Where did you grow up, and how did this influence your writing?
I grew up in a very small town in Northern Ireland. So small, in fact, that it didn't have any bookshops. We did have a small library but it wasn't long before I'd been through every book I wanted to read, and even some I didn't! I started writing my own stories so that I would always have something that I was interested in to read. I only ever write stories that I would enjoy reading too. I don't write for a particular market or trend, as it were.
When did you first start writing?
I can't remember a time when I didn't write :) As a child I had lots of notebooks filled with all my story scribbles and when I was eleven, my parents got me a manual typewriter for Christmas. The 'S' key on it always stuck, so every word with an 's' would appear in either subscript or supersript. It was annoying in a way, but it never made me stop writing. I did try and avoid words with the letter 's' in them, but soon gave that up!
I played with dolls as most girls do, but in my head they were all actors in the plays I had in my head and I used them to act out stories, borrowing my brother's action men when I needed a leading man for my lady :)
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