An anonymous interview

Looking through my files, I found these interview questions. I forget what, why, who, where or when I did them, but here they are with the answers.

WRITING AND YOUR BOOKS:

1.    In 140 characters, what is your book / series about?

18th century Covent Garden prostitute solves crimes - short enough?

2.    When did you start writing?

Is this a trick question? I was about four. I was an avid reader. Writing just seemed a natural progression. At first it was just my name but I soon progressed to whole phrases. Ummm. I guess it’s not a trick question. I started writing in 1988. I was 31. My son had just been born. I wrote a ten minute script for Channel Four, which was brand spanking new at the time. I was short-listed and I just thought ‘I can do this’.

3.    What is your next project?

Never just working on one project at a time. Always got three or four on the go at the same time: French wartime tearjerker, 18^th century prostitute solves crimes, ghosts in Paris and Marseilles, 17th century PParisian poisoner.

4.    What is your long term writing ambition?

To build up a body of work that will stand the test of time.

5.    How have you found the publishing process?

It’s a bloody nightmare. Agents are like gold dust and it's not getting any easier. Self-publishing on Amazon has become the slush pile. I still want to do it the old-fashioned way. I would work my socks off for an agent who believes in me.

 

6.    What did you learn from writing your first book?

To finish it.

7.    What two books would you take to a desert island?

John Steinbeck’s Grape of Wrath, and The Grifters by Jim Thompson.

8.    What was your favourite childhood book?

Muffin the Mule – it had a map. Love maps

9.    What are your three top writer tips?

Forget about waiting for the muse to hit. Just write every single day – good, bad or indifferent.

If you want to be a writer, quit saying it and just do it.

Finish what you’ve started.

10.  Why should people buy your book?

Because you can escape into another world and experience all the horrors, shocks, and excitement of that time. Because it sets your imagination free and allows you to be someone else for a short while. Because it’s a detective story and you love trying to work out ‘who dun it’.

11.  Do you plot or do you free-style in your writing?

I learned to write scripts for TV and film before coming to novels. I plot pretty much every damned thing and then I freestyle it.

ABOUT YOU:

1. School lover or school hater?

Hated every moment of it – except for art.

2. Who is your greatest supporter?

My son, Jacob.

3. Twitter lover or Twitter hater? Why?

Used to hate it, then I loved it, now I hate it again. Worldwide Chinese whispers.

4. What is the best TV series you have seen lately, why?

The Musketeers. Handsome pointy-bearded men. Do I need any other reason?

5. Do you blog about anything else other than writing? If so, what?

I blogged about going to California in 2010. I have a website for the fountain I am rescuing along with the lovely people of the Friends of Priory Park.  On the whole though, I find it hard to blog. I'm too busy writing novels and scripts to blog much.

http://ariaje.wix.com/stpaulsfountain

6. What is your life motto?

Never give up

FUN TRIVIA

1.    Favourite flavour of ice-cream – I don’t eat ice cream

2.    Crisps or chocolate? – both but also neither – I don’t eat chocolate or crisps. I used to, but chocolate upsets my stomach and crisps are all fat.

3.    Tea or coffee? – I don’t drink either. I don’t do caffeine. I drink redbush and herbals. Aren't I boring?

4.    Wine or water? - Water

5.    Camping or glamping? – What the hell is glamping when it’s at home? I’m strictly a hotel only girl these days.

6.    Must your socks always match?  Oh yes, it is slothful to be otherwise dressed.

7.    If you were to have 5 famous people (dead or alive) to dinner who would they be? – Johnny Depp, Tom Waits, Marquis de Sade, now those three would have a ball together. James Boswell and Dr. Samuel Johnson.No women, sorry.

8.    If you could relive one moment from history, what would it be? Any of it. All of it.

9.    If you were Noah, which animal would you have left behind and why? – Humans. Do I really need to say why?

10.  Tell us an amusing secret that nobody else knows (fun not serious) – I intend on buying a derelict castle when I make my first million. When I make my second million I might be able to afford doing it up.

