Author: Angela Clem

Born in London, Temi Oh is a graduate from King’s College London (in Neuroscience) and a postgraduate from the University of Edinburgh (in Creative Writing). Her studies brought together a vast breadth of scientific knowledge with her love and aptitude for writing of all stripes. Her debut novel, Do You Dream of Terra-Two?, fully intertwines these areas of expertise—telling the story of an interplanetary team on a twenty-three year mission to reach a new, habitable planet… and the dangers, within and without, that they face.

In this interview, Ogilvie editors Calder Hudson and Angela Hicks talk with Temi about the process of writing and publishing her first novel—discussing her reflections and insights on the book’s journey from its initial draft to its publication on March 7th, 2019.

 

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When you began your Creative Writing postgraduate degree in Edinburgh, you’d only recently completed your Neuroscience degree. How did your scientific expertise feed into the book—or did the book help shape your interests in science?

Throughout my undergraduate degree, I worked on the book—after lectures, during the holidays. In my final year, I signed up to study the Extreme Physiology Module, where we learnt about what happens to the human body under extreme conditions such as high altitude, hypothermia, diving, and zero-gravity. I attended talks delivered by guest lecturers including Dr Kevin Fong, who told us about working in A&E and about space travel. Dr Anna Bagenhol —who was revived after a skiing accident that caused her heart to stop for hours—delivered a lecture about the body’s reaction to hypothermia. The module also provided a great opportunity to do some first-hand research into the life of an astronaut. Our group went on a trip to a human centrifuge at Farnborough where I was spun around a 60-foot metal arm until I reached 3.5 G (so my body was 3.5 times heavier than normal). I kept asking the operator to push the acceleration up. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine how my characters would feel launching into space. I felt dizzy for two days afterwards.

 

Speaking of characters—Do You Dream of Terra-Two? features a number of different Point-of-View characters. Was it hard to find individual, distinctive voices for each one? And was there one you kept coming back to more than the others—a favourite perspective to write from?

While writing each character, I tried to remember that everyone believes that they are the hero of the story. It was a bit like method acting—trying to fully inhabit each character while writing them, taking into consideration how their previous experiences might shape their current behaviour.

It’s a little irrational, but it feels unfair to have a favourite. Like taking sides.

 

In early drafts, there was one additional PoV character, Solomon, who was later cut. Was it difficult to remove a core member of the cast?

Oooh… behind the scenes secrets! I never feel emotional about cutting anything. It’s like sawing off a rotting limb. When I reached the point where I realised Solomon had to go, it was the only option. Although he was a great character and I liked him, I had to consider his role in the story as a whole.

 

Can you tell us more about the editing process the book has undergone, and what it’s taught you as a writer?

Thanks to the people in my workshop group in Edinburgh, I wasn’t a complete newbie when it came to the editing process. With their suggestions, the first couple of chapters were pretty polished by the time I sent the book off to agents. But, it’s a long book and when I got an offer from my agent, she said, “I think the book is good, but it needs some work. And some re-writing.” She helped me perform plastic surgery on the novel for a few months before we sent it out to editors; it was such a new collaborative experience because I’d been working on the book alone for so long and in some places, I’d got stuck.

I have so much to say about the editing process! In the first stage, it was really intensive, huge structural changes. For the next couple of re-writes we focused on tone, style, consistency. Family I spoke to during that time baulked at the thought of anyone suggesting I make changes to the book. But I think it’s important to emphasise that editing is teamwork. Everyone has a different editorial style, but, in my experience, my agent or editor would identify problems and plot holes and it was my job to bite my nails for a few weeks and think of solutions. Other times, my editor might suggest her own solution to a problem, and if I agreed with it, I’d get to skip the nail-biting stage and think about a way to write it.

Copy-editing was the best because, by that point, I had made all of the difficult changes. My publisher sent me a track-changes document that the copy-editor had already gone through, fixing grammar and pointing out (for example) scenes where the sun sets twice. After we’d finished, it was so gratifying to read. Awkward phrasing hammered out, prose like silk.

