Zoe Temple asked Sally Green:

How did you decide to become an author? Did you like writing ever since you were a kid? By the way I love your books!

Sally Green Hi Zoe,

I think I'm fairly unusual as a author in that I only started writing recently (when I was in my forties - yes, I'm that old). I never thought I had much imagination - a notion that I got from rather poor teaching of English at the school I went to - and so it never occurred to me to write stories. But I've always enjoyed playing around with words and enjoyed words (not sure if you know what I mean) and I would dream up stories or adapt them in my head, for example I'd watch a film and then in my head work out how I'd change it to improve it. I read a bit but not a huge amount and as an adult because of my career I didn't have time for much reading (poor excuse but true).

But then one day I had some time free and an idea for what I thought would be a short story (I thought it would be maybe 3 or 4 pages). I wrote the story but had only just got going after 4 pages and so the next day I added more and then more and then more. After 2 weeks I realised I was writing a novel. After 3 months I'd finished it. That's when I knew I wanted to be a writer.

The novel was ok but I knew it wasn't publishable so I did some creative writing courses to learn how to improve.

Thanks for the question. Glad you love the HALFs.

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