My writing ritual: stopping for an interview on my book blog tour

Posted on February 17, 2020 by juliaibbotson

One of the stops on my recent book blog tour was at Bforbookreview.wordpress.com

and it was an interview. Here is a transcript:

– When and where do you prefer to write?

Two main places: I do actually have my own study (husband banned, except for kindly plying me with coffee!) and I work at my antique desk with all my research books and papers handily in the big bookshelf next to me. For A Shape on the Air, as with all my books, I have a ‘mood board’ on the wall beside me, with pics of inspirations for the main characters (it’s Rachel Weiss and James Norton) and pics that represent Dr Viv’s apartment, the mere and Anglo-Saxon life and times. I also like to write in the conservatory so that I can look out at the garden which gives me peace and inspiration. I write most weekdays as I resigned from the university in order to write fulltime and I try to write a session in the mornings and again in the afternoons, so I keep to ‘office times’ as far as poss. It doesn’t always work out, though, because if it’s a nice day I want to be outside, walking in the countryside or gardening!

– Do you have a certain ritual?

My main ritual really is that I go swimming first thing in the mornings (I do 20-30 lengths) and usually have a session in the gym while I’m there. Then when I get back home at about 9.30 I can feel ‘noble’ after my exercise and set my mind to my work. I ALWAYS take my first coffee of the day with me to the study. I check my emails first in case there’s anything I need to address, but I try to avoid social media until I’ve met my target for the day.

– Is there a drink or some food that keeps you company while you write?

I’m afraid that I drink far too much fresh coffee while I’m working; I have a coffee pot constantly on the go. But I compensate with camomile tea at other times! I don’t eat while I’m on my computer but I do stop for breaks and usually have fresh fruit – or if I’ve been baking I grab a ginger flapjack or almond macaroon or whatever!

– What is your favourite book?

It changes, because I’m an avid reader and the latest one is usually my current favourite. But some stand the test of time in my heart: I love anything by Kate Atkinson and Pamela Hartshorne. I love historicals and time-slips (because this is my ‘brand’ too)!

– Would you consider writing a different genre in the future?

I have written in several genres already (contemporary and historical romance, children’s, etc) but at present I see my ‘brand’ as medieval time-slip mystery romance, which is what A Shape on the Air is – and also my WIP (working title The Dragon Tree)which is a sequel.

– Do you sometimes base your characters on people you know?

I guess most writers base characters on people they know in some way (we’re terrible people-watchers) but mine are generally amalgamations of different people. I pick characteristics and merge them into my characters, so they are, hopefully, unique. Possibly some of the characters in the Drumbeats Trilogy were nearer to known people than usual. But characters in A Shape in the Air mix up various friends of mine (don’t tell them!).

– Do you take a notebook everywhere in order to write down ideas that pop up?

I have a glorious collection of beautiful notebooks (constantly added to!) and I do usually have one in my bag, along with some of my collection of gorgeous pens. The only thing is that I tend to get ideas at awkward moments when I can’t pull the notebook out to write them down! I desperately try to keep the ideas in my head until I can scribble them down.

– Which genre do you not like at all?

I like most genres. I love crime, police procedurals and psychological thrillers, but I couldn’t ever write them (I don’t feel qualified enough). I don’t like anything gory or OTT blood-thirsty and I’m not keen on erotica or inflicted pain. I hated Fifty Shades!

– If you had the chance to co-write a book. Whom would it be with?

Barbara Erskine or Susanna Kearsley, because we’re on the same wave-length I think: medieval -ish time-slip Or maybe my friend Lizzie Lamb: although we write entirely different sorts of books, she’s excellent at marketing and promotion, so I’d feed off her!

– If you should travel to a foreign country to do research, which one would you chose and why?

