Hi everyone!

I was so excited recently to receive the latest copies of Pony Camp Diaries from Sweden and Norway! And as you can see, Sparks loves them too LOL!

 

Like me, he loves to eat while reading – although I prefer chocolate… :) 

Here he is hanging out with his buddy Apollo. Apollo is the herd leader of our tribe of six, which also include cheeky Mickey, soulful Rowan, and the two mares, mysterious Rainbow and kind Breeze.

https://vimeo.com/764073584

And here we are out on a ride! We do natural horsemanship, so that’s what the rope headcollars and reins are about. When you first start, you have to ride with one rein, and throw it over the horse’s head when you want to change direction – which involves being quick sometimes, if a tree is coming, LOL! It teaches you not to hang onto the reins, or rely on pulling to get your horse to do what you want, or hang on them to balance yourself – all kinds of reasons! I absolutely love riding out with Sparks – it’s absolute magic to be together out in nature, and with amazing friends.

https://vimeo.com/764074040

The string rein extender is my own invention LOL! Excellent for the foraging we do during our ride. Tracy (who is doing the camera work – wobbly because she is riding Apollo!) is a herbalist and she finds it really interesting to see what the horses are drawn to eating. She’s even planted herbs at our field so that the horses can self-select what they need to keep them healthy – it’s like having their very own herbal medicine cabinet! Sparks loves the hazel, and sometimes a bit of overhanging willow!

Happy horsing around everyone! As for me, I feel so inspired by my gorgeous Sparks, maybe it’s time for me to write a new pony series…

More Places We Write... by Kelly McKain

 More Places We Write... 

Well, as you can imagine, I was very thrilled when I sat down to write my blog for this month, to see that Claire Fayers had just written something about writing in different places. Which I was about to do. And still am - except now it's a follow on from Claire's piece.

It's been a very interesting couple of years for me, writing-places wise. I went through a divorce in 2020 and that, coupled with COVID making finding places to stay a challenge, gave me a very different landscape writing-wise.

First I found myself about to rent a small place in a nearby town to live and write for three days a week, and then the offices of the rental company (part of a country estate) suddenly closed due to COVID and I had nowhere to go. Some wonderful friends came to the rescue and we moved my caravan to beside their cottage. Owing to having to look after horses, I was permitted to travel there during lockdown (not in contact with anyone, I might add!) and work/live in the beautiful Willow for a few months on and off. I had the best view in Surrey, especially in the evenings!

In May, at Beltane, I danced under the big oak tree in the field adjoining the land I was staying on - boots kicked off, sunshine on my face, then went back to work via Whatsapp on a screenplay with the very talented SASsie Steve Gladwin.

In the late summer it was hot until almost midnight. I worked with the door and windows all open and there was plenty of inspiration for a fairy book in the fields nearby - where I walked barefoot for three days in a row over Lammas.

Winter 2020 brought a stay at a magical hut near Glastonbury and I so enjoyed walking with a rewrite of my YA fantasy novel, Green Witch (copy-edit of which just returned to my editor ten minutes ago - woo hoo!)

Spring saw an exciting move with my children into our own new home in West Sussex, and the discovery that I had bought an incredible sun-trap, which was sit-out-in-able right from March. From there, I got to work on a new mindfulness series out next year, The Feeling Good Club, and started my Intuitive Guidance and Energy Healing business.

 

Then to Bristol last autumn, where my lovely partner Tim lives - and the fantastic discovery of two things: First, the joy of Coffee #1 as a work space, where this February half term I worked up the synopses for a follow-up series to The Fairy House, which had been commissioned by my Japanese publisher. And second, the hilarity and companionship of working across a studio room with someone else, who occasionally erupts into fits of pique about missing or un-useable bits of things that he needs for doing stuff (as you can tell, the technical terms pass me by, but he's a video editor!)

