Author of Persistence of Memory
When did you realize that you wanted to become
a writer?
Unconsciously, when I
was about five. I used to tell stories to myself, and draw pictures to
illustrate them. Semi-consciously, when I was 12, and writing my first novel. I
handed out chapters to my classmates at recess, and realized that I could
command an audience with my creative thoughts. Fully consciously, when I was
16. I had an enlightened high school Lit teacher who allowed me to write a
novel for my major project. It was about three teenagers walking through a
London Underground tunnel at night, when the electricity was switched off. One
of them tries to murder the other two at Tooting Broadway. Mr. Williamson loved it. I still remember his
comment on the last page: “If I could give you more than 100%, I would. Bravo!”
I can’t say enough about how important early encouragement is to a budding
writer. Back in the 1960s and early 1970s, when I was at school, creative
activities weren’t included the curriculum in a big way. So anyone who succeeded
at being a writer, usually did so in spite of their education, not because of
it.
Is being an Author all you dreamed of, or did
it just happen? The best and worst thing about it?
That’s an interesting
question. The road to “authorhood” has been a long one, with all kinds of
twists and turns and detours. And it was a very deliberate and persistent path,
nothing accidental about it.
My first published
works were short stories and freelance articles in Canadian magazines and
newspapers. In 1982 I moved to Vancouver so I could pursue my MFA in Creative
Writing at UBC. It was the most fabulous three years of my life. My Masters
thesis was an epic called The Sloughwater
Chronicles, about two English women in 1882 Saskatchewan. One was a London
girl who had travelled by ship and train to join her husband, who was
homesteading in a sod hut on the open prairie. The other was married to a
shopkeeper who had set up a store in a tent in the newly created town of Pile
of Bones (later to be renamed Regina). The two women met on the train
travelling west from Winnipeg, and the novel followed their progress in their
adopted country.
My first published
novel was Skywatcher, in 1989. It was
a finalist in a first novel competition and I was really thrilled. I got a huge
advance, negotiated by one of the top literary agents in Canada. Unfortunately
my timing was dreadful. It was a spy spoof. The Berlin Wall came down, the Cold
War ended, and spy novels were almost instantly seen as outdated and archaic.
Even my favourite author, John LeCarre, went through a bad period around that
time. I had a series of books about the same characters all set to go, but Skywatcher sold badly. My agent left the
business. Nobody wanted to publish the sequel, or anything else I’d written,
because of my dismal sales record. I looked for advice and was told I basically
had to ride it out - and it might take up to 10 years before I could start
over.
So, I took a break. I
never stopped writing, but I stopped sending my work out. And then in 2001 the book
industry began to change. With the advent of digital publishing, it suddenly
became affordable to produce a self-published, print-on-demand paperback. I had
the sequel to Skywatcher ready to go.
I updated it a little, and then published it as The Cilla Rose Affair.
I’d also written a
third novel, Found at Sea. It had
nothing to do with spies, and was set on a cruise ship in the Caribbean. I sent
it off to an agent in the UK, who loved it. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to
find any publishers who felt the same way.
In 2003 I took a
buyout from the telecommunications company where I’d worked for 18 years. I
decided to learn how to write screenplays and tv scripts. So, I became a
full-time student at Vancouver Film School. My major project - a full-length
feature film script - was adapted from Found
at Sea, the novel I’d written a few years earlier.
After film school I
spent a few years concentrating on scriptwriting. I had four feature scripts
optioned, and a cooking and lifestyle program I wrote for had two pilot
episodes filmed.
But I never gave up
on my long fiction, which was always my first love. I went back to Found at Sea, and turned it into a novel
again. I changed its name to Cold Play
and moved it from the Caribbean to Alaska. And the main character Chris Davey
(Purser) became Jason Davey (ship’s entertainer). I sent about 200 queries out
to literary agents in three countries. But the publishing industry was changing
again, and I was out of luck. So, I decided to fully embrace digital technology
and brought Cold Play out myself, as
an e-book and a trade paperback.
My current novel, Persistence of Memory, also began life
as a screenplay a few years ago. It’s a bit of a niche genre - accidental time
travel / historical romance. But I’ve been amazingly fortunate to hook up with
Fable Press, who’ve done a fantastic job editing and providing cover art.
In a way I guess I’ve
come full circle! And “persistence”, I think, has always been my watchword!
What was the very first thing you ever wrote?
As soon as I learned
to read I started writing little stories, so I can’t think of a defining moment
that would qualify as “the very first thing”. The very first piece of long
fiction I ever wrote was that novel when I was 12. It was about a guy named
Lawrence Jenkins-Hennessey who was kidnapped and transported to England on
board a cargo ship. I think I ran out of plot roundabout Chapter 10, so I don’t
think I ever finished it. But that was probably my first serious foray into the
writing world.
What made you create Persistence of Memory? How
did it come to you?