Strangely enough, I’ve just been doing research in Madeira. My latest WIP is set there and involves its medieval history, 14^th and 16^th centuries. It’s a time-slip again so there’s present day Madeira to imbibe too. It’s provisionally called The Dragon Tree and it has the same main protagonists as A Shape on the Air: Dr Viv and Rev Rory, because I liked them so much I couldn’t let them go! My next will be the third in the series but they will be back in England at the Derbyshire rectory and my other favourite character (Tilly) will be back.

A Shape on the Air is available from Amazon at

http://myBook.to/ASOTA

Which books make me cry? And 10 fun facts about me – hmm!

Posted on February 6, 2020 by juliaibbotson

My book tour continues! Today I’m interviewed by Jasmine at http://bookreviewsbyjasmine.blogspot.com

She asks me about the books that made me cry and if you scroll down there are also ten fun facts about me that you never knew!

What is the first book that made you cry?

Little Women (Louisa May Alcott) because I was mad with Jo and I thought that the gorgeous male protagonist married the wrong person (trying not to give spoilers). I was very young! Then One Day (David Nicholls) and latterly A Single Thread (Tracy Chevalier). I cry very easily, at just about everything! I even cry at my own books; A Shape on the Air, for example – what happened with Dr Viv’s partner, her mother, betrayal, Lady Vivianne’s betrothal, the mystery they had to solve … I’m almost in tears now!

How long, on average, does it take you to write a book?

I usually reckon 6 months for research and 6 months to write the book. Even if I know the historical research base well (as with early medieval/Anglo-Saxon England which was my original research field), I have to research specifics for that particular book. For A Shape on the Air I had to research minute details of daily life in 499 AD. The same with my Drumbeats Trilogy, which begins in Ghana, West Africa in the 1960s, even though I had lived there I had to research the locations and what was happening at that time (music, books, politics, current events, etc). I love reading about how people lived in a different historical period so it’s a joy to do the research. My problem is where to stop!

How do you select the names of your characters?

Oddly the names often arrive in my head before the complete plot. I tend to have a character and inciting incident/initial situation/conflict before I start. I always have a ‘mood board’ for each novel WIP on my pinboard beside my desk and when I have a picture of my character on it, the name follows pretty quickly. Maybe because when I sit in a restaurant/bus/train and do my naughty ‘people watching’ I give them names as well as jobs and situations. For A Shape on the Air, I chose a picture of Rachel Weiss and thought of Dr Viv, and James Norton and thought of Rev Rory. Don’t ask me why! But it’s also true that I had to find similar names that fitted both time periods: Dr Viv in the present and Lady Vivianne in 499 AD, Rev Rory/Sir Roland, Tilly/Tilda, and so on. I decided not to use completely authentic names for 499 AD as the characters were from different ‘tribes’ or ethnicities (Roman, Celtic, Briton, Saxon etc) and some would not be so easy to read for the modern reader. For myself, I always found it hard to read names I have to really concentrate on to remember.

What creature do you consider your “spirit animal” to be?

I’d like it to be a wise owl or an elegant horse or gazelle, but it’s probably a cat (curled up by the fire and looking piercingly at what’s going on around).

What fictional character would you want to be friends with in real life?

Cormoran Strike (Robert Galbraith aka JK Rowling). I think he’s fascinating, hard but a softy at heart. He’s had such interesting experiences and I think he’d be full of anecdotes. I feel he’d keep me laughing as well.

Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?

Don’t give up; keep at it and believe in yourself. Read through your finished draft as though you are the reader, not the writer; if it doesn’t capture your attention throughout, then it won’t for anyone else. Make a great opening that grabs the reader’s attention and a great ending that makes them rave about your book. Create memorable characters and get to know them inside out: make a profile of them, what do they look like (very important), what are their little foibles, what are their likes/dislikes, what’s their history? And for heavens’ sake, do your research!

What book do you wish you had written?

Kate Atkinson’s Time After Time. Brilliant. What an intriguing concept: what if there were different ‘realities’ and history could repeat itself, but change for the better (hopefully). It’s a bit like a time-slip, I guess, but one that actually alters history – something we normally try not to do in time-slips – for the benefit of mankind.

