Today I am very excited to bring you my first guest post from the lovely author Hayley Walsh! Hayley is an Australian author of published titles Crayons and Chaos and Making March. When I began my blogging journey Hayley was one of the first people I met and has supported me along the way, promoting me to her followers and even allowing me to guest post on her own website! I feel very privileged to have met and interacted with her and have since read her book Making March and really enjoyed it very much!
Hayleys post shares with us the inspiration behind the characters and story of ‘Making March’ I can only imagine how fun it must have been to write!
The Making of ‘Making March’
Kate feels old alone, and regrettably round. It's the 1st of February, and today happens to be her fortieth birthday. This month she must survive, a pending divorce, raising her offspring spawn from Satan, being Maid of Honour, a fellow bridesmaid from hell, multiple dress fittings, and her meddling mother. Can she make it to March without losing her marbles?
The idea for ‘Making March’ had been floating around in my head for years, before I finally put pen to paper. After a lifetime of writing poems and short stories for my own enjoyment, I decided it was time, I started writing a book.
I first started writing it in 2012. I was forced to put it on hiatus many times over the next five years due to job changes, my father’s death, and a marriage break up. I finally picked it back up in 2017, determined to get it finished.
I completed it in mid-2019, and spent the next 6 months, sending it to beta readers, and getting it professionally edited and proofread. I queried over seventy literary agents and got four full manuscript requests, all sadly ending in rejection. I decided to self-publish, and the book was released in April this year.
Every writer doubts their ability, and I am no different. Not everyone will like your book, but as every writer knows, your characters become family after a while. You know them better than you know yourself by the time your manuscript is complete. They have a story to tell and it is your job as the author, to get that story out into the world, and hopefully into the hands of readers who will love it.
Being a panster from way back, I fly by the seat of my pants when writing a story. I know the main story line and how it will end, but the middle kind of fills itself in as I go along. I let the story and the characters take me where they want it to go. I love surprises.
My protagonist Kate, was well defined from the beginning, as she is based very closely on me. Her daughter Heidi’s personality is also based on elements of myself. Some family and friends were the inspiration behind other characters.
Some characters are a mixture of people I have known over the years, along with some poetic justice thrown in to the mix. My antagonist Tracy is purely fiction, along with the book’s resident clown Marie.
The story line contains both elements of true-life events and pure fiction. Kate is sarcastic and sometimes negative in her outlook, but I wanted to create a character, everyday women could relate to. Kate has a great sense of humour, and is certainly no angel. Nobody is perfect and I love the fact that she is very real.
The book explores personal insecurities, heartbreak, love, friendship, conflict, relationship struggles, parenting, infidelity, sex, questionable behaviour and much, much more.
After seven long years of creating this story, I hope readers enjoy Kate’s trials and tribulations, simply trying to make it to March.
Thankyou so much to Hayley for sharing her inspiration behind the story. My review will be heading to the blog soon..... watch this space!!
If you want to find out more about Hayley and her current/future work check out her website here.
2021 will see two more of her books released, Scattered scones and Not dead yet. I for one will be purchasing them when they are available!