Blog Tour: Author Interview with Mhairi Macfarlane

Published February 20, 2017 | By Laura

140917_MHAIRI_MCFARLANE24385a Who’s That Girl is the brilliant novel from Mhairi Mcfarlane. I’m so incredibly excited and honoured to be welcoming her to Novel Kicks today. I’ve reviewed Who’s That Girl below but first, I have a chat with Mhairi about her book, her writing process, who from the fictional world she’d like to hang out with and writing advice I am going to print out and pin to my desk.

Hi Mhairi, it’s lovely to welcome you to Novel Kicks today. Could you tell me a little about your novel, Who’s That Girl?

Lovely to be here! Who’s That Girl? is about Edie Thompson, 36, who is caught kissing the groom on his wedding day. She has her reasons, but no one wants to hear them, and it causes a scandal that sees her carefully managed life in advertising in London fall apart. She she has to go home to Nottingham and face her demons, and her grumpy younger hippy sister, Meg. She gets a temporary assignment ghost writing a celebrity biography and meets a hot new actor, Elliot Owen. Together they help each other tackle fame and infamy.

What’s your writing process like? Are you much of a planner or edit as you go?

I am such an ex journalist in this respect: I edit like fury as I go along, I don’t know how else to be: it has to feel more or less right or I can’t move forward. It’s a good thing in it that I tend to be quite clear in my tone and intent from the start, and I don’t have – my editor gives side eye here – HUGE rewrites later, but it doesn’t make me all that speedy, either. I have to bully myself to move on and not torture myself over it being exactly where I want it and polished to a high shine. Which no first draft ever is, really.

If you mean plot planning, I work to a rough A to Z outline but there’s a fair amount of free styling along the way.

Do you have any writing rituals for example writing in silence, chain drinking coffee?

Oh I hammer through great pails of black coffee definitely. No rituals, I’m not one of those ordered Kon Mari-ish writers with five fresh pens and a 9am on the dot start at a sun lit desk and all that. I can’t cope with music when I write, way too distracting, but oddly I can cope with the bang and clatter of a coffee shop, so if I get cabin fever, I take my laptop to Caffe Nero. Then of course I sit down next to five shrieking students and I start scowling as if they’ve brought their lattes into my library.

What’s your favourite word and why?

Today, it’s lubricious. It even sounds filthy. Loo-Brish-ush. Excellent.

Best and hardest part about being a writer?

Best, there’s so many good things, it’s hard to choose. Getting to make up worlds and live in them every day is like getting to play an adult version of childhood games, and get paid for it. And if you’re having difficulties in life, you’re upset about something, you’ve been through an ordeal – you can use it. It’s material. I mean, don’t use your work as your therapy session to the detriment of the work’s quality, but without a doubt, it can be therapeutic.

Worst: I think it’s the loneliness. I used to love working in a big office and mucking around with colleagues and as much as we all hate Sunday night blues and thought of an early start, Monday morning at work kicks you right out of them. Writers just drift around in their weird moods not seeing anyone all day. You’re a one man band. With a fluffy gonk glitter pen.

Are you working on anything new at the moment?

Book five! So far, it’s my favourite. I say this every time mind you.

How do you motivate yourself to write? Do you have any advice for someone who has writers block?

Well any author has the fairly large motivations of editors, deadlines, and income depending on it, so there’s that 🙂

If you’re temporarily stuck and everything is coming out flat, get away from the screen, go for a walk. Without insomnia and aimless walks, I don’t know how I would ever write anything. However with severe block, it’s not writers block – it’s idea block. Something about your idea isn’t right and like a car with a low supply of something it needs to function, your being on stop is a red light flashing telling you to address it before you can move forward.

In Who’s That Girl, Edie needs to escape for a while. If you needed to disappear for a bit, where would you go?

Hmmm my parents have a lovely holiday cottage in the Yorkshire Dales, probably there, it’s very quiet and there’s no phone coverage. You say ‘disappear’ though, I can’t go 20 minutes without my phone. An hour after arrival you’d find me in the pub opposite, trying to get a signal to send a tweet. To say ‘Disappeared lol.’ Agatha Christie I am not.

Which fictional character would you like to hang out with and why?

Lizzy from Pride & Prejudice. An absolute riot, an ideal bff, and depending on when you turned up, able to tell you what Darcy was like in the sack.

If you were only allowed to own three books, which three would you have and why?

Oh God this is tough, like Desert Island books? You’d have to go for endless re-readability. So Pride & Prejudice or Persuasion, stone cold favourites. Stephen King’s On Writing is an incredible book: part memoir, part advice. I’d never tire of that and it’d spur me on to keep writing. And a Viz annual. In a life with only three books you’d need a laugh.

What advice do you have for new writers?

I said this at an event last year and people seemed to think it struck a chord, so to repeat: give yourself permission. Tell yourself not only can you write a book but it’s going to be a brilliant book and everyone should read it. I think women particularly are assailed by so much self doubt and ‘who am I to think I can do this?’ and the answer is, you have as much right as anyone else. And every single writer out there, including the ones in print who you think were born thinking they could write a novel, they started off like you, having to give themselves in permission. The first person who needs to believe in you, is you. Does that sound trite? Never mind – I’ve said it now. SEND.

My verdict on Who’s That Girl:

Edie did not mean to kiss the groom on his wedding day. As far as she is concerned, he kissed her yet she is the one that becomes the social outcast.

When she is given the opportunity to retreat back to her hometown for a while, she jumps at the chance. It’s here she meets local boy turned actor Elliott Owen. Could it be that in going home, she can restore the faith she needs in herself?

Edie makes one mistake/has one mistake thrust upon her. She ends up being the one who pays for it.

She is an immediately relatable character because we’ve all made a decision that ends up being a bad one. Edie needs a hug that’s for sure. Her father and sister don’t help make her happier either. Overall, she has a lot of unresolved issues.

Margot, the neighbour is fantastic. I loved her. Elliott is a wonderful male lead. I wanted he and Edie to end up together. Whether they do, you’ll have to read it for yourself.

Some characters made me outright shout in frustration at the page.

Mhairi’s style of writing makes it so easy to start to read and not want to stop. Some, no, a lot of moments had me laughing out loud. This book is very funny, sad and heart-warming all at the same time.

The plot has some twists and turns. I assumed it was going to go one way and was surprised when it didn’t (in a good way.)

I find myself hoping that Mhairi revisits these characters at some point. I’d love to know what is next for them.

If you want a laugh and a book that makes you feel good by the end, Who’s That Girl is for you. I loved it.

(Who’s That Girl was released by Harper on 9th February 2017.)