romance – Sam Russell

Chewing the Cud, Farm and Family Life, Inspiration, Our Barn Conversion, Self-publishing, Writing Romance

Writer’s total lack of inspiration

Ah, book three. It’s not so much a question of ‘will it get finished’ as ‘will it ever get started?’

I’ve dropped right out of the habit of sitting and writing this summer. There are a lot of reasons for that. My physical fitness is back after years of being limited by a dodgy hip and subsequent surgery. There’s a puppy in the house to make full use of my time (and my resurrected walking skills) and we’re converting a barn on the farm to be our new forever-home, which is keeping me mentally occupied and absorbing every drop of my creative thinking juices.

Jodie the horse

I’m walking and riding and project mismanaging… I’m loving the time away from my desk. I’ve shed half a stone just by being more active (author’s bottom be gone!) and in my downtime, I’m reading lots of lovely books that other people have written. (It’s so much easier than writing one yourself).

I’m asking myself some deep and meaningful questions:

Does it matter if you never write another book? (Answer: No, not a jot.)
Will your finances be adversely affected if you give up writing? (Answer: No. The opposite is true, in fact.)
Do you want your author’s bottom back? (I don’t need to tell you the answer to that one).
Does anyone but you give a fig whether you’re writing or not? (Answer: Yes and No. A dozen or so people do. I was accosted this week at an Uncle Funk gig by a couple of ~~mates~~ avid fans of my Draymere Hall Series who wanted to know when the next book would be out (Er, probably not this week). That happens surprisingly often and I’m always terribly flattered. But, contrarily, the Farmer is happy that I’m back in the real world; that there’s dinner on the table and the washing is getting done).
So… WILL THERE BE ANOTHER? (Answer: Hell, yes! Just don’t ask me why. Or when.)

I know there’s another book in there. In fact, I’ve started several…

A tentative foray into detective stories with a nerdy (female) PI and a dollop of quirky love interest.
A WWII historical Anglo-American romance set on a USAAF airbase.
Another Draymere Hall romance (with Zoe as the heroine, you’ll have met her if you’ve read Brambles. You know, the one who worked with Hettie… one of Julian’s ‘volunteers’.)
A brand-spanking-new contemporary romance series.
A complete departure from any genre, with a narrator who’s already dead…

Dear Lord. What I need to have written is several K words of one book, not one k words of several. Is it any wonder I’m in a muddle?

I’ll pick it up in the autumn.

Oh, hang on, that’s today.

But the sun’s still shining and I must walk the puppy down to the barn. There’s a tractor parked up outside with my name on it and I’m riding this afternoon…

Maybe this winter, then. Watch this space (but not with too much anticipation).

Chewing the Cud, Farm and Family Life, Inspiration

April fools on the farm

March 31, 2017March 31, 2017by Sam RussellLeave a Comment

We’re running around like April fools now that spring has arrived on the farm. The men are loading lorries, dispatching the last of the corn which is still in the barns, and when the barns are empty they’ll have to be cleaned and readied for this year’s harvest. The lorries arrive at random times and often with little warning. Sometimes our early wake-up call is from a driver who needs ‘talking in’ from whatever situation his sat nav has landed him in: “I followed the postcode, but it’s taken me to a pub/tree/housing estate…” Much like our internet connection and mobile signal, it seems satellite navigation can only be relied on in cities.

This year’s crop is still green in the fields and, as the earth warms up, needs tending with nutrients and never-ending pest control. The autumn drought in the east of England, followed by an onslaught of pigeons and deer, has hammered our oilseed rape this year. We’re nurturing it, and trying to remain optimistic. There are hopeful buds on the plants, and only time will tell if they come to abundant fruition.

Back at the farmhouse, it’s also the end of the tax year, so alongside tidying barns we’re tidying paperwork too. Filling in forms while the hedgerows bud, scabbling data together on rainy days when the land is too wet to run on and the lorries aren’t queuing up.

Thrown into the mix of April madness there’s Easter, and work on our barn conversion scheduled to start any minute. Preparations which require thinking ahead, another barn to be cleared, foundations to be excavated and a row of hideously overgrown Leylandii (planted to shield the stable from a westerly wind) which have to be taken down before we can get going.

And then there’s the biggest time consumer of them all: Barley the puppy, who’s got us all spinning like April fools.

Writing? No chance.

