Helen Cox's Blog

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Being a romance novelist, I live for sharing the love and consequently I’m giving away a copy of one of the most romantic books of all time (and set in my home county of Yorkshire no less): Wuthering Heights. I’m also going to throw in some romantic-themed snacks so your reading won’t be interrupted by trips to the kitchen for sustenance.

For a chance to win this prize simply follow me on Twitter (I’m @Helenography) and @ me explaining what your favourite romance story is and why. It can be a book, film, song, comic book, video game, anything – as long as you find it romantic. I’m looking forward to reading all the entries. The competition is open worldwide and will close on Wednesday 11th of April.

The winner will be announced on Thursday 12th of April

Good luck!

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[image error]One of the beautiful things about Twitter (and yes, despite the frequent political storms I promise you there are some) is being able to follow writers, artists, chefs and a vast array of other individuals as they set out on the journey to create something.  One such person I’ve had the pleasure of following from manuscript to publication is author Rebecca Tinnelly whose debut thriller Never Go There was published to ebook this month, with a paperback released shortly after in June.

I was lucky enough to receive a proof copy of the book and was immediately gripped by Nuala’s story as she uncovers the truth about her dead husband. The book is already getting great reviews on both Amazon and Good Reads, so with all this fuss afoot, I asked Rebecca if she would take a bit of time out of her next writing project to answer a few questions about her creative process. She very kindly agreed…

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Helen: When writing my stories, I’m often inspired by the place or setting. Which part of your debut novel came to you first and what made you pursue the idea to the finish line?

Rebecca: The part that came first was the idea of a young woman walking into a tiny, village pub and not knowing a soul in sight. Her character and the setting were both so strong I knew I had to write them down and, though much of the story has changed through edits and rewrites (fifteen in all), that initial image held true.

Once I started writing I knew I wasn’t going to stop. Writing the novel became a kind of refuge, something I could disappear into at the end of a long day and a safe place to pour out my emotions.

Helen: I very much relate to writing acting as a kind of refuge, I think a lot of writers do. Which book or writer has inspired you most to pursue your own writing career?

Rebecca: As a teenager, I fell in love with Wilkie Collins, especially his female characters. It was my first taste of crime and detective fiction and I still love his work. Lydia Gwilt, from Armadale, was the first female character I came across who had all the complexities and flaws of a real woman. Then, in my twenties, I discovered Minette Walters, a more contemporary crime writer who championed strong female leads. The Ice House definitely influenced my desire to write suspense fiction over all other genres.

Helen: Consider Minette Walters firmly on my TBR list. Having been through the journey to publication, which differs for everyone, what essential piece of advice would you give to those who want to write their own novel?

The essential piece of advice is this: have faith in yourself and your ability to succeed. Hold onto whatever it is that makes you want to write and help that push you through the harder times. Writing a novel is a marathon and takes most people years to complete, especially when you have to fit your writing around a day job and family life. If you can keep yourself motivated and keep yourself strong when all around you are telling you to give up, to not take it so seriously, then you’ll go far. For me, the hardest part was receiving rejection letters from agents. If I didn’t have the pig-headedness to push forward I would have given up and I knew that the moment I gave up I would have failed. I wasn’t prepared to let that happen.

Helen: Well I, for one, am very grateful for your ‘pigheadedness’! What drew you to write in this particular genre?

I’ve written dark stories ever since I was a child. I used to scare my friends at school with tales of maids in country estates turned mad, murdered children seeking revenge and ghostly dolls that came to life. When I first began writing Never Go There I didn’t have a genre in mind, I just started writing the kind of story that came naturally to me. It wasn’t until I had finished the first draft that I realised where it would fit in the market and then I tailored the edits and rewrites accordingly.

Helen: So last question, and being a goodie two-shoes my own answer to this question would be a bit lame but: have you ever gone to a place you were told you shouldn’t? If so, where?

Millions of places! As a teenager I used to sneak into bars and clubs without ID, as a student, at St Mary’s College, I was forever exploring the forbidden rooms and corridors of Walpole’s Gothic Mansion and even now if I see a ‘do not enter’ sign I’m itching to find out why I should stay away. Luckily, it’s never caused me trouble, certainly not as much as Nuala get’s into in Never Go There.

Never Go There is out now in ebook format. The paperback follows on the 28th of June 2018. Get your copy here. 

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Click here for an audio version of this post.

Last week, I was asked by one of my readers what my thoughts are about love. The nature of it; how people give and receive it. I’m not entirely sure what qualifies me to answer such a universally pertinent question. Presumably, the fact I write in the romance genre has some bearing on why queries such as this one land in my inbox. The best I can do is offer my perspective based on my own study and experience.

Love is the purest abstract force on the planet. When a person loves with all their heart they will achieve the impossible and the incredible but society has created complicated, and limiting, social constructs around love. When I write my books, I try to challenge some of those constructs. Try to reassure readers that love is worth surrendering to, whatever that looks like for them.

