Julia Williams
After a career in publishing author Julia Williams finally stopped putting off her desire to move in writing her firs book ten years ago.
After the success of Pastures New and Strictly Love Julia is back with her new boo Last Christmas, perfect for the festive season.
I caught up with Julia to talk about her latest release and what lies ahead for her.
- Your new book is Last Christmas can you tell me a little bit about it?
Last Christmas is partially set in the fictional village of Hope Christmas (loosely based on Church Stretton in Shropshire), and partly in London. In Hope Christmas we follow the stories of Marianne, a teacher new to the village, and Gabriel a sheep farmer, both of whom have had their hearts broken.
In London the story revolves around Cat and Noel who are married with four children, but going through something of a marriage crisis.
The two stories become entwined because the magazine Cat works for runs a competition to find the perfect nativity, and Marianne enters Hope Christmas, while Noel finds himself working on an ecotown project which may destroy the village, with which he finds himself falling in love.
All four of them gain help and support along the way from the mysterious Ralph Nicholas, who weaves his way in and out of their stories.
- I spoke to you when you released your last book Strictly Love so where did the inspiration of the characters and the story come from this time around?
My editor asked me if I was interested in writing a Christmas book, and at first I was a bit stumped. Then I thought about all the many nativities I've seen over the years with my children, and I thought, aha, I could write about that.
I know several primary school teachers, so it was natural to make Marianne a teacher, and have her looking at the dire Hope Christmas nativity and think, I could do better...
While I was writing this, my oldest daughter was turning into a teenager, and I became interested in the way mothers and daughters' relationships change as they each get older, so I've explored some of that too.
As a keen cook myself, there is also a lot about cooking. Cat's dilemmas are very real to me, as the constant juggling of home life versus work life is something I am familiar with, and I hope her story will have resonances for readers.
But I also feel huge sympathy for Noel, who I think like a lot of men in middle age can feel pushed out by family and let down by their work situation. Gabriel is my hero though - and certainly owes a lot in looks to Richard Armitage, while in character retaining something of my ultimate fictional hero, Gabriel Oak from Far From the Madding Crowd.
I even made him a shepherd. Ralph is probably my favourite character and I admit to shamelessly borrowing from both It's A Wonderful Life and A Christmas Carol for his part in the story.
- The festive period is supposed to be a happy occasion but all the characters in your new book seem to be struggling in one form or another?
I think Christmas can be an incredibly stressful time of year, especially when you have children. I have had two really dire Christmases when people were ill and everything was very difficult.
Even in families where the children are grown up I think it can be hard, as people who don't usually spend all that much time together suddenly get to spend several days in each other's company, which can lead to friction - particularly when alcohol is involved.
As a writer, that's a huge gift. So I tried to think of dramatic things that could have happened to each of my characters the previous Christmas, the impact of which are still being felt in the present.
- In the book a lot of the characters are really fed up with Christmas are you looking forward to Christmas this year? Are you doing anything nice?
I'm like Cat, I love Christmas. Though I'd never make the mistake of saying this year is going to be perfect! I've learnt the hard way that too much can go wrong...
However, I did have one year when my youngest came out of hospital three days before Christmas, and ever since then I have tried really hard not to be stressed about it.
The most important thing for me is being with family and friends during the Christmas season (I am lucky as I get on well with both sides of my family), and nothing else really matters. I think it's easy to get caught up in ensuring the table napkins match the candelabra, when it's much better to concentrate on having a great time with the people you love.
Our last Christmas was a spectacular disaster thanks to the winter vomiting bug, so all I want for Christmas this year is everybody to be well! We will probably be at home with the children and my husband's family, but as its still October I resolutely refuse to have the ‘Christmas Conversation’ yet!
- It is a year since we last spoke and you’ve written the new book really quickly, your publishers seem to be working you hard! What else have you been up to in that time, anything exciting?
Actually I'd finished the first draft of Last Christmas this time last year, and the first draft of my next book, The Bridesmaid's Pact has just gone off to my agent and editor.
Publishing tends to work a long way ahead, so it's quite easy to forget about the last thing you've done when you get caught up in the next book. It is hard work, but so much fun I don't feel like it's a proper job! My difficulty is fitting the writing in around family commitments, which has been quite tricky this year.
The most exciting thing that's happened in the last year was getting to meet Anton du Beke for publicity for Strictly Love. He was very nice, but I found the whole experience a bit mortifying, particularly as I stepped on his toes!
I did get to wear a posh frock and get made up though, which was a lot more glamorous then doing the school run. And as a result one of my new heroines is a make-up artist. There's always use for every experience for a writer (-:
- You began your career in publishing so what made switch to writing?