Giveaways Events and Special Offers, Inspiration, Marketing and Promotion, Writing Romance

Meet the author in her natural habitat

Featuredby Sam RussellLeave a Comment

What better place for my new book signing than down at the local, and how lucky are we to have such a gem on our doorstep?

‘The Local’ – a pub where locals meet for a catch-up and pint, a g&t and gossip, or a dinner of hearty pub grub (next to the roaring log burner). The heart of the village! All cliches because they’re true, be it the Fox and Hounds in Draymere, or the pub down the road from you. So I’m very grateful that our lovely hosts are letting little-old-me use their warm and welcoming bar for my book chat.

Grateful, but a tiny bit panicked. It doesn’t come natural, this speaking in pub(lic) lark, I’d far rather write it down. I’m talking to myself in the mirror again (the first sign of author madness?) and practising my signature, which should be easy, but I managed to sign Sam Reading the other day (it started so well).

My special authograph pen (gifted by eldest daughter) is primed and ready to go. I’ve managed to find passages in the book which I can read out loud and (a) don’t give the plot away, (b) aren’t too steamy. But my mind is inventing first night fears – what if no one turns up? What if someone turns up? I pity the poor sods who wander down for a quiet pint and find themselves thrust into romance. Or maybe they’ll enjoy it.

As will I, when I get there. I always do.

Gentle reminder to self; don’t overdo the Dutch courage.

Inspiration, Writing Romance

Looking for holiday romance…

November 24, 2016November 24, 2016by Sam Russell2 Comments

I was in Lanzarote last week. That near-barren island of glinting black sand, volcanoes and fields of charred lava. Sheer rock faces that plummet into the deep blue Atlantic and waves that explode on the shore with flumes of white spray.

There is nothing gentle about the landscape in Lanzarote, it is awe inspiring. Powerful and dramatic. It turned my head to the idea of romance.

I’m waxing lyrical, and I’m talking fiction, of course. I can’t help myself. As a writer every new place, vista and experience holds (as yet) untold potential.

A hero forged from molten rock, a narrative spun over sharp peaks and yawning craters. A heroine trapped by the ocean.

A passionate love story rising out of the sun-baked land.

Ah, for the inspiration of a setting so poetic that the plot (almost) writes itself.

Giveaways Events and Special Offers, Marketing and Promotion

Goodreads Book Giveaway

November 24, 2016November 24, 2016by Sam RussellLeave a Comment

Goodreads Book Giveaway

A Bed of Barley Straw

by Sam Russell

Giveaway ends December 01, 2016.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter Giveaway

Chewing the Cud, Farm and Family Life, Inspiration

Woo hoo; girls jolly!

September 27, 2016September 27, 2016by Sam RussellLeave a Comment

I’m off to Suffolk this weekend, with my girlies. We call it a girls’ weekend, but we go for four days, and none of us, it has to be said, qualify as girls anymore.

A big house in the country; shopping and hikes. Far, far too much wine. Ditto the food. We used to book adventure experiences, back in the day (we’ve been doing this for a lot of years), but we’ve grown lazy. The sheer consumption of food and alcohol is adventure enough these days. (Note to self; don’t forget to pack the antacids)

None of us will forget the weekend we spent on a barge. The living accommodation was rustic (The Sister had to sleep on the kitchen floor, with her head in the fridge), and the only loo had a louvred door. I was born too old for that lark. I mean, how do you actually do your business when you can see six other people going about theirs? One of our number, I’ll call her Oooh!–J (we’ve got a lot of J’s so I’m not giving much away), is particularly sensitive to her toilette surroundings. We inflated a rubber glove through the slats of the door while she was on the bog, and she didn’t go in there again for the rest of the trip. We opened both sets of lock-doors on one of the locks (too many cooks) and risked the whole bloody canal draining away downhill. And we crashed into some rowers. Good looking lads, we bumped into them again in the pub.

Oh, how we’ve laughed. Segways and four-wheel driving experiences, arts and crafts (Married-too-many-times-J painted a rabbit, and not of the furry sort.) We’ve dressed up for murder mysteries and belly dancing classes, boated and climbed, sculpted, shot arrows and played balloon games. You never recover from seeing your friends thrusting their groins against the wall to burst a balloon which is clasped between their thighs.

