Welcome to The Comfy Chair blog... Shirley Mann, author of recent release, 'Bobby's War.'
I am a journalist who worked for the BBC for most of my career, for programmes such as Woman’s Hour and Countryfile. I then started up my own media company producing films for organisation such as Natural England and the National Heritage Lottery Fund. I was thinking of retiring when I thought it would be a really good idea to ‘just’ see whether I could write a novel. I have just been signed for two further novels so bang goes retirement. I live in the glorious hills of Derbyshire and have two daughters and a ‘granddog’ ( I know, say nothing!)
1. What was your
favourite childhood book/author?
I absorbed all books but The Faraway Tree
and The Water Babies have a special place in my heart.
2. What inspired
you to start writing and how long has it taken you to get to this point?
I
have always needed to write from when I would write stories for my
sister and I – as the heroines, obviously- and I became a journalist for that
reason but novel writing?-- Well, that only took me until I was 60 until I
thought I’d give it a go.
3. Describe your
writing space - neat and ordered or creative chaos?
One day I will be neat and
ordered but, at the moment, I move around the house taking my piles of rubbish
with me. Sometimes, it’s on the sofa with a cushion on my knees under my
laptop, sometimes at the dining room table but for some reason, hardly ever in
the little office we have- that’s too much like a proper writer. Strangely the
best place I have ever written was in the café at Ikea. No idea why but it
worked really well and I love writing on trains. I often think all I have to do
to finish a novel is to set off from Land’s End and go up to John O’Groats.
That would do it.
4. What is the
easiest and hardest part of the writing process?
Easiest is writing the
words ‘The End’, the hardest is the bit beforehand.
5. Which other
authors are you influenced by?
All of them, I get something out of every
writer’s style. Many of them make me feel completely inadequate, others make me
feel I can do better- especially with endings. I hate it when they think it’s
clever to keep you hanging. I think I am
aiming to create heroines like Georgette Heyer did- all with very different but
distinctive personalities. I wanted to write novels that were an easy read but
an intelligent read and oh, did I ever want to make sure they were page-turners?
I read so much and so many different types of books but often it’s a chore to
pick them up. I want to be taken away to another world but it has to be a
well-written, well-researched world.
6. What does
literary success “look” like to you?
People. I had a comment from a reader
yesterday that said she stayed up until 1.30am reading my first book and
couldn’t put it down. I get a huge kick out of people’s enthusiasm and when a
26 year old says she got through Lockdown with ‘Lily’s War’ because it made her
realise what young people went through in the war, it makes me feel very
humbled. I also want desperately to do justice to my parents, whose wartime
romance started me off on this journey, and to the wonderful former WAAFs, ATA
pilots and Land Army girls I interviewed- they helped me recreate their very
personal war and told me wonderful details that aren’t in the history books. If
I do justice to their legacy, I will feel I really have achieved something.
7. How do you
select the names of your characters?
Sometimes, they just come to me because they seem to suggest themselves to me but
graveyards are good!
8. Do you hide
any secret ‘messages’ in your book that only a few people will
understand?
I was about to say no, but the first one was based on my
parents and for the family, I think there will be memories that I have that would
have been lost. Certainly, in ‘Lily’s War’ my heroine’s parents are my
grandparents and their house and life has now been immortalised in that book
and I hope will allow future generations to understand what their ancestors were
like.
9. If your book
was to be made into a film/TV programme, which actors would play which
role?
Someone asked me this question the other day and I thought maybe
Lily James could be Lily ( and yes, it would be handy she has the same name)
and I did think Andy Burnham could be Danny! Maybe a younger version might be
necessary but he has all the attributes and certainly the twinkling eyes!
10. What do you
hope your readers take away from your book?
An escape from Covid and maybe an
appreciation that at least, we’re not being bombed from the air for six years.
But I really would like people to look again at old people and, a bit like the
film ‘The Notebook’, realise that they were once young.
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?
Oh, I think a chocolate brownie
but actually a chocolate brownie goes well with any book. It helps you get
through some of the award winners that are sheer hard work but it also feels
gloriously indulgent when you’re gobbling up the pages of a real winner. I hope
people think my books are like chocolate brownies- delicious, fun but full of
goodness.
Release date: E book 29th Oct and paperback 19th March, 2021.
Red-haired Roberta, Bobby for short, is an Air Transport Auxiliary pilot. She has a frantic schedule delivering planes all over the country and flies everything from a Spitfire to a Wellington bomber. She navigates the country but when it comes to the secrets of her dysfunctional family, she finds that controlling a huge, four-engined bomber might just be easier than controlling her own life.
Follow Shirley on Twitter - @shirleymann07
For more information - https://shirleymannauthor.home.blog/
