Ask the Author: Susan Barrett
Answered Questions (8)
Susan Barrett
At the moment I have a motley selection of books on the go. I'm reading the Aenid brilliantly translated by Cecil Day Lewis. His poetic voice brings the Latin to life in sparkling English. I'm halfway through Martin Amis' The Information. He packs a lot of punch into every sentence. I admire that but I also find it wearing. It's also all about writerly jealousy, which is dispiriting. I'm halfway and already nearing the ropes, weak from the constant clever punches, and unlikeability of the main character. Light relief is presented by An Invisible Friendship, which presents the letters exchanged between Joyce Grenfell and an admirer called Katherine Moore, between 1956 and 1979. Two interesting women writing with intelligence about their thoughts and lives in a period that seems to us nowadays quite dated. I'm not at all sure what will be next on the list as the summer arrives.
Susan Barrett
It would hardly stay a mystery if I answered this question! However, I did have a mystery in my life which began to be solved by finding half an answer in a novel.
And who asked this question?
And who asked this question?
Susan Barrett
Being at home with masses to think about and do.
Susan Barrett
When I had what might be described as writer's block, I gave up fiction and trained and practised as a counsellor and psychotherapist. I came back to writing , after ten years, with much greater understanding of human nature.
Any mini-blocks that occur can be cured by learning something new and unconnected, usually involving my hands - woodwork, knitting, pottery.
Any mini-blocks that occur can be cured by learning something new and unconnected, usually involving my hands - woodwork, knitting, pottery.
Susan Barrett
Do a lot of normal living before you begin to write, even if what you want to write is fantasy. When you're ready, write a first draft quickly. Put it away for a good six months. Then re-write with a willingness to ditch all the bits that you now realise don't work. Be your most nitpicking critic. At the same time, persuade an unbiased friend to read and encourage you with the right sort of constructive criticism.
Susan Barrett
Social media! I've given myself time to develop my online presence in order to find new readers for my writing. I'm doing a virtual tour of book bloggers in the US. I plan to find appropriate UK bloggers for my recent literary fiction and recent World War Two non-fiction. This is far more time-consuming than I imagined, and I plan to close my virtual front door on it at the end of May, in order to return to a novel with the working title 'Greek Gold'. More about that on my website http://aliveinww2.com
Susan Barrett
I think fiction writers in general draw on a deeper level of consciousness than we are aware of in normal daily life. I need to daydream. My parents used to say that I'd gone into a 'brown study'. It's a kind of half-waking, half-sleeping state, very pleasurable and non-thinking. But the brain is busy processing on a subconscious level. The same can happen overnight. Go to sleep with an unsolved problem. Wake up with the answer. Magic!
Susan Barrett
"White Lies", my most recent novel, looks at adoption from three different angles: that of the birth mother, the adoptive mother, and the adopted child. I could say that my idea for the novel had its birth in 1966 when we adopted our first child. She was a 11 days old. Over this half-century the circumstances of adoption have changed radically, but of course much of the effects and emotions have stayed the same. A few years ago the time was right for me to try to capture some of this in fiction. The interplay of nature and nurture in the formation of personality interests me greatly and I aimed to explore this in the novel. That might make it sound stuffy but my main aim was to entertain readers with a mystery they can solve before one of the characters has the chance.
About Goodreads Q&A
Ask and answer questions about books!
You can pose questions to the Goodreads community with Reader Q&A, or ask your favorite author a question with Ask the Author.
See Featured Authors Answering Questions
Learn more