Writer Spotlight - Dan Holloway

On Coffee and Roses I like to bring you news of exciting authors who are either waiting to be published or published and worth checking out.

This week, I have great pleasure in welcoming the fantastic author, poet and performer DAN HOLLOWAY into the Coffee and Roses Writer Spotlight...

When did you first decide that you wanted to write?

I don't know that I ever decided to be a writer. It was one of those things that always seemed to be taken for granted. My parents bought me an old wooden school desk as my third birthday and I'd sit at it late into the night scribbling nonsense, And when I was six my mum told me one evening that a gypsy had stopped her in the street, telling her that she had a son and he would grow up to make his fortune with pen and ink. I still haven't made my fortune!

What interests you as a writer?

I am fascinated by outsiders: people who find it hard to define themselves by terms that society understands and go about life by their own rules. It's a way of exploring all the things I wish I could be if only I had the courage.

Do you have a typical writing day? If not, when is the best time to write for you?

Absolutely not. My very best writing time is as early as it gets in the morning - I've always been a lark. By the time it gets to 8 o'clock or so, I've pretty much had it for the day. That said, I do love sitting outside on a busy pavement, leaning against a wall with a coffee on a sunny day, tapping away while the world goes by.

Which authors inspire you and why?

So many - I hate when those Facebook "10 writers who've left their mark on you" memes go round - how could I keep it down to 10? So how do I answer this in a sensible length? OK - Haruki Murakami has perfected the art of using the fantastical to represent a deep truth; Thomas Harris never uses a spare word; Elfriede Jelinek gets deeper inside relationships than you could imagine; Milan Kundera makes me see the world in different ways; Katelan Foisy breaks my heart; Adelle Stripe and Banana Yoshimoto make the everyday lyrical and beautiful.

Tell me about your latest book.

No Exit, released in May, is a big departure from my recent literary novels and poetry collections. It's a novelette, part of the Singles collection from the amazing Pankhearst group who publish the darkest Fem Noir. It's going to be the start of what I hope will be a long-running series about Petrichor, a group of outsiders who inhabit the doorways and rooftops and tunnels of Oxford - not to mention the corner of cyberspace. In No Exit, two women who have never met and know nothing about each other are about to commit a murder together, and we go back in time to discover what brought them to this point.

What are the best things about being a writer?

The thought that, one day, you might make a difference, even if only to one person; that one night someone might be alone and at the end of the line and your words might be the hand held out that brings them back from the edge.

And the worst?

Never quite being able to write the things you want to. So many people say they never self-censor. By and large they are people with very vanilla imaginations. Readers still find it too hard to separate the author as person from the things they write, so there inevitably comes a time when you pull a punch, and that hits you right in the gut because you know you are letting your readers down. It's something I battle with every book. No Exit is the darkest thing I've written. It goes places a lot of people never go but there are still things left unsaid, emotions I haven't let the characters explore.

What are you working on now?

Crush is the second Petrichor book. It centres on Keph, whose middle class comfortable life is turned on its head when she finds herself on the wrong bus home, witnesses a horrific act of cruelty and flips, battering the two teenage boys responsible to death, having just seconds to make a decision that will change her life - to run.

Do you have a dream project you would love to write?

I'm as much a performance poet as a prose writer - I've been taking shows to festivals and fringes for five years now, and have worked with some amazing people. I think my dream would be to put on a show with Patti Smith and Amanda Palmer.

What are your top three tips for aspiring writers?

I've just written a book, Self-Publish With Integrity, that aims to guide writers through the labyrinth of choices that face them. The real question I try to get them to answer is a simple one – know exactly what they want from their writing, in ultra-specific terms. That's the only way to be sure you don't get sidetracked.

More specifically writing-y advice – know exactly what the writers you admire do. And then do something different.

And devote ten times longer than you think you need to learning to write dialogue.

Anything else you’d like to say?

Go to a live literary night. Perform your work there. And, of course, thank you!

Thanks to Dan for a cracking interview! You can find out more about Dan and his books at his website and follow him on Twitter @agnieszkasshoes. Also check out his fantastic novel, Songs from the Other Side of the Wall.

Holly Hepburn - Being Brave...

I am delighted to welcome the very lovely HOLLY HEPBURN to Coffee & Roses. Her brand new e-book novella, Cupidity, has become an instant Amazon bestseller and if you haven't read it yet you're missing out! I asked Holly to tell us about her scary decision to self-publish - a decision which has clearly paid off...

Brave. It’s a word you associate with heroic people – like firemen and soldiers and trailblazers. It’s not the kind of word you associate with writers, unless they are Salman Rushdie or E L James.

It’s certainly not a description anyone would normally level at me. I’ve never done anything remotely brave, apart from risk my stomach contents on Nemesis Inferno at Thorpe Park. I’m even scared of spiders.

But when it came to self-publishing my first adult book, I didn’t so much as flinch. Self-publishing has come a long way since the days of murky, sweaty-pawed vanity publishers, who charged you a small fortune for a badly printed, thin papered, unprofessional looking version of your dream. Thanks largely to the rise of e-books, self-publishing has stepped into the light and, boy, has it stolen the show from its papery co-stars. Some people even think it’s the future of publishing. I’m not sure that’s true but it did offer me a way to dip my toe into adult writing.

I’ve always wanted to write a chick-lit novel and although I’ve started writing one, I’ve never managed to finish it – other commitments have got in the way. So it stands at 35,000 words, sad and neglected, waiting for me to come back to it. My agent even sent out the first three chapters to a couple of publishers, and the response was positive, with one gigantic publisher requesting the full manuscript. And that was the problem – I didn’t have it, and lacked the time to finish the novel. So I worked on other things and forgot my chick-lit yearnings. I wrote an opening chapter for the Harry Bowling Prize for New Writing 2012, which reached the final ten. And still I didn’t feel I could finish a book, until the end of 2012, when I had an idea that wouldn’t go away. I don’t have to be a novel, it whispered, I could be a novella...

