GIRL NUMBER ONE hits Top 30 in the UK Kindle store

This is just to thank everyone for their support of my self-published novel, GIRL NUMBER ONE, and let you know that, less than eight weeks after publication, it reached number 27 in the UK Kindle store today.

I am still pinching myself, wondering if it is a dream ...

And since I appear to be rather good at selling thrillers, I have a new, dedicated website for mine: girlnumberonethriller.com

GIRL NUMBER ONE (UK link)

GIRL NUMBER ONE: new fiction out this week

Girl Number One

Those who know me well will agree that, as a novelist, I am a genre-hopper. I hop from one genre to another with scant regard for market positioning, or what publishers and retailers like to call 'author branding'. This is one explanation why, despite having written several dozen novels, I am not a star in any one genre. (I will leave the other possible explanations for you to guess at on your own.) But that does not mean I would not like to be!

About a year and a half ago, while I was still knee-deep in an historical fiction series, it was suggested to me by a senior editor that I should write a contemporary thriller. A crime novel, but not a police procedural. Being a rabid fan of Lee Child's Jack Reacher novels, I embraced the idea with enthusiasm and excitement. At last, a chance to show what I could achieve as a contemporary writer within a popular mass-market genre.

But of course it's also an over-crowded market, and the novel I produced over the next year did not appeal to the editor who first suggested it. It went through several laborious redrafts, then was sent out to other publishers. Nobody wanted it. The rejections differed as to detail but the overall message was the same. Like the three bears' porridge, it was too hot, too cold, too salty, too sweet etc. for the market.

The project was then handed back to me, with the suggestion that I should self-publish.

To say I was disappointed is grossly to understate the matter. It was a serious blow to my self-confidence as a writer, especially as I was by that stage out of contract with all my publishers. After some years in traditionally published historical fiction, that book represented my calling-card script as a contemporary writer. A calling-card that had been handed back to me by a disdainful majordomo, and the door slammed in my face.

After some time nursing my wounds - I wish I could say 'downing tequila on a desert island' but I'm not that cool - I sorted through all the rejections I had seen and picked out the main thrust of their issues. I worked out how I could rewrite the book to 'fix' it. One key change was making my main protagonist older. A simple enough change, on the face of it. But of course that involved rewriting every single page of the book, because in the process of recasting her character, her narrative voice had to change, to mature, to harden. Rather like me as a writer ...

I really wish I had not chosen to write this scary scene so late at night ...

The main differences I noted between writing GIRL NUMBER ONE (the title of my thriller) and my previous novels, mostly either historical fiction or romances, were as follows:

Pace - a contemporary thriller is fast and furious. It has to be, to deliver the requisite thrills and keep an easily distracted reader turning the page. So introspection and description take a back seat, and action comes to the fore. The verb becomes king here, the adjective and adverb have to be rooted out. Not 'I thought' or 'I saw' (I chose a first person narrator) but 'I did'. Dialogue can take the place of internal monologue, which means it has to work harder, to underline character, drop clues and turn the plot.

Tone - the narration of a contemporary thriller is terse, or at least that's how I prefer it. It's also highly self-aware. This is someone who observes everything around them, whether a trained or natural detective, constantly noticing, examining, deciphering, unravelling, understanding. And often without an excess of emotional response, as emotion tends to hamper that process. (Emotional response being the sine qua non of the romantic novel, I often found myself working at the opposite end of the narrative spectrum to my other books.)

Character - the characters in a contemporary thriller are not, in general, those you might encounter in other genres (though that rather depends on the writer). They have to be boldly drawn, sometimes even starkly and at speed, because a thriller is about action and reaction, rather than a leisurely character study. But the main protagonists also need qualities that others around them noticeably lack: massive intelligence, strength, resolve, courage, generosity, kindness, plus a few special skills. They must leap off the page without being caricatures, and linger in the reader's memory, not least because some of them may become suspects later.

Where the narrator is concerned, assuming that is your chief protagonist, we need the reader to care about that person deeply. Otherwise, there will be little reason to keep reading when he or she is put in danger. Such a character must be sympathetic and strongly-drawn enough to elicit an emotional response from the reader. By which I really mean, he or she must feel true.

Truth - a contemporary thriller should seem realistic, even more so than romantic or historical fiction, and the actions of its characters must be completely believable too, even when your plot is unlikely or even preposterous at times. So how to achieve this? In the same way as a sci-fi or fantasy novel, you have to anchor the world of your novel somewhere that feels very realistic, and therefore works to distract the reader from the unlikeliness of your plot.

