Quick pop the kettle on because you're going to need a cuppa to drink along with this.
Another very exciting interview, this time with bestselling author, Mhairi McFarlane. Mhairi's debut novel, You Had Me At Hello, has been storming up the charts since last year and now she has film interest and looks set to be one of the brightest, biggest new authors around - and I managed to stalk her enough to get an interview! Actually, both our books started doing well at around the same time last year and we became friends and she's lovely and when I asked, she was more than happy to answer a few questions.
I read, You Had Me At Hello, last year and it's one of those books you read as a writer and as soon as you finish the first thought you have is, 'Bugger, I wish I'd written that'. I had the same feeling about the wonderful, One Day by David Nicholls, a book You Had Me At Hello, draws comparisons with. It's funny, warm and a wonderful story about lost love. If you haven't read it, you simply have to. It's brilliant.
So without further waffle from me, here is Mhairi talking about herself and her book.
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| The lovely Mhairi McFarlane |
For those people
who have been living in a small hut in Bahrain for the last year, tell us a bit
about yourself.
I am Mhairi, 37, and I wrote a rom com called You Had Me At Hello and I am Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen, the Unburnt, Mother of Dragons, khaleesi to Drogo's riders, and queen of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros.
I am Mhairi, 37, and I wrote a rom com called You Had Me At Hello and I am Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen, the Unburnt, Mother of Dragons, khaleesi to Drogo's riders, and queen of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros.
OK not all of that
but the first bit. If this was a party, everyone would already be inching away.
spins bow-tie
Tell us about your debut novel, You Had Me At Hello. What was the inspiration behind it and was it the sort of book you've always wanted to write?
Inspiration, it’s funny, I get asked this now and it’s sort of surprising to me you’re expected to have one simple straightforward answer. As if it goes – MICROWAVE PING! - there’s a whole idea for a book arrived in my brain. Sorry, annoying obtusery. OK, for me it was a few factors coming together. The simplest, least tiresome response is, one Saturday morning I was thinking about getting in touch with a male friend from university and a lightbulb came on somewhere in the mind-cellar and I thought: wow, imagine if you last saw the Lost Love Of Your Life at university. It’s such a vivid and poignant time in memory as it is. That’d be like the motherlode of heart-tug. And it developed from there. And as for genre – yes, more or less. I love romance and I love comedy and rom-com sings to me. I love the way it gives you room to do real emotion as well as bare bum lols.
Tell us about your debut novel, You Had Me At Hello. What was the inspiration behind it and was it the sort of book you've always wanted to write?
Inspiration, it’s funny, I get asked this now and it’s sort of surprising to me you’re expected to have one simple straightforward answer. As if it goes – MICROWAVE PING! - there’s a whole idea for a book arrived in my brain. Sorry, annoying obtusery. OK, for me it was a few factors coming together. The simplest, least tiresome response is, one Saturday morning I was thinking about getting in touch with a male friend from university and a lightbulb came on somewhere in the mind-cellar and I thought: wow, imagine if you last saw the Lost Love Of Your Life at university. It’s such a vivid and poignant time in memory as it is. That’d be like the motherlode of heart-tug. And it developed from there. And as for genre – yes, more or less. I love romance and I love comedy and rom-com sings to me. I love the way it gives you room to do real emotion as well as bare bum lols.
Before being a blooming successful author, you were a journalist. Did that make it any easier to write a novel and get published or not?
Why thank you. Erm…yes and no. I think journalism knocks the edges off you. You’re less likely to spend five pages on the shades of colour in a sunset before your yarn gets going, you’re less likely to take editing as an affront. You have more of a sense as words as clay instead of stone and shaping them as a joint effort, always with a reader in mind. You’ve gained a bit of discipline and concision, perhaps. As for the actual selling of the book, before you have a deal? Not really. Agents and publishers are more receptive to people with writing credits for the above reasons, but the process is no less labyrinthine or less dependent on timing and luck, and you still stand or fall by your manuscript. Ain’t no splash in the Sleaford Examiner gonna help you if you’ve written a bag of cack. Or you’re selling minotaurs in a world of unicorns. Trends are a bugger. There’s no gilding that truth-turd – in terms of getting picked up quicker, you’re probably better off with a weaker book that’s bang on what they’re officially looking for than a great one on a theme that’s currently judged to be a bit ‘done.’ But if you believe in your idea, persist. Everyone said fantasy was invariably wank before today’s Game Of Thrones frenzy. And surely no-one was saying: ‘Mild kink BDSM Twilight fan-fic about a virgin and a cruel-eyed CEO? COURIER IT TO ME NOW, TOO LATE, I’VE JUST COME.’
