Time Out article

How I write

If I could write with a quill pen, I would. But feathers make me sneeze. Unless they’re on birds. Then I’m fine. Because that’s where they’re supposed to be.

I always write in longhand first. The formation of the handwritten word is vastly underestimated. It tells you about yourself – what mood you’re in, how pleased you are with what you’ve just written, whether you need some lunch in order to write better, or a glass of wine.

I never decide in advance how much I’m going to write in a day. It’s not fair to one’s characters: they might have more to say and it would be disrespectful to curtail them mid-flow!

However, I tend to write quite a lot at a time because I find it flows better and is more believable. I’m good at remembering earlier detail and consequentiality; I think that’s because I was a barrister before I became a writer and a philosophy postgraduate before that. In both these areas, great attention to detail is needed.

I don’t write with a target audience in mind (I feel that restricts originality), which is probably why my writing has been described as ‘genre-busting’ by my publishers. It crosses boundaries. It appeals to all ages. I create characters whom I like and aim to write novels that will make people think and reflect as well as laugh and cry.

I’m not sure what writer’s block is, so that probably means I’ve never suffered from it. I seldom pick up a pen and write nothing. If I don’t like what I’ve written, I put a line through it, close my eyes, recite some Latin poetry to myself, then start again. It always works for me. Not to be recommended in traffic, though.

I become so absorbed in my writing that I block out everything and everyone around me, except in an emergency – such as the time when one of my sheep, Tina Turner, escaped from her field into the churchyard. I had to chase her three times round the church, then rugby-tackle her to the ground just before the congregation arrived. Ewes can be temperamental like that.

My best plot ideas usually come to me when I first wake up. It’s worth going to sleep for.

It doesn’t matter where I am when I write, yet when I read my published work I can remember where I was when I wrote every sentence – in a field, in the bath, on a train, on a plane, in London, in the country.

I create my main characters first, and then the plot afterwards. It works because I’m excited to find out too and that excitement shows through in my writing. I started my current novel, ‘The Infinite Wisdom of Harriet Rose’, by describing a character with whom I would get on, someone who would make me think, make me laugh and cry, make me want to know more about her, protect her even. Harriet Rose was the result. Now I can’t remember life without her.

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