A prolific author with 13 bestselling titles, Catherine Alliott has built a reputation as the British queen of chick lit. While Alliott always had an interest in writing, it wasn’t a path she pursued until, discovered scribbling away at her first novel under her desk at her copywriting office job, she was unceremoniously given the sack. But as she tells CAMILLA DAVIES, it turned out to be a blessing in disguise…
Newly unemployed, when Catherine Alliott was made redundant from her copyrighting job in advertising, she was initially upset. She says: “I think I was a bit peeved, actually! Looking back I thought ‘right, I’ll show them.’ I saw it as a way to prove to myself I could do something creative. I was working in a creative industry anyway, so writing a book seemed even better at the time.” But the bonus was Alliott, whose husband works as a barrister, suddenly found the time to devote to her hobby – writing novels. “Then I had my first baby who slept about 4 hours a day so I had plenty of time in which I couldn’t leave the house,” she says, “So I wrote whilst he slept, which was ideal really. It worked rather well – though later when I had three children under 4 I didn’t have so much time on my hands! I think if you’re trying to hold down a day job and write at the same time it’s jolly difficult.” That’s not to say she’s encourage aspiring authors to quit the day job though… “No, I think my advice would be to do a bit of writing a day, not leave it for weeks at a time and then have another go; to try and keep a momentum going and maybe do a bit in the evening. It’s really corny but do be true to what you know, as if you write about things you don’t know it doesn’t come across as overly truthful. And if you think you’re in danger of writing a bit of purple prose and banging on too much then throw in a joke – that’s what I tend to do.” Clearly one to practice what she preaches, Alliott’s own novelistic ideas are very much dictated by her day to day life. “I used to write about girls in flats when I was younger though I can’t write about that anymore because I don’t know anything about it! So I write about middle aged women living in country houses and all the shenanigans that go on with their friends, neighbours, teenage children, animals, grandparents … my books are very much character led so I don’t sit down and plan out a plot with a structure, rather I start with my main character and usually write in the first person, so that character dictates the book in a way.” Since the early nineties when she first started out, Alliott’s writing style has undergone some changes. “I haven’t consciously evolved it but I can’t help thinking 20 years is a long time and actually when I look back at old books I find them full of exclamation marks which I don’t think I use quite so much anymore. I think that it was probably a lighter style when I was younger and as you get older you get slightly more serious – so perhaps it’s evolved in that way a little.” Not tempted to dip her toes into other literary genres – “only because I wouldn’t know where to begin – I don’t really think about the genre I’m writing in, I just write what becomes apparent and that’s the best way of explaining it” – she spends her spare time riding horses, enjoying a rural Hertfordshire lifestyle. You’d think that for someone who spends her time inventing new worlds, it would be hard to find time to read herself. However this writer’s preferred authors are an eclectic mix. “My children all read so we’ll pick up each other’s books. At the moment I’m reading Priscilla by Nicholas Shakespeare. I’ve just finished Elizabeth Jane Howard’s fifth chronicle of the Cazalet family and I love Anne Tyler’s novel, so all sorts.” My Husband Next Door by Catherine Alliott will be published in Penguin paperback on 3rd July 2014, priced £7.99. To be featured on Author Spot go to Write for Us.
