Books We Love Insider Blog

Saturday, May 23, 2020

What Writing Has Cost Me by Victoria Chatham

During a recent conversation with someone who has enjoyed all my books, I was asked what writing had cost me. This wasn't meant in a financial way, more in terms of what social or personal changes I may have experienced.

As a child, books were always my best friends. I’m not sure if this was the result of being an early reader or the fact that being an army brat and constantly on the move taught me very early on the pain of parting from friends. After the second or third posting, I didn’t bother trying to make them and kept pretty much to myself. I became an observer rather than someone who participated in whatever was going on.

The bonus, though, of each new school was discovering its library and there, I excelled

because I read books way above my grade and so became popular with the librarians who were often the English teachers, too. Yes, I sucked up big time in order to get my hot little hands on more books than the curriculum required.

In my early teens, I switched from reading to writing. I was absolutely convinced I had what it took to be an author. I tinkered with writing, gaining on the way prizes for essay writing at school and good passes in English Literature and Grammar (taught as separate subjects back then) in my GCE exams - this, I think, would have been the equivalent of graduation.

Once I was married and had a family, I was always writing something, from annual reports at work to stories for my kids. But then I decided to write a book for my daughter. It took me two years to complete but it satisfied me in a way that reading did not. Writing days were

Sundays, when I shut myself in my bedroom tucked up on the window seat with a flask of coffee and a plate of sandwiches. It was known that I was not to be disturbed unless there was lots of blood or something on fire. Writing became a constant friend, the one to whom I never would have to say good-bye. Sure, there were and are moments of au revoir, but then a new idea grabs me, and the writing begins again.

Over the years I know my writing has set me apart, a little. The days when I’ve said ‘no’ to this or that proposed outing because I wanted to write has caused coolness in some friendships and ended others. The times when I have been uncommunicative because I was deep in my story have not necessarily been understood, either. Joining a writing group was the best thing I ever did because being with other people who ‘get it’ is a great place to be.

Overall, writing has given me much more in terms of satisfaction than just about anything else, so for me, there has been far more reward than cost.

Sunday, February 23, 2020

You Know You Are a Writer When... by Victoria Chatham

Kissing Beach, Mexico

…you are lying on a beach, soaking up the sun, listening to the soft murmur of the waves, drink within hand’s reach—and then it starts. The voices in your head. That one character, who has been giving you gears because she’s not doing what you had in mind, telling you clearly what she is going to do. The sudden visual of the staircase in the house where your character lives. Where does it lead? Is there a purpose for it?

Sigh. Yes, the magic of that sun-kissed moment shatters as your analytical brain nods off allowing your creative brain to burst into life. You pull your notepad from your beach bag and jot down those intrusions because, if you don’t, you know the rest of your afternoon will be more of the same.

Friends who do not write do not get the concept of what populates your head. They don’t understand your need to be alone or that when you sit staring into space, your mind is going a mile a minute, bursting with ideas for which you need more time alone to formulate into words on the page. Then those words need to be organized into scenes or lines of dialogue. They need to paint pictures for readers to see the settings you have created for your characters are and what they are doing.

And when all the words are written, when all the threads weave together to form a beginning, a middle, and an end and you think you are done, there’s a sinking feeling because you know the real work is about to begin.

Whether they like it or not, authors must contend with feedback from critique partners, editors, and beta readers. There are copy and line edits, and revisions as characterizations are strengthened and plot holes plugged. There is often weeping and wailing as beautifully written paragraphs which, though the prose may be perfect does nothing to further the story, are cut.

Writing is not for the faint-hearted. But, if you have ever read a book and thought ‘I can do better than that’, then maybe you have what it takes to write one. What are you waiting for? Sit your butt in a chair, write longhand or type, whichever is most comfortable for you, and get that story idea you’ve been toying with written. When you type THE END, congratulations. Whether your story gets published or not, congratulations - you are a writer.

VICTORIA CHATHAM

Wednesday, October 23, 2019

Regency Travel Part 1 - the Horses by Victoria Chatham

I was once asked if I could write a story without horses in it. As I write historical, and specifically Regency, romance, the answer was a resounding no. From the smallest child’s pony to the largest draught horse, the horse was a necessity of life.

