Tuesday, 3 November 2020

Q&A with Sandy Barker

  Welcome to The Comfy Chair blog... Sandy Barker, author of 'The Christmas Swap.' 

About Sandy:

I call myself a hopeful romantic. I’m also a lifelong traveller, self-confessed coffee snob, and devourer of cooking shows, especially The Great British Bakeoff.

For more visit: https://sandybarker.com/


1.      What did you read as a child? 

I was obsessed with reading as a child and at ten or eleven, I precociously devoured Mills & Boon books. By the time I was twelve, I’d move onto Shirley Conran and Jackie Collins. But I also had more ‘age appropriate’ tastes and loved the Sweet Dreams and Sweet Valley High books too.

 

2.      What inspired you to start writing and how long has it taken you to get to this point? 

I started writing a travel biography in 2001 about my year spent as a Contiki Tour Manager. I tried to fictionalise it in 2012-2013. An agent, who liked my pitch, read it and said, ‘It’s not your first novel. Too many characters, multi narratives. You’re not Liane Moriarty (yet). Go away and write a simple, linear story.”

 

And I did. I wrote what became One Summer in Santorini. I self-published that and (what is now) A Sunset in Sydney, and wrote (what is now) That Night in Paris. Before I could self-publish my third book, I heard from Avon Books and they wanted to publish me! That was early 2019 and I have had four books published since then (I’m now with One More Chapter, another imprint of HarperCollins UK).

 

3.      Describe your writing space - neat and ordered or creative chaos? 

I’m a neat freak and I have also been working from home for nine months, so my writing space is dual purpose, and everything is in its place. I do the official ‘switch over’ twice a day. I write in the mornings, then ‘go to work’, then switch back to author mode in the evenings – different laptops, different notebooks…

 

4.      What is the easiest and hardest part of the writing process? 

The easiest part is when I am in the flow of a story and it is pouring out of me. The ideas are coming fast and thick (I only plan a loose outline and character arcs) and I end up writing whole chapters in a single sitting – I love that.

 

Copy edits are the hardest because it is not just about tweaking small sections. You then need to go back through the whole manuscript to make sure you haven’t ‘upset’ the rest of the story – or even its flow – with the edits.

 

5.      Which other authors are you influenced by?

I read widely in my genre, and there are some incredible authors out there writing the most clever/beautiful/hilarious stories. But the author whose career I most aspire to emulate is Lindsey Kelk. She is so brilliantly funny and her characters live and breathe in your mind. She’s also written two series as well as standalones and I am planning to do the same. I’ve already written the next in the Holiday Romance series and I am now writing book 6, a standalone, which may become a series!

 

6.      What does literary success “look” like to you?

When I can stop working in a ‘day job’ and just write fulltime. I have SO MANY stories inside me – most romantic comedies, some darker contemporary fiction, a thriller, a fairy tale. I just want to write fulltime.

 

7.      How do you select the names of your characters?

Maybe this is the hardest part of writing. I have a list of names I like, and I’ll draw from that, or I (lazily) borrow from friends and family. If I am writing the antagonist, I’ll go to my other list – names I don’t like, or I think of people who have irked me. And I use Google! ‘Popular girls’ names from 1990’ – searches of that nature are very helpful. But a name has to fit the character and sometimes, my characters get renamed as I write.

 

8.      Do you hide any secret ‘messages’ in your book that only a few people will understand? 

Not so much messages, but I will give my close friends ‘cameos’ where I’ve named a minor character after them. I also have ‘stolen’ a few travel stories/anecdotes that some people will recognise.

 

9.      If your book was to be made into a film/TV programme, which actors would play which role? 

I typically do an ‘inspiration image search’ when I am writing something new, so I usually know what my characters look like and often their appearance is based on specific actors. For Lucy in The Christmas Swap, I’d love Eleanor Tomlinson – she’d be perfect – and for her love interest, Will, Ansel Elgort.

 

10.  What do you hope your readers take away from your book?

That you can choose your family – those lifelong friends we have – they are our family as much as our parents, siblings, cousins, etc. Family is love, acceptance, honesty, generosity, and support.

 

 

Lastly, Jenn (The Comfy Chair) likes to enjoy a good read snuggled up with a cup of tea and piece of cake... what cake or sweet treat would you suggest to accompany your book? 

 

Christmas cake (drowning in sherry), hot chocolate, bubbly – anything that you associate with Christmas.



The Christmas Swap

Ebook is out now on all platforms, and the print book will be available from the end of November.

Christmas is coming and best friends Chloe, Jules, and Lucy are needing change… so swapping homes for the holidays could be the perfect present for all of them! Join them in snowy Colorado, sunny Melbourne and cosy Oxfordshire for love, laughter, friendship and romance.

Amazon:

AU https://amzn.to/3kx7xEO
US https://amzn.to/2PBrtbH
UK https://amzn.to/2RrbmhP
CA https://amzn.to/2HzrUCk

Apple: https://apple.co/3cCVRgy

GooglePlay: https://bit.ly/3cAJhhI

 

Sandy Barker's Social media:

https://twitter.com/sandybarker

https://www.facebook.com/sandybarkerauthor

https://sandybarker.com/

https://www.instagram.com/sandybarkerauthor/

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