Ever since I can remember, writing and reading have been my happy places. They are where I go when, if you’ll excuse the vernacular, Shit Gets Too Real in real life. Now, before everyone gets out their tiny violins, can I just make clear that, actually, for most of the time, my life is exactly […]
I need to get one thing straight immediately. When Matthew Carter quips in The Second Chance Tea Shop that his taste in music stopped evolving when Kim Wilde was better known for her singing than her gardening, I was basically referencing myself. I’m not really a ‘modern music’ kind of girl, especially when it comes to, er, […]
Since I started writing the Little Somerby books, I’ve not really managed to write to music, although music is definitely an influence. I have it on when I drive, and since that’s when I often do my plotting (while keeping my eyes firmly on the road, of course!), often, songs come onto the radio or […]
Hearts break easily, don’t they? Especially when you’re a teenager. While writing my first novel, I made several references to being a teenager, and the exquisite pain-pleasure of being a teenager in love. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t writing from experience! Teen love is an intoxicating thing. I fell in love twice […]
Many years as a teacher of English and Media Studies have taught me a great deal about how ‘realities’ are constructed on film and in text. That doesn’t mean I’m an expert in constructing them myself, but it does mean that I am able to deconstruct pretty much any text that gets thrown at me […]
In less than sixteen hours I’m going to have that most fabled of things, CFT (Child Free Time) to crack on with the second book in the Little Somerby Series, Sweeter than Cider. I’m beyond excited, even though Bertie the Weimaraner will need to be walked off his paws first, so he’s amenable to being left while […]
This week I’m in the interesting, yet nail-biting position of waiting for two agents to finish reading the full manuscript of Far From the Tree, having had two requests for a full within a week of one another. Needless to say, this is all enormously exciting, and, whatever the outcome of those calls, I feel very fortunate […]
Half term, before my own children, used to be a blissful time of lie ins, catching up with household things, time spent with The Husband, a bit of holiday homework and a lot of chilling out on the settee. How things change with the arrival of your own sprogs! Now, half terms tend to be […]
I don’t write to music. Can’t do it. I don’t know if it’s the result of what I rather grandly call ‘classical training’ (I played the flute regularly from 9-18 and got to Grade 8) but I tend to get distracted by lyrics and harmonies and forget that I’m trying to write! I can write […]
While I don’t tend to listen to music when I write, as I find it distracting, I do tend to associate certain songs with characters in my stories, or scenes I’ve written. I think it’s probably because I’ve become quite a visual thinker over the years, and fanvids were something I really enjoyed making. Now […]
Fay Keenan 