Stories

Frances Garrood first started writing to earn a bit of extra money while her four children were young. After studying a creative writing course, she decided to submit one of her stories to a woman's magazine to see if there was any interest.

To her joy the story was published:

"I was expecting my third child, was doing a short story writing course and submitted a story to "Women's Realm" and they loved it. I was so pleased.

"It was difficult, you had to write to certain prescribed parameters, you couldn't write about certain subjects, in some magazines you weren't allowed to use words that were too long or difficult. I had to change my style for my audience."

But it wasn't until a freak accident and a little help from TV presenters Richard and Judy, that she had her first novel published.

"I broke my back falling down some stairs, and spent a lot of time laying on the sofa watching daytime TV. One afternoon I saw Richard and Judy talking about their hunt for new writers, so I sent a few chapters and a synopsis of "Dead Ernest" in to them.

Frances Garrood

"I didn't win the competition, but I did get a letter back from MacMillian Publishing asking me to finish the novel, which I did, thankfully they liked it and it was published."

So how did it feel to see her name on a book after all those years of writing for magazines?

"It was amazing. Nearly as good as being handed your first baby. To see your name on a book is a real sense of achievement"

Her first book "Dead Ernest" was greeted with an abundance of positive comments from readers groups across Wiltshire and finally Frances decided to begin work on her second novel, "The Birds the Bees and Other Secrets".

So after all those years of short story writing did Frances find it difficult to make the transition to writing novels?

"It's different. I find it works a lot better for me to write the whole thing, then go back over the whole thing and make changes. I tend to write in chunks then polish off each chunk, I probably only do about two drafts."

Frances is currently writing a third novel, but is keeping it close to her chest. If all goes well you can expect to see it in the shops early 2009.