Did you always want to be a writer?
I always said I wanted to be a writer when I was a child, but I think that’s because I loved books so much – I wanted to be part of the making of something I loved. (I also said I wanted to be a librarian – at the time my librarian seemed like the source of all books.) It was only in my twenties that I really began to write seriously – primarily short stories.

What did you read as a child?
I read voraciously – girl stuff like the Laura Ingalls Wilder books, L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables, Beverly Cleary, K.M. Peyton. Also a lot of fantasy – Zylpha Keatley Snyder (The Egypt Game, A Season of Ponies), Madeleine L’Engle (Arm of the Starfish, A Wrinkle in Time), Joan Aiken (The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, etc.), the Dark Is Rising series by Susan Cooper, Anne McCaffrey’s Chronicle of Pern series, the Book of Three series by Lloyd Alexander, Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, and C.S. Lewis’s Narnia series.

How do you get an idea for a book?
Usually it’s something visual that sparks an idea. For The Virgin Blue it was a color; for Girl with a Pearl Earring a painting; for Falling Angels a cemetery and its atmosphere; for The Lady and the Unicorn a set of medieval tapestries. When something strikes me it’s like a spark in my head that ignites, and I know immediately that there’s something there that can make a novel. Usually I don’t write the book immediately. I think of characters and use them to build a story around the spark, then let the spark sit and grow into a little fire, and then a bonfire, and then when the houses start burning I know I must write the book!

Do you plan out the whole book before you write it?
I don’t outline the whole book. I usually know where the story is going, what the big events in the book will be and how it will end, but I keep those points in my head rather than write them down in an outline. When I sit down to write each day I know what points I want to reach in a scene in general, but I don’t work out the specifics until I start writing. A lot of the detail is created as I write. It’s a matter of finding that balance between knowing where you’re heading and allowing for side trips and spontaneity. Too much planning can make a book feel self-conscious and forced; too little can make it ramble and lose focus.

Describe a typical writing day.
I drop my son off at school, then come back home and go up to my study. It has to be quiet – no music or anything – and I have to be alone. I read what I’ve written the previous day before I start the day’s writing. I write longhand, sitting in an armchair that overlooks our small garden. I use a rollerball pen and white printer paper, with a big book on my knee for a desk. I write longhand most of the day, and then type in to the computer what I’ve written at the end of the day. I prefer to write longhand because I find my mind thinks at roughly the same speed as my hand writes, whereas I type too fast. I’m much more careful about what I write longhand than what I type. Also, I edit what I write constantly, and when it’s on paper I can see what corrections I’ve made, whereas on a screen all the messiness of it gets erased so that there’s only the seductively clean words left. I think I edit less when something’s on the computer because of that seductiveness, when editing is usually very much needed. Also, I’ll often make a change and then later change it back – it’s impossible to do that on a computer where your corrections are erased.

I try to write 1000 words per writing day. That’s about three pages, and it works well for me because it’s normally part of a scene but not all of it, so I spend at least two or three days writing a scene. Sometimes I write more than 1000 words but I find I start to get sloppy.

I tend to break up the day with deliberate interruptions – cups of tea, phone calls, email, showers, trips to the gym or for walks. I’m also often interrupted by the other side of the writing life – requests for interviews, readings, school visits, non-fiction commissions, etc. I try to compartmentalize, moving that stuff to non-writing days or to evenings, but it’s not always possible to keep the two apart.

I finish the day when my son gets home from school, though I often think about what I’ve done and long to get back to the writing.

What writing rituals do you have?
I always pin on the wall above the computer screen images that relate to the book I’m working on – Vermeer paintings for Girl, pictures of suffragettes and Victorian children for Falling Angels, medieval tapestries for The Lady and the Unicorn. I also keep a notebook full of notes from research, and I choose the notebook to reflect the book I’m working on. (The Unicorn notebook was dark red velvet; the most recent notebook has an illustration by Blake on it.)

