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 then and now part two

In part two I take a look at the streets surrounding Covent Garden. It's more difficult to find decent prints from the 18th century, but thankfully, I have found some Victorian photographs. Most of the buildings in these photographs were the same in the previous century.

Here's an 18th century map of the area. You can see Russell Street marked on it, and Bow Street coming off Russell Street. Follow Russell Street and you come to Drury Lane. On this map, you can just see the word 'Lane'. if you carry on across Drury Lane, then the next road is Great Wild Street, which is the extent of our journey today.

Okay, so Kitty's brothel is on the corner of the Covent Garden Little Piazza and Russell Street. Here it is again today.

See that street going off to the left? That's Russell Street. Three or so doors down this street was Thomas Davis's bookshop, which was where James Boswell first met Dr. Samuel Johnson, and where Kitty goes first, to ask after the dead man she's found in her bed. The original building still stands. Here it is below.

It's the one with the red awning. The blue plaque explains the Boswell/Johnson thing. I can't find an old picture of the bookshop, but here's a picture of Thomas Davis.

If you follow Russell Street to the end and turn left, then you reach Bow Street. Number four was where the magistrate's court and home to the Bow Street Runners was.

Here it is, and below a picture of the inside with the court in session.

Sadly, today the entire west side of Bow Street has been rebuilt and now forms part of the Opera House.

Below are two photos of Drury Lane, where the Theatre Royal stands.  Drury Lane is named after Sir Robert Drury, who built a house here in 1500. The Theatre Royal, which has been rebuilt four times on the same site, was the main competitor to the Covent Garden Theatre (now the Opera House). In the first photo you can see the columns outside the theatre on the left. They were originally painted maroon and it was given the nickname, Rhubarb Alley, because they looked like sticks of Rhubarb. Prostitutes would gather underneath, to wait for the punters to come out of the theatre.

Watch this space for a blog post about the history of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.

Looking the other way up Drury Lane. If you look carefully, you can see a building at the far end of the row on the left, just by the lamp post, but past it into the background - this is the same building as in the old photos below.

Now here is an old photo of Drury Lane.

And another of the same buildings, but looking in the opposite direction.

Go one street further east and you come to Great Wild Street, which is where Kitty went in search of the dead man's lodging house.

Great Wild Street today is a mess of newish buildings and the old alley's leading off the street, such as Wild Court, below.

Was this where Kitty witnessed a vicious argument between man and wife?

The pic on the left of this triptych is the same view as the new photo above it. 

Okay, enough for part two. Part three, going north of Covent Garden into James Street and Long Acre can be found here.

Part one is here

If your appetite  has been whetted to learn more of Kitty's life in the stews of 18th century Covent Garden you can find out  more by following this link

Kitty Ives is an 18th century Covent Garden prostitute who must solve a murder or risk swinging from the gallows

www.angelaelliottbooks.com