Last year I had the honour of being invited onto the Pink Sofa for an interview with a wonderful author and blogger whom I met on Twitter. And it now gives me great pleasure to return the favour, by welcoming the world's leading exponent of tea and cake to my humble abode. Welcome to the Pink Girl! Otherwise known as Carol Hedges. Carol is a well-established author of YA and teenage novels, who decided to change direction with novels aimed at an altogether different target audience. But enough of my blathering (in fact...I think Carol once said to me), and I'll hand over to the Pink Girl herself: |
SB: As I had to wear pink fluffy slippers for my interview on your pink sofa, only fair that you leave your shoes two miles from my humble abode. Agreed? Carol: Ah, well...as I arrived in the PINK 2CV, I thought I might wear the PINK Uggs for the visit....I am a PINK girl, after all! SB: Actually, I seem to remember you saying you used to go barefoot when you were younger. Tell us your best barefoot adventure. Carol: I vaguely remember walking down Oxford Street barefoot in the 1960s – the era of flower power, in one of those long tiered Indian cotton skirts. Wouldn’t do it now – too much glass and detritus around. |
Right…..down to business. You’re a successful author. What genres do you write?
Carol:
I write adult historical crime fiction ... a rather startling move as I used to write YA and teenage novels. But hey, why stick to what you did before when you can abandon it and launch into something completely new! I was 63 at the time.
SB:
Talk me through your publishing history.
Carol:
I started writing for OUP and then for Usborne...two of the BIG publishers. In those days I had a London agent, and I thought I was pretty well set up for life. Sadly, the recession arrived in 2008, and as a mid-list writer ,I was dropped by my publisher. Then when I tried out a new genre (see stuff on current book) my agent decided my new book (Diamonds & Dust) was ‘un-publishable’ and we parted company.
That book has now over 74 reviews, and was on the 2013 Crime Writers Historical Dagger list. I do hope this encourages anybody who is facing a lot of rejection!!
SB: Tell me all about your latest book. Carol: The new one is called Death & Dominion and is the third in the Victorian Murder Mystery series. It came out in October last year. It features the same two detectives: DI Leo Stride and DS Jack Cully, this time trying to solve a double poisoning. It’s set in London in 1862, all gas-lights and horse-drawn cabs. Oh, and there’s a naughty adventuress called Belinda Kite and a handsome but unscrupulous trickster called Mark Hawksley to add to the mix. SB: My books are mainly sci-fi and paranormal, and very often the characters go off doing their own thing. However, I would think you have to be very disciplined in controlling your characters in crime fiction. After all, you can’t have the perpetrator of the crime falling in love, getting the girl and living happily ever after. Carol: Well, no. Although you’d be amazed how often the characters do wonder off and start having adventures of their own. I sometimes think writing is a bit like herding cats. You can never be sure how they’ll respond, or even if! |
SB: What is the most horrible thing you’ve ever done to any character in your books? Carol: I have done some pretty gruesome death scenes: In Diamonds & Dust, the evil Countess spikes herself on some railings. In Death & Dominion, a character falls in front of the Flying Scotsman and in Murder & Mayhem (yet to be published) one of the characters drowns in...oh, no - wait, I can’t tell you about that yet. |
What is your daily writing process?
Carol:
I try to write every day – possibly an hour or so around lunch, then a couple of hours in the afternoon. I do a lot of research, both before writing and as I write, so that takes up time. And I run two blogs, so that has to be factored into the working day. I find if I don’t write every day, the book just doesn’t happen. It’s logical, but it’s taken me some time to realise this.
SB:
What are you working on at the moment?
Carol:
I’ve just started writing the 5th book: Rhyme & Reason. It’s at that perilous 6 thousand word part where I wonder whether it has legs. 15 published novels and I still go through intense self-doubt at regular intervals.
SB:
Do you write full-time?
Carol:
In that I mind my 23 month old granddaughter two full days, and tutor GCSE and A level students ....yes! I am nearly 66, so I have the luxury of being able to do so. Before I retired, I had to fit my writing around work and bringing up my daughter.
SB:
Which genre do you prefer writing – YA, or your adult crime series?
Carol:
I think I love the Victorian Detective series best....it’s a period I studied at university and I just love reading the contemporary books! Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Mrs Gaskell ...nothing finer, in my opinion. I follow humbly in their footsteps.
SB: What was the best thing anyone ever said about your books? Carol: I love the reviews where the reader GETS what I’m trying to do...ie not just the story or the characters, but a book written in a similar style, with an ’omniscient‘ narrator. And when they get the jokes.... there are a lot of jokes....that’s always a buzz for me. SB: If anyone ever dared to unfairly criticise your books and they suddenly fell into your hands how would you punish them? (You can get away with your crime, whatever you do to them). Carol: I think I’d give them a nice drink, from the mug pictured here: |
If you’ve had another career what was it?
Carol:
I trained as a Librarian, and started working for Brent Libraries .... this is why I’m so passionate about keeping libraries open. My branch library was in a poor multi-cultural area and it was the only source of books for so many poor kids! How can this government can be so short sighted as to deprive children of FREE books? It beggars belief!
I retrained as a secondary school teacher when my daughter was 14, so that I could earn enough to pay off her student loan (she was the first cohort to be charged for going to uni). I used to get called Mrs Hedgehog by some of the younger pupils. It wasn’t a problem...pretty harmless compared with what they called some of the other teachers!
Website: http://carolhedges.blogspot.co.uk
Twitter: @CarolJhedges
Amazon UK: http://amzn.to/1N1P3DF
Amazon US: http://amzn.to/1RCHmun
SB: Thank you, Carol...it's been a pleasure talking to you. I hope you enjoyed the nice drink I gave you. I'd just better go and wash out the mug........