It's such a pleasure to welcome you to my blog, Julia! I have to say, I LOVE the covers of your latest trilogy - beautiful. I am looking forward to learning more about you and your work - let's start my questions...
1) What is the best and worse thing you have learned from an
editor/agent?
Goodness, I’ve had to rack my brains for
that one! The best: “I love the energy and pace in your story – keep it up!” so
I try to focus on that in my writing. I questioned whether to delete some
descriptions in case they slowed down the action, and I was told “don’t delete;
they are evocative and make me feel I’m right there, in that time and place!” When
I started writing, I wondered if I was going too much ‘tell’ not ‘show’ but I
learned that what was important was always to evoke the setting from the
character’s viewpoint (what does she/he see, hear, smell?) not abstractly; it
always has to be subjective, not objective. After years of academic writing
this was a different angle and style for me.
I also learned to stop using complex
sentences and punctuation; I’m a great lover of the semi-colon, the Oxford
comma, and complex clauses! Although even when I did my PhD thesis my
supervisor told me to cut those out! I think I’ve embraced that learning in the
end!
Probably the worst was an agent who told me
that time-slip/ multi period novels were ‘old hat’ – I think she neglected to
tell Barbara Erskine, Pamela Hartshorne and Susanna Kearsley who all seem to be
doing OK still! And my publisher disagreed with the agent, thankfully.
2) What is your typical day?
Since I finished
at the university (I was senior lecturer and director of studies for the
doctoral students), I’m more flexible with my time. I swim 25 lengths every weekday
morning, then write on my laptop for a morning session (about 3 hours, with
frequent breaks for a spot of yoga) and then again in the afternoon.
I can’t settle to my morning writing
session before I’ve checked my emails (and a bit of social media!) – a
throwback to my uni job! My coffee and lunch breaks are in the garden if it’s
warm and sunny enough, or I go for a ramble along the lovely country lanes
around our house. I’m a great believer in the Vit D in sunshine!
I do my research in the summer time because
I can often do that outside (I hate being indoors), then work at my computer on
writing the book in the winter time. I do have a dedicated study but I tend to
write at my antique desk in the conservatory so that I am more in touch with
the garden.
3) What do you read while in the midst of a project? Or don’t you?
I read a lot of research texts and papers
(which I love!) and for relaxation good fiction, which I read in my ‘breaks’. I
like historicals, time-slip, psychological thrillers and crime. I can’t go to
sleep at night without at least half an hour’s reading in bed; it helps me to
relax. I’ve always got a book and it will go with me wherever I go, in my bag.
Currently I love Barbara Erskine, Pamela Hartshorne, Lisa Jewell and local
Derbyshire crime writers Roz Watkins and Sarah Ward.
4)
What
do you do with a paperback once you’ve read it?
These days I rarely read paperbacks
because we travel so much I need a kindle for the many books I take with me! I
have three kindles, including a Fire because I like to see the covers in full
colour. I used to keep all my paperbacks as I couldn’t part with them, but when
we down-sized I had to get rid of a lot, to friends, hospitals, charity shops
etc, in the hopes that readers might buy another book from the same author if
they enjoyed that one. We also have book share ‘shops’ around us – often in the
old red village telephone kiosks!
5)
Are
you nervous about friends reading your book?
Well, not really as most of my
friends are kind! And they’re often writers themselves. My Drumbeats trilogy,
which is a saga from the 1960s to the 1990s, reflects some dramatic events that
have happened to me in my own life, although it’s not an autobiography, so I
was a little nervous about my family, especially my daughters, reading it. But
I guess in a way I wrote it because I wanted them to understand what happened.
6)
What
things inspire you to write? Location, music, film or even in a book?
Drumbeats (the first of the
trilogy) is set in Ghana, West Africa, and ever since I lived there I wanted to
write about that extraordinary country. I wanted to capture and evoke the
sights, smells, sounds of the place. When I was there
I was young and it all seemed so
exotic!
A historic period also inspires me.
The Drumbeats trilogy starts in the 1960s
which is such a fascinating period.
