Living on North Devon’s glorious coastline, with a view above my laptop’s screen over rugged coastline straight across the Bristol Channel to the Welsh Coast, who wouldn’t feel creative?
One glance at the glorious sea beyond my window and I’m inspired
Writing Medieval Court Intrigue as Kathleen Darroch[link1]
My first piece of medieval historical fantasy was inspired by the Patient Griselda fairy tale. I loathed that fairy story. I practically breathed flames every time I thought of it. And so one day I just sat down and started to write it the way I thought that it should have been.
That’s how Elda was born.
Elda’s story covers a very long action period and her life is inextricably interwoven with the lives of 3 other women and 2 men, so when I wrote The End, I knew that it wasn’t really the end because the Royal Bride was already very nearly writing herself… So then Lily piped up “Doesn’t my life mean anything?” and I just knew that this saga of strong brave caring women needed to be told and that I would never stop writing it…
More about Elda’s World here( [link 2]) and a Free Book(link 3) a book created by Elda herself, which you can only get on this site, it isn’t available in bookstores or elsewhere online.
Read Elda on your phone([external-link 1]) to the Vella listing for ELDA
I burned to write Elda’s story, I was completely immersed in it, but it was heavy, very heavy, and when I’d told the tale I was more than ready for a break. So when I met Erin I was enchanted! And in her airy flighty way Erin took me all over the world with her, laughing so hard I could hardly type.
More about Erin’s Adventures here([link 5]) and a Free Book(link 6) which only Erin’s True Fans can get, it isn’t available anywhere else or to anyone at all except readers who love her.
Read Found Money on your phone ([external-link 2]) to the Vella listing for Found Money
That was years and years ago, and I never thought that readers would be coming into Elda’s world with me, or into Erin’s, because the gatekeepers at that time didn’t like Strong Heroines like Elda or insouciant women like Erin who break all the rules and yet somehow make it work. And so I hugged my lovely ladies to myself and accepted that no-one else would ever meet them…
Came Kindle, Came Indie Publishing – did I race to bring my darling heroines onto the net? I did not.
I believed the gatekeepers, I accepted their dicta that I loved my ladies but no-one else would, that’s what decades of rejection does to your worldview.
I gave up on the idea of sharing my beliefs about how real women can interact meaningfully with their world when I found myself in the hands of the medicos and fighting for the right to keep on breathing. That’s when I found orphaned Jennie, who is fighting for the right to keep on breathing for herself and her 2 younger sibs.
Jennie was not rejected. Back in 2016 in a world of Indie writers who helped one another to put self-published books into the hands of readers, everyone who met her absolutely adored her!
But there was a teensy problem – I couldn’t write her right…
Jennie was just as real to me as you are – but she wouldn’t speak to me. Beyond her terrifying lifeline I couldn’t get a word out her, she clammed up whenever I asked her to talk to me. I had a gorgeous book cover made, Jennie so perfectly depicted with haunting eyes and firmly closed lips… yet I could not put the words onto paper which would have made her as real to you as she is to me.
It wasn’t until I began writing Màiri this year that I discovered why not…
In Jennie’s very own book series I hadn’t written her as the protagonist! It’s a multi-protagonist plotline, and yet not one of those protagonists was Jennie – I’d written her as a Victim. A brave lovable clever victim who’s fighting back like gangbusters, sure, but still a victim… and Jennie wouldn’t accept that label!
Sorry, Jen. I’m gonna re-write you as you really are, I promise!
So here we are in 2021, and now I’m writing the Màiri Maguire Murder Mysteries([link7])
Writing Cozy Murder Mysteries as Kate Darroch([link 7])
In many ways, Màiri is my Fav Heroine. She’s so practical, so calm, she’s down to earth, she’s efficient and effective, nothing ever fazes her. Màiri just gives a little smile, perches tiny smoked glasses onto her nose to hide her knowing eyes, and gets on with getting the job done. Màiri never takes “No” for an answer, and she never argues. She just pulls down those tiny spectacles a tad (so that the misguided creature opposing her can get a glimpse of that steely glint in her eye) and sails through all opposition as if it wasn’t even there.
Màiri is who I would be if I were a Winner and still living in Glasgow, instead of a milk-and-water lassie living in coastal Devon and doing whatever she’s told to do
Now that you know a lot about me, I’d love to hear from you! If want to connect send me an email kath@kathleendarroch.com
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