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| Jean Gill |
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| Welcome to my Blog! Wander through wonderful worlds real and fictional, meet interesting people, visit exciting places and find a few good books to enjoy along the way! |
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| 2024 Jean with Artemis, the Doggess. |
A Writing Career in Seven Decades
At 68, I’m not sure I’m old enough to be a
‘creative crock.’ Despite the evidence of my pension and senior rail card,
despite my bafflement at physical complaints – and believe me, my body
complains! – I find it hard to believe that I’m included in such inspiring
company. But when I look back, maybe I have earned my place.
So, what’s my story? How did I become a
multi-genre author, best known as a historical novelist, with twenty-six books
published so far?
Decade 1: from seven years old, I discovered the
joy of making up stories, writing about my hamster or the charms on my bracelet
coming to life. I typed up some of my masterworks on the heavy machine in
Daddy’s office. He was an RAMC officer, responsible for a military hospital in
Berlin at that time. Books were my friends and writers were magical beings.
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| Cover and sample page (below) from Jill’s Stables : a novel by 11 year-old Jean Gill (then Jean Taylor) |
Decade 2: from dazzling success to the end of writing dreams at university. At age eleven, my purple prose ‘Storm at Sea’ was published in the school magazine and I also wrote my first novel, ‘Jill’s Stables’, a hand-illustrated melodrama in twelve chapters. Then teenage angst flowed from my Parker fountain pen into private notebooks until university taught me by example (lack of) that literature was not written by women. I was silenced.
Decade 3: my turbulent twenties and a job I
loved, teaching English in the sort of Welsh Comprehensive School usually
described as ‘bog-standard’. As a fan of wild wetlands and even wilder kids, I
can tell you that no bog is standard. Personal highs and lows turned into
poetry. I took inspiration from Stevie Smith and Colette.
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| 1996 Jean Gill Headteacher and President of the Old Boys’ Association of Graig Comprehensive School (previously Llanelli Boys’ Grammar School) |
Decade 4: the ‘go for it’ years. I read my
work at a ‘Poems and Pints’ evening in Pembroke and was invited by the two men
organising it to join them as West of Whitland Poets. Teachers by day and rock
stars by night, in libraries, festivals and schools (not our own institutions,
where we were still ‘Sir’ and ‘Miss’). My poems were published in many journals
and 1988 saw my first book go public: ‘With Double Blade’ (The National Poetry
Foundation). I did not sell millions but I did start calling myself a poet.
Decade 5: At 40, I
gave up sugar in hot drinks, I became the first woman comprehensive school
Headteacher in my Welsh County, Dyfed, and I wrote my first novel. Giving up
sugar was the hardest of those achievements. I wrote more books. I became
English and Literacy Advisor for 3-19 year-olds in Neath Port Talbot, a county
with 83 schools and no bookshop.
Four books
published, another three written and a drawer full of hundreds of rejections.
Each new genre meant starting again to find a publisher and rejections were a
painful education in professional courtesy (lack of) and years passing. But the
books insisted on being written and my man had reached retirement age so I gave
up my consultancy work and we moved from rainy Wales to sunny Provence
(material for my memoir ‘How Blue is My Valley’).
Decade 6 and 7,
ongoing: Self-publishing became a thing in 2011 and it was MY thing! 26 books
later, I have found the publisher of my dreams – me – and reached more than
150,000 readers. Thanks to my professional partners, cover designer Jessica
Bell and editor Lorna Fergusson, and to my treasured author networks –
including Helen Hollick, on whose blog I’m a guest today - I have the best support and advice I could
imagine. And such inspiring friendships!
As an older writer, especially of medieval
fiction, I have priceless assets earned through the decades by Young Me. I can
tap into a wealth of experience and stories, not just my own, but also those of
all the people I’ve known, and all the characters in the thousands of books
I’ve read. The language of the past in which many of those books is written is
a barrier to those born this century but I can time-travel with relative ease
in both English and French.
So many of my memories are closer to medieval
lifestyle, than to the high-tech present. Even in medieval towns, people were
connected to the land and its farming calendar in a way that today’s urban
dwellers are not. I know what it feels like to make hay or milk a goat, to keep
chickens and collect eggs, or to gather kindling and lay a daily fire. I also
remember the common mores of the British Christian past: being bored stiff by
Sunday restrictions, getting lectures about virginity and marriage, and being
told why a girl cannot do all the activities that Young Me wanted to do. These
memories, as well as my research, help me write from a medieval point of view,
not just as a modern person in fancy dress.
Young Me is still part of me but maturity has
brought some benefits. I do still care about others’ opinions but I care more
about my own. The f-word has lost its power to hurt. No, not the one I use when
struggling with metadata and formatting errors but the word ‘failure’. If I
hadn’t ‘failed’ as a writer, never getting a big publishing contract, I would
not have the freedom I have now. ‘Freedom’ is my favourite f-word and, thanks
to being a pensioner, I have the time, as well as the creative and financial
freedom to write whatever books insist on being written, to my own deadlines.
I can define success in my own terms and am
accountable only to myself, not to a publisher disappointed in my sales figures
compared with Author X. I am accountable to myself. Isn’t that true of us all,
in the end?
Right – I’ve spent
enough time looking back and I need to go sailing in a Viking dragon ship again
for Bk 3 of ‘The Midwinter Dragon’ series. With a fair wind and the Norns on my
side, it will be a quartet and after that, we’ll see what new adventures come
my way!
Jean’s latest historical literary adventure series is a return to
the 12th century where she set her Troubadours books. This time, she’s in
Viking Orkney with skalds instead of troubadours and Viking warriors instead of
crusaders. Get ready for authentic medieval adventures steeped in poetry,
politics and passion. Perfect for fans of Bernard Cornwell, Matthew Harffy and
Madeline Miller.
Get ‘The Ring Breaker’
https://www.books2read.com/Orkneyjar
© Photos – Jean Gill
You might also like
books written by Helen Hollick
Website: https://helenhollick.net/
Amazon Author Page: https://viewauthor.at/HelenHollick
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| Coffee Pot Book Club Bronze Award2022 |
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| The story of the events that led to The Battle of Hastings in 1066 Harold the King (UK edition) I Am The Chosen King (US edition) 1066 Turned Upside Down an anthology of 'What If'' tales |
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| The Forever Queen (US edition) a USA TODAY BESTSELLER A Hollow Crown (UK edition) |
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| Book 1 -THE KINGMAKING Coffee Pot Book Club Bronze Award 2023 |
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THE PENDRAGON's BANNER TRILOGY |
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| US editions |
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Historical Stories of Exile by 13 popular authors Cryssa Bazos, Anna Belfrage, Elizabeth Chadwick, Cathie Dunn, J.G. Harlond, Helen Hollick, Loretta Livingstone, Amy Maroney Alison Morton, Charlene Newcomb, Elizabeth St.John, Marian L Thorpe, Annie Whitehead. With an introduction by Deborah Swift |
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What a great life, Jean. It's so true that a long and fulfilling life gives a writer a rich vein to mine.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Alison!
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