umming and erring, some plotting, mostly pantsing, not concentrating in my GCSE lessons whilst scribbling into a notebook (which, at one point, I lost for a week). Suffice to say, I didn’t complete NaNo. However, I was left with the beginning and middle of a story that I was in love with writing. By February ’11, I had a finished first draft of 65K words.

What genre does your book fall under?

NA romance with sci-fi elements.

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

Aidelle Masters is the main protagonist of the novel, being introduced to her new home as the novel opens.

Admittedly, this was hard. I had no ‘first choice’ for Aidelle, and although I have chosen Alex Kingston, this is as a ‘good enough for now’. Although, I’ve only seen her as sassy River Song in Doctor Who, I know Alex as a range broad enough – and she’s genuinely a brilliant actress to play a main character!

For looks, Alex was my first choice, in that she has a quirky look with those expressive curls. My main reason that I was hesitant to select her was because River Song exudes confidence and charm, the opposite of Aidelle, but, to be fair, I have also seen Alex act a feminine side, and I think she would be able to pull off Aidelle’s frequent uncertainty.

Aidelle is youngest of four sisters (and a brother), but, unlike them, she has an interest in the stars over the fashions of society. Even so, she’s aware that society ladies don’t think her worthy enough to marry Phillip, hence the reason she would rather like to be as pretty as her sisters. Behind the floaty exterior, however, is quite a smart young woman with crushed potential – and someone with a stubborn side. I reckon Alex could bring this out well, especially for the whole pivotal clock-throwing scene.

Alex is also a bit older than Aidelle, but what’cha-gonna-do-about it?

Phillip Costello is Aidelle’s fiancé: “more likely to lift a paintbrush than a rifle”. His education was in Philosophy, not war, and thus his individuality from his brothers unites him with Aidelle, whom he adores. For Phillip, I needed someone who would portray the neat, creative side of an introverted man whose biggest grievances are his own past actions. After much searching, I chose Matthew Lewis of Harry Potter Neville fame. I guess I could even picture Phillip with stubble in his darkest moments! Matthew has a soft face that would imitate a kindly heart.

I created Rion Costello (whose name recently underwent a makeover from the more traditional ‘Ryan’) before Downton Abbey came onto our screens, but, especially in the most recent series, I’ve been seeing him more and more resemble one of the characters, Thomas Barrow. They share a selfish nature that leads to mischief and manipulation – and both look good in uniform! As for Rob James-Collier, his square face and rough features are perfect for what I’m looking for in my bad guy.

Peter Costello is Phillip’s younger brother, a boy thrown into the man’s world of fighting when he is conscripted into war with his brothers, aged only fifteen. Even though he’s twenty for most of the novel, I needed an actor who looked particularly boyish for the contrast with Phillip. I found Logan Lerman through another writer’s blog, so I don’t know what he has acted, but he has the right sort of look for Peter. He’d have to lose any American accent, though. This picture, I felt, particularly shows Peter’s childishness.

I found Lucy Hale via Google. I don’t know much about her acting résumé, but she certainly looks the part to play Zara, the mysterious time-traveller who comes to Aidelle’s aid, bringing troubles of her own from the future. In Lucy, I see affection coupled with the aggressive modern style of Zara’s personality.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Separated by a twist of time, betrothed Aidelle and Phillip must match their wits against their doubts of a perfect relationship and a society fixated on image and money to reunite before they end up alone in a non-existent eternity.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

Although I don’t dislike self-publishing, I’d much rather go for a traditional route of publishing. I’m not against ebook publishing, but only after physical copies have come out first (this is only added to by the fact that I don’t have an ereader).

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

Four months! It has taken much, much longer since to rewrite and edit…

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

Difficult. I’d like to hope that the novel will make people think, but it doesn’t fit into traditional romance or traditional sci-fi (the straight genres I rarely read).  I read a lot of Dickens whilst writing, so there’s bound to be purple prose and turns of phrase that are more towards his style. Because the book is set in a parallel world (not even called Earth), the mood of society is quite archaic.

Who or What inspired you to write this book?

