People of the Green Mounds

We raced to the top of the hill – to be the first to stand on top of the fairy mounds.

They say that if you listen carefully on a calm summer’s evening you can hear the fairy music playing.

They also say that should you fall asleep on the mounds the fairly folk will steal you away and you will never be able to return to your own world.

But we know it’s a tumulus – one of the many Iron Age burial mounds that line the hills in this region; the last resting place of someone who once lived and roamed this land – but is now forgotten.

Yet they were deemed worthy of a memorial to last millennia. And I can’t help wondering who they were.

This is what fascinates me about lost civilisations – a handful of artefacts and the rest is guesswork. And for a civilisation like that of the ancient Celts who had no writing but an oral tradition instead – when they were gone their words were lost.

What other civilisations have come and gone without our knowing?

The Once and Future Island

I stood, looking up at Glastonbury Tor from the Somerset levels. This flat coastal plain has been drained since the Middle Ages – a patchwork of water meadows and drainage canals, which, before, was a fenland landscape of reed swamp and willow.

Glastonbury itself has been inhabited since the iron age, and the tor is believed by many to be the Isle of Avalon of Arthurian legend, rising from the wetlands in the days before the fenlands were drained.

But being so low lying these meadows are vulnerable to flood. The whole region is only slightly above sea level and, in the past, frequently flooded during high tides. Sea defences, built in the early 20th Century have stopped these floods – but for how long? How much will the sea level have to rise before these defences are breached? I fear it may not need much.

3000 people drowned during the flood of January 1607. Farmland was destroyed and livestock swept away. In the world of Red Rock this whole region would be under several metres of water, and Glastonbury Tor would once more be an island.

Mixing and Mingling

One of the best things about being a writer is all the wonderful people I’m starting to meet – not just in the virtual world – but in the real world too.

Yesterday I headed up to London for the AM Heath summer party. What was so lovely was meeting many of Julia’s other clients – people who I know only via social media or through reading their books – not to mention so many other interesting people!

We sipped champagne in the garden as the sun dropped behind the trees, and talked about books. What better way to spend an evening.

But now, back to work. There are only two months until Red Rock hits the shelves and there is much to do; blog posts to write, a launch party to organise – and, hopefully some school visits.

And I will be participating in the forthcoming Yeovil Literary Festival. I’ll let you know more when they finalise the schedule.

Joining Together

Sometimes bloggers work best as a team. There are a number of really interesting collaborative blogs out there, and being a collective definitely has its advantages.

For instance these blogs are updated regularly – sometimes every day – something which is not possible for a lone blogger – I’m lucky if I manage a post a week – way below what is recommended for a successfully blog. These blogs also have the advantage of being able to reflect a range of perspectives, and to keep themselves fresh as new contributors join.

Over the past few months I’ve been lucky enough to get involved with a number of such projects.

The first one of these is Seamagic. A collaborative blog set up by Phillipa Francis. This is a blog that celebrates all things maritime and it is an absolute delight to be part of it.

The next two collaborative blogs I’m now a member of are more focussed on writing. One Four Kid Lit is a group of YA and Children’s authors who are debuting in 2014. They also include a few, like myself, who actually debut this year but missed out on joining the 2013 group. Most of the authors are American.

However, the other group I’m a member of, Author Allsorts, are all British YA and Children’s authors, some well established – others, like me, just starting out.

Do check out these blogs, you’ll find them interesting and vibrant. But for me the best thing about these collectives is the wonderful people I’m getting to know.

Guest: Gillian Hamer of Triskele Books

Hello Gillian and welcome to my blog. I’m right in the middle of reading The Charter and I’m loving it, so could you tell us a bit about yourself and your writing?

* Firstly, I'm glad you're enjoying The Charter! I've been writing, seriously, for about fifteen years now. I've always loved reading even as a child and must have gradually moved into story writing. I dabbled in a variety of online writing sites for a few years and seemed to absorb skills like a sponge. Then I got to a stage where I thought I was pretty good at it, so enrolled on a distance learning creative writing course which was invaluable. Since then I've had two agents, numerous near-misses with publisher, completed an Open University Forensics course, and moved on to setting up Triskele Books. I've published a further two books through Triskele since The Charter - Closure and Complicit - and like my debut novel they are all set around the area of North Wales that I love and all have an extra cross-genre thread running through the crime thriller.

