I am delighted to share a Q&A with you today ~ thanks to Rachel’s Random Resources for organizing.
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Q&A:
When did you start writing?
I began writing as small child with my Dumpy Book. I was given the book by my mother, who probably imagined I would write important thoughts about childhood: I wrote stories about my classmates. One story was about a girl who started a class petition calling for another girl to be ostracised. A third girl (call her girl C) thought this was so unfair she grabbed the petition and ripped it up. End of story. Assuming this is a true story, girl C is probably now a CEO.
As I got older I wrote articles for the school magazine and then various local newspapers and magazines, including The Twerple with Too Many Brains about a society called Twerple, where the only occupation is building and then destroying what you have just built. Into this society is born a man who sees such actions as pointless and tries to do something about it.
I started writing adult novels in the 1990s, mostly about flying (my profession at the time) and in 2020 under lockdown, when suddenly I had so much time, I discovered that I could turn my hobby into work I began writing crime novels. I have now written four SeeMs Detective series novels, and am currently writing the fifth and sixth. I tend to write one, have it looked at by Beta readers and then start on the next. My mother is sadly dead, but were she alive I think she would be amused by the descendants of the Dumpy Book.
Where do you get your inspiration?
Inspiration can arrive anywhere, often from some casual remark by a friend or sometimes an action.
The inspiration for my third book, The Mystery of the Homeless Man, came from a work colleague. My colleague was a clever man and a good and successful pilot, but he loved to drink: not a good combination. One day he was stopped by the police driving to the airport, where he was the first officer on a flight, still over-the-limit from the night before. That job ended and no future ones began.
The upshot was that he died homeless and on the streets. None of his friends or work colleagues knew what happened to him until his death was mentioned in the local papers. I always wondered what would reduce him to such a level and as I didn’t know the story I weaved a novel around what might have happened.
Where can readers purchase your books and how do you find out more about them?
My books can be bought pretty much anywhere. They are available on Amazon and in Waterstones, but I have also seen them on eBay. For more information on the stories, I have a website: ginacheyne.com but I also have reviews on Amazon, Goodreads and on various social media sites. I got very excited recently when I came across a reel on Instagram about my second book, Murder in the Cards.
What was your favourite part, and your least favourite part, of the publishing journey?
When you self-publish a book you have to become an expert in all sorts of unexpected parts of the publishing process. The bits I love most are writing
(obviously I suppose) and (perhaps unusually) I really enjoy editing. Partly, this is because while editing you have time to look over what you have previously written and judge it not exactly from an unbiased viewpoint but at least a more distant one, and partly because I like playing with words, and you can’t do that in the same way when you are writing the story or you forget how the actual story is progressing. (Or I do, being a bear of small brain).
I think the hardest or least enjoyable part of publishing is the formatting and production process. Again there is more than one reason for this. It is somewhat stressful because it is easy to ruin the look of a book by getting just a few lines out of kilter, or by running two lots of lines into each other. I was recently reading a book by Raymond Chandler in the ebook form, and I noticed that the dialogue of different people so often runs into each that it is hard to know who is speaking. Even though you know this book was not in its original form, it is still a little irritant sitting there to tease you.
The other problem with the production is all the extras you must not forget: the copyright, the disclaimers in case you have accidentally made the villain a recognisable character, the acknowledgements and the attributions. Too easy to accidentally offend.
Is there something you always like to slip into your writing: like an in-joke?
I’m not sure if it counts as an in-joke but, because I flew planes and helicopters for many years, I always like to have a helicopter slipped in somewhere. One of my detectives in the SeeMs Detective series is an airline pilot, which would cover the
fixed-wing (as helicopter pilots call aeroplane pilots) aspect but I like to hide a helicopter in the story too, even if it is only a model.
Which of your books were the most enjoyable to write?
Two of my books (so far) stand out as the ones I enjoyed writing most: Murder in the Cards and Murder Under the All-Seeing Eye. With both these books the plot worked well and unfolded in a clear simple way. One of the problems I find with crime writing is that the plot can be too complicated and I spend quite a lot of time ‘simplifying’ my endings. Both Murder in Cards, and Murder Under the All-Seeing Eye, which is out in May 2024 were different, they just seemed to write themselves.
Genre ~ Historical Mystery
Series ~ SeeMS Detective Agency #4
Publication date ~ December 1, 2023
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Book blurb:
Who is the Chameleon Killer?
When you are having a really bad day, drink yourself legless, abuse everyone around you, pass out and try again tomorrow.
Trouble is; every day is bad in Rupert Fletcher’s world. He threatens his ex-wife, mocks his girlfriend, abuses his neighbours, and gets into a fight in the pub.
Next day, he is found dead.
Who’d want to kill him? Well, almost everybody, but it looks like only one person did. The police arrest his ex-wife’s therapist, Anthony.
Anthony’s family claim he is innocent and employ the SeeMs Detective Agency to find the real killer.
Cat, Miranda, and Stevie uncover clues that point them back to an intricate web of family injuries and an unexpected connection between the victim and his killer.
Could Rupert’s murderer be The Chameleon Killer, who has already killed before and is bent on revenge? They need to act fast before the killer strikes again.
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Author Bio – Gina has worked as a pilot, physiotherapist, freelance writer and dog breeder. As a child, Gina’s parents hated travelling and never went further than Jersey. As a result she became travel-addicted and spent years bumming around SE Asia, China and Australia, where she worked in a racing stables in Pinjarra, South of Perth. She then lived and worked in various places in Spain, the USA and London before settling in West Sussex with her husband and dogs. This is her fourth crime novel in the SeeMs Detective Agency series. This book is set between Sussex and London.
Social Media Links –
https://www.instagram.com/ginacheynewriter/
https://www.facebook.com/gina.cheyne.books
https://reedsy.com/discovery/user/ginacheyne
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