LINDA MITCHELMORE SPENDING SUMMER AT 23 THE STRAND

Today I’m delighted to continue with our Question and Answer series introducing Novel Points of View authors and their writing. Please give a warm welcome to novelist and prolific short story writer, Linda Mitchelmore and her delightful summer novel, Summer at 23 The Strand.

Hello Linda,

Before we get into the interview, let’s have a little introduction to Summer at 23 The Strand.

It’s May, and actress, Martha, has bailed out of a Hollywood movie, escaping a romance that she knew was doomed before it had even got really started. She comes to Devon and 23 The Strand for some time-out and to plan her next move. Meeting Hugh wasn’t in that plan but, to her surprise, she finds herself falling for him as they help one another heal from their respective, emotional pains. Martha decides to leave a welcome gift for the next occupant, something each of them continue to do throughout the summer – Cally, Arthur, Lucy, Ana, Stella, Bella, Caroline, and Margy – carry on. Come September, 23 The Strand has worked its magic on them all.

I loved the premise of the novel, having each visitor to 23 The Strand leave a small, thoughtful gift for the next occupant. Where did the inspiration for the storyline come from?

Paignton harbour where many of the characters
 go to get on tripper boats

This is something that was lodged deep in my memory banks! When I was growing up, my mother used to clean holiday chalets on a Saturday morning, and when I was in my teens I used to help her – earning the grand sum of 2/6! Very often, visitors would leave things behind … items of clothing, combs, books, amongst other things. My mother was supposed to hand anything left behind to the supervisor, but times were hard and if it was something useful then she’d simply slip it in her bag. But once, to her great delight, someone left a box of chocolates with a note on top – ‘For the cleaner’. I remember her delight that it was for her and not other people’s rubbish.

As I began each chapter and met each fresh set of characters, I enjoyed trying to second-guess what token they might leave. If you were to take a short break at 23 The Strand, what might you leave behind?

A parmesan grater. I’ve stopped in lots of cottages/gîtes and there’s never been a parmesan grater! I mean, who can make a spag bol, even on holiday, without freshly-grated parmesan on top?

The location feels very real and somewhere I’d love to visit. Do the beach chalets exist? (Please say yes!)

Ah well, I’ve taken a bit of poetic licence here with the chalets. The place

Colourful chalets at Preston beach

is real – Preston beach (and I’ve taken a bit of poetic licence with that as well!!) which is halfway between Torquay and Paignton and which most holidaymakers never find so it’s still very much a locals’ beach. There are chalets there but there are no facilities and you can’t stop overnight in them – they’re just somewhere to take a camping stove, get water from the standpipe on the prom, and store your bathing gear.

Each visitor to 23 The Stand brings their problems but it’s being close to sea and nature, along with the people they meet that helps them see life afresh. Do you enjoy spending time outdoors?

Seal getting friendly around the local coastline

How did you guess? I’m like a caged animal if it’s sunny outside and I have to be indoors. Even if it’s raining I usually get a short walk in every day. My house is perfectly placed – fifteen minutes walk from the beach, and a quick hop over the back hedge to the wood behind my house and another fifteen minute walk and I can see Dartmoor in the distance.

As I mentioned in my introduction, you are also a hugely successful short story writer. Short fiction and novel writing are very different disciplines – how do you juggle both?

Ah well, funny you should ask that. A magazine short story editor once

Author Linda Mitchelmore

told me that short stories are, more often than not, a terrible waste of a good novel plot! This, when she asked me to stretch a short story to a serial, and said serial then became a novel. So the discipline of writing is no different as such. That said, if I’m working on a novel I do find it hard to leave my characters on their journey of 350 pages or so and write about another character who might only cover 500 words. So, while I’m working on a novel I might only write a short story or five as a diversion from a sticky patch in the novel.

The questions I love asking writers – which authors do you enjoy reading? Who inspires both your novel and short story writing? 

I’ve been inspired in the craft of writing – both short stories and novels – by the American writer, Elizabeth Berg. She has a most excellent how-to book, Escaping into the Open, The Art of Writing True. This will open up your mind and help you bare your soul as a writer which, I think, is what you have to do to be good at it. Elizabeth Berg has written short stories although I’ve not read any. She’s also had many novels published and I’ve read a fair few of them ….  ‘Say When’ remains a favourite.

You write short stories, have completed a novel trilogy, and now Summer at 23 The Strand. Can you share a little about what you’re working on next?

I’ve also had two novellas and a stand-alone full length novel published

First in Linda's Emma Trilogy

before HarperCollins published Summer at 23 The Strand. I’ve got a couple of novel ideas out there under consideration at the moment; one is set at Christmas and the other is a summer, seaside-based one. While I wait to hear if they’re to be taken up I’m writing short stories … just so I don’t forget how!

Your joy in keeping busy shines through Linda. Thanks for giving us an appreciation of the inspiration behind your writing and we’re sure many of our readers will also enjoy spending time this Summer at 23 The Strand.

Join us next time when Victoria Cornwall, author of Cornish historical fiction, will be in the spotlight.

Until then, happy reading!

Rae x

SPRINGING INTO SPRING

The theme for our joint blog this time is spring cleaning our desks and our writing.

