Francesca and Elaine are proud to welcome Wendy Clarke to their blog. Wendy decided to make changes to her life three years ago and hasn’t looked back.
Wendy, with over a hundred short stories published you are certainly a prolific short story writer, where do you find your ideas from?
The word ‘prolific
’ still sounds strange to me, as it seems like only yesterday I was dropping my first story in the post box and keeping my fingers crossed that the editors of the magazine might like it. In answer to the question ‘where do I get my ideas?’ there are many ways. The first is remembering small incidents in my life that might work as nuggets to write a story around – for example my story Out of the Dark in this month’s People’s Friend Special is written around my fear of the dark. I would say my next method is to listen carefully to others, especially my friends. One morning a good friend told me that her daughter sent texts to her signed by her new little grandson… what a gem of a story! That one ended up in Woman’s Weekly. Other than that, I read newspapers, keep my eyes and ears open and never, ever go out without a notebook!
How many short stories do you write a week and is there a pattern to how you write them?
Oh, yes. I am very strict with myself. I write one story a week unless I am on holiday (and even then I am scouting for ideas). As to when I write them, it depends on what I have on my calendar that week. I am not a slave to my writing; I write around other things that I do. It is nice to have a story written at the beginning of the week, though, so that I can move on to other writing tasks such as my blog, marketing my story collection and of course writing my novel!
What made you decide to publish Room in Your Heart?
I wrote Room in Your Heart because I was frustrated that once my stories had been published in the magazines they would never be seen or read again. Also, a lot of people I know (like my family) aren’t readers of the magazines that contain fiction and I wanted to be able to show them what and how I write. As a lot (though by no means all) of my stories are romances, I decided to make Room in Your Heart a romance collection. Don’t be fooled by the title, there are a range of stories in the collection – all previously published in The People’s Friend – but they are by no means slushy.
Will you publish another book of short stories and how do you decide what to include?
Funny you should say that! My second collection, The Last Rose. is being published on Monday – it would be lovely to see everyone at the launch party on my blog Wendy’s Writing Now. I decided to put together the second collection after receiving fabulous reviews for Room in Your Heart and requests for another. The theme of The Last Rose is ‘family and friendship’. It will be published for kindle and in paperback and is available now to pre-order – perfect if you’re looking for a Mother’s Day gift. This time I have chosen stories that have been previously published in a variety of national women’s magazines and I am very excited about it!
I know this year you joined the Romantic Novelist Association New Writers Scheme (RNA NWS) so does that mean you are taking the giant leap into writing a novel?
Gulp… yes it is! I never seem to be satisfied with doing just one thing. Although I love writing short stories, I have also written articles and serials and a novel seems the next logical step. I had been thinking about the possibility of writing a novel for a while but it was only when a particular story of mine was published a year ago that I thought, now that could be taken a lot further. I joined the RNA NWS to give me the push I needed to make a start. I know I won’t have it finished by the time I have to submit for a critique in August, but I hope that I will have something decent to show. It’s certainly a learning curve.
Thank you very much for having me on your lovely blog and for being such a great host.
Blog http://wendyswritingnow.blogspot.co.uk/
Link to Amazon: Room in Your Heart http://www.amazon.co.uk/Room-Your-Heart-collection-romantic-ebook/dp/B00OW466WG
Link to Amazon: The Last Rose http://www.amazon.co.uk/Last-Rose-Stories-family-friendship-ebook/dp/B00U1WBAC4/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1425064370&sr=1-1
Write Minds 
Thank you for inviting me onto your lovely blog, Elaine and Francesca.
It’s a pleasure having you on here, Wendy.
Francesca
Thank you, Wendy. It was a real pleasure. I wish you luck with your novel writing and with your new release. A nicer person I am yet to meet.
Lovely, inspiring interview Elaine, Francesca and Wendy. And interesting and helpful to know where your ideas come from Wendy. 🙂 x
Glad it helped, Sue.
It’s always a pleasure to read about you, Wendy. I am a great fan of your own blog and I’ll certainly be in on the launch of ‘The Last Rose’ on Monday.
I look forward to seeing you there, Natalie.
What a lovely interview. I always enjoy your blog, Wendy, and I’m glad to know you have a second anthology coming out. I’ll be gate-crashing your party on Monday.
I’m glad you enjoy my blog, Sue and I look forward to seeing you at the party on Monday.
Hasn’t she done well? Great to read of the spread of her writing and now a novel to look forward to. Wendy, good luck to you.
Thank you, Moyalydia.
You’re obviously quite disciplined, Wendy – and it’s paying off.