1.
What do you wish men understood about women?
Oh, so
many things (but we love them anyway!)! Firstly,
that we like to tell them stuff without expecting a brilliant solution from
them; if we want that, we’ll ask for it! Many men seem to imagine that women
only talk when they want a resolution/decision/suggestion for action, when
actually we just simply want to share.
Men and women’s communication styles are very different: men’s are purposeful
and task-directed while women’s are about building relationships based on
sharing (you can tell I’ve done some research on this fascinating area, can’t
you?!). Secondly, that we might say
we can manage all the clearing up, washing up, preparing three-course meals and
presenting them on the table while they watch football, but actually we are lying through gritted teeth. Lastly, that women NEVER untangle their
feelings for their first love or the father of their children. All these come
into my new Drumbeats trilogy.
2.
Do you only work on one book at a time?
Yes, I
can’t hold more than one in my mind at a time, and really want to focus
completely on my current project without distraction - although I do often
begin to plan and research a little for the next one as a bit of light relief
as I love the research bit of writing novels. With the trilogy I’m working on
at the moment, I have had to scope out all three books but I don’t ever start
the proper writing until I’ve finished the previous book.
3.
Who is your favorite fictional couple?
You know,
it just has to be Elizabeth Bennett
and Mr Darcy, because their story is so romantic, both strong wilful characters
resisting what they see as weakness, but love wins through in the end. Whenever
I read Pride and Prejudice again, or see dramatisations, I love it all over
again.
4.
Favorite TV show?
It has to be Scott and Bailey because the characters are strong
women but with personal issues that are the chinks in their armour, and I love
the writing; it’s very realistic. I used to love Cagney and Lacey for similar
reasons. But I have to add Death in Paradise too because I’m a succor for
beautiful locations and cosy mysteries.
5.
Do you set daily writing goals? Word count? Number of
chapters? Do you get a chance to write every day?
I
write every day on something or other. Sometimes I get absorbed with the
research and write loads of notes or semi-articles on the period or the context
or the background culture (music, current events, and so on). For Drumbeats I was researching 1965-6 in
both Ghana and England, and of course the culture of Ghana so that the story
was authentic and established a real sense of time and place. I try to write
three or four days a week as a novelist but I also work two days a week as an
academic when I am also writing but in a different genre. I am now turning over
a new leaf and making weekends work-free, although I don’t really see writing
novels as “work” – perhaps I should say “away from my laptop”! I set targets
like writing 1000 words a day and I think “wow I could write a whole novel in
four months”, but it doesn’t really work out like that! Often it’s either much
less or sometimes much more if I’m on a roll. If the latter, I just want to
keep going while it’s flowing and my poor long-suffering husband has to cook
dinner and bring me mugs of coffee.
6.
Who was the last person you hugged?
Hmmm
… thinks carefully …my husband -
but it’s a close call with a friend who was upset and needing comfort,
and my daughters and grandchildren who I adore. I’m a hugger.
7.
What are you working on now?
I’m writing the second novel in my Drumbeats trilogy which is
called “Walking in the Rain” and
continues Jess’s saga into the 1970s and 80s. The final novel will be entitled
“Before I Die” but is not about
dying; it’s about Jess’s bucket list and how she goes about fulfilling her
dreams.
Published by
July 2014
Drumbeats: can you ever
escape your past?
Drumbeats is the first novel in a trilogy and follows 18 year old English student Jess through her gap year in West Africa. It's a rite of passage novel set in the mid-1960s when Jess flees her stifling home background for freedom to become a volunteer teacher and nurse in the Ghanaian bush. Apprehensively, she leaves her first real romantic love behind in the UK, but will she be able to sustain the bond while she is away? With the idealism of youth, she hopes to find out who she really is and do some good in the world, but little does she realize what, in reality, she will find that year: joys, horrors, and tragedy. She must find her way on her own and learn what fate has in store for her, as she becomes embroiled in the poverty and turmoil of a small war-torn African nation under a controversial dictatorship. Jess must face the dangers of both civil war and unexpected romance. Can she escape her past? And why do the drumbeats haunt her dreams?
Drumbeats Trilogy:
Drumbeats
Can you ever escape your past?
Walking in the Rain
How do you cope when your worst nightmare comes true?
Before I Die
Can Jess’s bucket list bring resolution to her life?
Excerpt
August 1965, Ghana
It was hotter than Jess had ever
imagined in her eighteen years. Flying in from the UK bound for Accra, she had
left the late August skies of the dull wet dreariness of an English summer. But
as she stepped off the Ghana Airways VC10, she felt the heavy all-encompassing
heat which shocked her system. Although it was only six o’clock in the evening,
it was already dark and close.
