This article appeared in the Jan 2019 Enfield Dispatch under the headline Written in the stars. My thanks to the editor.
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How did I write Our Child of the Stars? Did I stick to the old saying ‘Write what you know’?
I wrote a short story for Halloween. A couple, Gene and Molly, and their strange but lovable son Cory. It took me a day or two, and I was intrigued. Obsessed. There was tragedy in Molly’s past and violence in the family’s future. What an oddly likeable little boy he was. Whole strands of the book come from single sentences in the story, like how Cory came into their dreams…
And it was clear the setting was rural New York and the timing was that great mythical decade, the Sixties.
‘Write what you know.’ I was brought up in Bristol. It would have been easier to move the book to the urban England of my childhood and set it a little later. The book would have been surprisingly different.
Yet the characters were very clear where they came from.
What I know, I hope, is people. I have always been surrounded by strong, interesting women, which helped to write Molly, the main voice. I know families, and bereavements, and arguments, and what it is to be a child, a sibling and a parent. I know what I care about, what I think of the world then and now, (war and peace, truth and lies), and what type of books I like. I’m a kind of recovering science fiction and fantasy fan, I like some of it a lot, but always because of the people.
America fascinates me, because I was born there. Research was talking to people, remembering stories from my parents, the books and films of the era, and of course, the internet. And the wonderful soundtrack made music a character in the book.
I knew who to ask, intelligent readers of different ages, genders, tastes and nationalities who would give me robust feedback. I learned what feedback is useful.
I wanted to try for an agent. A previous novel got nowhere but encouraged me. It’s never been so easy to find what agents want. This book interested three agents and one offered to represent me. We didn’t know each other, he just liked the book.
‘It’s wonderful,’ he said, ‘but it needs more work…’
He sold it, and now it is in the world, and complete strangers love it.
