Helen2014
Wow! Thank you Gransnet for my copy of this book. I'm totally hooked (as so many others seem to be) and it is a real page turner. I always give my books to my doctor's surgery when I've read them as they sell them for a pound for charity.
Anyway, my question is, how much (if any) of the book is taken from your own life and how much is imagination/research? I heard Kathy Letts once say that she had cannibalised her own life in writing her novels. If characters or stories come from you own life, does that make it difficult, knowing that total strangers (your readers) are glimpsing your own intimate thoughts and feelings?
I never use real events from people I know, or from my own life, but I'm sure there is lots that seeps in there through my subconscious. Also, writers are definitely magpies - we're constantly storing and filtering events, snippets of dialogues, descriptions, things that happen around us, sometimes without even realising it. All that good stuff finds its way into writing.