Today I’m joining the blog tour for Finding Jack. I’m sharing my Q&A with the author with thanks to Rachel Gilbey at Rachel’s Random Resources for inviting me on the tour and to Sofia Due for answering my questions!

Have you always wanted to write?

Yes. I always planned to but started a decade or so later than I intended. At school, I was encouraged to take all my English exams a year or so early. My English teacher said he was sure one day I would write books. He also used to say that he enjoyed reading my work but just as he was about to put it down and mark it high would pause and think, ‘But has she actually answered the question?’ I hope there’s more content in my work nowadays.

What were your previous jobs? Have they helped you with your writing process?

I’ve been working as a lawyer, mainly in the asylum and human rights sector, for the past twenty years. I work with people of all economic backgrounds and from all over the world and they tell me their stories. Listening to their different patterns of speech and the language they use has certainly helped my writing. It’s helped me envisage characters and develop their back stories. Some of them, or their characteristics have crept into my work. Hamid, one of the characters in ‘Finding Jack’ is a combination of many young asylum-seekers I have worked with. His back story of cooking for the workers in a marble works is a genuine account and the factory in Birmingham is similar to one described by a woman I supported.  

What was your inspiration for Finding Jack?

I wanted to explore how someone recovers from a traumatic experience or heartbreak but rather than meeting them before the events and taking them through the heartbreak, I wanted to meet them after and see what they do next. It has to be positive. For Gennie, she thinks the last thing she needs is another person with a problem, but actually making that journey together could be the thing that makes the difference. 

How do you construct your characters? Do they have traits of people you know?

They develop as I write. I have an idea of them and visualise them so I know how they stand and how they move. Then when I start to write them, it’s the dialogue that helps me develop them more. Once I’m a couple of chapters in, I do a character study with their appearance, clothes, likes and dislikes etc. They do have traits of people I know and sometimes, traits of two or three people are combined in one person and sometimes one person’s habits are split among a few people. It’s harder to write male characters and get inside their head so I do steal a few traits from people to make sure the characters are real and relatable.

What does your writing process look like? Are you a plotter or a pantser?

I both plot and pants. I start with the outline of the main character and their opposite number, the problem I want to solve and where I want the story to start. I start writing when I know the direction of the story and a rough idea of events but before I’ve got every scene planned out then plot it in finer detail when I’ve got the sketchy first draft.  

How did you research? Did you enjoy it?

I love doing the research and all the background reading. I also visit the location. In Finding Jack, I created a village, St Illick, which is somewhere between Wadebridge and Port Isaac. The description of the shops and the lanes though is from further up the coast near Tintagel. I have played a bit fast and loose with the geography. For Jack’s background, I read a lot about the Royal Engineers and the combat they’d been involved in. Friends put me in touch with some people in the army so I could fact check. It felt wrong to take another soldier’s story for Jack and his friends so I invented an incident at a plausible time and place.

Who are your favourite writers? Are you influenced by them?

I have so many! I particularly love the work of Sarah Winman and Maggie O’Farrell and for romance writing, Mhairi McFarlane and Emily Henry. Then there’s Marian Keyes and Naoise Dolan and …I’d absorbed more good practice from them. 

Long time favourite is Daphne DuMaurier.

If you could invite three people, living or dead, to dinner, who would they be and why?

For living people, I’d invite Grayson Perry – because I think he’s wise and wonderful and will tell rude stories and liven up the evening. (He could bring Philippa too unless she fancied a night off.) Otherwise, Dolly Parton – who is wise and wonderful, and her stories won’t be rude and Stanley Tucci as he will bring good wine and mix a great cocktail. (He may have to do mocktails for Dolly as I have a feeling she doesn’t drink.)

Who would you least like to be stuck in a lift with and why?

Me! I have horrible claustrophobia. I’d be a total nightmare.

Who would play the main character/s in a film version of Finding Jack? 

Every time I watch a film, I find someone else to cast in a role. Whoever plays Jack needs to have dark hair and a lovely smile and wrinkles round his eyes – a young Billy Crudup would be good. And Gennie needs to look good as a blonde and brunette – someone like Emilia Clarke.

I think Kristin Scott Thomas would be great as Marion. I’d love to hear her do an Australian accent.

What do you like to do in your spare time?

I read. I also draw and make prints.

What is next for you?

More writing!

Favourites:

Book? Too many! Currently Tomorrow, Tomorrow, Tomorrow

Film? My guilty pleasures are The Proposal and The Notebook

Band/Singer? Always David Bowie but I like the Arctic Monkeys too. 

TV show? Taskmaster

Colour? Purple

Place? Watergate Bay in Cornwall

Biscuit? Digestive

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Finding Jack is available from Amazon.

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