Following the Writer's Path with Indie Author Erin Bowlen
Erin Bowlen |
I met Erin at my new job this past year and was thrilled to discover that she is not only a published author, but the author of Irish stories! I started following the actor and freelance photographer Stuart Mackey back in March and have been diving more into the Irish culture ever since. Part of my dive has included reading all types of Irish stories from fairy tales to Erin's contemporary novels of women's literature.
While reading her Aoife O’Reilly series, I started wondering about the research that was involved while I marveled at how well written the characters are. Then, I realized that I could ask her! So, here is my interview with Erin Bowlen:
Doolin, Ireland | Photo by Magdalena Smolnicka on Unsplash |
Early Days of Writing
1. Red Wolf: Tell us a bit
about yourself.
Erin Bowlen: Hi, readers! My name is Erin Bowlen,
and I am the bestselling author of the Aoife O’Reilly series. I’m from a small city on the east coast of
Canada: Fredericton, New Brunswick. I grew
up in a really artistic family, so it kind of makes sense now, I think, that
I’m a writer and have also followed that artistic path. Like most people, at first I tried to go my
own way and settled on a career in academics (I have a few degrees in Classics
and Linguistics), but I eventually came back to the arts. When I’m not writing, I like to spend what
little free time I have catching up on the latest sci-fi/fantasy shows (I’m
currently watching Willow, which I’m really enjoying). I also love to travel, and now that things are
starting to sort themselves out again, I’m really looking forward to getting
back to that.
2. RW: Were you an avid
reader or were television, plays and/or movies your preferred media growing up?
What were your favorite genres and have they changed? Are there any titles
that you look to for motivation or inspiration?
EB: I was very much an avid reader from
the time I was little. Both of my
parents were avid readers, as was much of my extended family, so I’ve always
grown up around books. Reading was always a highly encouraged activity. I used to be one of those readers who always
took a book with them wherever they went, and I always had more than one book
on the go at the same time.
Theatre has also been important to
me. I love going to plays, and in fact,
the very first thing I wanted to be when I was growing up was a playwright. I
remember being enthralled by plays from a young age. There’s great power in being
able to suspend someone’s disbelief, even if it’s only for a moment.
My favourite genre to read is
historical fiction and has been ever since I can remember. I’m such a history geek (and very proud of
it!). But I also gravitated quite a lot
in my pre-teen years to sci-fi/fantasy, thrillers, and women’s fiction, the
latter of which is now the genre that I write in, so obviously it has stuck
with me. I still quite like
sci-fi/fantasy and thrillers, but I don’t tend to read as much of them as I
used to (I don’t read nearly enough these days because I’m always writing in my
spare time).
Titles that I look to for inspiration…well,
since I’ve been writing women’s fiction, I’ve been drawn back to my favourite
women’s fiction authors like Maeve Binchy, Nora Roberts, and Barbara Taylor
Bradford. Titles that have stuck with me
are novels like Circle of Friends, Tara Road, and Woman of Substance. I like stories that are about characters who
aren’t perfect, but who are very realistic. I’m not a reader who necessarily needs a happily ever after to like a
novel. I think that’s why I’m drawn to
women’s fiction. I don’t mind if the characters
are a bit messy and complicated, and not everything gets resolved at the end.
3. RW: In your author
profile, you write that you were “influenced by [your] family’s artistic roots
in both music and storytelling.” How did this influence you and what kind of
storytelling was it? When did you start writing?
EB: I didn’t officially start writing
until I was 24-25 years old, but I have been surrounded by the oral tradition
of storytelling my whole life. Both
sides of my family are Irish Canadian, so we love to get together and tell
stories to anyone and everyone who will listen (to be honest, I’m pretty sure
there’s a few of us who’ll just keep talking even if no one is
listening!). Both my father and my Poppy
(my maternal grandfather) were great storytellers and had a huge influence on
me. I used to love to listen to the both
of them just talking about anything and everything, and I’ve noticed now when I
go through the editing phase for my novels, that both of their cadences have
had an influence on the flow and structure of my sentences. These cadences might not make the final cut,
but I still notice them in the drafts.
When it comes to the impact that
music had on me, this again comes back to my Poppy. He was a fantastic musician, and music was
another highly encouraged activity when I was growing up. He gave me his dobro guitar (which is a type
of resonator guitar, sometimes known as a steel guitar, that’s often used in a
lot of bluegrass music) when I was quite young, which was my very first
instrument. When I got to middle school,
I joined band and played flute, which I continued all throughout high school
and my early years of university. I also
picked up alto saxophone in high school for awhile.
