The Origins of Sinister Sisterhood
In 2005, before I had even thought about writing, my husband and I bought a rundown house with a bit of land in the middle of almost nowhere. I was working on and off in finance because, naturally, the house was a money pit. When I wasn’t working I was designing, tiling, painting and ordering the builders around. The land was an even bigger challenge. I was determined to return the land to pasture and replace failing fencing with good native hedging.
As a newcomer with no friends in the area I was completely isolated during the day. That’s when I discovered Twitter. I loved it and quickly grew a collection of entertaining virtual friends with whom I could share experiences of planting mishaps and foraging rabbits and deer. But it wasn’t enough. A 140 character limit was too severe. I was invited to join Google Plus and as suddenly as my paddock boundaries went up, my writing boundaries came down. I had unlimited access to write. So I did.
My experiences were turned into poems and tiny stories. I progressed to writing stories about my online friends and killed them with things they’d mentioned in their posts. A shoe fetishist was suffocated by a lorryload of discarded shoes. A singer electrocuted by the mic… you get the picture. I wrote a radio play voiced by friends from all over the world. I began to do NaNoWriMo and the rest of the time I wrote flash fiction and unprompted stories from my head.
By 2015 I had written a short story about a badass bookkeeper. I called her Beryl because a seaside fortune-telling machine from years ago predicted that someone called Beryl would become very important to me. My online friends seemed to like her and it spurred me on. What next? Maybe a cleaner. What could a cleaner do that was so bad? It quickly progressed. What about a whole team of women, all with different skills and abilities? What would you call a team like that? The title came to me instantly. Sinister Sisterhood was going to be a full-length novel and clearly, since Beryl had initiated the whole thing, she was the first character.
Chloe, the chemical genius cleaner came next, but somebody had to be in charge. Maybe it would be an agency for criminals… Who would run the agency? Enter Elle Scarlett. But she needed motivation. Would it be money, or something more meaningful? As an animal lover, like many I was outraged by the shooting of Cecil the Lion. It was a small step to making the team’s cause that of Animal Activism. For which, of course, I needed a devilish villain.
As a kid, I played with train sets and cars. Maybe I could have become a mechanic if the openings had been there. Enter Penelope. I was a tomboy. Enter Harry. The story grew every day and I was determined that my women would be as good – and as bad – as any man. New characters turned up in my head, wanting to join the team. I decided that they would have their own agendas, which would not include finding a husband and having children. And they would be international.
About halfway through, I decided on the ending and that’s when it all began to fit together. Yes, it was a horrible rambling mess, but I asked a professional reader for notes and her response was both rewarding and helpful. In brief, she loved it but it needed to be tamed. Then came the rewrites and more rewrites, and if I’m honest, I would probably rewrite again.
Then I had a lucky break. A new publisher, BAD PRESS iNK, was looking for niche submissions. At last I had a description for my genre! Niche fitted extremely well and with that and the fact that we both had BAD in our names, I was convinced it was a perfect fit. I felt sure that Sinister Sisterhood had found its rightful home and was delighted when BAD PRESS iNK agreed with me.
Whether or not the world is ready for my ladies, the book is out now and I couldn’t be happier.
No comments yet.