11.  Who would you most like to have a good rant at and why? – Women doing their make-up in public. Cheesh, finish your ablutions at home will you?

What about location - Covent Garden

Kitty Ives, the main character in The Finish, lives in Covent Garden, which still exists today in pretty much the same state that it did back in the 18th century, save that in the middle now, there's what is called the Floral Market, and some of the buildings have been rebuilt, albeit on the same footprint.

Here, I take a look at Covent Garden then and now in this series of photographs and prints.

Covent Garden - Hogarth - It's often shown the other way round. Prints were copied and reprinted many times and the image flipped. The writing above the door on the left reads correctly, and if you compare the present day photograph below, you can see that the church and the building on the right are still in situ. Also, check out that square column on the church's portico. See above there it is? Now look at the photo I took. Yes, there's that square column. Hogarth had a good eye for detail. Btw, you can visit Hogarth's house for free in Chiswick.  I'll be paying it a visit soon to report back.

Here's another take on this, below. 

Here you can see the arches of the Piazza to the West of James Street

And here's those same arches today.

The arches below are those on the east side of James Street, in the Great Piazza.

And below, the same today, although now rebuilt.

At the end of this row of arches is an entrance to the Opera House, although in the 18th century this corner of the Piazza would have had the entrances to both the Bedford Head Coffee House on the right, and on the left the Shakespeare's Head Tavern. The Covent Garden Theatre, as the Opera House was called, was situated behind these establishments. There may have been a entrance here to the theatre too, but it would have been nothing more than a door. Well, in fact, that's all it is today.

 Here' then you can see Covent Garden from the east, looking West to the Church. King Street runs off the north side of Covent Garden and to the south side is Henrietta Street. 

Here's the Church today. The 'entrance' is actually just a blank. There's no door there and there never was. The door is at the rear, in the churchyard. 

The actual entrance to the Church in Covent Garden. It's accessed through this quaint alley from King Street. Just to confuse visitors to London, The Covent Garden Church is called St. Paul's, like the cathedral about a mile to the east.

On the corner of Henrietta Street was the Unicorn Tavern, where Kitty attends a coroner's inquest. Below is the building today - rebuilt as a Nat West Bank.

Here's the Floral Hall in the centre of the square. It wasn't here in the 18th century, but it was occupied by a large number of wooden shacks, of which one was called the 'Finish', so  named because it was the last place to close, in the early hours of the morning. The square building in the centre of the pic shows the location of the 'Finish'. In the pic above you can also see down the east side of the square. The little Piazza, on the far right of this pic, burned down in March 1769, so this is all rebuilt.

Opposite the 'Finish' was the brothel run by a Mother Gould. It was over a distiller's by the name of John Bradley. In my book, Mother Gould has been renamed Mother Shadbolt, but John Bradley and the distillery are one and the same. This is it today.

We've already seen the picture below, but this is now a blown up portion of it, which shows the little Piazza as it would have been before the fire.

Continuing into the corner of the Little Piazza, in the 18th century we would find the alley way to the privies, which also connected Charles Street with Covent Garden. Next to the alley was the Bedford Arms tavern.

Today, the London Transport Museum occupy this space in the corner, but there are still toilets here in what was then Tavistock Court.

Part two of this photographic tour of Covent Garden here

Part three is here

The Finish is part one of a four part series called Venus Squared. Set in 1769, it tells the story of Kitty Ives, a prostitute, forced to solve a murder for fear of swinging from the gallows.

What's it all about, Kitty?

Shock Horror - Prostitute Kitty Ives in murder intrigue
READ HER EXCLUSIVE STORY 

The Year of our Lord, 1769

In which I tell of a man’s death.