Tell us 10 fun facts about yourself! 🙂

I love rhubarb and ginger gin and hate beer
I like rugby (watching!) and hate football
I love walking in the countryside and hate running (mainly because I have a spinal injury)
I love baking for family and friends: my current specialisms are ginger flapjacks (there seems to be a ginger theme going on here!) and almond macaroons, granary bread, and cauliflower & blue stilton cheese soup
I love crime novels, police procedurals and psychological thrillers, but I could never write them
I like gardening and growing my own vegetables and fruit
I’m really into healthy eating – all things fresh and homemade, not shop-bought, plastic wrapped and transport-miles
I actually have a PhD! In socio-linguistics, how men and women talk to each other. The research was fascinating!
I’m a qualified yoga teacher
I love clothes but hate shopping and changing rooms

And there we have it! That’s it for today. Let’s see what tomorrow has in store …

Early history: the ‘dark ages’; time slipping; the time-space continuum – Getting it right

Posted on February 5, 2020 by juliaibbotson

The second day of my book tour and I’ve just stopped at the lovely spot: Books, Life and Everything (I love that name!), for a guest post.

https://bookslifeandeverything.blogspot.com/2020/02/a-shape-on-air-by-julia-ibbotson.html?m=1#more

So, this is what I said …

Researching for a time-slip novel

Anybody else, like me, love the historical novels of Philippa Gregory? History, intrigue, mystery, romance, drama, tragedy – it’s all there. I’ve learned much of my knowledge of the Tudor period from her work. Even though I know they’re novels and not non-fiction academic texts, I still trust that they are reasonably accurate albeit a fictionalised ‘take’ on characters of history. I do know that she has done her research, even though you may disagree with some of her interpretations!

All the authors I know do a lot of research before and during writing their novel, but it’s especially vital if you are writing about a historical period, or a location or a concept, because you have to get it right! There are, believe me, many readers waiting to jump on the slightest inaccuracy – and that’s understandable, and quite right. Readers want to see the novel, even if it’s a fictionalised account of the time or place, as an authority. When I read such a novel I want to feel I’m learning something correct and authentic, not something wrong.

For A Shape on the Air, I had a plot involving Dr Viv DuLac slipping back in time to 499 AD to solve a mystery, so I needed to update my research on the early medieval period and also to research concepts of time. Both of these are areas I love to read about, so it was no hardship. I’d studied medieval language, literature and history at university for my first degree and was fascinated by the Dark Ages (after the Roman rule ended and the early Anglo-Saxon settlements began). There wasn’t (and still isn’t) very much researched and written about the Dark Ages, which is where it got its name, not because it was violent and barbaric (which is what many people think) but because of the lack (darkness) of evidence in archaeology and documents. In some ways I had to use my deductive powers to assess what might have been retained from the earlier Roman period and what might be developing forward into the Anglo-Saxon period. More recently evidence is now appearing, such as from the ‘dig’ at Lyminge in Kent, England, where a fifth century feasting hall had been unearthed not long before I wrote my book. And there is a growing body of archaeological, geophysical and isotopic evidence to indicate how the people of the 5^th and 6^th centuries lived. But I had to keep up to date with new discoveries, all the time, keeping revisiting published research documents. So there was a fair amount of both evidence and informed imagination at work as I wrote A Shape on the Air.

My research into time-slip was also fascinating. I looked again at the scientific theories of quantum mechanics, which sounds a bit like something from Dr Who, the Einstein-Rosen Bridge, and worm-holes, all basically ideas about space-time portals through which you could slip from one layer of the universe into another, or from one historic period into another. Fascinating, especially for all those who like fantasy and the paranormal, and yet these are real scientific theories of the concept of time, albeit unlikely to be tested by experiment! Strangely enough, I seem to be hearing those theories quoted so much more these days in the media. So maybe something out there is catching on!

