1. I live in a city - Vancouver - but I often set
stories in small towns for the sense of community which echoes what I find in
my downtown neighborhood. What about you? Where do you live and where do you
set your stories? And why?
I spent most of
the first thirty two years of my life living abroad, in far flung places like
Shanghai, Stockholm, Buenos Aires, Bad Godesberg and Washington DC. I was living in Argentina when I wrote my
first novel, but found that all my instincts drew me towards setting its story
back ‘home’, in London. I think this was
largely because being at such a great geographical distance afforded me a
perspective that felt both fresh and insightful. In subsequent books I have grown more adventurous,
playing rural and urban settings off against each other and gradually
incorporating some of the varied experiences of life in foreign countries into
my plots. For my most recent novel,
‘Before I Knew You’, which is about two families who swap homes, I set half the
story in Darien, Connecticut and the other half in West London. It was great to have such a big ‘canvas’ to
work on and I had a lot of fun exploring our transatlantic differences and
meeting points. For me, perhaps because
of my peripatetic upbringing, it is often the lack of cohesion in a community
that interests me the most, that sense of us all being outsiders looking in.
2. What's your favorite book ever and why? I have 2 or
3 books that I read over and over again - including Jane Austen's Persuasion. I
love it because the characters are older and their relationship isn't easy, but
you know, when they do finally get together, they're grown-ups and they know
exactly who they are.
My favourite book
ever has to be ‘Middlemarch’ by the nineteenth century female writer, George
Eliot. It is a seamless, gripping
exposition of life in provincial England at a time in history when social,
scientific and political change is galloping into a new era. Character and context are in perfect fusion,
woven in a blend of narratives that charts the emotional and material hopes and
losses of an entire community. No detail
is too small to escape observation; and yet the vastness of the world is there
too – the backcloth against which all human drama, no matter how petty or how
huge, is played out. I have read it many
times. Most recently about three years
ago. It never disappoints. More than that, I stumble on new treasures
every time.
3. What's the story you've always wanted to write but
somehow can't? For me, it's a story about World War I. I'm fascinated by the
stories I've read about it but I'm pretty sure I'm never going to write a real
war story. I've just finished a book that is set partly during World War I but
a very long way away from the battles. I think that's as close as I'm going to
get.
At the risk of
sounding smug, my tenth novel ‘Relative Love’, and its sequel ‘the Simple Rules
of Love’, was the story I had always wanted to write. It is a multigenerational tale covering two
separate years – five years apart – in the life of the Harrison family. An unexpected and terrible tragedy occurs in
the early part of the first book and the rest of the story shows how this
impacts on all of them, from the grandparents to the grandchildren, shaping
their lives and their personalities. Coming
from a big, close-knit family myself, which gathers regularly through the
course of each year, I had always wanted to try and do justice to the
complicated pressures and pleasures that arise from being part of such a
sprawling connected set of relationships.
Each family member forges his/her own path through life, but the core
from which they have grown never leaves them.
4. Finally, do you have a routine? If so,
what is it and how easy/hard is it to stick to it? I try to have one, but
because I work as a freelance paralegal and teach paralegals occasionally, my
schedule tends to change from week to week, if not actually day to day. I'm
always buying lottery tickets, hoping to win just enough money not to have to
work and write to a regular schedule though I'm pretty sure that even if I did
have the money to write nine to five, I wouldn't, as I've been scrambling like
this forever :)
I do have a
routine. It is to work every day! That said, when my children were little I
think I was much more efficient – rushing to my desk for the few precious hours
they were at nursery school and belting out as many paragraphs I could before
the time came – always so quickly – to leap back in the car and pick them
up. Nowadays, the act of self-discipline
has to be more consciously imposed. My
own private rule is to do the most basic domestic necessities, like loading the
washing machine and the dishwasher, before picking my way back upstairs to my
study with my first cup of coffee. Then
there are emails. And admin. I answer only the most pressing and try to
save all the paperwork to do in one go at a later time. On starting work, I always begin by
re-reading, and invariably re-writing, what I did the day before. In the mornings my head is noticeably fresher
– more rapid-thinking, more capable of problem-solving - than in the afternoons. Though, when a deadline is looming, I can often
hit my stride again round four o clock and work on into the evening. Novels need thinking-time too. I always remind myself of that. Often my best ideas come when I am not trying
to summon them. I find this both
maddening and mysterious. It is as if my
brain has a compartment that I don’t know about, where the work never stops.
Amanda can be found at:
She is the author of many novels including her most
recent “Before I Knew You” and her latest “The Love Child” is due out in early
2013.
