I was lucky to be born into a large happy family – not the best start for a writer. So I was not a lonely, only child who was constantly scribbling little stories in exercise books with red shiny covers and lined paper, bought from the village newsagents.
I read Secret Seven books, dressed up as Davy Crocket, and went on dirt track races round our Lincolnshire farmyard on my bike with my brothers and sisters. As to career aspirations, I wanted to be a secretary so I could wear tight skirts and high heels.
I actually became a research psychologist, a social researcher, a full time mother and various combinations of these.
In 1996, I started to write creatively and became a regular contributor of first-person pieces to The Times. I also had features in the Guardian, Mslexia and The Observer.
I met my co-author of the comic novel Plotting for Beginners, at creative writing class. Jane and I began to email each other work to critique. But soon our correspondence became a daily one as we fell into the pattern of trying to make each other laugh with our descriptions of domestic and family trivia. The idea for Plotting for Beginners developed from this.
My second novel - Zuzu's Petals - is a romantic comedy with a serious heart. The love story is interwoven with the story of the heroine's grief over the death of her elderly father.
But I told you last year that I loved you (published in 2011) is the story of a mature marriage at a crossroads. The National Autistic Society named it as one of their favourite novels about autism.
Plotting for Grown-ups, the sequel to Plotting for Beginners, written with Jane Linfoot, was published in 2013.
I have just completed an adaptation of But I told you last year that I loved you for television.
I want to thank you for your writings, and these blogs. I think we are of an age, and much of your bio parallels my kinds of experiences.
ReplyDeleteI always wanted to be a writer,but my personal credo inhibited my publishing fiction, the state of the planet being what it is. So in my mind you (and others I appreciate) have taken my quota of published fiction for me.
I do write, and have written many books, but the creative fictions stay unpublished, except for excerpts I put online occasionally. I prefer to keep the forest sacrifices for my scientific ecological survey reports.
This is not to say I'm pointing the finger at you (and please don't think I am!) for being part of the problem, because it just doesn't matter any more does it! We are, as a species, only just waking up to the how of it all. I was always an early riser and saw my life task as bringing the rest of the crew of spaceship Earth out of stasis because the life supports were failing fast.
The elephant in the room is our out-of-control populations and consequent planetary carrying capacity imbalance. Not what content writers output. As a psychologist you would appreciate the value of good bedtime stories to keep us happy campers in the face of It All.
I am very pleased to have your amusing and diverting writings to read at bedtime. I really appreciate your cleverness. Ending the day with a chuckle is comforting and diverts my mind from the energy crisis, climate change & the rest of the doom! doom! doom! scenario.
So thanks. I've spent a few hours here & there lately browsing in these pages and have added your link to my own bloglog http://goldilocksandthe4bears.blogspot.com/
Best (a)musings,
Anu.
PS I'd be hugely amused if you bring out Wendy's Wardrobe. :D
Hi I have really enjoyed your blog, its nice to find intelligent women that are not baking or writing recipes or advertising cosmetics.My blog is here thanks. Breda Shannon
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