Elaina James

If you’ve read my biography you may have noticed that music teacher doesn’t actually feature in there.  Given my struggles with my music A level, my parents encouraged me to have a backup plan just in case my musical aspirations didn’t work out (again).  With that in mind I went to University to study business administration.  From there the move into accountancy seemed a natural progression. Somehow along the way my backup plan became my reality. Looking back I can’t say I have any regrets.  Fortunately, I like the career that I inadvertently ended up in, but then if I hadn't I’d like to think I’d have been more resistant. Despite my change of direction though, I continued to write. Music no longer featured in my career aspirations but it still lingered in my dreams.   I had notebooks filled with song lyrics. A random line, a verse or chorus, or even whole songs were locked away within their pages. Their existence however was known only to me. By this point I...

I'm thrilled to invite author and friend Jack Steele to the guest blog this week: I had the idea of a crime fiction novel in my head for a number of years, but full-time employment and to be honest, a large dose of procrastination let the years drift by. After divorce, my life revolved around raising my two teenage children, so my dreams went on hold. I was extremely lucky to find a job closer to home which was a huge drop in salary, but it afforded me quality time to spend with my son and daughter. When my adult children left home to start lives of their own, I met Sue and a few years later we were married. We enjoyed holidays together and I began to read again which ignited the desire to write my own story. The crime fiction novels I read were either so descriptive that they lacked pace   or so many characters that I became confused with who was actually in the library with the lead piping. I realised that I had to write a novel based on my own preferences. To gain confidence...

This weeks guest blog comes from fantastic friend and author Catherine Miller: Continually chasing the dream! I’ve come to the conclusion, that to become a successful writer, you don’t need a degree in writing, you need one in waiting. We often talk about “chasing the dream”, but if it were ever turned into a documentary there would be no high speed chases involved. Instead, we’d all be in one big waiting room continually refreshing our emails. This is why the Great British Pottery Throwdown has had several series, but no writing programs have ever taken over our tellies. That said, there is a certain magic to getting the call or the email that can change the course of your life. But the real trick is to make sure that occurs again and again and again. So, I thought that I’d share what I’ve learned along the way. ·         Continuing to write is the only thing that matters. There are going to be bad reviews, there are going to be books that don...

This week's guest is author Christina Hollis, sharing her story about facing her fears when she decided to stick to her new year's resolution: Until recently, I couldn’t say boo to a koala, let alone a goose. That all changed when I discovered — after it was far too late to back out! — that keeping one of my New Year’s Resolutions meant facing several of my fears all at once. I’d been writing romance for a long time and loving it when Pen and Sword Books asked me to write a non-fiction book about the women of Bristol. Much as I enjoy the romance genre, I agreed to the Pen and Sword offer as a few weeks earlier, I’d made a New Year’s Resolution to say “yes” to every new opportunity. This commission was my chance to get back to my roots in more ways than one. I began my career by writing non-fiction articles for magazines, and I’d be revisiting my family’s origins, too. I was born on the Somerset side of Bristol. Every Saturday we visited my grandparents who lived on the ...