 

Are there any authors who really influenced your writing in Do You Dream of Terra-Two?

I had a real problem with dialogue, like a kind of tone-deafness. For years, people who read my writing would say that the prose was quite lyrical but the dialogue often sounded stilted.

I endured a couple dark months of the soul wondering about this—about how to fix it. And then I read Eleanor Catton’s The Rehearsal. It’s a gorgeous book where the characters burst into unexpected soliloquies in every chapter (In the beginning the saxophone teacher says: “I require of all my students… that they are downy and pubescent, pimpled with sullen mistrust, and boiling away
with private fury and ardour and uncertainty and gloom…”) and I realised that, in fiction, a writer is allowed to have the same stylised fun with dialogue as with the rest of the prose.

 

Do you have a particular writing process? Are you a coffee-shop sort of person? Late-night writer?

It’s always changing. I really wish I had a routine. I wish I had Murakami’s routine (I read that he gets up at 4 am, writes all morning, and then runs for 10km or swims for 1500m) but, for me, Writer’s Block is some resilient strain of sickness that’s soon resistant to whatever I try.

Throughout my teen years, I wrote all the time. All weekend on my laptop facing out onto the council flats on the street opposite. When I got Writer’s Block I’d walk down to Londis, buy a bag of jelly-babies and by the time I’d finished slowly eating them I’d have an answer to whatever it was I was worried about. Maybe that’s why I have so many fillings now.

In university, and especially in Edinburgh, I had set up a really nice writing desk with all my books, but I’d spend most of the year writing on the floor in front of the electric heater.

I need lots of coffee. I seem to work best when I’m slightly sleep-deprived and when it’s dark outside (early morning or late in the night) when I don’t feel as if I have a lot of other options and when no one would pick up the phone if I tried to call.

I wrote 50% of this book on a typewriter which I love to use because it’s a lot harder to edit.

 

Has the publishing process taught you lessons you think other writers might value?

Traditional publishing can take years. My agent sold my book to my publisher almost two years ago, which, I have been told that—even by traditional publishing’s standards—is quite a while. Some of that time was spent editing, but for most of it I have been writing Book 2 and working at my day job. I didn’t realise how the passage of that time would make me feel. For about four years, this book was my baby; I took it everywhere with me, was duty-bound to defend it. But, now that I’ve let it go, I feel as if I’m play-acting the person who wrote it.

Everyone will tell you not to read your reviews, but the internet is always there! And you’ve waited for years to see what the world thinks about this story you were dying to tell. Don’t feel too guilty if this is a lesson you’ll have to learn the hard way.

 

On your website, there is an option to take an Astronaut Test to see if the reader would be capable of embarking on a long space mission like the one in your novel. Both of us failed, but did you pass? Do you think you’d do well on a 23-year mission into space?

Hah! I get so many questions about this. I didn’t make it. I failed and everyone I know failed so for a while I had a suspicion that no one could win. But now a few people have tweeted me to tell me that they have so maybe it’s true that only the best of the best can make it.

I’m certain that I would not be selected for a real mission into space. I like to be comfortable. I can’t say that I’m a risk taker. Plumbing matters a lot to me. In one interview I read an astronaut said that sometimes going to the bathroom can become a ‘hand to hand combat’—I was horrified.

 

The premise of the novel is that a ‘New Earth’—a habitable planet across space—has been discovered. If you were part of an exploration mission, what things do you think you’d miss most about ‘Old Earth’?

My favourite place to be is in a coffee shop in a Waterstones with two or three free hours in front of me. So I would miss everything about that experience.

Obviously, family. But also, the candy-floss colours of apple blossoms in the spring and the way they scatter like confetti across the asphalt. Going out on a summer’s day at lunchtime in the city where I work, and seeing all the people in suits gathered out on every green space eating lunch out of paper bags as if it’s a music festival but only for an hour or two.

