My guest today is Maxine Morrey, who writes gorgeous feel-good festive novels. In fact, if you look at her Amazon page, you’ll find a whole array of cheerful, Christmassy covers. It’s enough to put you well and truly in the mood for the big day, so, without further ado, I’ll hand you over to Maxine, who has very kindly agreed to answer my questions.
Thank you very much for having me on your blog, Sharon!
It’s my pleasure. You clearly love writing festive novels, but what inspires your story ideas or characters?
Anything really can provide that little spark from which something can grow – a line in a song, a snippet of overheard conversation, the desire to declutter. It really is anything.
So, how do you go about starting a new writing project?
I usually write quite a long synopsis that is a bit of a ‘stream of consciousness’ effort and then distil the relevant points from that to create a shorter one.
Have you a favourite inspirational quote?
It’s not very original but ‘Never Give Up’ is probably the most salient one.
What has surprised you most about being a published writer?
That, despite everything else in day to day life being digital (mail, music, etc) and being accepted without a second thought, there is still a ridiculous amount of snobbery surrounding ebooks.
Yes, that is a bit of a puzzle! What’s your favourite book – or ebook 😉 ?
Persuasion by Jane Austen.
What’s your favourite social media outlet and why?
A short time ago, I would have said Instagram. But they’ve recently changed their algorithms and now I find I’m missing stuff I’d like to see and seeing things I already saw several days ago! It’s terrible! I wish they’d at least give us a button to choose ‘most recent’ as they do on Facebook. Bearing in mind FB own them, it’s obviously possible.
As for why, I love beautiful images and photography so it was just a nice way to see pretty things, catch up with what friends are doing in their day, and just fun.
What are the best and worst things about being a writer?
The best is (hopefully) making people smile, or laugh, especially if they’ve had a rotten day. The worst is all the waiting that’s involved.
What’s your favourite first or last line from a book?
‘It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a large fortune must be in want of a wife.’.
The first line from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice never fails to raise a smile. Although it was certainly a dig at the expectations of Regency life, Austen always managed to make such commentary with tongue firmly planted in her cheek.
What one piece of advice would you give to other writers?
Going back to my favourite inspirational quote, it’s to never give up. Also, if you choose to read your reviews, remember that if you get a bad one, (as every writer does!) do an Elsa, and ‘let it go’…
Great advice, Maxine! Must remember that myself. Thank you so much for being my guest today.
You can buy Maxine’s latest novel, The Best Little Christmas Shop, here.
Maxine has wanted to be a writer for as long as she can remember and wrote her first (very short) book for school when she was ten. Coming in first, she won a handful of book tokens – perfect for a bookworm!
As time went by, she continued to write, but ‘normal’ work often got in the way. She has written articles on a variety of subjects, aswell as a book on Brighton for a Local History publisher. However, novels are what she loves writing the most. After self publishing her first novel when a contract fell through thanks to the recession, she continued to look for opportunities.
In August 2015, she won Harper Collins/Carina UK’s ‘Write Christmas’ competition with her romantic comedy, ‘Winter’s Fairytale’.
Maxine lives on the south coast of England, and when not wrangling with words loves to read sew and listen to podcasts. As she also likes cake she can also be found either walking or doing something vaguely physical at the gym.
Find out more about Maxine on her website.
Find her on Twitter and Instagram as @Scribbler_Maxi
Follow her on Facebook
And she’s also on Pinterest as ScribblerMaxi