Jinny Alexander interview 3
How did it feel when you finished writing your book?
My debut, Dear Isobel, took me ten years to write – I got
almost all the way through it and realised I didn’t know how it would end. I
put it aside and didn’t write much for a while, then I did an Advanced Creative
Writing course with the Open University as the final stage of my 16-year
journey to get my degree. (are you sensing a pattern of doing things slowly
here?) During this course, I began a new novel – A Diet of Death. This novel
was completed during National Novel Writing Month the following year and at a
similar time, I experienced an event which gave me the ending of Dear Isobel.
Once A Diet of Death was finished, I then picked up Dear Isobel and completed
it. How did it feel? Awesome with a side helping of relief and an incredible
sense of achievement. But also a ‘what now?’ feeling of something a bit like
emptiness. I started the sequel to A Diet of Death pretty fast, to fill that
gap.
How do you feel when your book is going through the editing phase?
I’m a British writer with an American editor, and although I
was assured he was able to ‘speak British’ I certainly wouldn’t say he’s
fluent! We had some fun and interesting discussions about this along the way,
and both learnt a lot about each other’s Englishes. I learned, too, that if I
think I need a semi colon, he thinks I don’t, and I need to search for overuse
of ‘that’ before ever submitting anything ever again.
You get a front cover for your book, it must be starting to feel more real now but that surely brings about a lot of emotions?
The cover for Dear Isobel is both part of the story and a
story in its own right. The ending of Dear Isobel was inspired by a real-life
meeting of a stranger on a ferry. We became good friends. After he returned to
his home, he shared a photo on Facebook that his girlfriend had taken. I knew
that phot was the very essence of Dear Isobel, which at that time was still
unfinished. I immediately wrote a chapter to match the photo. A year or so
later, when I signed the publishing contract for Dear Isobel, I asked my friend
about the photo. He connected with his now ex-girlfriend, and between the three
of us, we secured the use of the photo for the cover of the book. One of the
perks of having a smaller publisher is that I had a lot of input into the cover
design. I am truly delighted with the cover and would never have been able to
imagine the book with any other cover image. Massive thanks to Mel at https://letoi.co.nz/ for granting me the
permissions needed to use the photos.
Your book has now got to ARC stage and it's out with some readers now, how do you feel?
This, truly, is the scary bit! My book is currently with
about 50-odd ARC readers and the very first reviews are trickling in. So far,
the reviews are great, but the silence from a couple who have told me they’ve
finished is far louder in my ears! Does their lack of review to date mean they
hated it? Or should I allow for busyness, Christmas, life, getting in their
way? As fast as one review comes in I find myself worrying about the next.
This, dear readers, is what paranoia looks like. Having said that, I know that
my narrator is not always the most likeable character, and the beta reader who
hated her has given me some of my best and most fun marketing ideas – like this
one:
You now have everything ready to go and a release date set, how does it feel?
My release date is just around the corner and it feels both
fast and slow, both exciting and scary, both real and unreal. I haven’t even
seen a physical copy of the book yet – Covid, Christmas, International post
these days… the proof has been ‘on its way’ for the last couple of months, but
seems to be lost in transit. By biggest worry is finding heaps of typos as soon
as I open it, because however many times it gets read, edited, proofed,
checked, there will always be the ones you miss until the very second you open
the brand-new, ready-to-sell-to-the-public copy. Plus, I KNOW it has US/UK
discrepancies that readers will hound me about forever. But, on the plus side,
they will be reading it!
Jinny Alexander’s first
novel, Dear Isobel, is out on March 15th, 2022, and is on
pre-order from all major online retailers.
Website: www.JinnyAlexander.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/CeramicFairy
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JinnyAlexanderAuthor
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jinnyalexanderauthor
Pre order links:
Amazon.co.uk: https://amzn.to/3rGTa6S
Amazon.com: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1735392618/
Barnes and Noble https://bit.ly/3oqgTGE
Other ebooks: https://books2read.com/u/mlAK5W
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