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You can find more about Temi via her website. A list of Temi’s live appearances, interviews, and podcast specials—as well as a means of contact—are available on the About page; more information on Do You Dream of Terra-Two?, as well as an except, is available via the About the Book page. Do You Dream of Terra-Two? is published by Simon & Schuster in the United Kingdom and by Saga Press in the United States; the book is available in stores now and can also be purchased on Audible .

Two years after The Ogilvie first launched, Angela Clem, Angela Hicks, and Calder Hudson–the review’s founders–discuss their plans for the future (namely, Year #3).

The opinions expressed in this piece are those of the authors (though in this case, the authors are coincidentally The Ogilvie’s entire staff).

 

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Discussion: The Ogilvie Turns Two

 

AH: So this month is the second anniversary of The Ogilvie–the Ogilversary, as Calder likes to call it. And in the UK at least, the second anniversary is traditionally paper, which feels appropriate for a literary magazine, even if we are completely digital.

AC: It definitely doesn’t feel like it’s been two years. Time flies and all that. We’ve published so many phenomenal authors so far! I’m particularly excited by how we have returning contributors published alongside new names. It has been great to see The Ogilvie expand into what it is today, and I think we all have a lot of excitement for what’s to come.

CH: Yeah, I’m pretty stoked for what’s in store this year. I’ll be focusing on the Insight section in particular. I’m really proud of how it grew last year and the spread of interviews and personal essays we’ve taken on, and I have more interviews lined up this year to continue that trend. There’s a lot to talk about–here in Edinburgh and beyond–and I’m looking forward to getting all the takes. 

AC: Right. Obviously we’ll still be taking Fiction and Poetry submissions, but what we noticed over the past two years is how many good stories can be found behind the authors themselves. Interviewing up-and-coming folks in the industry can offer our readers brand new perspectives. We do have a few specific interviews in mind to start with, but we’re also looking forward to expanding our network and engaging a wider audience.

CH: There are some really exciting developments happening all around Edinburgh as well this year. One particular highlight for me is the arrival of Cymera, a Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Horror festival slated to take place at the Pleasance in early June. It’ll contain lots of author appearances, a Creator’s Hall, and even a bespoke fiction competition. Really looking forward to that–all the coverage I’ve seen so far is top-notch.

AC: How about you, Ange? Any other new plans or announcements for this year?

AH: Well, for our monthly round-ups of 2018, I took photo black-and-white photos of the Ogilvie park. This year I’m thinking about moving into colour photos, or at least sepia ones.

CH: The park always does look good in full technicolour, despite Edinburgh’s best attempts to render itself monochromatic due to cloud cover. 

AH: And in other plans, I hope to do a lot of reading in 2019. I’m still making my way through The Goldfinch, which is a great book, but very long. Once I finish, I intend to read a lot of short fiction. And I’m hoping to do some more of my own writing.

AC: I’m hoping this year will allow me to rediscover reading “for fun”. After moving for work late last year and as the American political climate continues to deteriorate, I’m looking towards reading and self-education as a way to combat the ignorance and fatalism around me. I’ll always leave room for fiction, of course, but I’m tackling a long list of public policy and history reads, mostly from the independent socialist publisher Haymarket Books. I just finished two of their published poetry collections: Schtick by Kevin Coval and Citizen Illegal by José Olivarez.

CH: One particular book I’m super keen on that’s coming out this year–I’m pretty sure it’s actually already out on Audible–is Do You Dream of Terra Two?. I read some of the early drafts of this book during my MSc, so it’ll be amazing to see the finished version, and to talk with its author, Temi Oh, in our first interview of the year. It’s a joy to be buddies with creators you like; you can inundate them with rabid fan questions! 

AH: Here’s to 2019–the year we bombard every writer we know with requests for interviews!

CH: Hype!

