Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I have written several books but only three are published so far, with a fourth due out before Christmas. I’ve also written some Crime Shorts, an e-ook series.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
It’s a trilogy about a boyhood rivalry set mostly in the 1940s. An elderly man recounted being the last child chosen for billeting by villagers where his London school had been evacuated. I thought how resilient children must have become in such a situation. I imagined a boy growing up and through the experience, then I imagined his counterpart who would make his life even more difficult. The two characters emerged, and then I thought of how the rivalry could develop over time and reach a crisis. Meanwhile, all the chaos and hardship of war would be around them . . .
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I’m disorganized and have a messy desk. However, I am very focussed when writing so much so that if the telephone rings I jump out of my skin. I never have a block, although obviously the writing doesn’t run smoothly every day. I go on until I have an appointment or am too tired to think straight.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
I’ve enjoyed so very many books and am never quite sure how or whether they have influenced me. The authors who I know got under my skin are Fay Weldon. Kasuo Ishiguro. DH Lawrence. JM Coetzee
What are you working on now?
I’m struggling to finish the third book in my WWII trilogy, A Relative Invasion. Its title is IMPACT and is set in the postwar period. INTRUSION and INFILTRATION were set in the wartime years, the second while the two main characters were evacuated.
The theme is a boyhood rivalry which lingers and festers throughout the years until it culminates in an event that devastates both boy’s lives.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
I need to have been published for more years before I can know this. However, a website run by Harper Collins Authonomy put me in touch with several good authors, and the critiques I received on that site were very helpful. Best of all was winning a full review from Harper Collins.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Try to focus on the writing and not become distracted by all the advice and marketing emails you will receive. I wish I could have blocked it all out. It has got in the way of my writing every day.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
Persist. A small piece, but I have seen it work for others and I know it myself. You just have to keep on sticking at your writing, day after day, and see it as your main task in life.
What are you reading now?
I’m reading Philip Roth’s The Ghost Writer. This is an author I really admire, although I will never write in the same genre.
What’s next for you as a writer?
Once I finish Impact, and get it beta read, then edited, I want to finish Speechless, a novel I started three years ago and have left until the trilogy is finished. I want to rewrite The Parody, a novel I wrote years ago. It was my first, so I’d dearly love to see it published.
If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Artist of the Floating World, Forensics, Val Dermid. The Greek Myths (Graves) Notebooks and pens.
Author Websites and Profiles
Rosalind Minett Website
Rosalind Minett Amazon Profile
Rosalind Minett’s Social Media Links
Facebook Profile
Twitter Account