Writing.ie’s Hazel Gaynor caught up with best selling novellist Martina Reilly just as her latest book, Even Better Than The Real Thing hit the shops. If you need a little New Year writing inspiration, find it right here!
Can you tell us about your new book Even Better Than the Real Thing.
Even Better than the Real Thing is a book about an artist and a conman. Eve Cole makes a living painting copies of great artist’s work and selling them online. Her speciality is copying the paintings of Van Gogh. Then she discovers that ten years ago, her late father sold one of her Van Gogh’s as the real thing and she is now unwittingly involved in the greatest art scam of the century.
She decides that she needs to get her painting back without implicating herself or her family. Enter Larry, her handsome next door neighbour with a shady past. Larry has a plan to recover Eve’s painting but can Eve trust him? Or is he just another big fake?
The book is funny and romantic, but also asks the question – just what exactly is a fake or is everyone a little bit fake sometimes?
When and why did you start writing?
I started writing real stories when I was about eight years old. I have no reason as to why this was other, than that is who I am. I’ve always adored creating alternate worlds, meeting new characters and seeing how the stories turn out.
I don’t remember a time when I didn’t have a pen in my hand, even as a child, the physical act of writing was something I longed to do and as young as three or four, I’d make marks on a page and pretend it was a story.
My first real ‘books’ were called The Gang and I wrote four of them. They were basically stories about a girl called Anne and her group of friends. I used to let my friends read them as I completed each chapter. Then I wrote Livewire when I was fifteen.
When did you get your first publishing deal and can you tell us how it came about?
I got my first deal about fourteen years ago for a YA book called Livewire. It was a story that I wrote when I was fifteen and I always knew that it was something rather special. It was about a gorgeous boy called Joe (every fifteen years old girl’s dream) and his band. Once I’d finished the book, I put it away but many years later, when I was at home on maternity leave with my first child, I bought a word processor and typed the story up. It was huge, a labour of love and when I submitted it to Poolbeg, they sent me a very encouraging letter back to say that the writing had promise but that there was too many words and not enough action.
I gave the manuscript to my sister (who was an editor in a business magazine) and she advised me how to tighten it up. This I did and got a deal on the back of it. It went on to win an International White Raven Award (I have no idea what this is though!) I then went on to write three more YA books, the last of which,Dirt Tracks, won a Bisto Book Merit award. Then I turned my hand to commercial fiction on the advice of Philip McDermott and Gaye Shortland in Poolbeg. They thought my teenage books covered very adult themes and that they’d make great commercial fiction and so that’s what I did.
Can you tell us about your writing day and how you go about writing your novels?
I write when my two children are in school. I normally start around ten and finish up around two. I write quite quickly when the story is going well so I can sometimes get quite a lot of work done in those four precious hours. I love writing and never want to lose that feeling and so I refuse to write at weekends unless I really have to and I also write very rarely when the children are on holidays. I also think that it’s important to give the brain a rest!
How long does a book like ‘Even Better Than the Real Thing’ take to write from first drafts to finished product?
The books begin from an idea or something that interests me. For Even Better Than the Real Thing my idea literally was ‘What if your parents turned out not to be the people you thought they were.’ From this grew the idea of the art scam and thus the research into conmen.
I write organically and can’t think of anything more horrifying than planning a story out. I think I’m just not a planner by nature and I tend to go a lot on gut instinct and planning a story to me would be like cutting off all the avenues that might present themselves to me as I write. I’d feel very restricted and unable to go where the story takes me. Of course there are pitfalls to doing the whole ‘freewheeling’ thing, but I just love not knowing what’s going to happen next.Even Better than the Real Thing was scary to write this way as the scam to get the painting back didn’t actually occur to me until the chapter where it happened. But I do believe that somewhere inside of me, I already knew, if that doesn’t sound completely bonkers!
Even Better Than the Real Thing was a dream book for me. It took about six months with little or no editing. Normally a first draft takes me about nine months which is followed by a month or so of edits (my first drafts tend to be quite clean as I edit as I go). After the final edit, the publishers take control and I wave it good bye until it actually comes out. I suppose to get a book out on average, from beginning to publication normally takes a year to eighteen months.
What comes first, the title or the words?!
It varies on the book. The title for Even Better than the Real Thing came quite late. I had originally called itFaking It. The Wish List however came well before the words.
What do you love most about being an author?
The thing I love about being an author is just writing. I adore it. Second is the chance to meet such lovely people. I have discovered that writers are the nicest people out there.
You mention on your website that you would love to write a sitcom or a West End play – is that something you still aspire to?
To write a sitcom would be a dream come true for me. I love humour and making people laugh. I find nothing more inspiring that a great comedy. I am however a natural novelist, I write books and have ideas all the time. Plays or scripts are quite challenging for me to write and indeed most of my plays have come from my previously written books, so it’s like I have to have the book first before I can ‘see’ it as a script. I do however love writing dialogue, so I feel that if I do keep plugging away on scripts maybe one day…
What advice would you give to anyone who is trying to get published?
My advice to new writers is firstly to find a story that you want to tell and then tell it in your own voice. Don’t ever try to be anyone other than who you are because that it what makes your writing unique.
Secondly, make the time in your day to write and write. In the beginning, don’t worry too much about the story or the grammar, just plug away until you see where you are going (and you will know after a bit) Then refine it down.
If you do feel like planning out your story, do, but don’t be afraid to go off page if your gut tells you to!
Lastly and most importantly, enjoy yourself.
And finally, do you have any New Year’s Resolutions for 2012?
I only have one resolution and I probably won’t manage it but it’s to run a 5k race in 25 minutes. I took up running two years ago. I used to be a great sprinter in my youth but anything longer than 3k and I DIE :( I can run about 6 miles now but would love to do the 5k in that time.
