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
divide elements fairly floor head hear scenes several until work writers
Writers divide fairly cleanly into those who only work through what they hear and those who are more visual. I am the latter, where I lie down on my office floor and play scenes through my head to - cinematically, several times with different elements - to see what works. I can't write a scene until I can see it.
age appalled food quietly seem whether
We seem to live in an age where we are quietly appalled by the idea of appetites, whether they be for sex, food or diamonds.
book develop history life pet rounded shoe sure
For every book that I write... I develop a history for each person and make sure they are well rounded and flawed. You have to know everything about them from their shoe size, to where they went to school, to what their first pet was, to what they like to eat, to what they want out of life.
I try to read writers who are better than me because it inspires me to be better.
air almost consuming depends deprived exist love mundane necessary physical relation secure
What love is depends on where you are in relation to it. Secure in it, it can feel as mundane and necessary as air - you exist within it, almost unnoticing. Deprived of it, it can feel like an obsession; all consuming - a physical pain.
clothes draws flatter impervious stylish wear
A stylish person, for me, is one who draws your eye without necessarily being showy; they wear clothes that are beautifully cut, flatter the wearer, and show that they are not impervious to fashion, but not a slave to it either.
categories distinct former novelists takes
Novelists seem to fall into two distinct categories - those that plan and those that just see where it takes them. I am very much the former category.
awful computers convinced husband kitchen note persuading quicker scribbling talk technology
I think there is an awful lot of technology for technology's sake. I have yet to be convinced by my husband that persuading our mobiles to talk to our computers is going to be quicker and more straightforward than scribbling a note in our kitchen diary.
books faith work writers wrote
I wrote three books before I got one published. Most writers do. Have faith, and know that with each work you are getting better.
novels three translated
Rejection is part of the process, so you can't let it crush you. My first three novels never made it into publication, but my fourth, 'Sheltering Rain,' was translated into 11 languages.
characters
If the characters are compelling, readers will follow anywhere.
family life
I always say that in any roomful of people, I could hive a novel out of any one person's family or life story.
attic belief ended imagined instilled lived mum news nights novel writer
I always imagined a writer was someone who lived in an attic in Paris, but my mum instilled in me a belief that I could do anything - so I ended up writing my first novel while working nights as a news reporter.
bring four hotel included life room three year
My writing life has included the struggle to bring up three children. What I do three or four times a year is take myself off to a hotel room to unblock a problem.