This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.
After kindly showing us around her Writing Room yesterday, today we're talking to Menna van Praag about her new book, The Witches of Cambridge, what inspires her, and how she became a writer.
Hi Menna. Please tell us a bit about your latest book.
The Witches of Cambridge is about four friends: Amandine, George, Kat, Heloise are all university professor and witches. They’ve formed a book group and meet every month on the tops of the university turrets to discuss their chosen books. Only, lately, the book group has fallen apart. Heloise, in mourning for her husband, has become a recluse. Amandine’s own marriage is falling apart. Kat is suffering with unrequited love for George. And poor George just doesn’t know what’s going on. Meanwhile, Cosima, Kat’s sister, is causing a stir – literally & figuratively – by baking cakes for her café with magical properties, effecting the local community in most unusual ways…
Where do you find inspiration for your books?
Everywhere but rarely. I’m given – by the creative writing gods – about one great idea a year. Which is fine, since I only write a book a year. But the way the idea for The Dress Shop of Dreams came was my favorite so far. I was talking with my mum who’d seen a news piece on the BBC about workers in a Cuban cigar factory who gave a little of their wages everyday to employ a reader, someone who read them novels and plays while they rolled the cigars. Sometimes, they’d name the cigars after their favorites stories: Romeo and Juliet or The Count of Monte Cristo. While my mum was talking, I got that special feeling: a new book was being born. Immediately, I began imagining this world. I thought, what if this reader had a magical voice, one that enchanted the workers who heard him and transformed their lives? And what if he fell so in love with one of the workers that his love rendered him mute? And what if she was illiterate? But the finished novels are usually very different from these beginnings. For example, I knew I’d relocated the setting to Cambridge, England, because this is where all my books take place. And, since we don’t have any cigar-rolling factories here, that too would have to change. In fact, a great deal changed as I was writing, as it usually does. But it was the passion I had for the initial idea kept bringing me back to the blank page everyday.
Can you tell us a little about your average writing day?
While writing The House at the End of Hope Street I wrote for ten to fifteen hours a day. I feel headfirst into the story, even dreaming about it at night. After my son was born I had to cut my writing hours down dramatically! Since I’ve always been quite an obsessive writer the shift into motherhood wasn’t an easy adjustment for me to make. Nowadays I just write for a few hours in the mornings (three days a week) when he’s at nursery.
What is your favourite Women’s Fiction book of all time and why?
And one thing I love about reading is that it inspires me to greater heights and depths in my own writing. I first fell in love with magical realism through reading Isabelle Allende. Then, at university, I discovered Alice Hoffman. After that, there was no going back. I do read other genres, but magical realism is my very favorite. The book that has, so far, inspired me beyond all others is The Night Circus by Erin Mortgenstern.
Which female writer has inspired you?
Alice Hoffman, most of all. I love the magic in her tales, along with the acute realism of the worlds she creates. Sometimes her stories are a little too dark for my tastes, but the touches of magic are always a treat. Her writing always appears effortless to me, though I doubt it is.
What books have you been recommending recently?
Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert. I’ve been buying so many copies for friends. If you want to be a writer, or do any kind of creative work, you absolutely must read this book.
What is your writing process? Do you plan first or dive in? How many drafts do you do?
In the beginning I write to find the story (I’m not much of a plotter) and I can find my attention wondering a little during those days. Once I really get into it though, all I want to do is be immersed in the story. Hope Street went through twenty-six full edits. Dress Shop only needed half a dozen minor ones.
What was your journey to being a published author?
I self-published my first book, Men, Money & Chocolate. I went all over London, Oxford and Cambridge, bribed independent bookstores with homemade flapjacks, and begged them to sell my book. Eventually people started reading it and loving it. A girl who worked in my local Borders bookshop loved it so much she sold over 50 copies herself in 3 months, by insisting all her customers buy it! About six months later, I went back to the first publisher I’d approached, Hay House, and told them I’d sold over 600 books. Funnily enough, the woman who’d rejected it the first time around had just left and the new editor loved it. She invited me for lunch at a lovely restaurant in Notting Hill and we spoke for hours. Now that book has been translated into 26 languages. Interestingly enough, they also told me that my minor successes in self-publishing was also a major factor in them deciding to publish me.
What advice can you give to our readers who want to write a novel of their own?
Write a little every day, even your birthday and Christmas, even if it’s only a single sentence. There is something magical in momentum. I recently invented a writing exercise called The Sentence Game – people from all over the world play it with me every month – which is proving amazing! It’s the springboard for many into their first novels.
What are you working on at the moment?
I’ve just begun a new novel about a woman who lives on a remote island and dreams of sailing across the ocean. It’s in its very early stages, so I can’t say too much about it.
Thanks, Menna!
The Witches of Cambridge is out now!