I don't think of myself as Scottish or lesbian when I sit down and write. I am glad I have broken out of that limited audience.
From Val McDermid
I did want to be Joni Mitchell for quite a long time.
I'd like to be more spontaneous.
I am the despair of my accountant; I am the plastic bags of receipts.
I have a vernacular house on the seaside in Northumberland and an Edwardian semi in south Manchester. They're both exactly as big as they need to be. I can't be doing with an ostentatious, big house - you can only be in one room at a time.
Growing up in Fife, you were aware that there were these creatures called lesbians, but it was in the realms of complete freakishness. And I didn't feel like a freak.
The thing is that quite a few of my books have ended up as they are because of conversations I've had over the years with forensic scientists.
One of the reasons we all still read Jane Austen is because her books are about universal things which still matter today - love, money, family. They haven't gone out of fashion, so it's not throwing the baby out with the bathwater to rework her in a contemporary style.
I won't be attempting to write Jane Austen-style prose - that would be suicidal. But I will attempt to bring the highest level of my own prose, and to make it sparkle.
I think Jane Austen builds suspense well in a couple of places, but she squanders it, and she gets to the endgame too quickly. So I will be working on those things.
5 perspectives
4 perspectives
3 perspectives
1 perspectives