In the dead of night when our door is locked against thieves, dogs and the devil in disguise, the moans of men come to my ears. Some promise themselves many times over, such is the nature of their lust. Yet when daylight seeps through the shutters, we whores are cast aside and our lovers go out into the fine morning as if bound on a journey to America. Well, I have been there; transported for the sin of thievery, though I found a way to return. It is a story I will tell in due course, for more recently I fought to keep myself from the gallows and I fear I am going mad.

William Westman. There, I have told you my tormentor’s name, though doubtless you will think him no tormentor at all.

At first I thought he was one of our usual gentleman callers. It was on such a night as this, cold and damp, with a hint of frost and the air abroad swirling with mysterious poisons. He entered our establishment through John Bradley’s gin shop, on the corner of Covent Garden and Russell Street. He offered a fortune; five guineas and a promise of more if I would let him use me until daybreak. Mother Shadbolt could barely contain herself and welcomed him across our threshold as if he was the prodigal son, her Bible clutched to her bosom with one hand while she pocketed his cold hard cash with the other. He smelled of hashish and ale, but wore well-tailored garments and clean boots. His face was soft and not a bit lined or careworn. I filled a dish and pressed an orange segment against my lips. He grasped me about the waist and kissed away the juice. I thought I saw a dark shadow at his shoulder, but thought little of it. Many men carry their ills thus. It is not for me to judge them.

I took him to my boudoir and asked what delights he had in mind. He did no more than raise my petticoats, sink to his knees and taste the region hidden from view. I gasped and pushed him away, pretending to be coy. Some men require soft words and innocence, while others prefer a harsher tone. Others still, need silence. They do the deed and are gone. I trusted I would not have to do more than was absolutely necessary, for I was tired and wanted an easy time of it.

My cully removed his wig. His own hair was fine and auburn in colour, and, for such a young man, receding a little at the temple. The fire crackled in the grate, casting a golden hue over our bodies. I judged him in need of kindness and poured two small glasses of gin, turned back the bedcovers, and beckoned him forth. He had, after all, paid handsomely, and I was obliged to perform until such time as exhaustion descended on him.

Westman reached out to stroke my décolletage with ink-stained fingers. I let slip my chemise and led him to the bed, whereupon he cosseted me with fine sentiment and laboured to give me pleasure, before satiating his own needs. In truth, I feigned my enjoyment. I had already been bedded that afternoon by no less than three men, the first of whom had brought me much satisfaction (he being a young buck with energy a-plenty), the second being a regular client whose needs were catered to by my pretending to innocence and he to my ‘first’ deflowering. The third was an elderly gentleman who often sleeps in our dining parlour. From time-to-time he relieves himself. It often comes to naught. I believe he enjoys our wit and the warmth of the fireplace more than anything else.

This then is what happened after Westman’s desires had been satiated: we fell on the gin, gave a toast to Venus, talked a little of his wish for literary success, and mine for financial freedom. He asked how it was that a seemingly educated gentlewoman, such as I, might find herself prostituted thus. I did no more than inform him of my father’s demise and our family’s fall from grace.

“A woman has three choices in life,” I said. “She may marry. She may become a servant, or she may become a whore.”

“And you became the latter? But why?”

“I had no dowry. My mother sent me to London to work as a governess.” I took my gin up and knocked it back in one. “Mother Shadbolt intercepted me. She promised me riches beyond measure. I was young and foolish.”

My cully laughed and topped up my glass. He was delighted to have found such an educated whore. As the night wore on we became more and more inebriated. You may find it hard to comprehend, but when I woke the next morning I was pinned beneath a dead man – and not just dead, but bloody and terrible. What could I do but scream and claw my way out from beneath him?  I was covered in his blood like a wild woman who has savaged and fed on a beast. This could not be. It could not. I would be blamed. They would call me a murderess. I would swing from the gallows. Few would stand up for me. I was no one.

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The Finish is the first in a four part series, Venus Squared, by Angela Elliott. It tells the story of Kitty Ives, who is forced to investigate a murder, or swing from the gallows. Published by Crux Publishing Ltd. 

www.angelaelliottbooks.com