All I Want For Christmas is ...

Last Christmas I asked the Novelistas which book they would give as a present. This year I'm asking which reading or writing-related gift they would like to receive - if they've been good, of course!

Trisha Ashley

I absolutely adore the Kate Spade range of desk and writing accessories in gold and this pencil pouch has been in my amazon basket for about a year. When you see the price, you can understand why! I treated myself to the gold and acrylic stapler to celebrate signing with Transworld, but I would like the rest of the desk set too - and all the gold spotty and stripey folders, journals and year planners, etc. But meanwhile, call me shallow, but using my beautiful stapler gives me great pleasure.

Valerie-Anne Baglietto

As I've already splurged on a Kindle Paperwhite in the Black Friday sale, I'm not actually asking for any physical books this Christmas. Instead, I've added a literary themed gift to the wishlist conveniently pinned to the fridge, where my family can't miss it. As I'm a bit of a cushionaholic (yes that's a thing) I've set my heart on a quirky, vintage-style bookish one, although any cushion along these lines would be well received. Thanking my brilliant, amazing family in advance (am I being nice enough?) Love Val x

Anne Bennett

23 years ago we moved into a four bedroom house in North Wales with two daughters so we had a spare bedroom. Although we called this the study from the onset, it wasn’t used as initially as I wrote on the dressing table in our bedroom and the ‘study’ was used as a storeroom. When the time came for me to need a special place to write, there was barely room for the hastily constructed desk and chair. Although I have made valiant stabs at tidying up and clearing out, much of the original junk is still there and my ‘study’ is a hotch-potch of mismatched office furniture with no sense of order to it. So what I really want, and would nearly sell my soul to get, is Mary Poppins. With one click of those magic fingers, my study would pack itself all up neatly and I could decamp elsewhere for a time while my study was redecorated and planned properly.

Alas I think I will be disappointed but really Christmas isn’t just about presents and it is a joyful time. So happy Christmas to all of you and I hope 2017 is a good year for all of us.

Annie Burrows

You’re going to think this is daft, but what I’d really like is a new pencil sharpener. The one I have at the moment came out of a Christmas cracker several years ago (not mine, either, I saw it drop onto the tablecloth and pounced on it!)

I edit my printed-off manuscripts by pencil, you see, and they wear down to this…

And my Christmas-cracker sharpener is not going to last much longer.

Sophie Claire

My wish is for a week in Provence. Expensive, I know, but I’m hoping that maybe just maybe if I wish hard enough…(and Santa has deep pockets, doesn’t he?)

Why? The book I’m currently writing is set in the heart of Provence and although I have many fond memories of the childhood summers I spent at my grandparents’ house by the sea, I’m finding there are gaps in my knowledge, partly because I’ve rarely visited out of season.

I have a growing list of unanswered questions – which trees flower in spring? What is the quality of the light like in autumn? Can you swim in the Mediterranean in May? The internet is wonderful for research, but it’s no substitute for visiting a place yourself. If I hadn’t seen the denim-blue skies and red earth, or heard the cicadas’ rusty song, or smelt the sweet perfume of pine trees in sunlight, it would be difficult to write about them. But there’s so much more about this vibrant place that I’ve yet to get to know, so fingers crossed I get the chance to visit again soon.

Beth Francis

As a Christmas gift I’d like an experience day. Not for a trip on the London Eye, a hot air balloon over the countryside, or a Spa weekend. I’d like mine to be a visit to a literary festival. Something prearranged, planned, and the date firmly blocked in on the wall calendar above my desk. Failing that I would love the wall calendar. A month at a glance, but with beautiful inspiring pictures. Snow capped mountains, palm fringed beaches, Christmas Fairs…

Turning the page each month and finding a picture I was happy to look at for weeks would mean the gift was appreciated throughout the year. I have a calendar on my computer, and a family calendar in the kitchen, but this one would be for me. Seeing looming deadlines focus’s my mind, even if they are only self-imposed. I often forget to buy a new calendar until January, when there can be a limited selection. Currently I’m looking at the November picture of a famous steam train, which seems very similar to the steam trains on the previous ten pages.

So, a calendar please, beautiful, arty or quirky, but one I can enjoy filling with lunches, mini-meets, book launches and even deadlines for the next twelve months.

June Francis

I would like Death at the Seaside by Frances Brody for Christmas. It is set in Whitby on the Yorkshire coast where Dracula was supposed to have landed. My son Iain is going to buy it for me.

