The Dead Ground - Claire McGowan - Author Guest Post - Blog Tour

Today I'm delighted to share a guest post with you from author Claire McGowan. Claire's third novel is The Dead Ground, and is published by Headline on April 10th 2014. 

It's the second in a series featuring Paula Maguire. You can read my review of the first in the series, The Lost, here, and my review of Claire's first book, The Fall, here.

My writing process by Claire McGowan

There are a couple of questions that always come up when I’m being interviewed, and which I really should have worked out better answers to. One is: are you disciplined with your writing? And the other is: how much research do you do?

At the moment I write at least one book a year, and I always have other work to do as well, like most writers nowadays. So I don’t sit down at my desk all day every day and write – for one thing, it’s hard to crank out words eight hours a day. For another, life’s little jobs always get in the way, whether it’s proof-reading a different book, or promoting the one you have out, or going to the dentist or dry-cleaners. Part of this is procrastination, of course. When you don’t want to write a particular scene or you don’t know what happens next in your book, it’s amazing how much time you can fill up cleaning the taps, emailing, and watching YouTube videos of cats running into walls.

My process of writing a book spans around a year. This is probably because I have a year. If I had more or less time, I’m sure the work would expand or contract. First I’ll get the idea. I get ideas all the time, but not all of these will be workable as novels. It helps that I’m writing a series, so I know roughly what has to happen to the cast of characters in that one. Then I start scribbling down bits of the book, gathering ideas as I go. At this stage I don’t know much about the plot but rather than panic I just try to enjoy the adventure of finding out what’s going on. I use a notebook for this part, which is a sort of fetish – I can kid myself it’s like sketching, just playing about, and it also stops me being distracted by the aforementioned cat videos. Then, I will usually get to thirty thousand words and stop, stumped as to what happens next. I might stop for quite a while, procrastinating and telling myself I’m thinking it over. At some point I drag myself between thirty and sixty thousand words – the hardest part. Then I will stop again to think about what is really going on? What’s the book about? You might think I would know at this point, but….

Then, the research question. I wish I had a good answer for this, like ‘I embedded myself with the police for a year’ or ‘I got myself arrested so I could experience prison’, but it’s nowhere near as exciting as that. I will usually read around the subject I want to write on when I’m in the early musing stages, then try to get the story down, and then check the facts after. I’ll do this either by reading, going online, or talking to people about specific questions. Again, I’m a firm believer that too much research can weigh a book down, and that story is much more important than being totally accurate at all times. I want to write stories, not be an expert in the police force or forensic pathology or something. It’s surprising how often you get things right anyway. The mind is very powerful.

Hopefully this rather haphazard approach will show any aspiring writers that you don’t have to have all the answers when you start a book. However, you absolutely do have to keep going. I’m a big believer in doing 1,000 words a day in the writing stage– this very quickly adds up to a book and is why I wrote my first in three months. If you do this, and keep going without reading back over it, even when you’re convinced it’s no good, at least you have something to work with and fix. The only perfect books are the ones that stay in your head, unwritten. Give it a try!

About the novel...

BOOK TWO IN THE NEW CRIME SERIES FEATURING FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGIST PAULA MAGUIRE WORKING IN THE MISSING PERSONS UNIT IN NORTHERN IRELAND, IN A NAIL BITING STORY THAT WILL KEEP YOU UP ALL NIGHT

A stolen baby. A murdered woman. A decades-old atrocity. Something connects them all...

A month before Christmas, and Ballyterrin on the Irish border lies under a thick pall of snow. When a newborn baby goes missing from hospital, it's all too close to home for forensic psychologist Paula Maguire, who's wrestling with the hardest decision of her life.

Then a woman is found in a stone circle with her stomach cut open and it's clear a brutal killer is on the loose.

As another child is taken and a pregnant woman goes missing, Paula is caught up in the hunt for a killer no one can trace, who will stop at nothing to get what they want.

The Dead Ground will leave you gasping for breath as Paula discovers every decision she makes really is a matter of life and death...

About the author... 

Claire McGowan grew up in a small village in Northern Ireland. After a degree in English and French from Oxford University, and time spent living in China and France, she moved to London and works in the charity sector and also teaches creative writing. THE DEAD GROUND is her third novel and the second in the Paula Maguire series.

