I’m a real-life psychologist. My day job is not as exciting as Dr Augusta Bloom’s but I do love it. I work as an occupational psychologist helping people to improve their leadership, resilience and teamwork. It gives me a great insight into what makes people tick that I hope translates into my stories.
Gone
Having a novel published was my own psychological experiment. In 2009 I submitted a story for editorial review. I was told ‘Your idea is a 7 out of 10 and your writing is a 7 out of 10. To get published you need to be 9 out of 10 in both’. As a psychologist I had read a lot about the 10,000 hours principle – the idea that those who are masters of their craft have spent more than 10,000 hours practicing – so I figured why not test the theory? A decade of practice and persistence later and I have a book deal with Penguin.
I have my best writing ideas when out for a run. I picture scenes, imagine conversations and plot out storylines. The ideas flow quickly and I feel inspired to get to my laptop and write as soon as I’m back. The only trouble is that what I imagine on an hour’s run can take me days to write up.
My job as a psychologist requires that I travel all over the UK. I use this to help my writing in a few ways. I do the majority of my writing on a train. It’s an amazing way to pass the time and make the journey interesting. I also use the various locations I visit in my stories. It’s nice to read about your own town so I like to set my stories in multiple places.
GONE explores what it might be like to be a functional psychopath. These are the cold, calculating personalities that walk amongst us wreaking little bits of havoc. The psychological community estimates that one in every hundred of us possesses the traits of a psychopath so I wanted to imagine how they might live, how they might hide and what it might feel to be different in this way. When researching the topic on trains I found myself looking at my fellow passengers and thinking, are you one?
As one of three sisters I’m fascinated by the dynamic of a trio. In GONE the relationship between Bloom, Jameson and Seraphine is complex and changing because in a trio the in-crowd and power balance is ever-shifting. I’m incredibly close to both of my sisters but at any point there is always an odd one out.
When GONE was published I found myself in trouble with my youngest sister. Joanne owns a fabulous café near to Leeds with great coffee and homemade cakes that she bakes herself. In GONE I mention a few real-life coffee shops but not hers. You can image her annoyance, especially as one of those mentioned is a local competitor. Oops. I may be out of the sisterly in-crowd until I can find a way to make up for this faux pas.