As I said before, NaNoWriMo and a prompt were big parts of beginning this book, but I wouldn’t have thought to stop writing the previous book if it had not been for a fellow writer and my pen-friend, Katherine Hinzman. I owe her. Along the journey, I was also inspired by my knowledge of Star Trek and Doctor Who, which probably influenced the way time works in my novel.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

Being psychic is a genetic trait! This leads to some accusations of madness and some troubles throughout, but I’m pretty proud of applying my knowledge of Biology/Psychology to this part of my novel.

Tag! They’re it!

In (to quote Jae) ‘blog-chain tradition’, I am tagging three others to give us some insight into their novels. I found it brilliant fun to answer these ten questions about my beloved novel, and I hope that you guys will, too! Thanks

Yawatta Hosby,  A Box of Thoughts, and Miriam Joy.

A Table of Contents…of My Mind

I recently found a table I had written in the back of an old notebook of the novels I had been working on a few years ago. Whilst surprised at the order and precision, I should have expected that I’d want to keep an eye on how I was doing. I thought it needed updating now (and where better online! xD), since many of the stories mentioned were those that I began and stopped immediately afterwards. As tables are somewhat incompatible with the WordPress page layout (and I have no idea how to create them here), I’ve listed the findings, including those that I want to get back to…eventually.
(If there’s any sort of order, it’s of importance to me.)

 

Title: When The Clock Broke…

Genre: Sci-fi romance

Current wordcount: 75K

Status: editing/polishing

Logline [credit to Jae]: Twenty-year-old Aidelle has a bigger problem than being second-rate to her gorgeous, elder sisters. She’s broken time—literally. Stuck in a time-frozen limbo, she must team up with her mysterious ‘granddaughter’ in order to restore time or lose her soulmate forever.

Other:

 

Title: A Game of Murder

Genre: Historical mystery

Current wordcount: 43K

Status: editing

Logline: Working on the mystery party of a 1930′s lady, housemaid Alexandra notices that some of the house-guests aren’t playing by the rules. Suddenly, what was meant to be fun is a matter of life, death, and status.

Other:

 

Title: Triangle

Genre: Contemporary straight romance

Current wordcount: ~55K

Status: first draft, second draft of beginning chapters

Logline: Andrea’s dream of meeting her perfect man is put aside when she meets bank-worker Keith, and is prepared to spend her time with him. Yet, when new-to-town Lucas finally returns her call, she is drawn to him more, in spite of the very many secrets he keeps from her and the sin of infidelity.

Other: Originally a collaborative work before my friend had to drop out. Due to this, I don’t have an exact wordcount or a doc. with the whole novel in.

 

Title: A Tale Of Jackets and Phones

Genre: YA whodunit/mystery

Current wordcount: 30K

Status: Rewrite on hiatus

Logline: Stubborn schoolchild Agnetha only ever had one friend: her dear teacher Mr. Craig. When he is murdered, she is determined to uncover his killer, even if it means disturbing the hard past of a quiet man.

Other: The very first novel I finished!

 

Title: A Tale Of Moscow Mysteries

Genre: YA whodunit/mystery

Current wordcount: 57K

Status: First draft

Logline: Agnetha King, teen detective, is summoned to Russia to help an old friend. As she attempts to work out the mystery of a missing girl, she finds herself in the middle of a murder – with a house full of multi-cultural suspects.

Other: Sequel to ‘Of Jackets and Phones’. Need to finish typing out the last few chapters from my notebook.

 

Title:Ezme

Genre: YA contemporary drama, bildungsroman

Current wordcount: n/a

Status: Massive rewrites on hiatus

Logline: Ezme dreams of fame and recognition. Unfortunately for her, this means finding out who to trust in the ferocity of schoolyard taunting. But Ezme’s not going to give up…even if it means losing her friends.

Other: One day I will make it into an ebook as I keep proclaiming…

 

Title: L.I.L.Y.

Genre: YA contemporary, bildungsroman

Current wordcount: 25K

Status: first draft on hiatus

Logline: When she finds out she’s adopted, not only does teen Lily shed her name and fake past, she also embarks on the trail her birth mother has laid out so they might find each other – before the people in the shadows find Lily.

Other: I began a blog for this story in the height of its [second] germination about inspiration and plot-points, but haven’t had time to work on that either.

 

Title: A Belgium Mystery

Genre: Historical mystery

Current wordcount: 10K

Status: first draft

Logline: At the height of the 20’s diamond trade, young Christophe finds more than just work: someone’s set him up and he has a week to uncover the real diamond thief before a looming jails sentence falls.

