A Notepad and a Dream - Cressida McLaughlin

In a series I call 'A Notepad and a Dream', I interview up-and-coming authors about their books, their writing process and their future plans. If you have a book shortly due for release and would like to take part, or know someone else who would, please let me know via the 'Contact Me' page above.

In this episode of 'A Notepad and a Dream' episode, we'll be meeting contemporary romance author Cressida McLaughlin.

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your novel?

I originally come from London, but moved to Norwich to study English Literature at the University of East Anglia. I fell in love with the city and never went back. I’ve always loved books, but was only ever interested in reading them until I had the opportunity to try a free Adult Education course. I picked creative writing, and caught the bug.


Like lots of authors, my route to publication has been long and littered with rejections, so I’m over the moon to be approaching publication date for my first novel. It’s called 'A Christmas Tail', and was first published as four eBook novellas during 2015. It tells the story of Cat Palmer, who gets fired from her job at a nursery after taking a puppy into work, and decides to set up a dog walking business in the seaside community where she lives.

Have you always wanted to write romance novels?

I love reading all genres, and am a huge fan of a good crime novel, but when it comes to writing I love the will-they-won’t-they element, and the challenge of creating that and making it work over the course of a whole book. There’s nothing more satisfying than reading a really hard-won happy ending, and that feeling is multiplied when you write one. There’s also so much more to the stories than the romance element – there are no restrictions on plot or style or humour, and I love that freedom.

The success of romance novels is typically dependent on the chemistry between the central characters. Is creating this chemistry something that you've had to practise at length in order to perfect, or something that comes naturally to you?

I think it’s a mixture of both, but it’s something that I’ve got better at through years of writing, and also reading other books that do it brilliantly. It’s one of the most fun aspects of creating the story, keeping the tension alive so that it keeps readers interested and doesn’t become too predictable. It can be a real challenge, but it’s one that I love and don’t think I’ll ever get bored of.

What advantages do you think the traditional model of publishing offers you over those who might be thinking about the indie/self-publishing option?

There were a few occasions on my publication journey when I thought I might try self-publishing, but I never went ahead with it and held out for a traditional deal.

I think for me it’s having all the support that comes with traditional publishing; a great editor who values your writing and spends time helping you make it better, the marketing and publicity teams who know exactly how and where to promote your books, and then of course that amazing moment when you get to hold a copy of your own book, complete with pages and a cover and that great book smell, and know that it will be in bookshops.

I know you can buy in elements of this when you’re self-publishing – editors, cover-designers, publicity – and some people love the autonomy of being able to do everything themselves, but over the last year I have really loved, and valued, having an amazing team who have worked really hard on my book and have helped it to look and be the best it can be.

What would you say is your main strength as an author?

I think one of my main strengths is being open to ideas and prepared to learn. You never stop learning as a writer, whether that’s from editors, agents, other authors or readers, it’s important to be willing to take comments on board and work hard to improve. I want to keep writing, and being published, for years to come, and I want each book to be better than the last.

What will your next project be?

I’m writing my second book at the moment. It’s called The Canal Boat Café and will be another romance novel, again published in four eBook novellas before the paperback comes out next summer. It’s great to be exploring new characters and a brand new setting, and I hope readers enjoy reading it as much as I’m enjoying writing it.

Cressida McLaughlin will be hosting the launch of her book at Waterstones Norwich at 7:30pm on 4 November 2015.

Coping with Failure

 
'Failure is just another name for much of real life' - Margaret Attwood

Failure.  A short word that encompasses many embarrassing and tragic events.  It takes many forms, and results from an inability to achieve the expectations of others, or of ourselves.  It needs no further definition, because it's a familiar experience for us all, from the very public failures such as exams or sporting endeavours, to the very private moral and sexual failures that we rarely share with others.

In certain circles, it seems that talking about failure is anathema, and yet it can be strangely liberating.  Failure and redemption remain enduring themes in literature.  We identify with characters that have challenges that mirror our own.  Perhaps you wish you were a better parent, or that you had been a better child.  Maybe at some point in life, you tossed a coin, and picked heads when it came down tails, or maybe your life has been a picture of external success, while inside, a different, nagging flame wishes to burn.

For me, writing and failure are synonymous.  Every time I step up to the page, I'm conscious that the perfect, expressive block of text inside my mind will have acquired edges, new limbs and awkward corners by the times it ends up on my laptop screen.  So as every failure of a child is said to be the ultimate failure of a parent, every page I write becomes a disappointment to me.

Genre writers will be familiar with the advice that you should rack up the tension in stories by throwing ever-greater obstacles in the protagonist's path.  Why do we do this, and why is it so effective?  Quite simply, because it inflates the value of the ultimate triumph which we know must happen by the end.  What do we think of stories where no ultimate triumph occurs?  They grate on us, touch our collective consciousness in a way that reminds us that sometimes, the best intentions and all the effort in the world are not enough to succeed.

And yet, how much do we learn about a person - indeed, about ourselves - unless we suffer failure?  Many of the heroes in modern stories are bound to succeed due to destiny, godlike powers or prodigious talent.  What future for those of us who cannot fall back on those things?  We need to find another way to process these emotions.  For all his talents, Gatsby does not win Daisy's heart, and pays the ultimate price for his obsession.  We feel his loss so keenly because it is our own.

Perhaps then, the true measure of an individual is to be honest about those failures, and to learn something from them.  In the words of Rudyard Kipling, we should be able to meet with triumph and disaster, and treat those two impostors just the same.  This strikes a particular chord with me, because I am genuinely as ambivalent about my successes as I seem outwardly to be about my failures.  And yet, the best stories about failure are still the ones that end with some variation on the theme of, 'when I learned X from that failure, I went on to do this really successful thing.'

So I think I speak for all of us who cannot find the words to say we wish we'd loved more deeply, behaved more recklessly, been more daring, had more fun.  Just because we can't articulate doesn't mean that we don't care.  Most importantly of all, we must forgive ourselves for our failures, because doing so means accepting who we are.