In my case, I decided to follow the well-worn advice, write what you know, and achieve narrative truth that way. So I based the world of my debut thriller on the Cornish village in which I was actually living at the time of writing. I was then able to describe, with absolute accuracy and consistency, the village layout and its surrounding area, the views, the flowers in bloom at each season, the likely weather, the very feel of the air ... A bit of a cheat, perhaps, but I wanted to nail that 'truth' element of the thriller first-time-out.

Did I manage to nail it though?

The proof of the thriller is in the reading, and I hope you will give mine a shot. You can find a free sample or buy GIRL NUMBER ONE on Amazon. Digital only at the moment, with paperback POD to follow.

GIRL NUMBER ONE Amazon US

GIRL NUMBER ONE Amazon UK

This blog post first appeared September 21st 2015, at 52 WAYS TO WRITE A NOVEL.

21 Ways To Write A Commercial Novel

I'm delighted to announce that my first non-fiction title is now available digitally. Kindle only, I'm afraid, for those who don't own Kindles, though you can access it via free Kindle apps on other devices like laptops, iPads or computers. Just go to the book page on Amazon and try to buy it - Amazon will then guide you through the process of installing one of these Kindle-reading apps on whichever device you are on.

This new book is based on my Creative Writing blog, and is called 21 WAYS TO WRITE A COMMERCIAL NOVEL. 

21 WAYS TO WRITE A COMMERCIAL NOVEL: UK link

[Find this book on Amazon. com]

A 'How To Write' guide based on the first twenty-one weeks of award-winning author Victoria Lamb's 52 WAYS TO WRITE A NOVEL blog.

Bursting with up-to-date information and entertaining anecdotes from the world of writing and publishing, this guide also features helpful comments on writing from both new and established writers, including Rowan Coleman, Katie Fforde, Judy Astley, Lesley Cookman, Nuala Ni Chonchuir, Alison Morton, Elizabeth Moss and many, many others. 

A goldmine of advice for writers from an author of over twenty commercial novels, covering these general topics: 

Beginnings

Fake It Till You Make It

Commercial Ideas

Research

Planning

Hooks And Teasers

How To Open Chapters

How To Close Chapters

Writing A Commercial Scene

Location, Location, Location

Writing Complex Characters

Staying Commercial

Novel Avoidance Syndrome

Writing The Commercial Synopsis

Dealing With Rejection

Other Writers

Four-Point Commercial Checklist

Changing Identities

Ten-Point Guide To The Commercial Novella

Writing Your Novel

Rowan Coleman’s Advice To New Writers

FLASH BANG: New & Selected Poems

I'm thrilled to announce the publication today of FLASH BANG: my New and Selected Poems 1996-2014. Almost twenty years in the making!

I've been hanging on for the past few years, wondering what to do about a Selected, which publisher to approach. But my experience with self-publishing - and my disposition in general! - has made this the best choice for me at the moment, as I explain in my previous post.

I hope those who have enjoyed my writing in the past will take this opportunity to pick up, at a very reasonable price, a selection of my best work to date, along with some brand-new poems. It's been a big step for me, publishing this selection of old and new poems, and I would be extremely pleased if some of you at least wish to come along on the journey.

All profits to the author!

FLASH BANG: New & Selected contains extracts from the following books: 'The Brief History of a Disreputable Woman' (Bloodaxe, 1997), 'Boudicca & Co.' (Salt Publishing, 2006), 'Camper Van Blues' (Salt Publishing, 2008), and 'On Warwick: Poems of the Warwick Poet Laureateship' (Nine Arches Press, 2008). 

Previously unpublished work includes extracts from: 'Gawain', a new version from the Middle English poem; 'Hango Hill: Poems of Illiam Dhone (Manx Martyr)'; 'The Dream of the Cross', translated from the Anglo-Saxon; plus a clutch of new poems. 

‘Extremely powerful and varied … Holland has both the clarity for the reader and the mastery of language to say what she means in a way that makes the brain tingle with both shock and pleasure … This collection is outstanding.’

 ANGELA TOPPING, Stride Magazine

'I reached the Boudicca sequence, and everything went electric … There’s a touch of Vicki Feaver about the violence and the cool delight in blood and innards, but the work is quite distinctive. I was dashing from poem to poem, completely compelled.'

HELENA NELSON, Ambit

'a true craftswoman, a supple and graceful thinker with an effortless grasp of line, at the heart of the English lyric tradition.'

