About Cathy

When did you start writing?

I always loved writing stories and poems in school, and I used to dabble a bit while I was in my twenties. I’d enter short story competitions and get nowhere. I didn’t start writing seriously and consistently until my sons were at school. That was about 12 years ago.

Where do your ideas come from?
My ideas come from anywhere and everywhere, although most of them develop from my own life and what goes on round about me. Maybe the way someone looks or a name will start me thinking about a character, or I'll go somewhere and hear a story about a place and the tiny nugget of an idea will start to grow. This is how I had the idea for The Drowning Pond, following a visit to a local country park which had a real witches’ drowning pool in it. A lot of the time my two sons give me stories without realising it. They do something daft, or tell me something that has happened and, I steal what they've told me and write about it from a different point of view. Sugarcoated, my latest thriller is inspired by an horrific attack that actually happened and my previous book, Tug of War is a futuristic take on something that happened to my mum during WW2. In 1939 she was evacuated from Glasgow to a prosperous farm in the Scottish Borders and her experience inspired me to base a book on what happened to her. Tug of War, though, is set in the near future and Molly, the main teenage character is not based on my mum at all.
Quite often ideas about a book I am working on come into my head while I’m cleaning the toilet ( This is true. I think my brain switches off from the unpleasantness of the task in hand and switches on its creative department to distract me from smells etc.)

How long does it take you to write a book?

My long novels take about a year to write, especially if I have to do research before I begin. The Finding, Think Me Back, Fat Boy Swim, SKARRS and The Drowning Pond all took a year to write.
Tug of War took me more than a year - the longest time I ever spent on a book. One of the reasons for this is because as well as writing I give more and more talks and creative writing workshops about writing. When I’m away from home I find it hard to concentrate on writing so I fall behind.
Some of my books take less time to write. Exit Oz (a true story I completely nicked from my sons and the escape of their snake) took me about a month to write and the book I wrote with Kevin Brooks, I See You Baby…, took three. So did the novel, Firestarter, which took about 3 months to write, as did L-L-L LOSER!! (Barrington Stoke)
I’ve just written a new book for Barrington Stoke and finished it in less than two weeks.
( It’s going to be called Bad Wedding but I don’t know when it’s coming out yet) That’s my record so far, but I didn’t enjoy writing so intensively. I barely left the house.

What advice would you give to someone who wants to be a writer?

First of all you have to read and read and read, and secondly you should get into the habit of writing regularly, even if it's just a diary. Thirdly, you should take notes of all your good ideas, especially if they keep niggling at you. If you don't they'll slip away from you.

Where do you write?

I work in a very cluttered room, on a very cluttered table by a window that used to be freezing in winter and too bright and too hot in summer. At last I've had it double glazed and I can open a window if I start to overheat. It still gets cold. I wear fingerless gloves to type and my mum bought me a heated ‘slipper’ for my feet. Because all my books have taken shape at the same table, I'm a bit superstitious about making my writing spot more comfortable and unlike lots of writers I know who can write anywhere, I can't.

Who is your favourite character from all your books?

I'll have to cheat and name several. Jimmy from Fat Boy Swim is the first. He just popped into my head fully formed and I liked him from the start. GI Joe from Fat Boy Swim is another character I have a soft spot for because he is tough and kind and honest. My third favourite character is Grampa Dan from SKARRS. He is based on my dad who died in 2001 just before I started writing SKARRS and before any of my novels were published. The 'voice' of Grampa Dan is my dad's voice and the character is my tribute to him, from the way he talks to the music he loved. From the outset, Keith in Firestarter is loosely based on the character of my younger son who is decent and uncomplicated so I have a lot of time for him.
When I think about it, I like most of my main characters, even though none of them are perfect. I think I have to like them to keep writing about them.

Do you base your characters on real people?

Elements of most of my characters are partly based on real people, and quite a few of them have bits of me in them. I'll steal the way someone talks, or looks or behaves, but not a whole person. For example, Aunt Pol in Fat Boy Swim has lots of my sister Pauline in her character, and many of the teenage boys are inspired by my sons and their friends. In The Drowning Pond, all the girls are based on my schoolmates and girls I know – and were scared of in school. Nicky, the main character is very like how I felt as a teenager. I never, ever put anyone I don't like in real life in my novels, but people who I'm fond of will often become cameos in my stories, for example Mrs Hughes in Fat Boy Swim is a real Mrs Hughes, and in Tug of War, Guy Lyons is my sister's partner…the incomparable Guy Lyons!

Who is your favourite author?

I have to cheat here and list a few. I know David Almond is considered a children's writer but I think his work is stunning; spiritual and beautiful, and Skellig is one of my favourite reads of all time. My other favourite writers include Jamie O'Neill ('At Swim, Two Boys' my Top Read), John McGahern, Brian Moore, Pat Barker, Bernard MacLaverty, Rohinton Mistry, Annie Proulx, Joseph O'Connor, James Joyce and Charles Dickens. I could go on forever. There are many writers for young adults who I admire hugely: Kevin Brooks, Frank Cottrell Boyce, Julie Bertagna, Geraldine McCaughrean, Tanya Landman,Keith Gray and Melvin Burgess to name but a few…

What was your most favourite book when you were young?