I've always always written stories in my head, but when I was at university creative writing courses were a rarity. It never occurred to me that I could earn a living writing, and also to be frank, not much had happened to me that seemed interesting enough to write about.
So loving books as I do, I studied English at university, and then fell into publishing and discovered I loved it. I still do some freelance editing and I miss the buzz of working in a publishing company, but it is nice now to keep my ideas to myself!
- How did you find the transition?
In some ways it was a lot harder then I'd realised, and I gained a renewed respect for the many talented authors I'd worked with as I realised just how difficult it actually is committing your thoughts to paper.
However coming from a publishing background has been very helpful as I understand the way the process works, and also appreciated from the start how much hard work is involved on the road to publication. I think this kept my expectations realistic during what I like to call the Rejection Years (-:
What I have really loved though, is having the freedom to explore my own ideas in more depth than I did as an editor, and to have free creative rein over them, instead of thinking up ideas to pass on to other people!
- With four children it's amazing that you find the time for anything else so how do you manage to juggle everything?
Aagh. With great difficulty at times. I can honestly say I am no superwoman! Which is why my latest book was, ahem, two months late. I am immensely grateful to my editor, Maxine Hitchcock for her patience!
I generally write when the children are at school, which means I get really stuffed in the summer holidays when they're home for six weeks. I find I just can't get my head into creative thinking when I'm being bombarded with requests to go swimming, play tennis, provide food etc.
In an ideal world I'd probably write from 2-8pm which is my natural writing time, but I have to do a school run at 3pm and then am usually running around with children after school, so that means I often faff around till 2pm and then write like a demon till 3pm!
This time around I have discovered my creative juices seem to flow better if I write by hand, so this means a lot of my normally dead time spent sitting observing tennis/swimming lessons can be put to profitable use while I scribble away.
I would like to be a lot more organised about the way I write, but it seems to work best for me to have a long procrastination period before I really get to the writing proper. This means I am always scribbling furiously against a deadline, but it's the only way I seem to be able to do it!
- Do you think you could have a career as the Happy Homemaker like Catherine in the book?
As the world's worst housewife I think I am spectacularly unsuited to be a Happy Homemaker. I came up with the idea because it seems to me the tv and papers are endlessly full of bossy women telling us normal folk how to run our lives, be it in the kitchen, with our cleaning habits or the way we dress.
I'd like them all to shut up frankly, because it's easy enough to feel your making a hash of the domestic thing without being lectured about it all the time. I loved the idea of having a character who tells people what to do, but in fact her own home life is chaotic.
I suspect that's the truth behind many a bossy woman's life. So if I were the Happy Homemaker, like Cat, I'd feel like a hypocrite. I wouldn't mind doing a cooking blog though!
- Last time we spoke you had taken up dancing so how's that going?
Sadly that's fallen a bit by the wayside, as I pulled my back out last year. I have been to some more salsa lessons, and I still live in hope of taking my husband with me...
- What kind of research did you have to do this time round?
Some of the research was relatively easy - I just delved into my own life for mad things that have happened in my family life, and came to the conclusion that anything I made up couldn't be less realistic then things that have actually happened. A very good friend gave me a whole fund of nightmarish au pair stories which also proved useful.
The tricky bit was describing Gabriel's life - I am a townie at heart, and know relatively little about farming, let alone farming sheep. So I did have to research that.
I set one scene with a sheep giving birth, which luckily I have seen happen several times at our local children's farm, but the BBC website was full of useful information, including pictures of sheep giving birth.
As my mother lives in Shropshire I spend quite a bit of time up there, and did go on a long run where I took my camera and took photos of various houses, and bits of valley that I wanted to describe later.
I also bought myself a Shropshire hills calendar which was immensely useful as the colours of the hills change throughout the year and it gave me a pictorial record.
I have a very good friend who works in mental health and she gave me a lot of useful insights, which proved particularly helpful for the character of Eve, and also for describing some of Noel's problems.
To me he is going through a classic midlife crisis, and is suffering from mild depression, but being a bloke of course, he doesn't quite realise it...
- Finally what's next for you?
Well I've just finished the first draft of my next book, The Bridesmaid's Pact, which is coming out next year. It's probably the most ambitious thing I've done yet, so it's a long way from being properly finished. I've really enjoyed writing it though, as it's about female friendship and the ties that bind and break us.
I enjoyed writing about Hope Christmas so much, I am thinking about returning to the village for the next book. I have a germ of an idea, and I'll see where it takes me...
After that, I'm not quite sure, but I have several ideas I'd like to pursue, so I'm hoping I won't be too short of material.