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Angela C., Angela H., and Calder can be contacted via their respective Twitter accounts.

Julie Barker is a South African writer and producer based in Glasgow. She produced a short film, The Hide, which won best drama at the 2017 WOF Festival in Brighton.  She also wrote for the series Armchair Detectives which screened on BBC 1 in 2017. In 2015, she completed an MA in Creative Writing for which she wrote a novel called Other People’s Countries. From 2013 to 2016 she worked for River City as a Story Editor and Producer. She is currently working on a series of memoir pieces; Home is one of those extracts.

 

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Home

 

My earliest recollection of home was of a geographical emptiness. Apartheid created the illusion that we lived in an unpopulated country. My first memory of travel was driving through the South African Karoo, a vast semi-desert which was once an ancient seabed straddling the centre of the country. We rattled for a day through searing heat. Our pale blue Peugeot climbed sluggishly up barren hills and emitted clouds of smoke, choking passing dung beetles. We were travelling from our home in Johannesburg to Cape Town. There is no other way to get there other than driving through the Karoo. It was the first time I had a sense of what infinity must be, felt that continual impulse to move forward in a landscape where the sun reached closer than anywhere else, its flames licking at my heels like a furious goddess.

As a young white child, I had a hollow awareness that my home wasn’t quite right. The adults that steered my upbringing seemed to suffer from relentless tension; half whispers described the masses plotting our demise. Their behaviour inferred an existence on the brink of annihilation.

When I was eleven, a woman called Elizabeth cleaned our house. It was the late 1970s and she did not have a pass–the document which allowed black people to travel from one province to the next. It was designed to constrain movement and keep black people out of white areas. One day Elizabeth and I were home when there was a knock on the door. Elizabeth begged me to tell whoever was there that I was alone while she hid beneath my bed. When I answered the door, two policemen asked me if there were any black people in my home. I was frightened and led them to Elizabeth. They took her away. I was so distraught that my mother took me to the police station to find her. We were told Elizabeth had been ‘sent away’. My mother gripped my hand hard as she was strongly warned never to employ anyone without a pass again. That was the day I learnt that women have no power, that black lives don’t matter, and black female lives matter the least. My home–‘my tribe’–made me angry and ashamed and I was driven by a single driving impulse to escape.

In the late nineties, when I was twenty-six, the country of my birth became a democracy. It was a heady time filled with the promise of possibility. Johannesburg is an intoxicating city, covered by a glittering acidic dust from the gold mine dumps that lurk on its outskirts. These lunar-sculpted hills are a constant reminder of how an astonishing city gave birth to itself. During the post-apartheid honeymoon, Johannesburg was seduced by its own political success. The first democratically elected government built houses and uplifted people.

I was thoroughly immersed in the changing status quo, an active participant in creating a new world. I wrote for a newly-created television show that reflected the changing society as it happened, so to speak. The first inter-racial romance, the first HIV-positive character, the first gay wedding, the first contrite apartheid assassin. I could do or say anything and the lack of censorship was breathtaking. It felt as if my innate ability as a writer was aligned with serving humanity. The show became the first television programme to be watched by both a white and black audience. It gave birth to the phrase ‘one nation viewing.’ I had finally come home.

However, there were the difficult and controversial aspects to re-creating the South African experience on screen–such as white writers creating black worlds. There needed to be a balance of my own inbuilt prejudice and my constant need to expand the limits of experiential understanding. I had to do this in ways that were honest and unpatronising. I created stories very far outside my immediate experiences. I embraced this; it felt like a re-education of what my country was.

Alongside my social immersion, the city’s growing affluence and a cheerful disregard for city regulations, there remained a menacing undertow–a desperate violence born from oppression and shame. It was a discordant nihilism which ran like an endless motif beneath a buoyant nation, inexorably exposing fault lines. The contradictions had been there all along. We had not known how to identify them in soft focus. Twenty years on, and the wealth divide between black and white was an even more corrosive wound. While no one can deny my sincerity, my inherent privilege blinded me to what should have been utterly obvious. No matter how well intentioned and how self-aware, if you do not play on a level field, you exist in an unfair universe.