Kavik the Wolf Dog by Walt Morley. I loved this book so much and read it so often that my original copy fell to pieces. It’s about the arduous journey a half-dog, half-wolf makes across the Alaskan Tundra to be reunited by a boy called Andy, the only person who showed him love. I don’t like animal stories and I’m terrified of dogs yet I LOVED this book.

Do you have a routine?

I start work every morning as soon as my younger son goes off to school. Then I write till lunchtime in my pyjamas. Over the years I have found that if I start to do things about the house instead of heading straight to my cluttered room, or go out anywhere, I lose the inclination to work at all, so I have to be disciplined.

Have you won any awards?

In 2005 Fat Boy Swim won the Grampian Book Award in 2005 and SKARRS won a Scottish Arts Council award.
In 2004 Fat Boy Swim was shortlisted for the Blue Peter Book I Couldn't Put Down and the Booktrust Teenage Book Award while SKARRS was shortlisted for the North Lanarkshire Book Award, Calderdale Teenage Book Award, the Renfrewshire Teenage Book Award and the Angus Book Award. It won a Scottish Arts Council book award in 2005.
The Drowning Pond was shortlisted for Scottish Book of the Year 2006 in the older category of the inaugural BRAW awards, and the Manchester Book Award.
Firestarter was shortlisted for the South Lanarkshire Book Award, the Leicester Book Award and the Calderdale Teenage Book award. I’m a bit of a bridesmaid in the award stakes!

Who is your inspiration?

When I’m asked this question I think people expect me to name writers. There are lots and lots of writers who I completely admire, but it is the people I know and care about and their lives and stories that inspire me to write the kind of books I do. Family and friends, in other words. I love to explore the extraordinary in the ordinary.

Do you get writer’s block?
Because writing is my ‘job’ I can’t afford to. Like any job, some days work is easy and other days I don’t seem to get very much done. I avoid getting ‘stuck’ on a certain chapter by making sure that I know roughly how I want my book to end before I start writing. That gives me a goal to aim for.

Did you always want to be a writer?
I think so, although I never thought I’d end up writing the kind of books I’m writing now. When I was young I used to write very serious stories and dreadful poems full of big long words and soppy notions. No one would ever have published the rubbish I was writing, thank goodness.

Are you working on a book right now?
I am coming close to the end of the first draft of a novel that won’t be out till 2009. I think it’s going to be called Fifteen Minute Bob and it’s about a very prissy Sixth Former whose Bob Dylan obsessed dad is a failed musician. Dad finally strikes it lucky with a song that make it big on the internet.

What is your favourite book of all the ones you have written?
It’s SKARRS. Not because I think I’ve written a brilliant book but because it’s a really honest book. I wrote it because I was worried (about my son and what was going on in his head) and sad ( because my dad had just died) and I wrote from the heart and learned a lot about myself while I was writing. I also turned myself into a teenage boy for the first time. That was interesting.
Is there going to be a sequel to Fat Boy Swim?
I’ve been asked this question so often that I am beginning to think about writing one. However I like to think that a reader continues your story in his or her head when he or she finishes your book, so there could be many different versions of what happens next. Other peoples’ ‘What happens next?’ might be better than anything I could write.

Will you ever write a book for adults?
I don’t know. Possibly, although when I write any book I am just writing a story. Not one that’s specifically for any age group. In my books there are characters of all ages but it just so happens that I think teenagers make the best focal characters in my books because they are so complex and volatile. If it felt right to tell a story from the point of view of an adult I would and then I suppose I’d be writing an adult novel.

Are you rich? How much money do you make? Are you a millionaire?
I get asked this question EVERYWHERE I go. Unfortunately, very few writers are completely MINTED ( you know who they are!!) so I don’t make enough money from writing to hire a chauffeur and a housekeeper and buy a yacht and a Maserati. Even if I could afford to though, I wouldn’t want to. I’m beginning to make a living from writing, I get asked to do interesting things and I meet loads of brilliant people as a result of doing EXACTLY the job I want to do. Life is good enough for me!

What are you doing in 2008?
My novel Sugarcoated is coming out at the end of March along my back of Egmont novels. They are being reprinted with new covers and a new look. Before Easter I am appearing at Glasgow’s Aye Write! Book Festival and doing events up the North East of Scotland (Aberdeen Storytelling Festival, Fraserburgh, Ellon, Elgin, Inverurie).
I am also working with lots of different year groups in St Thomas Aquinas’ Secondary School. I am the school’s local Writer in Residence 2007-2008 and working with pupils there is always fantastic.
Sugarcoated goes on UK tour in April and I will be doing author events at Glasgow’s West End Festival and at the Edinburgh Book Festival this August ( with Kevin Brooks – check him out on Bebo).

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