To celebrate her latest release – The Family Secret – I asked my friend (and everyone’s favourite rural romance author) Fiona Palmer to give her younger self the benefit of her experience. Here’s what she wrote…
Dear 26 year old self,
Yes, you may be tired with a newborn and a nearly two year old, not to mention working full time as you run the local general store and then trying to keep the house half clean and everyone fed, but keep putting one foot in front of the other. And those crazy thoughts you have which have somehow manifested into a story about living in the country, well – let them come. It’s your passion for the land, your small community and the inspiration you draw from this unique way of life that drives this story forward. And soon it will grow to the point where you’ll start typing it out while the kids are asleep or the shop is quiet. Stolen moments to let story grow.
Keep persisting, it will take three years! But you will reach the end and will have started a journey you never would have dreamed possible. Not from someone who struggled at school, left after year eleven and hated English the most. Quite literally, you will fall into a new wondrous career which ignites your creative side. Who cares that you can’t spell, it doesn’t matter anyway as you have heaps of friends who are teachers and they will love proofreading your book.
You’ve always been willing to give things a go so don’t let fear hold you back when you decide to write a letter to Penguin and send them your first three chapters without an agent. Throw caution to the wind, you always have.
Enjoy the ride that’s about to begin. I can tell you it’s amazing.
Love, Fiona
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Fiona Palmer lives in the tiny rural town of Pingaring in Western Australia, three and a half hours south-east of Perth. She discovered Danielle Steel at the age of eleven, and has now written her own brand of rural romance. She has attended romance writers’ groups and received an Australian Society of Authors mentorship for her first novel, The Family Farm. She has extensive farming experience, does the local mail run, and was a speedway-racing driver for seven years. She spends her days writing, working as a farm hand, helping out in the community and looking after her two children.
Fiona online: www.fionapalmer.com and Facebook or Buy at Booktopia
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To see the list of authors taking part in this letter-writing blog series: CLICK
Wanting to honour the lost art of letter writing through this blog series, I also opened my fourth novel with a character writing a letter. And not just any letter. It’s a story — perhaps the most important he’ll ever tell.
The Other Side of the Season
Life is simple on top of the mountain for David, Matthew and Tilly until the winter of 1979 when tragedy strikes, starting a chain reaction that will ruin lives for years to come. Those who can, escape the Greenhill banana plantation. One stays—trapped for the next thirty years on the mountain and haunted by memories and lost dreams. That is until the arrival of a curious young woman, named Sidney, whose love of family shows everyone the truth can heal, what’s wrong can be righted, the lost can be found, and . . . there’s another side to every story.
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