What would you say are the biggest challenges that you face?
There’s only one challenge: to write the best book you can and then try not to fret too much about what happens to it when it goes out into the world.
How do you deal with these?
I try to think of Chekhov’s motto: 'Write without hope and without despair.' That’s it… I try and write each day when I’m in the middle of a book.
What are your latest books about?
My latest adult book, Made in Heaven is about a big wedding and my latest teenage book Ithaka is about Penelope waiting for Odysseus to come home from the Trojan war.
Made in Heaven took about nine months and was published June 2006 by Orion London. Ithaka took a year, but it was divided up into bits around my adult novel writing. [It was] first published by David Fickling Books in October 2005 and by Harcourt Brace in the USA in Jan.2006. Ithaka [has also] published in Corgi Paperback in August 2006.
Which aspects of the work that you put into the books did you find most difficult?
The hardest part is the beginning… and I mean as well as the beginning of the book, the starting up every day.
How do you get around this problem?
I generally start by correcting what I’ve written the previous day… this gets the fingers working on the computer and seems to give me the impetus to go on …
Which did you enjoy most?
The best feeling in the world is having written… I love that.
What sets your latest books apart from the other things you have written?
Well, the adult novel is a bit of a departure, in that my other adult novels tend to have a ‘looking back into the past’ element and this one doesn’t.
Ithaka relates to Troy. That’s my novel about the Trojan War and these two are the only things I’ve written set in the Ancient world.
In what way are they similar?
Well, they’re both written by me, and I suppose they’re full of my preoccupations and they are in my ‘handwriting’ as it were... my particular style.
What preoccupations are these and just how much space do they take up in your life? Why is this so?
Article comments
1 - L. Diane Wolfe
Adele's trick of starting every day by correcting the previous day's work is great advice! If inspiration isn't hitting at the time, editing previous work gets it going. And there is always editing to do! I have three stages I work in - handwriting the initial story, putting it into the computer, and editing a printed hard copy - so I have options for getting my creative juices going in the morning!