The flight from
London Heathrow had been a long and tiresome six hours and she had felt drained
as she pulled down her cabin bag from the overhead and shuffled along the aisle
behind the other travellers, nodding and swaying to the strains of the Beatles’
“Ticket to Ride” on the VC10’s tannoy system. Her mother would have a fit: her
Rulebook said no pop music; it’s the work of the devil, and no dancing: Jessamy,
anyone would think you were a slut. So in the holidays, when she was home
from boarding school, she’d listened to Pick
of the Pops furtively in her bedroom, ear pressed to the radio.
Now, as she
climbed down the steps in the heat-stifling darkness to take her first stride
on African soil, she was recharged with excitement.
She
was aware of the male flight attendant standing at the foot of the aircraft’s
steps, watching her with undisguised admiration as she climbed down. She
navigated the steps as gracefully as she could in her tan wedge-heeled sandals.
In the heat, she was glad that she had thought to scoop up her auburn-gold hair
loosely into a ponytail. She let
go of the rail with her left hand for a moment to smooth her pale pink cotton
mini dress over her slim figure. At least she wasn’t irritable and demanding
like the other passengers who pushed behind her as if they were in a great
hurry.
The
flight attendant watched her all the way down the steps and then wiped his palm
on his trousers, and held it out courteously to steady her from the last step.
She took it in her own cool soft hand for a brief moment.
“Thank
you so much, John. Bye now,” she smiled as she passed him and headed for the
small wooden shack that served as an airport building.
“No
problem, miss. Welcome to Ghana.”
“How
did you know his name?” hissed Sandra, from behind her. Jess turned. She
noticed that John did not take Sandra’s hand. His eyes and grin were still
focussed on her.
“It’s
on his name label,” whispered Jess. They walked together across to the arrivals
building. “OK?”
“OK.
Long flight. Tired,” answered Sandra curtly. She had been unusually quiet
during the flight and, it seemed, almost close to tears on occasion. Jess put
her free hand on Sandra’s arm.
“It’ll
be fine. Honestly. I know you’re missing Colin.” In the short time Jess had
with Sandra after they were teamed up to travel to the same school in Ghana for
their gap years, she had learned all about the chap Sandra was leaving behind
for a year. Sandra showed her a photograph. Oh
dear, he looked a lot like Maurie. Not
fanciable. AT. ALL! She herself had said little about her own personal
life, and the guy she had left behind. She wanted to keep him to herself. Her
first real grown-up relationship. Simon. His name still tasted so new on her
lips and in her head. Had she done the
right thing in dutifully fulfilling the contract to come out here, even though
they had only just got together? Would he wait for her? They were an item,
weren’t they? She frowned and bit her lip.
BUY LINKS
About the Author
Julia
Ibbotson lives in a renovated Victorian rectory in the English
countryside with her husband (four children, now grown up, having fled the
nest), along with lots of apple trees, a kitchen garden and far too many moles.
She is an author and academic, and loves choral singing, walking, swimming,
gardening and cooking (not necessarily at the same time). She started writing
as soon as she could hold a pencil in her tiny fist and has not stopped since,
much to the bemusement of her long-suffering husband who brings her endless
cups of coffee and sometimes even makes the dinner when she is distracted and
frowning at her laptop.
She wrote her first novel when she was 10 years old, sadly
never published and long since consigned to the manuscript graveyard. She loves
writing novels with a strong sense of time and place and that is the basis of
her latest, Drumbeats, the first of
a trilogy which follows Jess through the trials and tribulations of her life.
It starts with Jess on her gap year in Ghana in the 1960s.
She has also written the story of the restoration of her
rectory in The Old Rectory: Escape to a
Country Kitchen, which also
interweaves recipes from her farmhouse kitchen and which has won a number of
international awards.
Recently she found an old manuscript gathering dust in her
drawer, one she had originally scribbled when she was still at school, many
years ago. It was a children’s story about a boy who slips through a tear in
the fabric of the universe to find himself in a fantasy medieval world. She is
currently blowing off the dust and redrafting it for her publishers to let it
loose on the world in the autumn. It’s called S.C.A.R.S.
She loves to
hear from readers (it’s a pleasant distraction from her steaming keyboard), so
do get in touch via the links.
Author Links
Author page on Amazon:
Author email:
Author facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Julia-Ibbotson-author/163085897119236
Twitter:
Author website:
http://www.juliaibbotsonauthor.com
Pinterest page:
http://pinterest.com/juliai1/
Goodreads author page:
Book Trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OYlEXhHvsc&list=UUP3hKZjeUBuTMoyvZmBXbow
Overall tour
giveaway on tour is 1 x ecopy of Drumbeats (International), Postcards/Key
Rings/Bookmarks (UK) and will be managed via Rafflecopter.
Comments?? Questions??
Thank you, Rachel, for hosting me today with Drumbeats. Lovely page!
ReplyDeleteFantastic interview ladies! I love it! Thanks for hosting today Rachel. x
ReplyDelete