Time-slip sounds insane, and of course Viv (in the present day) wonders if she’s going mad when she thinks she’s had a dream but brings back a real golden key from 499 AD! And her ‘dream’ is so real she begins to wonder if she’s taken on the identity of Lady Vivianne, her counterpart in the Dark Ages. How do they fit together? Why are their lives becoming intertwined? Why do they need to reach out to each other across the centuries? Well, I’m afraid that you’ll need to read it and see …!

http://myBook.to/ASOTA

Book tour off to a great start in USA and UK

Posted on February 4, 2020 by juliaibbotson

My book tour gets off to a wonderful start! Two lovely reviews today: the first from Laura’s Interests at https://dogsmomvisits.blogspot.com/2020/02/a-shape-on-air-by-julia-ibbotson.html

She says: “Seamlessly slipping us between eras, this book combines the elements of mystery and romance with dangerous precision. It appealed both to this historical fiction lover in me and the mystery lover. With great details and wonderful characters, I was drawn deeply into the book and easily blocked outside distractions. Great escape read.”

And the second, a very long, thoughtful analysis from Radzy at Vainradical.co.uk

“A Shape on the Air is a dual timeline novel set in both present day, and 499AD, with our main character, Viv (in present day) and Vivienne (a presumed ancestor) as they combat betrayal, heartache, and the times they’re in. This is a tale of female empowerment tossed into a healthy helping of romance and adventure, with plenty of vivid imagery to boot.

My favourite part of this novel is easily the imagery. Ibbotson doesn’t dote on minor details, and rather gives us a large picture with just enough fixtures for our minds to piece the rest together. This style allows us to become lost in the world we create, while allowing fluidity and simple fixations – such as the wonderful sounding food and drink, the fabrics, and of course the handsome Roland. I found myself wanting to have medieval breakfasts, coffee with cream and a little honey, and to touch luxurious clothing. Viv is a woman who doesn’t scrimp on what she finds joy in, and things come across extravagant and wonderful. Vivienne is from a simpler time, but the way she finds comfort in swishing, soft fabric on her feet ties the two character’s personalities together well. They’re the same woman, if we’re honest, but Ibbotson has created them to be different enough, that I could tell them apart with ease, but sought their similarities as well. They’re quite vain women, not afraid to sing their own praises, and Viv at least sees her physical prowess as her strength, rather than what’s in her mind, but she’s equally a well-educated, impeccably spoken young woman. Their ages are never spelled out explicitly, but I assume Viv is in her early thirties, there’s no way she’s not, where Vivienne I’d assume is a decade younger. This fact doesn’t matter, but something I found myself thinking about, comparing her life to mine, and how her achievements are reachable, but worked very hard for. I think what I’m saying is that this novel makes you feel something, unexpectedly, but well received. I enjoyed thinking about food, and hot coffee. I loved thinking about swishing fabrics and cold, unyielding water. This novel is sensory, in a way I didn’t expect, yet highly recommend for that sensation.

But let me quickly get back to something I just mentioned. Both women are vain, and that’s a trait which often turns me away from romance novels. The women are always perfect, gorgeous, and everyone wants them. This doesn’t steer away from that enough to not put me off a little, especially with how other characters are described to not overshadow our leading ladies, but this doesn’t take over the story, so I could easily look past it. It’s not something I’d be aware of if you’re looking to read this, or something to bear in mind, especially if romance novels are something you love, but it’s not something I personally enjoyed. Female empowerment doesn’t need to come at the expense of others and describing the former friend as ‘homey’ and ‘comfy’ and ‘how could he want her when I’m here’ is combative. True to character, yes, but combative.

