Marmite gore

The protagonist of my first novel is a Dutch girl in London. That POV was so easy to pull off, it’s almost cheating. But I swear that’s where the similarities end.

How come I ended up writing a book about someone who yanks her own teeth out with pliers?

When I presented my first outline for a novel – a tweenage runaway tale – to Fay Weldon and Matt Thorne, they said it was fine. “Go ahead, write it.”

Which wasn’t good enough for me. I didn’t want to be bread and butter, I wanted to be Marmite.

My central theme was pretty obvious: leaving home. So I asked myself: what is it really like to leave your roots behind? And the answer was: it’s like pulling out your own teeth.

Fay laughed until tears appeared when I told her I’d write a convincing story about that instead, and she gave me the nickname Talking Teeth.

For me, being creative is high-risk gambling. That’s why it’s so addictive.