Hi Pernille! Thank you so much for joining me today on Guest Author Saturday - I am really looking forward to getting to know you a little better and learning more about your upcoming realease Ten Years - shall we get started with my questions??
1.)
What do you wish you’d known before you started
writing?
For writing I wish I’d known to find my tribe earlier. The
writing community is so generous, you just need to reach out. And I wish I’d
found Bookstagram earlier.
For publishing there’s lots of unexpected things that you find out as you go, such as that publishing can be incredibly slow, or that it isn’t equal – not all imprints within a publishing house treat their authors the same - but would any of it have stopped me? Nope. So, do I wish I had known? No, probably not, it wouldn’t have helped. I’m a bit of a blunder-through type.
2.) Is there one subject you’d never write about as an
author? What is it?
Child abuse. Quite simply. I write funny books and I can’t see there’s ever anything remotely humorous about it or that it should serve as any kind of set-up for humour. I think the same when comedians venture in that direction during their sets. Making light of it in any way seems wrong to me.
3.) Are you a plotter or a pantser?
I dream of being a proper plotter. I’m sure it’s the most efficient way to write and I am a sucker for efficiency, but I find my brain resistant to do it. Even if I do force myself and enjoy the fruits of it for the first part of my drafting, I’ll eventually come to a grinding halt, letting the plot holes trip me and feed my inner critic (who is a b**ch) and the Imposter Syndrome really kicks in. Then I have to start pantsing, just to keep going, praying that I’ll still get to the end. I guess I’d say I’m a reluctant hybrid.
4.) If you could be the original author for any book, which
book would it be? Why?
This one is really hard! Now and again I’ll read a book and
think ‘Wow! I wish I wrote sentences like that’, but of course that’s their
voice and I have my own. I love the way David Levithan writes for example, but
I couldn’t write the books he writes. Marian Keyes would be another. So, I
can’t think of a book I wish I’d written because I know realistically that it
wouldn’t have been the same had I got my mitts on it.
On the other hand, we can boil it purely down to success and then I’m thinking plenty of us would like to have written Harry Potter, Twilight, Fifty Shades or Thursday Murder Club, but I don’t think ‘success’ (fiscal or acclaim) is the healthiest goal for writing. (Thinking about it, Richard Osman’s style is also one of those I covet….)
5.) What are you working on at the moment?
A bit of a passion project, one of those that sits in your head and keeps knocking to be let out. It germinated from a guided trip through Highgate Cemetery, which I would recommend to anyone interested in British social history, or just an interesting walk on a sunny day. It’ll still be a romance of course! I’m ‘out of contract’ so who knows whether it’ll ever see the shelves, but I need it to come out now, it’s been in there too long.
6.) Do you work on one book at a time? More?
Definitely only one at a time. My brain can’t cope with more. There’s already too much to carry at once. I can read more than one book at a time though…
7.) Do you have a favourite character in your latest
release?
Ollie! He’s Charlie’s best friend and essentially a baby
Brian Blessed. He has a charming knack for inadvertently dumping Charlie in the
crap.
Blurb for Ten Years;
Becca and Charlie have known each
other since university.
Becca and Charlies have also hated each other since university.
Until now. Until Ally’s bucket list. The death of
their loved one should mean they can go their separate ways and not look back.
But completing the list is something neither of them can walk away from.
And sometimes, those who bring out the worst in
you, also bring out the very best…
Over the course of ten years, Becca and Charlie’s paths collide as they deal with grief, love and life after Ally.
Bio;
Before she
moved to writing full-time, Pernille Hughes studied Film & Literature at
university. After she graduated she went on to market Natural History films
before working in Children’s television, which meant living in actual
Teletubbyland for a while! From 2011–2015, she was a regular contributor for
The Sunday Times column ‘Confessions of a Tourist’. She's had two novels
published to date - Punch-Drunk Love and Probably the
Best Kiss in the World - and her new book Ten Years is
released on August 31st 2022.
Pernille lives in
Buckinghamshire, England and while the kids are at school she scoffs cake and
writes stories in order to maintain a shred of sanity.
www.pernillehughes.com (Free short story here!)
Twitter;
@pernillehughes
Instragram;
@pernillehughes
Tiktok;
@pernillehughes (but I’m too old to work it)
Facebook;
pernillehughesauthor
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