I am also intrigued by the medieval period, especially the 5th
century to the 11th, the so called Dark Ages then the Anglo-Saxon
period. That was my specialist subject for my degree, medieval language,
literature and history, so that gave rise to my medieval time slip A Shape on
the Air and my current WIP, Azulejo.
7) Share your blurb or short excerpt from your latest release with us
The blurb for Drumbeats, the first of the
trilogy:
It’s 1965 and 18 year
old Jess escapes her stifling English background for a gap year in Ghana, West
Africa. But it’s a time of political turbulence across the region. Fighting to
keep her young love who waits back in England, she’s thrown into
the physical dangers of civil war, tragedy, and the emotional
conflict of a disturbing new relationship. And why do the drumbeats haunt
her dreams?
Drumbeats is a rite of passage story which takes the
reader hand in hand with Jess on her journey towards growing into the
adult world.
And for Finding Jess which is the last of
the Drumbeats trilogy that was published by Endeavour this summer:
Single mother, Jess, has struggled to get her life back on track after
the betrayal of her beloved husband and her best friend. When she is on the
brink of losing everything, including her family, she feels that she can no
longer trust anyone. Then she is sent a mysterious newspaper clipping of a
temporary post back in Ghana. Could this be her lifeline? Can Jess turn back
time and find herself again? And what, exactly, will she find?
Finding Jess
is a passionate study of love and betrayal – and of one woman’s bid to reclaim
her self-belief and trust after suffering great misfortune. It is a feel-good
story of a woman’s strength and spirit rising above adversity.
A Shape on the Air:
Drumbeats:
Walking in the Rain:
Finding Jess
S.C.A.R.S:
The Old Rectory:
8) What’s next for you?
My WIP is a multi-period historical in a
similar vein to my very successful A Shape on the Air which came out last year.
It’s set in Madeira which we know well as we’ve had an apartment over there for
20 years. It’s a mystery and it’s based on events in Madeira’s history.
Uniquely (I think!) it starts with the volcanic eruption 5 million years ago –
and that’s because something in that dramatic event survives through the ages via
an unquiet spirit (the story takes in the 14th and 16th
centuries) to the present day and it’s the protagonist’s job (a medievalist) to
restore harmony.
BIO:
Award-winning author Julia Ibbotson is fascinated by the medieval world and concepts of time travel. She read English at Keele University, England (after a turbulent but exciting gap year in Ghana, West Africa) specialising in medieval language, literature and history, and has a PhD in socio-linguistics. She wrote her first novel at 10 years of age, but became a school teacher, then a university lecturer and researcher. Finding Jess (2018) is her sixth book and the last of the Drumbeats trilogy (which begins and ends in Ghana). Apart from insatiable reading, she loves travelling the world, singing in choirs, swimming, yoga and walking in the countryside in England and Madeira where she and her husband divide their time.
Acclaimed author of:
Drumbeats (2015), the first of the trilogy set in 1960s Ghana: sometimes you have to escape to find yourself.
Walking in the Rain (2016), the second in the trilogy set in 1970s and 1980s England: never give up on your dreams.
Finding Jess (2018), the last of the trilogy set in 1990s England and Ghana: can the past ever be left behind?
A Shape on the Air (2017): historical (Dark Ages/early medieval) time-slip romance. Two women 1,500 years apart, with one aim: to reclaim their dreams and fight the dangers that threaten them both across the ages …
The Old Rectory: Escape to a Country Kitchen, (first published 2011, rereleased 2017) a feel-good story of the renovation of a Victorian rectory interwoven with period recipes to feed the soul, all from the rectory kitchen.
S.C.A.R.S (first published 2012, rereleased 2016) (children’s novel): a troubled boy slips through a tear in the fabric of the universe into a parallel medieval fantasy world of knights, dragons, and a quest for the triumph of Good over Evil. But can he save himself?
Amazon Author
page:
Social media
links:
Facebook Author page:
Twitter:
@JuliaIbbotson
Author
website:
Pinterest page: includes boards with pics and images
that inspired each book
Goodreads author page:
RNA (Romantic Novelists Association) website author
page
Thank you so much, Rachel, for featuring me today on your blog! It was lovely to chat to you - and thanks for your kind words about the covers of the trilogy. Yes, I love them too!
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