Patricia Cornwell

Kobo

My desk is filled with notes, thoughts and reminders. I have so many thoughts going on in my head that anything deemed interesting and important needs to be wriiten down, including a reminder to pick kids up from Kindergarten. So I have piles of notes, neatly stacked but they're messy composed in books and on random pieces of paper or the backs of old envelopes and I have a huge collection of Post-it-Notes. I am old school. And I was one of the last to learn to type on a typewriter.
I also use an audio recorder because I like my gadets seperate. If the iphone goes down, all of my notes aren't lost. Mind you if the batteries die on my audio recorder and I don't have any new ones I'm kind of in the same place, although all will not be lost! Just temporarily unavailable.
There are also disks, usb sticks, brushed steel bear paperweights and a leather bound journal. And I have pens everywhere!

I grew up in suburban Melbourne. We had a farm we went to on weekends in South Eastern Victoria and it was in those years that I read many great stories set in country Australia that having the farm allowed me to relate to. Weekend dances and pot luck dinners in tiny country halls, listening to Countdown sunday nights on ABC radio because there was no television reception, shooting the slug gun, riding motorbikes, standing on snakes around the dam, cooking on the combustion stove and having to light the fire in it to eat, sleeping on the top bunk of homemade three level bunks, seeing an abundance of wildlife and having to go to the toilet in the long drop built character and made me creative.

I always kept journals and that was inspired by my childhood trip to Brazil. At ten years of age my eyes were opened to other worlds and I had both a camera and a journal. While there are only a dozen entries and about twice as many photos from my trip, I was able to read these entries back and found it interesting to see how I spoke and what I thought worth noting at that time. From then on I've kept letters and journals recording things of interest and observations of life and the people I meet. My writing thus far has been an extension of that.

At the time I had met some people who were making their living producing and selling drugs. Only they weren't bikers or thugs. They were regular people just like me who felt that it was a better way to live than within the confines of what society deems acceptable. I was fascinated by their back stories and how they had come to be living these secret lives. Of course all is not what it seems on the surface until you are fully aware of their situation.

I just want to write. I think what interests me will interest others and want to find my audience. Telling a good story and finding a way to connect with people in a larger sense is my goal and making entertaining fiction is enjoyable to me.

When I combine several pieces of writing written at different times as inspriation hits, and I tie up all the loose ends and the work becomes a complete story.
Oh and when I find a piece that I've written and forgotten about and I think to myself, "Did I really write this? 'Cos' it's pretty good!"

Everything. The idea that someone could enjoy and/or relate to what I have written, what's come from my mind, is amazing. Sure we're not all that different but I consider myself a teeny tiny bit on the not so normal but slightly mad side, so having people admire what I have created means their either fascinated by how different I am or they feel the same and that makes me feel more normal. More connected. And even more inspired.

I have two pieces I am currently working on. Both featuring Marley's exploits beyond 'Disposable Lives.' Working Titles are 'Billionaire Boys Club' and 'The Burn.'

Irvine Welsh, Douglas Copeland, Bret Easton Ellis, Martin Amis, Roddy Doyle, Kathy Lette, Hunter S. Thompson, Barbara Kingsolver, Fannie Flagg and the wonderfully funny Bill Bryson.

Manic Moments in a Disposable Life

In the veggie garden or on the back of a motorbike.

No. But I remember the first story that someone said was good. It was literally a fly on the wall piece about what the other person might be going through after the break-up of a relationship? Of course it was filled with teen angst but I had been good at English for a long time without getting more than a C on my papers, so it was a breakthrough moment.

I write wherever I can. With small children it can be hard to find the time and the wee hours of the morning present the best opportunity for uninterupted thought. If I'm stuck on something I will cut the grass on the ride-on mower. The monotony of the task, up and down and with earmuffs on to drown out the drone of the motor, can produce clear thought.
I also find that I write better with music in my ears than in silence. I'm not sure why but I think it quietens the other parts of my mind? The parts that talk to me all day; 'what will I make for dinner?', 'are my nipples showing in this dress?' and 'does anyone else eat this much chocolate?'

I think the cover needs to catch your eye with digital media. The ebooks appear so much smaller than those you see on the shelf and if it's not attractive to the eye then you've lost the reader before they even read what your book is about. Having been a Motion Picture Film Timer I know how important colour is.