Music has had a profound impact on my
life, who I am as a person, and on my writing. I started out writing song lyrics and poetry, but I never quite took to
either. When it came to writing music, I
was always more comfortable composing than I was with song writing. As a
musician, I think I’m better at telling a story by evoking a feeling through
the music, than I am through words.
As I’ve grown up, my relationship with music has changed,
but has never gone away. Instead of
composing music, I focus more on listening and curating playlists. I almost always have my headphones on
listening to music when I’m writing, and especially when I’m editing. I have a playlist for every manuscript I’ve
worked on, and I love sharing them with my readers once I’ve published a novel
so that they can hear where my head was at when I was writing a particular
scene.
4. RW: Why do you
write?
EB: Ah, yes. One of the toughest questions for a writer to
answer. Personally, I write because I
can’t keep ignoring the characters who come up to me and keep yelling, “Write my
story!” at me. No, but seriously, I
write because I love it, and I can’t imagine not doing it.
Photo by Patrick Robert Doyle on Unsplash |
5. RW: Did you pursue
writing right away or did you wait? Why?
EB: I was quite a late bloomer by writing
industry standards. I know most writers start out writing when they were
children or teenagers, but I didn’t start until I was in my mid-twenties.
I think I didn’t really consider
writing as a career until then because of my artistic background. I got to see
first-hand how difficult it can be to make a name for yourself in the Maritimes
within the arts community. So, while I
love the arts, I saw it more as a hobby I really loved, rather than a career
choice. Throughout my late teens and
early twenties, I was focused on a career in academia. It wasn’t until I was doing my second
master’s degree that I got into writing fiction.
6. RW: While you worked
on your postgraduate studies in Classics, where did writing come in?
EB: At that point, I’d been going to
school straight through from kindergarten to university with no time off, and I
had quite a lot of stuff going on in my personal life at the time, so I hit the
point of burnout quite hard and quite abruptly. I was preparing for a Classics conference set for early November of that
year, when a friend of mine had suggested that I try the National Novel Writing
Month (NaNoWriMo) writing competition with her. Having never written a novel before, I thought it was a totally crazy
idea. Plus, I had a conference
presentation to prepare for, so I’d have to start the competition 5 days late,
which would mean even more pressure to try and get in those 50,000 words in 25
days. Nevertheless, I kept going back to
the NaNoWriMo website throughout the last weeks of October, and several of my
friends were very supportive of the idea of me writing fiction, so I signed
up.
I knew that I didn’t want to write anymore on the topic of ancient history,
since it was all I’d been writing about for years, so I ended up taking the old
writing advice of “Write what you know.” I knew how to create characters, I knew historical fiction, and I knew
the Tudor era because it was the other main period of history I had focused on
outside of Classics. So, I ended up
writing a historical fiction novel, and not only had I gotten my 50,000 words, but
I also had the idea for my first book All That Compels the Heart. It was
just one line at the time, but it was enough to get me hooked, and I haven’t
looked back since.
7. RW: What obstacles
have you faced in your writing career, and how did you learn from them/overcome
them? Was there a lack of support, any academic or professional challenges,
etc.?
EB: The greatest thing about the writing
community is that there’s a never-ending well of support. It’s really one of the best things about this
job. You’d think that other writers
would always be in competition with you (and they are, to some extent), but
I’ve found that, overwhelmingly, other authors are happier to see you succeed than they are to see you fail. So,
thankfully, I’ve never experienced a lack of support for my writing.
I think time is the biggest obstacle
I’ve faced so far. I have a full-time
job outside of being a full-time author, so it can be a lot to try to juggle
two careers and have a life at the same time. I’ve learned to really structure my days so that I know that
Monday-Friday 8:30-4:30 I’m totally focused on my day job, and I have hours
scheduled for writing, social media, and advertising before and after my day
job, and on weekends. My hope is that, one day, writing can be my main focus, and if I want to have a day job outside
of writing, that can become a secondary focus, instead of a primary one.
Book covers from left to right: Grainne (Prequel), All That Compels the Heart (Book 1), Where I'm Home (Book 2) |
The Aoife O'Reilly Series
1. RW: You’ve written the Aoife O’Reilly series that consists of Book 1: All That Compels
the Heart and Book 2: Where I’m Home, which both focus on Aoife. The
prequel of the series focuses on her grandmother, Grainne. Did you start
writing the prequel first? What idea got you started on the series in the first
place? Is any of it based on personal experience?
