Ask the Author: Harriet Springbett
Answered Questions (9)
Harriet Springbett
I'm lucky enough to be speaking about my novel 'Tree Magic' at the Young Adult Literature Convention (YALC) at the Olympia in London at the end of July. There will be lots of first class authors there, so I'm going to read the authors' works as widely as I can before I go. You can see the list of speakers here: http://www.londonfilmandcomiccon.com/...
Harriet Springbett
I love the Pyrenees mountains. I go there most summers, and I must admit I have tears in my eyes as I come down from the final trek of the holidays. The novel I'm currently writing is partly set there. As for the French language, I'm pretty much bilingual because my partner is French and doesn't speak much English.
Harriet Springbett
I recently read The Sun is also a Star and really liked the Daniel / Natasha couple. I think it's because one believes in logic and science while the other follows his intuition and believes in love.
Harriet Springbett
Aha, that would be telling! But I'm very excited about it.
Harriet Springbett
I go for a run and look around me. Or I sit at my desk and write something completely different. Or I read a book by an inspiring writer, like Ali Smith or Jeanette Winterson. That always makes me want to sit down and write too.
Harriet Springbett
Tree Magic is a story about a teenage girl, Rainbow, who has a gift for communicating with trees. She can change their shapes. The idea for this came when I was writing a short story under the weeping willow in my garden. A Sumac tree had been uprooted in a gale and I was wishing I could rebalance it so it would survive. I wondered what life would be like for someone who could do this. So the character in my short story, Rainbow, became the one to bear this gift / curse - and the short story developed into a novel.
Harriet Springbett
That's easy: writing! Nothing is as fulfilling as creating your own world and living within it.
Harriet Springbett
Be authentic. You should be laughing and crying as you write. Also, don't explicitely say what a character is feeling. By describing what he/she is doing, you will convey his/her feelings without actually stating them.
Harriet Springbett
My inspiration comes from two main sources. I love listening to people who are passionate about something - anything. That always inspires me. The other way I let inspiration come is by taking a moment alone to really live a situation. That means letting myself smell, taste, listen and feel what's happening around me, and looking for tiny details. I scrawl these impressions into my notebook. Moments like this often give me the hub of an idea that combines with others in my head to become a story.
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