Happy Friday my bookish friends! This week has been a really really long one so I’m ready for the end of today and the weekend as well. But with the weekend comes the end of February and the end of Fantasy Feb too. Today is the last feature post before my wrap up of the month and it’s with two of my favourite authors. I’ve met them and they are just so lovely and their books are amazing too.

Today’s post is another one from my new author series called ‘In the Mind of an Author’ where I feature authors talking about being a writer and different aspects of it. Kate and Liz Corr are talking about their workspace when writing their latest book, A Throne of Swans. Here is a little bit about the book…

In a world where the flightless are ruled by those who can fly...
When her father dies just before her birthday, seventeen-year-old Aderyn inherits the role of Protector of Atratys, a dominion in a kingdom where nobles are able to transform at will into the bird that represents their family bloodline. Aderyn's ancestral bird is a swan. But she has not transformed for years, not since witnessing the death of her mother - ripped apart by hawks that have supposedly been extinct since the long-ago War of the Raptors. 
With the benevolent shelter of her mother and her father now lost, Aderyn is at the mercy of her brutal uncle, the King, and his royal court. Driven by revenge and love, she must venture into the malevolent heart of the Citadel in order to seek the truth about the attack that so nearly destroyed her, to fight for the only home she has ever known and for the land she has vowed to protect.
Written in rich detail and evocative language, this is the start of an irresistible, soaring duology about courage, broken loyalties and fighting for your place in the world.

A Room Of One’s Own

Since we’re sisters who write together, people often ask what that means in practice. Do we actually sit side by side with our laptops and type away at the same time? The short answer is DEFINITELY NOT! We actually might kill each other if we were forced to work like that. We do sometimes work in the same physical place, but usually only at the start of a draft, when we’re thrashing out the idea, or at the end when we’re going through a final proofread. The rest of the time, we like our own space. So these spaces are what we’re going to share with you today.

Kate

The space I work in is quiet (I have to have ABSOLUTE SILENCE when I’m writing, I was clearly an old-school librarian in a previous life) and is set up mostly so I don’t do my back in. The bottom of my spine is slightly twisted, so hours hunched over a laptop literally left me hunched over (and in quite a lot of pain). Instead, I now have a screen that I plug my laptop into and an ergonomic split keyboard which took a while to get used to but which I’ve grown to LOVE.

Also on my desk you’ll spot a printed out first draft of A Crown of Talons (a physical copy is really helpful for structural edits), a folder of notes, a few of my many, many notebooks and a Poldark coaster because AIDEN TURNER IN A CRAVAT. There is usually also a half-drunk cup of tea. (Or more than one, if I’m honest, because I keep making more tea without taking the old cups back to the kitchen. I tidied up before I took this photo.)

I have my favourite blanket over my chair because I have zero circulation and get cold easily, and close to hand are some marker pens and a roll of magic whiteboard sheets – really useful for brainstorming!

Liz

For me, writing time is a bit more ‘unstructured’ – I cram it in whenever I can.

My children are still young and I’m a single parent; surprisingly enough, writing when the kids are at home can be quite challenging! Partly because of this I tend to move around the house a lot. I often gravitate to the kitchen, so as to be near the all-important tea and biscuits (note the KitKat and Darth Vader mug in the photo); it’s also a good place to hole up after the kids are in bed.

During the day I might work in my living room with the cats (on my fabulous recliner) or, if it’s a particularly cold and unwelcoming day outside, I love editing in bed (which I’m really not supposed to do as I also have a bad back). If I’m drafting, I might actually sit in the ‘study’ (aka spare bedroom crammed to the ceiling with books, discarded toys, clothes that my kids have grown out of and all sorts of other junk). Wherever I am, I ALWAYS have one of my playlists on. I’m particularly fond of one I’ve labelled ‘Dramatic’ which has lots of Two Steps From Hell and music from various soundtracks – anything by Harry Gregson-Williams normally does it.  Unlike Kate, I love a bit of background noise!

We really hope you’ve enjoyed this peek into our writing lives. Thanks so much to Emma for organising Fantasy February and for hosting us! 

Thank you so much Kate and Liz for coming on my blog for Fantasy Feb.

About Kate and Liz

We are sisters and best friends (try writing a book with someone else and you’ll see why that last bit is kind of important). After spending our childhood in Essex, we now live ten minutes away from each other in Surrey. We both studied history at university and went to work in London for a bit. When we both decided to write novels – on account of fictional people being much easier to deal with than real ones – it was obvious we should do it together.

Stuff Katharine likes: playing instruments badly; dead languages; LOTR; loud pop concerts; Jane Austen; Neil Gaiman; Loki; the Surrey Hills. Killing off characters.

Stuff Elizabeth likes: sketching, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, cinema, long baths, kitchen discos, Terry Pratchett, Thor, London. Saving characters.

Stuff we both like: YA / non-YA fantasy and science fiction, Star Wars, Star Trek, each other (most of the time).

Website | Twitter – Kate | Twitter – Liz | Instagram – Kate | Instagram – Liz