SueMayfield.com

Here are the 20 Questions that come up most regularly when I visit schools… (not including the controversial favourites ‘How much do you earn?’ and ‘Are you famous?’)…

1. Where do you get your ideas from?
2. Are any of your characters based on real people?
3. Are your books driven by issues or characters?
4. How long does it take to write a book?
5. Where and how do you write?
6. Do you do any research?
7. How do you think of the titles?
8. Do you ever get fed up with writing?
9. What do you most like about being a writer?
10. Which of your books do you like the best?
11. Who are your favourite authors?
12. What was your favourite book as a child?
13. Did you always want to be a writer?
14. Why do you write for children?
15. Do your children like your books?
16. What tips would you give to young writers?
17. What is your favourite place?
18. What sort of music do you listen to?
19. How do you relax?
20. What are your ambitions?

1. Where do you get your ideas from?
Ideas come from a whole variety of places. Trying to trace them back to their source can be a bit like trying to unravel tangled threads. Sometimes ideas appear to come entirely from my imagination – they seem to bubble up out of nowhere. (This often happens when I’m walking or doing the washing up.) More commonly, ideas come from real life. I might read something in a newspaper that sparks the beginnings of a story, or maybe have a conversation with a friend. Sometimes I might see something amusing that gives me an idea or overhear a snatch of someone’s conversation. Sometimes I use real-life incidents as a springboard. I see or remember something and think what would have happened if…? Often ideas begin life in the real world and then get ‘morphed’ into something completely new as I start to run with them. From time to time, ideas lurk at the edge of my thoughts for ages – sometimes years – before I begin to do something with them. Also, from time to time I find I haven’t got any ideas and I wonder if I’ll ever have any ever again – that’s a scary place for a writer to be!

2. Are any of your characters based on real people?
Like many writers I use both my own experiences and my observations of other people as raw material in creating characters but I never write directly and consciously about people I know. Making things up is much more fun! I’m sure bits and pieces of real people do get stirred into the mix but by the time characters reach the page they have a life of their own and, whereas they probably contain traces of actual people it’s difficult to see where reality stops and fiction begins.

The characters in Blue were created after talking to a group of teenage girls about themselves and their friends. Many of the girls’ real experiences were incorporated but all the characters are original. Josh in Reckless has some traits of my eldest son – though he doesn’t look like him. Charlie looks a bit like a girl I once saw swimming at a place that gave me the idea for Kettlebeck. In my first book On Eagle’s Wings the central character’s mother has an illness that a friend of mine had several years ago. The way my friend faced her illness and the way her family were affected by it, in part, inspired the story – although the characters in the book are completely made up. Shoot, the dog in my story Shoot!, is modelled on my own dog Moss – although his football skills are (slightly) exaggerated and he is a different colour.

3. Are your books driven by issues or characters?
Most of my books for teenagers explore issues of some kind – be it bullying, pregnancy, bereavement, self-image or friendship. Issues – and the questions that surround them (What would it feel like to….? What would happen if….?) are good starting points for stories. But the stories only work if they are character-led – if the crises and dilemmas are being lived out by authentic, believable people. So, although gritty situations give the characters something to get their teeth into, the characters are the most important thing. If the characters don’t ‘come off the page’ you haven’t really got a story.

4. How long does it take to write a book?
Usually about six months. Firstly I spend several weeks thinking about a story – sketching out the characters and storyline and then the step-by-step writing takes me about four months. I try to write at least one chapter a day, which is usually roughly 1000 words. If it’s going well I write a lot more. If it’s a ‘wading through porridge’ day I write less. Redrafting and tweaking usually takes several more weeks. Once I’ve posted my manuscript to the publisher there’s a gap of a couple of months (while I chew my nails and worry!) and then, once I’ve had my editor’s response I do whatever re-writing is thought to be necessary. If I’m lucky this is just another few weeks’ worth of work. The final manuscript usually needs to be ready about six months before a book is due to be published so the whole process from initial idea to the bookshop shelves can take a couple of years. By the time a book comes out you’re normally well onto the next thing – which is a little strange!

5. Where and how do you write?
I mostly write at home in my special writing space. The writer Virginia Woolf said that all writers needed ‘a room of their own’. My room is an upstairs bedroom with a lovely view of the garden. If I’m bored or short of ideas I can watch the squirrels running up and down the big tree outside my window! When I’m at the first stages of planning a book I use notebooks and a sharp pencil. Sometimes I will write the first draft of a chapter by long-hand. I have very messy handwriting and do a lot of scribbling and crossing-out so I usually switch to the PC before I go much further or start re-drafting. Sometimes I write directly onto the computer screen - I find I’m more able to do this than I used to be. The advantage of working in a notebook, though, is that I can take it somewhere else if the mood takes me. Cafes are nice places to work, for example, and strangely I find that the hubbub of conversation often helps me to concentrate. I also like working outside - if it’s sunny.

6. Do you do any research?
Yes. Most of my books contain something I’ve had to find out about in order to write convincingly. For example, when I wrote On Eagles’ Wings I had to find out how Tony would look after an injured herring gull. How long would it take for its wing to mend? And what would it eat? In Voices I needed to do research about lobster fishing so I could describe Duncan taking his dad’s boat out in the storm. Blue and On Eagles’ Wings have medical things in them that I didn’t know about but wanted to get right. I talked to a doctor and a health visitor to make sure I had got my facts right. Sometimes I use libraries or the Internet for research but I also talk to family and friends. You can find out a surprising amount just chatting to people you know! All the stuff about BMX riding and ramps in Reckless was resourced by my son Frank and when I wrote The Four Franks, which is about a model boat that gets handed down four generations of a family, I talked a lot to my Dad who knows about building boats. He gave me some great ideas about what the model might be made out of.

