This month I’m privileged to have the prolific and very talented Choc-Lit writer Linda Mitchelmore telling us all about her work. Linda is lucky enough to live in the beautiful south-west of England. Over to you, Linda. What made you start writing?

Thank you very much, Georgia, for inviting me onto your blog, it’s good to be here and be in such good company with other authors.

I came late to writing – my first novel was published around the time I picked up my pension – or did I? When I was a child my family didn’t take holidays. But living by the seaside there was no need to. Our beaches here are the safest for bathing anywhere. A ten minute bus ride and we would be sitting on the sand. But … come September and the start of the new school year there was always that essay to write – WHAT I DID IN THE HOLIDAYS. I had plenty of classmates who went all over Europe or climbing in Scotland or hiking in Wales, and ate weird and wonderful things and spent money like there was no tomorrow. So I made something up. The beach huts on the prom became my holiday village every summer. Although in reality they are about eight feet x eight feet, my imagination turned them into three bedroom wooden chalets with a porch. Ours was always number five. There was a stove on which mother fried the mackerel we caught with our father. And always ice cream for pudding. We sailed ‘our’ boat around the bay – I made up the name of that but I forget what lie I told now! – and we visited castles on days out. I was on safe ground with a castle because there was one a ten minute bus ride from our house in the other direction. Every year I gave it a different name, although the layout was always the same. Did, I wonder, my teachers ever suss me out? Or did they give me an A for creativity?

So, novel writing … I have just had the third in my ‘Emma’ trilogy published by Choc Lit. It’s called EMMA AND HER DAUGHTER.

Here’s a little about the novel:

It’s 1927 and Emma Jago has returned, a widow, from Canada with her daughter, Fleur. Emma’s life has been dogged by hardship and tragedy, but she resolves to make a better life for them both back in Devon. But there is a secret Emma has been keeping from Fleur and it’s not long before their lives are in turmoil. Throughout it all a man from Emma’s past, Matthew Caunter, is never far from her thoughts, and it turns out he is nearer, geographically, than she could ever have imagined. Could Matthew be the one to help heal Emma’s life – and her heart?

I didn’t set out to write a trilogy and Emma’s story in the first book, TO TURN FULL CIRCLE, could have ended there. But I wanted more for her – she’d become very real to me by this time – so I wrote a sequel, EMMA: THERE’S NO TURNING BACK. Again, the story could have ended there. Emma is resilient and feisty and practical, but she had a deep desire that hadn’t been fulfilled by the end of book two. So, I wrote a third … and does she get her heart’s desire? Well, it’s all there in book three.

As well as this trilogy I’ve also had an historical novella, set on Dartmoor, published – HOPE FOR HANNAH. A second novella, GRAND DESIGNS, is contemporary and moves between the UK and the Cannes and Antibes area in the south of France. And then there’s the book which was my favourite of all to write – RED IS FOR RUBIES – which is also contemporary and is set in the South Hams area of Devon and features paintings and pottery. All are published by Choc Lit, and books one and three of my trilogy have been sold to magazines in Norway and Sweden for serialisation.

When I add to this all the short stories I write and sell – mostly to Woman’s Weekly, but also to magazines in Norway and Sweden – I’m kept pretty busy. Housework is on a ‘needs must when I have visitors coming’ basis and it’s true to say my vacuum sometimes needs vacuuming!

But life can’t be all work and I do go out to play sometimes. Well, every day actually because I like to walk for an hour, whatever the weather. Gardening is also pretty high on my list of pleasures as are lunches with friends. And then there are my grandchildren to have over for sleepovers and to take to the theatre. But a writer’s mind never rests really and I’ve had short stories from all of those activities. In fact, I feel another story coming on now….

You can find out more about Linda’s writing here:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Linda-Mitchelmore/e/B00AZMT252/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1429886634&sr=1-2-ent

https://lindashortstories.wordpress.com/

You’re a busy lady, Linda. We’d better let you go and write that next story. Don’t let the hoovering get in the way!