After a career in publishing author Julia Williams finally stopped putting off her desire to move in writing her firs book ten years ago.
After the success of Pastures New and Strictly Love Julia is back with her new boo Last Christmas, perfect for the festive season.
I caught up with Julia to talk about her latest release and what lies ahead for her.
- Your new book is Last Christmas can you tell me a little bit about it?
Last Christmas is partially set in the fictional village of Hope Christmas (loosely based on Church Stretton in Shropshire), and partly in London. In Hope Christmas we follow the stories of Marianne, a teacher new to the village, and Gabriel a sheep farmer, both of whom have had their hearts broken.
In London the story revolves around Cat and Noel who are married with four children, but going through something of a marriage crisis.
The two stories become entwined because the magazine Cat works for runs a competition to find the perfect nativity, and Marianne enters Hope Christmas, while Noel finds himself working on an ecotown project which may destroy the village, with which he finds himself falling in love.
All four of them gain help and support along the way from the mysterious Ralph Nicholas, who weaves his way in and out of their stories.
- I spoke to you when you released your last book Strictly Love so where did the inspiration of the characters and the story come from this time around?
My editor asked me if I was interested in writing a Christmas book, and at first I was a bit stumped. Then I thought about all the many nativities I've seen over the years with my children, and I thought, aha, I could write about that.
I know several primary school teachers, so it was natural to make Marianne a teacher, and have her looking at the dire Hope Christmas nativity and think, I could do better...
While I was writing this, my oldest daughter was turning into a teenager, and I became interested in the way mothers and daughters' relationships change as they each get older, so I've explored some of that too.
As a keen cook myself, there is also a lot about cooking. Cat's dilemmas are very real to me, as the constant juggling of home life versus work life is something I am familiar with, and I hope her story will have resonances for readers.
But I also feel huge sympathy for Noel, who I think like a lot of men in middle age can feel pushed out by family and let down by their work situation. Gabriel is my hero though - and certainly owes a lot in looks to Richard Armitage, while in character retaining something of my ultimate fictional hero, Gabriel Oak from Far From the Madding Crowd.
I even made him a shepherd. Ralph is probably my favourite character and I admit to shamelessly borrowing from both It's A Wonderful Life and A Christmas Carol for his part in the story.
- The festive period is supposed to be a happy occasion but all the characters in your new book seem to be struggling in one form or another?
I think Christmas can be an incredibly stressful time of year, especially when you have children. I have had two really dire Christmases when people were ill and everything was very difficult.
Even in families where the children are grown up I think it can be hard, as people who don't usually spend all that much time together suddenly get to spend several days in each other's company, which can lead to friction - particularly when alcohol is involved.
As a writer, that's a huge gift. So I tried to think of dramatic things that could have happened to each of my characters the previous Christmas, the impact of which are still being felt in the present.
- In the book a lot of the characters are really fed up with Christmas are you looking forward to Christmas this year? Are you doing anything nice?
I'm like Cat, I love Christmas. Though I'd never make the mistake of saying this year is going to be perfect! I've learnt the hard way that too much can go wrong...
However, I did have one year when my youngest came out of hospital three days before Christmas, and ever since then I have tried really hard not to be stressed about it.
The most important thing for me is being with family and friends during the Christmas season (I am lucky as I get on well with both sides of my family), and nothing else really matters. I think it's easy to get caught up in ensuring the table napkins match the candelabra, when it's much better to concentrate on having a great time with the people you love.
Our last Christmas was a spectacular disaster thanks to the winter vomiting bug, so all I want for Christmas this year is everybody to be well! We will probably be at home with the children and my husband's family, but as its still October I resolutely refuse to have the ‘Christmas Conversation’ yet!
- It is a year since we last spoke and you’ve written the new book really quickly, your publishers seem to be working you hard! What else have you been up to in that time, anything exciting?
Actually I'd finished the first draft of Last Christmas this time last year, and the first draft of my next book, The Bridesmaid's Pact has just gone off to my agent and editor.
Publishing tends to work a long way ahead, so it's quite easy to forget about the last thing you've done when you get caught up in the next book. It is hard work, but so much fun I don't feel like it's a proper job! My difficulty is fitting the writing in around family commitments, which has been quite tricky this year.
The most exciting thing that's happened in the last year was getting to meet Anton du Beke for publicity for Strictly Love. He was very nice, but I found the whole experience a bit mortifying, particularly as I stepped on his toes!
I did get to wear a posh frock and get made up though, which was a lot more glamorous then doing the school run. And as a result one of my new heroines is a make-up artist. There's always use for every experience for a writer (-:
- You began your career in publishing so what made switch to writing?