7. How do you think of the titles?
With great difficulty! Often titles are the last thing to fall into place. When I first started writing, all my books had long titles and many of them were quotations. I Carried You On Eagles’ Wings is a quotation from the Book Of Exodus in the Bible and I liked it because it was a bit ambiguous. All my recent books have had one-word titles which is going from one extreme to the other! Blue was going to be called Anna Goldsmith was my friend but my publishers’ Hodder didn’t feel that was quite right. We tried out loads of different titles before we hit on Blue so sometimes it can be a bit of a joint effort. I like the title Blue because it suggests melancholy and moodiness. It’s also the colour of Anna’s bedroom and her notebook; the colour of water and underwater; the colour of a mountain lake that made Anna feel very happy and the colour of the submerged iceberg she pictured herself as when she was deeply unhappy.

8. Do you ever get fed up with writing?
Yes. Often! The mid point of a book is usually the worst and it’s pretty common for me to get a bit stuck at this point. I get fed up on barren days when I haven’t got any ideas in my head. I also get fed up on ‘bilge’ days when I write and write and then – when I come to re-read it in the evening – I think it’s all rubbish! I never hit the delete button though because its usually not as bad as it seems and I can usually salvage something good out of the mess.

9. What do you most like about being a writer?
Being able to sit in a café with a notebook or walk across the moors with my dog…and call it work!Also hearing from readers that they have enjoyed something I’ve written - or even, that it has helped them in some way.

10. Which of your books do you like the best?
Like many writers I like whatever book I’ve just finished writing. If I had to pick a favourite I’d probably choose On Eagles’ Wings because it was the first but I think Blue is a much better book. The book I most enjoyed writing was Voices. And Shoot! was great fun too – especially the rhyming passages. It’s a bit like parents with several children – I love them all in their own way!

11. Who are your favourite authors?
Again – choosing favourites is hard because I like so many and for different reasons….But here goes: For adults I love Rose Tremain, and Anne Tyler and Andrew Miller. For teenagers I love Jacqueline Wilson and Michael Morpurgo and David Almond. For younger children I love Mick Inkpen – especially Wibbly Pig. I love Roahl Dahl for his inventiveness with language. And I love writers like Berlie Doherty and Jill Paton-Walsh who seem to be able to write successfully for any age group.

12. What was your favourite book as a child?
As a young child I read a lot of Enid Blyton – especially mystery stories about smugglers and Siamese cats. I also read things like Milly Molly Mandy and My Naughty Little Sister. From the age of nine onwards I was horse mad and for many years I would only read books about ponies. (A big favourite was My Friend Flicka by Mary O’Hara which was about taming a wild horse. It made me cry.)

Looking back I wish I’d read more – and more widely– as there are a lot of gaps in my reading experience and I’m still a pathetically slow reader. Being read to by my dad was always a big treat (and a great reason to be ill) and Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories were big favourites – especially The Elephant’s Child.

13. Did you always want to be a writer?
No. When I was very small I wanted to work in a cake shop. Then, for a time, I wanted to be a vet – or a world famous show-jumper. At 16 I wanted to be an actor. I planned to leave school and audition for drama school but a Careers teacher talked me into going to university first – which was probably a good thing. I became a writer by accident really – but I’m not complaining.

14. Why do you write for children?
I am very comfortable with children and young people and feel ‘on their wavelength’. My background in teaching meant that when I began to write it seemed natural to write for secondary aged readers. Writing for younger children is simply great fun. Writing for teenagers allows you to explore raw emotions and the thrill and pain of growing up. Sometimes I wonder if I haven’t fully grown up myself! I’d like to write for adults too. Being able to communicate with people of any age appeals to me.

15. Do your children like your books?
Yes – although I think they get a bit bored by them – because I talk about books when I’m writing them (which can last for months ) and sometimes I try out earlier versions of stories (which aren’t very good!) on my children to see how they react. Just recently they all had a phase of reading my teenage fiction – a lot of which was written when they were too young for it - which was nice. Reckless was their favourite book.

16. What tips would you give to young writers?
• Write about the things you know and care about and don’t be afraid to use your    own life experiences as a jumping-off point.
• Be prepared to adapt, change and rewrite the things that you write – most writers    don’t get things right first time
• Keep a notebook of things you see, descriptions of places, funny things that people    say, favourite words etc.
• Enjoy it! Make yourself laugh and make yourself cry with your writing

17. What is your favourite place?
The Isle of Barra in the Outer Hebrides in Scotland - which is the place that Duncan’s island, Rimsay, is based on in Voices. It has fantastic milk white beaches and great friendly people.

18. What sort of music do you listen to?
All sorts – U2, Norah Jones, Coldplay, Bach, Arvo Part. I love piano music and jazz and experimental percussion. My children listen to Indie music and Hip Hop and I like a lot of that too.

19. How do you relax?
I go for solitary walks with my dog and I have long hot baths with plenty of bubbles.

20. What are your ambitions?
To win the Carnegie Medal and the Booker Prize! To live on an island.To restore a ruined house. To be remembered as someone who lived life to the full and loved people a great deal. To write books that move people deeply.