Perhaps the most problematic idea about love is that we only have so much of it to give. That love is a commodity we can measure by the pint and that our quest in this world is to figure out which select few we should offer our love to. Many of us may not even be conscious of thinking this but it is evident in our fear of giving love. If you believe you have an unlimited supply of one thing or another, you don’t mind being generous. As a society we are not generous with love and though we teach children that practice makes perfect, we are afraid to practice the most important thing we’ll ever do.

We don’t set this limit for any other abstract concept. We don’t believe there should only be a certain amount of sadness in us. We don’t believe that there’s a monthly cap on our jealousy or anger. But we do have this shared belief about love and that belief has led to a lack of love in the world we live in because we are convinced if we give too much, our stores will never replenish.

The truth is: your heart won’t run out of love. Your heart is not a well that will one day dry up. Love defies measurement. Logic. Definition. Limits.

In fact, the more of it you give out, the more you are likely to receive. The more likely your imaginary reserve will be renewed.

Most of my thinking about social constructs is inspired by observing the natural world, and whenever I think of a role model for giving love, I think about the apple tree. Tangential as this may sound, I promise there is a rationale. By autumn, all of the apple tree’s fruits have fallen. She’s given everything she has, trusting that in the spring more fruit will grow so she can again offer it all to the world. She gives without reservation in the literal sense. Some of her apples will be eaten and provide nourishment. Some will rot on the ground. The outcome does not dictate her giving and that is something for us all to aspire to. To trust ourselves and our journey enough to give all of our love and let the giving be its own reward.

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This post was inspired by my visit to the National Lighthouse Museum in Staten Island, New York. To listen to an audio version of this post, click here.

Lighthouses. George Bernard Shaw said they were built to serve. But what about the lighthouse keepers? They served not only locals and sea-farers but also the lighthouses themselves. They devoted their lives to lighting fires, keeping them ablaze on stormy nights. Sitting awake in the darkest, quietest hours while all others slept, and dreamed. In later decades, they ensured there was oil enough to burn beyond midnight all the way through to dawn.

These people; these keepers, gave their lives to preserve others. Their purpose: to shine light on even the blackest nights. When even starlight and moonlight was blotted out by thick cloud.

It was a noble existence. The longer I live, the more I am convinced that there is no greater privilege than serving another. To see the joy in their eyes when they understand that someone else prioritised their need and want above anyone else’s.

But a life of servitude comes at a price. It is lonely. Others don’t always understand the desire to give and look for motive where there is none. Interpret humility as lowliness and wonder why a person would choose that over power. Such minds will never understand that the most powerful act anyone can carry out is to give. The second is to receive with grace.

Most keepers were men. The women who kept lighthouses were typically women who had never married or were widows. Looking at their pictures mounted on museum boards, I wonder if those women ever invited broad-shouldered sailors into their sleeping quarters during the wild, windswept hours before daylight broke once more over the horizon.

I wonder if they ever wanted to feel something other than froth and sea spray against their skin. If they yearned to be lit only by the shine of a lover’s eyes for once. Or if they resigned themselves to the fact that the moment they took up their post at the top of the tower, they had committed their whole being to the ocean and would never know another master.

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Extract from my journal November 2016

(An audio version of this post is available here.)

I remember my last day in New York. It was spent managing a familiar but unwelcome churn in my stomach. The pain that always pinched whenever I thought about leaving the city behind. Though it was late November, the skies were endlessly blue so I’d spent the day wandering the East River Promenade. I’m always at my easiest beside a river, and while walking by the East River you wouldn’t guess you were on the periphery of a glitzy metropolis swarming with some 1.6 million residents, and who knows how many thousands of tourists. There’s an unexpected stillness there and all the honking and rumbling and screeching of daily New York life seems to be happening in some other universe.

I’ve been in love with the rough and the smooth of New York City for as long as I can remember. It’s inexplicable, really. I was born and raised in Yorkshire and can count on one hand the number of times I’ve visited the place. But for whatever reason, I just feel at home there and am always scrabbling around, trying to find ways and means of going back.

My last excuse for crossing the Atlantic was to research the setting of my Starlight Diner books. I saved for a year to be able to make the trip. I’d written the first draft of Milkshakes and Heartbreaks but I didn’t have a book contract when I reserved the flights. Consequently, my family were convinced my ‘research trip’ was just an excuse to gallivant around America for a few weeks eating more cheesecake than was proper.

And I’ll admit, cheesecake wasn’t in short supply.

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I visited more than my fair share of diners on that trip and, following my river-side walk, my final few hours in Manhattan were spent in The Pearl Street Diner, an eatery not far from the tip of the island.

Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree played out over the speaker as I walked in. Festive music had followed me from the East Coast to the Mid-West since my plane had touched down in October, such is the American love for the holidays.

