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.
buy characters fully head sit strange tests three
In 'Me Before You,' the two characters popped into my head fully formed, which is really strange and unusual. Other books, I sit on them for two or three months. I have a whole routine: I buy a nice book; I hand-write all their characteristics. I put them through little tests just to see how they would react to things.
front ring trying
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.
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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.
brad coming macho man men muffin overlook prepared wonder
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.
fill girls kids
I have always written. I was one of those kids who would always fill exercise books with girls and telepathic ponies.
cooked oven recipe squash
My go-to winter recipe is beef and butternut squash stew, cooked in the slow oven all day.
driver family great love parent romantic
Love is the driver for all great stories: not just romantic love, but the love of parent for child, for family, for country.
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.
copy ideal local office rent sorts time turn
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.
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.
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.
america card given guild invited proudest script whenever writers
My Writers Guild of America card is one of my proudest possessions. I was given it after being invited to write the script for a film of my last novel, 'Me Before You,' which is being made by MGM. Whenever I look at it, I think, 'I'm a Hollywood writer!'
marriage mostly test unexpected
Marriage is a decades-long experiment, conducted mostly in private; a test of will in the face of unexpected obstacles.