My wife, H, has multiple shelves of books, an appetite for good stories, and a creative streak in writing. I was curious how these passions relate and what she has learned in both her reading and writing. She sits down with me at her favourite spot for reading – on a corner-couch, which overlooks the front garden.
Her interest in books “came a bit later on in life.” She didn’t get into reading much as a child, even when her homeschool program made her open up “proper novels or novelettes”. However, after her mum suggested crime-fiction writer, Agatha Christie, H learnt to take pleasure in reading.
Not content to merely read fiction, H took it upon herself to write about 70 short stories & draft two novels. I asked her what she think goes into making a good read.
“Planning. (She laughs.) I think you need a good story. You need well-written characters, good conflict. As a writer, I don’t know if I’ve really encapsulated those aspects very well, but it’s something that, in a sense, I’ve tried to do.”
More often that not, she has incorporated truths from the Holy Bible, focusing on one aspect of morality and asking how she might make it teachable or relatable, or “completely wild and out there”. She gives the example of one of her characters who wants to run from God. “No matter where he goes – he even goes to different planets – and it’s like God still finds him there, all the way out on Pluto. Ignoring the fact that there’s no way he’d be able to survive out there. But the point is, he could go anywhere, but he couldn’t escape God’s presence. God always was going to find him.”
H finds writing short-stories works well for her, since she “can get passionate about a particular storyline…I can write something over a few days, and then perfect it a little bit before moving on to the next thing.” And novel-writing holds greater challenges in maintaining “enthusiasm, and memory of what you’ve written and where you’re planning to go”. But she enjoys both.
So what gets H creative?
She gets inspiration from other writers, both on page and on screen. And while she likes fantasy stories and the idea of writing them, she would struggle with “instilling moral or biblical principles” into her own versions. My wife takes her hat off to J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, both believers and both finding ways to write mythic tales. She even imagines stories based off an “impactful picture of a person” in artwork, and is keen to try writing something “based solely off just a portrait that I’ve seen”.
When I reconnected with H five years ago, I found out she was subscribed to a UK-based magazine called ‘Writer’s Forum’. It folded after a publisher takeover in ’23, but I was keen to hear what H got out of it while it lasted.
“Well, they had a lot of different sections. There were definitely people that would write articles on ways to improve your writing, different exercises you could try. Writer’s Forum actually contained a monthly calendar, where they’d give you a daily challenge. Sometimes they’d just give you a picture of some really random stuff, and you just had to write about the picture. Other times they’d give you a word, and you had to write a poem using that word or variables of that word.”
Another section gave writing prompts through different categories. “So the idea was that you’d roll the dice, and through each row or column…that would tell you what you were to incorporate into a story.”
She really liked one spot called First Draft; it was where readers (mostly) submitted the first paragraph from a book, in which 20 errors had been added. H says, “So for me, that was probably one of my favourite things, just going through that and actually testing how well I could pick up on grammatical errors. It was always really nice if I got 18 out of 20.”
Writer’s Forum also interviewed writers, and, “the writer would actually talk you through what their process is, what environment helps get them comfortable. Every writer has their own little place, which is their writing zone.”
Book clubs can be a good place to meet people and read and discuss interesting publications. H has been part of two. One was of my sister’s making.
H reflects, “I definitely got a lot of value and enjoyment out of [her] book club. For me at that stage in life, it was just good to get out of the house, and mix with some common-sense people. Some of the books we read were Christian-themed or self-help books, books that challenge different aspects of your life, with a few non-Christian fictional books thrown in. So that was just a really nice, relaxed, low-key get-together.”
We now attend one at a library, where we get to meet with a variety of locals. H likes “listening to other people’s opinions and stories that they have to share. Even if it’s got anything to do with the book we’ve read or not, it’s just really fascinating hearing from other people, getting their perspectives.” She does feel a lot of the selections are modern, within 20 years, and don’t stand up to earlier writings. Though she remains hopeful as “there’s been a few standouts that have been really good.”
So what would H say are her go-to author recommendations?
Kate Morton: H has been obsessed for a while. Morton has written seven books in the last 20 years. Well crafted stories. They have elements of tragedy, but also “positive hope for people in the present”. Every story is unique.
Jane Austen: Her books are “gems from the time period”. Austen in her lifetime wasn’t able to appreciate how much people valued her writings as they “weren’t actually published under her name because women authors were frowned upon.”
C.S. Lewis: “Narnian Chronicles in particular”.
Agatha Christie: “How could I forget? My goodness. Queen of fiction.” She has read most of her Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple books, only two of which she personally wouldn’t recommend, ‘Halloween Party’ and ‘Elephants Can Remember’. “The rest are really good.”
Another thing I learnt early on about H was her own annual ritual, “Read a Book Day”. Curious to know more, I asked what led to it’s creation and what it looks like.
“Read a Book Day initially started in 2011, I think. I had about a week before Christmas, I’d gone to Koorong (Christian bookstore) and bought a book by one of my then, favourite authors, which was a romance novel. I got home, and I was super keen to read it, and then I thought, “Ugh.” Like, I was going to have work on the Monday. And I was like, “I don’t want to be in the middle of this and have to go to work.”
“I was living by myself at that stage, and I don’t do Christmas. So it was like, “Well, I’m not going to be going anywhere on Christmas Day. So what I’ll do is I’ll just get through the next week of work, and then I will set aside Christmas Day, and I will just read this book.” I ended up being gifted some chocolates by one of the truck drivers at work. So for Christmas Day, I had a nice little box of chocolates, sat down, ate and read my book, which didn’t actually thrill me as much as I’d hoped it would, but anyway. I had that experience.”
After a three-year gap, she went back to that idea, and remembered how well it went and decided to make it “an annual thing”.
“I would pick a book from an author that I hadn’t read before. It could be an author that I had read some of their books. It just had to be a book that I specifically hadn’t read. Over the years, depending on where I’ve been working, I’ve either been gifted chocolates and wine or both. And so it’s kind of like I’ve always been blessed with these treats, and then I’m just left alone on the day and can just sink my teeth into a book and not feel obligated to do anything else. It’s really just a treat day for myself. Yeah, and it’s a day that I really look forward to.”
I thanked her for sharing. H enjoyed the questions.