I always write at home. I have tried writing at the library or at a café but it just doesn’t work – it sounds different from what I produce at home. I once wrote a chapter of a book while on an extended visit to the United States and had to throw out the whole thing afterwards because it stuck out from the rest of my writing and sounded too American!

What do you do when you have writer's block?
Writer’s block is for wimps – or men. I have only ever heard men complain of writer’s block. Frankly, I have so little time to write (only during my son’s school hours) that I can’t afford to be blocked. If I reach a sticky point, I do some research, read around the subject – that’s what’s so handy about writing historical novels, there’s always one more source to read.

How do you balance writing and being a mother?
Not easy! It’s tricky juggling work and home, especially when work is at home. Luckily writing is a flexible profession – I decide my schedule, and I can take as long as I need – for the most part. Having a child means that you have to be very disciplined, and take those moments when you can work and do it rather than procrastinate. When I drop my son off at school I have to come right back and go straight to my study to work.

The hardest part is not having so much mental space in which to mull over a novel. Sometimes I think about all that time I had to write before I had my son and realize how easy I had it then without knowing it. Back then I could think about what I was writing anywhere – while I was driving or grocery shopping or just walking down the street. Now I do those things with someone else and have less time alone to think.

I wouldn’t change it, though. This is life, and we all have to do a juggling act.

Are your books or characters autobiographical?
Not deliberately so. I don’t find myself and my life particularly interesting, and I don’t see why anyone else would either.

Having said that, I think all writing is autobiographical, at least indirectly. I may not write about specific experiences and feelings, but my writing reveals my preoccupations. For instance, if you read my books it becomes clear that I am interested in people put in situations outside of their normal lives – like Griet in Vermeer’s house, or everyone in the cemetery in Falling Angels. And I myself live as an American in Britain – an outsider looking in. In that way my books are autobiographical.

Why do you set your novels in the past?
I like writing about the past because I come to it fresh and clean. I feel more comfortable analyzing it and deciding what is important than I do about the present. Also, I live this contemporary life every day – I don’t feel the need to write about it too. I would rather write about something that I don’t know and want to learn about. I’m not an historian and so when I choose a time to write about – 17th-century Holland, early 20th-century England, 15th-century France – I know nothing about it and so have no preconceptions or prejudices. I can be more objective. I learn a lot too, which keeps my mind active. And I am forced to be careful with the kind of language I use – I try to strip it of 21st-century usage. The few times (mostly in short stories, and a bit in my first novel The Virgin Blue) I’ve written about contemporary life I become sloppy with language and I don’t have much objectivity about the world around me.

What kind of research do you do for your books?
It depends on the subject matter and time period. I do read a lot of books about the period in which the book is set, and I always visit the place where it’s set. I try to find other ways of getting to know a subject too. Girl with a Pearl Earring was particularly fun to research because it was visual rather than text-based. Lots of Dutch paintings from that time concern scenes from everyday life, and I learned a lot just looking at them, which is more fun than reading dusty historical tomes. I try to get hands-on experience as well. For Girl I took a painting class to get a feel for paint. For Falling Angels I did volunteer work in the cemetery where the book is set. For The Lady and the Unicorn, about a set of medieval tapestries, I visited a weaver’s workshop that is recreating tapestries using medieval techniques.

Which is your favorite of your books?
That is like asking a mother which of her children she loves the most! It’s impossible to answer. I like my books for different reasons, and there are some things I don’t like about each of them too!

You studied for an MA in creative writing. How useful was it for you to attend such a course? Can writing be taught?
People often seem to think that writers should just be able to do it naturally, without being taught. Why don’t people say this about musicians, or painters, or sculptors? All of us sang at some point when we were children, but no one would suggest that a professional singer doesn’t need to train since they already know how to sing! I should think the same would apply to writers, yet people somehow expect writers to write well instinctively.

