Jane Lovering interview

AUTHOR INTERVIEW

A little introduction:

Hi, my name’s Jane Lovering and I’ve just won the Romantic Novelists’ Association award for Contemporary Romantic Novel of the Year with my novel A Cottage Full of Secrets. I’ve been a published writer since 2008, and I’ve written nearly 30 published novels. I live in North Yorkshire with my disreputable Patterdale Terrier Teal, and write mostly women’s fiction/romance based around my local area.

When did your love of books begin?

My dad was an inveterate reader (not, as autocorrect keeps trying to tell me, an invertebrate reader) and he started my love of books and reading when I was very small. Our house was full of books and I was read to a lot by my parents. My mum remembers me standing in my cot waving a copy of Little Grey Rabbit and trying to entice her to read it to me. It’s all right, I was a baby, not like, fifteen or something…

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

Probably as soon as I learned to read! I used to wish that some of my favourite books would continue the story, I wanted to know more! So, in my head, I would ‘invent’ further stories; sequels to my favourites. And it all just went from there.

How have you found the process for becoming an author?

I spent the best part of twenty years trying to get published. I had to work on establishing what I wanted to write – I started out trying to write science fiction which was completely wrong for my style and ‘voice’. Once I settled on romance, I wrote romantic comedy, and it seemed to hit the right note for publishers and agents, and I’ve gradually moved into women’s fiction/romance.

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

Write. It’s easy to want to ‘become’ an author, but it doesn’t happen without an awful lot of words going down on the page first. You have to refine your style, your voice and your ability and the first things you write will probably be terrible, but don’t let that put you off. Keep writing. The only thing that separates the published from the unpublished author is that the unpublished gave up. And, of course, with self publishing, there’s now even fewer barriers to being read – just, if you are going to self publish, please make sure you engage a proper editor for your work before you put it out there.

Tell us about your book/books:

My books are written in the first person, past tense; they all feature a romance of some kind, but not the mushy ‘poor weak little heroine is saved by big alpha-male’ type. My characters, male and female, are often damaged or, in some cases, disabled. The romance is a minor part of a bigger story, and there’s none of this ‘saved by love’ rubbish, my characters save themselves! The books are mostly set in North Yorkshire, although some are set in Dorset, and my current work in progress is set on Orkney – the countryside plays almost as large a part in my novels as the characters. Oh, and they are all funny. I call them ‘dark psychological romance, with jokes.’ A Cottage Full of Secrets, my current award-winner, is mainly about domestic abuse and how it affects the lives, even of those who escape it. And there’s a fox in it.

What do you love about the writing/reading community?

The support. One of the fabulous things about writing books is that it’s not a zero-sum game. People don’t buy only one book in their entire lives. So there’s a lot of ‘if you like XXXX author, you may also like XXX author’, cross trading of readerships, and general happy companionship both from other writers and the entire reading community. And readers are so keen to communicate with authors to let them know their favourite characters/who they would love to see play them on TV or in films/the things that made them laugh. It’s a wonderful two-way street, and it’s always fabulous when we authors realise that our characters are as real to our readers as they are to us!

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

Really? Just ‘thank you’. Thank you for either parting with your hard-earned cash to buy my books (honestly, most authors are not the millionaires that people seem to think, I work in my local Co Op to make ends meet) in these difficult times, or, if you’ve borrowed from a library, thank you for choosing to read me. Thank you for spending valuable time in my stories and I honestly hope that you enjoy them. All I really want to do is to entertain; to make people laugh and think. The awards are a bonus.

Where can people connect with you?

I am seriously bad with technology. But I’m on Twitter @Janelovering and Facebook as Jane Lovering or Jane Lovering author. I have a website, www.janelovering.co.uk or failing all of these, just stop me in the street. I am always happy to talk about books!