Inside the restaurant, the silver-backed seating was upholstered in blue pvc and ‘fresh baked cookies’ were piled up along the counter.  I’d been to so many diners by that point I didn’t even pause for instruction from the waiting staff. I just walked up to the counter and dropped down into one of the high stools.

‘It’s cold outside,’ the waiter said to me.

I gave him a wry smile. ‘I just came from Chicago.’

The waiter almost snapped himself in half with laughing. Chicago wasn’t exactly known for being clement at this time of year and in the few days I’d spent there the whole city had been lost in a merciless blizzard.

‘That is…’ the waiter managed to reduce his hysterics to a chuckle. ‘That is a little different.’

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I ordered a Diet Coke and watched him work, notebook and pen in hand. He knew what every customer wanted before they even ordered but one regular surprised him. Changing her usual cream cheese and tomato bagel to an omelette and reveling in the opportunity to take him off guard.

Watching him go about his day to day routine, I grappled once again with the same question in my head: why was saying goodbye to the city so difficult every time I had to leave? Why couldn’t I bear the thought of New York once again fading away; falling away from me as my plane took off?

In the four weeks prior, I’d flown three and half thousand miles with nothing more to get by on than the cash I had in my pocket. I’d taken buses and trains out to Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago and back again to better understand the places my characters hailed from. I’d been raved at by random strangers on the subway late at night, I’d chatted merrily to a young woman on the Greyhound bus service who was traveling to see her boyfriend on his first day out of jail and narrowly dodged a confrontation with a gang in a Cleveland parking lot. I’d done all this because I believed in the stories I was writing.

And so, sitting there in the Pearl Street Diner during the final days of November 2015 I decided to keep writing my stories with or without a book contract. My plane home beckoned and if I couldn’t stay in New York in person, then, I decided, I would stay there in my mind. Living vicariously through the characters of the Starlight Diner.

Three weeks after my plane touched down in Heathrow, I got an email from HarperCollins offering to publish my first novel and by January 2016 I had signed a two-book deal. There are a lot of people who helped me on my journey to whom I will always be grateful but it was my unconditional love for New York that kept me on my path.

If you enjoyed reading this, you may also enjoy reading about The Skylight Diner, NYC here. Or The Westway Diner on 9th Avenue, here.

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[image error]When I taught school kids, I always waited until we were on the cusp of goodbye to tell them The Secret.

Throughout the academic year, I’d drop lumbering, elephant-heavy hints by introducing my students to books and poems and plays that explored the idea of The Secret. But I’d never explicitly speak of it until five minutes before the bell was about to ring on our final lesson.

Why?

Because The Secret is so radical.

I needed hundreds of hours to open their minds to possibility first. If I’d told them on lesson one, alongside warning them against waving chairs around at head level lest they poke a classmate’s eye out with one of the merciless metal legs manufacturers like to fix to seating designed for children, they wouldn’t have believed me. I hadn’t yet earnt their trust, and this particular truth can only be accepted if it comes from a person you trust.

The Secret is: whatever you want, you can have it.

This is not a trick. Whatever dream is in your heart can be lived outside of it. Want to change the political landscape? Correspond with people who already have a career in politics. Want to open a restaurant? Take some classes in catering.

If you don’t have the money for a training programme, start working on your dream as a hobby, ask for sponsorship, work two jobs to fund your aspirations or volunteer your time in an organization that will help you develop the skills you need (yes I have done all these things even though they were hard/scary. It was worth it.).

Your dreams may not always happen quite as you imagined, they may take time to achieve and people may not respond to your work in the way you’d hoped. But if you can find joy in what you’re doing, no matter how long it takes to be recognized for it, you’ve already succeeded where countless others have failed.

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This summer while exploring the east coast of America, I had the opportunity to visit an exhibition on Sylvia Plath at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C.. I also spent time visiting some of the NYC-based locations mentioned in The Bell Jar. Based on these experiences, I have put together an exclusive podcast for subscribers to my mailing list.

When you subscribe to my mailing list, you get a free ebook featuring three short stories, This is followed up with a free bookish treat every month.

On Monday 25th of September, I’ll be sending out my exclusive Sylvia Plath podcast that can only be heard through my mailing list channel.

If you, like me, are a big fan of Sylvia Plath’s work, please do sign up to my mailing list so you can enjoy this exclusive free treat.

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A writerly thought for the day.

My words are arrows. My aim is good and true. I always shoot from the heart.

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Today I am celebrating the first anniversary of my debut novel: Milkshakes and Heartbreaks at the Starlight Diner. It was published by HarperCollins on Independence Day 2016 because of its American setting.

I can’t believe a year has passed since this was published. My life has changed to irrecognisable degrees in that time and I’m still in awe of all the five star reviews. I’ve posted just a few of them in the image above. Thank you to everybody who has bought and read my book. You will never understand what an amazing difference this makes to an author.

If you still haven’t read Milkshakes and Heartbreaks, you can pick up your copy here.