What are your top 10 favorite books/authors?
Too many to fully list, but I will give it a go and these are in no particular order. I know it’s more than 10 but some books are by the same authors as others on the list.
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
Sense and Sensebility - Jane Austen
It - Stephen King
Misery - Stephen King
The Shining - Stephen King
Highlander’s Love in Captivity - Lydia Kendall
Highlander Found - Rebecca Preston
Lord of the Flies - William Golding
Death Comes to Pemberly - PD James
The Children of Men - PD James
Cruel and Unusual - Patricia Cornwell
Restless - William Boyd
Love is Blind - William Boyd
Any Human Heart - William Boyd
What book do you think everyone should read?
Highlander’s Love in Captivity by Lydia Kendall has such a soft spot in my heart, I love it and re-read it, just something about it! I love most by Lydia Kendall, Rebecca Preston etc. Non genre ones would be things like Lord of the flies, IT and the books of William Boyd.
How long have you been writing?
21 years
Do the characters all come to you at the same time or do some of them come to you as you write?
All my characters are in my head long before I put the proverbial pen to paper, besides maybe a few little passing ones. But as a rule I like to have everyone (and everyone) planned out in advance.
What kind of research do you do before you begin writing a book
I am a voracious and addicted reader, I do rolling research, reading and visit places whenever I can and I speak to a lot of people and ask a lot of questions so I don’t really do a specific block before each book it is an ongoing perpetual process that I have been steeped in for 2 decades now, well a little more than that now.
Do you see writing as a career?
Absolutely, more a career than work as in like a job. I think it has to be if you want to take it seriously and perhaps be taken seriously. I may be wrong as there may be exceptions but this has been my own experience.
What do you think about the current publishing market?
It is going in some very exciting directions for authors and audiences it seems to me and it seems to me that it gets better and better the more innovation that is brought to the market. I am a technophobe but I am fascinated with the innovations in the market. I may not know how they work but I admire them so much.
Do you read yourself and if so, what is your favourite genre?
If we’re talking exclusively about fiction here then I love and am passionate about Scottish Historical Romantic Fiction, my homeland and it’s storytelling culture has some sort of allure that I find fascinating, no more than that, intoxicating. I love horror, ghost. stories, classic romance and some contemporary romance.
Do you prefer to write in silence or with noise? Why?
Mostly with music and sometimes a little silence can be refreshing. As to the why’s, I find silence can be oppressive and distracting and I find myself listening to the silence too much and it is distracting. Whereas music keeps you company and helps inspire you and see your little movie in your head more clearly and colourfully. But sometimes after a lot of music, silence can be very nice as it lets the music “nerve” so to speak rest.
Do you write one book at a time or do you have several going at a time?
It varies a little, I guess I start 2-3 and dip in and out for a little while and then one usually runs away with me after that and I keep going with that until I finish that one.
If you could have been the author of any book ever written, which book would you choose?
There are many, too many to list, but I always think it would have been really cool to have been the author of Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility and Little Women! It would have been cool if I could have written much of Lydia Kendall, Hazel Hunter, Rebecca Preston and the like too! And William Boyd!
Pen or typewriter or computer?
I love pens, pencils and type writers and their timeless tangible aesthetic, but I confess I also enjoy and primarily use Apple computers and like the satisfying resistance of the keys under my fingers!
Tell us about a favorite character from a book.
I’m glad the question said “A favourite” character as there are simply too many for “The” favourite. Probably, well let’s say Eva Delektorskaya in William Boyd’s “Restless”. Layered, complex, so many facets to her identity and personality and her very life. An alive woman if that’s clear, vivid and textured she comes off the page and comes to life, sexually nuanced and real too.
What made you want to become an author, and do you feel it was the right decision?
Initially it was because I loved reading and I wanted to write things like I read. It almost instantly made me want to do it from as soon as I knew what it was to write properly.
A day in the life of the author?
I get up at 6 in the morning on week days. So I can shower and have breakfast slowly at my own pace and come to, so I can then get my son up for school. Of course get him dressed, breakfast and ready and then take him there. I love this routine though, there is something magical about this part of the day and I really love it, even though I am a bit more of an evening person and not a morning person. So even though a little groggy it is very nice. I am more awake after my first cup of artisanal coffee that I buy in bags from a couple of favourite places and then brew in a special Cafetiere. I then come back, do a few tasks for a part time job first then get to writing in my converted loft with views of the city as I say in my Amazon bio.
There is a particular Edinburgh Cafe I like very much too that I like to frequent, even more of late, (well with the exception of lock down of course, but it has started up again recently). I have come to know the owner quite well, he and his cafe have a very cool sort of retro-chic motif, where he wears clothes like a 1920s sort of Dock Worker kind of thing, a real Dickensian-cool motif. Really cool! I talk coffee there too a bit with him as he is passionate about the drink, his cafe and what he does. It is a thrill meeting people who have passions. When I can tear myself away from our artisan coffee conversations it is solidly writing with the Bose headphones on.
