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Meeting new women’s fiction author friends at the Sunlounger photo shootÌý

Hello all,Ìý

Thanks for coming over to my blog. Today’s an exciting day as my latest novel, Amelia Grey’s Fireside Dream, comes out in the shops. It’s a cosy, autumnal read about a young couple making over a cottage in the country - and I hope it’s one you’ll enjoy with a warm jumper and a cup of cocoa.

It’s been so lovely to wake up to congratulatory messages on Twitter this morning, book birthdays are almost as good as the real thing! It’s got me thinking about what a difference a year can make. Last September I was chewing my nails waiting for my first novel, Meet Me Under the Mistletoe, to come out in the shops. Now, a year on, I’ve seen three of my books published, watching the covers (which I love) evolve for each one. I’ve also met some fantastic people online and in real life: bloggers, readers, and other women’s fiction authors. It was always my dream to write and I feel very happy to be here writing a year on.

When I first had the idea for Amelia Grey’s Fireside Dream, I wanted to tell the story of another woman’s journey to achieve what she’s always wanted. Amelia is about to turn thirty and decides to take the leap and invest in making her childhood dream of living in the country come true - Ìýalong the way she learns more about herself, what she’s capable of, and the people she thought she knew than she ever imagined.Ìý

While Amelia was searching for her perfect house, I’ve also been looking for mine� fingers crossed, I think we are finally nearly there. Looking for a place you can imagine living really makes you weigh up what is important to you - do you need room to store all those shoes, or is outside space more important?

This summer my ideas changed a lot as my baby boy was born - it has been a lot of fun getting to know him. Suddenly the shoe storage has had to slip down that must-have listâ€� but writing is still a priority for me! Luckily the bub loves an epic nap (like his mum) which means I still get some precious time at the laptop. I’m currently scribbling down some ideas for book 4.Ìý

I always love hearing from readers so do get in touch with your thoughts on writing, reading, house-hunting and more!

Love, Abby xx

A box of author copies hot off the press. Very happy to see the postman!

Hi there.Ìý

Fancy winning some adorable ice cream headphones? To get your hands on the set below, simply tweet me @AbbyCBooks with your photo of a delicious-looking ice cream, including the tags #heavenly #ice cream. Ìý

The tastiest-looking ice will be the winner!

Competition closes Thursday 13th June.Ìý

Good luck, Abby

You’ve got an idea, perhaps you’ve even got the plot sketched out, and you have a few characters in mind. But how do you create a story that will have readers staying up all late at night wanting just one more chapter?

Here are my three tips on how you can bring more depth and emotion to your plotline and make your story come right off the page: understanding your characters, exploring your own personal journey, and getting inside your settings.

I swear by these. ÌýI hope you find them useful â€� happy writing!

Who are they? Understanding your characters

Who are these people that you are going to be spending days with, and that you’ll be asking readers to invest in and care about? At the start of your writing process, take the time to really get under their skin.

I work with a character questionnaire I put together that’s about ten pages long. Filling it out for each of my main characters takes a while, but is always time well spent. Sometimes I have a plot in mind and I’m itching to get typing, but making the effort at this stage helps everything go more smoothly and saves so much time in the long run. If you know your characters inside-out, they become like real people and tend to act more consistently, in line with their values and beliefs. This makes everything run more smoothly.

On the first page of this questionnaire go all the charactersâ€� physical details, so that I can keep tabs on those â€� hair, height, age etc. This is simple enough, but the fun part is that before long these start to trigger more interesting insights and can spark new ideas. If your character has a tattoo, where did she get it done? How old was she? How did her family react? I also use character boards like these, to build up a virtual scrapbook of images:Ìý

Next come other aspects: Is she healthy or not? What does he drink when he goes out? How would he spend a rainy day? Who in her family is she close to? How would he describe himself in a paragraph, and how would a close friend describe him? What is her biggest hope? And his nagging regret?

