Guest Interview with Juliette Lawson

Today I'm delighted to be joined on the blog by debut historical author, Juliette Lawson, whose novel 'A Borrowed Past' was published in February this year.

Please introduce yourself, Juliette, and tell us what you write. 

Hello, and thank you for the opportunity to join you on your blog, Jan. I have been an avid reader all my life, but I reached my 50s before attempting to write a novel myself. With a busy career as an accountant in education and a husband and three children, there wasn’t the space for it. Then I became a freelance consultant and finally made time to wrestle an abandoned manuscript into some sort of order!

My Classics degree and my love of local history and family history were big influences in choosing historical fiction, besides it being one of my favourite genres to read. I have dabbled in contemporary fiction, but the saga genre kept pulling me back. I love the idea of bringing the past to life through stories, especially portraying my local community in days gone by.

Juliette Lawson is your pen name. Why did you feel you needed a different name and how did you settle on the one you chose?

I had already written three nonfiction books on finance and funding for school leaders, and I didn’t want to confuse those readers by publishing fiction under the same name. I also felt my real name, Julie Cordiner, didn’t sound quite right for a historical saga author.

Oh, how I agonised over the pen name; it’s hard when you have a virtually free choice. In the end, I decided that if I ever did an event, I’d be more likely to respond to a name that wasn’t too different, so I simply lengthened Julie to Juliette! The surname Lawson is a tribute to my grandmother.

I’m full of admiration for the fact you have self-published ‘A Borrowed Past’. What was that process like?

It’s been hugely satisfying. I had already indie published my nonfiction, where timeliness is important, so it was an easy decision to follow suit for my fiction. Besides, I like to be in control! Today there are lots of tools that make the process much easier than it used to be.

As the book took shape, I had an early manuscript assessment then a developmental edit (from two separate editors). I’m a copy editor for indie authors, so I was able to do that stage myself, although I became quite paranoid about missing anything! A professional cover designer was essential.

I have spent a lot of time learning the professional approach, through online courses and following blogs and podcasts by successful indie authors like Joanna Penn, Mark Dawson, Orna Ross and Adam Croft. I’m also a member of the Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLI), which gives brilliant advice. The indie author community is incredibly supportive, and I’ve made a lot of friends.

The cover of your novel is very atmospheric and together with its intriguing title, a potential reader is drawn to delve inside. Please can you describe what to expect by summing up your story in a few sentences.

Thank you, Jan; I absolutely adore the cover. Jane Dixon Smith is such a talented designer, and she instinctively understood what I wanted the cover to convey.

It’s a heart-warming story about a young aspiring artist, William Harper, who overhears a family secret and runs away to search for the truth about his past. Despite a host of setbacks, he makes some progress, but then a tragedy happens and a whole new set of lies unravels. Can he make the right choice in love and decide where he belongs?

I’ll let some review extracts give more of a flavour:

‘An engrossing and fulfilling story with a wonderful sense of place.’

‘Lovely story with a few twists and great sense of the history of the time.’

‘The combination of strong characterisation, vivid scene setting, and convincing motives for all the characters made this a compelling read that I truly didn't want to end.’

Your novel is set in the years between 1875 and 1883. How much research did you do? Is your main character, William Harper, based on a real person? 

Inside the church for Harvest 1888

In 2012, I wrote a parish history to raise funds for my church’s restoration. Most of the research was from the Victorian era, so a lot of it was already in my head. It included some old photographs, such as the interior of the church at Harvest time, which features in my first chapter. I was also lucky in having copies of diaries written by my husband’s great-grandfather, which gave a vivid picture of the village and the community in the 1860s and 1870s. William is completely made up, from a lot of ‘what if…’ thinking.

What was the inspiration for your novel?

Firstly, I’d say it was the sense of belonging within the Seaton Carew village community that emerged as I did the research for my parish history. All William really wants is to belong. It also provided rich material I could use, such as our ancestor’s aunt keeping a chest of cleaned and mended clothes for shipwrecked sailors. The villagers sent wreaths and attended the funerals of unknown seafarers whose bodies were washed up on the beach and who had no one to grieve for them. A shipwreck from the past is an important part of my story.

