Mummyfesto
What can you tell us about your new book Mummyfesto?
It's about three friends, Sam, Anna and Jackie, who successfully campaign to save their lollipop lady's job and are asked by a TV reporter if they fancy standing in the general election. It is, of course, a crazy idea. Sam's youngest child has an incurable disease; Jackie is desperate for another child and her mother is struggling with Alzheimer's and Anna's teenage children, and marriage, are in danger of going off the rails. But sometimes the craziest ideas turn out to be the best. And just think what they could do if they got to run the country.
Tell us about the development of the idea behind the book.
During the 2010 general election campaign I was appalled by the lack of high-profile women involved and the fact that women's voices were not being heard. I kept my husband awake at night complaining about how a bunch of mums could do a better job of running the country. So, desperate for some sleep, my husband suggested I write a novel about it. The ploy worked. He got to sleep and I started plotting a fictional revolution.
You wrote your first novella when you were 8, so what was it about?
It was called The Time Machine and featured a pony-mad girl called Vicky who travelled through time with her friend and her pony in a time machine with a horse box attachment. It had a beginning, middle and an end, scary dinosaurs, a prison escape and the drama of her pony having a foal. I think the idea was just before its time! My little boy still asks me to read it to him as a bedtime story sometimes though, so at least it has an audience!
Your first publication was when you were only 13, so can you expand on this for us?
I was football mad as a teenage and entered a competition in the Tottenham Weekly Herald to write about my favourite footballer. My ode to my hero Gary Mabbutt won second prize and was published. Sadly I can still recite the whole thing!
You were a regional journalist for 10 years so how much had this aided your own fiction writing?
I don't think writing as a journalist has aided my fiction writing a huge amount because it's a completely different art to write a 120,000 word novel than it is to condense a major news story into 250 words. What it has helped with is writing discipline and meeting deadlines but I think the most important thing it did to help my writing was giving me a desire to tell people's stories and an ear for dialogue. I interviewed so many extraordinary people during my time in journalism and my last novel And Then It Happened was actually inspired by a woman I interviewed whose husband was in a coma for years.
You have written for many publications, so which one was the best experience for you?
When I went freelance one of the first publications I worked for was The Big Issue in the North. I got the chance to interview some fascinating people such as Michael Hickey, one of the Bridgewater Four and Nancy Phipps, whose daughter Jill was killed at an animal rights protest. The Big Issue was a publication I was really proud to work for as I passionately believe in how it helps homeless people.
How much did teaching creative writing affect the way you looked at your own work?
It was enormously helpful. It helped to learn the craft of writing fiction, to be able to see where I and other people had gone wrong and to be able to identify how to put things right. I learnt so much from my students, who were an absolute pleasure to work with.
You had more than an hundred rejections for your first novel, so what gave you the strength to carry on and keep trying?
The fact that being a published author was my lifetime's ambition, I don't think I could have kept going otherwise. It was something I desperately wanted to do and though there were times when I felt close to giving up, I was never actually going to, not while there was still a chance I could realise my ambition.
What is next for you?
I've just started work on my next novel for Quercus, which will hopefully be published in spring next year. I can't say too much about it but it's very much concerned with relationships and what holds people together and what can drive them apart. I'm enjoying getting to know a whole new set of characters.
What is your writing process?
I have an eight-year-old son, so it's very much a process of fitting my writing around the school day. I generally work until about two-thirty when I go on the school run and do another couple of hours in the evening after he's gone to bed. I'm a great plotter and planner so I spend a lot of time before starting writing a novel working on characterisations and putting together detailed chapter plans. that way when I start writing I know exactly where I am going and who my characters are.
LINDA GREEN’S THE MUMMYFESTO is published by Quercus on 14 February, paperback £7.99
Female First Lucy Walton