Lucy Inglis is a writer and historian. Her book, Crow Mountain, won the YA Romantic Novel of the Year award 2016 from the Romantic Novelist’s Association. The novel was published by Chicken House last September. LWC’s co-director, Kirsty McLachlan represents Lucy at DGA Ltd. and has now placed three YA novels by Lucy at Chicken House, and two non-fiction books at Penguin and Macmillan.
While on holiday in Montana, Hope meets local boy Cal Crow, a ranch-hand. Caught in a freak accident, the two of them take shelter in a mountain cabin where Hope makes a strange discovery.
More than a hundred years earlier, another English girl met a similar fate. Her rescuer: a horse-trader called Nate. In this wild place, both girls learn what it means to survive and to fall in love, neither knowing that their fates are intimately entwined.
Lucy’s top tips for budding writers:
1. BELIEVE. You can do it. Just write.
2. Be good to people. Publishing is a business built on nice people who like books.
3. Have more than one idea.
4. Decide if living on an unreliable income is worth it.
5. Love stories. Love your own and love other people’s.
If you can’t move forward on plot, pick a character and build a CV for them. Get to know them upside down and inside out. Get to know them to the point that you could answer for them in a job interview or on a speed date. You should know what’s in their pockets and what they think about at the bus stop, even if they’re actually a dragon rider in real life.
Follow Lucy on Twitter or read the first chapter of Crow Mountain!
If you’d like to work with Lucy’s agent at LWC’s Fiction Concept Refining and Proposal Writing workshop, book now. This will be held on May 5, 10-4 and will be led by agents and LWC directors, Kirsty McLachlan and Jacq Burns.
Or fancy a longer retreat – check out these Write a Bestseller Retreats coming up in Italy and Bali.
