Trisha Ashley, in case you haven’t read any of her books, is the author of 9 contemporary novels. Her latest, Wedding Tiers, was reviewed by me a few weeks ago and I loved it and highly recommend it. Her next novel is due out early next year.

1. Describe your latest novel in a sentence.

Josie makes weird and wonderful wedding cakes while living a rural life of self-sufficient bliss with her childhood sweetheart, artist Ben - until their fairytale relationship turns into a nightmare and she becomes love’s number one cynic.

2. What, if anything, are you currently working on?

Another contemporary romantic comedy, the second of my current four-book contract with Avon, HarperCollins. It is set in the rural area of West Lancashire where I grew up, like A Winter’s Tale and Sweet Nothings.

3. Where do you get your ideas for novels?

I have a wall in my study where I stick all kinds of things that interest me – cuttings and postcards, posters, poetry, snatches of dialogue, photographs of gardens…The middle section relates to the book I’m working on, the left side to ideas for the next book. I get to know my heroine, where she’s come from and what has made her the woman she is today, and then weave the various threads I have chosen in and out of her life. I can’t explain it, really. But while I’m writing it, the world in that book is more real than the one I’m living in, and I become my heroine.

4. How did you get published, and how long did it take?

I can’t remember not writing, and had the occasional piece of poetry published from being a child, which was very encouraging. My first attempts at novels were tiny little books for children, which were rejected with generous kindness by publishers. Then I moved on to writing adult satire for a few years, getting increasingly rave rejections - they all loved the books, they just didn’t see how they could sell them.

Finally, desperate to be published (and for some money!) I wrote a Regency romance, which was instantly accepted, followed by another. But that wasn’t really what I burnt to write, so I returned to satire and rejections. The big breakthrough came when I heard Diane Pearson, then a senior editor at Transworld, give a talk in which she said she hated getting first person manuscripts, because so few of them were brilliant. Of course, I went straight back home and sent her mine: ‘Dear Diane, here is my brilliant first person novel…’ You might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb! Transworld didn’t take it, but to my everlasting gratitude Diane introduced me to my agent, the wonderful Judith Murdoch.

At our first meeting, Judith told me: ‘this romantic comedy hasn’t got any romance in it, Trisha!’ Which of course it hadn’t, because I thought I was writing satire. I rewrote it, bringing the romantic relationship to the fore, and Judith sold it to Piatkus. My course was set and now a few years down the line, Wedding Tiers is my ninth contemporary romantic comedy. I am very lucky in currently having two publishers, with Severn House paperbacks recently issuing Happy Endings, too. (And if you are thinking about writing a novel, then you really should read Tina’s advice to budding novelists in Happy Endings!) And oddly enough, a couple of years ago I got the urge to write another Regency romance, Lord Rayven’s Revenge, and had a lot of fun with that!

5. What are you currently reading/who are some of your favourite authors?

That’s another tricky one. I read very widely, and tend to re-read old favourites over and over again while I’m writing, from Isaac Asimov to Agatha Christie. I do read lots of new novels too, mostly in-between book drafts, but I love everything Katie Fforde writes (favourites: Highland Fling and Wedding Season), to the point where I want to read her new books the minute I get my hands on them. I have every novel written by American author Elizabeth Peters/Barbara Michaels (favourite: Naked Once More) and I re-read all those too – I love her wit and humour. Favourite authors are the ones you want to revisit, like old friends, but there are many individual novels that have made a big impact on my life at certain times, like Catch-22, The Poisonwood Bible or The Colour Purple, for which one read was enough to stay with me forever.

6. Are any of your characters like you in any way?

I like to write in first person for the contemporaries, which means I have to become another person, someone who doesn’t think, act or react in the way I would. That’s fascinating - I suppose it’s a bit like acting. But there must be elements of me in them too and I often use something that happened to me as a jumping-off point, playing the ‘what if?’ game.

My heroines tend to have a core of steely inner strength, often derived from their creative side - whether it is painting, gardening, cooking, writing or some other art. In the interests of preserving their marriages they may sometimes bend a bit in the breeze like bamboo, but they always snap right back to where they were before, once the pressure’s off. I think maybe that bit applied to me…

I hope I am a good friend – I try to be - and I frequently write about the supporting strength of friendship, which is of huge importance in my life. I’ve always found a dark sense of humour to be an asset on life’s journey, too, and I’m happy to say that there seem to be a lot of readers out there who share that. I stay in contact with them through my Skint Old Northern Woman newsletters.

What advice would you give to aspiring writers? This is going to sound so obvious, but if you are a writer, then you write. It sort of goes with the job description. You write every day and you feel guilty and bereft if you have finished a novel and not started on the next.

So many people put up barriers to their creativity by saying that they will start writing when the children have left home, when they have a computer, or a room of their own, or retire, or have the right pen. They need to break through that barrier, and the best way is to get into the writing habit, even if only for ten minutes a day. Grab a pen and a piece of paper and just write anything that comes into your head now. Describe something or someone. Say what you love about your favourite book. Name ten things you like about your dog. Loosen up. Work around to spending that time writing down what kind of novel you feel drawn to write, what sort of characters, where you want to set the book and when. Soon you will have enough for a book outline and ten minutes simply won’t be enough, you will be thinking about the book most of the time and writing whenever you can.

And one day, there will be a hefty stack of manuscript and a big sense of achievement: you didn’t just talk about it, you actually did it! (Then email me through my website at http://www.trishaashley.com and tell me – I will be so pleased!)

Thanks so much, Trisha!

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