PLEASE OFFER A WARM WELCOME TO ... MAIRIBETH MACMILLAN...

Hello!

A new year often brings exciting changes and so it is for the Novel Points of View blog, with two fantastic authors joining our team. First up, we are delighted to welcome historical novelist, short story and flash fiction writer, Mairibeth MacMillan, who has been a friend and reader of the blog for some time.

So please join us, as we offer Mairibeth a warm welcome aboard... 

Say 'Hello' to author, Mairibeth MacMillan...

Hello everyone! It’s really lovely to be here. I’ve been following this blog for a while and am delighted to be asked to contribute. This post is very much just an introduction to me and my writing and later I hope to share with you more about my writing practice and the things that inspire me.

Like Rae, I enjoy writing flash fiction and short stories and have been published in magazines, including Writers’ Forum, Writing Magazine and The People’s Friend. I’ve also published two historical romances set in 9th Century Strathclyde, an ancient kingdom that is part of modern Scotland. These are set on the coast of the River Clyde, just after the Siege of Alt Clut (now Dumbarton Rock). The third in the series is due to be published soon and The Viking’s Princess Bride will be the first novel I have published independently — my first two were originally published by Tirgearr Publishing, but are now also independently published.

The ancient stronghold of Dumbarton Castle,
on Dumbarton Rock

 

My previous career was as a drama teacher and, although I primarily write prose now, I have a master’s degree in playwriting from the University of Glasgow. While academic courses are obviously not necessary to become a writer (and don’t necessarily make you a better writer) I really enjoyed the year I spent as a mature student — mostly because of the friends I made and the time we spent sitting in pubs and cafes in Glasgow’s West End chatting and drinking coffee (full disclosure — I’m not really a fan of coffee but will drink endless cups of tea.) That time spent talking to other writers and theatre-makers continues to inspire me even now, five years later.

Café culture - somewhere to connect

 

I was really fortunate to be able to study part of the MLitt course in Viking Studies at the University of the Highlands and Islands last year. Besides learning lots of interesting things about Vikings and their relationship with the countries now known as Scotland and Ireland, I also met people from all over the world who were studying the course, too. It genuinely surprised me to discover my classmates came from Sweden, South Africa, Australia, the US, and Canada as well as from all over Scotland. People may complain about technology, but for those of us who live in rural and island communities, it allows us to access opportunities we would otherwise be denied and can allow all of us to make connections in the most unexpected places.

The Viking's Cursed Bride & The Viking's Warrior Bride
part of Mairibeth's Viking Romance, Brothers of Thunder series...
(The Viking's Princess Bride to follow soon...)

One thing I have learned over the years I have been writing is that making connections with other writers is really important. I’m currently the organiser of the Romantic Novelists Association Scottish Chapter — anyone who is currently an RNA member and who currently lives within the geographical borders of Scotland can join. We primarily communicate via a Facebook group, but try to meet up either on Zoom or in person (we can dream!) a few times a year. If there’s anyone reading this who is eligible and not a member, please feel free to contact us on the RNA Scottish Chapter group — we’d love to meet you!

Writers of romance living in Scotland, please come join us...

I’m very much looking forward to the new connections I will make as part of this blog!

Thanks Mairibeth, we are so looking forward to learning more about your writing, creative practice and the publication of The Viking's Princess Bride.

The warmest of welcomes from,

All at Novel Points of View 

P.S... To connect with Mairibeth you can find her on Twitter @MairibethM , and on Facebook as Mairibeth MacMillan. 

Copy-editing - how hard can it be?

 Late last August, my 24-year old son showed me something he’d written. ‘I don’t know if it’s the start of a short story, or something longer,’ he said. It was in the fantasy genre, and the main character was a young man, the heir to the lord of the manor, who was running scared from his responsibilities. He was more interested in the pixie-infested forest outside the village.

I read it and liked it, and told my son what he had there was the start of a novel. ‘And fantasy novels,’ I told him, ‘need to be somewhere around 90-100,000 words.’ He’d written about 3000.

He gulped, went away, and carried on writing. Over the next couple of months he sent me a chapter or two most days for me to read and comment on. We had many long discussions about his plot and characters and ideas, and I found myself really getting into his story and looking forward to each instalment.

When it was complete I promised him I’d do a copy-edit on it, once he’d pulled it into shape. Over the last couple of weeks that’s what I’ve been doing.

Well, let me tell you, I have a new-found respect for the work of a copy-editor! It’s a lot harder when it’s not your own novel. I tend to type quite accurately – there aren’t many typos or grammatical errors in my first drafts. (I suspect this is the result of years of working as a computer programmer, when typos would mean the program simply wouldn’t compile.) My son… less so. Ahem.

It took me much longer than I’d expected to edit my son’s novel, reading it slowly and carefully, removing repeated words, altering the occasional bit I felt was overwritten, correcting grammar and punctuation. But all through I was loving the story even more reading it the second time.

OK, so I do understand that as his mother I may be just the teensiest bit biased, but he’s a good writer, he can tell a story and develop his characters, he made me laugh and gasp and I enjoyed every word of the book. Great start, intriguing middle and satisfying ending.

So once he’s finished checking through my edits and making a few other changes, he needs to write a synopsis. And then research potential agents and publishers. As we writers know all too well, very often writing the novel is the easy part – getting published is the difficult bit.

But he’s done well to get this far. And copy-editing the novel was a great experience for me. I learned a lot doing it!