It is with great pleasure that I welcome Patsy Collins onto my blog. When I started Wendy's Writing Now, in the summer of 2012, Patsy was one of the first people to welcome me to blogland and has supported my blog ever since. Isn't that lovely.
Patsy needs little introduction as many of you will have come across her in the pages of the women's magazines or on her successful blog, Words About Writing and Writing About Words. Last month she took over the bible of the woman's magazine writer's world, Womag Writer's blog, so I am sure we shall be seeing even more of her!
Today though, Patsy is here to talk about the publication of her new collection of short stories, Over the Garden Fence. So without more ado, we shall begin.
Can you give me three words to
describe your new collection?
Bouquet of stories!
I see that both Over the Garden
Fence and your previous collection Up the Garden Path are garden themed.
Could you tell my readers what it is with you and gardening?
I'm a very keen gardener; I have an allotment where I grow
loads of herbs, fruit and veg and a flower garden at home which is designed to
attract wildlife. When you're passionate about something it tends to work its
way into the writing (you may have noticed a lot of my characters eat cake).
Also the allotment is a good place to think up stories. I'm
not sure if it's to do with the fresh air and exercise, or the fact that I
generally have my hands full and never have pen and paper with me when I'm down
there.
Have you based any
of your stories on real gardens?
I had to think about that one. They all seem real to me but I generally design a new garden for each
story, just borrowing features from ones I remember.
'Teacher's Pet' and 'Everything is Fine' which are both in
this collection are set in real gardens though - the fabulous rose garden at
Mottisfont Abbey (Hampshire) and Greys Court (Oxfordshire) respectively.
You have recently taken over the
popular Womag Writer’s blog and most of the stories in Over the Garden Fence
have previously been published in women’s magazines. How long have you been
writing for the womags?
My first sale was in 2005 - a story called 'The Garden'
which is in 'Up the Garden Path'. I'd collected quite a few rejection letters
by then though. All my rejections are shredded and added to the compost heap,
so they eventually become pretty flowers and juicy strawberries.
Sales were widely spaced to start with, but each yearly
total has been an increase on the previous one which is very encouraging.
Competitions are mentioned a lot on
your blog ‘Words about Writing and Writing about Words’. Do you enter a lot of
competitions yourself and have any the stories in the collection been winners?
I do enter quite a lot of competitions, usually free ones
which naturally attract a lot of entries (almost all the competitions I blog
about are free to enter). A couple of the stories in this collection have been
placed in competitions and my first novel was published after a competition
win.
The winning story in the current Writing Magazine is mine
and one of the characters is a gardener. That'll be in the next collection.
Do you have a favourite story from
your collection?
I think it's Black and White. For one thing it breaks a few
womag 'rules' - I killed the main character in quite a nasty way and was mean
to a cat (twice) yet still got it published in Woman's Weekly. It also uses the
idea that what you do in life influences how happy you are, which is a bit of a
sub theme in a lot of my stories. The garden it's set in is lovely too. I had
fun creating that one and baking and eating all the cakes the character makes.
When it comes to cakes, my research is thorough.
Having just brought out my own story
collection, I can see we have different writing styles – what would you say
your signature style is, if you have one?
I agree that our writing is different. I'm not sure I have a
recognisable style, if I do it isn't something I do consciously. Generally my
stories are uplifting and usually they're about fairly normal characters and
situations; the kind of people the reader might know in real life, doing things
they might do themselves in places they might visit.
You’ve published the collection in
both ebook and paperback. What did you find trickiest about each?
The formatting! It's not really that difficult if you
haven't already done something weird to the document, you take your time and
carefully follow all the instructions, but ... Luckily friends and fellow
writers came to the rescue after seeing anguished tweets and blog posts.
I'm always amazed at people's generosity with their time and
knowledge, in some cases being of huge help to a person they've never met
and/or assisting those who're competing in the same market.
Your novel, Escape to the Country,
which I enjoyed very much by the way, has a farm as its setting. Is it possible
that gardens or gardening could feature in a future novel?
Yes! Gardeners or florists have a role in them all so far,
but gardening hasn't been the main focus (and it's not something I've done
deliberately). I'd like to have a gardener as a main character though. A sequel
to Escape to the Country with Jayne as the main character is a tempting idea.
Those herbal potions of hers have potential, I think.
What would Patsy Collins like to be
doing in five years time?
Spending all my time writing, gardening, travelling in our
campervan ... oh, did you mean something different from now? I've done a few
talks/workshops for writing groups and will be giving a talk to a reading group
in the summer. I'd like to do a bit more of that kind of thing.
Thank you so much for joining me on my blog today, Patsy.
Patsy Collins lives and writes on the south coast of England.
She's the author of hundreds of published
short stories and three novels. When she's not writing she likes gardening,
photography and cake eating. She shares her home with her husband and head with
her characters.
Over the Garden Fence is available from Amazon here
How to contact Patsy:
The weekend wasn't all about jive, though. There was the opportunity to learn Social Foxtrot, West Coast Swing, Bollywood or Rumba if you wanted. Here's a picture of our lovely Milonga teachers, Andy and Samantha. Milonga is a bit like a fast tango and we've added some of their moves to our own repertoire.
I have to say, it was quite nice to have a proper break from writing, social media etc and be able to do nothing but dance and eat... did I mention the food? I'd better not as you might be jealous. What I will say, is that I'm not sure the dancing burnt off all the calories from the evening carvery!
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