Infinite Sky
What can you tell us about your new book Infinite Sky?
Infinite Sky is a coming of age novel about a conflict between a family of Irish Travellers, and a settled family. It is told from the perspective of thirteen-year old Iris Dancy, and takes place over a single summer holiday. A few weeks before the Travellers moved in, Iris's mother left the family to go on a soul-searching journey around Tunisia, and Iris's father is struggling to cope. Her older brother, Sam, was especially close to his mother, and since she left his behaviour is getting more erratic and out of control. The Traveller family, the Derans, have a teenage son, Trick, and Iris becomes very close to him, in spite of her dad's strict instructions to keep away. Infinite Sky has been called a modern day Romeo and Juliet, and it seems to make a lot of people - young and old - cry.
You open the story with a funeral, so why did you decide to hook the reader with the mystery of who is in the casket?
It's always good to start a book with a body, isn't it? Someone told me that once, and there seem to be some truth in it...
They say that a summer can alter everything in a person's life, so why do you think in so many stories; so much emphasis is put on this time of year for change?
I think British people just love reading and writing about the summer. We are so sun-starved on this island, aren't we?
Tell us about the development of the characters from your initial ideas for the book.
The characters evolved as they went along. Because Iris's family started out being based on my family, I had to alter them a lot as the story developed. I put a lot of thought into how to make them their own people, and how to make them contrast with each other. Characterisation is my favourite part of writing. It is so important, seeing as so much of what happens is an offshoot of the kind of people the characters are/
This is your debut novel, so do you have plans for another?
I have almost finished the first draft of my second novel, which will come out with Simon and Schuster in February 2014. It is a quest story, about Kit, a teenage girl whose soldier brother doesn't return from Afghanistan when he is supposed to. He makes it back to the UK, but never turns up at home. When Kit hears a rumour that he is hiding out in the woods they played in growing up, she sets out, with her friends, to find him and bring him back. It's about friendship and bravery and truth.
What was your writing background that led to you writing this novel?
I have been writing with intent since I graduated from an English Literature with Media Studies degree in 2004. I had kept a diary for years, and I began fictionalising my entries, paying attention to the descriptions of people and place, and capturing bits of dialogue. From this, I started writing short stories, and poems, and then I began submitting them. Some were published in literary magazines and webzines, which gave me a confidence boost, and so in 2009, I applied to do an MA in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia.
How difficult is it to get your first novel published?
I'm delighted to say that my experience doesn't correlate very neatly with the much-used maxim that it is very difficult indeed.
What is your writing process?
I free write a lot. And try to think up cool things that could happen/ways I could structure the novel. I panic quite a lot, because I can't believe that the chaos is ever going to turn into something meaningful. I write every day, except for the weekends, preferably in the morning, but sometimes late at night or in the afternoon. I take a notebook everywhere, and daydream about my characters while doing other things. Not much of a process really. Just try to write.
Do you find that other novelists have had an impact on your work?
Of course. Only a maniac would think not. Other novelists made me want to write novels in the first place, and keep me wanting to write them, even though it's quite difficult and boring a lot of the time! I am a bit behind in terms of contemporary literature, as I am still struggling to get up to date with the old stuff. Some writers I love are Kurt Vonnegut, Richard Yates, Lorrie Moore, Emily Bronte, Margaret Atwood, David Almond, Amanda Davies, Tolstoy, and Fitzgerald.
What is next for you?
Finishing the second book is most important. After that I am going to try and write a third.