Interview: Katharina Marcus
Katharina
Marcus is a brilliant YA author. I first came across her when I read (and
reviewed) her first book, Eleanor
McGraw, a Pony Named Mouse and a Boy Called Fire. Her Boys
Don’t Ride blew me away, and was
my book of last year (in case you’re wondering, there won’t be an equestrian
fiction review this year as I simply haven’t read enough to be able to
comment). There are some great perks to working as an editor, one of which is
working on books that you love, and earlier this year I worked on Katharina’s
latest, The Boy with the Amber Eyes. It’s
the sequel to Eleanor McGraw, and I
am biased, but it is a great read. I’ve done links below the interview if you’d
like to try any of the books.
I
was delighted when Katharina agreed to an interview. So, over to Katharina...
JB: Why do you write?
KM: Honestly?
I have no idea. It’s a stupid thing to do. It doesn’t make any money; it makes
you psychologically unavailable to your children, husband and ponies; it makes
you pace up and down in your kitchen; it is boring, annoying, painful and often
feels like a complete waste of time. But I do it anyway. And for some
unfathomable reason I’m glad I do.
JB: Do you plot everything carefully, or
launch in and see what happens?
KM: Hm. Neither,
really. Plans are there to divert from. And it isn’t the same process with
every piece.
With
Eleanor McGraw I had her voice, the character of Blueberry Mouse [the pony –
Mouse – of the title] and only the vaguest idea for a story yet a very strong
image for an ending. I did write out a rudimentary synopsis which I found a little
while ago. It had very little to do with the finished product but the ending is
still the original ending. There was a distinct moment in the process when the
story took a completely different turn from what I had originally planned. I
remember coming down to dinner one night and saying to my husband: “Oh dear,
this has just gone into a direction I really wasn’t expecting.” The thing is,
that particular turn became the most integral part of the story and I was
already half way through! Pike just dropped this bombshell on me and I thought,
“Great, cheers mate, you just made this book totally unpalatable to most
people.” But that was his story, so I wrote it. I often feel like I am at the
mercy of my characters, to be honest. It’s a funny relationship I have with the
people in my head – I’m as much at their mercy as they are at mine. Thankfully
I was wrong: people haven’t found it unpalatable. I should have given them more
credit.
With Boys
Don’t Ride, on the other hand, there wasn’t a plan at all. I’d just met a
girl through work who inspired the character of Liberty and I started writing
one rainy morning and it turned into this beautiful, gentle piece that I still
can’t believe came from my pen.
The Boy
with the Amber Eyes, well, that particular process was chaos theory at its
finest but, like with Eleanor McGraw,
I did have a very strong sense of what happens in the end. I wrote the ‘John’s
study’ scene almost first. But that didn’t stop certain people from turning up
and all sorts of other things from happening until that part of the story
became just one element. The friendship aspect became much more important. Let
me put it this way: until about two days before I sent it to you for editing,
the title was Fire & Ash, hence
the [reason that was the] dedication.
JB: How do you fit writing into your life?
KM: With
great difficulty.
Real ponies, real children and the real work
that feeds them and pays for the farrier and/or new pairs of Converse always
have to come before imaginary people – often to the chagrin of said fictitious
folk. One of the characters in The Boy
with the Amber Eyes got so annoyed with me for having been left crying by a
water trough for months she started appearing my dreams, pressing me to get a
move on.
What does help is that I go through phases of
insomnia. It’s one of the characteristics Pike and I share. So when I’m in one
of my sleepless cycles I get a lot of writing done; usually between 4am and
7am, before I get the kids up and ready for school. When the house is quiet and
reality hasn’t had a chance to infringe upon my imagination yet.
By and large it all greatly depends on what
else is happening in my life on the work front. Because I am mostly self
employed and client work tends to change rhythm frequently, plus in many cases
is entirely weather dependent, I might have a couple of months when I have so
little work on I can get half a novel written but then afterwards writing might
not get a look in for half a year, as was the case when the water trough
incident occurred. It’s useful that I am capable of holding a thought almost
indefinitely. So, usually, once I get back to the story, I can slip straight
back in. I pin that particular ability on my wasted youth as a barfly - holding
a singular conversation over numerous nights while my best friend had to keep
flitting off to serve people.
JB: Can you tell me about your own horses?
How much do they inform what happens in your books?
KM: You’ll
find my two geldings’ alter egos in Boys
Don’t Ride (the ebook of which is still free by the way, pretty much
everywhere now – Amazon, ibooks, Barnes & Noble, Kobo and Smashwords) as
the characters of Oliver and Titch.
Blueberry Mouse, the pony who runs Hawthorne
Yard in Eleanor McGraw and The Boy with the Amber Eyes, is very
much an amalgamation of my two mares. The little one lent Blueberry her height,
colouring, paces and ridability. The bigger one, also known as the equine love
of my life, gave the fictitious pony her wisdom, sociability, kindness and
humour.
In fairness though, I think all the horses I
have ever met, ridden or worked with have informed my books. That’s especially
true for The Boy with the Amber Eyes.
I don’t own a stallion but I’ve worked with stallions and without those
experiences I couldn’t have written Inigo. By the same token, I don’t own a
17hh Grand Prix Warmblood either (I wish) but I was lucky enough be allowed to
ride one at one point. Again, without that experience certain elements in The Boy with the Amber Eyes wouldn’t
have been written. You could say that client horses are the butter to the bread
provided by my own four.
My own four keep me humble, amused, on my toes
and, above all, grounded. What I come home to is a bunch of woolly, mud-caked
Natives, all of whom are under 14.2hh. I’m lucky because at the grand height of
5ft1½ I never had to grow out of ponies.
I like horses and they are generally easier to work with but I infinitely prefer
ponies. Occasionally I look at my little herd and think, “I should get a bigger
one, buy a proper horse.” Usually this is preceded either by one of my taller
riding relatives or friends coming to stay and having to pleat their legs
around a pony’s belly, or by an especially wonderful ride on someone else’s
horse. But at the end of the day, I don’t have the space in my paddock, the
scope in my finances or the time in my schedule to add another, big or small,
and I would never ever swap any of my existing crowd.
JB: Why do you write about horses, and not,
say, crime fiction?
KM: Who
says I don’t write crime fiction? In actual fact, the story I tentatively started
working on last week could be called a psychological thriller. It does have a
horse in it, right from the start even, but if I stick with that particular
project I don’t think the animals will be as important as they are around
Hawthorne Cottage, or for Liberty and Tull. That said, I tend to get bored if
there aren’t horses to write. I’ve been writing for a very long time and in all
sorts of guises but I’ve found that only two things seem to make me see a
project through to completion: if it is either a commissioned job or if it has
a horse in it. I have a drawer full of half finished sci-fi and non-horsey
contemporary stories but I simply lose interest if there isn’t a muck heap in
sight.
JB: What’s the best piece of advice you’ve
been given about writing?
KM: Stop moaning and get on with it.
~ 0 ~
If you
want to try Katharina’s work for free, Boys
Don’t Ride is available as a free download all over the place (I’ve linked
to Amazon, but it’s available on ibooks, Barnes & Noble, Kobo and Smashwords
too). It’s £3.50 as a paperback. Eleanor
McGraw is £5.99 as a paperback, and £1.60 as a Kindle edition. The Boy with the Amber Eyes is £7.99 asa paperback, and £1.60 as a Kindle edition.
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