Author links: twitter @inkstainsclaire | website

The Manhattan Puzzle - Laurence O'Bryan - Author Guest Post

I'm delighted to feature a guest post from author Laurence O'Bryan on the blog today. Laurence is the author of The Istanbul Puzzle, The Jerusalem Puzzle, and his new novel is The Manhattan Puzzle.

Manhattan – A City from a Dream

by Laurence O’Bryan

I wanted to go to Manhattan long before I arrived on a Greyhound bus coming through the rolling forests of New York State from Toronto.  I still remember my first glimpse of sparkling grey skyscrapers as we came over a low ridge.

It was 1988 and Times Square was still an area where you might lose more than your wallet. I watched a preacher there fuming about racial equality and I felt a real unease on the streets. This was caused, I later found out, by the deprivation in that area, which had existed since the seventies and further back still. All that has changed now. You can bring your family to Times Square without having to worry about meeting a gunman asking you for your wallet.

Manhattan had a mythical status in my mind at that time. It still does. It was a character on its own right in many old Hollywood movies featuring Marilyn Monroe and Frank Sinatra and Audrey Hepburn, and too many gangsters and policemen to count.

Coming from ultra low-rise Dublin, Manhattan was a city from another world. A world of glamour and money and adventure all wrapped up in a city that never slept. I’ve been back three times since. Each time she has shown me something different.

I’ve been enthralled in the New York Public library looking through the archive of old newspapers, been captivated by the majestic star studded main hall in Grand Central Terminal and stood in the wind at the top of the Empire State Building. That midtown part of Manhattan where all those sights are should be classified as a museum, our perhaps even one of the seven Man Made Wonders of the World.        

I wanted to set a novel in Manhattan not just because of its beauty. Manhattan is also one of the centres of power in the world. Vast sums of money slosh around between its banks, and vast egos walk it streets. And everyone is on the hustle.

The Manhattan Puzzle emerged over a one year period. I wanted to change things from what had happened in The Istanbul and Jerusalem Puzzles and one way I did this was to tell much of the story through Isabel’s eyes. So far no one has said I did anything wrong in telling a story from a female perspective, but I am open to criticism, if you spot anything.

My writing process involves two to three hours a day of creating 1500 words, then the next day editing it before starting the next 1500 words. The novel then goes to my editor at Harper Collins. When I get it back I work on suggestions for a few months and then we do it all again. After that it’s one final proof read and then it goes to the shops and is made available online.

The novel is doing well, thankfully, so the chance of the next novel in the series being published is high. I can’ t tell you the title, but I can tell you I am visiting Nuremberg shortly. The remaining characters will face a resurrected fascist threat and some new deadly puzzles and then it will be on to another city.    

The Manhattan Puzzle sees Sean and Isabel (my characters from The Istanbul Puzzle and The Jerusalem Puzzle) finally reunited in Manhattan at the headquarters of one of the world’s largest banks, BXH, a fictional invention. There’s been some grisly murders. Then the plot takes a new twist. The contents of the book they found in The Istanbul Puzzle are revealed.

Another personal reason for writing this story was my disgust at the financial crisis that has brought many so low in the past few years. The final toll of the austerity programs caused by the financial crash, fuelled by Wall Street, is still not told. I became interested in the myths and the beliefs of those who value money above everything and I read a lot about the endless greed that thrives in large banks.

The Manhattan Puzzle is about other things too though. For instance, what would you do if your partner didn’t come home one night? And what would you think if the police turned up at your door the next day looking for him?

Relationships are under stress everywhere, in some cases because of the demands placed on us by our jobs, but few of us will face what Isabel has to face that morning when Sean goes missing.

Be warned though, there is violence from the start in The Manhattan Puzzle. The opening has a woman inflicting it on a man. I’m tired of reading about men inflicting sexual violence on women. I think it’s time for the handcuffs to swop wrists. And they certainly do in The Manhattan Puzzle. You can download the first chapter here as a pdf. 

And don’t get me wrong. I love Manhattan. It’s a city in a snow globe. A city from a dream.

To order The Manhattan Puzzle click here.

Or to visit my website click here: www.lpobryan.com