On Writing
Writing is a funny business. It's lonely, challenging and unlikely to make you much money. But I find that the most fascinating thing is the way everything develops a life of its own. Plot-lines, time-lines, and most challenging of all, the characters, they all start to develop their own characteristics, sometimes moving in good directions, sometimes changing in very surprising ways indeed. The great Stephen King has described all this far more elegantly than I can, I think. I decided that the only way to go was to follow the flow as it happened, and on balance it seems to have worked.
I write to stave off the incipient insanity of trying to bring my various inventions to fruition, and all writers are of course, by nature, idea thieves, and, if it works, sorcerers. We all have blenders, that is for sure.
I have never been blessed by having a daughter, but I have not one but two wonderful step-daughters, so I throw them into my blender and out comes Scarlett, and some of Amanda.
I have two amazing sons, so in they go, and out come Thomas and Jamie.
D'you see what I mean? Amanda is an amalgam of all the marvellous women I have been privileged to meet, and know, and loved, and been loved by.
Some bits still make me cry when I read them, while others fill me with rage...and I must have read it dozens if not hundreds of times.
So if the book affects you anywhere nearly so strongly I shall be well pleased.
Writing is a funny business. It's lonely, challenging and unlikely to make you much money. But I find that the most fascinating thing is the way everything develops a life of its own. Plot-lines, time-lines, and most challenging of all, the characters, they all start to develop their own characteristics, sometimes moving in good directions, sometimes changing in very surprising ways indeed. The great Stephen King has described all this far more elegantly than I can, I think. I decided that the only way to go was to follow the flow as it happened, and on balance it seems to have worked.
I write to stave off the incipient insanity of trying to bring my various inventions to fruition, and all writers are of course, by nature, idea thieves, and, if it works, sorcerers. We all have blenders, that is for sure.
I have never been blessed by having a daughter, but I have not one but two wonderful step-daughters, so I throw them into my blender and out comes Scarlett, and some of Amanda.
I have two amazing sons, so in they go, and out come Thomas and Jamie.
D'you see what I mean? Amanda is an amalgam of all the marvellous women I have been privileged to meet, and know, and loved, and been loved by.
Some bits still make me cry when I read them, while others fill me with rage...and I must have read it dozens if not hundreds of times.
So if the book affects you anywhere nearly so strongly I shall be well pleased.
