Behind the Pen with Josephine Moon
I absolutely love Josephine Moon’s novels, but despite reviewing them now for the last few years, I hadn’t yet welcomed her to Behind the Pen. All that changes today and here she is, talking with me about her latest release, The Gift of Life.
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How would you describe The Gift of Life if you could only use 5 words?
Family, friendship, love, loss, mystery
What provided the inspiration for The Gift of Life?
Firstly, there was an episode of The Phil Donahue Show, around twenty years ago, in which a heart transplant recipient described her unique connection to her donor (something called ‘cellular memory’), which was later verified by the donor’s family. Her testimony affected me so deeply that it stayed with me for all that time, coming to life once more when I saw the first episode of the ABC medical drama, Pulse, in which a woman contracted a virus that went to her heart, resulting in her needing a heart transplant. Straight away, that memory came back about the woman on that talk show twenty years earlier and I knew straight away I wanted to write about that.
Secondly, when I was researching heart transplants, I connected with two recipients of heart transplants and spoke to them about their experiences. One of them was in the rare situation of having previously donated his young son’s organs many years prior to then being in the situation of needing a heart himself. That really struck me, that full circle nature of organ transplants, that any of us could be on either side of that story at any given time. That inspired me to write the story equally from two women’s voice, one on each side of that story.
As well as that, the other heart transplant recipient began telling me about all the inexplicable and odd things that had happened to her since having her surgery. I asked her if she’d heard of ‘cellular memory’ and when she said she hadn’t, I explained what I’d discovered and she said that made perfect sense to her because she always says that ‘there are two of us in here’. Up until then, I wasn’t sure where the book was going but having her confirm those unusual experiences gave me the confidence to pursue that line of the story.
How much planning do you do? Do you plan/plot the entire story from beginning to end, or let it evolve naturally as the writing progresses? In terms of characters, are they already a firm picture in your mind before you start writing or do they develop a personality of their own as the story progresses?
I’m very much an organic writer. I start with a small idea and plant it and water it and see how it grows, adding to the garden along the way. I do accept that that is simply the way I am, but I always wish I was much more of a plotter because inevitably ‘organic’ gardening means you have to re-do sections frequently and sometimes pull up whole rows of idea you planted only to realise later that they are in the way or need to be planted elsewhere 
