Kate Furnivall

Sweeping romance. Sumptuous settings. Unforgettable adventure.

What is the best thing about writing for a living? And the worst?

Writing is an inexplicably strange obsession. It is without doubt a combination of agony and ecstasy, because every page is an intense mixture of both. I’m tempted to say that writing The End on the last page is the best thing. The sense of relief is enormous, but it also brings with it a huge feeling of emptiness – like mourning the loss of a much-loved friend. I hate saying goodbye to a book and its characters. They have become a part of me.

So instead I am going to say that the best thing is being given the opportunity to live so many different lives at an intense level. Most people only have their own life, but an author can be a plantation owner one day, a circus performer or a criminal the next, a child or an adult, a woman or a man – an amazing array of personas to take on and learn from. Every day is a revelation and a thrill as you delve deeper.

The worst thing? That’s easy: deadlines. For some unaccountable reason that baffles authors, publishers want to know when you’re going to finish a book. They breathe down your neck, very gently of course, but it’s always there, that reproachful breath, as your deadline looms closer. But there are times when the words refuse to flow and we all have to learn how to negotiate those rocky heart-grinding patches to finally reach The End.

 

Have you always wanted to be a writer?

No. Unlike many of my writer friends who were penning stories when they were knee-high to a bee, I had no burning desire to become an author when I was young, though I was always an avid reader. Despite studying English at university, I came to writing late, and frankly I was astounded to find how much I adored it. And even more astounded at how many readers became passionate about my stories. That’s one of the joys of social media and a website – instant reader feedback. It means everything to feel that strong sense of connection with my readers. I value it highly.

I might never have got round to writing at all if it weren’t that my husband was a crime novelist – Neville Steed. So the process of constructing a book was already demystified for me and I knew how to set about beginning a story. Getting to the end is, of course, a whole different matter! Now, I am totally hooked and would no more consider not writing than I would not breathing.

 

What is your writing day like?

I begin early. When I’m in the middle of a book I don’t sleep well, and often lie awake from 5 a.m., full of adrenaline, planning my next scenes and writing a first draft of them in my head. Around 7 a.m. I seize a pen from beside the bed and start putting it all down on paper before it vanishes. At that point I just grunt at my husband and the cat, reluctant to let anything disturb the early flow of words. Only after I have been brought a cup of tea in bed and have set down my night’s imaginings on the page, do I become vaguely human and sociable.

Words are so elusive. They are powerful and yet strangely fragile. They can vanish from your head altogether when confronted by a blank page or screen, but once I have got over the early morning hump, they seem to behave better. I can then venture downstairs to my study where domestic distractions like cats, faulty washing machines, crosswords and emails etc lie in wait – though my friends know not to telephone me in the morning. In theory I am then ‘in the zone’. Not that it always works out like that. Some days the words stick together like mud.

I dose myself with ginger tea all day – just because the act of making myself a drink allows my mind a brief respite from its labours and gives my legs a reason for activity. Around 4 p.m. I go for a brisk walk down to the beach or a tramp through the woods to shift any logjam in my head, to assuage my conscience for all the hours I’ve wasted staring out of the window at the wood pigeons splashing around in the birdbath. I used to play a lot of tennis, but a calamitous bike accident a few years back and a titanium insert put an end to that.

In the evening I deal with the day’s emails and phone calls. I can enjoy a glass of wine with my husband, and pick up whichever book I’m reading at the time, often another research book, so I’m making notes I enjoy catching up with friends if my brain has not turned to mush after its day’s exertions or I’ll watch some drivel on television. But I find it hard to switch off. My characters keep up  non-stop chatter inside my head.

 

Which book do you wish you had written and why?


Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. Brilliant, devastating and so funny.

What are you working on at the moment?

A new book. Always a new book. This one is set in Paris. 1933. This was the year of France’s worst-ever train crash, a terrible tragedy with over 200 people killed. The book is a taut and complex story in which the crash impacts the lives of a Parisian brother and sister and blows wide open the tangled web they weave. A Paris thriller, but also think Egypt, and think strong and surprising love stories that change lives.