Joining me today from beautiful Ireland is author Jean Cross, and she’s here to talk about ‘From Clare To Here’. Thank you, Jean, for taking the time to chat to me. Please sit down, get comfortable and let’s begin.

What’s the name of your new book?
From Clare To Here

Tell us a bit about your book
Fran Farthing left the world of insurance investigating behind her. She thought that life in the west of Ireland would be pretty peaceful. Then her friend turned up dead. Was it an accident? Suicide? Or perhaps something more sinister? Detective Michelle Reynolds has already made up her mind. Can Fran uncover the truth before the tragedy unravels her life?

How important are character names to you in your books? Is there a special meaning to any of the names?
Names are important. They have to sit in the text naturally. In From Clare to Here, we used ordinary Irish names. We tried not to dwell on the naming as that can lead to far too much questioning and you can find yourself in a festival of doubt and uncertainty in no time. Of course you have to give some consideration to the process, especially for the main characters.

The book we are working on now is partly set in nineteen sixteen. Obviously the surnames won’t have changed much but we wanted the Christian names to sound authentic so we printed off a list of factory workers from Dublin in the early part of the last century and used some of them. It was a sobering exercise, picking a real person from the past. We tried to be gentle with them.

The Jam Maker, which is a quirky adventure mystery, called for something different. Charlie Milkeypockets, is a helpful archaeologist who is not great around other people. Elousese Turtlewine is a bit of a matron. Ranklin Scabbard is a villain. There I was able to exercise more imagination and, hopefully, help to draw the character with the name.

Give us an insight into your main character. What makes them unique?
Fran Farthing likes order. When the dinner is over, she clears the plates immediately and has been known to call the waitress over to do so while her friends are still picking at the leftover chips. If she finds a knot, she’ll unravel it. But she is not always as organised as she appears and more than once she has found herself with a garden fork in her hand, wondering where she was going with it. Fran can pass many happy hours with her own thoughts and only her dog, Lucy, for company. In fact when she was working in insurance, Fran credited Lucy with solving more than once tricky case.

Fran considers herself to be loyal and utterly committed to George, her long-time girlfriend. And she is loyal and committed, until she is not. Fran has her flaws and contradictions but when she fails she get up, goes on and makes it right.

Where do your ideas come from?
In the film, Bound, one of the characters is a robber. In one scene she is describing the process of planning the next job with her partner in crime. “Two people get in a room…” she says. She loves the process of planning the perfect heist. The rush of hitting on a great idea and then teasing it out.

It was kind of like that for Angela and I, (except for the heist bit). She was sitting at the table. I was pacing up and down. The ideas started to flow, we expanded on them. It was back and forth and somehow the creativity takes on its own energy and you know you have something good. That’s when it gets exciting. Of course you need some knowledge of the genre, in this case the lesbian detective novel. Also something has to spark to get the initial idea, there’s the imagination.

It a process, a litany of what ifs, rejections, speculations, additions, subtractions until, bingo! You both know you have it.

What do you think of book trailers? Do you have a trailer or do you intend to create one for your own book?
I think trailers can work for some authors. I see it as a personal choice. I prefer not to risk influencing the reader’s imaginative process with visual stimuli before they start the book. To me it is my job to stir that process with the words I have arranged on the page.

Have you always liked to write?
Yes. Forever. At school I loved composition and I was good at it. I wrote poems as a child and teenager, and sometimes, I still do. But these days the angst has mostly been replaced by humour! I have had lots of articles printed in the local paper. I can put an argument together in words and have done my share of public speaking too.

What writing advice do you have for aspiring authors?
The only advice I can give is to keep writing. I know it is a cliché but it the basis of everything for an author. I am not the best person to advise on how to target a market or how to work the Amazon algorithms. I haven’t got a clue about that stuff but I know how to write and I know how good it feels to express an idea or a point of view on a page. I know what it is to write a character you love and to build a world around them and if you can do that too, then you owe it to the world to do it. Put something out there, add something to the culture of the world. Do your thing. Hopefully, if you are lucky, you’ll get to make a living from it. For that you’ll need to talk to someone else!