Once I’d decided to write a novella, self-publishing was a natural home for it. No publisher would be interested in a 20,000 word story from a debut novelist, after all. And I knew several other people who had self-published with great success. So, after a false start or two, I finished the novella and set about creating a cover, one that set out very plainly that this was a chick-lit story. Once it was ready, I uploaded everything to Amazon and Cupidity was born.

It’s absolutely terrifying, putting something out there that hasn’t had the benefit of an expert editor and proof-reader. Of course, you can employ professionals to do this for you and I recommend that you do. I ran out of time to do it with mine but I went over and over it so many times that I hope the mistakes are few and far between (memo to self: ask writer friends who have read it if they spotted any mistakes). The morning I was ready to publish, I felt sick. The project felt much more personal than anything I’d put out there before. What if people hated it? What if they thought it was rubbish? What if – horror of horrors – they didn’t laugh?

I hit publish anyway. That was two weeks ago and it’s been OK. Cupidity was an instant bestseller. In fact, it’s been top of the Amazon bestseller chart ever since. People seem to be reading it. More importantly, they seem to be laughing and it seems to be at the bits I meant them to find funny. I’m thinking about running a local course on how to self-publish, to help other writers to navigate the lumps and bumps of e-book formatting.

So it strikes me that although I’m not an astronaut or a tightrope walker, maybe I am a little bit brave after all.

Thanks Holly! I adored Cupidity and absolutely recommend it! You can follow Holly at her gorgeous website: hollyhepburn.com and on twitter @hollyh_author.

Writer Spotlight: Nicola May

On Coffee and Roses I like to bring you news of exciting authors who are either waiting to be published or published and worth checking out.

This week, I'm really excited to welcome the brilliant and very lovely NICOLA MAY into the Coffee and Roses Writer Spotlight.



I first came across Nicola's amazing book Working it Out last year on Authonomy.com, and fell in love with it. So, when I saw on Scott Pack's blog that Nicola had self-published her novel, I just had to get in touch and invite her to share her story here!

When did you first decide that you wanted to write?

I actually didn’t start writing until my thirties. I was working in PR at the time, loved a drink and smoked 20 a day and was dared to run a half marathon. I thought it would be quite funny to create a comedy diary of events throughout my tough training. Amazingly, I completed the marathon, but didn’t finish the diary. It did, however, give me the writing bug.

What interests you as a writer?

Everything! I love creating characters, especially the more eccentric ones. When ensconced in a novel, it does take over my mind. I’m thrilled when I have a Eureka! moment on a plot.

Do you have a typical writing day? If not, when is the best time to write for you?

Once I get started I don’t stop. I can write for six to eight hours and suddenly realise I haven’t eaten, and I love eating! I have been known to get up in the middle of the night if an idea suddenly hits.

What made you decide to write Working it Out?

After my stint in PR, I did a lot of contract work in Event Management. Between major contracts I did do the odd temp job. It was when I was in a Portakabin in the middle of a field, with a mad Greek developer who swore and smoked constantly, that the idea struck - for someone to do twelve jobs in twelve months and see where it would lead them. My then literary agents loved the idea and the actual title came immediately, which didn’t happen so quickly for the first two novels. My first novel, Star Fish is also based on a ‘twelve’ theme: Piscean Amy Anderson can’t find love and decides to date each sign of the zodiac until she finds the man of her dreams.

What are the best things about being a writer?

Working from bed and only having to answer to my characters. And of course, just recently, making people happy when they tell me how much they’ve enjoyed the book.

And the worst?

Being broke at the moment. I took a part-time job to focus heavily on my writing as it is what I want to do full-time. Being self-published, you don’t get a juicy advance.

Tell me about what you're working on now.

I am working on a novel called The School Gates. This one focuses on four very different mothers, one adorable dad and the inter-twining trials and tribulations a year at the primary school gates brings. It has comedic moments, but is a little darker than Working it Out.

You've written three novels, one of which you’ve self-published. Do you have any tips for aspiring writers?

Working it Out is actually the first novel I have put into print and on Kindle. The other two are ready and waiting once I see what response I get to this one. I did have an agent and went the traditional route with them, but to no avail. However, I read between the lines of a lot of positive rejections, re-wrote this one and took the plunge myself at a minimal cost.

My main tips would be: Persistence over resistance. Take criticism on the chin and learn from it. Get a good copy editor and - be bold!

Do you have a dream project you'd love to write?

I would love to write a sitcom. I went on a sitcom course once, and the tutor said I was ‘too innuendo and panto-like’, then along came Miranda, which I love! My other dream is to be able to write the screenplay of Working it Out. I can see it already: Working it Out - a Working Title Film. Mr Curtis, I hope you’re reading this, as you would do a much better job!

Anything else you'd like to add?

I am very honoured that you contacted me for this interview, as I feel that self-published authors are almost frowned upon. I am also very excited as I really believe in Working It Out, and just like Ruby, the central character, I think maybe I am about to embark on the job of my dreams...

Working It Out is a wonderfully warm, laugh-out loud novel with characters you will really love. I absolutely fell in love with Ruby and her quest for her perfect job and it’s the kind of special book that only comes along once in a while. I thoroughly recommend it – buy the book now before Nicola becomes a major star in women’s contemporary fiction!

For more details on Nicola and to purchase a signed copy of Working it Out, go to www.nicolamay.com. Her novel is also on sale online at Waterstones, WHSmith and Amazon, and also as a Kindle version.

Would you like to feature in a future Writer Spotlight on my blog? Email me at coffeeandroses@gmail.com!