A LITTLE ABOUT WHERE I LIVE~by Margarita Felices

…and the reason why I can be inspired by just walking around.

City Hall

I have always lived in Cardiff, the capital of Wales. It’s home to Triassic and Jurassic coastlines, ancient ruins, castles, mountains, rugby, Doctor Who and Torchwood. I live here with my partner and three little mad dogs and I work for a well-known TV broadcasting company.

Norman keep

I love living in Cardiff because for all its modernisation, there are still remnants of an old Victorian city. 

Then you can venture a few short miles towards the bay. You probably wouldn’t believe that 50 years ago this land was the Docklands and where the pillars in this picture stand, it used to be the Dry Dock where ships came in for repair. It’s changed a lot since I was young. I’m from the area and even though they have made it one of the top places to live in the country, they took away the community that lived there and it doesn’t have the heart that it had once. It’s modern and clean, but it’s also cold and uncaring, and as much as I do like what they’ve done with it, I miss the history, the mixed cultures and the smiles from the families I used to know.

I love writing and will often base my stories in Cardiff because it has such character. When I can, I go out to the coast and take photographs. We have a lovely castle in the city centre and a fairytale one just on the outskirts, so when I feel I can’t write anything, I take a ramble to those locations and it clears my head. 

I have a TV production background. I used to be a professional photographer and decided to move into the TV world. I started off working on our local news programmes and then moved on to Arts, Factual, Drama, back to Factual, back to Drama (Torchwood, Doctor Who and a few regional shows). Now I work for the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and we produce some of the music for well-known TV shows- Doctor Who for example! I’ve learnt so much from working there about Marketing and Promotions. It’s been an absolute blessing.

It was inevitable that someday I would write novels. My teachers at school used to limit me to no more than ten pages when they’d give out written assignments. I was a reporter on the school magazine and later became its Editor. When I left school, I paid my way through college by writing short stories for various women’s magazines and I later took a course in scriptwriting and came third in a BBC writing competition (I wasn’t working for them at the time).  

I have pretty much written stories all my life and one day I had a unique idea for a story and I began to write it. It took ten years to get it the way I wanted and when I’d finished I began to search for a traditional publisher, but got rejected each time. Every author goes through those rejections, but the trick is to never give up. If you have a story, then tell it. I did a little more research and found a small independent publisher and submitted the synopsis for Judgement of Souls 3. The publisher asked to read the whole thing. That was 2012 and I've not looked back since.

MY WRITING PROCESSES

I have a rather strange process. I usually know the outcome. I may even know the beginning and that's it. I will sit down and type what the first page should be about. Then on a new page I will put my characters in certain places/situations. I go through that process until I have a basic outline and then I fill in the blanks. It may be as many as 30 pages with a very basic outline. 

I have a notebook with me at all times. There's never a time when I'm not thinking about the plot or perhaps character dialogue. I'm a researcher too. If I can, I will visit the locations and take notes and pictures. I will read books in the library or search the internet for information. Judgement of Souls 1: Origin, for example, involved the Crusades so it was a lot of reading to get the battles, the uniforms, the main tribes correct. Judgement of Souls 2: Call of the Righteous, involved the French revolution plus 300 mortal years of an organisation so dates, places, and times all had to be accurate. 

WHO ARE MY FAVOURITE AUTHORS?

I am a lover of paranormal horror. I read Anne Rice (Vampire Chronicles is my favourite) and Stephen King (pretty much anything from him except IT – nope, nope, nope).

  

Anne Rice is almost poetic in her writing and she gave me advice a few years back that helped immensely. She's a friendly, approachable person. 

Stephen King knows how to make you jump just at the moment when you think all is well. I am hoping to do that in my novels and have attempted to use his magic in my short story, The Trancers.

WHAT HAVE I BEEN DOING WITH MY TIME?

My latest book release in January 2020 is called RHIANNON. I have always loved the myths that in the darkest parts of Wales there were witches in covens. There are several tales such as the Mabinogion that mentions Rhiannon and I’ve always found the old tales fascinating. 

Rhiannon must have been the fastest novel I’ve written. Once I started, I couldn’t stop thinking about where to go next. The story was to start in modern day with just flashbacks, but I felt quite early on that it had to start with her story, so that even though you knew she killed men, I explored why she did it. She had a history and a past that needed to be told in full before I brought her into our time.

The first half of the book is based in the 16th century and it centres on a beautiful woman called Rhiannon as she arrives in the village of Treharne in North Wales. But Rhiannon isn’t all she seems. She has come to visit an old woman who has lived on the outskirts of the village for over 40 years. You see this woman has a secret and Rhiannon wants what she has hidden – souls. But the old woman should have sensed Rhiannon’s aura, after all what’s the point in being a witch if you can’t spot one of your own? But soon the old woman is gone and Rhiannon has taken over her cottage. One day she meets a man and his wife in the village store and soon after becomes his lover. 

A jealous wife, village gossip, special medicinal potions and Rhiannon is accused of being a witch and goes to trial. But she’s pregnant now and her powers don’t work while she’s pregnant. Rhiannon tries to escape but is captured while she is giving birth, her child is left out for the wolves and she is sentenced for witchcraft (after all why run if you’re innocent) and she is burnt at the stake. 

Four hundred years later, a student researching a story finds an interesting artifact and accidentally brings Rhiannon back – and Rhiannon is out for revenge.

To learn more about Margarita Felices and to see her complete list of books, visit her on her 
AMAZON AUTHOR PAGE and AMAZON UK.