Juliet Greenwood

My ideal Christmas present would be a beach in the Seychelles. Not to own it (too much responsibility, life is complicated enough), or permanently (boredom would set in), but a week (or so). Just me, sunshine, no responsibilities, no laptop, a warm sea and the TBR pile at my side. With a nice relaxed place to meet friends in the evening for a glass of wine, a meal, and good conversation under the stars. I’ve never been to the Seychelles, but they sound nice and at a safe distance. Mind you, I’d probably want one of those transporter things from Star Trek to get there and back, and my dog is giving me some very funny looks …. Happy Christmas!

Cheryl Lang

Christmas is the perfect time to be able to try something new. In my stocking I’d like to find a variety of items to generate ideas for novels. Not just a book, but something electronic or even dice, perhaps even creative games. I will spend time looking at random plot ideas, romantic situations, characters and backstory. I could experiment with the paranormal or comedy. A veritable writers’ toolbox!

Haydn Lee

Every time I step into my local Waterstones’ for a book on my English Lit course, I am always drawn to a high shelf nestled deep within the ‘fiction’ section. Ignoring the pressing need for a copy of Joyce for next week’s class, I reach up and select the book I always take down from the top shelf. I am careful not to drop it, or let my clammy fingers mark the gorgeous Art Deco cover. I flick through its pages, smiling at the well-known titles whizzing past, and pausing at the lesser known ones I’ve only seen as fragile paperbacks at second hand book fairs, not reprinted since the War.

I sigh, and return the book back amongst its identical friends. ‘Soon,’ I think to myself, ‘soon I will be able to read you. But not now,’ and I wince thinking of all the essays due before Christmas and all the plays of the Italian Futurists I have to struggle through until then. This Christmas, though, I will put all work aside, and settle down with a mug of cinnamon and chai tea to read The Complete Novels of Nancy Mitford, after months of pining over it at Waterstones’. If nobody gifts it to me, I will damn well buy it for myself, because Nancy’s novels, with their wit and their wonderful eccentric characters, give me an enjoyable escape from the sort of thing I’d usually have to read.

Louise Marley

This year I discovered Shirley Jackson and have been reading her deliciously creepy psychological suspense stories back-to-back. I'd really like to know more about her life, and what inspired her stories, so I'm sending a note up the chimney for a copy of her biography, Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life by Ruth Franklin. Definitely worth being good for!

How to Choose the Perfect Title ...

How can you ensure your book will catch the eye of a reader? With a terrific cover and a clever title! The publisher takes care of the cover design but I asked the Novelistas how they came up with that elusive perfect title ...

Trisha Ashley

When I spotted that a mega-bestselling author was using for her new novel the title of my own bestselling novel of a couple of years back, Twelve Days of Christmas, I felt strangely miffed....I mean, I know there is no copyright in titles, but it felt like mine! I carefully check my titles to see if there has been a bestseller of the same name - but then, rarely does my own title end up as the one the publishers choose.

Anyway, once I'd remembered that I'd totally ripped off one of Shakespeare's titles, A Winter's Tale, I realised I didn't have a leg to stand on...

Valerie-Anne Baglietto

My second book, published by Hodder & Stoughton, was originally titled Tom, Dick or Harry, and yes, the heroine was caught between three very different men, the eponymous Tom, Dick and... you get the idea. My publishers approved, but as it was hitting the final stages a book came out called Tom Dick and Debbie Harry, and as the titles were too similar, they advised me to change mine. I was blank. Stumped. Frustrated. My story had been Tom, Dick or Harry from the very start. It was written in my contract. I couldn't imagine it as anything else. But that's the publishing world for you; I had to swallow my disappointment and get on with it. My debut novel had been The Wrong Sort of Girl, so playing around for a fresh title for the new book I came up with The Wrong Mr Right. It actually fitted with the plot really well, my editor was enthusiastic, and before long I grew to love it. But a theme was developing. Everyone joked my next book would have to be The Wrong something or other, too, but I ran out of ideas. Probably just as well. Anyway, one day I received a lovely email from a reader who told me it was only as she neared the end of The Wrong Mr Right that she twigged the three 'heroes' were called Tom, Dick and Harry. She loved the fact she hadn't realised immediately. So in the end, in spite of all the faff and frustration, I think it worked out for the best.

Anne Bennett

I meet many people who think of the title for a book before they have written a word of it. It was the opposite for me, certainly in the early days, as I seemed to be able to write a 120,000 word novel with ‘relative’ ease, but I would generally have no idea for few words needed for a title.

My new book, which was due to be out now, was called The Winter Waif. However, I had begun to have trouble with my eyes and my vision deteriorated as I struggled to write the book. This meant I could not deliver the book in time and we were looking at the end of January instead. Suddenly The Winter Waif wasn’t suitable and so I decided on Forget-Me-Not Child instead.

So some titles do fly unbidden into my head. If this doesn’t happen I will still discuss this with my agent or editor, but the final decision of the title to take to the marketing team is always mine.

