It’s no secret that I love featuring authors I’ve actually met on Linda’s Book Bag and today I’m delighted to welcome another of those authors, John Jackson. John and I met in September and I’m so pleased he agreed to tell me all about Heart of Stone.
Heart of Stone is published today, 24th October 2017, and is available for purchase here.
Welcome to Linda’s Book Bag, John and congratulations on today’s publication of Heart of Stone. Thank you so much for agreeing to answer some questions on my blog about your writing and Heart of Stone in particular.
Tell me, why do you write?
When I realised that I had a story to tell, and that I could tell that story. What I had to learn was to tell it in a way that made it approachable for others.
If I can get the story fixed in my head, then I can rip out several thousand words a day. That’s the easy bit.
The hardest has been deciding exactly where you want to go with a story.
I use a trolley table and type at my chair in the lounge. I am quite happy typing away with the TV on. Weird, isn’t it?
In your previous working life you did quite a lot of technical writing. How difficult was it to turn your hand to fiction?
Ha ha ha!! Chalk and cheese in so many ways. My previous experience certainly helped in so far as I knew my way around a document, so the technical side was very familiar.
The more technical documentation I wrote, the more I realised that I was writing for the reader – in my previous life these were mostly ships officers who had English as a second language. In other words, simplicity and clarity are everything. That was a help when it came to writing fiction.
Without spoiling the plot, please could you tell us a bit about Heart of Stone?
It is set in Ireland and is about a family of three brothers. One had all the advantages by way of position and money, while the middle brother had all the moral advantages. Add a third brother who’s only love is money, and a young girl pressured into marriage and you have some great ingredients.
I know you have an avid interest in family history and have used some of it as a basis for your writing. How did it feel to include elements about those from your own background?
Great! For me it personalised it, so in many ways writing it didn’t feel like work.
How did you go about researching detail and ensuring Heart of Stone was realistic?
I read all I could about the personalities involved, and visited the main sites for the story – initially on line and then in person. As Heart of Stone is set partly in a major building in Ireland, I contacted the managers of Belvedere who were also amazingly helpful.
Heart of Stone is set in Ireland. Why here particularly and how easy did you find it to create a sense of place in your writing?
You’re highly supportive of other authors on social media. What advice would you give to those authors who tell me they don’t use social media platforms?
I would urge any writer to try Twitter and Facebook, and not to be afraid of them. It is, perhaps, the modern equivalent of a “chat across the garden fence”.
I know you belong to the Romantic Novelists Association and the Historic Novel Association and love attending conferences. What do you gain as a writer from such involvement?
As a writer, it helps me get back in the groove. I have learnt a LOT from the various sessions, especially from Julie Cohen and from Emma Darwin.
As a writer, I would say I learn more about the “Craft” of writing at the RNA Conferences, and more about History and Historic Writing at the HNS Conference.
Heart of Stone has a cover that suggests murkiness and mystery to me. How did that image come about and what were you hoping to convey (without spoiling the plot please!)?
The cover uses a portrait of one of the main protagonists in the story. The original hangs in the house I mentioned, Belvedere. The management were unbelievably helpful in allowing me to use the image.
If you could choose to be a character from Heart of Stone, who would you be and why?
Very difficult. Probably either Stafford or Flynn.
If Heart of Stone became a film, who would you like to play Mary and why would you choose them?
I tend to read a lot of historical novels, esp. writers like Bernard Cornwell, Linsey Davis and Simon Scarrow.
If you had 15 words to persuade a reader that Heart of Stone should be their next read, what would you say?
Thank you so much for your time in answering my questions John.
You can find out more by following John on Twitter @jjackson42, visiting his blog and finding him on Facebook.