Morning, lovely readers! I am happy to welcome fellow RNA member and mystery author Paula Williams to my blog today. As a cosy mystery fan, I am excited to learn more about Paula and her latest release MURDER SERVED COLD. Let's start with my questions...
1. The strangest talent I have.
I can do mirror writing as quickly (although
not quite so neatly) as regular handwriting.
I don't know how I do it and if I stop to think about it, I can't. I wonder if it's something to do with being
left handed? And I still write a lot of
my letters backwards. There is a strong
family history of dyslexia so maybe there is something there.
But I love my weird 'talent' if you can call
it that - and it impresses the grandchildren no end.
2. The best Halloween costume.
I'm afraid I'm not really in to
Halloween. But I do enjoy dressing
up. When we were children, my mother
used to keep a dressing up box and I loved that and would make up very involved
stories about the various characters I was.
I was a story teller even then.
3. Are titles important.
Oh yes!
Hugely! I was a short story
writer before becoming a novelist and many of my short stories started with
just a title. In fact, the first story I
ever sold was entitled "Angels on Oil Drums" which I still think is a
great title.
And I love the title of my recently published
novel, Murder Served Cold - although I am having problems with the title of its
sequel. I started off calling it
"Rough Justice" which I still like, but my publisher wants a three
word title, to keep it aligned with Murder Served Cold. And I totally get that, so its provisional
title is "Rough and Deadly". I
want to keep the word rough in the title, because rough cider plays an
important role in the story. And I don't
want "Murder in the Rough" because that sounds like a golfing story
which it definitely isn't. Does
"Murder Served Rough" sound weird?
I don't know. Still mulling over
that one and probably will be right up to and including publication. I'm a typical Libran and find decision making
a nightmare.
4. If you’re struggling with a scene or difficult character, what methods
help you through it?
Oh, I love this question! Because if I'm struggling, I always, always,
always come away from my laptop and write by hand. I use my best pen and notebook and I write
very, very slowly. I am a very fast
typist and I find that the change from very fast to very slow and deliberate
usually does the trick.
5. Cats or dogs?
I am a huge dog fan and almost always feature a dog in
my books. But, then again, I love
cats. I love their standoffishness and
independence so they appear quite often too. I also love goats, rabbits,
horses, cows, llamas - oh, all right.
I'll admit it. I just love
animals!
6. My favourite author.
Oh goodness, that's a tough one. Because I have so many. But, in this instance I am going to say
Agatha Christie. My mother introduced me
to her books when I was about 12 and I still enjoy them. She was a brilliant plotter - and I am a
rubbish one so I feel I can still learn such a lot from her. As for Miss Marple - I wish I'd created her!
Having said that, I have been introduced to many new
to me authors this year. Some are my
fellow authors at Crooked Cat Books, a wonderful and diverse group of great
writers. And I have recently joined a
Facebook group called UK Crime Book Club where I have been introduced to some
exciting (new to me) crime writers.
My To Be Read pile is thankfully mostly ebooks,
otherwise it would be taking over the house!
7. Pet Peeve.
Can I say misplaced apostrophes and poor punctuation
in general, without sounding like a grumpy old woman? Or a pedant?
Only this morning I saw an advert in a magazine which read "Time
fly's". It made no sense and I
didn't even bother to read the rest of it.
Which kind of defeats the object of the exercise, doesn't it?
8. Dreams.
Yes, I often remember my dreams, although they never
make any sense. Last night, I dreamt I
went to the theatre, left my seat in the interval and couldn't remember where
it was and ended up on stage, as part of the performance. Goodness knows what that meant! And that's one of the more sensible dreams.
Murder Served Cold. Blurb.
After her boyfriend runs out on her with the
contents of her bank account, Kat Latcham has no choice but to return to the
tiny Somerset village of Much Winchmoor, where she grew up. A place, she
reckons, that's not so much sleepy as
comatose and she longs for something exciting to happen to lessen the boredom
of having to return to live with her parents.
But when she and her childhood friend, Will
Manning discover a body and Will's father John is arrested for the murder, Kat
suddenly realises she should have heeded the saying" Be careful what you
wish for" as she sets out to prove John's innocence. But before she can do so, there is a second
murder and Kat finds herself in danger of becoming victim number three.
Readers of Sue Grafton might enjoy this, the
first in the Much Winchmoor series of cosy murder mysteries spiked with humour
and sprinkled with romance.
Author Bio
Paula Williams is living her dream. She has written all her life – her earliest
efforts involved blackmailing her unfortunate younger brothers into appearing
in her plays and pageants. But it is only in recent years, when she turned her
attention to writing short stories and serials for women's magazines that she
discovered, to her surprise, that people with better judgement than her
brothers actually liked what she wrote and were prepared to pay her for it.
Now, she writes every day in a lovely,
book-lined study in her home in Somerset, where she lives with her husband and
a handsome but not always obedient rescue Dalmatian called Duke. She still writes for magazines but also now
writes novels. A member of both the
Romantic Novelists' Association and the Crime Writers' Association, her novels
often feature a murder or two, and are
always sprinkled with humour and spiced with a touch of romance.
She also writes a monthly column, Ideas
Store, for the writers' magazines, Writers' Forum. And has a blog at paulawilliamswriter.wordpress.com. Her facebook author page is https://www.facebook.com/paula.williams.author.
And she tweets at @paulawilliams44.
But, as with the best of dreams, she worries
that one day she's going to wake up and find she still has to bully her
brothers into reading 'the play what she wrote'.
Social Media Links
Blog. at paulawilliamswriter.wordpress.com.
Her facebook author page is https://www.facebook.com/paula.williams.author.
Twitter. @paulawilliams44.
Website. paulawilliamswriter.co.uk
book link. mybook.to/murderservedcold
Very interesting, Paula. Good luck with the novels. And I do so agree how important the right title is, yet how difficult it can be to work out what that is!
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