MORE FROM MAGGIE O'FARRELL

My old pal - though she doesn't know it - Maggie O'Farrell is interviewed in the Irish Times today. Touching on themes I brought up when I blogged about her here. Including the un-named interviewer trying to claim her as Irish.

A couple of quotes:
'O’Farrell says that having children has had a beneficial effect on her work. “With young children, you write when you have half an hour. Time at my desk feels like an indulgence, a treat. I find the whole process of writing hugely enjoyable. It’s satisfying, like a puzzle that needs to be solved.'

'“Children are good editors. I don’t mean they get out the red pen, just that I have less time to follow up every whim, and I cut less from my books than I used to.”'

Maggie's three tips for aspiring novelists are included at the end of the interview. They are:

Read. Keep reading. Don’t stop. And don’t worry too much about starting your novel at the beginning. A blank page can be terrifying, and nothing will give you writer’s block faster.

Start in the middle, or wherever you want. Build up a solid word count – keep going, and don’t look back. It gives you something to work with.

Take advice. Give the manuscript to as many people as you can. You might not always like what you hear, but you need someone to be honest.

I love the first two tips. Not sure about that last one - unless the people you give it to are writers, professionals in the book world or very good, critical readers, you might end up with some pretty useless advice...just saying...

MOTHER-WRITERS: MAGGIE O'FARRELL

Maggie O'Farrell with her daughter Iris
(Photograph: Graham Turner for The Guardian)

Recent Costa-winner Maggie O'Farrell was born in Derry but if she considers herself Scottish, why are we trying to claim her? It's just another irritating national tic - trying to find the Irish angle to everything. President Obama's ancestors were from Moneygall in Offaly, dontchaknow...

Anyway, I enjoyed the profile of Maggie O'Farrell in the Sunday Times where she is reported to have said the wonderful line: 'Motherhood is a great editor.' With less time to write after the birth of her second child (empathise, empathise) she now 'devotes herself only to those ideas she believes are good.' Nice one, Mags. It's just what happens, isn't it? Everything gets madly condensed with kids around so you zone in on what matters in the writing.

When I complain that I haven't enough time to write, people keep saying to me, 'Stop wishing your kids' lives away'. I'm not wishing their lives away! I just want more time to write. There are 168 hours in a week. I can only afford childcare for 10 of those. So I have 10 small hours a week to write. The other 158 are pretty much devoted to my kids and sleep.

The odd thing is, the people who've said this to me are often writers and mothers too. But I'm on to them: none of them wrote when they had small children. So there's the difference. What irritates me is that they seem to resent that I am even trying to write with kids around me and, worse, that I'm succeeding. But worse again I have the audacity to want more time. Who do I think I am??!! The implication is that by wanting more writing hours I am somehow neglecting my children. Hmmm.

Most (all?) of my friends either have no kids or grown-up kids. I think I need a writer friend in the same boat as me, so we can bolster each other up when we feel a bit hard done by time-wise, and just for general writerly support.

But back to Maggie. She says that Cyril Connolly's dictum about the pram in the hall being the enemy of art (which I wrote about here) is 'offensive and misogynistic' and that some people take a gleeful pleasure in taunting female artists 'for the hubris of having children and attempting to have a creative life'. Here, here, Maggie.

In another interview when asked what she most enjoys about writing, she says, 'I love the solitude and the secrecy of it - as well as the escapism.' Ditto!!

Both Maggie and I suffered secondary infertility but went on to have little girls in 2009. And, like me, she is a vegetarian. Unlike me, she swims every day and doesn't drink alcohol or tea, but I think me and Maggie could be good pals. I wonder if she's in the market for a fellow mother-writer friend? Yes, probably not...