An Interview with Leonora Meriel
Well, I asked for it to snow. And it did!
Living right in the centre of the Met Office's red warning one for the last couple of days has been great. Plenty of snow. Sub-zero (minus thriteen with wind chill) for days on end. The kind of weather I love!
OK. Not the depth or duration I was used to growing up, but pretty impressive for the south-west of England. And certainly good enough for sledging!
Had to up the bird feeding regime. Suet, mealworms and chopped apples on the ground in addition to the normal feeders, along with hourly trips to melt the ice in the bird baths. Got lots of beautiful species who are normally too timid to come into the garden.
Anyhow, in my interview today, I am talking to Leonora Meriel, author of The Unity Game and The Woman Behind the Waterfall.
Why do you write?
I write because I believe it is my strongest talent in this lifetime. Before I turned to writing full-time, I was the CEO of a successful internet business in Ukraine. I had an MBA and I was an effective manager, however I realized that there were many competent business leaders who could do the job as well or even better than me. My books, on the other hand, could not be written by anyone else in this universe.
Do you have a special time to write or how is your day structured?
Writing is my full time job, and my day is divided into mornings, when I create – working on first drafts or re-writing, and afternoons, when I do marketing tasks and administration. I am an independent author, so I effectively run my own publishing business, which means there is always a large amount of work to cover. However, the early writing hours are sacred.
How long on average does it take you to write a book?
Both of my two novels took an average of five years. The first draft is usually quick – between six and nine months. Then two more drafts can take a year. After that, I would hand the manuscript to a developmental editor who might suggest re-structuring it or re-writing parts of it. After that it goes to a line editor to check the language. Finally, there is the proof reader. Each of these rounds can take a month or more to do the edits and then check that they fit in with the original concept of the book. When you’ve been working on a book for years, you also need to take a break from it for a couple of months, before you can look at it with any kind of objectivity.
Can you give us an insight into your main character? What does he do that is so special?
The main character of my most recent novel The Unity Game is an investment banker named David. He is intensely driven and has a scientific, logical mind. He is ambitious and a risk taker and determined to make it on Wall Street. The plot gets interesting when David has some strange experiences that he can’t explain – he sees weird lights and finds himself writing an unknown language. His logical mind and ambition have no way of coping with these events, and he starts to self-destruct, taking bigger and wilder risks to try to keep his career on track, whilst being less able to function. It was great fun exploring the breakdown of a logical mind after exposure to events he could not explain or control.
And finally, which fictional world would you most like to visit on holiday?
The parallel thread to David the investment banker in The Unity Game, is a life form on a distant planet of highly evolved aliens. The planet is sparse, and has a faraway sun and three red moons of different sizes, which orbit close to the surface. Most of the light on the planet is in varying shades of red – sometimes golden-pink, and sometimes bloody crimson. I would absolutely love to visit this planet for a holiday and feel what it is like to be in a different part of space, and how different planetary bodies would influence emotions and physical state. I would like to try to understand the uniqueness of Earth from such a planet.
Thank you for taking the time to talk to me. Good luck with the writing...
Leonora Meriel grew up in London and studied literature at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and Queen’s University in Canada. She worked at the United Nations in New York, and then for a multinational law firm.
In 2003 she moved from New York to Kyiv, where she founded and managed Ukraine’s largest Internet company. She studied at Kyiv Mohyla Business School and earned an MBA, which included a study trip around China and Taiwan, and climbing to the top of Hoverla, Ukraine’s highest peak and part of the Carpathian Mountains. She also served as President of the International Women’s Club of Kyiv, a major local charity.
During her years in Ukraine, she learned to speak Ukrainian and Russian, witnessed two revolutions and got to know an extraordinary country at a key period of its development.
In 2008, she decided to return to her dream of being a writer, and to dedicate her career to literature. In 2011, she completed The Woman Behind the Waterfall, set in a village in western Ukraine. While her first novel was with a London agent, Leonora completed her second novel The Unity Game, set in New York City and on a distant planet.
Leonora currently lives in Barcelona and London and has two children. She is working on her third novel.