EB: I started with All That Compels
the Heart. Funny thing is, I didn’t
actually intend to write a sequel for this book, let alone a series (readers
are always surprised to hear this given how the first book ends). This is partly why the first book is so much
bigger in comparison to the other books in the series. My thinking at the time was that if I was
only going to write one book (because that’s all that I had ideas for at the
time), then I was putting my all into it. I’ve since gone back and revised the first book into a second edition,
which cut out about 150 pages’ worth of material, but it’s still a massive book
at 741 pages (or thereabouts).
About six months after publishing All
That Compels the Heart, I wrote down a paragraph that I thought could serve
as the start of a sequel, but I’d kind of burned out again, so I ignored it for
about a year before going back to it and then wrote Where I’m Home to
kind of tie things up. When I was
nearing the end of this book, I had decided to create the second edition for All
That Compels the Heart. However, I
didn’t want to just not do anything with the material I had cut out, as I’d
always thought that it provided additional insight into the motivations behind
many of the secondary characters; it just didn’t happen to be relevant to the
plot of the first book. Since Paddy
O’Reilly, Grainne’s husband, had proven to be one of the beloved characters
from the books, and most of his and Grainne’s backstories had been cut from the
second edition, I decided to give them their own novella.
In the end, I found myself being more
drawn to Grainne, who is a very controversial character in the main series, and
I found myself wanting to show readers how she got to be that way. So, my focus with Grainne ended up
shifting, and she became the focus of the novella instead (I still get readers
who tell me I should have turned this into a full-length novel, so who
knows? I may just revisit Grainne’s
story again someday).
It was at this point that other
characters’ stories from within the series started flooding in for me, and I
realized I had a series on my hands. I
ended up turning many of the other parts that had been cut from the first
edition into a collection of short stories that focused just on the characters
in Ballyclara. This became Tales from Ballyclara.
2. RW: Since music has
a keen role in your writing, did any songs help you to write the series?
EB: Yes, there were lots of songs that helped
me with writing this series. I’ve actually got all of the playlists up on my
website now, so can check them out under the section #MyNovelSoundtrack.
3. RW: Did you travel
to Ireland for research or inspiration on the series?
EB: I didn’t travel to Ireland
specifically to do research for my novels (although I’d love to have the excuse
of going back to Ireland for that purpose!), but I’ve been there several
times. My first visit with my mother’s
immediate family (my grandparents, my aunt, my older cousin, my mother, and I)
and we drove around the country from Dublin all along the southern coast and
over to Galway, and then back through to Dublin. I’d already had a fascination with Ireland
and Irish culture before going, but that trip just sort of cemented it for
me. My other trips have mainly focused
on Dublin, which is still one of my favourite cities to visit. I’d love to go up to Northern Ireland one day
as I haven’t been yet and see the island in its entirety.
Yours for the Holiday
1. RW: What inspired
this Christmas standalone?
EB: Yours for the Holiday came about because of a couple of factors. One is that a friend of mine said that they
didn’t think that I could write a romance novel (since I’m not a huge reader of
the genre, but I have read and liked some). I’m rarely one to be outdone by a
challenge, so I set out to write one. After trying (and failing) about five times (the Aoife O’Reilly
series being one of those attempts), I finally struck on the idea for Yours
for the Holiday.
The other reason I wanted to write this novel is because I want to tell more stories based in the Maritimes that are a bit more modern than what we’re normally used to seeing coming out of east coast fiction. And, when you think about Hallmark romances, they’re often set in places like Maine and Vermont, which are pretty close to here, so I thought to myself, “Why can’t I have a Hallmark-style romance set in my hometown of Fredericton?” It’s just as pretty and magical in the winter as most New England towns, so I decided to run with it.
Becoming an Author
1. RW: Character names
and book titles are often difficult for writers to think up. Do you share that experience,
and do you have a method (what is it)?
EB: Book titles really are the hardest
part for me. I still feel like I
struggle with them, and I still wonder if I’ve landed on the best titles for
the books I’ve written.
All That Compels the Heart’s title was one of the last aspects of the book I
settled on. I began thinking a lot about
why I was writing this novel, why Aoife felt her story needed to be told, and realized
that it is really about her figuring out what compels her to make the decisions
she’s made over the course of the novel. All of her decisions, whether she realized it or not, were being guided
from the heart, hence the title.