My contribution to television began to feel less like a writer reflecting their world and uncomfortably more like a colonial reflection on ‘how to exist.’ My home once again felt ‘not quite right.’ Except now I was inducting my own children into the cult of privilege, inadvertently reliving apartheid, with a home being cordoned off by electric fencing, armed guards and dogs, and serviced by other people.

Idealistically or foolishly I wanted to recreate that seductive sense of infinity (it feels remarkably similar to living on the cusp of immense change) to exist in a space where everything is novel, unexpected and therefore life-changing. In my forties, it felt like this would be my last chance. Ironically, it was privilege of being born to a British father that gave me the opportunity to make another choice. Work and luck sent me to Scotland. Glasgow is nothing like the flamboyant chaos of Johannesburg.  Scotland in the summer of 2013 was a year away from the Independence Referendum. It hung in the air like a dirty word for some, and the possibility of a new future for others. It was a captivating reminder of South Africa’s first democratic elections–a time when people would vote with their hearts.

In the first few weeks, I bathed in the serenity of the merchant city dancing with pink blossoms and the lime green of beginnings. On a particular walk alongside the Kelvin River I imagined myself back in Johannesburg. It was an immersive vision, a sensuous jangle of noise and dust, drenched in a brilliant and angry heat. I opened my eyes to pale wisps of cloud in a silvery sky. The city’s gentleness was a shocking contrast to my other home. I realised I would never be able to merge the two. Egalitarianism is the lifeblood of Glasgow. It is evidenced in simple wedding bands, the salesperson who suggests you go to the shop next door as the item you want is cheaper there, or the person who hangs your lost jumper on a tree in the woods, with the hope that you may find it on your next visit. But it doesn’t pulsate like a heartbeat out of control. It doesn’t roar from an unassailable pain, or sing from the ancient bones of millions. I ached for the complexity and dysfunction of Johannesburg. My new home felt like a photographic negative.

Loss tore into the epicentre of my gut. I was overwhelmed by a savage attack of what-ifs. I was alone in this pretty city. My family and the sanctuary I had built existed in a fading life. I had built a monument to familial functionality, the children’s bedrooms, their parties, our parties, the food we had cooked, the DIY we had done, the friends we had accrued over almost two decades. Not to mention the years of therapy to sort out my racist tendencies and other childhood torments. I now lived in a basement flat in the West End beneath the sprawling interconnected lives of another family. My family were to join me in three months, but what if we could never reclaim that refuge?

There are very few words which succinctly articulate sudden and visceral rootlessness. As I settled into new routines, I began to feel like a non-participant and an observer of someone else’s life. The sense of floating through a half-life in a grey city increased. I understood on some level I was depressed. Yet it felt like something far deeper than a lack of serotonin. It came to me that I was suffering from homesickness, an absurd ache for a country where, because of the actions of my forefathers, I did not have the right to call myself citizen.

One day, I attempted to plant shrubs in the garden, and could barely penetrate the thick clay ridden soil with my spade. I tried a gardening fork. The soil was so compacted and loamy that it took every ounce of strength I could muster. As I shovelled the compost into jagged holes I had managed to fashion, it began to rain. Of course it did; this was Glasgow. The clinging wetness clouded my vision and sorrow spurted out of every pore. I ignored the fact that weeping intensely over badly fashioned plant holes was perhaps an extreme reaction. I sobbed for my new home, which was small, and my new life, which was difficult. Not life-threatening or dysfunctional, but challenging, physically, emotionally, and mentally. I realised the sanctuary in Johannesburg with its lush Swamp Cypresses, which I never tended to with my own hands, and the shining parquet floors, which I walked on for nine years and never cleaned myself, were monuments to a subconscious drive towards creating ease. And I missed it like new sobriety tormented by its own violent addiction.