My favourite question, and the one that generally gives me the key to the story I’m about to write is:

What is the worst thing that could happen to this person?

I’m a big believer in putting your characters through hell in order to get the best out of them.

Which brings me to�

Who are you? Mining your own story

When coming up with storylines and characters, you’ll be taking inspiration from all sorts of things in Ìýthe world around you. I’m going to suggest that you start with a story that is truly original, a place that no other writer in the world has access to â€� your own personal journey. In my view, the key to any good story is emotion. And even in a light, happy story, I’d argue that you have to dip your toe into some difficult issues to keep readers engaged. We’ve all had times in life that have challenged us and one of the amazing things about writing is that these setbacks take on a new form â€� they become your fuel.

Spend an afternoon thinking back on the journey you’ve been on. Draw a horizontal line with the years along the bottom and chart your experiences as a graph � high points for times where you felt happy and successful and lower ones for the sad or difficult times. The low points might seem relatively minor, like failing a driving test, or teacher telling you your creative writing was no good � or something as serious as a period of illness, heartbreak, or losing a parent. The weight/importance of what happened as someone else might see it doesn’t matter � what does is how that event, at that time, made you feel.

Now think about what got you back up to a higher point on your graph. Was it the support of friends? Did your family help in ways you hadn’t expected? Was it learning a new skill? Voluntary work? Meeting a new partner?

One of the low points on my personal map was losing a job I’d worked hard to get and breaking up with a long-term boyfriend when I was about to turn thirty � it felt pretty rubbish at the time. But before I knew it, I was climbing back up on that little graph. The note I wrote about what helped me get back up says � support from friends, learning to surf, starting to paint again, getting hair highlighted, dancing. This helped shape some aspects of Anna and Imogen’s stories in Vivien’s Heavenly Ice Cream Shop. Understanding what your own challenges have been, remembering exactly how you felt, and looking at how you moved on will make your work much richer and more believable.

Where are you going? Get inside your settings

The internet is an incredible tool for writers, but it can make lazy tourists of us all. In just one click, we can visit any destination we like, walk down the roads on Streetview, read about the food and drinks on blogs and even hear the language. It’s endlessly useful for research and fact checking, but it’s no substitute for the real thing. Your readers will reap the rewards if you go and experience some of the places you write about first.

I saw this week that novelist Emily Barr was in the Arctic researching her new book and I’m so curious about how she will bring those experiences to her readers on the page. Of course not all of us have the budget, or time, or freedom from commitments to jump on a plane � but most of us could take a different bus or walk home. Perhaps get a cheap weekend train ticket to a part of the country that you’ve never visited before. Take a notebook with you when you’re visiting a relative in Cornwall, noting down sights, things overheard, smells and tastes � and voila, your weekend has becoming a research trip!

My key piece of advice here is to spend time alone. Going on holiday and visits with friends and family is great, but when it comes down to writing inspiration, it has to come from you, without the distraction of other people’s ideas and opinions. An hour’s train journey on your tod will give you the space to jot down ideas. When I was researching Vivien’s Heavenly Ice Cream Shop I got on a train to Brighton early in the morning and visited a quiet stretch of beach, taking note of what I saw � fishermen, rollerbladers � and the sights, sounds and smells � salty air, seagulls, doughnuts from the pier. I sketched and took notes. The shop itself is imaginary, of course � but if you’re asking readers to believe that a place exists, with meaningful events happening there, it often helps to anchor it in details from the real world.

Where will your next writing journey take you? I’d love to hear. Good luck!

Abby x

My new novel, Vivien’s Heavenly Ice Cream Shop, Ìýis the story of two sisters who inherit a Brighton ice cream parlour, and it’s out today. Here it is:

With subject matter as tasty as this, research is obviously key! So I wanted to talk you through the delicious journey I went on while writing this book. I’d highly recommend trying out a few of these places for yourselvesâ€� ÌýÌý

Stop 1 � Training up!

