Interview with Joanna Nadin

Joanna Nadin is well known as a children's author, but she has written some successful books for teenagers. She has wrote My So-Called Life, The Life of Riley and The Meaning of Life - out in August. She has kindly agreed to answer some questions for the website!

How did the ideas for the Rachel Riley series form?
I started out with the intention of writing something very Jacqueline Wilson – i.e. serious, issues-based, worthy. But when I looked back at my own teenage years I realised that so few ‘issues’ seemed to feature large in our lives. And I thought about what books reflected my childhood and the closest model was Adrian Mole.

Does the humour come naturally or is something you work at?
I do find it easy. I have always read and watched a lot of comedy and am hugely influenced by things like Peep Show, Gavin and Stacey, and a wonderful column in the Telegraph (now defunct, due to the sad death of the writer) called Peter Simple.

What's the best thing about being a writer?
There are so many. But most of them come back to the same thing – freedom. To work when you want, to escape to other worlds, to make things happen, or stop them. Freedom. And, I guess, a bit of power!

Do you use your own experiences or do you make everything up from scratch?
I draw massively on my own experience growing up in Saffron Walden. The family is based on my own and my friends (and enemies) all feature too. I also read a lot of newspapers and magazines for the small stuff.

Who is your favourite character out of your novels?
My favourite character to write is James. Having grown up with the real-life version, I have a bottomless pit of absurd stories to draw on. He really is that boffiny and weird (and wonderful). In second place is Mum. People think she’s made up but they clearly have not met Mrs Nadin.

How do you develop your plots and characters? Do you use any set formula?
With other novels, I have used Robert McKee’s ‘Story’ as the basis for the process. It is aimed at screenwriters but the principles still apply and I recommend any writer get the book or go to the seminar. Having said that, his method of cutting out anything that doesn’t move the story forward doesn’t work with Rachel as so much of it is in the random observations, and, of course, nothing much actually happens to her. So I spend a lot of time just shuffling around all the hundreds of anecdotes and asides I want to use into an order that works with what’s actually happened week by week in the news, and with the overarching plot.

How many have you got planned in the Rachel Riley series?
I’m on the fifth now, and there are notes and plot outlines to take her up to her eighteenth birthday.

When you have writers block, how do you get rid of it? Are there any tricks you use to get the inspiration back?
Having been a journalist and government speech and scriptwriter for nearly ten years, I am used to having to get something down on paper quickly, all day, every day. It’s not always good. Sometimes it’s dreadful. But it keeps you used to using words even when the inspiration isn’t there. With novels you can always delete it the next day. And if it really won’t come, then read.

How was the publishing process for you?
I am well aware that I am unusual, and lucky, in that I got an agent and publisher for my first book within months of writing it. My editors at both OUP and Walker are wonderful and, even though I get disheartened when I see red pen, they are always right, and the books are always better for it.

If you had to give a progressing writer one tip, what would it be?
Write every day. Even if it’s just a few lines in a diary. The more you work with words the less daunting it becomes.

Thank you very much for answering our questions.

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Interview with Joanna Nadin