Phew! Between the Lines is over (for now) and Deborah Hinde (the exhibition coordinator) has taken all the displays off the wall, and tidied up the space that Hamilton libraries kindly let us use. Thanks.
A big thank you also to everyone else who helped, and to all our exhibitors who agreed to be interviewed for this blog.
I’ve been so busy writing the blog over the past couple of months that I’ve realised I forgot to interview myself. So here, last but hopefully not least, is my interview with…Raglan author Sarah Johnson (that’s me).
So, Sarah, tell us…
When did you start writing?
As a child, I wrote a lot of poetry. I even had a collection. But then one summer, my Dad sent me to stay with an old friend of his, who didn’t like my verse. She put big red lines through all my writing, so it was years and years before I wrote again.
When I did, it was because I was doing a long distance walk across northern Spain. Every day, my friends and I walked between 25 and 30 kilometres. When you walk that long, every day, strange things happen in your head, and one of the strange things that happened in mine was that a story formed itself, all by itself. I wrote it down, and I haven’t stopped writing since.
That was 20 years ago, but still, if I get stuck when I’m writing, or if I want to have a good long think about a story, I go for a walk. It’s the best writing technique I know.
What do you write?
I write everything. When I’m not writing children’s stories (which are my favourite thing to write), I also write stories, and lots of other stuff, for adults. I have a freelance writing business, and every week someone different rings me and says, ‘Can you write this?”, and I say, ‘Sure’. So usually I’m writing four or five different things at once.
Where and when do you work?
I have an office in the basement of our house, which is in Whaingaroa Raglan. Mainly I write there, or at our dining room table, or if I’m pretending to be a French surrealist writer, I write in cafes, but not very often.
The room above my basement office is our living room, and there are four lively boys in our family, so whenever I’m writing, there seems to be a herd of elephants stampeding above my head. I’m used to it now. I like to think that noise and activity and chaos is good for stories; that it gets inside them somehow and feeds their narrative energy.
And challenging?
Like everyone, too many ideas and not enough time. Writing takes lots of time, but sometimes you have to wash the dishes.
Also it’s hard getting rejections. As well as time, lots of creative energy goes into making a story, so it’s hard when the publishers say they don’t want it. One of the wonderful things about our digital age though is that there are now other options available to writers, so a rejection no longer necessarily means the end of a story.
What are you working on at the moment?
I’m very excited because I’ve just finished the manuscript for a new chapter book and sent it off to the publishers, so fingers crossed. It’s called The Spaghetti Giraffe and is about…well you can probably guess what it’s about.
Now I’ve finished that, I have to toss-up between four or five other story ideas that have been clamouring for attention and see who wins.
Who was your favourite author as a child?
I still have eight or ten books that I had when I was young, and I they were all my favourites. But my favourite favourite was probably Paul Gallico, for his book Manxmouse, about a little blue pottery mouse that comes to life. Now, I get to read it to my own kids, and it’s just as special second and third and fourth and fifth time around. Paul Gallico also wrote the Snow Goose, which has become a children’s and adults’ classic, and is a truly wonderful, although very sad, story.
What do you do in your spare time?
Lots of activity. I like to get out and about and see the world and the wonders in it. I like to cycle, run, walk, swim, tramp and camp, especially with my kids and with friends.
I also love to read. Our house is overflowing with books, and my waiting-to-be-read pile is so big that I have no hope of getting through it, ever. That’s a shame, because it means there’s some good books that I’ll never get to know, but it does make it very exciting when it comes time to choose a new one.
My website: if you’d like to find out more about me or my books, or to get in contact (I’d love to hear from you) is www.sarahjohnson.co.nz.
I also have a blog: http://sarahjohnsonauthor.blogspot.co.nz/
It’s been wonderful sharing this blog about our talented Waikato writers and illustrators with you. Happy reading and writing.
Sarah