Blog revamp: a medieval feel

I’ve decided it’s high time I gave my blog a facelift. As I’m writing stories set in the twelfth century at the moment, I wanted to give it a more medieval theme. After much digging through old photos, I found this picture of broken floor tiles that I took at Much Wenlock Priory last year. I’m rather pleased with the effect—what do you think?

 Looking at photos of medieval buildings has also helped put me in the mood for writing my WIP. I’m at the planning stage at the moment and really excited about my new characters; the photos are giving me inspiration for the twelfth-century world I’m building around them. I thought I’d share a few with you here. Enjoy!

White Ladies Priory, Shropshire. Some of you may recognise it as the picture on my Twitter profile.

Ludlow Castle. Ludlow never fails to inspire!

Great hall and keep, Stokesay Castle, Shropshire.

Windows inside Stokesay Castle.

Quick update and locations

I’ve got some time on my hands at the moment. Last week was all excitement, because I got my NWS report back on The Welsh King’s Spy and was told it’s ‘almost ready’. As a result I devoted all my spare time to making the suggested adjustments, which I finished on Sunday. Now it’s with my beta reader (the gorgeous Janice Preston—if you haven’t read her wonderful debut novel, Mary and the Marquis, yet, drop everything and order it now!) So there’s nothing more I can do on TWKS until I get it back.

It feels wrong to be doing nothing writing-wise, though. I do have two novellas that are at different stages of editing, but I’m finding it hard to immerse myself in the lives of those characters when I might have to get back into the heads of Matilda and Huw in a few days. Therefore I’ve decided to start planning my next full-length novel. 

I had an idea for a hero and heroine back in the summer. Of course I was committed to my rewrite of TWKS by that time, so I jotted down the idea in my notebook, wrote the opening scene that had come to me, then forgot about it. I dug my notes out yesterday and I think the story has potential. So I’ve decided to develop the characters and come up with a plot outline. There’s just one problem – I’m not very familiar with the location.

Hawkstone Follies - I always find inspiration here

So far all my novels/novellas have been set in Shropshire and just over the border in Wales. It’s where I live, which makes research dead easy. I just have to go for a walk or bike ride and I’m exploring the landscape that my characters inhabit, seeing the same skyline, the building materials, the trees, plants and animals… I have visited the place where my new story is set, but I haven’t built up anything like the same feel for the place. Still, I’ve decided to go for it – any excuse for a research trip to a beautiful location!

Do you prefer to set your stories in familiar locations, or would you rather research new places?