Triskele Books is a really interesting publishing model. Could you tell us a bit more about it and how it came into being?

* As I said, I've been lucky enough to have two agents and have come close numerous times to getting a publishing deal, but there always seemed something getting in the way that was outside of my control. Also, my agent was only ever interested in my straight crime detective novels, not my paranormal thrillers. And then the recession hit, and it seemed you had more chance of winning the lottery than getting a major publisher to take on a new author. I knew of two other writers who were in similar circumstances, facing the same random excuses from publishers that I'd faced, so we decided rather than leave the manuscripts gathering dust on our hard drives, we would do something about it and over a posh Christmas tea in a Park Lane hotel, Triskele Books was born. I have to be honest and say I'd always been really sniffy about self publishing, worried about the stigma and the lack of quality out there and I guess I wanted better for my own books. But I trusted my fellow writers, and we made a pact from the outset that quality and professionalism would be our trademark - and we've stuck to that and I'm thrilled with the results.

Your books are produced to a very high standard. Can you tell us a bit about what is involved in producing such a quality product?

*    We are really blessed that Jane Dixon-Smith (JD Smith Design) is one of our Triskele group and is also a wonderful creative graphic designer who supplies us not only with brilliant covers that make people stop and stare but also deals with all of our formatting and website issues. She is a miracle - and has also just released her first fiction novella under Triskele! On top of that we use the combined talent of the Triskele writers, who are all of publishable standard, who each read every manuscript, both for creative and editorial input, so in effect the book has gone through at least four sets of independent eyes before it's then passed onto a proofreader for a final edit. We want to maintain a top quality image, and although we can never guarantee the odd typo won't slip through the net, we want out books to look and feel the best they can before reaching the reader.

A quick internet trawl and I found The Charter listed on all the major bookshop websites. So how hard is it to get your books on the shelves and how do you handle the marketing and distribution side of things?

*    In terms of distribution, it's actually relatively easy - ebooks kind of sell themselves. Just load them up and away you go. Paperbacks aren't huge sellers for me personally, but I use Lightning Source and have been very pleased with their service. I can order and deliver to wherever needed, and they supply to most of the major suppliers direct once you've registered your ISBN. Marketing is a little more laborious, another case where having many sets of hands is a big help. I've not had a great deal of luck with local bookshops, basically because the independents are so thin on the ground and Waterstones have a non-indie policy at the moment (which I hope will change) so everything is really internet based. We do seem to be attracting more and more attention through the rise of quality independent collectives, so hopefully that will increase marketing opportunities in the future too.

So what next for Triskele Books?

*    We have just had our latest launch (June 1st at Foyles Bookshop in London) and have a second round of books due for release in November this year. We try to keep two launches a year, with a minimum of three books per launch. At the moment between all of the writers, we have enough new material to keep us going until the end of 2014, and then we may look to expand and take on new writers. It's an interesting time to be involved with indie publishing and I'm excited to see how Triskele grows and develops in the future.

For further information on any of my books or Triskele Books, please visit

www.gillianhamer.com or www.triskelebooks.co.uk.

 

 

Thank you Gillian, for dropping by and answering my questions. And now… a giveaway!

 

Gillian has kindly offered an e-copy of her latest release, Complicit. To enter the giveaway all you have to do is leave a comment on this post. The contest will stay open until midnight GMT of Thursday 4th July. The winner will be chosen at random by Gillian on Friday 5th July and I’ll announce it here.

 

RED ROCK Cover Reveal

I’m delighted to share the cover for Red Rock with you all today.

I’m absolutely thrilled with it. I love the broad sweep of the sea and the distant shadow of the town, and I love the rock and the way it is held so tenderly. It really captures the essence of my book and I couldn’t be happier.

Ants in the Woods

We sat in silence among the trees, hoping to spot an elusive red squirrel. There were traces of their presence all around – fresh gnawed pine cones – but the squirrels were hiding from us.

 

We did see a sika deer, a young stag who ventured close, rising up on his hind legs to browse the newly bursting spring foliage.

 

And further on we found the wood ants.

 

We came across a number of wood ants’ nests in the woods that day, but this one was particularly impressive.

The surface of this mound of pine needles, twigs, and other woodland debris, was covered with worker ants – the whole nest appearing to seethe. The smallest of creatures, working in unity.

Definitely the highlight of my day.