Annie Burrows

I very rarely have any input into my titles. They get chosen by my publisher’s marketing team. Only once, recently, did they ask me if I had any ideas for a title and I was so surprised my mind went totally blank. I then emailed my fellow Harlequin Historical writers, some of whom are absolutely brilliant at titles, and gave them a brief outline of the story. A couple of them suggested In Bed With the Duke. By that time, what with all the panic and then the to-ing and fro-ing of emails, the marketing team had got back to me suggesting the very same title. So that is what it became.

Sophie Claire

Strangely, I’d never had trouble thinking of a title until I wrote Her Forget-Me-Not Ex. Usually a phrase or a key element would come up during the months it takes to write a book and I’d know it was right for that story. Not so for this novel, which had the very dull working title Florist throughout. It was only after I’d finished it that I sat down to have a brainstorming session and came up with a ‘flowery’ title to suit the heroine Natasha and her flower shop.

But the best advice I’ve heard for choosing a title was in a writing workshop given by author Julie Cohen and she told us a good title will encapsulate the novel’s theme. Wise words.

Beth Francis

I was standing on the shore of the Menai Strait and saw a rainbow arching across Anglesey, the distant field where it came to earth clearly visible. I thought of my hero, about to join the gold rush to Australia. Would he find a pot of gold at journey’s end, or come home penniless?

That novel was called Rainbow’s End, from early plotting to eventual publication. The only time I’ve found a title so easily.

When I write I usually have a working title. My characters frequently wait to be properly named, too. I often use Fred as a generic name for my hero until I find a name, which conveys his personality, but does not already belong to a friend or relative. Naming fictional villages would hold my writing up for weeks if I didn’t temporarily call them all Llan.

As I reach the final chapter all the characters will have been properly named and the place names settled on, but the title might still elude me. This is when I go for a brainstorming walk with a friend, dismissing our increasingly bizarre suggestions, until I finally settle on the perfect title. Only to discover it’s been used already. Time to think again!

June Francis

For my latest series of sagas I chose song titles of the fifties and very early sixties when the books where set.

Juliet Greenwood

I always know the title of my books will be changed, so I tend to use the location while I’m writing them. Eden’s Garden started its life as Blodeuwedd’s Garden. While the ancient Welsh myth of the woman made out of flowers to be a perfect wife, and was punished when she developed a mind of her own is central to the mystery, it’s quite a mouthful if you aren’t familiar with Welsh. So as it is Plas Eden’s garden, Eden’s Garden it became.

We That are Left was really tricky, trying to convey the woman finding herself through her work to protect her community and her family during the Great War. It was Hiram Hall for most of its life, which I quite agreed with my publishers was just plain boring and didn’t give a flavour of the book at all!

The only one of my books that has always had the same title is The White Camellia. It was really difficult to come up with a title that didn’t give the intricate details of the central mystery of the crumbling old house on a Cornish cliff away – so the ladies’ tearooms which links all the characters in unexpected ways was the only choice! The next book has a cracking title, if I say so myself, and it does have a location in it. But that would be telling…

Cheryl Lang

Titles are just one more difficult thing in the progress of a novel. My titles can change a couple of times. And if it is published, doesn't the publishing house change it anyway?

Depending on the location and what the core story is about, I try and incorporate a little of both. I trawl through lists trying to pick out words I like and combine two or three words mostly until it drives me mad and I just put something down and change it when inspiration strikes. My current WIP is called Lemongrass; originally Lemongrass Foods but I decided it sounded too much like a book of recipes. When I read book titles, I admire the author's ability to choose catchy titles that I'd wished I'd thought of.

Haydn Lee

I am terrible at choosing my titles, or naming my works. My Word documents are generally named after the content of the story, e.g. Vampires; the main character, Mr E; or their first line, He is where I left him. When I do come around to naming my stories, I will generally pick a mysterious and vague, yet somehow relevant working title, for example, Tuesday. This title will usually stick until completion. Perhaps what my arbitrary titles tells you about my writing is that I’m too caught up in the fictional world and my characters’ lives to step outside of their world and just give it a name.

Louise Marley

I've always had trouble thinking up titles, which is why most of mine are songs. This isn't such a great idea, because if you think a particular song makes a great book title, you can bet a dozen other writers have had exactly the same idea! For a change, I chose Nemesis for one of my crime novels, but since it came out there are now over twenty books on Amazon also called Nemesis, or with Nemesis as part of the title. So I would suggest checking there are no other books with your title before it's published! The funniest confusion between my book and another author's was with my romantic mystery, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes. I only noticed because I was starting to get some very odd reviews on Goodreads. It turned out the other Smoke Gets in Your Eyes was a memoir - about working in a crematorium!