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.