{"id":26214,"date":"2015-02-26T06:54:04","date_gmt":"2015-02-26T11:54:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/?p=26214"},"modified":"2015-02-26T10:07:53","modified_gmt":"2015-02-26T15:07:53","slug":"marion-grace-wooley-five-things-i-learned-writing-those-rosy-hours-at-mazandaran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/2015\/02\/26\/marion-grace-wooley-five-things-i-learned-writing-those-rosy-hours-at-mazandaran\/","title":{"rendered":"Marion Grace Woolley: Five Things I Learned Writing Those Rosy Hours At Mazandaran"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It begins with a rumour,\u00a0an exciting whisper — anything to break the tedium of the harem for Afsar, the Shah\u2019s eldest daughter.<\/em><\/p>\n

A trader knows of a wondrous circus. Traveling with it is a man with a face so vile it would make a hangman faint, but a voice as sweet as an angel\u2019s kiss. He is a master of illusion and stealth. A masked performer, known only as Vachon.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

On her birthday, the Shah gifts Afsar the circus. She is captivated by Vachon, and they are swiftly bound together by a heady web of fascination, jealousy, and murder.<\/em><\/p>\n

Those Rosy Hours at Mazandaran\u00a0gives life to the Little Sultana from Gaston Leroux\u2019s\u00a0Phantom of the Opera, and takes us on forbidden adventures through a time that has been written out of history books.<\/em><\/p>\n

You Know When You Come of Age<\/h2>\n

All writers start somewhere. No one ever arrived on the page fully fledged. In yea olden days, that process was fairly private. People wrote in the secrecy of their own homes, fingers stained with ink, shoulders hunched about their ears, until they had something worth submitting.<\/p>\n

Nowadays, we\u2019re not so bashful. If it\u2019s not worth submitting, you can always blog it, self-publish or even vanity-press it. Our mistakes are there for all to see.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t until 2008 that I seriously tried to write my first novel \u2013 just to prove I could. Everything after that has been practise. I\u2019ve explored different genres, from horror to chick lit. I\u2019ve fumbled my prose and played with pastiche.<\/p>\n

With Rosy Hours<\/em>, I feel as though I\u2019ve come of age. There is a maturity to it that was missing in previous attempts. I\u2019m not ashamed of what I wrote before, but this is on another level. I have found something that is mine.<\/p>\n

A Little Encouragement Goes a Long Way<\/h2>\n

I published three other novels before Rosy Hours<\/em>. For me, getting published has never been particularly difficult. Selling books, on the other hand, requires Sisyphean effort. My previous publishers were high on enthusiasm but low on marketing mulla.<\/p>\n

Add to that a spell of crippling self-doubt in which I wrote a manuscript that will never see the light of day (my writing was getting worse, not better!), and you have the recipe for a quitter. I almost packed everything in. One hundred thousand words is a long slog when no one\u2019s going to read what you write.<\/p>\n

Ghostwoods Books really turned me around. One minute everything was crap, no point, why bother. The next the sun was shining, there\u2019s a grin on my face, the world is a beautiful place. What a difference a year makes.<\/p>\n

They reminded me that it isn\u2019t all about sales. It\u2019s about being proud of your creation. Knowing that you\u2019ve given it the very best you can. Knowing that what you\u2019ve written has been loved.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve got my mojo back.<\/p>\n

Moustaches are Sexy on Women<\/h2>\n

Rosy Hours is set in 1850s Northern Iran. The Shah at the time was busy selling off the country\u2019s assets to expand his harem. One of the things I learned during my research is that beauty is extremely subjective. When I thought harem<\/em>, I thought wispy Persian beauties draped in silk, dancing the seven veils.<\/p>\n

When the Shah of Iran thought harem, he thought unibrows and coffee-stain moustaches.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s Really Emotional Hearing Your Characters Speak<\/h2>\n

One of the reasons I\u2019m so excited about this book, is that it\u2019s being turned into an audiobook.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been a fascinating experience. Author and Hugo Award nominee Emma Newman has provided the voice. I\u2019ll never forget receiving the sample chapter. Opening it up and hearing my words read back to me for the first time, the voices inside my head speaking to me in somebody else\u2019s voice. It gave me goosebumps.<\/p>\n

A few years of drama school and working in development have taught me that to create is fine, to collaborate, divine. I get a real buzz when art sparks art. When something I\u2019ve written inspires someone else\u2019s creation. After all, I was inspired by Leroux. Each piece of audio, or fan art, gives a sort of validation to the characters I\u2019ve created. It attests that they have lived, and that their lives extend beyond what I imagined for them.<\/p>\n

When It\u2019s Good, It\u2019s Easy<\/h2>\n

There\u2019s this transcendental space, just above your head, where thoughts cease and good stuff happens. It\u2019s like when you\u2019re flying in dreams. You\u2019re not thinking about flying, you\u2019re just doing it. It\u2019s the same with writing, there\u2019s a zone. When you\u2019re in it, everything is easy. The story just happens.<\/p>\n

Rosy Hours<\/em> is both the most complex novel I\u2019ve written, and also one of the easiest. I look back at it now and I\u2019m honestly surprised. Sometimes it doesn\u2019t feel as though I wrote it. Sometimes I wonder where I got certain phrases from. Mostly, I don\u2019t remember writing it.<\/p>\n

You can\u2019t force that zone, but when you\u2019re sure that you have a great story to tell, the pieces sometimes just fall into place.<\/p>\n

The story writes itself.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Marion Grace Woolley is the British author of four novels (historical, dark fantasy and LGBT) and a collection of short stories. She\u2019s currently living in Kigali, Rwanda where — when she\u2019s not writing — she\u2019s an international development consultant. She\u2019s just been appointed country head of a human rights organization, is up to her eyeballs in CVs, and is moving house on Thursday. She is fluent in British Sign Language, and plays the tin whistle.<\/em><\/p>\n

Marion Grace Woolley: Twitter<\/span><\/a> | Blog<\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Those Rosy Hours At Mazandaran: Amazon<\/span><\/a> | B&N<\/span><\/a> | Ghostwoods<\/span><\/a> | Google Play<\/span><\/a> | Kobo<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It begins with a rumour,\u00a0an exciting whisper — anything to break the tedium of the harem for Afsar, the Shah\u2019s eldest daughter. A trader knows of a wondrous circus. Traveling with it is a man with a face so vile it would make a hangman faint, but a voice as sweet as an angel\u2019s kiss. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-26214","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-theramble","8":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pv7MR-6OO","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26214"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26214\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26217,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26214\/revisions\/26217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}