As a general rule of thumb, I’m a one-book-a-year author. The Silent Chapter in 2022. The Summer We’ve Had in 2023. Love You However in March 2024. And – hang on. A Different Kind Of Pride in August 2024?
What on Earth could have possessed me to break this trend?
Let me explain.
Firstly, context.
A Different Kind Of Pride is about finding romance out of a spinal surgery. The medical side is, in fact, very much based on my own spinal fusion, back in 2017. Unlike Victoria, the main character, my spinal fusion was planned. Hers is an emergency, borne of a catastrophic car accident, but our experiences are very similar. I had, for a long time, been intending to write my experience into a book – it’s got to be good for something, right? And then, in the middle of writing Love You However, I had a sudden epiphany. Victoria Berry, the boss of protagonist Jean’s wife Petra, originally broke her leg in a car accident, setting off the chain of events that shaped the book. All I had to do was change it to a spinal injury – I make it sound so cavalier! – and hey presto. I had the basis for my next book.
At this time, December 2023, my life was a bit of a whirlwind. A close family bereavement tangled with job-hunting tangled with trying to finish Love You However so it could be beta read over the Christmas period. Oh, and holding down my existing job. And yet, in the back of what was left of my mind, Victoria and Anastasia were quietly scratching. Those scratches became niggles, the niggles became squeaks, and the squeaks rapidly became squawks. I’m sure the writers and creators amongst you are familiar. When I had a moment spare, I began planning in earnest. And when things started to cool down in February this year, I started writing.
I haven’t really touched on Anastasia yet. Why her? Why Anastasia Savchenko (pronounced Ana-stah-sia)? Well, her name came to me at random. I don’t know anyone called Anastasia, save for a young Ukrainian girl who one of my friends briefly hosted when the war in Ukraine first began in 2022. I don’t know how her name popped back into my mind, but it stuck. 'Savchenko' was completely random. I think it came from a Google search. But the names fit together, and they were a perfect fit for my strong-willed, self-assured, proudly-Ukrainian former nurse. And it was a way to subtly nod in Ukraine’s direction. Now the initial media frenzy over their situation has died down, it seems to me like the world has rather forgotten about them. This was my way of acknowledging them. I’m not an influential person – I can’t make waves, but I can make ripples.
The story grew faster than any of my previous ones, probably because I had a guideline and a timeline to follow based on my own experiences. When, in March, I got accepted for a new full-time position, I set myself a challenge to finish the first draft before I started the new job a month later. 50,000 words in four weeks. Obviously, it didn’t happen. But it was fun to try, and I think I managed 20,000.
Then the new job started, and my mental health fell down a rabbit-hole. I immediately knew it wasn’t for me – but what could I do? Walk out after two weeks? Instead, I threw myself into my writing. Every morning, evening, and often during the day too, I’d sit and think, “One day I won’t have to do this. One day I’ll be able to make a living from my writing. I just have to build it up slowly. One day.”
And that was what saved me. Genuinely. I don’t know what I would have done without Victoria and Anastasia, and I don’t want to think about that. It’s why I finished the book so quickly. I had the first draft done in June – four months is a record for me. Then it was a case, as usual, of beta reading, editing, reworking, taking out an entire backstory (Anastasia was supposed to be fresh out of a situationship, but I deleted that) – all the things that make a Katherine Blakeman book what it is.
The night before I released it, I listened to an album on repeat. Celine Dion’s 2019 album, Courage, was the soundtrack to my (admittedly brief) foray into traditional publishing. I would listen to it on repeat as I queried agents, researched them, and got rejected by them with The Silent Chapter. Last Friday, for some reason, I found myself listening to it again. And reflecting. I won’t bore you with most of my reflections, because they’re about my personal life and you’d be asleep before you actually got around to listening to the album, but here’s the main one: it fits. The album fits with the book. Victoria’s spent her whole life Flying On [Her] Own. Anastasia’s pondering Falling In Love Again. Both of them need to Say Yes. And both of them need Courage.
So do I. So do we all, we authors, to embark on these crazy journeys we begin every time we start a new manuscript.
That is, in short, the story behind my new story. If you want it in long, I’d probably have to write another book, and I’ve already got another one on the boil at the moment. (I’m saying nothing yet.)
All that remains is for me to point you in the direction of where to buy A Different Kind Of Pride. It’s the third instalment in the Bound By The Rainbow series – aka the same series as The Summer We’ve Had and Love You However, although all three can be read as standalones. It can therefore be found in the same place as them – on Amazon, and on Kindle Unlimited, by following this link. Prepare to watch the ice queen melt, drip by tantalising drip, warmed up by the effortless sunshine of a Cornish summer and a Ukrainian ex-nurse-turned-florist. (And the small matter of a car accident. But you’ll find out about all of that when you read it.)
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