Hello everyone! As some of you may know, I am the
first British writer to be signed by Prairie Rose Publishing. (And I thank you very
much ladies!) I come from Lancashire in the North of England, and our symbol is the Red Rose, so it is very fitting that I should now be a Prairie Rose!
This is my very first blog post for PRP and I have to admit, I am nervous. Mainly because, as a ‘foreigner’ who has never set foot in America, my impressions of the country have been colored by the Western films and series I watched avidly as a youngster. Of course, I have many reference books, and the Internet is full of information, but it can’t compare with going to a place, and soaking up the atmosphere. Therefore, I hope you will forgive me if there are any obvious errors in my work, and better still, I hope you will let me know if you do spot any glaring mistakes. With your help, my work will improve. Also, should any of you want to know anything about UK for any reason, please don’t hesitate to ask, and I will do my very best to help you.
This is my very first blog post for PRP and I have to admit, I am nervous. Mainly because, as a ‘foreigner’ who has never set foot in America, my impressions of the country have been colored by the Western films and series I watched avidly as a youngster. Of course, I have many reference books, and the Internet is full of information, but it can’t compare with going to a place, and soaking up the atmosphere. Therefore, I hope you will forgive me if there are any obvious errors in my work, and better still, I hope you will let me know if you do spot any glaring mistakes. With your help, my work will improve. Also, should any of you want to know anything about UK for any reason, please don’t hesitate to ask, and I will do my very best to help you.
Bye the way, please note that I might not be able to
post a reply to you immediately, My 87 year old Mother is unwell, and I am going
to her house for the nights, there is no signal for Wi-fi where she lives, but
I will certainly pick you all up when I get home, and due to our time
differences that might be immediate, might be a day or two, but rest assured I
will answer you all. Now, back to the blog!
PRP are publishing my book ‘Saint or Sinner’, under the pen name of Gil McDonald, (great cover, thanks Livia!) and they are
possibly taking one of my short stories for their Summer anthology entitled
‘Cowboy Cravings’ later this year.
I have two hard back Westerns already out here in
England, with a publisher named Robert Hale, (their Western imprint is ‘Black
Horse’, and my author name with them is Amos Carr), those two are also out in
large print world-wide this year. I am one of only four or five female Western
writers in UK for Hale.
Unfortunately Hale don’t put new works onto Kindle,
only works from their back catalog. Also unfortunately, they tend to
concentrate more on the ‘old style’ Westerns, rough, tough, shoot ‘em up stories,
with very little Romance. It works well for Hale, they actually publish around
twelve new Westerns a month now, so I was very lucky to be chosen by them.
However, I consider myself to be even more lucky to be signed by Prairie Rose,
after all, what is a cowboy without his horse, his gun, and his True Love?
I have only recently realized that I quite enjoy
writing ‘real’ Romance. How delighted I was when I found out about PRP! I can
run away with my Romantic side at last, and add cowboys to boot! Since coming across this startling
revelation about myself, I have also written two Contemporary Romance novels,
(one is out with an agent at present) and am half way through a Teen Fantasy trilogy, and a sort of 'Journal' of philosophical thoughts, written by a mysterious old man . I don’t think it hurts to have a
few irons in the fire!
Previously I have written articles for papers and magazines, and poetry, some of which has been in magazines and anthologies. I have a ton of short stories in lever files on my shelves, one of which won me the ‘Writer of the Year’ trophy from the prestigious Lancashire Authors Association’ way back in 1999 (the association is over 100 years old). One of my shorts, ‘Eddie and the Devil’ is now on a website called Alfie dog fiction, where readers pay a small amount to download and read the stories.
Most of the authors who have appeared on this blog
have exciting tales to tell about their lives and adventures. Sadly, I don’t
think I ever had a ‘real adventure’ (unless you count a day trip to France,
where I lost my passport, and spent half the day in a French Police Station
trying to make them understand me!) My life has been filled to bursting with
animals and birds of many kinds though; and, along with all my other projects, I
have a huge amount of paperwork with stories of my family, and our animal
friends, I would love to have an animal autobiography published!
In fact I have enough to be able to fill two, or even three books.
Animals are so very important in our lives. I know that,
for a variety of reasons there are many people who live without them. Fair
enough, they have jobs, families, busy lives, and that is their choice. But for
me, and from what I have seen, many of the PRP authors, animals are a big part
of life. Although I was born in the city of Liverpool, my parents moved from
there when I was a baby, and we traveled a lot. During our travels, we lived
on farms, and in flats above pet shops and dog grooming parlors. My Mother has
worked with animals, and bred dogs since she was 13, she’s now 87, and breeds
rabbits! She also used to breed and show Samoyeds (Big fluffy white Husky
looking dogs) and did so well with them that she got to the famous Crufts Dog
Show in London, with one of them.
