We're delighted that author Lorraine Brown will be running Hackney's City of Stories creative writing workshop on 10 February 2020. The session, which runs online, is now fully booked, but if you don't have a place, don't panic. You can still register to attend in one of the other participating boroughs. Full details here.
Ahead of the session, Lorraine very kindly agreed to answer some questions for us.
Hi Lorraine! Can you tell us a bit about your writing day? Are you very disciplined, with set working hours and word counts, even when you don't feel like writing? Or do you wait for inspiration to strike?
Something in between the two! When I first started writing, I would snatch half an hour or twenty minutes here and there (in my lunch hour, on the tube etc.) and eventually I managed to finish a novel that way. Now that I more or less write full-time, I wish I did have a more structured writing routine, but I think I follow the same sort of pattern: I fit in my writing when I can. Unless I've got a deadline looming, in which case I might set myself a target. For my second novel - Sorry I Missed You - I had to write it during lockdown (and whilst trying to homeschool my son) so I was quite close to my deadline when I finally sat down to write it. I gave myself a target of writing a chapter a day, two if I could, and then set aside a couple of weeks for editing. I actually enjoyed writing the whole thing in such a tight timeframe and it allowed me to really stay in the world of the book.
Do you plan your novels in great detail before you sit down to write? Or do you launch on in and see where the characters take you?
I do plan my novels and I find it works much better for me that way. I use the book Save the Cat, which is actually aimed at screenwriters. It helps me to plot my story in a very filmic way, thinking about things like my 'inciting incident' and the 'midpoint' and the 'all is lost moment'. I also use the writing software Scrivener to create a virtual board of index cards - I'll write one index card for each scene, with just a few lines written on it about the setting, what the main protagonist wants and what's stopping him/her from getting it. I find it's then much easier to just knuckle down to my writing when I've only got an hour or half an hour to write - I can just get straight into it!
How did it feel the first time you saw one of your books in a shop window?
Well, the hardback of my novel came out in February 2021, during lockdown, and all shops were closed! I didn't get to see it on a shelf until April 12th when shops re-opened and I got the bus into Piccadilly Circus and saw it in Waterstones there. It was a really lovely moment and I took lots of photos - you can just about see how happy I am in them, even though I'm wearing a mask! Highgate Bookshop, which is opposite where I used to work, also put it in their window, which was very cool to see.
What novel do you wish you'd written, and why?
I think Normal People by Sally Rooney. She captures the ups and downs and misunderstandings of that relationship so simply and beautifully, and I think her dialogue is amazing. I was obsessed with the TV adaptation, too!
About Lorraine:
North London-based Lorraine’s varied background spans fashion journalism and acting, giving her a unique take on storytelling. She also worked as a school receptionist whilst writing and taking a postgraduate diploma in psychodynamic counselling. She currently delivers counselling sessions alongside writing novels. The manuscript of what became Lorraine’s debut novel THE PARIS CONNECTION, which includes themes of financial hardship and challenging family dynamics, was longlisted for the Bath Novel award in 2016, after which she was chosen to be part of Penguin Random House's WriteNow scheme, which aims to launch the careers of writers from backgrounds currently under-represented in the publishing industry. The novel was published in paperback by Orion Fiction in January 2022, as well as by Penguin Random House in the US last summer, and has also sold to twelve foreign territories worldwide including Germany, Italy and Portugal. Lorraine's second novel, SORRY I MISSED YOU, will be out in June 2022.
Keep up to date with news from Lorraine and follow her social channels here.