Just as now, a horse was an expense that many families could not afford. To this end, job masters hired out horses at twelve guineas a month, a carriage and pair plus a coachman for about forty guineas a month. Those that could afford their own horses would pay anything from one-hundred guineas for a well-trained carriage horse up to one-thousand guineas for a matched pair and four-thousand or more for a team of four.

The best carriage horses were good to look at, had showy action, were even-tempered and sound. Any reader of Regency romance may be familiar with Georgette Heyer’s description of ‘sixteen-mile-an-hour tits’ in several of her novels. Basically, this is a horse that can cover sixteen miles in an hour. Thanks to an edict by Henry VIII requiring the wealthy to keep good trotting stallions, which made better war horses capable of carrying a heavy man, the likes of the Yorkshire and Norfolk Trotters had been around for centuries.

In the fourteenth century, the Norfolk Trotter influenced the development of the Hackney horse in that county. Great flexion in their knees and hocks produced an exaggerated high, showy and very popular leg action.

Hackney horse Killearn Magician foaled in 1925

The Cleveland Bay, developed in the Cleveland area of Yorkshire in the seventeenth century was a sturdy well-muscled horse and, as its name suggests, always bay in colour. A typical bay will have a black mane and tail, and black legs which made them very popular amongst the driving fraternity for being the same colour and height.

Cleveland Bay

But then along came Scottish engineer John Loudon McAdam, who developed a road-building system that so improved the diabolical highways and byways linking villages, towns and cities in Great Britain, that faster travel was possible. Breeders began looking at the qualities of existing breeds to see how the Roadster, or trotting horse, could be improved. The Cleveland Bays, with relatively short legs in comparison to their body size, were not considered fast enough but nor were the Trotters and Hackneys. Their sharp up/down action actually inhibits speed because their legs do not swing far enough forward from the shoulder with each stride.

Thoroughbred lines were introduced into breeding and cross-breeding Trotters and Cleveland Bays until a taller, longer-legged horse standing up to seventeen and a half hands high (17.5 hh) but consistently about sixteen and a half hands (16.5 hh) was produced. It was strong, even-tempered, had the classic bay colour, with hard blue-black hooves and became known as the Yorkshire Coach Horse. This horse was the Ferrari of its era and it was popular up until 1936 when declining numbers forced the closure of the studbook.

Yorkshire Coach Horse

In July 1800, a horse called Phenomenon bred by Robert and Philip Ramsdale covered seventeen miles in fifty-three minutes. The journey from London to York could be travelled in twenty hours, with stops every ten to fifteen miles to change horses and, according to Georgette Heyer in Devil’s Cub, the sixty-six miles between London and Newmarket was covered in under four hours.

The horse, then as now, generated a huge industry as it required grooms and coachmen, farriers and feed merchants, harness makers and carriages - which I will cover in my next post.

Photographs: Pinterest

Victoria Chatham

Friday, August 23, 2019

Listen to Your Characters by Victoria Chatham

When talking to readers who do not write, the question of how an author creates characters is often raised.

I am quite fortunate in that I don't often have problems visualizing them. I get the hair and eye colour, their body type even before I have named them; I write out a timeline for them and create their birthday. Using astrological signs is one way of determining their strengths and weaknesses which is often an indication of how the conflict in the story might develop. If they have siblings can also affect their character depending on where they come in the lineup. A firstborn, for instance, is often an A-type personality.

The one thing that often causes an 'oh, yeah', kind of look is when I say I listen to my characters and go where they take me. But, if you are the author, I'm asked, how that can be? Don't you just have them do this or that and move them around like pieces on a chessboard? Well, no. That would lead to creating a cast of cardboard characters, so I do not ignore what they tell me. All of my characters are very different. Emmaline in His Dark Enchantress and Juliana in His Ocean Vixen, are both pretty feisty, outside the box kind of gals. Olivia, in His Unexpected Muse, is quite the opposite. She has reasons for being quiet and shy and I found it much more of a challenge to tell her story.

I love each of my leading ladies. They have made me laugh, given me headaches, surprised me in some of the things they have done but never, ever, bored me. I hope that comes across in my writing and that my readers enjoy my characters as much as I do.

Victoria Chatham