We loved Christmas Day, what was the inspiration behind it?
Thank you. It was a mixture of things really: a story I heard (a friend of a friend) who didn’t know who had fathered her child until many years later. Also, I have four grown up children and I’m watching them go out into the world with their own aspirations, knowing that like all humans, they will make bad choices and good ones. I’ve always been fascinated by the actions we take in our twenties, how they have a knockdown effect throughout our lives, and sometimes our children’s lives as well. One mistake can change your entire life. Christmas Day is the time when we all come together – and so it felt appropriate for this to be a moment when everyone could forgive and move on.
What attracts you to writing about family relationships?
I think we are shaped by our original families. The relationships we have inside a family context will influence the relationships we have as adults. Love comes in all shapes and forms, but how we love is influenced by how we were loved as children.
Can you tell us a little about your next book?
I’ve always been interested in the nurture versus nature argument and wondered how it would be if you came across a sister or brother you didn’t know you had later in life. I’m writing a story about one mother’s search for a sibling sired by the same donor who can provide bone marrow for her dying child. I like the idea of pulling all these mothers together, each with a different story.
As well as being an author, you also are an editor, can you tell us what you enjoy about the role?
I love working with other writers as an editor. Writing can be very lonely, so I think it’s important to have a second pair of eyes and someone who cares about your novel as much as you do. I get very involved. Novel writing is often problem solving and it’s getting stuck into another person’s novel and helping solve the problems that I enjoy. Nothing gives me a greater buzz than having one of my writers tell they’ve got an agent or a publishing deal. All the editors in our agency are caring people, and they all know what it’s like to try to get published. That is at the forefront of every service we offer.
What inspired you to create the Blue Pencil Agency? What advice do you have for aspiring writers about finding an agent?
My best friend Saskia Sarginson is also a writer and she usually asks me to read her work before she sends it to her publisher. She thought I was so good at giving feedback that I should offer reading and editing as a service. So I started by editing a friend’s work and it snowballed very quickly. Before I knew it, I needed other editors. That’s when Eve White introduced me to Emma Haynes. Together we wanted to create an agency that offered a support network.
My first piece of advice would be to do your homework. Getting an agent is a full time job. So many people send out their manuscript, which they’ve most likely been working on for over a year, to random agents without really doing the research into what kind of novels the agent actually likes.
My second piece of advice is make the first five hundred words really count. Go to a bookshop and read the first pages of as many novels as you can. Agents need seducing, so treat it as if you’re preparing yourself for a date: I mean you wouldn’t turn up in your trackies with no make-up and dirty hair on a first date, would you? It’s the same when presenting a novel.
When you are not writing, what do you do to relax?
Reading, obviously. I also love to paint, run and walk my dog. When I walk with my dachshund, Margot I find peace, but my favourite thing is being with my family and my close friends. I’m a people person really.
See our review of Christmas Day here
Image credit of Sara James – Alexander James