Ask the Author: C.L. Williams
Answered Questions (6)
C.L. Williams
Hi, it is just going through the audible process at the moment but it unfortunately takes 20 days. However if you email me your email at Smailholmauthor@gmail.com I can send you out a free copy to it once it’s done :)
C.L. Williams
Seeing the finished result on sale without a doubt. It feels such an achievement when so much blood, sweat and tears has gone into it. To see something so personal to you being read by someone who loves reading—and liking it. Well it doesn’t get much better than that for fulfilment.
C.L. Williams
It seems I’m all about the cliché. Because quite simply the idea came from visiting Smailholm Tower in the Scottish Borders on a family holiday. I was so taken with this strange tower in the middle of a forbidden moor that I remember driving away from it one rainy Scottish summer afternoon and thinking I’m going to write a novel about that tower. It turns out I’m not the only writer to be inspired by Smailholm Tower. The Tower provided the inspiration to Sir Walter Scott, who visited his paternal grandfather here when still a boy. Smailholm provides the setting for Scott’s ballad The Eve of St John. The name Smailholm can be translated from Old English to read small little island. Despite the Tower I always knew I wanted to write a rip-roaring adventure that my children could enjoy. The idea for miniature folk came from my childhood obsession with doll’s houses and miniature villages that you find in seaside resorts in Britain.
C.L. Williams
My writing tends to be very character driven so I imagine the characters in my head. I imagine meeting them and talking to them. I get to know them first as an acquaintance and then as a friend. I’m so taken with them by the end of writing my novel that it’s very hard to let go. In terms of plot I’m generally inspired by historical adventures. I watch a lot of historical drama and fantasy. I want to tell a story, but I want everyone to have fun, riding along on a wave of heart stopping adventure.
C.L. Williams
A contemporary adult paranormal comedy about one woman’s journey from death to heaven. It’s working title is Butterfly. It’s quite a departure from the medieval fantasy setting of Smailholm but the story and plot seemed to flow so easily I just had to write it. I actually wrote the bulk of it in #Nanowrino last year and am now at editing stage. It’s taken me quite a while to get this far juggling the release of Smailholm, two children and running my own business. I’m delighted to be longlisted in Agora Books Lost the Plot Competition for Butterfly. Getting down from 370 to 10 writers is a massive achievement for me and has given me the confidence to continue.
C.L. Williams
Write. It’s as simple as that. Procrastination will be the death of a novel and eventually the writer. I see so many writers on forums saying they have an idea but can’t get going, or are stuck half way and can’t complete. Or even worse they’ve been working on a novel for 10 years. It probably took me 6 months to write Smailholm and a month to write the bulk of Butterfly, my second novel. I forced myself to write 2000 words a day. Even when I was as tired as hell, the children were doing my head in and I’d rather watch a reality TV show, I still wrote. And that’s how I eventually got to a 60,000 word novel. Of course, speed vs quality is another thing but every writer usually goes through at least 3 rewrites. Putting the words on the page in the first place is key. Getting yourself a good editor, even if you are self-publishing, is also essential. So my one piece of advice to an aspiring writer is, if you know you should be writing but keep putting it off, throw yourself at the writing first before any other task that day. Set a word goal for the day and stick to it.
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Jan 03, 2020 04:22AM · flag