Blog Tour - Lexi Land by Suzi Moore

Today I am pleased to welcome Suzi Moore, author of Lexi Land, to my blog.  Suzi Moore was brought up in Manchester but now lives in Somerset with her husband. She is well-tuned in to what children like to read, having worked as both a nanny and a teaching assistant. In her spare time, she is partial to a few cakes and biscuits. Her first picture book Little One's Bedtime publishes in 2011 and her debut young fiction novel in 2013.

 

 Today, Suzi joins me to tell us about 'A day in the life' of an author:

 

So far it’s been a bit like this. Some words keep swirling round my brain until I have to write them down. They’ve come from nowhere and somewhere and before I know what’s happening I’ve written 1000 words or so. Then nothing. Absolutely nothing. Not a thought, not an idea not a single step forward. A month later, maybe two I’ll read those first words and see something I didn’t see before. Perhaps I’ll be out walking with my husband. Maybe we chat about it over supper. “That sounds good.” He’ll say. “I’d go with that idea.” And so I do.

When I wrote Lexiland life became very different. I didn’t think about anything else, I didn’t do anything else and I think my husband forgot what I looked like. I didn’t do the housework, I didn’t read, I didn’t speak to friends, I sometimes forgot to eat and on the whole I looked as though I had slept in a hedge. But it was wonderful.

With my second novel it was pretty much the same but in a different house. I woke up, I took a cup of coffee down to my office and I only came out again when I needed the loo. When I got stuck, when I found myself glaring at the screen I read over the words again and again until I couldn’t take it anymore.

On days like that I put on my running kit and head out across the moor or along the coast path and I’ll find the steepest hill I can. But the words never leave me. A constant chatter. A never ending internal dialogue, one where I move the characters forwards or backwards. Where I delete scenes and add more colour to existing ones. And sometimes, I’ll have a moment, a sort of break through where I’ve turned around and run back home.

And when it’s over, when I have finished that draft I feel more tired than I have ever felt. I send the manuscript to my agent, I crawl back out into the real world and I wait. I wait to hear if the words are any good. And that is the hardest part. It is the only time I read. I catch up TV programmes, I see my friends, I eat properly, I sleep properly and I wash my hair and get dressed.

So far it has been like this but next time it might be different – perhaps it will be even harder, perhaps it’ll be easier, perhaps I’ll get stuck for months and months.  Either way I know it will be worth it because the moment I found out I was going to be published and the day I held a copy of Lexiland in my hands were probably the best moments of my life. 

Thank you Suzi for dropping into my blog today. i am reading Lexi Land right now and I am enjoying it so far. My review will appear on this blog this week!.