I was thrilled to be interviewed by Lucy Popescu along with other writers Claire Adam and Martina Evans for the Pen to Print Literary festival. It was great to hear how Claire and Martina set about their daily working lives. Lucy asked how we start our writing day and the others both mentioned the kind of reading that sets their creative flow off. Martina said that sound was very important for her and I found that really interesting.
I have also started listening to novels more. It’s brought home to me even more how important it is to be able to ‘hear’ your character. I also read my writing out loud. Once I was on a walk and decided to record my voice into my phone, so I was ‘speaking’ my writing. It was interesting how the process made me more aware of the words ‘going down’ – automatic editing process in a way. I think I’ll try that again some time although I actually do love writing things down by hand. The problem with that is that I struggle then to read my handwriting when I come to type it up but the advantage of that is that while typing it up, I’m automatically trimming what I’ve written.
