Fair Stands the Wind by Catherine Lodge - Blog Tour, Guest Post and Giveaway

Today I am happy to be able to welcome debut author Catherine Lodge. I have heard good things about Fair Stands the Wind and am very much looking forward to reading it. From the cover (which is gorgeous, by the way) I had assumed it was a story inspired by Persuasion, but although it has a nautical hero, that is not the case. Let me share the book blurb with you and then I'll hand over to Catherine for the guest post. Please note, there is a giveaway too!

Book Blurb:

We all know that in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Mr Darcy is proud and prejudiced because he is a wealthy landowner who believes himself above his company; and that Elizabeth Bennet can afford to be proud and prejudiced because she believes she has the freedom to make choices for herself.

But what if Mr Darcy is the second son, sent to sea at a young age? What if Elizabeth is trapped by circumstances, with an ill father on one side and an understandably desperate mother on the other?

Meet Captain Darcy of the Royal Navy, a successful frigate captain, with ample prize-money and a sister he needs to provide for while he is at sea. Meet Elizabeth Bennet, who needs a husband and is trying to resign herself to Mr Collins, the worst “least worst alternative” in the history of literature.

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Guest Post from Catherine Lodge - Guerrilla Writing

I've never written a Guest Post before, so of course I agonised about it for days when what I ought to have done is apply Old Mother Lodge's Patented Guerrilla Writing Technique - The Nervous Writer's Friend

Are you like me?  Daunted by all the writers' blogs and articles where they say that they have to write, that it's a compulsion.  Personally, I find it really difficult to make myself sit down and even start.

It's not the story-telling, I've always told myself stories, ever since I was a little girl.  As a chronic insomniac as a child, I spent hours lying in bed - my parents had very decided ideas about suitable bedtimes for children, probably because there were five of us and they wanted some peace and quiet - telling myself stories, often the same stories over and over again, looking for just the right word or combination of events to describe the action.  For years I had a rambling epic in my head, which contained all the clichés you find in bad stories on Fanfiction.net - twins, tragic love affairs, a huge dynastic war in which all the parties had about fifteen names - each.  No, it's not the story-telling that's difficult, plots are easy.

But plots I want to actually write, are much more difficult to find. The first JAFF I wrote first came to mind when I was stuck on a country road behind a car changing a wheel because there wasn't room to pass.  There are a lot of roads like that those round where I live.  I started daydreaming about what it would have been like in the early 19th Century and got the idea for the cart accident that forms the opening chapter of A New Beginning, a book I am hoping to bring out next year.  The idea for Fair Stands the Wind arose out of the afternoon I spent packing my books into boxes so they weren't ruined when the builder removed the kitchen roof.  As I packed a shelf full of CS Forresters and Patrick O'Briens and Alexander Kents, I had the idea for Captain Darcy and the rest is history, or rather novel.

So, not the story-telling, not even the plotting, no, it's the writing down I find difficult.  It's the choosing the right word from amongst all the not-quite-right words - then once I've chosen it, persuading Microsoft that it actually exists!

Then, even once I've found the right words I have to stop myself deleting them. My style is instinctively very spare and whenever I try to make myself write more expansively, it comes out sounding all phoney.  I think it's because I'm not a very visual writer, I don't make pictures in my head.  I rarely describe scenery or places, except in a very minimalist fashion.  No, what I go for is what I call rhythm, not just of the sentences but of the scene.  I can't describe how I write or how my method works (if it does).  I just know when something seems "unbalanced" or "rushed", when a conversation doesn't have enough contributions from all of the participants, when a scene has gone on too long.

Frankly, it's all rather unsatisfactory.  I wish I had a more objective standard, some rules so that I could sit back and say, "Ah yes, that has A,B,C and just a soupcon of K.  Next chapter I'll add the D, E and F, a sprinkling of L and some T and it will be just right."  Instead I sit, poking the screen, thinking, "I wonder what's wrong with that sentence, because I can see something is, I just can't tell what."  So I sit for an hour or so, moving the works round.  Adding a comma there, changing an adjective here, until eventually it looks right.  Or as near to right as possible.

Which is why I invented "Guerrilla writing", the art of posting things EVEN WHEN THEY'RE NOT QUITE RIGHT.  For years I'd let myself be frightened by the idea that something I'd written wasn't perfect.  I found out the other day that's called "Letting the perfect be the enemy of the good".  The idea that, just because you haven't reached some (probable unreachable) standard of perfection, you shouldn't write at all.  With Guerrilla Writing, you do your best, you don't agonise and you post it the same evening you finish it. Hit and run writing. All the fiddling in the world only serves to delay without making any appreciable difference to the product.  Very liberating it is too.

So - ladies and gentlemen - do you have a half-realised idea in your head, in a binder somewhere or lurking in an almost forgotten corner of your hard drive? Try Guerrilla writing.  It's good for what ails you.

Well, that's enough talk about me.  Let's talk about you.  What do you think about me?

Sorry - I've always wanted to use that line.

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Author Bio:

Catherine Lodge is a semi-retired lawyer and lecturer, living in Yorkshire–a part of the UK even more beautiful than Derbyshire. One of five daughters, although by birth order regrettably the Jane, she found 19th Century literature early in her teens and never looked back–even if that meant her school essays kept coming back with “archaic!” written in the margin next to some of her favourite words. She still thinks that “bruited” is a much nicer word than “rumoured.”

After years of drafting leases and pleadings, she finally started to write for fun in her forties and has never stopped since. Much of this will never see the light of day, having been fed to the digital equivalent of a roaring bonfire, but “Fair Stands the Wind” is the first book she thinks worthy of public attention.

She spends her day fixing computer problems for friends and family, singing in her local choir, and avoiding the ironing

Connect with Catherine:

• Facebook • Goodreads •

Edited to Add: Buy links will be added as soon as they are available. Unfortunately, due to a previous instance of piracy of Catherine's book (boooo!), Amazon have not yet added it for sale on their site for kindle, though it is available to buy in paperback on Amazon US. You can also add it to your wish list on Barnes and Noble. I am sure you will join me in hoping that this is resolved very soon and wishing Catherine the very best of luck with Fair Stands the Wind.

Giveaway Time

Meryton Press is offering a giveaway to accompany the blog tour. To enter, please use the rafflecopter below.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Blog Tour Schedule:

This is the first stop on the blog tour, so you haven't missed anything so far. Why not follow the tour to find out more about the book including reviews, and excerpts and further chances to win.

08/30 Aug   Babblings of a Bookworm;  Guest Post or Vignette, GA
08/31 Aug   My Vices and Weaknesses; Character Interview, GA
09/01 Sep   Austenesque Reviews; Vignette, Excerpt, GA
09/02 Sep   Interests of a Jane Austen Girl; Review, Excerpt, Giveaway
09/03 Sep   Darcyholic Diversions; Author Interview, GA
09/04 Sep   Half Agony, Half Hope; Review, Vignette
09/05 Sep   Of Pens and Pages; Review, Excerpt, GA
09/06 Sep   Diary of an Eccentric; Guest Post, Vignette, Giveaway
09/07 Sep   From Pemberley to Milton; Guest Post or Vignette, Excerpt, GA
09/08 Sep   So little time…; Guest Post, Excerpt, Giveaway
09/09 Sep   My Love for Jane Austen; Vignette, GA
09/10 Sep   Margie’s Must Reads; Review, Excerpt, GA
09/11 Sep   My Jane Austen Book Club; Guest Post, Excerpt, GA
09/12 Sep   Just Jane 1813; Review, GA