Another source of inspiration was a couple who lived in a house on The Green with their 14 children. A descendant gave me transcripts of letters sent by the wife to her husband when he was working on the Continent (as they called Europe then). Her writing is so evocative, detailing her daily life and what the children were getting up to. I uncovered a secret in the father’s family history, which sparked a totally different idea that I could use as a twist in my story.

‘A Borrowed Past’ is the first part in the Seaton Carew Sagas series. How much planning have you done for the subsequent novels?

As I was writing ‘A Borrowed Past’, I developed a strong sense that Grace was willing me to make her the lead character in the next book, so I’ve been mulling it over for a while. Although I should have been editing ‘A Borrowed Past’ during November, I couldn’t resist sketching a story outline and writing a rough draft of book two for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). I produced 51,000 words and I’m returning to it later this month. All I’ll say is it involves smuggling and a romantic dilemma for Grace!

I have a couple of ideas for book three but won’t decide between them yet. I prefer to finish the previous book before I commit to the story idea for the next one, as you never know what will occur to you as you’re editing. My intention for each new novel is to pick up a character from previous books and explore their story, weaving more connections between all the villagers as I go. They’ll be standalone stories in their own right, but they will all be rooted in the village community.

I’ve signed up to your Reader Club newsletter. Can you tell us more about it and why you set it up?

 It’s great to have you in my community, Jan. As you’ll know, on signing up for the Reader

Seaton Carew Lifeboat 1888

Club, you receive the original first chapter of ‘A Borrowed Past’. Sadly, I had to delete it from the final version, in the interests of getting into William’s story more quickly. I’ve called it ‘The Lifeboat Rescue’; it involves his adventure on a lifeboat similar to the one in this photo from Seaton Carew. In my monthly newsletter, I’ll be sharing interesting snippets from my research, talking about my writing process or my progress with the next book, and giving a rundown of the books I’ve been reading.

I love the idea of being able to talk directly to readers in a more personal way than I would in a blog. It partly derives from my own enjoyment in receiving newsletters from favourite authors. I also want readers who enjoy my stories to be the first to know when the next book is coming out.

What is a typical writing day for you?

 An early start, around 6 am, although since lockdown I’ve been starting a little later. I like to have silence and get a good number of words down while my husband (who’s retired) is still in bed. After PE with Joe Wicks (a recent addition!) and a shower, I return to my desk and do around another hour’s writing. That leaves me the rest of the day to balance my fiction research, planning and marketing with my consultancy work, the writing and marketing for my nonfiction books and my new venture of online courses. I try to walk on the beach every lunchtime (two minutes’ walk away) to refresh my brain for the afternoon session.

What is the most useful piece of advice you’ve received as a writer?

To write the first draft for yourself (without stopping to do any editing) and the subsequent drafts for your reader.

But oh, how I struggle with letting the words just flow onto the page and not putting on the editing hat! Editing is my favourite stage, possibly because I’m a left-brained, logical accountant who likes figuring out solutions to problems.

What has been your proudest writing moment to date?

I think it was the day the parish history books arrived - all 9 boxes of them! Foolishly, I’d volunteered to write it without any previous experience, and to hold my very first book in my hands was such an incredible feeling. Happily, we soon broke even (phew!) and started adding to the Restoration Fund. I was keen to repeat the creative experience, and soon afterwards, I decided to challenge myself to write a novel.

A close second was a wonderful letter I received from an early reader who said ‘I have just spent the last three days reading your ‘Portrait of a Seaside Parish’ from cover to cover, and it has been one of the best reads of my life. I cannot thank you enough for the interest and pleasure I have gained from it, and I do hope it becomes a ‘sell out’!’

After spending so long writing a book without knowing whether it will hit the mark, hearing words like this means so much to an author.

LINKS:

Books on Amazon https://books2read.com/u/3yEEq6

Reading Club Newsletter: http://www.subscribepage.com/a7f7t3

Blog and website: https://juliettelawson.com

FB Author page: https://www.facebook.com/juliettelawsonauthor

Twitter: https://twitter.com/juliette_author

Thank you for coming onto the blog and giving us so much information about your novel, Juliette. I do hope it's a big success and you get lots of sales.

Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed finding out more about Juliette and her novel.

You may also follow me on Twitter @JanBaynham and on my Jan Baynham Writer  Facebook page.