The process of writing The Pools began while I was studying for an MA in Creative Writing at the University of Chichester. When I started writing it, I didn’t know it was going to be a novel. I thought these characters, this situation, might be best explored in a poem, or – what was I thinking? – a radio play in verse. (A dark secret of mine: sometimes I attempt to write poetry, and I’ve always had a weakness for Under Milk Wood). I suspect this is because I could hear the voices of the book – especially Howard’s – quite clearly in my head from the start. In fact, I did write The Pools as a rather hysterical radio play, but it didn’t quite work, and it didn’t feel like the end of my relationship with the material. I wanted the thing to be quieter, gentler, more expansive. I wanted to go deeper into the characters’ minds. I wasn’t quite ready to let them go. So, slowly – very, very slowly – it became a novel.
I had a lot of help: first from the MA – from both my tutors and fellow students – and then from the novelist Andrew Cowan, whom I’d ‘won’ as a mentor for six months as part of a Jerwood award for young writers. When I was writing, I didn’t think to myself: this is my first novel. I just thought about the next sentence. And the next. And the next. I didn’t have a grand plot structure in mind at first. I just wrote and wrote, getting to know the characters as I went along. And then I cut most of what I wrote, and rewrote. And, eventually, I thought about the plot, and somehow I managed to reach the end. I don’t know if this is the best way to write a novel. But it seemed to work for me.
Whilst I was writing, I tried not to think about getting published. But I can’t deny that I have imagined what it would be
like for a very long time. I’ve had day-dreams about book-signings. Seen covers and blurbs in my sleep. In the day-dreams
I’m entirely happy and successful and everything is very shiny. But the reality is much more everyday. Of course, when my
agent called to tell me that we’d found a publisher I didn’t stop smiling for weeks (except to eat, which I’m very keen on
doing regularly). It’s utterly thrilling – and very surreal – to see your words in print, between covers, and on the shelf
of a bookshop… You even start to think: maybe I am actually a writer. Could that be true? Could it? But then you get back
to your desk. And there’s the blank page again. Staring at you without pity. And you take a deep breath, and dare to put down
one sentence… and then the next, and then the next.
And next: read the first two chapters of The Pools