Tell me a bit about yourself and
what made you get into writing
I am a really chatty person with a
very active imagination. I’ve always made up stories, for as long
as I can remember. When I was little and couldn’t go to sleep, I
used to amuse myself by making up long and complicated adventure
stories (featuring, naturally, myself and my best friends). I guess
most of us do that! But as soon as I could write, I started to set
these stories down on paper. I doubt they were elegant or even
remotely eloquent narratives, but I do remember sitting on my window
sill after lights-out and scribbling furiously on a small note-pad.
A few years later, that enterprise turned into hacking things out on
an ancient typewriter I’d been given. So that’s kind of where it
all started… there was always this idea that I would write books.
In fact, until half-way through secondary school, I would tell any
adult who asked very earnestly that I would be a writer when I grew
up!
Obviously years passed and this
ambition never came to much. As a teenager, I had other things on my
mind (rock music and rock musicians, mostly!) and then I had a
boyfriend and then I started studying… Life kind of took over. But
when I took a work sabbatical prior to the birth of my first child, I
promised myself that I would, finally, write that book I’d been
thinking of for some time!
How long did it take you to write
Sophie’s Turn?
Well, I had four months in which to
write (before birth of baby number one) and so that’s how long it
took! I spent about a month planning in meticulous detail my
characters and my plot, and then I sat down and just…wrote! It was
a fabulous experience. Every day, I would re-read the previous day’s
work, do some rudimentary proofing and editing (and occasional
re-writing) and then write some more. So the first draft seemed to
go quite quickly. Then my first baby boy arrived and nothing much
happened to the book. It wasn’t until a few years later that I got
round to re-reading it and making some substantial changes,
especially to the first half. Those changes took me another six
months or so. So total working time on Sophie’s Turn was… ten
months, give or take. And then of course, I polished it before
publication… and most recently, again, before publication by
Sapphire Star Polishing. I’d like to think it’s a shining gem
now!
Tell us a bit about Sophie’s
Turn and your inspiration for the book?
I’ve come to call Sophie’s Turn
a ‘rock star romance’… not least because, you guessed it, one
of the protagonists is a rock star. Sophie’s Turn tells the story
of one young woman and her entanglement with a rock star, the man of
her dreams. Unfortunately she is already engaged to somebody else
when this romance finally enters her life, and it all gets a bit
messy. Sophie is a fundamentally nice person and the presence of two
men in her life gives her all manner of emotional nightmares. She
sorts it all out eventually, although perhaps not in the way she
expected!
The inspiration for the book has its
roots in my residual soft spot for all things to do with rock
musicians, in particular the long-haired variety with nice voices.
There are quite a few of those about! Anyway, I was watching TV one
night with my husband and some kind of long-haired male creature came
on… I can’t recall who it was, might have been an actor or
a rock musician. Anyway, I obviously liked that person
because I said something like, “cor, now how would a girl ever turn
him down?” My husband teased me about this all evening. And it got
me thinking. What would a girl do if she was in a steady, happy
relationship… and then suddenly met her teenage idol, and he
proposed? There was the core conundrum, and it
fascinated me enough to spin a story around it when I couldn’t
sleep that night (on account of big baby belly!).
What are your favourite books?
Generally speaking, I read almost
anything but I can never resist a good chick lit book, a thriller or
a good contemporary literary read. Favourite books of all time
include Catherine Alliott’s “The Old-Girl Network,” Stephen
Fry’s “Making History” and Katherine Neville’s “The Eight.”
I also like books by David Baldacci and John Grisham. Actually, the
list is pretty long….
What do you like to do outside of
writing?
Ooooh, now there’s a question!
When I do get the time, I like to read the paper in a coffee shop
with a big latte or a pot of tea. I do like to sit on a rock on the
beach just watching the waves come in, and listening to the surf
(that’s probably one of my favourite pastimes!). I like travelling
and exploring new places. And… actually one thing I do do even at
the moment when things are so busy is… knitting. I do like
knitting. I’m not a great knitter, I can just about manage my
knits and purls but I find it very relaxing, especially when I’m
stressed. Oh, and talking of stressed, I do have a Pilates routine
that I like doing at least once a day, especially when I’ve been
hunched over the laptop writing lots.
What are you currently working on?
Is a sequel to Sophie’s Turn planned?
The sequel to Sophie’s Turn,
Sophie’s Run, is fully written and coming your
way from Sapphire Star Publishing on 7 February 2013—not long to go
now! With that, at the moment I am actually working on the third and
concluding part of the Rock Star Romance Trilogy. This third book is
fully planned and I am now in my favourite phase of writing, the
actual all-out, full-on writing. I love it! The final part is due for
release in early September 2013 so within the year, you’ll be able
to hold Sophie and Dan’s entire story in your hands. I can’t
wait!
Thanks Nicky!
Sophie's Turn is available to buy now: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sophies-Turn-Rock-Romance-ebook/dp/B00961HXC2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1350371209&sr=8-1
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sophies-Turn-Nicky-Wells/dp/1938404203/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1350371209&sr=8-2
We have one e-book version of Sophie's Turn to giveaway. To enter, please retweet this post or leave a comment below. Closes 31st October 2012.
