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?

The Surety is on its way! Part two in the Venus Squared series

Part two in the Venus Squared series, The Surety, is on its way. I'm just putting the finishing touches to it. Read a bit of it below. You can read The Finish, which is part one here.

In the month of September, 1769

Chapter One

Once more accused

It began as the sun rose over our seraglio. On the previous evening, besides a stream of incorrigible lechers, I serviced a Member of Parliament with a penchant for being laid across my knee and beaten until his fundament was quite raw. Thus, I was exhausted, yet I breakfasted in my usual manner, at my table in the window of the parlour, with Lucius, my Blackamore servant, at my elbow. My fellow whores were still asleep and I had just taken delivery of a letter, when a glint of sunlight caught my eye and caused me to look out across Covent Garden. Four military men in close formation, the buttons on their livery reflecting the sun’s rays, marched towards the Great Piazza. They presented a very fine sight, but I dismissed them from my mind until I heard the tread of boots on our stairs. They made such a noise it could be none other than this militia. They burst into my parlour with all the might of an army charging their enemy.

“Mistress Ives?”

The man who spoke was their Officer. Though my parlour was a large room and could accommodate a great many people, these soldiers now occupied the better part of it. I sipped my coffee like a lady and feigned disinterest, while all the time wondering what on earth they wanted with me.

“Orders are to bring you with us.”

“Where?”

“Blackwall Yard, Ma’am.”

“You must convey my condolences to your commanding officer,” I said. “If he wishes for my company, he may come here in the afternoon. I do not make house calls.”

This was not entirely true. For the right price I would travel almost anywhere. The right price however, had not been discussed as yet.

“He was most insistent, Ma’am. We cannot leave without you.”

Oh, but this was so annoying. My morning disrupted. They were not even the King’s soldiers, but those of the… damn it, the East India Company. I was intrigued. These men were destined to lead Sepoy troops in the Far East, and yet they had been dispatched to capture a Covent Garden whore? Whatever next?

“Understand this,” I said. “It will not be a cheap excursion. Lucius?” I beckoned my servant forward.

“Begging your pardon Ma’am. We are to bring you and you alone,” said the officer.

How very irregular. I had grown used to Lucius’s ministrations when abroad in the city. That said, I wished to know more of the man who sent troops to procure my service. He must be very wealthy. The Lord only knew that we needed the money.

“Very well. Lucius, tell Mother Shadbolt I will be gone for the best part of the morning. Watch her closely. I do not want to hear of her dipping her fingers in the purse.”

Poor Mother Shadbolt. In her time, she had taken care of a great many doxies, but with the loss of her establishment on the corner of Russell Square, she had become more than a little disconsolate. We gave her a home with us only because, if we did not, then she would be a wretched, vagrant creature let loose on the streets. Besides, she still had her mind on the money and her blessed Bible. When tested, she would threaten all with that tome. No man would risk her wrath.

I thus accompanied the soldiers to a coach, which had pulled up on the cobbles beyond the portico. I must say, I was quite glad of the excursion. I had spent too long cooped up in my gilded cage - a pretty bird for a pretty master.

We turned into The Strand, and thence onward to the Tower and beyond. We passed along the Ratcliffe Highway, and took in Limehouse and Poplar both. Vessels of all sizes: fishing ships, slave ships, cargo ships, packets and sundry smaller vessels, their masts thrusting upwards into the brightening sky, were much in evidence along the Thames’ bank. Hereabouts, men of all castes and creeds pursued commerce. Cargoes were off-laden; carts rolled the muddy streets; men hauled and heaved, and the sounds and smells were overpowering even for one such as I, used to the noise and aromas of Covent Garden. Fine houses soon gave way to old timber-built properties and low dives, punctuated by inns and taverns. I spied the usual ragged trade: dirty morts with no more than the clothes on their back and a dark hole in which to do the deed. I shuddered. Thank goodness for my saviour, the dark-eyed devil, William Westman. But for him, I too, would be on the street like these sad does.