Other: Prequel to ‘A Game of Murder’.

 

Title: Today Was A Good Day

Genre: Contemporary mystery/thriller

Current wordcount: 20K

Status: first draft and rewrites on hiatus

Logline: Not many people smile at the death of an ex-husband. But Bella is relieved when her estranged wife-beater is found shot – that is, until her life starts falling into turmoil. The reason he died was for her.

Other: Stopped writing this for ‘When The Clock Broke…’. Unfortunately for ‘Today Was’, I’ve not looked back!

 

Title: My Sister-In-Law is the Devil

Genre: YA contemporary drama/romance with supernatural elements

Current wordcount: n/a

Status: First draft on hiatus

Logline: Meggie hates her troubling past, made only worse by the fact that she’s dating her former teacher. When he proposes, she must face up telling the religious man who exactly her mother is, before the Devil herself puts a stop to their budding relationship.

Other: Must get back to this sometime! I have the plot in mind, just haven’t had a minute to begin to write. Also, changing perspectives from the original first few chapters.

 

That’s about it! *grin*

Rewriting

 How does one begin to rewrite something so bad, so cringe-worthy that one can barely look at it? This is one question I am faced with on my pursuit of re-crafting the novella ‘Ezme’. Each present ‘chapter’ is about six-hundred words as a maximum, the entire thing is in present tense, there is little description so as to not set the scene, or too much description and focus on one character, it generally feels as if there are chunks missing. Ah.

So how do I begin? With the bases of the chapters I have, yes, but I must find some way to fill them in with information and scene-setting without going overboard. Though I have rewritten and edited before, I have never had to on such a scale; even my first novella ‘Of Jackets and Phones’ had a coherent line of a moving plot, rather than dots of significant events!

First of all, I’ve decided, I must have a more dynamic cast. I have the protagonist, Ezme Winters, and the narrator, Jess, and their ‘supporting’ characters (with whom I shall have to work on developing their personalities stronger and background more credible). On the other hand, my antagonists are rather vague, especially in the first ‘year’ of the flashback, where Ezme is bullied by a selection of random students who do not occur in the story after their one or two chapters, or are always referred to by group: ‘the Fourth Years’.

So, I guess that is what I will have to spent time picking at as I work on the rewrite, crafting stronger enemies from those who are already there, and eliminating the random ‘extras’ who yo-yo in and out of chapters just to annoy present me.

Next task? Tone, atmosphere and pace…

Sometimes, with this rewrite, it feels as if I am rolling the dice, waiting to see which characters will emerge from their positions on the gameboard of life.

 

Thank goodness I’m not making this metaphor with a murder mystery!

Still At It…

With the end of the school term comes a load of different work, writing-work, that is. This, although made more difficult by the sudden ‘death’ of my laptop, means, for me, focusing on the novella I intend to turn into an ebook. I don’t expect much to happen with it, since this was something I wrote in my ‘baby years’ as a writer (you know what I mean), but I still want it to be available to life.

And so… I am still working on rewriting ‘Ezme’.

In fairness, I’ve been very lax about this project, not only because of school, but because my mind has been elsewhere emotionally- and because of the various ideas I have been trying to create for various online competitions. I am a writer, I have to strive somehow.

Poetry, too, has been both a hinder and a flourishing tool; my mind has lately been overrun by millions of snippets of lines, which I must weave together, and I have also been working on expanding a Protagonize.com-based anthology of poems with a fantasy/abstract theme to them.

You could say that I’m actually procrastinating. One of the greatest hindrances of ‘Ezme’ is that, as well as having to change the whole story into past tense, I have to, somehow, connect up what began as not diary entries but dated scenes over four years, rarely intertwining. And that is a scary task. Especially as most begin or end with dialogue, a nasty habit I once had.

Logistically, there’s also the ‘admin’ to sort out. No, not the Amazon-ebook stuff itself, but the admin of the facts in the book. Location: unknown. So, school years? I have decided to go by the First to Seven Year system, as it seems relatively universal.

On the other hand, there are so many things I haven’t yet decided, such as whether there are going to be any major themes or morals in the book, aside from that usual one of ‘friendship conquers all’, et cetera.