Now, I'm sitting in my ex-husband's partner's study writing this, as I'm house-sitting while they're in Africa. It has grown dark outside while I've been writing, and, while it's not Claire's stunning view, the treetops, some branches still bare, look beautiful against the inky sky. Spring is coming, I'm very, very fortunate now to have my own lovely home to work in, but I've got the taste for writing here, there and everywhere again, and I can't wait to see what writing adventures and new views this year will bring!

by Kelly McKain

www.kellymckain.co.uk

https://kellymckain.co.uk/authors-hour-of-power/ Creative and strategic consultations for aspiring and working authors.

https://www.facebook.com/kelly.mckain.5/

Adventures in Spontaneous Fiction by Kelly McKain

 

At the Folly Farm Winter Warmer retreat, I managed to stay in bed until 12.45pm on the first full day and then sauntered down to the dining room for a delicious and huge lunch. It was absolute heaven, and so was the beautiful blazing fire pit, the cosy chats, the community and friendship and of course the very special memorial which we had for our dear friend Kit in the pavilion in the woods. The adopted Exmoor ponies came out to be with us, cantering about in the field, playfully rearing a little and nuzzling each other. They were just being in life's flow, expressing themselves, moment by moment. 

And in the two flash fiction sessions we had, guided by Claire Fayers and then by me, I felt a strong sense of being in that flow, as words appeared on the page in front of me. I wrote a ghost story using words of only one syllable. I wrote some contemporary romance - a man proposing to his boyfriend in a hung-over hotel room. Daniel and Jamie, to be precise. Within a page I felt like I knew them. I wrote of a witch of many talents, and a tavern owner of ill repute. Of ten dastardly devas looking for a fight in a teacup. Of spiders that weave webs that harden and snap, and taste like latticed caramel but melt lies onto your tongue. Of Betsy Big Boots, a little girl who is so full of spells and enchantments she has to wear chains to hold her to this earth.

I wrote an existential duologue called Frustration in the Police Station Interview Room. And a really dark fairy tale about a girl who does not want to go down into the engine room because Deadlock is there. Who the heck is Deadlock? I have no idea. He didn't exist five minutes before, and now he's down there. Skulking. Growling. In piles of old bones, newspapers, clumped hair. I wrote a poem with the opening line, which I gave everyone, of 'I've been meaning to tell you' that was all sparseness and white and blue, with a deep exhaustion at the centre of it. I wrote about what was in the room around me - the last three lines of that loose-form, sort-of poem were 'Creativity without agenda. Alive in this moment. Surrender.' which about sums it up.

I was like the ponies - just being, just playing, with life happening round me, and in me, and flowing through me and in my case, coming out of my pen. It was a beautiful experience. Just to be and breathe and write. Thank you Claire, and everyone, for the wonderful worlds we made with just a couple of one-hour sessions, pen and paper, and of course, being Folly Farm, the promise of home-made biscuits and fresh coffee afterwards... 

by Kelly McKain

https://kellymckain.co.uk/authors-hour-of-power/

Kelly offers one-to-one Authors' Hour of Power strategic/creative mentorship sessions to aspiring, new and established authors, and (occasionally) year-long mentorships, all to help you ignite your writing/publishing journey.

To read the pieces that came out of her pen (in all their scribbly glory!) visit https://www.facebook.com/authorshourofpower/

Folly Farm: Returning to Magical Places by Kelly McKain

This week I grabbed one of the final places at the SAS’s Folly Farm Winter Warmer retreat. I’m excited about the opportunity to connect and collaborate with old friends, and to meet new ones… And we certainly do collaborate and inspire one another! One year, Liz Kessler, with music playing in her headphones from the previous evening’s drinks, tunes and general vibe out, took an early morning walk with her camera… and came back with an entire novel fully formed, which had unfolded within her over the walk. I think it was the following year, or a couple of years after, she presented it to a very honoured June Crebbins, Elen Caldecott and I, dedicated to us with thanks for our little part in igniting the creation. The book? Haunt Me. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it. It’s got all the misty magic of that Folly Farm morning, and all of Liz’s breath-taking depth of spirit and breadth of heart held within it. And that’s just one Folly Farm creative story. I know there are many, many, many more! (If you have one, maybe add it in the comments!)

