1. Growing up (I still am), I always assumed everyone wanted to write – we all have a book in us. But I also had a more negative experience recently – I read a holiday novel that was so badly written, the author forgot she had already killed-off a character, and so killed her again a few chapters later. I thought ‘I can do better than this!’
2. I have always read, starting with Joy Adams, the Born Free series. I read Tolstoy, Dickens, and Hardy as a teenager, and more political moderns in my early twenties – like Steinbeck, Orwell and Heller. Catch 22 and The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist are probably my favourite. But I was not especially book-wormy as a youngster – unusually for a writer it seems, I am quite sociable.
3. I have just published a travel suspense thriller – Listless In Turkey. My books are embarrassingly autobiographical, I sometimes wonder if I even really have an imagination. So I might not have enough in me for another book – we’ll see.
4. The writing is the easy bit. As an indie you are involved in the publishing, marketing and selling – which requires different skills to the writing. Oh, and sell the author, not the story.
5. My two novels and one short story are not highbrow, but they do have a conscience. Every book should tell a story – at the risk of stating the obvious. My biggest influence in my own writing is some very strong females in my life. Sadly not all lived long enough to read my books.
Samantha Evans--Author 