For a few weeks our books shared the top ten in the Kindle charts - back in the heady days of 2012 - and since then, You Had Me At Hello, has gone on to be a massive hit. A what point did you realise you were suddenly a huge, best selling author? And I don't mean huge, physically, I've seen photos of you and you're quite petite.
A pleasure! And thanks. I don’t think of myself as a huge bestselling author. That’s not false modesty, I think it’d be kind of odd to strut about in your Lizard King leather trousers with a lob on, doing squat lunges, thinking Imma Big Deal. Pride comes before a fall and all that. I’m really grateful to have sold the books I have but I’d also say I’m not ‘established’ with one book. And real talk: I’ve not shifted Fifty Shades numbers. That lady’s shit gone cray.
Following on from that question. Having such a popular, best selling debut, do you feel more pressure to deliver an equally brilliant second book or is the pressure off a bit?
Aha! Well. This is a tricky one, having said I don’t dwell on sales. Yes. It was an adjustment, having written YHMAH with little or no self-consciousness at all. During Book 1 production, as I’m sure you’ll empathise, you think: ‘Maybe no-one will EVER read this’ despairingly. Which with hindsight looks like less like despair and more like stress-less freedom. Grass is always greener, eh! So second book, you thought all your problems would be solved once you were published. But you nervously eye the pre-order function on Amazon and realise this thing has to happen. You’re suddenly self conscious – will people like this as much? Is it too similar? Is it too different? Obviously, success is a nice problem to have. It’s great people want to read it. The only way to have no pressure would be to have no demand, so if you’re having an attack of the shy, you’re stuck in a bind as to what to wish for. However.
What I found I had to do is block it all out and try to remember what I enjoyed with the first and get back to that. There was a part of YHMAH that came to me at 5AM and I had to get up and write it and let me promise you I am NOT a morning person. The madness zone is a wonderfully exhilarating place to be.
And I suspect writing very cynically with a ‘If they liked this, how about THAT’ mathematical attitude to trying to light up the right bits on the dashboard wouldn’t work. You have to mine the heart and soul the same way again, not to sound a massive luvvie, and simply hope for the best. I strongly advocate not reading your reviews though. I’m not kidding when I say I couldn’t have written the second book if I was checking Amazon and Goodreads and letting the opinions of strangers guide or destroy me. It’s not done by committee, shut out the noise. Do your best, then let them do their worst. But have pissed off to Cancun with a knapsack full of snacks by the time they do.
And how is your next book coming along?
I filed the first draft very recently. I don’t wish to talk about it but I will say that Xanax is a helluva drug. LOL.
How do you see your future? Will you continue to write books in the same genre or do you have aspirations to write something different?
I am writing at least two more books for HarperCollins that will be rom coms. After that, who knows. I love relationship dramas and romance, I’d also love to write a thriller, possibly for TV, or an episode of the new Sherlock Holmes. Steven Moffat - inbox me. I’m sorry I used inbox as a verb. makes ‘call me’ signal at him instead, does tongue thing
I have to ask, what happened on that plane to New York?
Oh no, do you know, I realised after I’d said it, I shouldn’t have mentioned that in my author bio. Let’s say a lot of turbulence and a fatality. See? Shouldn’t have mentioned. Writers, they use anything, the cold dead-eyed bastards.
Lastly, any tips for aspiring authors?
Too many to fit a snappy answer but I will try to boil the bones for stock. 1) Daydream. Dribble. Gaze. Ruminate. Let something grab you. If it doesn’t let go, it’s the one. 2) Write. 3) Yes that’s right, it looks a bit shit, this is part of the process. Hold fast and hang tough. 3) Rewrite. Rewrite some more. 4) See! Less shit. 5) OK you still fear it’s a bit shit. That’s how you know you have standards, which is a good thing. 6) Finish. You would not believe the buggers who think 6) is optional when it comes to calling themselves a writer, as opposed to the only bit that’s truly compulsory. Ta-dah! You’re a writer. As Gerard Butler said in 300: tonight we dine in hell.
Until next time.
Hugs,
Jon X
