Jojo Moyes
Jojo Moyes
Jojo Moyesis an English journalist and, since 2002, a romance novelist. She is one of only a few authors to have twice won the Romantic Novel of the Year Award by the Romantic Novelists' Association and has been translated into eleven different languages...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionJournalist
Date of Birth4 August 1969
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I started writing novels by not thinking about actually writing a whole novel - that felt altogether too daunting. I thought out a rough idea, then wrote chapter by chapter, and then by the time I'd hit 40,000 words, it was a challenge just to see if I could get to the end.
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We want a macho high-earner - with the sensitivity of Gok Wan. We want a man with Brad Pitt's six-pack - but one who's prepared to overlook our own muffin top. No wonder most men don't know if they're coming or going.
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I've always been a focused person who knows how to get what I want.
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Don't set pen to paper until you know your main characters inside out. Create files detailing their appearances, likes, dislikes, and personal background. You may not use all the information, but it is a crucial step in planning your story.
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My characters make incomprehensible decisions until you stand in their shoes. Then it makes more sense. Life is very rarely black and white, and most people are trying to do their best. I try not to judge.
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Marriage is a decades-long experiment, conducted mostly in private; a test of will in the face of unexpected obstacles.
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I write in all sorts of places; it's a legacy of my time as a journalist, where I could turn out copy in a hotel corridor. But I have a little office that I rent in my local town, and that's my ideal place.
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Unless you sell millions, I think it's very hard as a writer not to feel anxious about what you put out. I always feel I could do better.
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Love is the driver for all great stories: not just romantic love, but the love of parent for child, for family, for country.
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My go-to winter recipe is beef and butternut squash stew, cooked in the slow oven all day.
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I have always written. I was one of those kids who would always fill exercise books with girls and telepathic ponies.
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I find my best writing time is actually 6 A.M., before the detritus of the day - the fish fingers and the school uniform and dogs and bills - have had a chance to clog up my brain. I can usually get 500 words done before 7 A.M. But it is difficult, and the Internet, and social networking, are terrible timesucks.
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If chick-lit really is taking a commercial battering, I'd suggest it's because the marketing has been done to death. Covering everything in girlie pink and putting chocolate in the title may once have been a clever Pavlovian device but now makes readers feel a bit sick.
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You have to write the story that's at the front of your head. There is no point in trying to write for the market; it won't ring true.