TUESDAY TALK WELCOMES AUTHOR LYNDA STACEY CHATTING ABOUT HER LATEST PROJECT AND BALANCING WRITING WITH A BUSY WORKING LIFE…

Hi Lynda and welcome back to Tuesday Talk. For those who may be reading my blog for the first time, can you tell us a little about yourself?

Hi Jo, how lovely to be back. For those who don’t know me, I grew up in the mining village of Bentley, Doncaster. I left school the first moment I could and began work the very next day… and I think I’ve been working ever since.
My jobs have been varied and have included being a receptionist, a sales assistant, a nurse, a van driver, a model, a scuba diving instructor, an emergency first response instructor and the full time position I hold now as the Sales Director of a stationery and office furniture company.
Around 10 years ago I was in a bad car accident, I lost a lot of use in my arms, my shoulders were destroyed and a lot of my hobbies, including the scuba diving had to be given up. I really couldn’t do very much. I was in a lot of pain, but I quickly worked out that my fingers still wiggled, I could still type, and it was at this time that I began writing. I can honestly say that I not only fell in love with writing, with the characters and the stories, but also with the whole industry of publishing, of the circles I now mix in and with all the other authors who I now feel very privileged to call my friends.

How do you balance writing with your busy working life?

Lol… am I supposed to be balancing it?
Seriously, I just write when I can. I tend to write more in the winter than I do in the summer and I have to admit, the thought of sitting in the house with the lap top on my knee when the sun is shining isn’t on the top of my ‘to do list’. But, when the sun goes down, when the rain falls and when the log fire is lit, that’s when I tend to write. Hence why there is always a lot of winter scenes in my books.

Have you a favourite place to write?

I literally sit on the corner of the settee with the laptop on my knee. I probably should use the office that I had purposely built, it was an extension that I just had to have, but never use. Oops.

Are you someone who plans your writing, or do you have an idea and see where it takes you?

I always know who my heroine is and where she’s going. I always know how the story will end, but the bit in the middle, well, can we say that it even surprises me as it happens. My thoughts often go off on a tangent and the story can quite quickly take a diversion, which I hope is what keeps the twists and turns happening.

What prompted the move from romantic suspense to psychological thriller?

The Fake Date

I love suspense, but the psychological side really excites me and getting into the mind of the villain is great fun. I’ve just listened back to the audio of THE FAKE DATE and can honestly say that I seriously wondered about my own sanity when I began to hear the villains voice.

What are you currently working on?

I’m currently working on a book that’s very close to my heart. It’s set in my home town of Doncaster where in the 1900’s we had a Victorian marvel called the Sand House. Not only was it a house of gigantic proportion that was carved out of sand stone, it was also the site of the famous catacombs. A series of tunnels that were also carved out of the sand stone. There were intricate carvings within the tunnels and the most famous was that of the Elephant and Mahout.
I’ve attached a picture for you to see it.
In reality, the tunnels can’t be excavated. However, in fiction, anything can happen, and it will…!

And finally, you’ve been invited onto I’m a Celebrity – Get Me Out of Here. Name four celebs you would like to join you and why.

I’d love to be surrounded by the type of people who would really take the challenge to heart.
My four celebrities would be two women and two men:
The ladies would be Michelle Keegan and Lacey Turner, both took female leads in Our Girl.
And the men who were both in Jamestown would be Matt Stokoe who played James Reed, and Stuart Martin who played Silas Sharrow.
If nothing else, the girls would be a laugh and the men… well, they’d be easy on the eye, so all would be good.

Author Bio

me on the staircase at Wrea Head hall Lynda grew up in the mining village of Bentley, Doncaster, in South Yorkshire,
Her own chaotic life story, along with varied career choices helps Lynda to create stories of romantic suspense, with challenging and unpredictable plots, along with (as in all romances) very happy endings.
Lynda joined the Romantic Novelist Association in 2014 under the umbrella of the New Writers Scheme and in 2015, her debut novel House of Secrets won the Choc Lit Search for a Star competition.
She lives in a small rural hamlet near Doncaster, with her husband, Haydn, whom she’s been happily married to for almost 30 years.