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| Available 1st September Publisher Little, Brown Photos courtesy of publisher |
Today I have the honour and pleasure of having Nina Bell as guest author answering my questions.
Hi Nina, thank you for joining me here today, please tell me a little about yourself.
Like my characters, I’m an Empty Nester. I live with my husband, David, in the pretty and historic market town of Faversham in
Your latest novel, The Empty Nesters, follows the story of Clover and Laura whose children have flown the nest and the changes this brings about. Have you been through this stage personally? How was it for you?
There are definitely elements of our own and our friends’ lives in The Empty Nesters, because it’s a time of huge change and dramatic potential. The two biggest changes were being free of the strait-jacket of the school day and term (lovely) and the shake-up in friendships. Once you have children you’re plunged into a network of co-operative friendships with other families, many of whom do stay friends for life. But we lost touch with a few when we stopped needing to arrange things on a regular basis, and had a serious falling-out with one couple. I don’t think that would have happened if we’d still been interacting on a practical basis over our children. There’s a potential for a shake-up in your marriage, too, of course, because you’re alone with each other for the first time in twenty years. No-one knows how they will react to the change, and it can affect men just as much as women. That’s why it was such a fascinating time to write about. Luckily, David and I discovered we still had lots to say to each other
Where is your favourite place to write?
I write in my office, which was once a tiny dressing room. We made a big desk by bridging a 6ft length of melamine kitchen worktop across the top of two two-drawer filing cabinets. For storage, we lined the room with Billy bookcases from IKEA (style-conscious friends tell me that Billy is ‘iconic’ now!). And I bought an angled writing lamp for £12 off ebay. Fifteen years ago, I developed RSI (repetitive strain injury, involving pains down my neck, right arm and hand) from writing too many articles in a poor position, so I now take great care about how I work, with a proper office chair (available cheaply from any office suppliers or IKEA). You don’t need anything fancy, but it needs to swivel and move so you don’t get fixed in one position. I also have an ergonomic keyboard, a lumbar support cushion, and the pc screen lined up with my eyes. There are a few other factors, too, so every few years, I do an online test to check my position, and worry when I see other writers blog or tweet that they write in bed or on the sofa. Sometimes I tweet or comment ‘be careful’ back!
What books are on your bedside table?
On the To Be Read pile are Jodi Picoult’s Harvesting the Heart, Blue Monday by Nicci French and The Beautiful and the Rare by Cressida Connolly, a biography charting the life of three beautiful, wild sisters, the Garmans, who seduced or inspired many of the leading artists of the early 20th century. There’s also The Love Verb by Jane Green, but I may not be able to read it as my husband has had four separate serious cancers over the last ten years and a good friend has lung cancer now, so it may be a bit close to home
What are you working on next?
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I also write books on interiors and am currently writing Fleamarket Chic (Cico Feb 2012) with the stylist Liz Bauwens. The photographs are taken by her husband, top photographer, Simon Brown, and are delightful. The book is about how to buy and decorate using stuff that you can pick up cheaply at car boot fairs, charity or thrift shops, markets and auctions. My mother had a stall on the
Thank you so much for getting in touch – it’s been really interesting answering these questions.
You can find out more about Nina Bell here