FIONA SAMPSON, former Editor of Poetry Review 

Available as an ebook (can be read with free Kindle software on Kindles, iPads, iPhones and most other devices and computers) at:

Amazon UK

 Amazon US

Extract from ON WARWICK CASTLE

Warwick Castle, Warwickshire, England

Today, another short extract from my long poem ON WARWICK CASTLE, originally published by Nine Arches Press in whenever-it-was, now out of print but still available on Kindle as an ebook.

This poem was written during my year-long stint as Warwick Poet Laureate and is about the past and present Warwick Castle.

It was described by David Morley, poet and Director of the Creative Writing Programme at Warwick University, as 'a Modernist piece de resistance' - he also wrote the Foreword - and by David Floyd, writing in Sphinx, as 'one of the more ambitious works of public poetry generated through a local laureateship.'

So you have been warned ...

The old man sits behind them

on the grass, clay pipe stuck to his lip:

         ‘It was a day like this

         we rode against the King. Fifty years back.

         I was a boy then.’

A black mist, first thing,

and out of that mist,

the hiss of an arrow-storm, burning.

Those that survived

were sent down into the dark for it.

So, with the concealed blade

from a pocket knife, Master John Smith

etches out his name, and date

of his imprisonment:

Master John Smythe, Guner to his Majestye Highness

was a prisner in this place and lay here

from 1642 - tell the

Here, he's interrupted by the blade breaking

or a tour guide, descending.

There are rules even in darkness.

For a really serious breach,

the guide book tells him,

such as plagiarism or pastiche,

a man might be hung alive in chains

near the scene of his crime.

'Tell them,' he was to have finished,

         'I am a traveller in time,

         a master smith

         forged here in the shadows. I fall.

         I stop. My flesh decays.

         Yet here my name remains until

         the very end of days

         when there may be time

         for the courtyard gift shop, after all.

         Follow the signs.'

Up here in the light, every movement

                  is blinding.

         Stone light, grey

as a pigeon’s feather, cold on the rise

to Blacklow Hill

where Piers Gaveston fell: a moment’s struggle

in wet grass,

then the surprised head of the king’s lover

         rolls free, his lips drawn back,

still twitching.

Down in the village, a boy

armed with a spade

washes his face; trudges to work.

This rough mound, the sign says, was fortified

on the orders of William the Conqueror.

So, while Mercians dug, Normans sat,

pining for the wheat fields of France.

         Hony soyt quy mal pence.

1066 and All That.

         'No matter the right or wrong of it,

         we had to follow Warwick.

         Sheer black mist, first thing,

         and out of that mist,

         the hiss of an arrow-storm, burning.

         My father fell there in the confusion,

         a few miles shy of London.

         He died at Waterloo.

         Took a bullet in the Crimean.

         Fell at Ypres. Was listed

         among the missing.'

The boy stopped speaking ...

Read the rest of ON WARWICK CASTLE as a Kindle ebook. Currently only 77p!

Poetry Bazaar

Just a quick summertime reminder of my three self-published poetry titles on Kindle, as I like to make at least one poetry sale per year!

The revised Kindle version of my first collection: DISREPUTABLE (UK Amazon store and US Amazon Store): youthful poems of love, dreams, optimism, and loss.

Includes poems for which I won an Eric Gregory Award in 1996.

Then there's my controversial female narrator version of the Anglo-Saxon poem THE WANDERER (UK Amazon store and US Amazon store): 'Most days I wake/like a stone in the stillness ...'

Anglo-Saxon loner with depression ...

Finally, there's my long modernist poem ON WARWICK CASTLE, written during my tenure as Warwick Poet Laureate (UK Amazon store and US Amazon store) which is currently on sale at only 77p!

I'm only 77p!!

On Warwick Castle: new digital edition

Browse on Amazon UK

Back in 2008, my poems from the Warwick Laureateship were published in pamphlet form by Nine Arches Press. Since that pamphlet 'On Warwick' is now out of print, there is a new digital version available on Kindle only.

Priced at only 77p, this new edition contains the long title poem 'On Warwick Castle', and two other poems commissioned during my stint as Warwick Poet Laureate, 'On the Renovations at Leamington Spa Station 2008' and 'Leamophants', on the history of elephants in Leamington Spa.

'On Warwick Castle': "On Warwick is the product of Jane Holland’s year as Warwick’s Poet Laureate. It’s not unusual for local laureates to write poems about major landmarks of the area, but the main poem in the collection, ‘On Warwick Castle’—described in David Morley’s foreword as Holland’s “modernist piece de resistance”—is probably one of the more ambitious works of public poetry generated through a local laureateship." David Floyd, writing in Sphinx.

