1 - They don't view themselves as artistes
In many ways, I am an accidental novelist. After working as a ghostwriter for three years my agent suggested I try my hand at fiction. I would never in a million years have thought that I could write a novel. I still have to pinch myself now that I have, so the fact that I managed it, is something quite astounding to me. I view it as a craft - or craftsman in training - as a pose to a higher calling. I remember reading an interview with another journalist turned author, who said: 'People ask me, don't you ever get writers block?' to which said author replied: 'I'm not clever enough to get writers block'. That totally resonates with me. I never think I am creating a masterpiece, just hopefully something that will make people feel they are in the company of old friends, with lots of laughter, emotion and nostalgia along the way.
The Secrets of the Singer Girls
2 - We all live in fear
All journalists with a tabloid or agency background, will know what it's like to live in fear; the crawling dread of missing an exclusive that your rival scoops, the sinking feeling when you realise you've got something wrong, the abject terror of missing a deadline. I'm exaggerating of course, but not actually that much. The journalism route I came up through was very much pre-Leveson enquiry, pre-tribunal days and newsrooms resembled Wild West saloons, filled with maverick, hard-working, heavy-drinking hacks. You were only ever as good as your last story, you had to give off the appearance that you were delighted to be working fourteen hour days, and you had a distinct sense that you were very much replaceable. I remember one particularly terrifying female editor sending me out into the night with the command 'don't bother coming back if you can't persuade her to do the story' and the charming boss who hurled a mince pie at my head one Christmas for missing a story. Fear is a great driving factor, but it also means you can achieve things that at times feel impossible, like finishing a 100k manuscript.
3 - Journalists make good listeners
The same person who threatened me with the sack if I couldn't pull off a story, did also managed to instill some words of wisdom into me, and that is the power of shutting up and just listening. 'Whenever you are doing an interview and you think the person has stopped talking, or seems reluctant to say more, just stop and wait for five seconds, never fill the silence'.
This was actually a powerful lesson, and I've remembered it ever since. Being a great listener brings its own rewards, like a nugget of information or a delicious slice of detail, that you might not have had, had you chattered over the awkward silence. Listen, really listen, to what interviewees are telling you and whether it's journalism or research for a book, you will come away with more detail and a better interview.
4 - Thinking outside the box
I know that's a cliché, but I believe working as a journalist has taught me to think laterally when approaching something. If I need to discover something for research, like finding men or women who slept in the underground during the Blitz, I know archives are a good place to start, but I also know that hunting about and finding places where people of that generation are likely to be, is a better bet, so for that reason I invited myself along to a pensioners tea dance in the East End recently, and sure enough it was filled with absolutely lovely men and women, who all had vivid memories of the war and were happy to share them. Great journalists leave no stone unturned in the pursuit of a story, I'm not putting myself in that category, but I do try to remember that making an effort always pays off and that applies equally as well to writing a novel.
5 - Face-to-face research
While I worked for a news agency on the princely sum of £6,000 a year, we were never allowed to do interviews over the phone, unless it could absolutely be helped. We were always dispatched to do them face-to-face. It is so much easier to build a rapport with someone and in turn learn more, if you are able to look them in the eye. Today, that's not always possible, but if I can do research and interviews, face-to-face, I always will. There really is no substitute.
6 - Never fear the edit
Editing. I don't fear it as much as others perhaps, after having an editor who routinely wrote 'boring…yawn' in red pen all over my work. Touch wood I have been lucky and every editor in book publishing I have so far worked with has been nothing but lovely, constructive with feedback and fantastic to work with.
7 - The truth is stranger than fiction
When you have worked in the strange world of 'true-life' journalism you absolutely know this to be the case. I worked for many years on titles like Take a Break and That's Life and people would constantly ask me 'did you make that up?' The answer was never. How could you even begin to make up stories like 'My Ninja kitten left me for dead', 'I sneezed my brain out' or 'A bee sting made my man change sex' OK, these examples are extreme, but when you have interviewed hundreds of true life stories, you know that extraordinary things can and do happen to ordinary people. I have covered many heartbreaking and tragic stories, in addition to the funny and quirky ones, and I believe it's given me a less one dimensional or judgmental view of life, that in turn helps me to be a more sympathetic novelist.
8 - Eye for detail
As a journalist you spend your entire time quietly observing, everything from mannerisms to colloquialisms and I was always encouraged to pepper my articles with dialogue that really bring a story to life in an authentic way. Our ways of speaking, our triumphs, our hopes, our dreams and our human quirks, can all be captured and used to bring fictional characters to life.
9 - We don't own our work
I never presume to be in possession of artistic greatness, or own the words I write. I think it's far healthier to accept that your manuscript is going to be pulled apart, and you will have to delete great swathes of your work. Journalism has taught me not to be precious about writing.
10 - Sssh. Peace and quiet
So many people ask, don't I mind, working by myself for hours at a time, day-after-day, don't I get bored, or lonely, and the answer is always a resounding no. In my last job as Deputy Editor for Pick Me Up magazine, you were asked a question on average every five minutes throughout the day. Every magazine I have worked on has been great fun, but always an open-plan hive of noise and chatter. These days, especially now I'm a mum to two young boys, I long for the moment when I've finished the school run and I can retreat to my office and the world that I'm writing about inside my book. It's a perfect life for me.
Journalism provided me with a great living for many years, but so much of that world is changing as people start to read and digest the news differently, and nowadays journalists seem to be better known as on-line content writers. Despite the changes, this industry has taught me many precious skills that can easily be transferred to the fantastic world of fiction.