  

At Folly Farm (probably in about 2015), I began powerfully imagining and playing with a project of my own, Green Witch. I walked in the incredibly beautiful wild wood there and felt my characters come to life – Tol, the broody, beautiful, troubled young man who appears to be walking between worlds while in a coma, stalking terrified heroine Delilah in dreams and visions. I could almost see Delilah herself slipping between the trees ahead of me, a fragile, braced young woman with no confidence who then comes into her power as the next Green Witch in a long line, with a huge destiny and mission ahead of her. A bit slower off the mark than Liz (!) I wrote the book, and Green Witch is out next year. 

When I return to Folly Farm in January I’ll be walking in the same wild wood, soaking up the same magic, and closing some kind of circle with gratitude and appreciation as Green Witch is ushered out into the world on a wave of grace and magic (and like most of our beloved creations, probably a bit of a wing and a prayer!). I’ll be sitting by the fire with fellow writers - old friends and new – and all old souls for sure. We’ll be raising a glass to the beautiful, magical soul Kit Berry who very sadly passed away this year. Dear Kit, I will have a good roll round the floor to Wuthering Heights while screeching the lyrics at the top of my voice to properly honour you… 😉

Connection with nature is deeply sustaining, the friendship of warm, kind, funny people is deeply sustaining, writing and creativity is a deep, deep primal well of truth… Folly Farm has all of this, plus probably someone will bring a massive tub of Quality Street, and I cannot wait to find out what gifts are there for me in January…

Find Kelly at www.kellymckain.co.uk and www.soulsparks.space and out in the wild wood.

Open. Fresh. Ready for Adventure.

Open. Fresh. Ready for Adventure.

by Kelly McKain

 

When I first started writing, in the evenings and weekends, around my jobs in marketing and then teaching, it was the most exciting thing in the world. That was twenty years ago now. I would stick a pin in the tube map on the back of the London A-Z, travel from my first flat in Beckenham to the nearest station, walk out into a completely unknown area, find a café, and write. I would often start by writing about what was on the table – the shape of the salt shaker, the smear of ketchup on the cracked vinyl, or the spotless white linen, if I’d landed up in Chelsea. I’d explore further, into the sights, sounds, smells, the feel of things, the humidity, and when food came, the taste, the textures, the colours. Sometimes I got chatting to people – even made a friend. I was a big fan of Natalie Goldberg’s books Wild Mind and Writing Down the Bones, which are packed with starters to get you writing. 

Some of my favourites were when you start writing, pause then put ‘what I really want to say is’ and kind of drop down a level inside yourself and find a new starting point. Do that a few times and you’re deep into places either profoundly personal or intensely universal, into memory or imagination, or you’re writing yourself into natural wonders or Kubla Khan’s pleasure dome. The clatter of a tea cup at the next table would bring me abruptly back from what felt like some kind of shamanic journey. ‘What I really want to say is’ can lead you into a rampage of ranting fury or a bliss-soaked reverie. It can lull you into sharing your deepest secrets, maybe some you’d even been keeping from yourself, with the page - and possibly the old guy with the ragged beard but clearly pin-sharp eyesight who’s waiting too-close by for his takeaway americano.

I am one of those extremely lucky people for whom writing became my day job, and ‘work’ became drafts and edits and meetings and developing ideas and submitting proposals and lunches and chats and workshops in schools and book festivals. And, even, travelling to other countries on book tours (and having literally the most astonishingly lavish breakfast imaginable in a hotel in Warsaw – honeycomb in a glass case with a little tap included!). As well as, of course, the rejections and upsets and let-downs and financial lurching from feast to famine that are all par for the creative and freelance course. Along with my two wonderful children, along came routine and a kind of accountability that I was very happy to settle into for a few years. But they’re older now, and I have a new spring in my step following all the lockdowns and restrictions. Throw in the freedom of worry-free co-parenting and a few hours in a new city – Bristol, home of my beautiful partner - I recently took myself off on an adventure, just like in those early days.

It was absolutely lashing it down with rain and my feet already squelched in my boots – later they’d be sloshing. I walked up unfamiliar residential roads and glanced into windows, into lives. I walked across the downs, traffic loud on the wet main road, with absolutely no idea of where I was going. No one in the world knew where I was and I didn’t have to be back at a time do anything, or be on call, and then… my little, quiet adventure in the rain led me to a botanical gardens, which I had no idea was even there. 