High praise indeed!

If looking at this ebook on Amazon, do please click LIKE there if you feel able to. This apparently helps the book's visibility to browsing punters. Thanks!

Launch of 'The Wanderer' on Kindle

Available now on Kindle

I finally uploaded my single poem-version of 'The Lament of the Wanderer' to Kindle tonight, after months of dithering over whether I should augment it with other poems in the same vein.

In the end, I've just gone with the one poem, my translation of the haunting Anglo-Saxon poem, 'The Wanderer', plus the original introduction, with some changes, that was featured in the Heaventree Press edition in 2008. It's not very long as ebooks go, somewhere around 10 pages, but since the only reason I can imagine people wanting to download it would be to see an alternative version of the poem for academic reasons, it shouldn't really matter that it's so short.

It's possible that I may do a longer version, containing some other AS translations, but I'll have to make a few enquiries about that first, as all the poems concerned were originally published elsewhere.

My thanks go to Jon Morley, my editor at the Coventry-based Heaventree Press, who encouraged me to prepare the poem and its introduction for publication in 2008.

Boudicca & Co relaunches as Kindle edition for just 86p!

'I was dashing from poem to poem, completely compelled.' Helena Nelson, Ambit magazine

Glorious news! 

My second poetry collection, Boudicca & Co, has been launched by Salt Publishing today in a Kindle edition. You don't need a Kindle ereader to buy it, you can download free software from that page for computer or laptop, Mac or PC, and read it on your normal screen.


The paperback is 9.99. The Kindle edition is only 0.86p!


Please help to support poetry on Kindle - still an undiscovered world for most readers - by buying this book for less than a pound, or a dollar if you're in the States, and sharing this link, letting others know that it's now available in a digital edition. 


Many thanks! Below are a few of the reviews and recommendations Boudicca & Co received on first publication in paperback.
*

'Jane Holland's Boudicca & Co is a book of adventurous, resonant inventions. As the title suggests, it offers a new view from the interior - of both country and psyche - in which history and geography are co-opted in effortless interplay. It's a work of synthesis, and of poetic and emotional maturity, in which Holland emerges as a true craftswoman, a supple and graceful thinker with an effortless grasp of line, at the heart of the English lyric tradition.'

Fiona Sampson, Editor of Poetry Review


'I reached the fourth section of the book, the Boudicca sequence, and everything went electric ... There's a touch of Vicki Feaver about the violence and the cool delight in blood and innards, but the work is quite distinctive ... I was dashing from poem to poem, completely compelled.'

Helena Nelson, Ambit 2007


'Extremely powerful and varied ... Holland has both the clarity for the reader and the mastery of language to say what she means in a way that makes the brain tingle with both shock and pleasure ... This collection is outstanding.'

Angela Topping, Stride Magazine


'... we need only compare Holland's work with the anti-war 'poetry' of Harold Pinter to gain some indication of how rich and rewarding her response to modern conflict is - by shifting methods towards the imaginative and narrative elements of poetry, rather than the rhetorical and political. In this sense, the 'Boudicca' sequence has a great deal in common with David Harsent's Legion, which represents a similar attempt by a non-combatant poet to engage intelligently with the realities of war. This is, frankly, an outstanding collection, and Holland, as a result, can now count herself amongst the front rank of contemporary British poets.'

Simon Turner, Gists and Piths, 2007

In her unconventional aspect, Boudicca is peculiarly modern, and there are moments in the sequence, where modern wars and conflicts appear to be invading the ancient story. In ‘'Last Stand'', the woods are ‘'thick / with sniper fire'’ and Romans beat the men with ‘'rifle butts''. By breaking with the historic period of the tale, Holland comments on the repetition of atrocities and war, as if Boudicca is looking forward to the suffering and dehumanisation of twentieth-century wars. 

Zoë Brigley in English Studies

Boudicca & Co. is a bold re-imagining of Britishness. Our contemporary England of Sunday roasts and cyberspace gives way to a wild and alien landscape, a place that Holland lays glinting before us “like a coin tossed in the sun / blunt-edged, foreign.” Steeped in myth and medieval poetry, this is a land of “ruins under rain,” hares, oaks, gargoyles and the Green Man. At the heart of it, embodying both Britain’s fierce beauty and its bloodied past, is Boudicca, and her voice is a startling achievement: modern, pitch-black, funny, and yet hauntingly lyrical. Jane Holland’s second collection is full of love and astonishment, a tribute to the resilience of women, to the power of literature, and, most of all, to: “England // my beleaguered sunken island.”

Poet, Clare Pollard