At the beginning of the month we launched our fabulous January competition.
To celebrate the success of the international best seller ‘The Sanatorium’ by Sarah Pearse we are giving away a host of prizes, including a luxury break, hampers (courtesy of our friends at Love Cocoa and The Tartan Blanket Co.) and a signed copy of The Sanatorium – If you haven’t already entered, what are you waiting for?
We recently caught up with author Sarah Pearse, and had lots of questions we wanted to ask. Sarah very kindly shared some of her writing processes with us:
Q: What inspired you to be a writer?
A: I’ve wanted to write ever since I learnt to read – we recently found one of my old pieces of school work from when I was five or so where I’d written about what I wanted to do when I grew up. I wrote ’book writer’ – I don’t think I had yet learnt the word ‘author’! I’ve always been a voracious reader and authors were the people I looked up to the most as a child so it was a fairly natural progression for me to want to write a book of my own. The idea of someone reading a story that had once only existed within my mind was, and continues to be, something thrilling to imagine.
Q: Where do you like to write?
A: I write wherever I can get some peace and quiet, which in a house with two children, a husband and two noisy cats can be quite a challenge! When I’m first drafting, this tends to be our bedroom where we have a lovely view out to sea. I find this view both extremely inspiring but also calming – something that definitely helps when I’m wrestling that first draft or a tricky plot point into submission!
Q: What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?
A: I’m not sure if it’s a quirk, but it’s definitely something unique to me – I have my own process for structuring my novels which involves breaking them into parts at certain key points in the narrative and then printing them off into folders to work on separately, almost as if it is its own piece of writing. Two books down, this means our bedroom is littered with A4 folders!
Q: How do you select your character names?
A: This is quite an organic process – It tends to be both names I simply like and also names that I think ‘fit’ my characters. When you get it right, you know immediately but when you get it wrong, it sticks out like a sore thumb!
Quick fire questions:
Q: Which 3 people would make up your dream dinner party?
A: Jo Nesbo, Lewis Hamilton, Agatha Christie
Q: What is one thing everyone should do?
A: Spend time in the mountains in the depths of winter – the calm of the mountains when there has been a fresh snowfall is the best feeling in the world!
Q: What are you reading right now?
A: A memoir called The Iceberg by Marion Coutts, the moving story of her feelings and experiences after her late husband was diagnosed with a brain tumour.
Q: Where is your ideal holiday destination?
A: Crans Montana, in the Swiss Alps, where my novel, The Sanatorium, is set.
The Sanatorium is a rollercoaster read that will leave you guessing right up to the very end. It is available to buy now, and Sarah has shared the following excerpt with us – to whet your appetite.
Photocredit – Sarah Pearse Portrait: Rosie Parsons Photography
