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I though I would answer some of the questions I’m asked when I do talks and am at literary conferences.
When did I start writing?
I started writing about 6 years ago when I was a manager in the NHS. My bosses sent me on to a training course for stress management. On the course recommended that to reduce stress at work the participants should undertake some form of recreational activity. I have always loved historical romance and often thought would love to write one. So I open my laptop and started to tap away. After a couple of months I found I'd written a whole story. I could not believe it, I had actually written a book but was any good? I really didn't know, but I had another story in my head so I started typing again. A few months later there was another one. Oh my goodness! Then my dear husband stepped in and said that I couldn’t just keep typing way I should try to get them published. I searched the web and found the Romantic Novelist association. I joined their New Writers Scheme in 2003 and I have never looked back.
Have you always wanted to write?
I have always wanted a time machine actual! But as that hasn’t been invented yet, I travel back in time in my imagination. Seriously, I didn’t know I could write and it was a bit of a surprise to find that I could. But now the cork has been popped from the bottle, so to speak, I can’t stop. I have stories forming in my head all the time.
Do you like any particular period of history?
I love all periods of history, but I love the 18th century it was such a period of change as the modern world was invented. It was a time of expansion and social movement and I love it. I particularly like to explore the impact the great upheavals of that century had on ordinary people. I am also passionate about historical accuracy. I try to weave real event alongside my characters and set them truly in time and space. If someone walks down a street to somewhere in the story that street actual existed. While we can never be totally sure of how people lived in the past there is enough primary sources evidence available to the writer to give their story the feel of the period it was set in. I research all my book thoroughly, but until they invent that time machine I will continue to use diaries, newspaper accounts, paintings or early photographs. I also visit museums to study coaches, train carriages and other detail like gas lamps. I am a very visual person so if I see it or touch it I can blend the detail into the story more easily.
How do you start a new book?
Firstly, the process is different for each author. So any aspiring authors out there don’t take what I do as a template for what you should do. My priority when I start a new story are the characters. It is the hero and heroine who move the story forward. They have to be strong and vibrant so that they capture the readers’ imagination immediately. My aim is that readers of all ages, will fall in love with them. I have the whole story planned out in my head so I know where it going and how it will end. It changes as I go through but I, and again that just my way, have toI get the idea from a small thing sometimes. With No Cure for Love I happened to pass the front of the London Hospital one day and though how the facade had stood much the same for over two hundred years. I then went on to muse of how man different doctors must have walked up and down those steps. Educated, well-healed men surrounded by some of the most lawless and deprived street in the capital. How did they interact with the poor surrounding them, did their paths ever cross, did they fall in love? The following weekend I went on a writing workshop to Scotland headed up by Marina Oliver who owns StoryTracts and from those undeveloped first thoughts and a weekend in the beautiful Scottish countryside, No Cure for Love was born.
Where do I find my characters?
Now this makes me sound a little mad, but I see them in my head as I am writing. It takes about three chapters to get to know them properly but by then I know what they look like and what they will do in any given situation. Where they come from is a huge question and I suppose as I said earlier they comes from observation of people in real life.
When do I write and is it only when you have the inspiration?
I don’t do mornings unless I have to, so from 2pm to 2am. I am an owl rather than a lark. I write all the time. Inspiration comes when I open the document on the computer. That’s not to say I don’t struggle over it with re-writes and plot changes but if I actual waited until everything was clear I’d never finish a book.
What is the most difficult thing about writing?
Getting all the pieces of the plot in my head to fit in the story also letting a story finish. I love my characters so much and get so embroiled in their action I am reluctant to say goodbye.
What is the most rewarding thing about writing?
The most rewarding thing about being an author for me is when a reader takes the time to contact me and tell me how much they love my story.
What are you currently working on?
I am currently working on the follow up story from No Cure for Love. It is again set in East London down by the river and take place twelve years later. There are some of the familiar characters from my first book but new ones too and it is currently planned for released in 09
Thank you for taking the time to read about my work
Jean
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