I am delighted to welcome to Jaffareadstoo Teresa Driscoll and to congratulate her on the publication of her second novel.
**Happy Publication Day**
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| Bookouture 25 March 2016 |
A warm welcome to you Teresa and thank you for spending time with us today...
Author Teresa Driscoll shares her thoughts on writing her second Bookouture novel
Last Kiss Goodnight.
That difficult second book?
I’m not going to pretend it isn’t different. Publishing my second novel, I mean.
In the book world, it is often referred to as ‘that difficult second book’ and I get where everyone is coming from.
With your first novel, you can take as long as you like to write it. You can spend as long as you like tweaking and polishing before you submit to agents and publishers. But for the second novel, there is this whole new professional environment in which you are suddenly working.
It is a bit like planning a gorgeous wedding and then suddenly realising that you have to be married…every day. Once you get over the euphoria of a book deal, you suddenly realise you have to be a ‘proper author’ ...every day.
Oh – you mean I actually have to live with my husband now?
Oh – you mean I actually have to write another book?
I jest, of course. I’ve been very happily married for nearly 25 years and being an author is the most beloved job in the world. It is a joy and an absolutely privilege. But it is a job (which involves the ‘work’ word) so the adjustment I have made as so many authors before me, is building in the discipline to manage my different responsibilities all at once. Editing the new writing while marketing the published work. Learning to juggle efficiently.
Thankfully I had the idea for this second novel and a very rough first draft already on my desk when I published my first book Recipes for Melissa. So as I was marketing my debut, I was already working on the next draft of Last Kiss Goodnight. And as I now join in the promotion of my second book, I am working hard on a new manuscript. It is a rolling road that I am now thankfully getting used to without quite so much wobbling!
What I don’t think will ever change for me is the joy of the actual writing. As I go forward now I know exactly what is key for me and that is to make sure that each book I write stems from something I feel passionately about. I always start with the theme. Something that really matters to me. Then the words just flow. Then it never feels like work.
Last Kiss Goodnight, for instance, grew out of a haunting, really. When I was a TV reporter many years ago, I was sent to a campaign launch near the House of Commons. A group of women were releasing balloons – each one representing a child who could not be found. The estrangements were varied but all the mothers’ stories were heart-breaking.
I have never forgotten watching those balloons. That’s how I came to write this book about lost children and the power of a mother’s love. A theme that really moved me…and one that has stayed with me.
And so now it’s on to the next book.
I am hoping they call it the ‘easy third book’!
Teresa Driscoll is a former BBC TV news presenter with 25 years' experience across newspapers, magazines and broadcasting. After training as a newspaper reporter, she joined Thames TV for five years before 15 years as the anchor of the BBC's south west regional TV news programme Spotlight.
Find Teresa on her website
Visit her Facebook page
Follow on Twitter @TeresaDriscoll
My thanks to Teresa for sharing her thoughts about that 'difficult second book'
and to Kim at Bookouture for her help with this interview.
and to Kim at Bookouture for her help with this interview.
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