We’ve cried a fair bit too. We call it Suicide Sunday, when the booze and lack of sleep combine to overwhelm us and our traumas leak out. We’ve cheered each other off on new life exploits and mopped up after ordeals. Seven batty women with a horde of children (and a fair few grand-kids) between them, who chickened out of paint-balling when some men showed up in full combat gear. (Ok, so the men were actually 14 year old lads, but that was even scarier: Soft-J actually cried when she saw them). I said there were a lot of J’s. I think that particular escapade was our adventurous swan-song. We went and had fish and chips instead.

No photographs to illustrate this week’s blog. What happens on the girls weekend stays on the girls weekend. Thank the Lord. I’m thanking him, too, for my colourful, wildly indecent, loud, outrageously funny mates.

I might not be quite so thankful by Suicide Sunday, but here we go again. Hang on to your bladders, ladies, I predict a riot.

Chewing the Cud, Farm and Family Life, Inspiration

The tail-end of summer?

September 15, 2016by Sam Russell1 Comment

What a shocker! Hot sunshine right through August and it’s still going now! It must be an Indian summer, because an English one doesn’t behave like this.

The quickest harvest I can remember, although the elders tell me that in ’76 it was so hot that they combined right through the night. I do remember something of ’76; the grass died in the pony’s field, and we made hay when the council mowed the meadow. Not just in the proverbial sense, we actually made hay. But our DIY efforts over-heated in the hay-barn. We had to drag the grass-cuttings back out and spread them across the yard for fear of spontaneous combustion. There was camel racing at the village fete that year too. Those camels must have felt right at home on the desert which our village green had become.

This summer has its share of memorable moments too. Rebellious voters and gob-smacking Olympians spring to mind, although I also swum in the North Sea without freezing my extremities, and that was a memorable first too. Nick Skelton became a poster boy for the hip-replacement brigade (me); Theresa May became prime minister, and Jilly Cooper published her new book. Ok, I get that you might not think that’s up there with Olympic gold medals or running the country, but come on guys! Six-hundred-and-forty pages of steamy English saga! And, right now, I can empathise with the effort that Jilly must have put into that, because I’m still slogging away editing my three-hundred pages of steamy.

I’m not wishing the summer away. Oh, no. I mean, no one in their right mind would be dreaming of cool weather, when the sun is blazing every day. It’s hot, hot, hot. Even in the middle of the bloody night.

I’m not missing that snuggle under the duvet, or winter stews for dinner. Salad is good, so are ~~burnt~~ barbecued sausages, and I love wearing shorts. Who could be nostalgic for comfy jeans, or baggy jumpers, and who would even think about slobbing on the sofa with the log burner going when it’s 30+ degrees outside?

The Farmer might want rain, instead of drought and the pestilence of beetles which this summer has visited on us, but not me. The drumbeat of rain on the lean-too, the gushing of water through ditches, our view from the farmhouse soft-focused by the the mist of autumn drizzle. Nothing to enjoy there.

But what do we do for small-talk, if we can’t bemoan the disappointment of the English summer? I can answer that question myself, actually, because I’ve already been given pessimistic warnings of the savage winter that must surely follow. It’s nature’s payback, you see. The warnings are delivered with gloomy foreboding, and yet… some weird, English part of me is hoping that they just might come true.

Chewing the Cud, Farm and Family Life, Writing Romance

Training (or taming?) my Dragon

July 31, 2016by Sam RussellLeave a Comment

I’ve had a very productive month. Not on here – you’ll know that, if you follow my blog regularly (or should that be irregularly?) The blog has suffered from my rush of productivity, but the FINAL DRAFT of A Bed of Brambles has at last been dispatched to my editor! At least, I’m calling it the final draft… she may think otherwise.

It’s a relief and a delight, to get rid of the words I’ve been hunched over for the last six months. Rather like handing your homework in, and knowing you’ve done a good job, because the book is so much better for the editing. All the same, I’ve become rather jaded with re-reading, and re-writing. We needed this space; me, Hettie and Alexander, so that we can learn to love each other again. And my apologies to all those readers who’ve been clamouring for the second book and would rush at the chance to read more about Hettie and Alexander. I’ve been keeping you on tenterhooks for far too long, but we are getting there now – really!

With the chasm of time that losing the book freed up, I motored through the farm’s end of year accounts. Numbers are so much more obedient than words, aren’t they? The numbers are either right, or they’re wrong; no shades of grey here (pun intended). And at last I got around to submitting new plans for the barn we’re hoping to convert on the farm. It’s all go on the land. The combine is rolling, harvest is on us again: long days, weary men and an endless supply of refreshment to be produced from the farmhouse kitchen.

