Lissa Morgan

I have wanted to write the above words for more years than I can remember! Well, I can remember, actually - it's fifteen exactly, almost to the month, since I began writing romantic fiction.   Ten rejections later but with a lot of encouragement and invaluable feedback along the way, umpteen writing retreats and conferences, and the unfailing support of my fabulous writer friends, I'm so thrilled to announce that my first historical novel - set in 13th century Wales - will be published by Harlequin Mills and Boon in 2022! This is a book I began back in 2013 but never finished then as I was focusing on contemporary romance. However, when Linda Fildew, senior editor at HMB, asked me during an RNA 1-1 a couple of years ago if I'd ever thought of writing an historical romance, I got the manuscript back out, started revising it and everything suddenly clicked into place. The rest, as they say, is . . . history! My novel The Welsh Lord's Convenient Bride will be coming out ...

Like most writers, I hate writing synopses.  I find them hard and it's even harder to keep them down to a page of A4 while getting everything that is necessary in.  However, having recently reached the end of my WIP, I discovered the importance of a synopsis for keeping a writer on track.  This is a book I've been writing a while - a lot longer than I would normally take over a book, in fact, due in no small part to the disruption and uncertainty of the Covid-19 lockdowns.  But, finally, it was finished and I was breathing that wonderful and long-awaited sigh of relief at the prospect of sending it off to the editors when I realised the ending was all wrong! Totally wrong!! As I'd worked through the book,the story changed a little, as often happens. I'd moved away from the original synopsis slightly, and I was aware of the fact. But it wasn't until I'd finished the book that I realised the original ending, as per the synopsis, was actually the right one.  So las...

It's been a while since I blogged here but that doesn't mean I haven't been busy writing! I have, in fact, though it's been rather a longer and slower process than normal, probably due to the lockdown, which has affected us all to greater or lesser degrees over the last year. Can you believe it is over a year since Covid-19 first hit the world? Like most people, I've been working from home over the last twelve months, which should be, of course, most conducive to writing.  Like many, I suspect, there have been days, and even weeks, when it's been the opposite, with lethargy hovering on the horizon more often than not.  Even so, I've been doing something for my writing every day (an invaluable piece of advice I read on some writer's blog many moons ago and wish I could remember whose!) and I am almost at the end of the first draft of my work in progress. I say 'first draft' though really it's a case of writing a few chapters then going back a...