The Perfume Collector by Kathleen Tessaro

Set in London in 1955, The Perfume Collector tells the story of a young woman, Grace Munroe, who inherits a flat in Paris from a complete stranger - the mysterious Madame Eva d'Orsey. Upon going to Paris to rectify what she's certain is a mistake, Grace discovers that Eva was muse to one of the most famous and misunderstood perfumers of his age and that she is indeed the intended recipient of this bequest. Determined to discover how their lives intertwine,Grace seeks out an old Russian perfumer, Madame Zed, who knew Eva. Madame Zed uses the three iconic perfumes that Eva inspired to tell the story of Eva's life. And, in uncovering more about Eva's past, Grace is confronted with secrets and choices about her own life.

This is a favourite period of mine - from the 1900's to 1950's because it's so incredibly jam-packed with events, dramatic shifts in world views and innovations. The research itself is fairly easy and straightforward; I read books about and written during the time period and create timelines of events. Much more involved was the research that I did on the creation of perfume.

I was trained as an actress but I was dreadful at it. I have no ear for accents, a poor working memory and am prone to breaking out in a red rash from nerves when I'm on stage. I can't imagine what I was thinking of. What I did learn from the experience, however, was the construction of drama; how to focus on strong motivation, character development, plot and above all to tell the story as clearly as possible. In both theatre and literature, storytelling is king. The other thing that working as actress taught me was that the audience (or the reader) is your reason why. In other words, if I'm not actively focusing on communicating with them, I'm wasting their time and am essentially self-indulgent.

I loved working with students. I was much better at that than I was at acting. But it wasn't difficult to balance as I was young and didn't have any children at the time. Now I'd really be struggling.

I wrote in the first person, present tense because I was afraid that if I wrote in the third person, past tense, my writing would be too flowery and I'd wander off track. So it was pretty clean and straightforward but perhaps a bit restrained.

I attended the workshop weekly for several years and that's where I really learned to write. The workshop was full of other young female writers, all working on their first books. Every Tuesday night, author Jill Robinson, who ran the workshop, made a delicious meal at her home in Wimpole Street. The rule was, you had to have three pages of new material in order to eat. Then we took it in turns to read and offer each other constructive advice. And while I learned a great deal from the notes I was given, I think I learned even more applying my mind to solve the problems in other people's books. Jill always claimed what a writer needed most was a deadline, an audience and encouragement. Out of the fifteen or so of us that were members, at least eight of have been published.

It's far away enough from our world today to be glamorous and nostalgic and yet recent enough to be instantly familiar and identifiable. Also, it allows for very interesting female characters, as the roles of women were being challenged and changing so dramatically.

I'm hoping very inter-changable, as I'm planning a play next! Again, with both disciplines the focus is on telling the audience a story and making that story dramatic, powerful and clear.

In the morning, after my son catches the school bus, I write. There's really nothing more exciting than that. I do my best everyday but don't keep regular word counts. Sometimes I really struggle. Sometimes it's easier. It's very much a "Just do it" situation. And most of the interesting stuff comes as a result of re-writing. And re-writing again and again!