 

Strangely, my words of the week are both nouns: ‘dell’ and ‘audacity’. They both roll off the tongue!

Sceam For Charity Success

The ebook ‘Scream For Charity’ has stopped selling and the entire proceeds will go to UNICEF.

I am particularly proud  to have been part of this ebook- with my short story ‘A Rosary, A Fume Cabinet, and A Music Book’- as it is my first adventure into publishing, letting me into the experience of e-publishing, and building my (though I must admit, slightly more selfish!) ambitions of becoming a professional writer.

Though the aforementioned story, also called ‘Genevra’ (after the forename of the obsessive protagonist), took a shorter amount of time to write than I had anticipated, it opened my eyes to two genres of literature that I had never tried before: short story-telling and darker tales. Though I had dealt copiously with murder mystery cosies beforehand, I had never taken the darker side to human nature into my hands. And I have, since ‘Genevra’ in October/November, written two new horror shorts. I’m fascinated by the behavioural/cognitive psychology behind the way humanity can behave in certain situations, a fact I hope I put-forward in ‘Genevra’. Perhaps there is even some Psychodynamic Psychology in Genevra’s unhealthy passions for her music teacher and the way she acts in the event of his death. However, that is a subject for a new post…

I’d like to thank the guys over at ThatFantasyBlog for giving me such an experience and chance (after all, if it weren’t for them, I wouldn’t have a blog ), and a big thanks to whomever bought the ebook, thus giving something to combat child-suffering. I’d also personally like to thank Tianna Woolf for her eager unoffical-editor eyes!

 

The full information about the money raised is here on ‘ThatFantasyBlog”s, well, blog, the original concept being found under their ‘Book Publishing’ tab:

Thank you all for the support you gave us..

Reinventing Ezme

She stands at the brink of destruction, worlds collapsing at the feet. One step forward and her path could crumble beneath her step, one step back and she could be watching another star shoot to the sky- and boiling up inside herself like a dormant volcano…

All metaphorically of course.

Ezme is nothing but a lonely wannabee, sitting at both her musical, and computered, keyboards with ideas overflowing from her mind and spilling out via her hands, creating the beautiful notes that we hear now, ethereal on the wind.

I’ve seen Ezme beforehand, seen the way she pretends to be something she’s not; seen the way she folds to their requests, just like a piece of paper, even when she knows what they are truly saying. We all see it: their backstabbing laughs and the way that they can manipulate others into thinking what they want.

Of course, Ezme is different. She is gentle, kind, intelligent, talented and, most of all, mature. She knows she can rise above all their foul words… What I want to know is whether she can rise above herself. Fly high above her fear of failure and pull her head out of its sea of dreams.

I wonder, most of all, whether she can make the right decision for the man she loves. Can she fight the overwhelming fixation to show them all, especially him, that she is better than she makes out at first?

And it was he who started it all in the first place…

 ***

So begins the short story ‘Ezme’, a coming-of-age story about a young girl with big dreams and even bigger problems. Beginning in our present day, Ezme flashes back four years to a new girl at school, rebelling against the name her parents gave her.

As you may be able to tell from the above extract, I began Ezme at the start of my experimentation with writing, in Feb 2nd 2010, almost two years ago from the present. I had no idea where I was heading, and I had foolishly chosen to write the story in present tense- a mistake which I will never forget. 
Now, after touching the edge of the fabric of publishing, I’ve decided that, although I will never realise it as a ‘proper’ book, I can still re-write it and publish it as an e-book, for whomever wishes to see it.

I have my Unofficial Editor on board, now all I need is to create some time I don’t have! 

For Ezme, I have been influenced by Lewis Carroll’s work(s) ‘Sylvie and Bruno’ (and ‘Sylvie and Bruno Concluded’) where the first-person narrator is never truly named and often lost in the midst of the other characters’ interactions. Lewis Carroll and I also share a love of brackets in places where the parenthesis probably shouldn’t be!

An extract from ‘Sylvie and Bruno’, typical of Lewis Carroll’s madness:

The children got down off his knees, each secured a hand, and the happy trio set off for the Library- followed by me. I had come to the conclusion, by this time, that none of the party (except, for a few moments, the Lord Chancellor) was in the least be able to see me.

Sylvie and Bruno with their father, the Warden, and the Professor