I am Faith Mortimer, author of (so far) two published books; my first is, The Crossing and just this week, The Assassins’ Village. A third novel is already in the prelim' stage with about 6,000 words written. I am English and reside most of the time in gorgeous sunny Cyprus, and the rest visiting back home in England. I am married, have four grown-up children, and spend the majority of my life being ruled by our four cats. The ideas for my books are all based on some truth, with a large helping of fiction to make the stories zing. The Crossing is based in two time periods; present and World War Two. Crossing between the time zones makes for an exciting, action-filled adventure with a good sprinkling of romance throughout the chapters. My latest novel, The Assassins’ Village (November 2010 winner of a professional review on Authonomy, which is run by Harper Collins), is a murder-mystery thriller, written in an Agatha Christie style. This is set in Cyprus, in a small village of gossiping, nosey villagers – again some truth plays a large part in the story. So far, both books and the next planned book, I have all written in the third person POV. Although for my next book Children of a Plantation, I may write in the first person for the main character only. I think this might make for a different kind of read. We’ll see! When writing, settings for all of my books play an enormous part in the planning. The Crossing is set in Southern England, Germany, Poland and the USA – very cosmopolitan! The Assassins’ Village is set in Cyprus and Children of a Planation will be set in England and Malaya in the 1950’s and 1960’s – a very colourful time. Personally, I hate to repeatedly read novels set in the same place; some cities immediately spring to mind, and I find this quite boring. I like to explore and research my settings and hope that this ensures the reader with something quite fresh when opening the first ‘pages’ of my novels. I describe my settings with quite luxuriant wording, adding local colour, depth, ‘smell and taste’ to the story. I try not to go overboard in description, but keep the manuscript tight and yet interesting at the same time. My writing day was at one time quite disciplined. I would spend the morning writing and plan on a minimum of 1,000 words, 2,000 - 3000 words would be a glorious day! The last few months have gone haywire. We had a month-long vacation and I am finding it difficult to get back into the routine – maybe next week after I’ve caught up. When in the groove, I will write for the morning and then put the manuscript away. The next day I’ll go over what I’ve written the previous day and may rewrite parts I dislike. All editing, corrections and such are done when I transpose my handwritten notes onto my PC. This counts as my first edit – one of many, I might add, and probably I will take about eighteen months from beginning to end to be fully happy with my efforts. My future writing plans are already in hand. As I’ve said 6,000 or so words are already written down in my writing pad. When not writing, I tend to spend quite a lot of time going over the plot, characters, and storyline in my head. I find this helps enormously and it is surprising how much you can sort out by the time you come to get writing again. I’ve spent the last year learning to ‘point’ old stone-walls, and it is amazing how therapeutic physical work is in helping you to get your mind and thoughts in gear. I love writing; I love the whole process from beginning to end. The only part - the hardest part - is once the book is in the public domain – then the marketing and hopefully sales take over! But no matter, to see my book cover on Amazon or on a bookshelf in a high street book shop, then I realise it is a small price to have to pay! Thanks once again, Tim for inviting me here. Happy reading everybody, and I sincerely hope you enjoy my books if you buy a copy. You can contact me at my Website, on Facebook, or on Twitter.
2 Comments
5/7/2011 09:39:03 pm
What a lucky woman you are to live in such a beautiful place, Faith. Perfect for a location. Writing first person can be a lot of fun and actually free up your character. Just remember that it's not you who's telling the story, but the character. Four of my five novels are 50% first person. Go for it!
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