That said, I truly enjoyed the same plot essentially being told twice, but suitable to a t to the time. Viv opens the novel cooking a delicious sounding dinner for her and her other half, Pete, when he comes home and says he’s leaving her. He’s been seeing someone else. Rapidly, Viv’s life starts to spiral – Pete has already taken most of her money and is now seeking to sell their flat and take more money he’s not entitled to. This man we were introduced to in Viv’s mind as handsome, sweet, and loving, is conniving, selfish, and infuriating. He’s the perfect representation of when a human forgets others have feelings too, and becomes so wrapped up in themselves, they take full advantage of everyone. His ex could become homeless, he doesn’t care. She’s been paying 75% of the mortgage. He doesn’t care. Her career could suffer from his pure selfishness. As long as it’s not his business suffering – he doesn’t care. Pete, this sweet man we were promised, is disgustingly self-absorbed, and this shift is jarring – and perfectly suited to the hurricane of emotions Viv finds herself in. On the flip side, Vivienne is a young woman, living in her late father’s kingdom, but forced to be at the will of her ‘guardian’, Sir Pelleas, who is only desperate to wed her, force her to have his child, and be his doting wife, so he can have her kingdom and riches. Unlike Pete, Pelleas is never shown in a good light, which I liked (I do love when authors aren’t afraid to just make fucking awful people, even if I hate them with a passion, it’s a skill) and Pete’s actions are faintly mirrored by Pelleas, with about a year’s difference. Pete was seeing the other woman, he was colluding with her, and then they strike. It’s obvious they’ve been seeing one another for a while, and as it’s declared the other woman is pregnant a couple days after Pete leaves Viv, we can only assume this is what made him finally go. Pelleas on the other hand is still plotting, working with Vivienne’s lady in waiting, and seeing her behind Vivienne’s back. The two storylines are very similar, but told in carrying enough ways, with the trials and tribulations of the times, to be different enough to be enjoyed. I also think at some point I should mention Roland, or his modern equivalent Rory, the excruciatingly handsome man who just wants to see Viv, or Vivienne happy, and doesn’t mind being a tease while doing so. He’s sweet, wonderful, and the perfect leading man in this genre. I bring him up because there’s a trend in fiction to create brooding, hard to reach, so tantalising, men, but Ibbotson doesn’t bother with that. The good guy is great and kind, and the bad guy is an ass. There’s no teetering between, or the sullen hero who needs saving, and this was refreshing. I loved just being able to enjoy Roland/Rory, and how sweet he is. If you enjoy a novel where your main men aren’t all broken and need piecing back together, this is a book to check out.

This is also a book to check out if you love timeslips, well researched historical novels, and stories of strong women defeating evil, and getting their happy endings. There are characters who you’ll want to scream at, and moments you’ll melt over, and overall, even if romance isn’t you genre, as it isn’t mine, if you love well-constructed, dual narration, mirrored novels, I’d recommend this.”

Great reviews and interesting comments from both – thank you!

Upcoming Book Tour with A Shape on the Air

Posted on January 29, 2020 by juliaibbotson

The wonderful award-winning book blog tour organiser, Rachel Gilbey, at Rachels Random Resources.com, is hosting a tour with my latest medieval timeslip romance/mystery from 4th to 10th February 2020. The week-long tour is full and I’m excited to see the posts! Many thanks to all the lovely bloggers who are taking part; it’s so much appreciated by authors that there are these enthusiastic readers who spread the word for their work.

My guest posts include thoughts on: Researching a timeslip novel and Deja Vu

and there will be extracts from the book to tempt you and three Q & As that just might reveal some secrets!

http://myBook.to/ASOTA

Extract: A Shape on the Air – Video 4

Posted on November 26, 2019 by juliaibbotson

Listen to the beginning of my novel A Shape on the Air.

This is the last of four videos which introduces you to the story.

Watch the first video here

Unlocking a love that lasts for lifetimes – and beyond: when Dr Viv DuLac, a medievalist and academic, slips into 499AD and into the body of Lady Vivianne, little does she realise that both their lives across the centuries will become intertwined as they fight for their dreams… and their lives.

Available on Amazon