Closing Liz Trenow’s blog tour today is me, TWG! Big thank you PanMacmillan for the blog tour invite! It’s a pleasure to be alongside some truly wonderful bloggers, for a smashing author.
I am delighted to bring you a written piece from the lady herself, Liz Trenow. Enjoy!
(oh, and if you wanted to buy her new book, all the details will be after the guest post. Shhhh)
My writing day
by
Liz Trenow
I write in the mornings when my mind is freshest – usually starting around 8.30ish and continuing till my stomach rumbles for lunch. In the afternoon my imagination seems to close down so then I do research, admin, replying to emails, blogging and, when I’ve got to that stage, proof reading.
I always write in my study, a small room at the front of the house where there are not too many distractions! Out of the window are trees and birds which sometimes distract me, as well as the comings and goings in the front drive. I also keep the door open so I can hear what is going on in the rest of the house.
I usually spend twenty minutes or so checking social media and answering emails. This helps me, mentally, to ‘clear the decks’ and gives me permission, somehow, to open the novel. But I don’t start writing new material right away. At least a hour is spent editing and if necessary rewriting the passage I was working on the previous day, easing myself back into the heads of my characters and the trajectory of the plot. Unlike other writers who talk about keeping card indexes on each character I’m lazy about keeping records so frequently have to track back to make sure these are consistent.
The hardest part is avoiding a soggy middle. At some point I usually experience what Ian Rankin describes as ‘the fear’ when I am some way into the novel. That is when you start to think you are writing complete rubbish that will never get published, and even if it did, that reviewers would slate and readers hate. You just have to work your way through it and hold faith that it will come right in time.
The other difficult moment, for me, is when I reach the end of the first draft. By this time I’ve lost any perspective on the novel, about whether it is good or bad, which bits work and which don’t. So I try to leave it for a week or so, then print it out and read in another room, straight through, without making any pencil edits if possible. At that point I quite often find myself in despair once more at the amount of work that I think is needed to make it work. However, once I get going on the edits, I begin to enjoy it once more.
Writing a novel is a huge task. It requires months or even years of solitary confinement, and families must be very tolerant of your divided attention. But I love it, and wouldn’t want any other kind of job.
If you have ever wondered what Liz Trenow’s writing day looked like, well, now you know! I must apologise as the guest post stated that there was a photo, however it did not appear after the download.
Here is the all important information about Liz’s new book, ‘In Love and War’, which was published on the 25th January.
Three women, once enemies. Their secrets will unite them.
The First World War is over. The war-torn area of Flanders near Ypres is no longer home to troops, but groups of tourists. Controversial battlefield tourism now brings hundreds of people to the area, all desperate to witness first-hand where their loved ones fell.
At the Hotel de la Paix in the small village of Hoppestadt, three women arrive, searching for traces of the men they have loved and lost.
Ruby is just twenty-one, a shy Englishwoman looking for the grave of her husband. Alice is only a little older but brimming with confidence; she has travelled all the way from America, convinced her brother is in fact still alive. Then there’s Martha, and her son Otto, who are not all they seem to be . . .
The three women in Liz Trenow’s In Love and War may have very different backgrounds, but they are united in their search for reconciliation: to resolve themselves to what the war took from them, but also to what life might still promise for the future . . .
The Writing Garnet 