Where I’m Home was a bit easier because the theme of home is a big part
of Aoife’s story. She feels like she’s never really known where home is. After the events of the first and second
novels, I wanted to answer the question: Where does Aoife consider her home to
be?
Grainne was perhaps the easiest of them all. It’s very much in fitting with her
character. She’s definitely got the
confidence of a woman who can be known by a mononym, like Madonna or Cher. The story is all about her, and I don’t think
she would let her story be called anything else.
Tales from Ballyclara I kind of went back and forth on with different variations
before settling on this one. It’s difficult
to tie a bunch of stories together that all focus on very different characters
and themes under one title, so this one seemed to be the most fitting.
Yours for the Holiday was also a bit of a struggle, especially in trying to
fit in the theme of “holidays” so that readers would immediately associate it
as a Christmas romance. I originally
had a completely different title in mind, but it was one that proved to be very
popular on Amazon already, so I had to do a bit of a re-strategizing. I ended up realizing that the main character,
Ally, kind of rekindles thing with her high school sweetheart, Chase, under the
premise that if anything’s going to happen between them, it’s only going to be
a holiday fling. So, that’s how that
title came about.
Character names I find much
easier. I knew when I was writing the Aoife
O’Reilly series that I didn’t want to shy away from using traditional Irish
names, even if they proved difficult to spell or pronounce. I was kind of inspired by Diana Gabaldon to
do this, where she uses some traditional Scottish names and spellings in her Outlander
series. I know how much readers love to
guess at how the names are pronounced, so I wasn’t as worried about it as maybe
other authors thought I should be.
2. RW: What made you
choose to self-publish? What challenges did this pose? Is there anything you
wish you had known at the start of writing or self-publishing the series?
EB: I’d gone back and forth between traditional
and self-publishing the whole time I was writing All That Compels the Heart. I had even gotten interest in it from a
publishing house, but I wasn’t happy with the direction they were taking it, so
I ultimately decided to self-publish. I'd had a friend who had self-published
and who helped walk me through a lot of the process, which made it go so much smoother
than if I’d had to learn it all on my own.
The great thing with self-publishing is that you have the freedom to write, design, format, and market your book the way you want. As the author, you get the final say in everything. This is also the downside of self-publishing. You are responsible for all of those things yourself. You need to find and pay for a cover designer, formatter, editor, etc. or you need to learn how to do those things yourself. So, you have a lot of freedom when you self-publish that you don’t always have if you publish traditionally, but at the same time, you have a lot of responsibility, as well. And one of the big upsides of working with a publishing house is that you have access to the support system that they provide.
Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko |
3. RW: Would you
recommend self-publishing instead of traditional publishing?
EB: I think I’d recommend both, depending on
what an author wants to accomplish, how much control they want in the final say
for their book, how much help they want with the marketing, etc. I also think
it depends on the type of book they want to publish. Some books benefit more
from working with a publishing house than they do with self-publishing, but the
reverse is true, as well.
In the writing groups I’m a part of, I’m
seeing a lot less divide between traditionally published and self-published
authors, and more authors seeking hybrid status depending on what kind of book
they’re hoping to publish.
4. RW: With so many
stories under your belt, has writing helped you become good at time management?
EB: I think time management is the holy grail
for authors; we’re constantly looking for it. In some ways I’ve become better with it. I’m what I like to call a
“muse-driven” writer, so I find it tough to write when I’m not inspired. I can
make myself sit down and write when I’m not feeling it, but I almost always end
up editing all those parts out in the final cut, so I kind of see it as wasted
effort on my part. Now that I’ve been writing for a few years, I find I’m
better able to make use of my time when I am inspired. I still jump around from
section to section, but I usually tend to come into my writing sessions with a
better idea of which scene(s) I want to focus on, so I can get them done by the
end of the session.
5. RW: Do you have a
writing routine (hitting a certain word count per day, writing only at a
certain time of day/night, etc.)?
EB: I try to have a routine, but I’m not always
good at sticking to it. I can go long stretches where I don’t write at all, and
then I can have stretches where I’m up until 3 AM writing because I’m so
inspired. When I am in a writing mood, I try to focus on scenes rather than
word count goals because I’m very competitive with myself. If I write fewer
words today than I did yesterday, I’ll invariably get angry with myself for not
at least matching my previous word count goal, even if what I wrote today was
actually better than what I wrote yesterday. The only time I really worry about word count goals is during NaNoWriMo
because there is the final goal of getting to 50,000 words, so I do track my
word counts then to make sure I’m on track.
