Research On the Go - a fairy tale by Valerie-Anne Baglietto

Once upon a time...

...a woman of indeterminate age set off on a journey. This woman – with dark hair that was not entirely natural anymore, and dark eyes framed by black geeky glasses – was, and always had been, a Writer. The journey wasn’t as perilous as others she had embarked on, as it didn’t involve the M6; but the A49 proved eventful enough.

The cottage the Writer was staying in for a week had a wonderful, quirky name, yet she wouldn’t reveal it to anyone until her dying breath – or at least until it popped up in one of her novels.

The detachment of being away from home lent a fresh perspective to her research. She found herself taking lots… and lots… of photographs with her phone. (Thank goodness for WiFi and that one terabyte of cloud drive, she realised, as she made sure to back them up daily.)

Now, oddly enough, the Writer lived in a picturesque village herself. But somehow, it was easy to be blind to sights she saw regularly. The saying “familiarity breeds contempt” didn’t seem so cliched when she considered how a never-before-seen vista can spark inspiration, or a new outlook lift a story up out of the grey and into a rainbow of light.

Trying to capture the essence of a place in a photograph wasn’t easy, the Writer discovered, especially with a phone case that made the edges of certain photographs blurry and pink. But it was worthwhile and fun. Viewing the typical settings of her stories with a fresh lens meant creativity was stirred and new scenes imagined.

An old gate here (ooh, the possibilities of where it might lead!) or a pretty cottage. A crumbling, ancient gravestone remembering a tragic young life, or a war memorial marking the loss of so many others.

The Writer’s brain was never still, never silent. 

Without the infinite number of errands and chores she faced back home, it was uplifting. Only a finite number to tackle here. Such as feeding the dog. And the children. The writer might not be sitting at her desk slaving over her keyboard, but she was working, even while enjoying a break from the chains of deadlines or fitting in laundry (washing and hanging) between chapters. She was “on holiday”, and yet… she wasn’t. There was no need to feel guilty. She was free. Her mind was free. More importantly, inspiration was free – to run wild.

How fortunate Writers are these days, she thought, to be able to record their travels in pictures, storing them in albums on hard-drives or printing them out and pinning to study walls. Perhaps she would add her photographs to a Pinterest board. Or use a particular favourite as a screensaver. She would decide once she was home. There was no rush. No pressure. It was satisfying simply to be able to enjoy them and play games with the possibilities...

A whitewashed cottage for the heroine,
with flowers around the door.

A posh house - for a posh person? 
The hero's imperious mother, maybe?

'The Old Vicarage'. 
Does that mean an old vicar should live here?

An uber-modern interior for the posh house?
Interesting...

Who would want to walk along here on a dark night?
*shudders*

Every village needs a quaint church,
but just look at that impeccable lawn!
(Gardener with a strain of OCD perhaps?)

And of course, the village local.
Indispensable.

Once upon a time...

...a Writer went on a journey and finally returned home, if not with a tan (it was only the Forest of Dean, after all), then at least with a whole new village in her head.

The End

By day, Valerie-Anne Baglietto writes contemporary, grown-up fiction. By night, she clears up after her husband and three children. Occasionally she sleeps. During her career so far she has written rom-coms for Hodder & Stoughton, won the Romantic Novelists’ Association New Writer’s Award and been shortlisted in the 2015 Love Stories Awards. Valerie-Anne tweets @VABaglietto

Valerie-Anne's latest modern fairy tale for grown-ups is available from Amazon worldwide click here for more details.

A Writer's Resolve ... by Valerie-Anne Baglietto

So - what exactly does RESOLUTION mean?

Its original definition was, apparently, 'to loosen or dissolve again'. Ironic I think, because that's exactly what happens to most people's New Year ones as January lurches on, freezing, wet and windy, and possibly the bleakest of all the months in the northern hemisphere. Our resolutions, like tight, tense knots in our days, loosen. Our determination dissolves in the face of teeth-chatteringly cold mornings and dark evenings. Spring is somewhere out there, we can sense it, but it's still too far away. We try to starve after Christmas, forgetting that our bodies need a few calories to stay warm. We vow to go to the gym, but funnily enough, there still aren't twenty-five hours in a day, even in our technologically advanced 2015. We promise ourselves lots of things we never live up to, and so we get depressed and winter eats into our bodies and souls until we get the flu, or just binge on wine or hot chocolate or too much tinned soup. Anyway. 

Enough.

My resolution this year was paradoxically not to make any. I broke it almost immediately by making one. My wardrobe is so fit to bursting that I decided to take a leaf out of my daughter's book and try experimenting more with what I already have rather than adding to it. My daughter isn't afraid to try out combinations you wouldn't think would go together, and quite often, she manages to pull it off. Maybe you can get away with this when you're nine.

