Falling in love with Georgette Heyer
‘She was my favourite author, then and now. It might as well have been science fiction. That world was so alien to my world that I was lost in it, and I've never come out again...
At the time, she was rated as a comic genius, along with PG Wodehouse. It's still respectable to read Wodehouse, but Heyer is in the romance box. She's a superb comic writer. Her favourite is The Corinthian... which follows a young man who is about to be forced into marriage by his family, before he teams up with Penelope, a wealthy orphan who is escaping from her own marriage plans. It was written in 1940 when the bombs were falling - it's totally escapist, and probably my favourite book of all time...
I said: "please give me a job because I love Georgette Heyer. You may be deceived by my two degrees in English literature to think that I am interested in literary fiction, but really I love romance and I'm a Heyer obsessive." She ended up copy-editing Regency romances, which she loved - and she also found romance of her own, meeting her husband, fellow literary agent Luigi Bonomi.
I thought, I'd better start writing these stories down. I had previously written a Heyer continuation novel, and I started to rewrite it in lockdown. I posted it, a chapter at a time, on AO3. (Archive Of Our Own). It's incredible, because readers just find you. You're not advertising it - it's nothing but word of mouth or people seeking out what they're interested in. I had so many people messaging me and telling me how much they loved the stories that I thought I'd try writing an original novel...
I have a really ferocious focus. It's not necessarily always a good thing because I'm not very good when I'm interrupted! But once I'm in the zone I'm in the zone. Because I don't have huge amounts of time, I am really focused in how I use the time that I have. Writing is my absolute passion. I was speaking to Jane Dunn, another Boldwood author - she saw somebody talking about how hard it is to be an author, and we said to each other that we love it - writing is the best thing. Why would you do it if you don't really, really enjoy it?
I think there's a general perception that if you work in publishing and you want to be published, it will be really easy. My book was on submission for over a year before it was picked up, and it was such an unpleasant experience. I know that some aspiring authors think that editors and agents don't have any sympathy with that, but I have been through that experience.'
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