Having said that, I think a creative writing course can help some people but not others. For me it was most useful in carving out a space in my life in which to try and see if I could write full-time. Before the course I’d always tried to fit in writing at the end of the day after work, but on the course I had all day every day to write. It also helped to have deadlines and a critical audience. That may not work for everyone. I think too that you can only learn so much in a class – in the end the inspiration’s got to be there. It’s like the piano – if you set aside two hours a day to practice, you will certainly get better, to a point. But you won’t necessarily become a concert pianist without that spark already inside you.

Do you consider yourself a feminist writer?
I am not very fond of labels – “feminist writer,” “historical novelist” etc. pigeonhole me and sound preachy, turning off readers. I called myself a feminist when I was 19, but I think the term is too exclusive to be meaningful. Certainly I tend to write about women – I am a woman too and it’s easier. And because I write about the past, my women characters are usually struggling in circumstances that limit them – that’s what life was like for most women until relatively recently. If that’s considered feminist writing, so be it. I just say I am a woman who writes and leave it at that.

What advice can you give to writers starting out?
Don’t write about what you know – write about what you’re interested in. Don’t write about yourself – you aren’t as interesting as you think! There’s a whole world out there to explore. Be very critical – your writing can always be improved. Revise, then revise again, and again.

How do you go about getting a book published?
These days it seems to be harder and harder even to get manuscripts read, much less published. So many (too many) books are published every year, and it seems everyone is writing a book. Perhaps we should all be reading more and writing less!

I do not feel I’m in a very good position to give advice about getting a book published. Myself, I simply got lucky, signing on with a young, inexperienced agent who turned out to be a gem and is now top of his field. However, having been asked this question so often, I have developed a few tips:
- Before you send your manuscript out to an agent or publisher, have someone read it whose opinion you trust and who gives good advice. You want agents and publishers to see the best you can do, and you won’t know if your book works until someone other than you reads it. Accept their advice gratefully and respectfully – they are your reader and deserve to be listened to. Then revise.

- Don’t send your manuscript directly to a publisher. Books are rarely chosen from this “slush pile,” as it’s called, and you’re wasting your time. Many publishers are so inundated with unsolicited manuscripts that they’ve abolished slush piles.

- Look for an agent. They know the tastes of editors and can send your manuscript to the appropriate person, making the whole process less random and time-consuming. They are worth the percentage they take from you, as they negotiate better deals for you and sort out foreign rights (do you have any idea which Czech publisher to send your book to? Well, they do!), serialization rights, tv/film rights. Some of them also provide invaluable editorial input that can help make your decent book into a great one publishers will want to buy.

The trouble is, rumor has it agents are also abolishing slush piles. That seems ludicrous to me, as how will they find clients otherwise? Send them your manuscript anyway. But do some research first so that you send it to the right person rather than to a random name. Go to your local library and ask the librarian for the agents directory appropriate to your country. (Use your librarian. They are wonderful resources. If I weren’t a writer I would become a librarian.) Look for agents who specialize in the kind of book you have written (e.g. romance, thriller, literary fiction, memoir). Then call that agency and ask the receptionist if there are any new agents there who are looking for clients in that genre. Send a letter, synopsis, and 30 sample pages to that new agent. Established agents usually have too many clients and are not looking for unknown writers to build up – you’re likely to have more luck with a new, hungry agent.

Please don’t send me your manuscript – I am sympathetic but I have a hard enough time reading the books I need for my research, and there are already piles of books by my bed and many unread New Yorkers lying around the house.

Good luck!

Which living author do you most admire and why?
I admire Margaret Atwood a lot. Her writing is consistently fine, she tackles a wide range of subjects, and she’s managed to avoid the cult of the author. I know her work, but I don’t know much about her, and I respect her for keeping so private. I would like to have written Alias Grace, because it is a beautifully written historical novel that manages to get away with not giving anything away.

What writers do you like to read?
I usually read contemporary novels, with a sprinkling of classics to fill in the gaps in my knowledge. It’s hard to name specific writers. I tend to read a book by a writer and love it, but not necessarily then read everything they’ve written. But I would say I will always read a new book by Margaret Atwood, Toni Morrison, Lorrie Moore, Rose Tremain, and Sarah Waters.