Well, I then went and broke my resolution not to buy any new clothes almost immediately last weekend when I bought this... 

I couldn't resist, it was on sale. It's obvious I need to stay out of shops because my willpower is pathetically low.

So as my husband returned to work and my three children to school, I turned my attention to the WIP that I'd put aside to make way for Christmas. Maybe instead of resolutions I knew I couldn't keep - anything involving retail therapy basically - I would focus on my writing instead.

Writing in itself has always been like a form of counselling for me. When it's going well and I'm getting lots of words down on paper, it helps keep depression at bay. But sometimes there's a glitch and I'm not getting those words down fast enough, and the glitch isn't life getting in the way but my own fixation on making those words Perfect with a capital P. I can obsess for far too long and lose sight of my reader, who won't care or notice that I substituted a fancier word for another with the same meaning. If the emotion is there, and the page-turning elements of the plot, it shouldn't make any difference, as long as the word I decide to use doesn't jar, or detract, or fall short. 

I know voice and style and good prose are vital, but not at the expense of getting the story across and making it resonate in the reader's heart. What I mean is that I'm going to focus on the emotion in my story, and on the narrative more, and not get so bogged down by the prettiness or cleverness of my language quite as much.

So, that's my first resolution. For me, it's important. It should increase my productivity. But at this gloomy time of year creativity in general might need a boost anyway; like a blast of virtual Vitamin D, we often need something to pep us up. Another creative outlet besides writing often helps. 

I'm no good at crochet, sadly. My spirit is willing but my fingers are rubbish at it. I do enjoy photography though, I always have. Nothing serious, but these days I like the challenge of taking good photos with nothing but my phone. I also like playing around with filters afterwards. 

#NoFilters (Taken on 29th Dec 2014)

It serves a second purpose because I'm also taking photos of places or objects that inspire me and might end up in one of my books. So I'm resolved to enjoy this hobby more than ever this year and take advantage of Instagram. It's fun and I've met some lovely people on there. 

As writers, our words and stories paint pictures but sometimes we need to fix that picture in our own heads first before we can convey it to our readers, and with the digital wonders of Pinterest we don't need that pin-board hanging above our desks any more (which is just as well as I don't have room for one.)

Well, these are my most important writerly resolutions. I think some of the Novelistas are planning to share theirs, but we'd love to hear yours, too...

Happy 2015!

Valerie-Anne x
www.valerie-annebaglietto.com 
Twitter: @VABaglietto

The perfect antidote to winter... 

(Yes, really.)

Marrying the man of your dreams might be more literal than you think.

A modern fairy tale for grown-ups, available on Amazon worldwide. 

FREE on KindleUnlimited and Amazon Prime.

Amazon UK 
Amazon US

I Heart Pinterest by Louise Marley

I know what you’re thinking: ‘That Louise Marley has never met a social networking site she didn’t like’. Well, that’s not strictly true. I’ve never been able to get on with Goodreads. I know how much a one star review stings, so why would I inflict it on another author? My Tumblr account consists of reposts from my Instagram account, and my Instagram account consists of photos of cake. I do, however, love Pinterest.

Ooh 'secret' boards!

What is Pinterest? I think of it as a giant, interactive mood board. You create an account and then you create a ‘board’ for a subject that interests you - books/fashion/whatever. You can create more than one board and you can also have ‘secret’ boards so no one can see what you’re up to. 

Then you add your photos, or ‘pins’. These can be re-pinned from other users or you can upload your own. (If you do upload your own photos, I would recommend adding a link back to your blog/website).

Mashable have a great Beginners Guide here.

Now you know what Pinterest is, why would you use it? What’s in it for you?

I use it as a reader. If I want to know what the character of a book looks like, or the house they live in, I check out the author’s Pinterest account.

I also use it as a writer. Each of my books has its own board with the photos of the people and places which inspired it.

Thirdly, and this is the best of all, Pinterest can be used as a research tool. If you’re looking for a hero (aren’t we all), or a location - a house, a restaurant, a city - you’ll find them all on Pinterest. If you’re writing a scene set in a thunderstorm, a spooky forest or on a sandy beach, you’ll find photographs to help inspire you. Do you get the idea? Also, Pinterest is not just about pretty pictures - many of the pins are linked to the original pinners’ websites and blogs. If you click on a pin of Paris, for example, it could take you to a travel blog about the city.

There are apps which allow you to use Pinterest on your phone or tablet, which mean you can pin in any odd moments of free time, rather than get sucked in. Like Twitter, you don’t have to follow people back if you don’t want to, or you can just follow a board rather than a person.

So there you go, what are you waiting for? Start pinning!

You can check out my own Pinterest boards here. I promise, there are no pictures of cake!

Sorry, no cake!