Eventually, we came to a flat place of marshy fields. The sky was bird-shell blue and the wind gusted warm. Our road cut south for a short distance, through this watery land, past rope and sail-makers, mast-makers and smiths, until we reached the Blackwall Yard (no yard at all but both dry and wet docks, and many sheds where I suppose, honest men labour in the fine craft of ship-building). We drew up alongside one of the sheds, and the officer showed me from the carriage. My feet sank immediately into the soft earth. Why had I allowed myself to be brought here? What foolishness was I engaged upon now?

The officer bid me follow him down a narrow alleyway. This I did, mindful of the mud, which squelched underfoot and threatened to fix me in my tracks. The alley opened onto a yard. On the far side was a low built shed, open on one side and with a sawpit cut into the ground. A rough-hewn man stood at one end of the pit. He looked up as I approached. The briefest of smiles crossed Jim Craddock’s face before he indicated to me to come closer. I picked up my skirts and teetered on the boards lain either side of the sawpit. I looked down. It was empty save for a puddle of water.

“Why am I looking at a hole in the ground?”

I was not best enamoured with my husband, the infamous Bow Street Runner, Jim Craddock. As one of the Sir John Fielding’s foremost detectives, he was party to all kinds of intelligence, and could travel the length and breadth of the country, if needs be, to apprehend suspects. It is not for this reason though, that we had not spoken for nigh on six months. No, it was because of the death of my dear friend Daisy. He thought I blamed him. He was wrong. Even before this though, we did not live together. It was a marriage of convenience, no more.

“I thought you’d want to see where we found him,” he said.

“Who?”

“Come with me. I’ll show you.”

Craddock led the way back across the yard, pushed a door open, and stood aside to admit me. Inside, the atmosphere was redolent with the aroma of wood - sweet, like old wine. Three finely dressed gentlemen, albeit with muddy feet stood around a workbench, while a fourth hung back in the shadows, his features indistinct. Craddock pushed me forward. The men parted to admit my company. A newly dead corpse lay before us. One side of his face was but a bloody mess of flesh and bone. The other was still intact, but was as white as the shroud they would surely soon wrap him in. For a moment I did not know whether I should recoil from the horror or not.

“He’s dead?” I said.

“State the bloody obvious woman. Yes, he’s dead. He was in the pit.”

Craddock placed a hand on the back of my head and forced me to look.

“What were you doing last night?” he said.

“What do I always do?” I hissed. I pushed him away. “You bring me here to show me a corpse? Why? You could have told me when next you snatched your conjugal rights.”

He had not done that in a long time.

“Mistress Ives,” said one of the attending gentlemen. “Are we to understand you can identify this person?”

A Very British Murder

The author of The Finish is pleased to have found A Very British Murder on the BBC by the inimitable Lucy Worsley, but so sad that it is no longer available to view. Although I missed it, both the first time round, and as a repeat in March, thankfully dear Lucy has written a book on the same subject, which I will have to go straight out and buy.

A new Video

Just trying out Animoto to create videos for The Finish my 18th century murder story. Not perfect, but a good start.


The Finish by Angela Elliott

The Devil's Own Handiwork

"I have experienced much hardship and been forced to view death on many occasions. I was therefore, not bothered by the corpse flies. Thankfully, the all-pervasive aroma of spice somewhat mitigated that of decay and corruption. All the same, I entered the room with my handkerchief at the ready. The man was frozen at the point of death upon the bed. There was much blood, all congealed and writhing with maggots. I could make out little else with the curtains shut and so I drew them open. When I turned I could hardly bear to view the putrefaction. He had died in an attitude of abject terror. His eyes were almost entirely eaten away and his mouth showed a grimace so horrific and his posture that of a supplicant forced to bend to another’s evil will, that I thought I looked upon the Devil’s own handiwork." Extract from The Surety, the second book in the Kitty Ives series. Kitty, an 18th century Covent Garden prostitute is forced to solve the murder or swing from the gallows.

The scene of the Crime

Covent Garden. 












The Finish is my new novel set in 18th century Covent Garden. It tells the story of Kitty Ives, a prostitute, who is forced to solve a murder when she wakes to find a dead man in her bed. If she should fail she will swing from the gallows. 

This is is almost the exact view Kitty has from the brothel where she lives on the corner of the Little Piazza and Russell Street