My dear friend and colleague writer, Alex Smith, invited me and and another friend, S.A. Partridge, to take over the blog hopping baton from her. She asked me to answer the following questions and to nominate two other women bloggers to continue with the chain. Before I respond, the nominations:

Sophia from Bournemouth, UK, of the wonderful book reviewing blog: Page Plucker. Even though Sophia does not seem to be active right now, I hope she will resume her reviewing soon. It was her review of Philida which first attracted my attention to her blog.

Helen Moffett, a woman of many talents: editor, writer, cricket expert, poet, activist, cat-mother, and dear friend. She is the Helen in Helena S. Paige, one of the authors of the Girl series (I am currently reading Girl Walks into a Bar and Girl Walks into a Wedding which also has something to do with ‘hopping’ – between scenes of various erotic encounters…). Helen has also published one of my favourite volumes of poetry, Strange Fruit. Ever since I met her, I have also known that one day I am going to hold a novel in my hand that has only Helen’s name on the cover. I am looking forward to that moment very much.

THE BLOG HOPPING Q&A:

What am I working on?
I’m in the process of completing my next novel. My working title is Ordinary. It is a boy-meets-girl story for a young adult audience. I live near Bishops and I love going for walks on the school’s campus. The idea for the novel came to me during one of these walks. At first, I did not want to engage with it because I was in the middle of another novel. But Ordinary refused to go away, hijacking my creativity and keeping me awake at night, so I decided to give it a go. The other novel is on the backburner, but I hope to have both finished by the end of this year.

How does my work differ from others in its genre?
In my work I skip between genres all the time, so I am going to concentrate only on Ordinary for this answer: I hope to be able to portray teenage sexuality in a way that many teenagers will be able to relate to. Something between the extremes of over-the-top promiscuity and total innocence. I’m frustrated by both ends of the spectrum when I read YA literature. I recently saw a film that made me think of what I am trying to achieve in my novel: The First Time with Britt Robertson and Dylan O’Brien. The film is like a teenage version of Before Sunrise. Great stuff! But there is a much darker dimension to my novel than to the film.

Why do I write what I do?
I cannot imagine a life without reading and writing. Sharing stories gives meaning to my existence.

How does my writing process work?
Stories come to me. Often the trigger is an image, a phrase, a mood. Sometimes it is everything at once and within seconds the whole story is fully fledged in my mind. But usually it takes a few days or even weeks to develop an idea. I cannot begin writing before I know roughly where I am heading. At the bottom of every story is something that I need to understand for myself, and the need or wish of sharing the journey to that understanding with others. Then it is all about finding the voice: who is telling the story and how. For Invisible Others I had to re-write the first 10 000 words of the novel because the first-person narrator I chose for it in the beginning wasn’t working. If necessary, I do research. It is an organic process. The writing takes me a long time, but I don’t mind. I’m extremely patient. I prefer to work in the afternoons, that is when I find myself to be most creative. It took me a long time to understand this, but I know that I can’t force anything when it comes to writing. Every story has its own rhythms. I have learned to respect that. All my creative work happens on the computer, but I do take notes on paper. My desk is drowning in them. I always share the first draft of anything I write with my husband first, then I pass it on to others for comments. The editor gets the third or fourth draft, and the process of revision starts all over. That is when the real writing begins for me.

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For André J. Kershaw’s, my step-grandson’s, review of one of Sally’s novels, Dark Poppy’s Demise, click here.
For my review of Alex’s latest novel, Four Drunk Beauties, click here.