Emma Kennedy: Bring On The Notes

Author and screenwriter. Occasional actor.

Sometimes, for breaks from my desk, I dance around my sitting room and pretend I’m on Strictly Come Dancing. I’ve also discovered super hard Lego builds are brilliant stress busters.

I’m currently re-reading The Story of Art by E.H. Gombrich. I’ve joined a Quiz Team. My team captain is a hard taskmaster.

I think it was The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster, closely followed by Down with Skool by Geoffrey Willians and Ronald Searle. I loved the cleverness of Tollbooth and the humour of Skool.

I think the first work of length I properly produced was a parody of Paradise Lost but with hell replaced with my school. I rewrote the entire Book One for my friend Alison Macaulay who was in the year above me. We used to have a brilliant competitive correspondence. I am still in touch with her. I think she’s still got it.

The last book I purchased was Complete Flags of the World. See above re Hard Taskmaster. I stare at a page of flags a day. The last lovely book I bought was The Sixties: Diaries 1960-1969 by Christopher Isherwood. Richard E Grant waxed lyrical about it on twitter. I trust his judgment.

I’m going to pick one of mine – The Tent, the Bucket and Me because I think writing about your own experience is a great place to start.

Then I’d recommend Into the Woods by John Yorke. It’s the best book on plotting I’ve ever read.

Then I’d recommend Swimming Home by Deborah Levy. It is a masterpiece in characterisation.

Two books stand out – My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell. I think my non-fiction work was definitely inspired by that.

I’ve written for children too, a medium I LOVE and I have always kept in mind that Roald Dahl liked to kill people off. In James and the Giant Peach, James’s parents are killed by a rhinoceros on page one. Children like the dark. It makes them feel safer when your main character is in terrible trouble. So that was a lesson.

I own a book called The History of Poo. I think the least said about it the better.

Swimming Home by Deborah Levy. It took my breath away it was so beautifully written.

I should say winning Masterchef but if I’m being honest I think it’s getting into Oxford after a multitude of setbacks when I was a teenager. I couldn’t believe it then and I can’t believe it now.

I’m a pragmatic writer. Ideas come very easily. I’ve never struggled with those. Once I get something away then my attitude towards first drafts is Get it down, get it done. THEN the real work starts. I love collaborating with editors and I adore notes. I think that may be because I also write for television. I have never understood writers who hate editorial notes. Bring on the notes, I say.

I’m very organised. I always ask for a deadline then I sit down with my diary, work out how many days I can devote to the book then divide it by how many words is required then that’s how many words I have to get down every day. I sit down at my desk at 9, have an hour off for lunch, and don’t stop until 6 or until I’ve hit my word count. I have never missed a deadline. I’m proud of that.

A signed book of photographs of Barack Obama.

Don’t give up. And listen to editors. They want you to be the best you can be.

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. The Complete Works by William Shakespeare. The Story of Art by E.H. Gombrich.

I have an enormous pile of books that I adore. If you really want to read something that will have you boggled eyed, read A Monkey Among Crocodiles by Brian Thompson. It’s about Georgina Weldon, the first feminist. History has forgotten her entirely. Her life was extraordinary. I’ll say no more other than it begins with Georgina arriving at a nunnery in the pouring rain with two bird cages, a couple of bedraggled pugs and a monkey called Mr Titteeleehee. “I am an excessively popular person,” she tells the astonished nun. “But it is time to take my revenge” I mean, you have to read it now, right?

A Scandalous Life by Mary S Lovell. I love a true story.