Please welcome fellow Headline Accent author Colette McCormick author of An Uncomplicated Man and three other wonderful books, as my delightful guest.

Let’s find out about Colette and her life:

Colette was born and bred in Sheffield but now calls Co Durham home after living there for almost four decades. As well as writing books, Colette has worked as a retail manager in the charity sector for almost twenty years, firstly with Cancer Research UK and currently with Barnardo’s.

As well as writing, Colette loves cooking, gardening, and taking long walks in the gorgeous countryside that surrounds the village she lives in. She has been married for almost forty years, has two grown-up sons and a daft dog.

And now to the nitty-gritty – her writing in her own words:

Dream job? Not really.

As a child who enjoyed writing and had a dream of having just one published, you’d think that with four books under my belt I’d be living the dream. If only life was that simple.

When Things I Should Have Said and Done was published in 2016 I thought I had it made. I thought that people would buy it, love it, recommend it to friends and it would be a best seller. Ha! Welcome to the world of the writer my friend.

It is the story of a young mum, Ellen, whose life is tragically cut short when a driver runs a red light and hits her head on. Although she is dead, she is still here and bears witness to the aftermath of her passing. She watches her beloved husband Marc struggle to be a single parent to their daughter Naomi and can only stand by as her mother falls apart. Or can she? George, her companion, shows her that there is a way that she can still influence things.

More than one person has said that it would make a great movie and I agree but I am, as yet, still waiting for the call.

My second book Ribbons in Her Hair is very special to me and I dedicated it to my late mother and to my sister who were the women that put ribbons in my hair (so to speak.) I was fortunate enough to always feel loved but that isn’t the case for everyone. I was the baby of the family and as my sister is twelve years older than me in some ways it was like having two mothers. My mum was the one that put the actual ribbons in my hair but my sister was the one who made my birthday cakes and taught me how to knit. My mother sadly passed away as I was writing this book and it was hard to resist the temptation to put more of my mother into Jean. As it is, their only similarities are that they were both obsessively house proud and made beautiful mashed potatoes.

Rather than a film I see this as a gritty Northern drama on Channel 4.

In a nutshell, my third book Not My Brother’s Keeper is the story of two brothers and a girl. Robert and Tom are almost identical in looks but so different in every other way. Robert is outgoing and confident whereas Tom is shy and reserved. Maybe it shouldn’t be a shock to anyone that they react very differently to the same situation.

In some ways it was an easy book to write because I am the mother of two sons but that was also the reason that in other ways it was very difficult. I had to be careful not to reflect either of my sons on the page because this wasn’t a story about them.

This would sit nicely on ITV on Sunday nights, I think.

Which brings me to my last book. An Uncomplicated Man is set in the late 1950’s and is the story of Daniel and Lucy. Daniel is the uncomplicated man that the title refers to, a mild-mannered bank manager who happens to get involved with a complicated man and his equally complicated daughter.

It is a bit darker than the rest of my books inasmuch as it deals with the seedier side of life. Of this book, one person said that they wanted to slap Lucy across the face and another that they wanted bad things to happen to them all because they were all bad people. I can understand both of these things I’m afraid because there is little to redeem any of them.

Where would I see this one? The same place that I would see any of them and that is anywhere. Big screen or little I don’t mind. Now that would be a dream come true.

Colette, thanks so much for giving us such a wonderful introduction to your writing and I hope that you find yourself watching your creations on the big (or small) screen sometime soon. We shall keep and eye out too. It’s been a pleasure having you as my guest and I hope visitors here will seek out your books. Once more thanks for sharing your writing story with us. Wishing you much future success.

You can find Colette’s books here:

Buy Links

Things I Should Have Said and Done

Ribbons in Her Hair

Not My Brother’s Keeper

An Uncomplicated Man

Media Links

Facebook Author Page

Twitter

Blog – On Books and Life in General