[image error]
Living right in the centre of the Met Office's red warning one for the last couple of days has been great. Plenty of snow. Sub-zero (minus thriteen with wind chill) for days on end. The kind of weather I love!
OK. Not the depth or duration I was used to growing up, but pretty impressive for the south-west of England. And certainly good enough for sledging!
Had to up the bird feeding regime. Suet, mealworms and chopped apples on the ground in addition to the normal feeders, along with hourly trips to melt the ice in the bird baths. Got lots of beautiful species who are normally too timid to come into the garden.
Anyhow, in my interview today, I am talking to Leonora Meriel, author of The Unity Game and The Woman Behind the Waterfall.
Why do you write?
I write because I believe it is my strongest talent in this lifetime. Before I turned to writing full-time, I was the CEO of a successful internet business in Ukraine. I had an MBA and I was an effective manager, however I realized that there were many competent business leaders who could do the job as well or even better than me. My books, on the other hand, could not be written by anyone else in this universe.
Do you have a special time to write or how is your day structured?
Writing is my full time job, and my day is divided into mornings, when I create – working on first drafts or re-writing, and afternoons, when I do marketing tasks and administration. I am an independent author, so I effectively run my own publishing business, which means there is always a large amount of work to cover. However, the early writing hours are sacred.
How long on average does it take you to write a book?
Both of my two novels took an average of five years. The first draft is usually quick – between six and nine months. Then two more drafts can take a year. After that, I would hand the manuscript to a developmental editor who might suggest re-structuring it or re-writing parts of it. After that it goes to a line editor to check the language. Finally, there is the proof reader. Each of these rounds can take a month or more to do the edits and then check that they fit in with the original concept of the book. When you’ve been working on a book for years, you also need to take a break from it for a couple of months, before you can look at it with any kind of objectivity.
Can you give us an insight into your main character? What does he do that is so special?
The main character of my most recent novel The Unity Game is an investment banker named David. He is intensely driven and has a scientific, logical mind. He is ambitious and a risk taker and determined to make it on Wall Street. The plot gets interesting when David has some strange experiences that he can’t explain – he sees weird lights and finds himself writing an unknown language. His logical mind and ambition have no way of coping with these events, and he starts to self-destruct, taking bigger and wilder risks to try to keep his career on track, whilst being less able to function. It was great fun exploring the breakdown of a logical mind after exposure to events he could not explain or control.
And finally, which fictional world would you most like to visit on holiday?
The parallel thread to David the investment banker in The Unity Game, is a life form on a distant planet of highly evolved aliens. The planet is sparse, and has a faraway sun and three red moons of different sizes, which orbit close to the surface. Most of the light on the planet is in varying shades of red – sometimes golden-pink, and sometimes bloody crimson. I would absolutely love to visit this planet for a holiday and feel what it is like to be in a different part of space, and how different planetary bodies would influence emotions and physical state. I would like to try to understand the uniqueness of Earth from such a planet.
Thank you for taking the time to talk to me. Good luck with the writing...
Leonora Meriel grew up in London and studied literature at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and Queen’s University in Canada. She worked at the United Nations in New York, and then for a multinational law firm.In 2003 she moved from New York to Kyiv, where she founded and managed Ukraine’s largest Internet company. She studied at Kyiv Mohyla Business School and earned an MBA, which included a study trip around China and Taiwan, and climbing to the top of Hoverla, Ukraine’s highest peak and part of the Carpathian Mountains. She also served as President of the International Women’s Club of Kyiv, a major local charity.
During her years in Ukraine, she learned to speak Ukrainian and Russian, witnessed two revolutions and got to know an extraordinary country at a key period of its development.
In 2008, she decided to return to her dream of being a writer, and to dedicate her career to literature. In 2011, she completed The Woman Behind the Waterfall, set in a village in western Ukraine. While her first novel was with a London agent, Leonora completed her second novel The Unity Game, set in New York City and on a distant planet.
Leonora currently lives in Barcelona and London and has two children. She is working on her third novel.
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