If you didn’t like writing books, or weren’t any good at it, what would you like to do for a living?
Since coming to Mayo, I have taken to the cultivation of tomatoes. Now here in Mayo you need a polytunnel to grow stuff like that. But I love it. I grow all types and in over a decade I have not tired of it. I have, however, wondered where this exuberance for tomatoes has come from and I often ask myself, “Why tomatoes?” But mostly I just get on with growing them. I doubt very much if I could make a living from it, but I would certainly try.

Do you read reviews of your book(s)? Do you respond to them, good or bad? How do you deal with the bad?
Yes. I read the reviews. I don’t respond as I don’t feel the author should be part of the review process. Reviews are standalone comments, the expression of opinions, not the start of a conversation with the author and readers should feel free to express themselves without expecting a comeback from the writer. If a reader finds a mistake, I correct it. If they just didn’t like the book, I think I would feel a tad disappointed but I would consider their points. Thankfully that hasn’t happened yet.

What is your least favourite part of the writing / publishing process?
Absolutely, unequivocally and without a show of a doubt, proofreading. I hate it and I am crap at it. Angela is rather good at spotting mistakes and we try to clean up the MS as best we can before sending it out to our proofer. I find the whole thing so tedious that I would rather be staring at the wall, if not banging my head off it!

Is there one subject you would never write about as an author? What is it?
I would never write about banking. That includes anything to do with economics. I don’t understand it and I don’t want to. When the financial report comes on the news my face goes into an involuntary slump. Why do they insist on telling us about it? In any case it is not something I will ever write about.

Do you have a favourite conference / convention that you like to attend? What is it?
We don’t get many conventions here in Mayo, not like the themed ones we sometimes see in films and on TV. But I would be off to any Star Trek gathering that landed anywhere within striking distance. We do get historic re enactment, Vikings, the Rising of 1916, etc. and I get to these when I can.

Given the chance I would probably attend lots of conventions where people got together to celebrate fantasy and storytelling. I love to see the human spirit manifest in this way. It gives me hope.

Conferences, to me, are generally more serious affairs and I have helped to arrange and spoken at a few in my time. These days, actually, come to think of it, always, I would be more likely to attend a conference on Women’s Rights than anything else.

Is there a certain type of scene that’s harder for you to write than others?
Yes, sex is hard for me and I don’t write it. I don’t write much fighting but I can write action and I love the short bursts of back and forth as a crucial moment plays out.

How long does it usually take you to write the first draft of a book?
About three months. That’s with both of us writing. My first book took years but it is a long one and there were lots of breaks. With the Fran Farthing series we set out at the same time, in the same room, at the same table and we can be quite disciplined about it. If I feel like skiving off, I don’t, because Angela is there writing and I want to keep my word count up.

Can you give us a few tasty morsels from your work-in-progress?
Our next book in the Fran Farthing series is set in modern day Dublin and in nineteen sixteen. One hundred years ago we had what we call the Easter Rising in Ireland. That led to our separation from Britain and is a hugely significant event in our history.

It has recently come to light that there were many women involved in the Rising and that there were a fair smattering of lesbians among them. These women were inspirational and typically fought for the vote and for union rights too.

We wanted to acknowledge them and what they did for us and so our next story involves a lesbian couple from that time and, of course, our set of characters from today. We weave a tale of discovery, danger and courage between the two eras as Fran sets out to solve a century old death.

Describe what your ideal writing space looks like.
It is quiet. There is a table. There is chair. There is a laptop.

What advice would you give to your younger self?
Show your stuff to someone.

If you’re an indie author, what’s the best thing about being an indie author?
It is the direct connection with the reader. We meet over the written word. There is nobody between. I get to write what I want to. The reader can react directly to me if they want to. I love that.

Where can readers go to discover more about you and your books?
Facebook | Amazon