As I mentioned
before, it actually started out as a screenplay. My dad’s brother had begun a
family tree website and put me in charge of maintaining it, All of the research
had been done by others to identify family members on my dad’s side, but I
started to wonder about my mum’s side of my family. I was able to locate
everyone quite easily - except for one of my great-grandfathers. There was no
birth certificate, and I couldn’t find any information about his parents. He
was a complete mystery until his marriage to my great-grandmother in 1897. So I
used that frustration to create Charlie Lowe’s story. And then I sent Charlie
back six generations into the past to actually meet the ancestors who’d been such
a mystery to her.
Who is your literary hero?
Monica Dickens. She
was Charles Dickens’ great-granddaughter, and she wrote the most wonderful
novels about the various jobs she’d held, and her experiences in life. She also
wrote excellent children’s stories and was a great humanitarian. My favourite
of her novels is The Listeners, about
the Samaritans, the crisis helpline people.
How much of your characters are based on your
traits or someone you know personally?
I think it varies
with the story I’m writing. I always put bits and pieces of myself into my main
characters - I think most writers do that. In Persistence of Memory, there’s a lot of me in Charlie Lowe - but
she’s a lot bolder than me, and much more outspoken. I’m quite timid in real
life! I think there’s probably a lot of me in Sarah Foster, too, especially
when it comes to her stubbornness and her sense of independence.
In my previous novel,
Cold Play, there wasn’t much of me in
Jason Davey, the book’s narrator. But I based his love interest, Katey
Shawcross, quite a bit on myself. She was a travel agent dealing with
life-changing circumstances, and I remember being in very similar circumstances
to her when I was a travel agent, on a fam trip on board a cruise ship.
Describe your main character in six words.
Charlie is principled, impetuous, loyal, inventive, curious and
unafraid.
Describe the world you’ve created in six words.
Jane Austen’s
England. With an iPhone.
What scene was your favorite to write?
There were so many
that were a lot of fun, but I think my favourite was Charlie’s lunch with the
two Louis Augustus Duran’s. I love the dialogue between the two men, the
absolute petulance of the Lesser Monsieur Duran contrasted with the complete
eccentricity of his father. If I can be permitted a second and third choice,
I’d have to say the scene in The Dog’s Watch where the Lesser Monsieur Duran is
losing a fight with the brother of a maid he’s recently sacked. And the scene
where the Greater Monsieur Duran, Mr. Rankin and several of Mr. Deeley’s
friends pay a late night visit to Lemuel Ferryman’s bedroom window, and
conspire to lure him outside.
What scene was the hardest for you to write?
Probably the scene
near the end where Charlie’s reading a letter from the Greater Monsieur Duran.
Not because it was difficult emotionally, but because of a technical
constraint, My excellent editor decreed in early rewrites that I had to limit
the points of view in the novel to only two characters: Charlie and her cousin
Nick. This meant that I had to re-imagine a number of scenes where I’d had an
omniscient narrator, and neither Charlie nor Nick were present. So in order to
finish the story, and let the readers know what ultimately happened to all of
the main characters from 1825, I had to be inventive. I ended up resorting to a
long letter, which is a technical device that was actually quite common in that
era, but not something I’d ever used before in my own writing.
What are you working on now?
I’m researching and
outlining the next novel in this accidental time travel series featuring
Charlie and Mr. Deeley. It takes place in World War Two London, during The
Blitz. My mum and dad met during the war, when she was a WAAF and he was a
paratrooper. And my grandfather was an ARP Warden. My mum and her memories are
a prime source of research!
Goals? Accomplishments? Improvements?
I’d like to be able to finish a novel a
year. It’s what I’m aiming for, though I’m not sure how well this will work in
reality, since I also have a full-time job. The good news is that I can retire
in six years, so as long as my brain and my body stay healthy, I have grand
plans to write well into old age. I’ve managed to accomplish what my main goal
has always been in life - writing and publishing novels - so really, all I can add
to that is that I continue to do the same, always with a view towards learning
and improving and becoming a better writer with each new book.
Are there any authors or books you recommend?
There are so many that have influenced
me…and one of the terrible things that happens when you become a busy writer is
that your reading time is seriously compromised. I have so little spare time
these days - and the free hours I do have are usually devoted to research or
writing. I’d have to fall back on my favourite authors - Monica Dickens, as
I’ve already mentioned. John Le Carre, my other favourite writer. And
curiously, John Galsworthy - for his Forsyte books, which really are a study of
interesting characters, family politics and dynasties. Before Downton Abbey and Upstairs Downstairs, there was The
Forsyte Saga. It influenced me greatly as a teenager, and I read my way
through all of the novels after I’d seen the series on tv.
What's your favorite thing to do when you're
not writing?
When I’m not
researching or writing (or at work), I’m either sleeping (which I’m very fond
of) or I’m online, Twittering. I love Twitter. I’ve mentioned that I’m normally
very timid in real life. Twitter lets me be far more outgoing and chatty than I
could ever be in person. It’s an interesting phenomenon, and I’m sure I’m not
the only one this has happened to. Twitter is filled with constructed
personalities. It’s a fascinating adventure every time I log on.