I write pretty solidly for a few hours, break for lunch. Sometimes I go out for a bite. Other times I go out straight away and write somewhere in town. Whether or not I write in or out of the house I then write up until I have to pick my son up again from school and then get homework/dinner/and/or after school activities taken care of. Then when he goes to bed I do some more writing, it’s funny I often feel at my most alert and productive in the evening and I sometimes feel this way and work quite late. Sometimes I strike it lucky and some of my friends are available during the day and I get to meet up with them, sometimes talk writing and sometimes other things. Some of them love reading and writing too. This particularly happens when I take the occasional day off to clear my head and re-fuel for the next instalment of writing.
I have a surprisingly social life actually for someone with such a solitary main profession.
Advice you would give new authors?
Start and keep writing every moment you get, even at school and whilst studying etc in earlier life. One cannot be a writer unless they write a wise person once said to me. The other piece of advice I feel is critical, certainly to my own success is promotion. Spend as much as you can possibly afford on a professional to promote your work even early on. Do everything you feel you are good at, then outsource everything else you feel you are not so good at to people who are awesome at it. I feel this is just as critical as the writing. It has been my salvation.
Describe your writing style.
I always find these sorts of questions really difficult to articulate in my answers. Let me give it a go anyway. Firstly, I would probably have to say, I try to make my fiction writing from how I write when I am being me. I try to make my fiction writing of the world it belongs to. Like, how would this world be described… almost like if it were being described by people in the world of the story. It may just be me, but I always imagined and felt that his must have been how Tolkien viewed his writing of The Lord of the Rings and how I imagine Hazel Hunter and Lydia Kendall write. I certainly like this idea at least in theory and I guess this is my preoccupation when writing. Hope this makes sense :)
What makes a good story?
A story told personally and absolutely as the writer intends, without compromise or interference. Also told in the way the writer wants. Everything after that I think is the lottery of the unknowable alchemy of the connection bteween work and audience/reader.
What is your writing Kryptonite?
If by this you mean my greatest weakness. Wow, a deep question. I think it would probably have to be these extraordinary writing techniques that some more experimental writers use like no punctuation and like 10 page long sentences and the like. As fascinating as I find them I just couldn’t get the hang of them when I tried. Some writers even devise their own method of punctuation! They are braver than I.
Do you try more to be original or to deliver to readers what they want?
I really really really try to combine the two! This is a big mission of mine! What is good is that I feel that I want what my readers want when I write my work and read books in these genre’s. So A nice synergy exists I think in this way.
If you could tell your younger writing-self anything, what would it be?
If you want to be a writer, write like anything, if you want to be an X you have to do X. Reading about it and aspiring to it won’t do it or give you practice, so I would tell her to start sooner and do more and sooner.
What’s the most difficult thing about writing characters from the opposite sex?
Point of view I think. I never like to think that physiological things affect the mind, but I have a hard enough time writing from the points of views of women, but I find writing the points of view of men quite challenging. But an enjoyable one. I couldn’t tell you why I find this tricky. Just do but c’est la vie :)
How long on average does it take you to write a book?
I have had these stories in my mind for some time now and have been doing rolling research for ages so it is just the writing really, which for these current stories maybe 6-8 weeks including read overs and corrections etc. I am a fast typer.
Do you believe in writer’s block?
Not really, I think someone who feels this doesn’t know what they want to say in the first place rather than the discipline of sitting down to write inflicting a “block” on them.
Would I ever collaborate with another author?
We’re not absolutely sure what my son wants to do yet, but if he were remotely interested in writing it would be so lovely if I could do something with him. Besides this yes, the idea of writing collaboratively may be something I would like to do in the future.
Would I submit my book to mixed author box sets?
Yes!
Would I write with others and release a collaboration under a pen name?
Yes.
What would I like to see to help the publishing industry and literary industry become more accessible to young and emerging writers?
I think that ego needs to go out of it completely on both sides. In terms of the writer, be yes men and women and take any opportunity that presents itself, I would not suggest trying to “shape” ones career with what they say yes and no to. In terms of the industry, I believe all games and ego need to be put to the side as from personal experience they can hinder the industry selecting good work and finding good authors and potential. Some houses seem to have very pigeon holed visions of what they are looking for and some I think feel the need to be the big man so to speak. I think this needs to be removed completely and I think that publishers need to be on the look out for everything and anything and rejoice in finding great work and talent and not playing games or setting too many “goals” for what they want. I think that I am old fashioned enough to believe that great work is what garners success not over moulded formulas trying to replicate or “be” this or that. I hope that’s clear.
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