Guest Post with Eva Glyn
This week on the blog, I am delighted to welcome friend and author, Eva Glyn, to talk about her novel, The Missing Pieces of Us, which will be published by One More Chapter on July 21st.
Eva, welcome. Please tell us a
little about yourself and your
writing.
Although Welsh by birth, and having grown up in Cardiff, not a million miles from where you live, Jan, I moved to Cornwall four years ago. The idea was to downsize to a place my husband and I could lock up and leave to travel, although of course there hasn’t been a great deal of that going on in the last fifteen months. There has been a lot of writing though.
Although Welsh by birth, and having grown up in Cardiff, not a million miles from where you live, Jan, I moved to Cornwall four years ago. The idea was to downsize to a place my husband and I could lock up and leave to travel, although of course there hasn’t been a great deal of that going on in the last fifteen months. There has been a lot of writing though.
The story was inspired by a tree. A very special tree in the woods above the
River Hamble, exactly as it is described in the book. I was taken there by a
friend back in 2009 and instantly knew it had stories to tell:
‘The oak stood on the rise above the path, not too tall or wide but graceful
and straight, its trunk covered in what I can only describe as offerings –
pieces of ribbon, a daisy chain, a shell necklace…’
Children also leave letters for the fairies who look after the tree and guess
what? The fairies reply.
Before I’d even read
a word of your novel, I knew it would be a book for me because of the wonderful
cover design. Can you tell us about that and the intriguing title?
The book was originally indie published as The Faerie Tree in 2015 with quite a
dark cover, because I didn’t want it to look like a children’s book. Over time, I realised the title wasn’t doing it any favours so I dreamt up one that would
say more about the story, and felt quite modern. The cover is all down to the
wonderful design team at One More Chapter – I can take no credit.
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| the fairy tree |
Your characters,
Izzie and Robin, are very credible and you explore a whole range of human
emotions through them. Can you say which came first, the characters or the
story you wanted to tell?
Robin came first. It was some months after I’d first seen the fairy tree and I
was sitting in Caffe Nero in Winchester watching homeless men gather at the
Buttercross outside, and I started to wonder what it would be like to recognise
one of them. A friend had suffered a pretty cataclysmic breakdown the year
before and I wanted to write a story to show that recovery and happiness were
possible.
How much planning did
you do for The Missing Pieces of Us?
Absolutely none. I just started to write and kept writing. These days I need to
be more organised, because I have an outline agreed by my publisher beforehand
so I need to have the whole story laid out in my head, as well as character
sketches and settings. It’s better that way because everyone knows what they’re
working towards. As readers, we all recognise that sinking feeling when we pick
up a book that just isn’t how it’s described in the blurb.
How much
research did you have to do? How did you set about it?
I wrote what I knew, set in places I knew. But I had one major problem and I
didn’t know the answer until the book was almost finished; how on earth could
Robin and Izzie’s memories of the past be so different? In the indie book it
was left a little ambiguous, although there were strong pointers, but in the
new version it’s far clearer, and that’s the one change my editor at One More
Chapter wanted me to make.
How would you like
your readers to feel when they’ve finished reading your book?
Optimistic and hopeful. Because if Robin and Izzie, who in their own ways have
suffered so much, can move beyond that, then perhaps most people can.
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When I’m writing a first draft I do, and it’s first thing in the morning, with
a latte at my side. I read through what I wrote the day before and make
corrections, then it’s at least a thousand new words. Sometimes more if it’s
really flowing. Once I’ve finished we’ll go for a walk – often quite a long one
– and then I’ll get on with the rest of the business of the day; often social
media and marketing, or research.
What,
for you, is the very hardest part of writing? And what is the most rewarding?
Writing endings is both the hardest and the most rewarding. As a writer, you
want the readers to be completely satisfied when they close the book and I still find
it really hard to say goodbye to the characters in the right way.
I know
that 2021 is a very busy year for you. What can readers look forward to next?
At the beginning of August my first dual timeline, written as Jane Cable, will
be published. It’s called The Forgotten Maid and it’s a romantic mystery set in
Cornwall during the Poldark era and the present day. I’m very excited because
I’ve wanted to set a book here since I moved and I loved researching it so much
it’s going to be the first of a series of standalone novels going back to the
same period. Then in early September, my second Eva Glyn book comes out. I was inspired to
write The Olive Grove by an incredibly moving story I heard about growing up
during the Balkan war in the 1990s. We were on holiday in Croatia at the time
and it was our tour director’s personal experience, and he has helped me no end
with the book.
If you were asked to tell us one thing about ‘the
other me’, what would that be?
I’ve always loved cricket and I was so inspired by the 2005 Ashes win I blagged
my way into becoming a freelance cricket writer. I think knowing I was in the
media centre at Lord’s covering a test match was my father’s proudest moment!
Thank you, Jane, for giving us a look behind the scenes of The Missing Pieces of Us. Readers are in for a treat.
Buy links for The Missing Pieces of Us can be found
here:
Personal links:
Website: www.evaglynauthor.com
Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/evaglynauthor/?hl=en
Facebook:EvaGlynAuthor
Twitter: @EvaGlyn
