Since November 2009Where It All Began by Fiona Cassidy (#1)
Posted on Saturday, January 23rd, 2010 by Leah
When I first came up with the idea of getting an author to write us a number of guest posts I put some feelers out and when Emma Walsh got in touch to say an author she looks after, Fiona Cassidy (real name Fionnuala McGoldrick), would love to do the series of posts I jumped at the chance. Fionnuala was happy with the idea and there’ll be 12 posts in total to be posted on the first Saturday of each month. We hope you like the feature and we’d love you to comment your thoughts on the series. Before we get started, here’s a little bit about Fiona:
Fiona Cassidy (better known as Fionnuala McGoldrick) is from Galbally, Co. Tyrone in Northern Ireland. She lives with her partner Philip and between them they have five children (and a very messy house!) Fiona has always been an avid reader but five years ago decided that she would like to become a writer as well and in April 2009 all her dreams came true when she was finally offered a three book publishing deal by Poolbeg Press in Dublin. Her first romantic comedy novel Anyone for Seconds? was launched in November 2006 and reached no. 6 in the Irish paperback fiction charts. She has just completed her second novel, Anyone for Me? which is due for publication in August 2010. (I will be reviewing Anyone For Seconds? next week). Now… here is your first installment…
I suppose the best place to start is at the beginning! I’ve always loved reading, ever since I was old enough to pick up a book and had got past the stage of begging to have stories read to me and shouting at my parents if they dared to leave out a favourite passage which they frequently tried (obviously to speed things up but to no avail!) I cut my bookworm teeth on Enid Blyton and then moved on to bigger things in the form of The Hardy Boys and The Nancy Drew Mysteries which then led me to the non-fiction autobiographies, literary fiction and commercial fiction of which I am such a big fan and now write myself! You may wonder what this has to do with me being a writer but I believe that being an avid reader benefits any writer as obviously you can learn to appreciate the voices and styles of other authors and be in awe of their success as I was which undoubtedly spurred me on and helped to develop my ambitions until they made me determined to succeed.
People often ask me “how do you write a book? What’s the process? Is it as simple as scribbling on a blank piece of paper or filling an empty laptop screen with words?” In response I usually explain that I did indeed start by scribbling thoughts and ideas down until the jumble of words eventually comprised of something I thought worthy of being a series of plots in a book. I did feel that I needed help, though, not specifically with the writing itself but more with the mechanics of it – the development of characters, the creation of scenes, information about the publishing process (although at that stage it was a pipe dream and one which I thought would never come to fruition.)
The idea of me needing guidance led to me responding to an advertisement in my local paper which informed me that a nearby arts centre was holding a series of creative writing classes with a published author from Belfast. I was highly impressed – imagine, a published author actually coming to teach the art of his craft. It was too good an opportunity to miss so I enrolled immediately and began the classes a week later. Everyone who was there had their own reasons for wanting to write and wrote throughout the different genres. That was my first lesson…when you’re a reader you don’t really explore the fact that different styles of writing fall into categories…if a book is good you’ll read it…never mind labelling it. Lesson two was discovering how much a listening ear and having an audience can help to motivate and encourage you. I was like a teenager again…rushing home to do my homework in eager anticipation of reading it aloud to the ‘class’ and then basking in any praise that resulted like an excited four year old waiting for a lollipop as a reward. I felt that these classes were invaluable to me and signed for another session after the first one had finished and our esteemed mentor was free to come back and take us again. Not only did I learn from the experiences of others but the brainstorming sessions we had were fantastic when it came to plot development – I was trying to write a novel at the time and loved the fact that everyone was so passionate about what I was doing! To this day I am still friends with three of my ‘classmates’ and they formed one of the noisiest contingents at my recent book launch.
As well as attending creative writing classes I complimented this by joining an online forum http://www.writeon-irishgirls.com where female writers could get together and chat about what they’re writing and what experiences they’ve had regarding submitting manuscripts etc. We could publish short stories which everyone could comment on, invite people to literary events and talks all over Ireland and do book reviews also. I attended a few events, some of which had agents and publishers there (and tried not to kneel at their feet) and met some of the girls I’d been chatting to online and found this a brilliant tool and am still a member, although I have a lot less time these days.
If you want to write - read lots of books across a variety of genres and seek out people with similar ambitions as you can learn from each other whilst strengthening your talent and learning the do’s and don’ts of the publishing world. As for starting to submit to publishers and finding an agent…well that’s another story entirely!
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