It was surreal. One minute I was in the cold blustery rain, and the next I was in a tropical glasshouse, watching fish dart around a pool with vanilla, cacao and one of the four original citrus fruits, apparently (which I’d never heard of) surrounding me. I started with the fish, just like the salt shaker on the café table over two decades ago. I watched them under the sparkling water, felt the humid air, smelt the… what was it..? Where was it coming from..? A web of scents, from pond-dredgy sludge to heady spice. 

Rain hammered down on the high glass roof – rain from another climate, another country. Not a single other person was there – this adventure – this open, fresh, adventure – was all mine. And, for this author, it was the beginning of a whole new chapter.

by Kelly McKain

www.kellymckain.co.uk

www.soulsparks.space

'I am no longer an author!' by Kelly McKain

 

‘I am no longer an author!’

One day in 2015 I went up onto the glorious heathland where I live, and where I walked most days for a decade until I recently moved. There I proclaimed to the sky, trees, earth and probably a nearby spaniel or highland cow that I was no longer an author.

After over a decade in publishing, and, at that time, more than forty titles, I was at a powerful crossroads. I had enjoyed a great run with some popular series – mermaids, fairies, ponies, fashion, family and friends, comedy and drama – I’d written it, and absolutely loved doing so. I’d also loved meeting amazing, inspiring readers and young writers at events and school visits in the UK and beyond.

But I’d done it. It was done. Really, very, very done.

My editors were still keen to develop new series with me, and I tried a few ideas, but nothing really grabbed me, or them. Deep down I knew it was because I’d shared what was in my heart, got my stories down on paper and said what I’d wanted to say – which, in short, was that being human can be really hard, and growing up on our world as it is can be really, really hard, but that with love, and courage, and community, you can find your happy. You can create, collaborate, make discoveries and best of all, experience life’s true beauty, deep richness and raw, real juice.

So there I was… ‘I am no longer an author!’ I proclaimed. 

I felt an intense sense of freedom. Of excitement. Of possibility. Oh my goodness, I could become a Reiki master, or equine-assisted therapist, or work in my favourite health shop, or for a charity or maybe in a deli or…

An hour later I was down off the heath and back on my sofa, with a cup of tea. One of my cardboard folders caught my eye. I keep one for each idea that I have. I don’t even remember which one it was now. Or if I ever did anything with it. But it was calling me. Irresistible. It was saying, ‘You may not be an author anymore, but you could just have a look at this, this in here, just for the fun of it…’ So then the next thing I knew, I was reading through my notes, and then I was scribbling new ideas on them, moving concepts and themes forward, and watching characters come to life with traits and fears and hopes and dark secrets and big dreams – characters who hadn’t existed an hour before.

Of course I was an author, whether or not I ever published anything again. Whether or not it was a job or a hobby. I wasn’t getting away from myself that easily!

And then, back on the heath again, a few weeks or months later – after I’d given myself that permission, that break, that totally clean slate, Green Witch came along. Now, today, six years later, I’m sitting here doing the final prep on the Book 1 manuscript so that I can get it submitted to its publisher and then go and celebrate with a weekend in Glastonbury.

I remember the first moment of it – the first feeling of it in the ether. The very first ‘what if?’ that grew into a YA fiction trilogy and a TV adaptation. I saw a red kite, soaring above, and the feeling formed into a question: ‘What if I could just shift my consciousness and lift out of my body and find myself behind that bird’s eyes, swooping with it, living its experience?’

This led to ‘What if there was a parallel wild wood to this one where you could do that at will, and, in fact, manifest any magical helper or tool just by thinking about it?’

This led to, ‘And who might be in that parallel wild wood, doing such a thing?’ and then, ‘And why would they be there, and who would they be trying to help or save or rescue, and who from and why and…’

And with the author alive and well and thrumming and humming within me, sharpening her pencils and tapping her heels together three times, I began the journey of walking the world of Green Witch into the earth, and from there, writing it into this world we call home.

by Kelly McKain

www.kellymckain.co.uk

Rainbow Beauty - The Story of A Trilogy. By Kelly McKain

I’m really excited that the second book in my Rainbow Beauty trilogy, Strawberry Summer, is out today. 

