Coming Up Roses, the Bloggy Book Tour.

I honestly don’t think that there is a greater benefit of blogging than watching someone you admire and interact with online all the time achieve their ambition of having a book published. Rachael Lucas’s brilliant first novel Sealed With A Kiss was so well received that she got a publishing deal and her second novel, Coming Up Roses, is now available for purchases through e-retailers as well as all good book stores.

In the lead up to the publication of the book, and as part of the ongoing Bloggy Book Tour, I got to ask Rachael some insightful questions about writing, characters and underwear. No plants were harmed in the publication of this interview.

Do you ever wish you’d ended a story differently?

Honestly? Yes, a bit. When you’re working within the constraints of a genre and people (or publishers) have expectations, it can be difficult to break out of that. So Coming Up Roses was initially a novel called Friends Wanted about female friendship, and not really about romance as such.

Do you ever base characters on people you hate in real life?

No, but I do base characters on people I love. If there’s a really well-characterised, really nice person in a book, they’re almost always based on someone I know. I don’t actually hate anyone because I’m a zen sort of person really, so I tend to feel sorry for them, which means I end up asking myself what’s caused them to behave the way they do. I’m a rubbish enemy!

When did you know you could do it; write a book, get a book published?

I didn’t. Basically when I self published Sealed with a Kiss it was encouraged hugely by one of my dearest friends, Melanie Clegg  and my attitude was one of sod it, I’m forty, let’s give it a go. For me the biggest moment wasn’t the book deal or signing with an agent (which is what everyone thinks is the dream stuff) it was seeing it reach the top 10 on Amazon when I self published because the idea I’d written a book SO many people were buying was amazing. I still don’t really feel like a Proper Writer and I’m almost finished my fourth book!

Your main character suffered heartbreak. Have you suffered similar heartbreak? Is it essential for writers to have suffered to be convincing writers?

I think it helps enormously, yes. And yes, I have been heartbroken and whilst I was thinking about the agony and woe I was also thinking (which is, apparently, a writers’ characteristic) “ooh, this is good material if I ever write a book…”

Sealed With a kiss, your last novel, has a glorious setting. Do you use holiday locations as settings for your novels or do you use your novels to plan your holidays?

Ha! I based SWAK on the isle of Bute because I lived there for a while and fell in love with the place. What I’m interested in is small communities, the way that people are forced to get along, the secrets that people keep, that sort of thing. My next book is set back on the island, and in Edinburgh.

Do you have a similar follow-up planned for Coming Up Roses, as with Sealed With a Kiss?

No, I haven’t any plans for a sequel. My next book is set back on the island though, because I love writing about it. I could write a whole series (and I may very well do so…).

How long has it taken you to get here?

Oh god. I wrote my first novel – 75,000 laboriously hand-typed words and a lot of tippex – and submitted it when I was eleven. I self published SWAK at 40. So one marriage, countless jobs, four children, two heartbreaks, and a lot of mistakes.

What are the best and worst bits about being a writer?

Best – when someone says they loved a character you wrote, or says they’re re-reading your book. Worst – Deadlines. Not having one and the fact it makes you faff around for ages. Having one, and the fact that you end up in the same pair of pyjamas for a week with mad hair and your children living on pizza and cereal.

What’s the most significant piece of advice you have been given by a writer; the one you hold in your heart and mumble to yourself when you are wading through the sticky mud at the shoreline of writing rather than gliding across the surface of the calm waters?

You can’t fix something that isn’t written, so get the first draft down and then you can worry about the whole story. (No idea who said it, but I repeat it to myself continually.)

Who has been your favourite character to write?

Probably Elaine, the blogger in Coming Up Roses. Because I’ve been blogging – although I am a terribly lapsed blogger now because I never have any time – for ever (my first blog was started in 2004) I really enjoyed writing her. Once upon a time I also had a perfect lifestyle blog and a marriage that was disintegrating behind the scenes so that was rather enjoyably therapeutic to write!

Do you enjoy empowering your characters? I’m thinking of the Headteacher’s Blogger Wife.

Absolute love it! Especially that last bit when she stalks off and makes the comment about the secretary listening at the door the whole time! I actually said “HA!” out loud as I wrote it.

What’s it been like to have the blogging community behind you: is it a blessing or a curse?

Utterly, utterly amazing. Seriously, the best feeling in the world. I am extremely defensive of blogging, bloggers, the changes it can make to our lives, the way it gives women a voice. I am massive supporter of book bloggers too – they work SO hard and take their job so seriously.

Do you think that you are “taking jobs from professionals” or is that an anachronistic take on the world of writing now the internet has opened it up to the untrained masses?

No, I think anyone who thinks that can sod off.

What colour is your favourite bra? Do you have preferred writing “clothes”? Do certain pants make you work better?

Oh god. I’m slightly appalled to say it’s sort of leopardskin patterned. I sound way saucier than I am now.
Preferred writing clothes? I live in t-shirt, cardigan, jeans and converse. And they have to be comfy. I can’t write with uncomfy pants on. (You heard it here first.)

RRP of Coming Up Roses is £6.99 but at time of publication costs £1.89 on Kindle and £4 through Amazon. For a review please see my next blog post!