RS Pateman

Published August 14, 2013 | By Laura

RS Pateman’s debut novel, The Second Life of Amy Archer was released by Orion in July 2013. We caught up with Rob to chat about his writing day, his ideal dinner guests and what ability he’d like to have….

Can you tell us about your book, The Second Life of Amy Archer and what was it about the idea that interested you?

Amy Archer is a psychological thriller about a mother’s search for the truth about her ten year old daughter Amy, who vanished from a nearby playground. She hasn’t been seen since. No body has ever been found. But on the tenth anniversary of Amy’s disappearance, a girl turns up on Beth’s doorstep – she looks like Amy, knows things only Amy could – and yet she’s still only ten years old. Esme claims to be Amy reincarnated and Beth’s sanity is pushed to the limit as she tries to work out if she’s the victim of an elaborate scam – or if her daughter has miraculously returned. I’m fascinated by the things people believe (and why they believe them) and by the power of faith, memory and hope. What is incontrovertible truth to one person, is total tosh to another. In the grey area in between, there’s a lot of fun to be had.

What’s your writing day like?

I’m an early bird. I try to be up and at my desk by 5.30 or 6.00am (easier in the summer than the winter of course!). I’ll write for a couple of hours and then go for a bike ride, swim or walk. Then it’s breakfast and catching up on emails, Twitter and so on, before I go back to work until lunchtime. I’ll get another hour or so in after lunch and stop around 3.30pm. I aim for 2,000 words a day – and usually I manage that. I’m pretty disciplined but sometimes it’s just not happening so I’ll do something else and come back the next day. The trick is to know the difference between those days when it’s just not happening and when I just don’t feel like making it happen.

Do you plan and do you edit as you go or once you’ve got a first draft?

I don’t plan at all. I just jump off and see what happens. Often I don’t know what’s happening from one paragraph to the next. Maybe that shows! Hopefully, my random approach makes the book as interesting for me to write as it is for others to read. It helps keep it fresh. It also drives me mad as it causes a lot of u-turns, plot changes and sudden a-ha! moments – all of which mean a lot of rewriting. I don’t do the rewrites as I go unless it is a particularly knotty problem that has to be resolved before I can move on. Usually I just leave little notes in the text in bold – ‘sort this’, ‘insert that’, ‘more??’. The aim is to keep moving as for me it’s all about momentum. If I stop and think too much I might not start again. Which is why I don’t plan. I spent many years thinking about writing instead of actually doing it; when I eventually decided to give writing a book a go, I tried to plan it and tied myself in knots before I’d even started. Editing takes place once I’ve got a first draft. A friend of mine, Sarah Evans, reads a couple of chapters at a time as I write them and then gives her feedback. Her comments and insights are always incredibly useful; they flag up things I need to think about/work on in the following chapters but the notes on the chapters she’s already seen aren’t implemented until the next draft. Again, it’s all about moving forward.

Do you get writers block and if so, how do you combat it?

There are times when I don’t feel like writing and others when I’m just too terrified to start; perhaps the latter is writer’s block. If so, then – luckily – I haven’t had it for a while. Writing a book is a daunting prospect, so when I was struggling some years ago, it helped to tell myself I only had to write one line or for a minute – then I could walk away from it. Honouring this bargain with myself took the fear out of the process. Eventually one sentence became two. A minute became five. Bit by bit, the sentences became paragraphs. Then chapters. If inspiration is short, a quick visit to my local history archive always yields something; the record cards alone have a potential character name, a location. Then there’s the documents, books and photos themselves. It’s a real treasure trove of possibilities. Of ideas. Some of them might have wings.

Which book has made the most impact on you?

I’ve enjoyed – and been affected and influenced by many books of course, but the first book I remember really making an impression on me was The Man Who Didn’t Wash his Dishes by Phyllis Krasilovsky. I found it in Romford library when I was about 6 or so. I was completely fascinated by it and took it out time after time. It’s a very simple story about a man who doesn’t do his washing up for weeks until eventually he can’t get into the house. I honestly don’t know why it made such an impact on me but, from the reviews on Goodreads, it seems I wasn’t alone. It’s a story about not procrastinating, so it’s curious that I didn’t learn the lesson – the idea for Amy Archer sat in a drawer for twenty years before I started to write it. Perhaps it’s not surprising that the book plays a part in Amy Archer too.

Which fictional character would you like to meet?

Harvey the rabbit from the play/film of the same name by Mary Chase.

If you could have anyone to dinner, which guests would you have?

I prefer small, intimate meals for 2-3 people instead of a long table with plenty of settings, so I’d like to have several dinners with just a couple of guests. I’m not sure in what combination I’d invite them, but my guests would include: tennis champ Pam Shriver, Alan Bennett, Eddie Izzard, Cathy Burke, Sitting Bull, Jodie Foster, Kate Bush.

If you could have an ability, which one would you have?

To be able to capture the sentences as I hear them in my head – but which mysteriously appear on my computer screen as something quite different. Failing that, I’d like to be able to sing (ideally like Ella Fitzgerald, but I appreciate that voice, however fantastic, might sound a bit weird coming from a man).

Five tips for writers.

Write.

Show up at the computer/page every day. Keep going. It’s all about momentum.

Edit. Your work is worth polishing. Several times.

Share. Join a writing group. Getting feedback from other writers is as useful as giving it. And it toughens you up for receiving the criticism that will come your way when you’re published.

Never give up. It took ten years – and three other complete novels – before Amy Archer finally got me a book deal.

For more information on RS Pateman, visit his website.

Follow him on Twitter.

The Second Life of Amy Archer is our book club read this month. Click here to go over to Book Corner.