Ever
since I was three year’s old I’ve been reading everything I can lay my hands
on. It’s been my passion, my solace, my comfort. I used to look forward to
Wednesday nights which were the time that my mother would take me, and any of
my siblings who wanted to go – so usually just me, to the library.
It
would be wonderful, thrilling, and risky. I was only able to take three books
out each week, and only one of those could get a free pass on fees. If I picked
the wrong one I would be stuck with it for a whole week. Not only stuck with
it, but I’d have to read a bad book cover to cover because otherwise I’d have
to do something else, and that was not really what I was after. I did go
outside, and played outside, and watched TV like any normal kid, but that was
just stuff you filled in time with until you could read again.
Throughout
my childhood there was never anything I wanted to do but become a writer – it
seemed the only natural progression to my life. Then I crawled inside a bottle
for fourteen years, and when I popped back out I was working in an office job
in a travel agency, my mother was dead, and I was clueless as to how I was
meant to get my life back on track.
About
the time I started to seriously study the craft of writing, something that used
to come naturally to me but had grown incredibly hard through lack of use, I
also had a change in career path into insurance (not as big a change as it
might seem as it was really from one office job to another with a brighter
future and better career path.) I started to challenge myself in my
professional life, and my personal life, so instead of focussing in on writing
I instead tried out a range of different hobbies, followed up on fleeting
interests, tried to learn to play the saxophone which my partner was glad was a
short-lived affair, and generally did all of the things I should’ve spent my
teens and twenties doing but hadn’t.
But
of course I always circled back to writing. Reading and writing. My passion
remains the same but instead of skimming widely across any and all genres I’ve
narrowed down and done a deep-dive into crime fiction which has been my
favourite for over a decade now.
ON BALANCING LIFE AND WRITING
I also write a daily blog post between
8.00 and 9.00pm so I’m not just concentrating on crime writing. It also makes
sure that I’m writing (almost) every day even when I’m not actively working on
a manuscript.
What I find more difficult is setting
aside the time for marketing rather than writing. I’m still new to that side so
I tend to do it at the weekend when I don’t feel rushed. Then I have the time
to read through ideas (luckily a lot of indie writers are out there going
through the same thing so there’s a lot of how-to how-not-to guides to wade
through) and start to work out how to put them into practice. If I need to
carry something through from the weekend I try to make sure that I get my
word-count in the morning so I’m not flat out from the moment I get home!
There’s also the work-creep that tends
to take over when I’m between drafts. I can’t pick up a first draft as soon as
it’s finished to rewrite it into a second, but whenever I put a manuscript
aside I also find it difficult to pick it back up. There are a lot of
unfinished novels in my trunk due to this habit. However, if I set a firm
appointment for a manuscript assessment etc it encourages me to get my A into
G.
Having no children or pets or hobbies
helps greatly with my combining. I recommend that no one clutter their lives up
with these things. If you’re too late to take my advice I don’t envy you –
you’ll have to put aside your two hours of dedicated television watching to get
everything done, and then what’s the point of living, eh?
ABOUT THE BOOK
As the victim support officer assigned to her
case, Christine Emmett puts aside her own problems as she tries to guide Rena
through the maelstrom of her daughter’s disappearance.
A task made harder by an ex-husband desperate
for control; a paedophile on early-release in the community; and a psychic who
knows more than seems possible.
And intertwined throughout, the stories of six
women; six daughters lost.
AN EXCERPT
On the fifteenth of March 2007 I
came home after a short day’s work, and Emma wasn’t there. Jacob was, but he
was unconscious on the bed and from the smell of him he hadn’t got to that
state accidentally.
There were the police asking endless
questions. There was the media attention and my daughter’s photo pasted across
the front page of a lot of newspapers. She didn’t look anything like those
photos. She was living, breathing, full of motion and life and energy. She
would snuggle in next to me on a weekend morning and run a length of my hair
through her pudgy wee hands and exclaim in admiration ‘Mummy. You’re so
pretty.’
I thought that not knowing was the
worst thing I could ever endure. Not knowing if she was in trouble or needing
my help or in pain. I worried that she’d been taken by someone that would hurt
her, then I worried that she’d been taken by someone who would love her and
care for her and in a year or two she’d have forgotten I ever existed. Not
knowing was killing me.
But it turned out that knowing was
far worse. When I went to the hospital to identify my beautiful girl’s broken
body - that was worse than not knowing. When I buried her in the cemetery and
compared the size of the gravesite to the other freshly buried bodies - that
was worse than not knowing. When I drank myself to sleep on the anniversary of
her sixth birthday, and realised that I would likely be doing that until my
life ended - that was worse than not knowing.
SPECIAL LINKS
Amazon Links:
Author Page:
amazon.com/author/katherinehayton
Kindle: http://amzn.com/B00LNUMCZ2
Paperback: http://amzn.com/0473279932
Twitter:
Blogger:
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Goodreads:
Website:
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