Hello Mick. It’s so wonderful to be welcoming you back to Novel Kicks. Thank you so much for inviting me onto the blog tour for The Lumberjills Take A Stand. Where do we find the cast of characters at the beginning of this new book?

Hi Laura! I’s wonderful to be with the Novel Kicks blog once again. After the first Lumberjills book had been written, I wasn’t sure if I would be writing anymore, having begun the book as a standalone. However, it turned out that people seemed to like the story. The girls are still in the same village, still at Wipers Farm, only they’ve just received notice to move, not an unusual thing for the real girls. The girls themselves are alright with this, though not everyone on the farm is, with young Harry (Harriet) particularly upset. For one of the girls, there is the excitement of finding love and a possible future, once the war is over.

How has your writing routine changed since your first novel? Do you have any writing rituals?

Not too much has changed. I’m still more of a punster than a planster, though once I stumbled across the central story regarding the segregation between white and black soldiers enacted by the USA during WW2, that’s where I found myself being even more careful than usual with getting things right. Yes, I am still mostly writing with my laptop on my lap, usually with Gus (one of my Romanian Werecats) hogging the majority. I end up holding him on with one hand, so I reckon about 70% of this book was written one-handed.

How do you approach the research and editing processes and what advice do you have for each? How do you know when you’ve done enough?

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