One of the most common questions asked of authors is this:
“Where do you get your ideas from?”
From my actual life, is the answer.
When all my children were still at primary school, I helped to run an ambitious Christingle. We had around twenty-five angels of varying sizes, seven Wise Men, eight shepherds, an innkeeper and the Holy Family, comprising Mary and Joseph plus the Baby Jesus played by somebody’s doll. At the dress rehearsal, there was a punch-up between the innkeeper and one of the shepherds. Central Casting (me) had forgotten that they loathed each other. A wrangler was appointed for each people group to ensure there was no recurrence of violence. Nits broke out amongst the heavenly host. There was a lot of scratching.
Read MoreApril is one of my favourite months for several reasons. It’s Mr Leigh’s birthday, the bluebell wood next door bursts into bloom with its intensely blue fragrant carpet, daffodils are over, camellias are on their last gasp, but the wisteria is starting to come out as are leaves on the trees and the forget-me-nots which I definitely didn’t plant last year. 7th April is the anniversary of the creation of Isabella M Smugge and reminds me of that moment when a ludicrously self-satisfied woman with everything money could buy sprang into my mind and started off my fiction career.
Read MoreSince I became a fiction writer, I’ve been privileged to go and help with Year Nine and Ten Careers Days around Suffolk, to give talks on World Book Day and to deliver inspirational workshops. What, you might be asking, has a woman in her riper years got to say to a bunch of GenZs who know more about technology than she ever will, who are inheriting an earth which looks entirely different to the one she inhabited at fourteen and fifteen and who, we must hope, will make decisions as adults that mean that love wins over hate and compassion over greed.
Read MoreBack in 2001, along with much of the rest of the UK population, I started watching a new kind of television show. It purported to be a documentary, set in a fairly ordinary, Slough-based company. The camera lingered too long on participants’ awkward expressions, it picked up whispered conversations which weren’t meant for public consumption and it kicked off one of the most hotly debated, “Will they, won’t they?” office relationships in the shape of Tim and Dawn.
Read MoreThis month marks the fifth birthday of the publication of my first novel, The Diary of Isabella M Smugge. I made her up as a joke for a blog I wrote in April 2020, sick of people on Instagram banging on about baking banana bread, living their best lives, making memories and doing Joe Wicks every morning. There was a point when I was publishing four blogs a month. I was rarely stuck for ideas. Fifty-four years of life experience and obsessive reading had filled up the header tank in my brain to the very brim.
Read MoreWelcome back to the Ruth Leigh Writes blog! If you’re reading this, it’s because you subscribed (thank you), you follow me on the socials, you read my books or we’ve met at an event. However you know me, it’s good to have you along.
Read MoreNewsletter Time! Sparkles, School Talks and Colin’s Antics
Welcome to this month’s round-up from your friendly neighbourhood author (that’s me, Ruth Leigh). I’ve finally handed over My Own Darling Child for editing—yes, it’s happening—and I’m already plotting the next book with some familiar Issy Smugge flavour stirred in. Between literary festivals, creative writing workshops, school visits and the ongoing adventures of Colin (who is, once again, upright and adored), it’s been a joyful whirlwind. There’s even a surprise book review and a chance to meet me (and possibly Colin) in person. Pop the kettle on and have a read…
Read MoreI’m back! It’s been a while since I wrote anything for my own blog. I’ve been busy writing the three Isabella M Smugge books, my first collection of Jane Austen short stories (I’ll tell you about that in the next blog) and generally throwing myself headfirst into the life of a full time writer. Back at the end of 2021 when I considered what that would look like, I visualised days full of ideas and creativity, books selling in huge numbers, people coming up to me in the street and murmuring, “Aren’t you – Ruth Leigh?” Lots of fun stuff has happened and it’s been great, but glamorous it ain’t.
Read MoreWriter, Andy Chamberlain, interviews Ruth Leigh as part of the blog tour for The Continued Times of Isabella M Smugge.
Read MoreIt’s been quite a while since I published anything on here. In my defence, I have been quite busy, writing novels (three published in eighteen months), doing my freelance work and keeping the family alive. But you know, it’s time! It really is. These days, all the evidence points to me being a Proper Writer.
Read MoreJust for a laugh, I made up a woman who was the complete opposite of me. Rich, posh, skinny with an agent and a publisher and a gorgeous Grade II listed house. Out it went in April and got good comments. On 7th May, I wrote about her again and to my utter amazement received the following message from Tony Collins, a literary agent.
Read MoreThe online book launch for the Trials of Isabella M Smugge. Back in the day (by which I mean when we didn’t routinely wear masks and bandy terms like, “LFT” and “PCR test” around), authors, what had written books, would have book launches. These would take place in bookshops, or pubs, or libraries, they tell me. Lots of people would come, buy their signed copy, listen to the author speak and sip fizz and nibble canapes. It was all jolly good fun, apparently.
Read MoreSimple elements of modern life, which everyone else takes for granted, pass the Leigh household by. Suffolk isn’t known for its fast internet speeds, and that’s fine. If I wanted super-duper all-singing all-dancing full-fat broadband I’d have stayed in Essex. However, even by the county’s standards, out here it’s lamentable. It drops out at least twice a week. Even when we upgraded to the Very Posh Router it still disappeared from time to time, waiting until I was up against a deadline and then deciding to go off and do something else.
Read MoreOnly a few days till Christmas. How did that happen? It seems like yesterday that we were struggling through yet another lockdown, unsure of what the future would bring. It’s been quite a year. Queues at petrol stations, new Covid variants, Christmas parties that happened, then didn’t happen, then probably did happen but it was OK because everyone stuck to the guidelines and they were really, really tired with running the country and all, so they deserved to let their hair down.
Read MoreA lifelong Guardian reader, I followed the links my friend sent me. The embers blazed up into those old familiar flames as I read about the shameful part the then Foreign Secretary (our current PM, bless his fluffy little blond noggin) had played in Nazanin’s incarceration. Anger grew in my heart as I did the background research I should have done when this story made headline news the first time around.
Read MorePART TWO - I love a challenge and so does my heroine, insanely successful lifestyle blogger Isabella M Smugge. Some kind person (I know not who) came up with a book challenge, helpfully named #31daysofoctoberchallenge. The idea is that you post every day on your socials with that hashtag, in whatever style you like. Top mate and writer Wendy H Jones alerted me to the challenge – thanks Wendy!
Read MoreI love a challenge and so does my heroine, insanely successful lifestyle blogger Isabella M Smugge. Some kind person (I know not who) came up with a book challenge, helpfully named #31daysofoctoberchallenge. The idea is that you post every day on your socials with that hashtag, in whatever style you like. Top mate and writer Wendy H Jones alerted me to the challenge – thanks Wendy!
So for every day in October, I celebrated a National Day and look at how it ties with Isabella’s world. Welcome to the ride!
Read More“You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write.” These wise words are ascribed to Saul Bellow, a multi-award-winning man of letters and general Very Clever Chap, and if he thinks it’s true, it probably is.
Read MoreWith Hashtag Heaven, Ruth Leigh invited her readers and viewers to think of a hashtag Issy might use in her next adventure. The winning hashtags feature in the trials of Isabella M Smugge (now available to order) and their creators also make an appearance in the book.
Read MoreIt’s been a while since I wrote a blog for my own website. My staggeringly successful creation, top lifestyle blogger and mumfluencer Isabella M Smugge would be horrified and her recently Botoxed agent Mimi Stanhope would be apoplectic with rage. I hope you, dear readers, will overlook this silence as I have been rather busy getting Issy’s continued adventures down on paper.
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