As I rode the tsunami of regret it came to me that believing I deserved a life of ease was the essence of entitlement, because to live with constant ease is to be numb and oblivious. It is to tourniquet self-awareness, pain and regret, which are the seeds of resilience, empathy and wisdom. While there is nothing wrong with creating a safe space for my family, it should not be used to shelter me from growth. It was the moment I finally understood why I had left.

In between the past and the future stretches the most challenging expanse of all–the present. It is strange waiting between the death of one identity and the birth of another. Home is a fairy tale–the constructs of a culture, brick walls, smells and memories. Home is surely the collection of all our selves, past, present and future, that bear witness to the environments they have learnt from and lived in. Just like we are more than one self, home can never be one fixed place. It is an internal sanctuary where we question, battle with and embrace the endless reimagining of who we are.

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You can read Julie’s previous submission, Festina Lente, here.

Before turning to writing fiction, Tracey Emerson worked in theatre and community arts. As well as acting, she ran drama workshops in various community and healthcare settings, focusing on work with adults with mental health issues. Her short stories have been published in anthologies and literary magazines such as Mslexia and Gutter Magazine. Her first novel, She Chose Me, is released on October 15^th 2018.

In this interview, Ogilvie editors Calder Hudson and Angela Hicks speak with Tracey about her approach to writing, her perspective on the process and on emotional memory, and about She Chose Me’s path to publication–as well as what to expect next.

 

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I’m interested in hearing about the history of the novel. When did this idea first come to you and how did you go about developing it?  

The idea came some years ago in the form of a question, which later mutated into the first line of the novel: What would she say if she were with me? I’d been thinking about a situation from my past and imagining it coming back into my life.

I began developing the idea whilst doing my PhD in Creative Writing at The University of Edinburgh. At first, I thought my premise required me to write a dystopian novel. I did and it was a spectacularly instructive failure.  I went on to write a two-viewpoint literary novel that was the first step towards the finished product.

 

She Chose Me has come a long way, then–from dystopian novel to fast-paced psychological thriller. When you came up with the novel’s premise, did you always intend for that to be the story’s overtone? For that matter, which came first–plot or genre?

I had no intention of writing a psychological thriller. The idea came first, the genre afterwards. I think the reason it took me so long to see the obvious fit between the idea and the psychological suspense genre is that I never thought of myself as a writer who could ‘do’ plot. I never imagined I could write a story containing twists and reveals. Ideas are stubborn though. They hold out until they get the genre they want.

 

Why psychological thrillers? Is there something about this genre which appeals to you?

John Mullan describes the psychological thriller as the form where genre fiction and literary fiction overlap and I agree. This type of novel has room for suspense, psychological complexity and the examination of social issues; it also encourages formal experimentation, especially with chronology and viewpoint. Luckily, I love writing first-person narration, which is well-suited to a genre often reliant on the unreliable narrator.

The challenge for the writer is to find authentic ways of creating narrative suspense. You have to hook and hold the reader’s attention and you have to strive for genuine story twists. This entails wrestling with structure. You have to be solving the story puzzle at the same time as you’re writing it. This can be both a headache and a lot of fun.

 

Authors always have to field questions juxtaposing a ‘write what you know’ approach versus choosing to write about what they want to write about, regardless of whether or not it draws on their own lived experiences. So, in the spirit of that tradition: where does your own process fall in this discourse–one camp or the other, or a bit of both?

A bit of both, for sure. Events from my own life inspired this novel, but I had to go way beyond them to create a story that would be of interest to other people. In any scene, I can usually find some aspect of my own experience to use as a jumping off point or as a character motivation or to provide setting and background. I think most writers do this, even if only subconsciously. Perhaps this ability to draw on lived experience is what allows writers to go so far beyond it.

