Mhairi McFarlane

Mhairi was born in Scotland in 1976. She is based in Nottingham where she used to be a local journalist and now she’s a freelance writer and sometime-blogger. She lives with a man and a cat. She recently won Contemporary Romantic Novel at the RoNA’s with her first book, ‘You Had Me At Hello’ ‘Here’s Looking At You’ is her second book.

1. Can you tell us what your new book ‘Here’s Looking At You’ is about and what inspired it?
   ‘Here’s Looking At You’ is about Anna, 32, who was horribly bullied at school for being overweight and foreign. She’s done a duckling-to-swan and now she’s a successful academic who goes to her school reunion and meets the former school hero, James, who was instrumental in her final humiliation. He doesn’t recognise this beautiful mysterious Italian….so they meet, they dislike each other (for obvious reasons, in Anna’s case) they get to know each other a little more and their opinions of each other start to change. I suppose in essence it’s a ‘what if you get what you need, not what you want’ tale, told from both the male and female perspective. Set in London, this time, not Manchester like ‘You Had Me At Hello’.
2. To the readers of the website, that may not familiar with you or your writing, can you tell us a bit about yourself and how you got into writing
   I was a journalist in Nottingham on my local paper and – ouch – six years ago, had an idea I’d write a book, and here I am.
3. Who is your favourite literary hero or heroine?
   Boring answer but Jane Austen is a biggie, as for many romance authors. In HLAY I stole some key moments (sorry ‘homaged’) from ‘Pride & Prejudice’. I love the way she does whip smart social satire as well as such felt emotion. Her observations about human nature ring just as true in the 21st century. James Fraser in ‘Here’s Looking At You’ is my attempt to do a Darcy-lite. Like a digital agency hipster Mr Darcy. You just know Darcy now would be a hipster – looking down at the leisure habits of lesser mortals. In an expensive cardigan.
4. If you weren’t an author, what do you imagine yourself doing?
   Oh my goodness, I am bloody rubbish at most things so I am not exactly shuffling a full deck here. I love cats, so I’d run a posh cattery? What a cliche. I was having fantasies about opening a sandwich shop the other day. I must have been having a dizzy spell because I ran one after university and I know it’s nothing but a ball-ache. I was probably eating a particularly tasty sandwich at the time and getting that Bridget Jones-ish inner monologue: am maybe secret genius at ‘baguettes’ *imagines self at National Sandwich Awards*
5. What authors do you admire?
   Tons. Off the top of my head, Kate Atkinson, David Nicholls, Marian Keyes and Lisa Jewell.
6. Regarding the phenomenon of “Fifty Shades of Grey “and how well it did. Some people criticised the writing and the books that followed on after the series.  Do you think the standards of writing has slipped?
   Slipped? Cor, I couldn’t say. Didn’t there used to be the term ‘penny dreadfuls’ coined (no pun) for bad pulp fiction, back in the day? So maybe slipping is wishful thinking. As for copycatting, irrespective of those books’ quality, I have to say that blame lies pretty squarely with publishers and the desire to emulate a commercial success. As for Fifty Shades….yes I think it’s rubbish writing. Hell, you only have so many years on the planet, why lie? But I’m sure E.L. James gives not a fig what I or others think, on her island in Dubai in the shape of a butt plug.
7. I always thought the opening lines to “The Lovely Bones” was quite memorable, are there any opening lines to books that stuck out to you?
   “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again”. From ‘Rebecca’. It is a truth universally acknowledged…Sorry, boringly obvious.
8. Out of the many books that you have read over the years, which one would you have liked to have said “I wrote that”?
   I knew my plot was compared to it, so I will be predictable – and risk being considered a plagiarist again – by saying ‘One Day’ by David Nicholls. I would stress my book was officially sitting with an agent by the time ‘One ‘Day was published! INNOCENT! But, yes. I think Emma Morley is the modern heroine so many of us strive to write. Sardonic, interesting, flawed, funny, totally human. A real ‘damn you, Nicholls, you read my diaries’ type of woman. And he’s so witty. I hate him. I don’t, I have the most massive crush. Do not tell him.
9. When not writing, what do you like to do in your spare time?
   See my friends and family, eat nice food, see films, catch up on box sets like a typical middle class 30-something git, drink fizzy booze, play with my cat. I have no interesting hobbies and I do apologise. That bit on my CVs was always howling fiction in itself.
10. If you were stranded on a desert island, which three books would you bring with you to pass the time?
    ‘Pride & Prejudice’ as I never tire of it. ‘Zero History’ by William Gibson as my boyfriend wants me to read it so he’d be pleased to hear it when I returned. And David Simon’s ‘The Corner’ because I’ve had next to my bed since forever since I devoured Homicide and need to crack on. Seems to me having read more than one of your Desert Island books already is making life unnecessarily repetitive.
11. What area do you suggest a budding writer should concentrate on to further their abilities?
    Wow….well. Please let me say – having written one book, or even more, doesn’t make you an expert! Trust your own gut, always. For what it’s worth, this would broadly be my three step process: 1) Gaze out of windows and at ceilings and in baths, and let ideas drift to you. Never underestimate lazy drool daydream time. It’s essential harvesting. 2) Then write stuff down, and be prepared for the grimly prosaic truth: compared to what you spun in your head, it’ll seem a bit crap. And you rewrite and rewrite until it is less crap. And while you have wonderful moments of loving it, it’ll never be quite as great as you hoped and you have to be OK with that. You will fall in and out of love with it, on a daily basis. Most of the time, it’s more like learning to be bullish about degrees of failure, than fist pumping your own spot-on brilliance. This is the true secret grubby challenge of writing. Learning to face down disappointment and chase the good moments. 3) Finish. It seems so obvious, but, finish. Something unfinished is eternally lingering in the potentiality of perfection and ultimately is neither here nor there. Something finished is something that can make you a writer.
12. When sitting down to write, what is the one item you need beside you?
    Nothing! Have keyboard, will write. Cup of coffee’s always nice.
13. Here’s Looking At You is a famous line from the romantic classic Casablanca, if Casablanca were to be remade, who would play Rick Blaine and Lisa Lund?
    George Clooney and Marion Cotillard? Not wildly original answer but the first duo that springs to mind. Harrison Ford and Eva Green would be pretty cool too.

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