Clare Flynn’s Blog
A Room of One’s Own – Where Writers Write
I used to love that regular feature about writers’ rooms in the UK Guardian. It combined the pleasures of being nosy and having a peek into someone else’s home, with insights about how other writers work and whether they operate in pristine conditions or total chaos....
Trains, Planes and Automobiles
One of the essentials of writing historical fiction is that you get your background details right. What I hadn't realised when I started on this journey was that I would have to do so much research around modes of transport. I'd never shown the remotest interest in...
The Perez Simon Collection at Leighton House
I was lucky enough to receive an impromptu invitation to a private view of the Pérez Símon exhibition, 'A Victorian Obsession', at Leighton House in Kensington this week. I'd been planning to go to the exhibition anyway (and will probably go again) as I adore...
Rag and Bone Collectors of New York
My work in progress has just taken itself off to New York City. This is a classic case of being swept along in the wake of one's characters. I get very little say in the matter. As a result I've been researching life in the tenements of NYC in the late nineteenth...
Musings on Middlesbrough
My first two books have faraway locations - a great excuse for combining research with holidays. I thought I was joking at first when I began to tell people novel number 3 would be set in Middlesbrough. For a start I'd never set foot in the place - and had never...
Being Uprooted
It was only after I'd finished the first draft of my second novel that I realised it had something in common with the first. Then after sketching out a rough outline of novel number 3, I've realised that I'm exploring a similar theme there too. That theme is...
An Independent Woman and a Forced Marriage
The main character in my novel, A Greater World, is effectively won in a game of poker, after her desperate father uses her as a stake. Poor Elizabeth Morton has to go through what amounts to a forced marriage when all her options run out. Someone asked how I'd come...
The Joy of Print
I originally planned only to publish my books electronically but at the last moment decided to go for a print version too as several friends requested one. I am so glad I did. For ages I've been primarily reading via electronic devices (often my iPad mini rather than...
Survivors’ Sacrifices Must be Remembered Too
My first job after university was in the civil service, where I managed the financial affairs of mental patients under the Court of Protection. As a newbie, my caseload was entirely made up of war pensioners - most of them survivors of World War 1. These were viewed...
A Cover Design for A Greater World
I'm very pleased with the cover for A Greater World - done by Jane Dixon-Smith of JD Smith Design. Jane is now working on the cover for Kurinji Flowers - and I am cracking on with the horrible and frustrating task of setting the two texts up for Kindle. I would have...
A Poem Unlocks the Door to my Next Book
This chap is the poet, Ernest Dowson. A rather glum fellow who had a very sad life and an early death. When he was four his sister tried to drown him; his father, while in the late stages of tuberculosis, died of an overdose; his mother hanged herself shortly after...
5 Reasons for Going on Location
The start point for my books is often a location. Sometimes just being in a beautiful or interesting place makes me want to write about it. Sometimes the place itself triggers the idea for a book or a character. Either way it's a good excuse to go back there to do...