Where I find the spark: Janet Hoggarth

Every book or article I have ever written has sprung from something else entirely. Several other ideas can be on the boil at the same time before I finally commit to writing a specific book. I will have written their rough synopsis (I never know the ending just the general direction), delved into the characters’ backgrounds and extracted their personalities, made them do quizzes on what kind of potato/chocolate bar they are. (Jersey Royal/Reeses Peanut Butter Cups FYI).

One book in the last few years reached thirty thousand words before a more enchanting idea presented itself and I put it on the back burner until I wrote the new love affair out of its path. Everything’s filed away on my lap top to revisit, or mine for eloquent prose to repurpose in another project. In some cases I’ll utilise a plot, altering the time frame, characters, place, doctoring the recipe so the final dish is unrecognisable. 

My scatter gun approach to writing is a similar process of being a gardener. When you’re planting seeds not all of them will germinate, so in order to guarantee a healthy plant or entire crop, you over sew the seeds. Once they start to struggle for space, that’s when you look for the strongest seedlings, the fighters that can go the distance. These are the plants you choose to cultivate. It doesn’t mean the other seedlings aren’t worth anything though. No piece of writing is ever wasted no matter how weak you think it is when you look back. 

My ideas are often inspired by something going on in my life or contain snippets of my experiences, those of people I know or have read about in newspapers, seen on the TV or in films. It’s like my brain digests all this information and will throw me a bone of a plot when I least expect it.

Which is almost guaranteed to be when I am working on something else! When I was writing children’s books and facing a tricky time as a single parent, I was asked by my agent to pitch for a whole series for a major children’s publisher. It took a long time with three kids under five.

One morning on the school run when I wasn’t winning at life, the entire plot for a different book entirely downloaded itself into my head as I reached the playground. A voice (not mine!!!) even spoke the title: Gaby’s Angel. It was a kids’ book about death, grief and turning your life around. It was also exactly what I was feeling, floundering through a divorce, my world turned upside down, grieving my lost marriage.

I remember running like a lunatic with two in the buggy to get home and write the synopsis on my lap top. Obviously I never got the gig for the school series and Gaby’s Angel was rejected so many times until OUP finally bought it. Once I had my feet under the table at OUP, I was contracted to write another book. As I sat at my desk, working on a time travel idea I’d tinkered with for years (inspired by Back to the Future), Sister Sister hijacked my brain, pushing what would become my third book, Back in the Day, out of the way. 

I’d been writing a single mum blog when I was also writing Gaby’s Angel. It was anonymous and also not really for mass consumption. It was my therapy while navigating the testy divorce and living communally in my house that me and my housemate jokingly named The Single Mums’ Mansion. The blog was pretty defamatory about events and certain people in our lives. I wrote it for an few years and accrued a hefty word count, stopping once Vicki, the other single mum, moved out to live on her own nearby.

Documenting it had been good practise and inspired me to dream about telling our story one day ‘when I was ready’. In truth, I was scared I couldn’t do it justice never having written adult books before. When my fourth children’s title for OUP got rejected, I summoned up the blog, encouraged by my agent, husband, and Vicki.

A lot of it was a hackneyed, clunky, badly written brain dump. But seeded in that was the essence of a good story. When I began, the temptation was to include every single crazy thing that ever happened to us in the mommune. But that doesn’t always make for an enjoyable read! So I cherry picked and condensed events, turning multiple people into composite characters which made the book flow in the right direction instead of constantly pinging off all over the place. 

I have just finished book three in the Single Mums series, the bones of book four are bubbling and several reworked ideas are stashed as back up on my lap top! Since The Single Mums’ Mansion, I’ve had to sleep with a notebook next to the bed. My husband gifted me torch pens for Christmas so that I wasn’t blindly scribbling in the dark when a plot hole or new development nagged me awake at 3 am.

Characters regularly start talking to me as I drift off to sleep, and my phone is over stuffed with notes about plot devices, funny anecdotes, overheard conversations, observations, or words I don’t understand (so many words). The process wasn’t as intense when I was writing children’s books. I think because this is my unrealised dream, my brain has stepped up a gear and opened wide to welcome all experience. I feel like inspiration and plot ideas are everywhere and that I am ‘on all the time’, observing, listening and reading everything I can. Real life is the most authentic inspiration you can find. 

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New book, The Single Mums’ Secret, is out on August 6th.

The Single Mums’ Secrets

Everyone’s got secrets, but not everyone can keep them…

Recently widowed Louise is facing life as a single mum of three. As her sister, Christa, keeps telling her, the tragic accident that claimed the life of her husband was just that: an accident. So why does she feel so guilty…?

At long last, Carl’s winning the battle against his demons; he’s in therapy, he has a new girlfriend, and he loves life in The Mews where he’s surrounded by friends who feel like family. But then he gets some news that will change his life forever…

Christa can’t have kids and she’s okay with that – even though her (ex)boyfriend suddenly isn’t. A one-night stand with her gorgeous new neighbour Carl is the perfect way to move on… until it results in a shocking surprise.

If she’s going to face her new future head-on, Christa must finally deal with a long-buried secret from her past… but she’s going to need all the help she can get. Can the residents of The Mews pull together to make sure everyone gets their happy ending?

 

buy link for Amazon https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B083Y5FRVF

Web site www.janethoggarth.com

https://www.facebook.com/JanetHoggarthAuthor/

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https://twitter.com/Janethauthor

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Janet has worked on a chicken farm, as a bookseller, children’s book editor and DJ with her best friend (under the name of Whitney and Britney). She spent her childhood making comics and filling notebooks with stories. In fact, her old boss at Bloomsbury thought she had such a talent for writing, he asked her to write a joke book, which she did with her brother. And that was when the writing bug bit her. Her first novel for adults, The Single Mums’ Mansion, reached the number one slot on the Amazon fiction charts. The sequel, The Single Mums Move On, came out in July 2019 and book three in series, The Single Mums’ Secrets’, is out on August 6th 2020. Check out Janet’s web site www.janethoggarth.com for more information and TV, radio and press coverage.

Janet lives with her husband in London and draws constant inspiration from her three brilliant children and nutty ginger cat.

 

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Category: Contemporary Women Writers, How To and Tips