 

Some of your short stories and nonfiction have been published previously, but this is your first novel. What was that change like, creatively speaking?

It was a leap of faith. Short stories came quite naturally to me and still feel instinctive. Writing a novel was a big challenge and it took me a while to figure out how I wanted to go about it. It was all worth it, including the bottom drawer novel and the wrong turns. Now, when teaching or mentoring, I can talk from experience and am able to steer others away from the rocks when necessary.

 

You have mentioned on your website and elsewhere that you have a background in theatre. Do you find this informs your prose writing? Any valuable lessons learned?

Theatre has absolutely informed my prose writing, although it’s taken me some time to consciously acknowledge and appreciate that. I was discussing this topic recently with a couple of actors-turned-writers, and we agreed the drama background has given us a good instinct for pace and, unsurprisingly, an affinity with writing dialogue. I have a strong sense when writing early drafts that I’m improvising, and I often tell myself just to ‘get something up on its feet’, an expression used during theatre rehearsals. Whether working on a script or devising material, actors usually need to block out a sequence of actions that give them the physical surface of a scene. They can then rerun and refine this action whilst investigating the subtext of the dialogue and character motivation. Drafting and redrafting works this way for me. Once I’ve got something on the page, I can then start working out what’s really going on.

The concept of emotional memory is also useful–although you might not have the same lived experience as a character you are playing, you can usually find some analogous situation from your own life that arouses similar emotions; you can then access these emotions and transfer them to the scene you’re playing. I use this technique a lot when writing.

The process of researching a character works much the same way in theatre and prose-writing and many of the same techniques can be applied to both. Acting, however, often involves a more physical and sensory approach to inhabiting character, and I still like this feeling of immersion. Much of She Chose Me is set in London, and I made numerous visits there to hang out in the same areas my characters stayed in and to experience life as they might. Once I’d worked out where my main character, Grace, might live, I visited an estate agent in that area and asked what flats they had for sale. I picked one that looked right for Grace and pretended to be interested in buying it. The estate agent drove me along for a viewing, which I stretched out for as long as I could. I also took a lot of pictures. This experience helped me get a feel for Grace’s everyday life and a lot of action was subsequently set in this flat.

 

Writing is often thought of as a solitary enterprise; how does that conception relate to how you found writing She Chose Me–and to your writing process in general?

Writing is solitary in the sense that you alone are laying down the words on the page/screen and, for me, solitude is an essential part of that. Thus, writing She Chose Me did involve long stretches in writing jail. However, the writing process also required a huge team of people–those who helped with research, tutors and mentors, my agent, the team at Legend Press and all the writers whose novels informed my writing. Not to mention friends, family and the people I share my life with. Without all of that support and those interactions, I wouldn’t be able to be solitary.

 

You recently tweeted about a conversation with your niece where you described publishing this book as a lifelong ambition. Ambition fulfilled! What’s next?

I should probably clarify that writing a novel was an ambition that had lain dormant for some time. As a child, I read relentlessly and wrote short stories and loved English Literature at school. I could have followed a straighter path to becoming a writer from that point onwards, but other interests distracted me–sport, science, boys and theatre. Theatre won, but in my late twenties some lost, hedonistic years led to a spell of poor health and I turned to writing as a creative outlet. I didn’t start writing seriously until my early thirties.

In answer to your question, my next ambition is to see if I can get a second novel written and published. I’m working on one now, The Victim’s Code. It’s a psychological thriller, narrated by a man who doesn’t know if he’s a victim of a terrible crime or an accomplice to a perfect murder. I’m having fun with it! I’d also like to publish more short stories, and I’ve got material better suited to radio plays or possibly even to the stage, so I’m keen to develop my skills in these areas. And a short film script I’ve had sitting around for a while might get a dusting off at some point. In short, writing is next. Lots more writing.

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You can keep up with Tracey via her website and Twitter. She Chose Me, written by Tracey and published by Legend Press, is now available in stores and online.