I've always always written stories in my head, but when I was at university creative writing courses were a rarity. It never occurred to me that I could earn a living writing, and also to be frank, not much had happened to me that seemed interesting enough to write about.
So loving books as I do, I studied English at university, and then fell into publishing and discovered I loved it. I still do some freelance editing and I miss the buzz of working in a publishing company, but it is nice now to keep my ideas to myself!
- How did you find the transition?
In some ways it was a lot harder then I'd realised, and I gained a renewed respect for the many talented authors I'd worked with as I realised just how difficult it actually is committing your thoughts to paper.
However coming from a publishing background has been very helpful as I understand the way the process works, and also appreciated from the start how much hard work is involved on the road to publication. I think this kept my expectations realistic during what I like to call the Rejection Years (-:
What I have really loved though, is having the freedom to explore my own ideas in more depth than I did as an editor, and to have free creative rein over them, instead of thinking up ideas to pass on to other people!
- With four children it's amazing that you find the time for anything else so how do you manage to juggle everything?
Aagh. With great difficulty at times. I can honestly say I am no superwoman! Which is why my latest book was, ahem, two months late. I am immensely grateful to my editor, Maxine Hitchcock for her patience!
I generally write when the children are at school, which means I get really stuffed in the summer holidays when they're home for six weeks. I find I just can't get my head into creative thinking when I'm being bombarded with requests to go swimming, play tennis, provide food etc.
In an ideal world I'd probably write from 2-8pm which is my natural writing time, but I have to do a school run at 3pm and then am usually running around with children after school, so that means I often faff around till 2pm and then write like a demon till 3pm!
This time around I have discovered my creative juices seem to flow better if I write by hand, so this means a lot of my normally dead time spent sitting observing tennis/swimming lessons can be put to profitable use while I scribble away.
I would like to be a lot more organised about the way I write, but it seems to work best for me to have a long procrastination period before I really get to the writing proper. This means I am always scribbling furiously against a deadline, but it's the only way I seem to be able to do it!
- Do you think you could have a career as the Happy Homemaker like Catherine in the book?
As the world's worst housewife I think I am spectacularly unsuited to be a Happy Homemaker. I came up with the idea because it seems to me the tv and papers are endlessly full of bossy women telling us normal folk how to run our lives, be it in the kitchen, with our cleaning habits or the way we dress.
I'd like them all to shut up frankly, because it's easy enough to feel your making a hash of the domestic thing without being lectured about it all the time. I loved the idea of having a character who tells people what to do, but in fact her own home life is chaotic.
I suspect that's the truth behind many a bossy woman's life. So if I were the Happy Homemaker, like Cat, I'd feel like a hypocrite. I wouldn't mind doing a cooking blog though!
- Last time we spoke you had taken up dancing so how's that going?
Sadly that's fallen a bit by the wayside, as I pulled my back out last year. I have been to some more salsa lessons, and I still live in hope of taking my husband with me...
- What kind of research did you have to do this time round?
Some of the research was relatively easy - I just delved into my own life for mad things that have happened in my family life, and came to the conclusion that anything I made up couldn't be less realistic then things that have actually happened. A very good friend gave me a whole fund of nightmarish au pair stories which also proved useful.
The tricky bit was describing Gabriel's life - I am a townie at heart, and know relatively little about farming, let alone farming sheep. So I did have to research that.
I set one scene with a sheep giving birth, which luckily I have seen happen several times at our local children's farm, but the BBC website was full of useful information, including pictures of sheep giving birth.
As my mother lives in Shropshire I spend quite a bit of time up there, and did go on a long run where I took my camera and took photos of various houses, and bits of valley that I wanted to describe later.
I also bought myself a Shropshire hills calendar which was immensely useful as the colours of the hills change throughout the year and it gave me a pictorial record.
I have a very good friend who works in mental health and she gave me a lot of useful insights, which proved particularly helpful for the character of Eve, and also for describing some of Noel's problems.
To me he is going through a classic midlife crisis, and is suffering from mild depression, but being a bloke of course, he doesn't quite realise it...
- Finally what's next for you?
Well I've just finished the first draft of my next book, The Bridesmaid's Pact, which is coming out next year. It's probably the most ambitious thing I've done yet, so it's a long way from being properly finished. I've really enjoyed writing it though, as it's about female friendship and the ties that bind and break us.
I enjoyed writing about Hope Christmas so much, I am thinking about returning to the village for the next book. I have a germ of an idea, and I'll see where it takes me...
After that, I'm not quite sure, but I have several ideas I'd like to pursue, so I'm hoping I won't be too short of material.