Last November, I visited Chantelle on her blog The Glorious Outsiders. Now it is time for her to stop by on my blog. I asked her about her writing life:

Your website is called The Glorious Outsider, can you say a little more about why you chose that name?

• Yes, when I first started a blog it was just named after me, but a few years back someone I know online was sharing a lot of interesting content about building your brand and improving your website. It helped me think about my books and what I want my website to say about them, so I revamped my site accordingly. When thinking about what all my books have in common, I realised that all of my main characters are outsiders in one way or another, and also that none of them are ashamed of this. In fact, they take pride in it. That’s where the title Glorious Outsiders came from, and it just means people who are fine with being a bit different, or on the outside of something. It sums me up and my writing and my characters.

What have you written that you are most proud of?

• I would have to say the series I am working on, The Boy With The Thorn In His Side. It’s been such a long and complex journey. All my other novels were dreamed up, written down, published and dealt with. But this one first came to me when I was 12, and I wrote an early version of it at that age, again at 14, 16 and 19. It just wouldn’t go away and the characters have always been totally real to me. They are in my head almost constantly. I finally wrote it and published it in 2013 in two parts, and then went on to publish a sequel, This Is The Day, as the characters were still chatting to me, giving me ideas. I then revised it again a few years later and merged the two parts into one huge book. Since then ideas for a storyline that would slot between that book and the sequel would not leave me alone. To keep them quiet, I started penning a screenplay of this storyline, and this just encouraged it to get louder, so I then turned it into a novel. This led to the decision to revise The Boy With The Thorn In His Side yet again, split it back into two separate books, Part One and Part Two, release the new material as Part Three, revise and release what was the sequel as Part Four, and now inevitably, I’ve gone and written a rough draft of Part Five and plotted Part Six! What was a storyline I dreamt up as a 12-year-old will now be a six-part series I would describe as coming-of-age, suspense, crime and psychological thriller! Parts One and Two, with new covers have already been re-released and Part Three will be released at the start of February, with Part Four close after. I am proud of it, mainly because I wrote it purely for me, and because I still love the storylines and the characters so much, all these years later! I’m also proud of how much work has gone into it.

Would you say that what you write is character driven or plot driven?

• I’d say it’s character driven in that the characters always come first. I get them first and the background, storylines, back stories and so on always come after. I normally build a plot around the characters that have arrived.

If I was looking at your typical reader, who would I see?

• I thought about this recently and even blogged about it! I see my typical reader as someone a lot like me. Introverted but friendly, drawn to the dark side but eternally optimistic. I think they like character driven books, something hard-hitting and edgy. They might also be a music fan, and someone who craves nature.

Are there other writers or creative people in your family?

• Not really, I was always the only one, but two of my four children do enjoy writing. My son prefers drawing, but will write comic books and bits of narrative for this characters, and my eldest daughter writes a lot of crime based stories.

How does your writing fit in with the rest of your life?

• I make time for it every day. Now that my youngest has started full time school, I have a lot more time to work on writing in the day, but I do still do an hour or two each evening after he’s gone to bed as well. I run my own Community Interest Company which is writing based, so that keeps me busy as well, and I try to split my time equally between working on projects and events for that, and writing my own stuff. Writing is always in my head though. I’m the most distracted person I know, always in a dream, always thinking about the storylines and the characters!

You are in your dream location. Where are you?

• I would say, just over the road from my house, Sopley Common. It’s a beautiful, wild, untamed landscape of sandy hills, heather and gorse, heathland, woods and streams. Mostly unoccupied I find, meaning I can walk my dogs in peace and think about writing! It’s featured heavily in two of my novels, This Is Nowhere and Elliot Pie’s Guide To Human Nature.

How did you go about getting your first book published?

• I tried the agent and traditional publisher route for some time, and then decided to go with an indie publishing platform at the time called Autharium. They then went out of business and I put my books with Pronoun, who did a similar job but better. They then also went out of business, so I just self-published. Last year I signed up to an indie collective called Pict Publishing though. It’s still self-publishing but with a supportive network around you and the people running it have a lot of advice about marketing and promotional strategies, so I’m happy with it so far.

What one tip would you give to someone who says that they want to write a book?

• Stop thinking you don’t have time, you’re not good enough, it won’t sell etc. Just clear your mind of all negatives and just do it. Once you’ve got that first draft you’re halfway there, but you’ve just got to get it done. Get it out.

What are you working on at the moment?

• A few things! Obviously preparing The Boy With The Thorn In His Side Parts Threeand Four for release. Part Five is really calling to me for a second draft, but I’m trying to hold off at the moment, as I started a YA post-apocalyptic series I’m really passionate about, and it keeps getting side-lined. I’m up to Chapter 12 in book one and really want to get the first draft of book one done this year, so I’m dipping into it when I can. Obviously, the new releases come first and lots of preparation is going into that… Also, I have another YA book ready, A Song For Bill Robinson, and I want to send it out to a few publishers again, just in case. So I’m currently doing a read through on Word and trying to get the word count down, while also putting together a synopsis and a list of possible publishers. If no luck, I will also place it with Pict Publishing and release it towards the end of 2019 I expect. I’m also working on a second short story collection. I tend to accumulate them and released a collection in 2016. I also have some poetry this time around, which is new territory for me, but if I’m feeling really brave they will go into this collection and it will possibly get released this year.

What do you hope to achieve in the next five years?

• I hope The Boy With The Thorn In His Side six part series is all finished and published. I’d then like to work on screenplays and try submitting them to competitions etc. I hope to have also completed the YA post-apocalyptic series and have published it. The short story and poetry collection will be out. The Ya book A Song For Bill Robinson will be published and it’s sequel, which I’ve also written, Emily’s Baby. If they are all out and done, I hope to be working on either the sequel to The Mess Of me and/or the sequel to The Tree Of Rebels, plus there is another book I have planned, which is sort of a spin-off book from The Boy series. Two characters appear in Part Five and Six and they are going to be getting their own book! I think that will keep me busy!

Chantelle Atkins was born and raised in Dorset, England and still resides there now with her husband, four children and multiple pets. She is addicted to reading, writing and music and writes for both the young adult and adult genres. Her fiction is described as gritty, edgy and compelling. Her debut Young Adult novel The Mess Of Me deals with eating disorders, self-harm, fractured families and first love. Her second novel, The Boy With The Thorn In His Side follows the musical journey of a young boy attempting to escape his brutal home life and has now been developed into a 6 book series. She is also the author of This Is Nowhere and award-winning dystopian, The Tree Of Rebels, plus a collection of short stories related to her novels called Bird People and Other Stories. Her next book Elliot Pie’s Guide To Human Nature was released through Pict Publishing in October 2018. Chantelle has had multiple articles about writing published by Author’s Publish magazine.

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