Questions from Abbey

This series of questions came from Abbey who was studying The Witches of Eileanan series and had some questions to ask of Kate.

Where do you get your ideas from?

(Abbey, I thought you'd like to read a paper I wrote on this very question for a festival panel - I thought you might find it interesting. If it's a little more than you really needed to know, tell me and I'll devise something a little less wordy for you!)

Like most writers, the question I get asked most often is - 'where do I get my ideas from?' I could be snarky [sarcastic] and say, 'Wagga Wagga'[town in NSW, Australia] or 'I keep them under the bed and drag one out whenever I need it.' I could be brisk and businesslike, and draw up lists and charts and blueprints with arrows and writing exercises and the seven rules of plausible plots and so on. Or I could be humble and honest and answer simply, 'I don't really know.'

I've always rather had the feeling that if you have to ask that question, then you'll never know the answer. Ideas just come, sometimes shocking you with a dazzling stroke of lightning, other times creeping into the warm darkness of your mind like a timid mouse, nesting down until it's time to dart out into the light. Quite often I feel like I'm a medium for a higher power, my mind and body and fingers the conduit for words to rush like a flood of quicksilver. More often than not, I'm an eyeless labourer in the dark, digging, delving, sifting, grading.

So where do ideas come from? I think you take everything you've ever read and seen and heard and thought of and wondered about and been disgusted about or enthralled by - you throw it into the steamy compost heap of your brain, where it rots and is digested by worms and sort of mulches together, being turned to the sun every now and again, and new stuff added. And if you leave it long enough, a little green seedling suddenly begins to grow and puts out leaves and little flowers that swell and harden into fruit. And voila! Where before there was a pile of worm manure is now a healthy tomato plant just waiting to be added to a salad.

All I know is that suddenly, out of nowhere, a sequence of words begins to runs through my mind, or a pattern of sounds that pleases me. My attention is caught by an image that seems to have some deeper resonance or meaning, or I imagine a little scene being played out that runs into another little scene... Next thing I know I'm writing a poem or a novel or a story, and all the words and sounds and ideas and images are weaving themselves together into some kind of coherence that sometimes astonishes me.

Being a writer is a little like leading a double life, one inside, and one outside. It's like having a whole film crew in your head, playing out their parts, trying on different voices and different costumes, arguing over motivation and camera angles and alternative endings. Then the whole messy thing is dragged into the editing room and cut, with little brightly coloured snippets falling to the ground and being swept away, with the same kind of pang Rapunzel must have felt if she ever decided to go for a short, back and sides.

And here I am getting into a muddle of metaphors, compost and Casablanca and haircuts, and still all I'm doing is circling round the subject, feinting at shadows, playing with words, teasing you. Because it's a damn difficult question to answer. Almost as hard as 'why do you write?', which, by the way, hardly anyone ever asks even though it is a far more interesting question.

It is, however, a question that writers grapple with a lot. William Gifford described writing as "the insatiate itch of scribbling" and Henry Miller as "like life, a voyage of discovery".

Enid Bagnold says: "Writing is a condition of grinding anxiety. It is an operation in which the footwork, the balance, the knowledge of sun and shade, the alteration of slush and crust, the selection of surface at high speed is a matter of exquisite finesse. When you are without judgement and hallucinations look like the truth! When experience (which trails behind) and imagination (which trails in front) will only combine by a miracle! When the whole thing is an ambidexterity of memory and creation - of the front and the back of the brain - a lethargy of inward dipping and a tiptoe of poise, while the lasso is whirling up for words! It is a gamble, a toss-up, an unsure benevolence of God!' (Isn't that marvellous? I love all her exclamation marks - few writers nowadays would dare be so emphatic...)

Sir Winston Churchill wrote: "Writing a book is like an adventure. To begin with it is a toy and an amusement. Then it becomes a mistress, then it becomes a master, then it becomes a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster and fling him to the public."

Jean Cocteau simply asks again, in despair, "This sickness, to express oneself. What is it?"

So we've had the writing process described variously as an itch, a sickness, a condition of grinding anxiety, an unsure benevolence of God, and a monster. So why, why, do writers take up their pen - or these days, their computer keyboard - and start writing?

And again, the simplest, most honest answer, is: I really don't know.

Are any of the characters in your book taken from people you know? Who?

No, I'm afraid I make up all my characters in my head.

How do your family feel about your writing?

They're all really proud and happy for me, knowing this is what I've always wanted to do. All my family are writers of one kind or another - my sister is a PR consultant and writes press releases and articles for clients, and my brother has had several non-fiction books published, so you see it is rather a family trait.

Was it easy to start writing your first book? How did you go about it?

I wrote my first book when I was about seven or eight and so I can't really remember. It was a very long time ago! I don't remember having any difficulty starting any of the many books I've written over the years - finishing is always much more difficult! Luckily, I'm very determined and so of the dozen or so books I've started I've only not completed a few (and who knows, I might go back to them). I'm afraid I never realised just what a Herculean task it was writing a novel and so I began without fear, by picking up a pen and beginning to write. The more I learn about writing the more frightening it becomes and so nowadays I also do a rough plan of the plot sequence and a few character sketches and sometimes I procrastinate by doodling maps or plotting time charts.

Did you read a lot as a child? If so, what kind of books did you read?

I have been a voracious reader, devouring just about every book I could get my hands on. Fantasy writers that I particularly loved include Ursula le Guin, Diana Wynne Jones, Lloyd Alexander, George Macdonald, Susan Cooper (a major influence on me at the age of twelve!), Tolkien of course, Enid Blyton (dare I admit it!), Madeleine L'Engle, Patricia Wrightson, Alan Garner, Peter Dickinson, Elizabeth Goudge and Joan Aiken. However, I read the dictionary if there was no other book to hand, and by the time I had left primary school had read every single book on the fiction shelves!

How do your books reflect on your own life?

Well, since I live on a different planet and in a different time, not at all. I wish they did! I'd love to have the powers of my witches.

Are you planing to start on another book or series after finishing the final book in 'The Witches of Eileanan' series?

I've got at least three ideas for new novels once I finish Book 4 - my problem will be deciding what to do first!

Which book is your favorite book?

Do you mean, of the books I've written? Or books by other writers? If you mean the first, well then, I'm always most attached to the book I've just finished so I would have to answer The Cursed Towers. If you mean by other writers, I can't answer for much the same reason i.e. I always like books I've just finished reading and I read so many these change from week to week. 'All time favourites' are far too many and too varied to ever list.