about the writing

I try to write the kind of novel I love to read, one that grips the imagination and that - armed with chocolate and a mug of tea while curled up on the sofa - I can’t put down because I’m desperate to know what happens next. I hope A Kind of Vanishing does this for readers.

Writing is a struggle. I will do anything to avoid starting out with the proverbial blank page. I tend to write straight onto a laptop, but recently have been using a notebook. This is even more frightening, but makes me disciplined about my choice of words, as after too many crossings out, I can’t make out my handwriting. I initially write like I speak and this doesn’t make for the kind of book I am trying to write, as I can go off at tangents: sometimes these are profitable and sometimes just utter nonsense!

Writing is initially a solitary activity, and I need space and time to get going, but the bit I look forward to as both exciting and sometimes painful is the novel being read by a skilled editor (Philippa Brewster) with a feel for the narrative and for language, and then working on the text together to give it independent life.

I don’t write every day. I would like to, but need to earn a living and also to live. Ideally I would write in the mornings and then read, walk or see people in the afternoons. And one day perhaps I’ll get there! In the meantime, I carry a notebook with me at all times in which I scribble ideas and observations and a camera with which I take photos of anything that halts me in my tracks or inspires me. I am planning and plotting ideas for stories a lot of the time and have one day a week set aside for writing.

Life is not being lived if I am not writing and reading.