Welcome!
Please introduce yourself.
Hello, I’m Steph, I write mystery books under the name SC Richmond, I also run a business and am happily married to my long suffering husband Keith. I’m looking forward to this interview and I hope it offers an insight into me and my work.
When did you start writing?
I have been writing on and off for many years but until more recently I had never considered anything I had written good enough to share with anyone. ‘The Community’ was written over ten months and it came alive as soon as the characters hit the page, they did what they wanted to do and I struggled along to keep up with them.
What motivates you to write?
This is an easy question to answer. I love to write, it’s as simple as that, it relaxes me and if I’ve had a bad day I know where to bury the bodies, It really is a perfect job.
What genre do you write in and what made you chose this particular genre?
I mainly write mystery/crime books, there are a few short stories around where I have played with other genres but I always seem to return to mystery. I don’t think I consciously chose this genre it was more like it chose me. As a reader I have always loved mysteries as they seem to fit more comfortably in with good storytelling, a good story needs to twist and turn a little, I like to play with human emotions too, everyday relationships in unusual circumstances.
What is your goal in writing? Do you have dreams where your writing should take you?
I would like to continue writing for as long as I can, I hope that people curl up on their sofa’s and come on a journey with me, that is the main goal, pure enjoyment.
If I could set a personal, selfish goal it would be to be able to give up work and write full time, I love my work but I love my writing more.
Do you ever suffer from writer’s block and if yes, how do you deal with it?
Yes but I try to think of it as breathing time, I know it’s coming when I start to get distracted too easily, that’s the time to set down my writing and do something different for a while. After a day I start to worry about it so that’s when I sit down and write, nothing in particular I just get a piece of paper and write whatever comes into my head, it’s generally rubbish but it clears a space to get back to my book.
What advice would you like to give new, hopeful authors?
Don’t be scared, just do it. If you start worrying about all the hurdles that you’ll have to jump over you’ll never do it so jump in and give it a go, you could be the next big thing.
One of my major bug bears is all of the already successful authors that say things that scare people starting out, you must have perfect grammar, you must edit, rewrite, don’t use those words … and the list goes on. Write what feels good, we want to hear your voice not a boring sterile writer.
Please, tell us about your work.
My debut novel is ‘The Community’ an English Mystery and love story that spans fifty years.
Meet Jack and find out why he lives the way he does and how he takes care of those around him. It opens with a body that has been discovered in a park, a woman seemingly dead from natural causes and Jack is at the site. Why?
Then meet Alex a local journalist, still wet behind the ears but trying to make her name, she gets the story of the body in the park. How will she do? Will she find out her identity? What will she discover about her home town that no one else knows? If she does work it out how could that effect Jack’s life or hers?
What connection could an unknown body, an abandoned baby, missing people and a triquetra have? She sets out to find the answers, unaware of how it will affect the people she loves the most.
After it was written (too many rewrites to count) I believed in it, this piece of writing was a living breathing thing, I decided to publish as an independent author through choice, after being offered a deal from a publisher I didn’t feel comfortable with, I wanted to be able to choose what happened to this book. So I self-published with help from Completely Novel (they were great) and put it on Amazon Kindle myself. I have never regretted taking that route and now I have 5* reviews and am very happy with its progress.
Thank you for being my guest. It was such a pleasure to have you here!!
It’s lovely to join you here, thank you so much for the opportunity, you have made me feel very welcome.
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Contact Links:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B01C6Q0O1K – Amazon Authors Page
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Community-S-C-Richmond/dp/184914785X – The Community Paperback Amazon Link.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Community-S-C-Richmond-ebook/dp/B016F8F3DE – The Community Amazon Kindle link
http://www.amazon.co.uk/product-reviews/B016F8F3DE – Amazon Reviews page
https://www.facebook.com/scrichmond3/ – Facebook Author Page
https://www.facebook.com/ManMythMagik/ – Buy Here too, signed copies
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26782186-the-community – Good reads page
If you would like to read a free chapter and get more insights to ‘The Community’ and the writing of the next book (As yet untitled) please visit me at…
https://scrichmondblog.wordpress.com/
THE BOOK DESCRIPTION AND ITS JOURNEY AROUND THE WORLD
Writer's Treasure Chest 
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