Readers Love My Fact, Fiction, Romance, Adventure, Fantasy, Comedy, & Social Issues
My five books are all either completely true stories – that is my two autobiographies – or partly based on real characters, situations, and places I have known, as in my three saga novels. So, absolutely everything – however bizarre – in my life-stories did actually happen; whereas there are varying degrees of fiction in the novels.
In the totally factual 'Yeti Seeks Mate' and 'English, Solitaire, Cowboy, Cuckoo. . .' memoirs, I do try to write in a slightly fictional style. By this, I mean I portray the other people in my life as characters in their own right – whether they be my parents, serious romantic possibilities, or incidental passers-by who provide colour.
My first two novels – 'Nork From Nowhere' and 'The Ice Cream Terrorist' – are largely based on my experience at state boarding school. But I have deliberately created larger-than-life characters, some outlandish situations, and believable plot twists to hopefully make them more entertaining.
In my third novel 'Newspaper Curtains', I took just one unusual classroom incident from my schooldays, then simply imagined what if before and after that moment for the whole story. I stole the personalities of people I know for the main characters and half-set the story in the area I now call home.
Newspaper Curtains
My engrossing tale of loss, liberty, and love explores relationships, coercion, homelessness, and wider social mores, as two teenage girls from opposite sides of the tracks in 1960s Midlands England are forced into prostitution – but develop their lives before a surprising ending (which even caught me unawares!).
Readers say my books have intriguing titles and distinctive covers, and are unusual both because of how I: combine fact and fiction; mix romance, adventure, fantasy, mystery, tragedy, gritty socal issues, and comedy; and create and narrate such realistic female characters, given my gender, age, and lifestyle.
My favourite authors, who have most influenced my style, are:
- Maeve Binchy – female insight to, and perspective of, characters and narrative.
- George Orwell – foresight of politics and struggle against repression by the under-privileged.
- Thomas Hardy – class/gender-based stories but told in old-fashioned and considered style.
I've read that authors are either 'plotters' – who detail pretty much every aspect of their books on a storyboard – or 'pantsers', who make it up as they go along. With my autobiographies I was a bit of a plotter, working from contemporaneous diary notes and essays written up to 40 years ago. But for my novels I definitely flew by my pants, just sitting in my armchair or lying in bed dreaming up ideas!
When writing, I imagine a friendly reader sitting in their armchair, either laughing, shocked, or occasionally crying, while I try to give them advice – either directly or via my characters – on how to achieve happiness for themselves.