G. Lawrence interview

 AUTHOR INTERVIEW

When did your love of books begin?

At home, with my family. My parents and siblings read to me when I was little, and I drove my brother and sister mad on nights when they had to re-read every Mr Men book there was to me. My mum took me to the library from an early age, and to me the library was a mystical, wondrous place. It was full of books for one thing, and you could loan them for free! I still love libraries and the bigger and creepier the better. When I was little I read everywhere; sitting in the middle of the stairs with a pile of books was my favourite place, but I had many secret nooks, and not so secret. My mum had to tell me quite frequently there was no reading at the dinner table. 

When did you start to have the wish to become an author?

At first I wanted to become a book critic, for the sole reason that I would be sent and given lots of books, which to me sounded like the ideal career! I wrote from a young age, but I had no confidence in what I was doing. It took publishing on Wattpad, and feedback from readers as I published chapters each month to persuade me I could write. An indie author called Terry Tyler then read some of my work on Wattpad and encouraged me into indie publishing through Amazon. Without her encouragement I doubt I would have gone for it. I was still working full time when I wrote, polished and had my first book edited, then published it, and after that I kept going. Within two years I was in a position to leave work and write full time, and six years on I am still going and hope to continue!

Despite all this, I often don’t feel like an author still. I, like others, do suffer from imposter syndrome, so perhaps the wish to become an author is still ongoing! 

How have you found the process for becoming an author?

The technical side with Amazon is pretty straight-forward and I’m not a whizz at anything technical so I think if I can get it anyone can. Working for myself, and sitting down each day to work I am fine with. People say you need a lot of discipline to work from home for yourself, but I think if you love your job it isn’t an issue. Some writers write in pjs and in bed, but I do it like I’m going to work, minus the commute (unless you count the stairs) so I’m at my computer by 9, and I try to have a shut off point in the evening where I leave work behind in the other room.

As for the craft of writing, it’s a learning process and I hope I am always learning. I doubt I will reach a stage where I will consider myself a master and that’s just fine. I’d rather be a student. Writing isn’t about achieving perfection for me, but it is about getting a bit better than I was before each time I try. It’s about pouring everything I have at that time into what I’m writing, and in many ways writing is about catharsis and therapy for me. 

What would you say to those wanting to become an author?

I’d say do it. Please, do it.

There’s a great quote by Wayne Gretzky, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take” which has been summed up by many others in other ways but amounts to if you don’t ever try something, you won’t know if you can do it. If you want to be an author, do it. Read a lot, write a lot, show your work to people you know or do it online like I did, then write and edit, get a professional editor to go over your work, and publish.

You might fail, it’s true. The very, very worst that you can imagine might happen and your book will not sell, people who read it won’t like it and you’ll crumple in a heap watching your dreams crumble. But to fail means you tried and that’s far more courageous than not trying. And who knows? You might not fail. The very worst thing that you can imagine is not usually the thing that actually does happen. You might do really well, become a bestseller, or reach millions of people with your idea, words and story.  You might do just fine, not become a bestseller but make a living decent enough to support yourself whilst doing the thing you’ve always wanted to do. That’s a privilege most people never get; to live their dream and do their ideal job. You might do well enough that you can write half your time and have to do some other work elsewhere, and that’s still a fantastic result. The very worst that might happen is only one of many possibilities, and if you take a deep breath and take a leap you never know what might happen. When I left work to write full time, my brother sent me a bookmark which had a quote by Erin Hanson on it:

“There is freedom waiting for you,
On the breezes of the sky,
And you ask, "What if I fall?"
Oh, but my darling,
What if you fly?”

It is one of the things, along with my cat, a battered copy of Gormenghast and my memory sticks, that I would grab to save from a fire.

The fact is, unless you give it a go, you’ll never know, and life’s too short to spend all of it hiding away. Pick up a pen, or a laptop and go for it.

You are never going to please everyone who picks up your book, some people will love your work and others will hate it. That’s a fact. It will be hard to read bad reviews, and you may not believe the good ones because of lack of confidence. There will be up and down and confusing times as you learn your way, but if you want to be a writer, write, and if you want to make a career of it, you can. It might take time, and certainly will take work but if you begin today then you’re already a step along the way. Have a little faith in yourself, and take that step. 

Tell us about your book/books:

I write historical fiction and fantasy. Mainly I concentrate on the stories of women in the Tudor and Medieval periods of British history, as that is where my historical knowledge is based, but I like to branch out into fantasy from time to time, and also re-tellings of fairy stories. I write a series of books on each person I write about, as one of the things I dislike about some historical fiction is how fast huge periods of history are skipped through, or that large chunks of people’s lives are left out. I think one of the first things that drove me to write my series on Anne Boleyn, Above all Others, was that most books I had read about her started when she met Henry VIII. Quite aside from the outlandish notion that Anne was a complete person and existed before she met her future husband, she was around 21 years old at the time, so those books just skipped two decades and her most formative years of childhood, as well as her time serving in the courts of Mechelen and France. When I wrote about her I started at the beginning, wanting Anne to have a story before she met the man she married, and ultimately, who sent her to her death. 

What do you love about the writing/reading community?

Everyone is bonkers, and I say that in the most affectionate way. I’m a reader myself, an avid bookworm, so I appreciate the madness that a love of books brings to your life, and all the things (the smell of a new book or old, the joy of the right pen or bookmark, the comfort of reading in a window or bed) that bring joy to bookworms. And all the writers I meet, mainly online although I have met some in the flesh too, are great. Everyone I have met is supportive and wants everyone else to do well. Writing doesn’t feel like a competition with the people I have met, it feels like some huge three-legged race except we’re all tied together, hauling each other along, shouting encouragement on the way. 

If you could say anything to your readers what would it be?

The one thing I would say, is something I say a lot when people email me or contact me on social media: Thank you.

Thank you for taking a chance with an author you hadn’t heard of and reading my book, thank you for reviewing (if you have two minutes, please review books by indie authors! It helps us out so much!), thank you for emailing with comments and all the weird and wonderful conversations I have with my readers about history, theories on events, murders, plots and alternative history. And thank you for supporting my career and my dream by doing all this, because without people reading my books I would not be a writer. Books need someone to write them, but someone to read them is just as important. Thank you for being readers, which allows me to be a writer. 

Where can people connect with you?

I’m on Twitter most out of all social media as @TudorTweep. If you want to talk to me there it’s best to just tweet me as my DMs get a bit crazy, and sometimes I miss things there. I have a Facebook page, which I check a few times a week as G. Lawrence, and I’m on Instagram as tudortweep. Readers are welcome to email me on TudorTweep@gmail.com too.