As I write, the sun is shining, a siren call away from my desk and the four walls of my office, but book three is calling too… It’s a habit, this bloody writing, that is hard to resist. So, I got to thinking, why can’t I have both? Outside, moving and writing a book. Uh oh.

I’m a devil for coming up with ideas which swallow hours of time when I find myself with ten minutes spare. And I’ve already learnt that Dragon dictation is going be one of those. Hours already spent learning how to work it, and I haven’t written a word yet (can you still call it writing if you’re actually speaking?) Oh well, I don’t have to worry about that yet, because so far my Dragon hasn’t listened to a single word I’ve said. No, I tell a lie! As I’m typing here Dragon has just opened the dictation box I asked it to open forty minutes ago. And this is meant to increase your word count?

I’ll let you know how I get on, but don’t hold your breath… I’m busy, taming my Dragon. I think we’ll both be spitting fire by next week.

Inspiration, Writing Romance

The Lake District – rustic romance to inspire

June 28, 2016by Sam Russell2 Comments

I’m blown away by the rustic romance of Cumbria this week. Even the barns are enchanting, and then there are the hills, the rocks and the lakes; forests and waterfalls. There are lambs in the fields (and on the narrow lane to our cottage); calves with doe eyes grazing behind dry stone walls. The foxgloves in bloom, poking pink flowers through bright green fern…

Catch your breath in amazement stuff around every corner. And I’m inspired. Land Rovers and collie dogs working for their living. Farmhouses and cottages, keeping centuries of stories behind stone walls. And a countryside so rugged that just getting by must be a challenge for the people who live there after the tourists have gone home. When the rain pours off the mountains and the lakes overflow, or the roads are blocked by snow drift. When swift cloud engulfs the rocky hills and valleys to leave you isolated in a world of mist.

Across the field from our holiday home stood our nearest neighbour; a white-washed stone cottage with a grey slate roof and a wooden gate to the front. The red Mini Cooper outside, with it’s personalised number plate, tells me that this must be Hayley’s house. There’s no sign of children, so I’ve decided that Hayley is in her mid twenties. And she lives alone, because the house is empty when Hayley has gone to work. No regular visitors either, but one irregular one: Late in the evening a Land Rover parks beside the red Mini. It’s gone before dawn. A proper working vehicle, this, with winches, and muddy tyres. Long wheel based and laden with gear. No personalised number plate to help me out here, but I’m going to say that this Landy is driven by a man who works on the land. A farmer or a gamekeeper, maybe even a vet. Occupations which might explain why he turns up so late and is gone so early. Or could it be that there’s an altogether different story unfolding in that cottage…

Hmmm. I think I can feel a Cumbrian rustic romance coming on.

Chewing the Cud, Farm and Family Life

Road Trip!

June 20, 2016by Sam RussellLeave a Comment

A quick one this week, because we’re off on a mini UK tour, and I really ought to be packing, or editing, or cleaning the house. Because you have to leave the house extra-clean when you’re not going to be in it, don’t you?

I’ve just spoken to the mates who are coming with us, and we’ve sorted our packing lists: Wellies, waterproofs, sun-cream and sandals. So, pack for all weather, basically. I’m glad the car doesn’t have a baggage allowance.

A pre-harvest jolly to Yorkshire, Scotland and the Royal Highland Show (which I’m weirdly excited about). Home via the lake district, by boat if necessary, seeing as nature is filling those lakes up as I write. I’d quite like to bring a Highland cow back with me, but only one that can swim.

I’m taking the editing with me (who am I kidding?) because I’m about to bust my latest self-imposed deadline, (final re-writes back to the editor before I go away, oh dear). And I’m stressing about the ancient terriers, or stressing about the poor souls who I’m leaving in charge of them, actually. They’re standing outside in the rain at the moment (the terriers, not the carers), looking ancient and mighty bedraggled (I won’t humiliate them by sharing a picture here). But, for some reason which I really can’t fathom, they do come back in to pee. I might lay a shavings bed in the boot room , then the carers can just muck them out.

Here’s wishing for some sunshine, (and an England win tonight). COME ON ENGLAND/SUMMER (delete as required) – let’s be having you!