But now that I have a contract and I’m writing professionally as it were I’m allowed a bit more space, I have just been away for a week with some writer friends to do some writing, but my husband incredibly supportive but even when I didn’t have a contract I was still allowed to go off and do some writing. I think writing is essential to keep me sane and to keep me calm.
How difficult do you find going away and leaving your family?
I felt really sad actually leaving them this half time, but they are getting older now the youngest two are twelve. But the first time that I went away my fourth child was only a few months, in a way it was an essential part of being able to cope with lots of little children when you get back because if that’s all you don and you never have any time and space to gather yourself and your thoughts how can you be good at what you do?
It’s essential to have that me time to gather back yourself again.
Getting a book deal and be quite a long process with a string of manuscripts being knocked back so how did it all work out for you?
I must have sent of four or five manuscripts before Pandora’s Box got published or accepted. But when Pandora got accepted it all happened ever so quickly; it went to the publisher and came back within a couple of weeks saying yes lets meet.
I expected that it would take months and months and lots and lots of time having had that expectation built up over the years but it did go very quickly.
How does the ideas and writing process work for you?
I like to latch onto an emotional theme with these three books, I have a three book contract, the first was about hope so I thought it would be really fun if the second one was a bout faith and the third about charity.
The idea for the second one actually came through in a writing healing session, I actually got that story to come through, I knew it was going it was going to be about faith but the actual story about a child going cam through in a healing session.
It was almost as if I was watching a movie in a semi-meditative state and I could see the parents realising that there child wasn’t there anymore and I sensed the grief which was the main thrust of writing that story.
And I have read that you have had some film interest for Pandora’s Box can you tell me anything about that?
Ah well it’s all very much in the early stages, I know a producer was reading the book, and that’s as far as it has got so far and I can’t say anymore than that really.
You have also written a book about Astrology so where does you interest in that come from?
That’s right yes it was the first book that I wrote. That’s another thing, like the writing, that I have been interested in since I was really little and I did study it and I have got my qualifications in it, which was something I did when the children were very tiny.
I have always said that Astrology and writing are very similar because they are both about people and what happens to those people so it’s almost as if I’m using the same part of my brain when I’m either doing Astrology or writing.
Finally what’s next for you?
Well the next book is about charity, and that is the one that I’m writing about at the moment, and it is based around the theme of… or maybe I shouldn’t say it (laughs). But it will be based on charity and I’m about half way through it and that’s where I am at the moment.
Little Miracles is out now
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw