A background in factual TV gave the debut author the research skills to embark on a novel, but it wasn’t until a big birthday loomed that she decided it was time to fulfil her dream of writing one
I always wanted to write a novel, but had pegged it for my retirement. There was no time, so I contented myself with working in a creative industry and making the most of the opportunities which came with that. In my field of factual television there was writing – plenty of it – in briefs and research notes, scripts and pitches. I’d even started to dip my toe into the realm of scripted television, helping re-work foreign dramas for a British audience. It fuelled my desire to write creatively, but life got in the way, until the pandemic came along.
Now, to be very clear, I did not spend Lockdown One crafting my first novel. I wish I could have been that cliché, but I was working full time from home on various documentaries, I had a nine-year-old and had to juggle home-schooling with my partner, who’d suddenly been benched after twenty years of working on location. In fact, I saw very little of those hot summer days at home in 2020. By the time I came up for air, it was nearly Christmas, I was about to turn 50 and we were barrelling towards a new year and another lockdown. So I decided, f@%* it – if I was ever going to give it a try, I had to make time for it in the here and now.
During the holidays, I got up in the small hours, before the rest of the house was awake, and began writing, very tentatively at first. It took me three weeks to get down 300 words, which I worried over endlessly, but I so enjoyed the outcome, I decided to continue. Had I known then what I know now, I probably wouldn’t have chosen so much to chew on – a historical novel set in a country I couldn’t visit, detailing a profession I had enthusiasm for, but didn’t fully understand. I couldn’t go anywhere, so going back in time seemed like the least of my problems and I am so glad I did – it meant I could put all the skills I’d garnered in three decades of making factual television into practice. I enjoy research, I know how to reach out and ask for help and where to go for inspiration.
As a magpie, I am always thrilled when I find historical fact I can weave into my fiction. Rabbits and hares are an avatar for my protagonist in The Porcelain Maker, so a pivotal moment came when I discovered a trove of pictures on a historical society website in America. These were photograph albums, bound in angora wool, which belonged to Heinrich