Victoria has this to say abut spring cleaning:

I don’t usually wait for spring for a spring clean of my writing space. I tend to do it between projects. The “before” photo shows my desk in the middle of the editing phase of my third book in my Cornish Daughter series. My editor’s report and my "Editing Day" mug is within easy reach and I have been making some scribbled notes as I go. Previous to this, I wrote lying on my son’s bed, but the editing phase requires focus and room, so I moved off the bed and reclaimed my old desk. The after picture is my desk ready for a new project. A nice chamomile tea is waiting for me in my "Writing Mug". All I need is some inspiration and a bar of chocolate.

Terry says: It's All About the Work Space:

Writers by their very nature have a very distinctive and well-honed sense of place. Our desk serves as out sanctuary, the place where we pay homage our craft, so it stands to reason that spring is the perfect time to clean our desks, organise our massive amounts of paper (I don't know one writer who does not have an accumulation of notes, research material and story ideas stacked their workspace) and hope that our organised desktop will streamline our writing and make us more prolific. As you can see from the pile of stuff on my desk in the attached picture,I have my work cutout for me. I have notes to copy into my calendar, marketing content to compile, in addition to starting a new book. My books are set in the 1940s, so there is always researching and the quest for the 'historical 'kick'. (note to self: historical kick as a topic for a future blog post).

But Spring is here, and along with it the promise of new beginnings. So I embark on my annual cleaning regime, wondering all the while how I ever let the dust bunnies accumulate and promising to do a better job tending to these small details that are so easy to ignore when I'm in the middle of a project. While I work I think about the stories I will write, and when I'm finished (it really didn't take too long) my desk is clean, my vase is full of tulips and the promise of warm weather encourages me.

Wishing you all the joys and warmth of spring and her new beginnings.

Linda is very organised with her spring cleaning tactics:

I have two spring-cleaning tactics when it comes to my writing. The first is when I am giving myself permission to write, permission to not clean the house from top to bottom once a week, which is what I used to do pre-writing. To rid myself of the guilt that my house isn’t always fit for the Queen’s visit these days, I do a few of those jobs that rarely get done – bleaching the grouting between the bathroom tiles, scrubbing the tops of the kitchen wall cupboards, tidying my knicker drawer, dusting the tops of my paintings. It doesn’t take long and I know I can then happily write for months on end without worrying about any of the above.

The second tactic is when my writing has become stale. I’ve been writing, say, to suit certain magazine readerships, certain editors’ needs and wants, or doing an edit on a novel that again, is how someone other than I wants things done, and somewhere along the line I’ve lost my writing soul. At times like that I pick up my copy of Elizabeth Berg’s ‘Escaping into the Open – The Art of Writing True’. This is a wonderful book, charting how it is that Elizabeth Berg writes (in my opinion) her wonderfully emotional novels. There are various exercises to do that help us write from our souls and I open the book at random and do one or two. For the purpose of this blog post I have just selected these:-

a) The man is not crying but you know his heart is breaking. How do you know?

b) Your father tells you for the first time about the day your older sister – whom you’ve never liked – died. Write not only what he says, but what he does with his coffee cup while he tells you.

I always hand-write this exercise, sitting somewhere comfy. Before I know it I have covered six or seven pages of A4 ready to turn into a short story, or a scene in my work-in-progress.

Better get going …

Marilyn is worried:

Oh dear, I’ve been rumbled.  For while cupboards and drawers crammed with things I might just need one day keep my house respectable, my humble workspace (a small, ground floor bedroom) is my Achilles heel. So, when I heard we were being challenged to spring clean our workspace with ‘before and after’ photos as proof, I panicked. In the past I’ve resorted to photos of me writing in the sunshine, under a tree in the garden, or on holiday, a glass of vino in one hand and a pencil and notebook in the other.

While others might go for a writing retreat in Tuscany or meditate under a full moon to get their inspiration, it’s the much-loved clutter that gives me the incentive to scribble.  So, did I succeed in spring cleaning my office?  Reader, I cheated, just a little…

Lucky Rae meanwhile is having more than a spring clean:

A confession – here’s my current work area, which is nothing to be proud of! In my defence, I know where everything is and why it is placed just so. The real problem is that this chaos takes up most of our dining room table and needs to be moved each time we wish to use it, which isn’t ideal.

However, it’s the time of year for new beginnings and change is afoot. We have a small space fondly known as the playroom, which is no longer needed now our children are grown. It’s time to make more use of the space, and so began a project that’s included numerous trips to the local charity shop and tip. Mr C has done a fantastic job of both freshening the walls and transforming a cupboard with migraine inducing primary colours to a soft muted grey. And here’s my shiny new desk. It’s not quite in situ yet, as we’ve still to lay new flooring, but by the time this post goes live I should have my very own writing space. And should I ever get bored, there are still stacks of games in the cupboard to keep me entertained.

And finally, Jennie offers her abject apologises:

My office is in the small spare room downstairs and my work area runs almost the length of one wall. I did try on several occasions to tidy my desk but there were complications like this:

And at the other end:

Spring hasn't really burst forth yet has it? Maybe by the end of March when the sun shines on a regular basis the cats will depart to a sunny place in the garden and then I can spring clean my desk - or maybe not!