As well as writing novels and doing short-order journalism, I am also the full-time carer of my husband, who has Alzheimer's. Each day feels like a race that must be run.
From Laurie Graham
The wheels of publishing never slow down.
Not so very long ago, certainly well into the Thirties, a lady companion was a normal feature of life for widows or lone spinsters.
The word 'carer' makes me think of someone with a nylon overall and a long list of 'clients' to wash before she finishes her shift. A companion was something unique. A kind of live-in friend.
My research process doesn't vary much. I do a little reading to establish a timeline and decide how I'm going to approach the story.
I have a magpie mind, by which I mean I see and hear little things - photos, fragments of conversation - and store them away for future use.
My preferred style is to write in first person, so I always have to play around with possible narrator voices until I find something that works.
My early novels were very understated and English. Fourteen years ago, I met and married my American husband, and as I learned more about his background and culture, I became interested in using American voices.
I love working fictional characters into a piece of history. It plays to my strengths, which are characterization and dialogue, and assists me in my admitted weakness, plot.
Personally, my interest in social history ends around 1959, by which time I was an adolescent. I've always attributed this to my particular sensibilities. I like formality and elegance, and I'm fundamentally conservative.
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