I’m doing a post with a difference today. It’s Monday, for a start, and any of my regular followers (and if that’s not you, by the way, then please sign up! Theres nothing to lose. Well, you’ll lose a little time – but just read my fabulous posts and think of the rewards!) Anyway, as I was saying, any of my regular followers will know that I ALWAYS post on Tuesdays and Fridays. It’s not that I don’t like Mondays. Mondays are OK as a day, now that I write. I wasn’t very keen on them when I had to get up in the small hours and drive through snow to a stressful job in a factory, but now I can walk through snow with my dog and then sit down and write, and Mondays have become pretty cool.
So, why am I here today? Well, I wouldn’t do this for anyone else, but my great author friend JQ Rose has asked me to take part in a blog tour this week. You can link back to her page and discover other authors who are participating today. You’ll also find out JQ’s hilarious answers to the following questions, which JQ is now asking me.
So here we are, with JQ’s questions and my answers!
Well, I’m not working on anything right now, JQ, because I’m here with you talking! But when I’ve finished this post I’m rushing straight back to my WIP, which I’ve almost finished. I’ve been working on my manuscript for many hours a day these past few weeks, and at the moment I like what I’ve written. (My feelings for my writing go up and down enormously, so I’m rolling with the postive vibes at the moment.) I don’t really like to talk too much about a novel until I’ve written The End, but basically it’s a romance (no surprise there, says JQ!), but a longer one than my previous novels. It features a young widow and her child, and her growing love for an old friend of her deceased husband
My heroine works with disadvantaged teenagers, having come from a troubled background herself. Although the story is a romance, it focuses a lot on the growing class divide we have here in the UK. If you are born into a certain background, it’s very difficult to escape your fate – despite what our politicians would have us think.
I enjoy reading and writing romances because they are positive. Romances show us the good in life. If heroes and heroines are flawed, they come to learn from their mistakes through the course of a novel. Some people might say that romances are unrealistic, but I feel that if we are constantly held up to positive images it can only do good – in the same way that a constant diet of violent images can have a negative effect.
Before I begin writing a romance I ask myself this question: ‘What is the source of the conflict between the hero and heroine?’ There has to be some emotional conflict keeping the two lead characters apart until the very last page. Once I’ve worked this out, then I can begin to draw up the situations that force the hero and heroine together – even though they are not together emotionally.
- JQ Rose herself: http://www.jqrose.com/2013/11/veterans-day-blog-tour-this-week.html
- The “official unofficial” reporter of Gum Drop Island, I.B. Nosey, http://feelingnosey.blogspot.com
- Romantic Suspense/Second Chances/Experience Required author Marsha R. West http://www.marsharwest.com/category/blog
Thanks for visiting and checking out my writing process. Do you enjoy reading romances as much as I do? Do you find them unrealistic? Or do you agree that they hold out a positive view of life?
If you have any questions or comments at all, please let me know – I’d love to hear from you!
Helena Fairfax 
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