Guest Post The Mysterious Bakery on Rue De Paris by Evie Gaughan

What They Say:

This is the magical tale of Edith Lane, who sets off to find her fortune in the beautiful city of Paris.  Fortune, however, is an unpredictable thing and Edith ends up working in a vintage bakery in the positively antique town of Compiegne.  Escaping heartache and singledom in Ireland, Edith discovers that the bakery on Rue De Paris is not exactly what it seems and that some ghosts from the past are more difficult to vanquish than others.  

A heartwarming story that is sure to appeal to all the senses, The Mysterious Bakery On Rue De Paris is a mouth-watering journey to love, liberty and la vie en rose.  

Writing Tips from Evie Gaugham

Now that I have two books under my belt, I can safely say that I have learned a lot about the writing process.  While every writer must find their own path and their own way of doing things, I have a few tips that I’d like to share with anyone who is starting out in their writing career.

The first and most important point that I learned, was that in order to get good at writing, you need to be willing to write some truly awful drivel at the outset.  I often think writing is like skiing; you watch other people do it and it looks so easy that you think, “I could do that!”.  But it soon becomes clear how challenging it actually is and the results can leave you frustrated and tempted to give up.  It’s completely natural; of course your first attempts are going to be clumsy, but you have to stick at it and hone your skill.  There are fantastic online resources where you can share your writing and have it critiqued, or go the old fashioned route and join a creative writing class.  Keeping a blog is also a great way to practice your writing.  I myself wrote short stories for magazines, then feature articles and eventually a novel.  So don’t expect yourself to be a literary genius from the moment you decide to become a writer – allow yourself the time to experiment and to grow.

This leads me nicely to my second point.  My very first novel, which still lies in a dusty old folder on my computer, unpublished, taught me a very valuable lesson.  It helped me to discover my writer’s voice.  When I wrote the book back in 2008, I was a huge fan of Maeve Binchey and Marian Keyes and subconsciously wrote the kind of story that I thought reflected their style.  Big mistake.  The fact is, I didn’t feel free as a writer because I was limiting myself to the kind of writing style I enjoyed reading.  But Maeve Binchey and Marian Keyes were already writing those kinds of books, imminently more successfully than I ever could, so did the world really need a mediocre imitation of something that had already been done?  That was when I realised that I needed to uncover my own writing voice, so I could interpret the story from my unique perspective, using the kind of language and style that would set me apart from other authors.  That was when I wrote my debut novel, ‘The Cross Of Santiago’.

Thirdly, structure (groan!).  I know, I know, trying to squeeze your creative juices into some kind of structure can seem like mission impossible.  However, there are certain things you can do to prevent distraction when it comes to getting words onto the page.  My golden rule is to write using a computer that doesn’t have an Internet connection.  It’s so easy to get sucked into social media and whatnot when you’re just doing some fact-checking for your novel online.  At least try and disconnect for a set amount of time so you can reach your word-count targets without that pesky Interweb interrupting you.  Also, I would have to recommend giving National Novel Writing Month a go.  Every November, the challenge is to write a novel (50,000 words) in a month.  If it sounds crazy – it is!  But it’s achievable.  In fact, ‘The Mysterious Bakery On Rue De Paris’ was born during that month and it was the most frenetic yet productive writing period I’ve ever experienced.  It taught me the value of daily word-count targets and more importantly, the ability to keep on writing every day without the gravitational pull towards constant editing.  When writing my first novel, I would edit constantly along the way, so this exercise taught me how to get the bones of the story down, before adding the ‘meat’ later.  

So that’s it folks, my top three writing tips. 

1. Practice makes perfect.  
2.  Find your voice.  
3.  Keep a routine that works for you.  Best of luck and keep writing! 

About the Author

Hi, my name is Evie Gaughan.

At school, I often fancied myself as a bit of an Emily Brontë , as Wuthering Heights is one of my all-time favourite novels. However, I decided to take the long way round, which involved getting my diploma in Marketing and Social Studies, travelling abroad to France and Canada as well as the UK, working in some cool places and some not-so-cool places, meeting new people and leaving others behind, until ultimately I found my writing voice and the life experience to tell a story well.

I’m currently living in my home-town of Galway, Ireland and unlike Emily Brontë, I’m currently working on my second novel which I hope to release early next year.


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