Claire Garber is the author of Love is a Thief, which is out now.
Can you tell us a little about your average
writing day?
It really depends where I’m up to with a book and also where I am
living. When I lived in London my day would start at 6am. I’d go to the gym for
a very (very) gentle workout then write in a coffee shop before work. Now I
live in France, novel writing is my full time occupation and I am much lazier in the mornings! I still
get up early but give myself an hour to do ‘stuff’ (emails, coffee drinking,
time wasting on the internet) before actually sitting down to write. In an
ideal world I will have made a to do list
the night before, of areas I want to focus on. I work in 30-minute blocks, switching
between different scenes or activities. In the early stages of novel writing I
free write until I have hit a certain word count. The latter stages are more
focused – I’ll know exactly what needs to be edited each day and how long it will
take. There are days when I circle my laptop like an angry Hyena never managing
to sit down, procrastinating behind piles of laundry and fictitious ‘chores’
before bursting into tears at 7pm. Those aren’t good days and normally end with
me stuffing my face full of chocolate, but they become less frequent the
further I progress with the work. I have also found that not spending the whole
day in pyjamas is good for my sanity so now I make a point of ‘getting ready’
in the morning (this is a new thing – I was in PJ’s every day until last week…)
When you are writing, do you use any famous
people or people you know as inspiration?
I think I probably do, at least in the early stages. Male
characters tend to start out as someone I have a crush on, the object of unrequited
love, a handsome ex I can’t stop thinking about. But as the work progresses characters
take on a life of their own and I can honestly say that by the end of a novel
every character is a distinct person in their own right.
What is your favourite Women’s Fiction book of
all time and why?
I actually read through the other authors’ responses
to this question and I feel like the girl who didn’t do her homework when I say
Bridget Jones, but there are good reasons. If I picked up the book today I’d still
enjoy reading it. The book and larger franchise has made millions of people
laugh. Helen Fielding is brilliantly talented and is friends with Richard Curtis. And lastly, Bridget Jones has
the level of commercial success I dream of. So for me Bridget Jones is number
one. Although I’d do almost anything to be able to construct sentences like
Gillian Flynn (Gone Girl). I am in total awe of her.
What is your writing process? Do you plan
first or dive in? How many drafts do you do?
I am still learning my writing process, or rather I am
slowly coming to accept it. Too much rigidity and a brilliant idea can be
overlooked, but without a firm anchor in the ground I end up running off in the
wrong direction. For Love is a Thief I
wrote all over the place, out of order, and normally with no plan. This method required
a lot of re-writes and a lot of material was cut later on. For my current book
I’ve tried to avoid this by creating storyboards, interrogating the characters
before I began, creating story arcs and scene plans, and character-on-character
notes and … well, I am much less productive! I think a combination of both is
where I’ll end up. Number of drafts? There are boxes and boxes of manuscripts
in my loft, each one a revised version. I should recycle… or maybe make a papier
mache version of myself?
What was your journey to being a published
author?
A long one. I
started writing my first novel about ten years ago. It was called Memoirs of a Mountain Girl. It was rejected by everyone. But several
literary agents liked my style and asked me to send them my next project. Over
the next three years I half-heartedly began other books, finishing nothing, until
one agent got back in touch asking if I’d written anything else. Cue another 6-month
rewrite of Memoirs of a Mountain girl (I
wouldn’t let that one lie!) which I submitted with the first 10,000 words of
another novel (40 days and 40 nights –
truly terrible. still unfinished) and a flippant comment about a third book I
was interested in writing. The agent immediately emailed back wanting to know
more about the flippant comment… it was my idea for Love is a Thief. Two years later I sent them the manuscript just
before a very long Christmas break. I had an agonizing 4-week wait to hear back
but when I did the agent said she loved it and wanted to meet. And so began the
next very long journey …
What do you think is the biggest myth about
being a novelist?
Myth #1 –
that once you get an agent and publisher you’re done. It’s just the very very
very beginning.
Myth #2 – That
it’s an easy ‘non-job’. Writing requires discipline, focus, dedication, and an
ability to always disregard the odds. A novelist’s life, as far as I can tell,
is not a decadent existence filled with ideas and laughter, creativity and
cashmere, parties and long lunches with eclectic groups of über cool friends
who debate the meaning of life before jumping into classic cars and whizzing
off into the countryside. Writing is the hardest and loneliest job I’ve ever done.
It involves enormous amounts of rejection, uncertainty, poverty and weeks spent
wandering the house alone wearing clothes that resemble pyjamas (they are pyjamas)
eating alarming amounts of popcorn and staring obsessively at my arse in the
mirror baffled by its enormous change in shape.
What advice can you give to our readers who
want to write a novel of their own?
My gut (butt) reaction would be to grab them by their shoulders, shake
them back and forth and scream in their faces ‘Don’t do it! Don’t ever, ever do it!’ My more practical advice
would be the following:
Love your
subject matter. That way, whatever the outcome, you will have created something
important to you.
Become
blinkered. The odds of success are against you so always ignore them. Nothing great would ever be achieved if we
looked only to what was possible.
Always bet
on yourself.
Buy a
popcorn maker
What are you working on at the moment?
Great question! And one my publisher asked just
yesterday. I am currently working on the 2nd book of my two-book
deal with Harlequin. I could tell you what it’s about, if only I knew.
Apparently I am suffering from ‘book two syndrome’ which my agent tells me it’s
an actual affliction with no antibiotic cure…
Thanks, Claire!