Rachael Richey Books
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Author Interview with DigiWriting

3/8/2015

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DigiWriting Author Interview

I Am A Writer Series – Writing Tips From Author Rachael Richey
  • MARCH 6, 2015

  •  Author Interview, I Am A Writer Series,Rachael Richey, Writing Tips


Q&A With Author Rachael Richey

Want to know what other writers think? Check out our I Am A Writer Series where we ask writers to share tips, experiences, and thoughts about what matters to them.

Do you write with a specific word count in mind?

When I started writing Storm Rising, my main ambition was to make it of “publishable length.” To me that meant somewhere in the region of seventy to eighty thousand words, and I actually doubted my ability to write that much. When I passed seventy thousand with several chapters still to go, I was delighted, and when I passed ninety thousand and was still going strong, I realised I really shouldn’t be worrying about the word count at all. The book finally checked in at around one hundred and three thousand. It was then I realised the word count is academic.

Which do you find harder to write: the beginning or conclusion?

The beginning of the book is much harder to write. However much I know the story, know how it ought to begin, actually getting the right words down on the page is extremely difficult. The beginning is most important because it needs to “grab” your audience and make them want more, so getting the wording right is vital. By the time I get to the end of the story it more or less writes itself so the conclusion is far easier to write.

When did you first realize that you wanted to be a writer?

I’ve wanted to be a writer ever since I was about ten years old. Even before that I used to write little stories about my teddies and dolls. Between the ages of ten and fourteen, I wrote a whole series of stories about groups of girls having extremely unlikely adventures, and doing daring and dangerous things. Unfortunately as I grew up life got in the way and I only wrote intermittently over the next twenty years or so. When I finally remembered that writing really was my first love, I dived straight in and haven’t surfaced since.

When you begin to write, how do you get started? With an outline, character idea, title, theme, plot?

In most cases my stories have grown from a single idea. A short scene, a snippet of conversation, a location, or something of that nature. In some cases the orginal scene may not make it into the finished book, but it provided the inspiration for the story. A book I’m currently writing has grown from the one image of a girl standing alone on a wild, windswept beach. From that scene I deduced why she was there, who she was, why she was alone, what she was running away from, etc., and so the story was born.

When you begin to write a story, do you know how it’s going to end?

I have a basic idea for the story, but in most cases that changes dramatically through the writing process. I will know for instance if two people will end up together, but I may not know quite how that will happen. As the characters grow and develop, they quite often take over and write the story for me, so sometimes the ending can come as a bit of a surprise. A nice surprise of course!


Author Bio

Rachael Richey lives in Cornwall with her husband and children. She writes Women’s Fiction, and Storm Rising, due for release on February 27th, 2015, is the first book in the “NightHawk” series. She has been writing since she was a child, starting with stories about her teddy bears and dolls. She lived in the Hebrides for nearly fourteen years, having originally gone there to work for the summer season. She met and married her husband David whilst there, and had two children, before moving to Cornwall at the end of 2000. There are currently four titles in the “NightHawk” series, the second of which is due for publication later this year.
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Author Interview with Nut Press

3/8/2015

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Author Interview: Rachael Richey

From Nut Press


I’m really happy to welcome Rachael Richey to the Nut Press. Rachael is a member of an online writing group I belong to and her debut novel,Storm Rising, is out today! She’s very kindly agreed to give an author interview but first, here’s what Storm Rising is all about:

Frontman of the grunge rock band NightHawk, Gideon Hawk has had enough of the rock star life.  He is jaded, disillusioned, and haunted by the memory of an unresolved heartbreak.  On a whim, he leaves the band in New York and heads to England in search of answers.

After attending the funeral of her estranged mother, Abigail Thomson makes a shocking discovery in her parents’ attic.  The still-raw memories that surface, along with even more startling discoveries, force Abi to face a devastating truth that leads to a series of life-changing events. She and Gideon must race against time to reclaim the life stolen from them a decade before.

So Rachael, can you tell us any more about the story? From the blurb it sounds as if Abi and Gideon have history together.
Yes. Without giving too much away, Abi and Gideon met and fell in love as teenagers. This is revealed throughout the book in flashbacks.

Gideon is a grunge musician. Is this what you would have been, if you hadn’t become a writer?
Definitely not! I’m practically tone deaf. No, I’m more likely to have followed Abi’s career of artist, or something in the art world.

Did you have a playlist while writing Storm Rising? If so, what was on it?
Not an actual playlist but there are a couple of songs that I listened to a lot while I was writing it, and now feel they have a connection to the book. One is Your Decision by Alice in Chains and the other is First Snow on Brooklyn by Jethro Tull. Neither is really relevant to the story, but whenever I hear them I find myself thinking of Abi and Gideon.


What is Gideon’s favourite band or track? What about Abi? Who does she listen to? 
Gideon hasn’t actually told me who his favourite band is, but Abi’s musical hero (apart from Gideon of course) is Kurt Cobain. She has a huge portrait of him on her bedroom wall that she painted for her GCSE Art exam.

What triggered the story behind Storm Rising? 
Storm Rising was triggered by one particular scene that kept playing in my head. It was of a very angry mother forcing her anguished teenage daughter to do something abhorrent to her. That exact scene never made it into the book, but that was what started the story off.

Storm Rising is the first of four books in the NightHawk series. Is this what you had in mind when writing it or did the idea for a series come later? And does this mean we follow the same characters through all four books?
When I first started writing Storm Rising I thought it was just a one off. I thought it would tell all of Abi and Gideon’s story and that would be that. But as I neared the end I found I couldn’t bear to leave the characters. I’d grown to love them so much and realised they had more stories to tell. The second book presented itself when I was about three quarters of the way through Storm Rising and realised there was a backstory for Abi’s mother, explaining the reason why she had behaved the way she did. Abi and Gideon are in all four books (and possibly a fifth), and each one also has a separate, related, flash-back story running through it.

How do you want readers to feel after they finish reading Storm Rising? 
I would love for the readers to be hungry for more. Satisfied with the way the story has gone, but keen to find out more. I really hope they can relate to the characters.

Did you have a particular writing routine when writing Storm Rising? 
No particular routine really. I can write pretty much anywhere, anytime if the mood takes me. It’s stopping to go to bed that’s the problem. I did find I wrote really well in the early hours of the morning, and in fact one night I wrote the whole of Chapter 17 – the longest chapter in the book, and the most emotional – between the hours of midnight and 4 am.

And finally, the title Storm Rising is a great one on many levels. You live in Cornwall. What do you do when there’s a storm? Run outside and dance in the rain or huddle up inside by a cosy fire with a hot drink or a glass of wine?
Funny you should ask that actually, because tonight was really stormy and we got caught in the worst hailstorm I’ve ever seen. Sometimes it’s fun to dress up in waterproofs and wellies and tramp across the headland, but most often the idea of curling up with a glass of wine and some chocolate, and watching it through the double glazing is more appealing!

Happy Publication Day to you, Rachael, and thanks so much for taking time in what’s been a busy week for you to be interviewed! Nut Press wishes you every success with Storm Rising. 
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