Of course, being surrounded by animals of so many
kinds from birth, it was obvious I would be an animal person. Since I married,
I have kept many different kinds of animals and birds. I ran a small animal
rescue center when we lived in Kent, we were there ten years, and had a
smallholding, were we housed a large collection of animals, and sold fruit
and vegetables. I started to ride horses from the age of four, (after riding
cows for a couple of years!) I gave up horse riding in my twenties, but
recently went back to it, in my 60s, although I can’t go very often now, due to
health problems, and the fact that I now spend most of my time writing of course.
Right now, I just have two lovely Miniature
Schnauzer girls, litter sisters, Poppy and Pepper, who between them have had 11
puppies for me. I do miss all the hens and ducks and other creatures who used
to fill my life and time, but the girls keep me amused, and are very good
company now my husband has passed away.
As I said at the start, everything I know about
‘Cowboys’ came from television series and films. I was an avid cinema goer in
my teens, every Saturday would see me at the matinee with my bag of sweets,
engrossed in the adventures of The Lone Ranger, whilst my evenings were filled
with ‘Rawhide’ Wagon Train’ ‘Stagecoach West’ and Laramie’(among others!) I
don’t really know what attracted me to Westerns in the first place, but I know none
of the real boys I met could ever matchup to those rugged, wind-blown, handsome
men!
I have relied on my still quite vivid memories of
those films and series, to set my novels. I do hope they work.
I am often asked how I got into writing Westerns, as they are not an obvious choice for an English Rose! Any of you who have been to
my website will have read the story. But for those of you who haven’t, here
goes – Take your pick. A ghost made me do it! It came to me in a dream!
Actually both are true. Bear with me, I’m not as crazy as I sound, honest! I
have had a keen interest in Native Americans since being very young, I watched
Cowboys all the time, and I was a horse rider, so why this genre hadn’t
occurred to me way before it did I shall never know.
One morning, I woke up from a vivid dream, with the title, and almost the whole story for my first Western running through my head like a film. I started writing straight onto the computer, up until then I had always hand written everything, then transferred it to computer later, but there was a real sense of urgency about this, so I skipped a step, and all of my work since then has been done this way. A few months later, I sent it off to Robert Hale. They accepted it straight away, and with very little alteration ‘The Ghosts of Poynter’ under the author name Amos Carr, was published in June 2012.
One morning, I woke up from a vivid dream, with the title, and almost the whole story for my first Western running through my head like a film. I started writing straight onto the computer, up until then I had always hand written everything, then transferred it to computer later, but there was a real sense of urgency about this, so I skipped a step, and all of my work since then has been done this way. A few months later, I sent it off to Robert Hale. They accepted it straight away, and with very little alteration ‘The Ghosts of Poynter’ under the author name Amos Carr, was published in June 2012.
When I told my mother I was going to be published at
last and told her the genre, she gasped. It turned out that her father, (who
had died before I was old enough to know much about him) only ever read
Westerns! There were no other books in the house, and until that moment, I had
no idea what he had read of course. Now I think Grandad Harold was the one who
‘gave’ me that story! He also gave me my second Western, ‘Crazy Man Cade’ which ‘came’ in the same way, and was again
published by Hale, in October 2012. He has given me the ideas for three more
for the same publisher. I have almost finished my third for them. So I think I must be called a real ‘ghost
writer’! I do like that!
Grandad Harold however, did not have anything to do
with the works I am now producing for PRP, these are all mine! And the heroes
are all men of my dreams, rather
than from my dreams! I suppose it
often happens to writers, but I fall in love with all my heroes! There is
always something about them which attracts me, and I hope that my readers can
feel a similar attraction for them.
Okay, that’s it for now folks. If you want to find
out any more about this mad English woman who listens to ghosts, do go to my
website www.womanwholeads.webs.com
and please leave me a comment there. I look forward to getting to know you all
in the future. (By the way, my website name comes from my given Indian name.
But that’s another story! It's all on my site!)
You can also get me on Twitter, - JillMcDC
and on Facebook – Jill McDonald-Constable. (I am also on LinkedIn under
this name.)
‘The Ghosts of Poynter’ by Amos Carr. Pub.– Robert Hale, London.
‘Crazy Man Cade’ by Amos Carr. Pub.-
Robert Hale, London.
‘Saint or Sinner’ by Gil McDonald Pub. – Prairie Rose Publications.
Launch date TBA.
