10 Things I'd Like My Readers To Know About Me By Paula Cocozza

I spent several years working as a football journalist, which included a day spent inside a giant’s sheep costume to write about the life of a football mascot. (Very hot, the life of a football mascot.) I also spent a season editing AS Roma’s official magazine in Rome. My office was at the training ground and we lunched with the players each day. I’ve got a nice photo of me doing headers with their striker. At first I saw football as a diversion tactic because I was not yet ready to think about what I really wanted to do, but in fact I ended up doing it for many years… Which could be one reason why I have started to write fiction only now.

My worst habit - other than prevarication - is leaving the lids off things. (I think I like open endings.) My best habit is my discipline. I can really stick at a job and I don’t get distracted. I’m dogged like that.

Some authors can point to childhoods spent stapling paper into books. I only made one of those, called The Glasses That Ran Away, when my dad lost his spectacles. We didn’t have many books at home, and other than letters to relatives or notes to the milkman, writing was something that only really went on at school.

I would say that the most significant influence on my reading and writing life was my high school English teacher, Mr Hartley. I met him when I was 12 and he opened up the world of books for me. JD Salinger, Thomas Hardy, John Le Carré, Jane Austen - I carried his reading list around for years, furring and felting with wear. He came to the launch of How to be Human, which was a real thrill.

My favourite place to read is probably in bed. I sit on the children’s beds to read to them, and I read every night when I go to sleep. I’m currently reading (and loving) Olivia Laing’s The Lonely City.

I can write pretty much anywhere, on trains or in cafes, as long as the noise doesn’t put itself between me and my thoughts. But most of the time I write at my desk which is in the corner of the bedroom. If it’s bright out, I pull down the blind so I don’t get distracted. It’s a bit like being in a burrow.

All kinds of books have made an impact on me. I was given a copy of Watership Down when I was seven, which I loved. As a student I became very interested in the work of Henry James, and I still love him now. He has such a sinister facility for stepping in and out of his characters’ minds. More recently, I would say Ali Smith and Hilary Mantel. When I was starting to write How To Be Human, I read over and over the first chapter of Wolf Hall and of her memoir, Giving Up The Ghost. I love the physicality of Mantel’s prose. She always takes you close to the bone.

The idea for How To Be Human came to me when I was stood outside in a patch of wasteland near my garden. Some neighbours and I were trying to clear the junk from it. Every time we put a spade in the ground we’d pull up all kinds of rubbish - old toys, broken glass, plant pots and plastics. A fox became interested in our work. When we dug a hole, the fox dug a hole inside our hole. When we put down grass, he lifted it up. It was tempting to think that the fox was communicating with us, that the fox could be pure fox, nothing but fox, yet it was possible to project all sorts of motivation onto his or her actions. The idea really shone before me in that moment: I would write a story about a woman who feels she is being addressed by a fox, and the fox would make this reading possible, while reserving all of his or her unknowable wildness.

I have a job and two fairly young children, so writing time is scarce. I wrote the novel on Fridays and in the evenings. I’d put on thick socks and slippers so I wasn’t tempted to leave the house.

I don’t set myself a specific word count but I am always productive. Unproductive time is a luxury I can’t afford because there is so little time to start with. If I’m not writing, I take the view it’s because I’m still thinking. But usually I can write my way into my thoughts. I leave my desk only for toilet and tea breaks. Having said that, I need to do a certain amount of thinking before I can reach that stage - then it’s head down, and write right through.