I definitely prefer to write late at night.
My optimal writing window is between 10 PM and 2 AM, but with an 8:30-4:30 day
job, that often doesn’t happen because I don’t function well on no sleep.
6. RW: Do you read your
book reviews? How do you deal with bad or good ones?
EB: I do read my book reviews, particularly
after a book's been published. As time goes on, I tend not to go back and look
at them, simply because I’m focused on writing my next book. Negative reviews do
bother me (I think even the most thick-skinned authors are bothered by them on
some level), but I had a lot of practice receiving writing feedback when I was in
Classics, so I kind of feel that I’m able to give myself a set period of time
to wallow, and then pick myself up again and assess whether the feedback is
valid, or if the reader just wasn’t right for that book.
I think one of the most powerful things
writers don’t realize about this job is that we don’t have to take on advice if
we don’t think it serves our novel. No
matter which aspect of writing we’re looking at, the author has the final say. If
a reader disagrees with the writer and gives them a negative review because of
it, but that review does not contain feedback that is applicable to the novel
or the direction of the series the author is going with, then they don’t need
to take that feedback on.
Photo by Ketut Subiyanto |
7. RW: Have you reached
your definition of literary success?
EB: I think the goal post, for me, is always shifting on what I define as “success” in this job. Certainly, hitting particular milestones like bestseller status with the first three of my books, and recently reaching 500,000 page reads on Amazon were big successes for me. But I don’t know that I quite feel like I’ve reached what I consider “literary success” just yet. I probably won’t know what it looks like until I’ve reached it.
8. RW: Has anyone or
anything helped you to become a better writer?
EB: Oh, so many have helped me as an author
that I couldn’t possibly name them all. There are tons of authors in the
writing communities on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram who have been an
invaluable support system for me, and who are more than happy to offer advice
when needed. I’ve also taken some
writing classes through Masterclass, which have been great. Hearing from
authors like James Patterson and David Baldacci and Margaret Atwood giving
advice on craft has been important. There’s also been my formatter, my cover
artists, my editors, beta readers, etc. that have all been so supportive. And, of course, the most important support
system has been my readers.
9. RW: If you didn’t
write, what would you do?
EB: If I wasn’t a writer, I’d probably still be a classicist. I love Classics & Archaeology, and I originally thought before becoming a writer that I was going to be a professor of Classics. So, I think that’s probably what I’d be doing if I wasn’t writing.
10. RW: What future
projects should we expect to see?
EB: I’m working on a lot of projects at the
moment that I’m very excited about.
First up, I’m working on a standalone in
the Aoife O’Reilly series that focuses on Connor and Mara (two secondary
characters from the first and second books), and their love story. This one
will be great for fans of the series because they’ll get to see more of that
time period between the first and second novels, and hopefully it will be a
good one for new readers to use as a launch point to the main series.
Also within the Aoife O’Reilly
universe, I’m working on a spin-off series based on a fan-favourite character,
Father Patrick. I’m hoping to explore more of his background before he came to Ballyclara
because I think there’s quite a story there to tell.
I’d also like to publish a murder mystery/thriller
duology I’ve been working on for a number of years. It’s been fun exploring a new genre outside
of women’s fiction, so I want to do more of that.
And last, but certainly not least, I’m getting back to my Classics education and working on a 3-4 book series focusing on Atlantis, which I’m thrilled about. I’m really bringing in my knowledge of the ancient world and creating this fictional universe in which Atlantis was a real place. It’s really got this historical fiction/adventure kind of vibe to it at the moment, though that may change depending on how the story develops.
Conclusion
Thank you so much, Erin, for letting me interview you and for sharing your story and love of writing with the world!
You can find Erin's books available on Amazon, and keep track of Erin's latest books by following her on Goodreads and Instagram! Speaking of her latest books, check out the one below!
Coming January 12, 2022: O'Leary's Pub
Get ready for the next tale from Ballyclara featuring the prominent O'Leary's Pub, which readers will remember from All That Compels the Heart. We'll see the backstory of how Michael Flanagan and Brendan McCaffrey came to own the pub.
Note: All book cover photos and her author photo in this post have been used with Erin's permission.
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