Did you always want to be a writer?
I think I did. I fantasised about being Charlotte Brontë or Daphne Du Maurier, and being a difficult woman living in a big house in the wilds. It was always going to be that or a musician or artists of some kind. I got lazy with music and art when I grew up but writing was a constant. I wrote my first book when I was seven, and I still have it. It was a sci-fi adventure about children who leave Earth in a protective cloud! I’m certainly a difficult woman living in a big house. Not in the wilds though, unless Spain is a sort of wild.
What books did you read growing up?
My parents had a full library and were avid readers. They didn’t prevent me or my sister from reading anything except perhaps the racy works of Jilly Cooper! I remember reading Jane Eyre when I was really young. I didn’t get any of the deep stuff obviously, but it gave me the distinct impression women were in an inferior position in life and even influenced my novel Land of Hope. I also treasured a book called The Wickedest Witch In The World by Beverley Nichols, who I was disappointed to find out was a man. But I still have that book, and it seems to be a sort of phenomenon for people who know of it. I also read Born Free and Tarka The Otter, and these left a big adventurous impression on me but now I can’t read anything about animals in case they die in the end. I think The Razor’s Edge by William Somerset Maugham had the biggest impression on me, and it was my father’s favourite book. I am still fascinated with the idea of running away like Larry Darrell in the novel. The Two Faces of January by Patricia Highsmith is the reason I became a serious writer. It’s such a slapped together novel with somewhat tipsy grammar and a funny arc but the storytelling is just stunning. I wanted to do that. It seemed almost delinquent and I loved it.
What was the idea behind Land of Hope? It has had an amazing reception. Did you expect that?
Yes and no. I think any writer who has their book published is both a complete egoist and suffers from imposter syndrome. I knew I’d written something special because I stopped seeing the seams after I wrote something. I’d read it back and congratulate myself because I didn’t remember writing it. I see that as a sign the muse has been at work and I’ve channelled the words successfully onto the page. I take no credit whatsoever. It’s the lady who sits behind me dictating the story from another world and time where my book already existed for aeons… I’m just the seer with typing fingers.
Can you tell us about your publishing journey?
I went to UCLA in Los Angeles to study screenwriting initially. I loved it and did very well but I found it all a bit banal when it came to sending out queries. So I started back on my novels, and interviewed for an MA course that caught my eye at City University in London. I was so taken with the leader of the course, Jonathan Myerson (award-winning novelist and screenwriter), who just seemed like a guru of all things literary, that I took the place and moved to London for two years to do it. I learned things I didn’t even know I didn’t know about writing. I was a complete pain on the course, as it was hard to go to uni in my forties. But I came out on top, won the prize for best novel (a different novel), and started looking for an agent. It took me about six months of hardcore Excel spreadsheet action researching and understanding you cannot just blanket query. Each submission must be thoughtful and you must want to be with the agent you are querying. They know somehow! And I got a lot of rejections, and a few near-misses before Sabhbh Curran at Curtis Brown took a gamble on me and we started working on the novel in earnest with many passes before she felt it was ready. Including an entire rewrite! She’s great because she invested in me and not just the book, and helped me develop as an author along the way so that by the time she got an offer from The Indigo Press for the manuscript I felt entirely ready to embrace the work.
Jonathan Myerson and I are still friends and it was the best decision I ever made to go to City. He’s interviewing me at the Haringey Arts Festival on July 18th in London at a book signing event.
What’s your writing routine?
I don’t write until it hits me. I’ll think and think. Then I’ll let myself just write as purple as I like, and maybe knock out a good 40k words to make sure the idea has legs. Oftentimes people think they have a book, but it’s just a premise with no development. This might be a whole night of writing, or a few hours here there. But it’s never when I expect it. I have to make room for that happening in my life. It entails shutting the door and entry is prohibited expect in the case of fire or flood. I might not eat or sleep. People are let down. Appointments not attended. It doesn’t matter to me if I’m on a roll. Then, I start out with a synopsis, a habit I procured from my screenwriting days, and I make a beat sheet (every beat of the hero’s journey). I was mentored by Claire Fuller at City, and she drew me a tiny diagram that shows the arc of a novel. I kept it and refer to it constantly! Then I talk each character’s journey through with someone, who is right now my assistant Arthur Lemon, a poet from Estonia who happens to be a fantastic editor and stickler for English grammar. I make a sort of diagram of the story with his notes, and then I take that to my desk and start with a few bits. Once I have a good 50k, I will give that to my readers, who will be Arthur, my husband Henry, and Jonathan Myerson for the next one. I get notes and impressions from them, and kick it all up. Usually I end up with about 20k words from the original 50k and have to really be tough with myself. But actually it’s a bit like cleaning a closet. It feels like a task but then I start enjoying chucking stuff out. I kill all my darlings to a serial level. When I finish, I don’t look at it for a while. There’s usually quite a lot of nonsense in it when I go back. I feel like writing a novel is more about what’s left when you’ve deleted almost everything you thought you’d done well with.
Who are your favourite authors and books?
I love a lot of older writers. Joan Didion’s essays, Emily Dickenson and Sylvia Plath’s poems, and Lucia Berlin’s shorts. I love Milan Kundera and Vladimir Nabokov. Modern writers I love are Michel Faber, Philippe Djian, Virginie Despentes, Rachel Cusk, and Suzanne Collins. But some of my favourite books are The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje, The Red Parts by Maggie Nelson, Bitter Orange by Claire Fuller, and Surfacing by Margaret Atwood. I’ve also recently enjoyed Daisy Johnson’s The Hotel. I could go on all day.
What’s your favourite thing about being a writer? And the least?
Best? That I get to make up stuff for a living and don’t have to speak to anyone except my very favourite people in the world, and then only about abstract subjects. Worst? Writer’s bum. I have to make sure I get on that treadmill of a morning or all is lost.
What’s next?
I am working on my second novel’s synopsis for my agent, which will be in the vein of folk horror and fantasy once again. This time in East Anglia… I’m also looking forward to seeing what’s happening with selling the movie rights for Land of Hope, which is in the pipeline. And in July, Land of Hope comes out in the United States, which is truly exciting!
Land of Hope is out now.