Holding the lovely chunky finished book in my hands has got me thinking about when it was just an idea on a scrap of paper, and about the long journey that little first thought has taken.

It’s a journey that’s almost finished, as I’m just about to check over the copy-edited third book, Blueberry Wishes, so I’m just a hop, skip and some fun quiz and recipe-type endlims away from finishing the whole of Abbie’s story. 

Just to fill you in, when they find themselves penniless and about to be made homeless, Abbie, her mum and sisters start a new life in a grotty flat in a strange town, still reeling with shock. 

But then Abbie makes some lovely new friends (including the official Most Gorgeous Boy In The World) and comes up with the idea to start a beauty parlour in the empty shop below their flat. The book is full of family and friends’ drama, loads of business know-how, and a big helping of romance, too. 

Rainbow Beauty, the beauty parlour, and what you’d imagine was the core idea of the book, was something that came out of my mouth while chatting to my editor on the phone. Before I knew it I found myself going on about the family starting a business and Abbie making all the fresh, natural products right from scratch. As she asked for more detail, I waxed lyrical about Rainbow Beauty being a place to dream and scheme about the future, and heal their hearts.

I’m not sure where that all came from  - probably all embedded in my subconscious after all  the happy hours I’ve spent in Lush and The Body Shop, and in front of The Apprentice – but I couldn’t wait to get started.

             

So then came lots of planning. Here are a few of the resources I used.   

There were a lot of sample products, too, but when I came to take the pic I found I’d used them all! 

The lovely male ballet dancers who work in Lush Covent Garden helped me with my research, spending ages talking me through the products and demonstrating them on me (which was extra-nice as I was extremely pregnant at the time and appreciated a bit of pampering!). 

 I had to cost out everything for the business, find out about permits and cosmetic testing, and best of all, invent all the Rainbow Beauty products. 

I also had to gather loads of information about the town I was setting the books in, Totnes, including how long it takes to walk between each location, which supermarkets were within reach and all about the surrounding area. By the time I was calling the nearest college that offered beauty courses to find out in detail what they covered (Abbie’s sister Saff enrols) I realised I should probably stop the research and, you know, get on with making up the characters and what they do and stuff. 

Luckily for me, between all the ideas that had emerged from the research and all the scribbled notes I’d amassed from bits and pieces of thinking time (during ironing, train journeys and dog-walking, mainly, in my case) I appeared to have that pretty much covered. 

So then I wrote up my notes and make them into scene plans (I write in scenes rather than chapters) and worked those up. I got all my resources up on the wall in front of my desk, so there would be no excuse to wander off in search of a missing piece of information when I got writing.

 Then I stopped for a bit. Three months to be precise. Just for a rest before writing the book. Oh, and to have baby Freddie and get him to sleep enough at nights so that I could function (I was so tired I remember wailing to my husband, ‘I’ve just put my toothbrush in the fridge, how am I supposed to write a novel??’). 

But somehow that bit of my brain still seemed to be working so with the help of Messrs’ Twining and Cadbury I cracked on and wrote Peppermint Kiss in three months. Then came the other two books. For those I had the luxury of a little more sleep and time, though still with enough of a panic at deadline time to make me feel like I have a proper job with ‘targets’ and ‘stress’. 

 And now Freddie is two and a half, and the second book is out, and the third is about to go to the printers (and the e-bookers). I’m looking at my (OK, OK, slightly stalker-ish) Rainbow Beauty wall and realising it will soon be time to take it all down. But to be replaced with what? 

I’m not feeling the call of the next idea yet. I’m sure I will, but for now, I’m in the middle of a busy year getting round to schools and festivals to talk about the series (all three books are out this year). I really enjoy that so much – especially when they crack out the cakes, as here at St Eddie’s in Liverpool.

When I even so much as think about writing another three long novels back to back, it feels like my brain might actually explode. But I know it will happen, or a stand-alone, or a series. I know the next idea will come calling, and I’ll stockpile the Dairy Milk and build up another whole world from a scribble on the back of an envelope. I love finding that first spark, and writing and editing, and especially meeting readers and signing their books. 

I love the whole journey, and as this one isn’t over yet, I’m going to enjoy every minute I have left of it. And I wish all of you happy reading and writing too!