Tag Archives: An Unchoreographed Life
Close Encounters in Pelican Park
The working title for my novel, AN UNCHOREOGRAPHED LIFE, was Pelican Park (better known to some as St James’s Park) where many pivitol scenes take place. Regular visitors will be aware that the pelicans often retreat to a rocky outcrop, where only the zoom lenses of those standing on the terrace of the Swiss Cottage can reach them. Today we…
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Discovering Your Characters
The process of discovering your characters can be an odd thing. Sometimes it involves writing whole tracts that have no place in the novel that emerges. As so, I experienced a strange sense of nostalgia when, this morning, I stumbled across a forgotten Word file. I wrote this text after visiting Waterstones, Piccadilly, in 2011, and getting the real…
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Love for Sale: Rupert Everett
Last week Dan Holloway asked me about the research I had carried out for my novel, An Unchoreographed Life, which tells the story of a ballerina who turns to prostitution when she becomes a single mother. In truth, it was very easy to find historical accounts of prostitution. There was no shortage of reference books for…
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A small celebration as the first batch of books arrives…
It’s always an exciting moment, tearing open the box containing the first print-run of your new novel. Fifth time round feels like quite an achievement. I deserve a drink. Cheers! To get your copy of An Unchoreographed Life, click here…
Unlikely heroines: why I chose to write a novel about a prostitute
Writing a novel about a ballerina who turns to prostitution seems a strange choice for a writer who normally goes out of her way to avoid writing sex scenes. And, no, it’s not simply out of fear of ending up alongside Manil Suri on the podium clutching a bad sex award, or the thought that my mother might read it….
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Book cover design – how I do it
‘A beautiful object’ In his 2011 Man Booker acceptance speech, Julian Barnes was quick to praise the unsung hero in the publication process, his book cover designer, Suzanne Dean. But this was three years ago, and Barnes’s concern was the rise of the e-book which, as we all know, is no threat to the paperback. It is just another…
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“I could tell you things to make you blush or weep.”
Surrey Life Magazine’s book reviewer told me that she was intrigued by the sound of AN UNCHOREOGRAPHED LIFE, my story of a ballerina who, on becoming a single mother, turns to prostitution. But was I aware of the 1940 film, Waterloo Bridge (in which a ballerina, Myra – played by Vivien Leigh – resorts to prostitution when…
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