Twenty Questions
1. Do you outline?
No. I start with a vague idea of a story, a few scenes in my head, and a bunch of characters. For me the pleasure of the first draft is in watching the story unfold as the characters take over and make it happen.
2. Do you write straight through a book, or do you sometimes tackle the scenes out of order?
Straight through in order, although I might leave a scene very sketchy if I need to do more research or I’m finding it particularly difficult. When I go back through to edit, I add new scenes or sometimes change the order around.
3. Do you prefer writing with a pen or using a computer?
Computer, though I do make notes in a spiral bound notebook, and wrote a whole scene that way the other night when I was about to go to sleep and found the words were just there.
4. Do you prefer writing in first person or third?
Third person. I did write the first draft of Thin Ice in the first person but I found it very difficult and realised that the book would be a lot stronger if I could have other people’s perspectives too. So now I’m writing it in the third person.
5. Do you listen to music while you write?
Absolutely not. I find it incredibly distracting. Given a choice I’d write in utter seclusion on a mountainside somewhere with no phones, cars or burglar alarms to disturb me.
6. How do you come up with the perfect names for your characters?
Different ways – sometimes the names just seem to materialise, sometimes it takes ages and ages to find the right one. But I can’t really begin to write the character until I’ve got the perfect name.
7. When you’re writing, do you ever imagine your book as a television show or movie?
I visualise what I’m writing with complete clarity as if it’s happening right in front of me, so I suppose that counts as a “yes”.
8. Have you ever had a character insist on doing something you really didn’t want him/her to do?
Not really, although they have surprised me on occasion.
9. Do you know how a book is going to end when you start it? No. I might have an idea of where I think it will go, but the journey sometimes takes its own course and the ending become something different from what I imagined.
10. Where do you write?At the desk in our bedroom, though now that we’ve rearranged our living room and the table is next to a window with a great view, I might get out the laptop and sit there instead.
11. What do you do when you get writer’s block? I’ve never really had “writer’s block” as such, although I sometimes get a bit stuck with how to approach a certain scene. Walking sometimes sorts it out, but generally it’s just a case of waiting for the ideas to come together in my mind.
12. What size increments do you write in (either in terms of wordcount, or as a percentage of the book as a whole)?It varies wildly. When it’s going well, I can write a whole chapter at a sitting (though it might need substantial editing at a later date). Other days, I can spend a whole day on a paragraph.
13. How many different drafts did you write for your last project? I had 17 numbered drafts for Another Time and Place, but I think the first one is a slightly different process. I’m on draft 5 or 6 of Thin Ice at the moment, and hoping that it isn’t going to need another complete rewrite.
14. Have you ever changed a character’s name midway through a draft?Yes. I had two characters in After the Twelfth that both began with L, which one of my readers found confusing, so I had to change one, which I found really hard. I still tend to think of her with her original name.
15. Do you let anyone read your book while you’re working on it, or do you wait until you’ve completed a draft before letting someone else see it? I might show passages to my husband while I’m writing, but I need to have edited it at least a couple of times before anyone else gets near it!16. What do you do to celebrate when you finish a draft?Nothing. Then I put it aside to let it mature for a while and get started on something else.
17. One project at a time, or multiple projects at once? One actually happening at a time, but usually one in the background, waiting for me to return to it with a fresher mind.
18. Do your books grow or shrink in revision?Grow, definitely. My first drafts are always quite short – I write the story in a sort of flurry of inspiration and then go back and flesh it out with more description and greater detail.
19. Do you have any writing or critique partners?
I have a couple of very good friends in Australia: Jo, who is a very accomplished short story writer and critical reader, and Shannon, who is never short of suggestions to improve things.
20. Do you prefer drafting or revising? Drafting, I suppose, and revising when it’s going well. But it’s all so much part of the process, it’s difficult to separate them. For example, I’m on draft 5 or 6 of Thin Ice but I’m still writing new scenes, so does that count as drafting or rewriting?
