Jo Lyons: 'Writing courses gave me the confidence to forge my own path'
BY Maya Fernandes
26th Feb 2018
In this interview Jo Lyons, bestselling romantic comedy author, shares her journey to publication and advice for aspiring authors.
‘I find writing three bullets at the start of each chapter of what has to happen keeps me focussed and on track with scenes . . . I aim for a chapter per day which is very ambitious and often unattainable, but it is important to at least try.’
We caught up with Jo to discuss her time studying with us and the inspiration behind her Benidorm-set romantic comedy series.
How did your love of reading start, and when did writing your own stories become something you wanted to pursue seriously?
I was never read to as a child at home. My great-grandmother died when her children were young, so my mother was never read to either. So it was at school that I discovered books, but they were dull as anything. It was my sister’s collection of over a hundred Sweet Valley High books that got my full attention. Why was she hoarding them? Why was she being so secretive reading late into the night with a torch? Then one thing led to another (I was in my light-fingered sibling era) and before I knew it, I’d read them all. Writing my own romance came after I read the Helen Fielding books. She made reading effortless and I naturally (and very wrongly) assumed writing romantic comedy must be easy and pleasurable. It took only one agent rejection to derail me, and it was twenty years before I ever tried to write again. When I think back now, I could cringe at the lack of resilience. It took the unexpected death of my beloved father to inspire me to write a novel that would take a grieving protagonist from a dark place to a more hopeful and happier existence.
Your novels have gone on to become bestsellers, and you’ve been shortlisted for the Comedy Women in Print Awards. Looking back to the start of your career, how has your relationship with writing evolved over time?
At first, I was in search of an outlet for my grief and found myself instinctively following a natural writing rhythm because I hadn’t yet taken a writing course to understand even the basics of structure, character arcs, POVs. I literally knew nothing. And I certainly never set out to write comedy. And turning fifty, I also struggled with feeling that maybe I was too old to learn how to write a novel. Half the time I can’t remember what series I’m in the middle of binging and yesterday I forgot the word for ‘U-bend’ (it came to me at 3am in case you’re wondering).
Anyway, after my first CBC course, I was lucky enough to work alongside two literary agents, one in New York and one in London. But I was dismayed at how long everything was taking – even the simple act of responding to emails – so when my mother’s dementia took a turn for the worse, I took the decision to self-publish so that I could at least get my book in her hands. Back then it was a bold move because it was largely considered that you’d never then get offered a traditional publishing deal and people in the industry would look down on you.
The writing courses gave me a newfound confidence to forge my own path. It was at this time that my relationship with writing changed exponentially. I lost my job overnight during Covid and I needed a flexible replacement because my mother needed me. So, writing became my business. I was hungry to make it a success. The more I could learn, the better I would become. I enrolled on yet another CBC course! I self-published six novels within two years (agonising on the spine – I wouldn’t recommend it!) which was hard work but exhilarating.
About 18 months in I decided to go hybrid and as there wasn’t time to get another agent on board, I found myself acting as my own agent to negotiate a one-book deal up to a ten-book deal – very scary as I was choosing between a couple of the big 5 traditional publishers and an independent publisher. No one is more flabbergasted than me at how I managed it.
Girls Just Want to Have Sun is the first book in your Benidorm-set series, published by Boldwood Books last year. What drew you to this setting, and how did the idea for the series first take shape?
As I’ve mentioned, I wrote the story largely as a free form of therapy to cheer me and my sisters up. And just prior to this, I had become a woman in the throes of hormonal collapse and in desperate need of sunshine and a hobby. So, I moved my whole family to Albir, Spain for the cultural adventure of a lifetime hoping that my children would become over-achieving multi-linguists while I penned a Netflix-worthy bestseller on the plane commuting back and forth for work.
Turns out it is a lot harder than it sounds. But I did get a lot of eye-opening inspiration for characters on those budget airlines. Until Brexit put an almighty spanner in the works, of course.
But to answer your question, it’s about a classical singer who loses her mother and hits rock bottom when she’s sent to Benidorm to sing cheap covers to a sea of bald heads.
What are your top three tips for aspiring authors?
- I find writing three bullets at the start of each chapter of what has to happen keeps me focussed and on track with scenes – that is a Jenny Colgan trick and very effective.
- I then take these three bullets, condense the scene to one or two words each e.g. lost luggage/hotel mix up/argument and put them into a simple table. If the book is 30 chapters long, I have 30 boxes. Each box is a chapter with 3 bullets, all on a single page. So, at a glance, I can hold the entire book in my head this way. It helps with pacing, ensuring hooks at the end of each chapter and reminds you of where you are in the story if you have taken a break from writing.
- I aim for a chapter per day which is very ambitious and often unattainable, but it is important to at least try. Once the first draft is finished, I then use The Word-Loss Diet by Rayne Hall. I absolutely swear by it for self-editing, and it is incredibly easy to follow. It vastly improves your writing for next time too and is very cheap to buy!
You studied with us on our flagship online Writing Your Novel – Six Months course, as well as several short courses. How did your time with us shape your approach to writing?
Because I’m quite modest, I will just say that the whole experience, the learning, the feedback, the constant cheerleading took my manuscript from being a rough, unwieldy and somewhat directionless story with potential (I changed 60% of it during the course) to a must-have, hilariously funny, unputdownable, best debut novel series of all time (Goodreads’ words not mine), five-star, award-winning romantic comedy trilogy. That’s how beneficial these courses are and how talented the tutors are. They helped me craft my work into shape. And the comedic elements went from being ‘shoehorned in’ to seeming ‘effortlessly organic’ which I learned to do through developing the characters. I’m now writing my ninth novel and still learning.
Many of our students find lifelong writing friends on our courses. Are you still in touch with anyone you met on the course?
I speak to my writer friends daily and we have regular monthly video chats, workshopping each other’s work. I’d encourage anyone thinking of writing to keep in touch with the friends they meet on these courses because they will make writing joyful, and you will learn so much from them. I credit my writer friends with any success I have. Without them there would be no debut novel, no book deals, no career. I had such self-doubt at the beginning, especially when self-publishing where you don’t have a team from a traditional publishing house around you to validate what you write. They always have my back. It helps that they are enormously talented themselves so I’m in very good hands.
And finally, what’s next for your writing journey?
Another writing course, of course! I write in a certain genre for my publisher which I’ll continue to do but I want to write radio plays and a psychological thriller about the spirit world (my sister and my friend both saw the same ghost at the same time, my other friend has things that move in her house – fascinating stuff but keep that to yourself because I haven’t told them yet) and I’ve started a book about how annoying cranky, middle-aged husbands can be hahaha (obviously don’t tell my husband I said that either).
Jo Lyons is the bestselling author of six romantic comedy novels. Girls Just Want to Have Sun was recently shortlisted for the Comedy Women in Print Awards and is the first of ten novels to be published with Boldwood Books.
Jo studied on our Write to the End of Your Novel, Edit & Pitch Your Novel, Writing a Romance Novel and online Writing Your Novel – Six Months courses from 2019 to 2021.
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