Kit Habianic is the author of the recently published novel Until our Blood is Dry, the powerful story of two families’ struggles in the 1984 Miners’ Strike. She has also published short stories in an awe-inspiring number of literary magazines and anthologies.
I spectacularly failed to get into the launch party for Until our Blood is Dry – there was a problem with doors and the enormous amount of people and a desire not to interrupt a reading by Dannie Abse – and yet she has asked me to take part in the Writing Process Blog Tour. This is ‘a kind of whistle-stop tour of writers exploring their writing process – they answer four questions about their work, then send you on to the next writer’. This is a wonderful initiative. It’s fascinating to read the methods that other writers use to get the work out there. Sometimes it’s a reminder of temporarily forgotten but well-loved pieces, but also an exciting introduction to poetry and other writing that originally slipped by. Kit has provided her answers and has now handed over to me. I am in august company – she has also asked Martina Evans, poet and writer, the author of the Betty Trask award winning novel Midnight Feast, to share her experiences.
Here are the four questions with my answers:
What am I working on?
My first two books were crime novels (Good Bad Woman and Babyface), but I have just published a collection of short stories about life in the 60s – A Sense of Occasion.
For some time I had been working on a novel based on the same characters – Beyond the Beehive – and couldn’t stop tinkering with it, adding chapters, moving characters round. I was getting nowhere. Then, at a writing group I’ve been involved with for some years, I met a woman who had just published her novel as an eBook. She said, ‘I simply had to get it out there so I could move on.’ And I thought, That’s what I should do. A Sense of Occasion was really me dipping my toe in the water, to see if I could do it. It’s terrifying not having the protection of a big publishing company behind me, and I’m not very good at marketing. But it was a real buzz to get the book up there and see it on a computer screen, the stories gathered together as a real book. So now I am fired up to publish Beyond the Beehive. Then it’s on to the Seventies.
How does my work differ from others of its genre?
A Sense of Occasion and Beyond the Beehive are about Chelmsford – I don’t think there’s much out there about that part of Essex, certainly not about mod girls in the 60s. And I’ve tried to reproduce the humour, I think there are some laugh out loud moments in the books. Sometimes that’s not evident in novels about working class life.
Why do I write what I do?
I’m really proud of my upbringing, my dad’s union work, my mum’s socialist principles, coming from a council estate, the great friendships I had. When I started writing my 60s stories – about 25 years ago, there wasn’t a lot of interest in that. What I try to do, and I know I don’t always succeed, is get some politics in – socialist politics, feminist politics, not necessarily obvious, just there, how it was as I was growing up. The way people talk to each other, the issues they care about, their moral codes. I think we need those politics now more than ever.
How does my writing process work?
The word ‘process’ for my writing regime is a good vague word. Before my first books were published I used to get up at 5.30, make a cup of tea and write till the sun rose and everyone in the house woke up. It’s been more haphazard than that since then. I write when I can. Giving myself a deadline is good. For A Sense of Occasion I decided, Right, it’s now or never, and I pulled a date out of the air. 30 April. I got cold feet after a bit, because life was particularly hectic, and I changed the date to 1 May. 24 hours. I felt much more relaxed then. Having a cover to the book – a design by the fabulous Christine Wilkinson – also kept me on track. But I was altering things right up to the moment when I pressed Save and Publish.
Now I hand over to two of my favourite people. The American writer Sue Katz recently published a collection of wry and inspiring short stories Lillian’s Last Affair – the lives and loves of seniors. VG Lee‘s award winning novels have delighted and amused me for many years. VG’s Facebook posts brighten the darkest day. These two great writers are about to tell you how they produce their work.
#writingprocessblogtour