Hi, Lynn! Even though we meet regularly in person, this is the first time you have been a guest on my blog and I couldn't be more happy to welcome you :) I am looking forward to learning more about you and your latest release THE TWENTY-ONE YEAR CONTRACT!
Let's get things started with my questions...
1) What is the best and worse thing you have learned from an editor/agent?
This whole journey so far has been a huge learning curve. Editors are angels. They really are. Their skills are unquantifiable if you get a good one and I was the lucky one. I had no idea there were unnecessary words that can be pulled from text. I’d always understood the ‘murdering your darlings’ but it was so much more and when the list she provided was sent I began to fully appreciate just how simple words removed moved the story on without destroying its integrity.
I’m not precious about my work, I am learning and always will be. I believe that there is always someone out there who knows something I don’t and they know better. So why not listen, absorb and if I feel it is right for me, follow through.
However, there have been rocking in the corner moments and long talks with my imaginary friends who have stories they wanted me to tell but I wasn’t allowed to share them. More specifically, I wrote very graphic scenes that were pulled. I still feel it wouldn’t have harmed the novels if they had been left in, but I also appreciate that there is the wider audience that may have been shocked. I’ve learned how to re-write and get the message across without showing that close up and personal detail. Instead it leaves the reader the opportunity to make up their own minds as to what may have or may not have happened. On balance this maybe is no bad thing.
2) What is your typical day? Get up, breakfast, write, cycle or walk, chat with hubby, write, eat. Read.
3) What do you read while in the midst of a project? Or don’t you?
I have been sent requests to review books. I need to read them with a fresh head to do them justice. I leave space just to do that.
4)
What
do you do with a paperback once you’ve read it? Keep them. I have hundreds. I
hate the thought of them leaving the house. Sometimes I give them to charity.
5)
Are
you nervous about friends reading your book? Absolutely. I worry what they are
really thinking. After all I have the biggest imposters syndrome on earth.
6)
What
things inspire you to write? Location, music, film or even in a book?
Its all about the
history of life experience. I aim to provide fictional characters that readers
can identify with and empathise with.
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7) Share your blurb or short excerpt from your latest release with us:
1950s London. Who would have guessed a contract, a friend, and a simple shoebox would hold life-changing secrets.
The Twenty-One-Year Contract
Kathleen Gray – talented, a little wild, at times rebellious, but always popular-has a fun, easy life in rural Wiltshire, with a doting family.
Suddenly, they are gone, everything is changed, and she has only Uncle Jack. Try as he might, he cannot be father and mother to her- he has a business to run and his own life to manage.
Kathleen takes a chance and becomes Kate Westfield fending for herself in London, with a new life built on her hopes and dreams and new friends. She could hardly have imagined that one of those friends has a shoebox full of secrets.
BUY: mybook.to/twentyone
Where silence turns to courage, survival and happiness
8) What’s next for you?
The Twenty-One-Year Contract is standalone,
but it is also the sequel to Secrets, Shame, and a Shoebox. People are asking
me to write what happens next. So the third generation is talking to me at the
moment. A contemporary romance, that is quirky, light, but with a generous
dollop of the truth of life.
L.B. Griffin has been happily married for over 40 years and is surrounded by her family in Wiltshire. Before retiring she always wrote around her full time paid job. Her stories touch upon social issues and are filled with gentle hints of romance. Her women don’t see themselves as courageous, strong, or survivors, but they certainly are.
Her debut, Secrets, Shame, and a Shoebox has received 5 star reviews, amongst them Whispering stories and VINE reader/blogger Michelle Ryles, singing high praise: ‘Incredibly well-written, Secrets, Shame, and a Shoebox is a magnificent debut. It's a poignant, disturbing and a heart-warming page-turner that has left me chomping at the bit to continue Harriet's story.’
The sequel, The Twenty-One-Year Contract, is available for pre-order.
L.B. Griffin continues to turn silent stories into courage, hope, survival and ultimately happiness. Be warned, she is a self-confessed chocolate-raisin and strawberry addict!
LBGriffinAuthoruk
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And all other good books stores
@TheWildRosePress
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