The Artisan School of Food, Nottinghamshire

In the novel, Anna and Imogen make gourmet ice cream from scratch, so I wanted to learn how to do so too. I spent a really inspiring day at The Artisan School of Food, in a stunning countryside setting, training up with Kitty Travers of La Grotta Ices. Our recipes included made-by-hand recipes as well as ones using an ice cream maker, all with fresh, seasonal ingredients at their heart.

My favourites were the quince ice cream � using heaps of fresh, juicy fruit � and the pear and ginger sorbet. I can still taste the fresh flavours in that sorbet if I think about it. Kitty talked us through the stages step-by-step and made it all seem surprisingly easy, then at the end of the day we had a grand tasting with the other students. YUM.

Me hard at work whipping up some quince ice cream

Tasting the Rosemary Grape Granita we’d made� really fresh

I never realised there were so many different kinds of vanilla

Stop 1 � Sampling London’s delights

The place that first kicked off my interest in gourmet ice cream was Gelupo, on Archer Street near Piccadilly Circus â€� if you’re in central London, definitely stop by for a cone. This pistachio-toned authentically Italian parlour serves up a stunning range of sorbets, gelato and delicious textured granitas. Ìý

Next, I stopped by Chin Chin Labs in Camden, which is fun for the spectacle â€� this is a science-lab style parlour where men in white coats and goggles make your ice cream in front of you, using liquid nitrogen. This week’s flavour is blueberry and dark chocolate chip - Ìýmunch on yours outside sitting on one of the rope swings.

Kings Cross Ice Cream Festival � this took place by Regents Canal (where, back the in the nineteenth century, they’d bring in ice from frozen lakes in Norway to make ice cream with). It was a great day, with talks about the history of ice cream, including the story of Carlo Gatti, the Italian who invented the Penny Lick, the cheap ice that made ice cream accessible for everyone.

After the talks, it was time to check out the many stalls and vans - my top taste of the day was a chocolate and salted caramel ice cream in a waffle cone. We stopped by Mad Cap Charlie’s nitrogen ice cream buggy and tried port and stilton ice cream, followed by a sample of beef, horseradish and Yorkshire pud � not sure I’ll be revisiting that, but he certainly gets full marks for experimentation! He’s currently working on a glow-in-the-dark recipe using luminescence from jellyfish. Incredible.

Stop 3 � Florence

No ice cream research would becomplete without a visit to Italy, the home of gelato. In the novel, Anna studies ice-cream making in Florence, and falls in love with the city and its flavours � and after a long weekend there I felt very much the same. After climbing the spectacular Duomo (cathedral) crossing the Ponte Vecchio, and relaxing over a lazy lunch, we finished the day with Frutti de Bosco (fruits of the forest) gelato at Vivoli, a traditional ice cream parlour. Unbeatable.

View from the stairwell of the Duomo (cathedral) - I loved these padlocks with lovers� intials etched into them, and they went on to feature in the novel

Ìý

A little sunny Italian sight-seeingÌý

Me and James in Florence. Tough day of book research…�

The Florence Ice Cream Festival is on this week, stretching over three of the city’s squares, and takes place every May.Ìý

I’d love to hear your own ice cream adventures, or top recommendations. In the meantime, here’s to a tasty summer!

Abby Clements x

Come and meet the characters here:Ìý

Ice Cream links

Gelupo:

Artisan School of Food:Ìý

Check out La Grotta Ices delicious range of flavours here:Ìý

Chin Chin Labs:Ìý

VivoliÌý

Ìý

Here’s a finished copy of my new summer book, Vivien’s Heavenly Ice Cream Shop. Doesn’t it look delicious? After months tinkering away on a Word document, and checking proofs - it’s amazing to see it as a proper book at last, and I really love the packaging. I think it’s fresh, summery and light and fits the tone of the book perfectly. I hope you agree! Vivien’s is out on the 23rd May, and you can preorder it on Amazon now:Ìý

Abby xx