Jane Rusbridge

Jane is the author of The Devil’s Music.

Her latest novel, ROOK, was released this month. We asked Jane where she finds inspiration, about what she’s currently reading and which one of her characters is her favourite…

Your latest novel is titled ROOK. Can you tell us about it?

Set in the ancient Sussex village of Bosham, where King Cnut is said to have proved even he could not command the waves, ROOK is a story of family, legacy and turning back the tides.

Nora has abandoned her career as a cellist, returning to her childhood home and her mother Ada, a fragile, bitter woman, who distils for herself a glamorous past as she smokes French cigarettes in her unkempt garden. A charming young documentary-maker arrives to shoot a film about King Cnut’s illegitimate daughter, whose body lies beneath the flagstones of the local church. As Jonny disturbs the fabric of the village, digging up tales of ancient battles and burials, the threads lead back to Ada and Nora, who find themselves face to face with the shameful secrets they had so carefully buried.

Rook explores the mystery surrounding Harold II’s burial place, the hidden histories of the Bayeux Tapestry and connections forged through three women’s stories.

Where do you find your inspiration?

Everywhere: in daily life, books, dreams, memories, music, people’s stories, landscape, history. Usually, inspiration builds accumulatively. I’ll find two or three apparently separate preoccupations will come together and connect in some way. The surge of creative energy this gives provides me with the ‘kick’ needed to start writing. 

With ROOK, I started noticing rooks nesting. I bought a book – Crow Country by Mark Cocker – to learn more about them, and that inspired me to travel up to Norfolk, where I saw thousands of rooks come in to roost, a cathartic experience.

Around the same time, quite by chance, I revisited Bosham church near where I live. Cnut’s daughter allegedly drowned in Bosham’s millstream, and I buried in the church. On her memorial stone is a drawing of what looks very like a young rook. In my mind the two things, rooks and Bosham church, were immediately connected.

In the church, I picked up a pamphlet about two stone coffins uncovered by masons working on the church floor in the 1950s. Photographs show what was found inside. A local historian’s belief that the larger of the two stone coffins is Harold II’s caught my imagination. The history, myth and mysteries surrounding all this captivated me.  I was off!  

Do you do any kind of planning before beginning a new book?

No. I’m a slow thinker. My creative process is messy and chaotic and surprising. My mind shuts down at the very idea of starting with a plan! Often it’s an image that comes first, like a photographic still, carrying a strong emotion and slipping into my mind unbidden at odd moments of the day or night. This early stage is like being ‘haunted’. Sometimes I resist, try to block the image out of my head.

The image for ROOK, for example, was a woman sitting in a hallway with a bowl of cold porridge on her lap. She was sitting on the floor so that she couldn’t be seen by the man cleaning windows. That’s all I knew. The associated emotion was sorrow which is, I think, why I resisted. Then, the questions started: Why is she hiding? Who’s the man she’s hiding from? How does this connect with my current fascination with rooks? My curiosity drove me to start writing.  

How do you approach the editing stage?

I love editing. As a reader, my favourite books are those which don’t simply tell a compelling story, but which tell that story with language that is fierce, powerful, surprising. When I write drafts, the story is gradually growing in my mind, but I’m also very conscious of the ‘voice’ of the novel, the importance of working to get that element right.

I’m a ‘picky’ editor, driven to focus on detail; word-by-word, line-by-line. I edit sentences as I write them, because, for me, language itself is the muse. If I can get only the words right, they will take me more deeply into the story. Sometimes it happens easily; sometimes not.

Plotting and structure is something I do much later, once I have 40-50 thousand words. That may sound back to front, but for me part of the thrill is writing into the unknown, with no frame work or plot. Framework and plot only come once the story has revealed itself.

I had a two book deal with Bloomsbury so when I was writing ROOK I was lucky enough to be able to work with Helen Garnons-Williams, Editorial Director for Fiction at Bloomsbury, and her assistant Erica Jarnes. The suggestions they put forward after reading the first – very rough – draft of ROOK were invaluable. Helen and Erica’s comments helped me to be ruthless. I cut characters and huge sections that were ‘wrong’, and was then able to discover the heart of the story. For me, working with good editors whose judgement I trust is an essential part of the creative process.

Which book(s) are currently on your night-stand?

The Lady Cyclist’s Guide to Kashgar by Suzanne Joinson

The Last Child in the Woods: saving our children from nature-deficit disorder by Richard Louv

What three things would you want to have with you if stranded on a desert island?

1. My husband.
2. One of those notebooks with a pen on a ribbon.
3.  A yurt.  I’ve always wanted to stay in a yurt.

Which one of your characters is your favourite?

This is an interesting question. I feel a loyalty to all my characters, even the not very likeable ones, and don’t have a ‘favourite’. However, if I think about the creative process rather than the end product, two characters stand out. One is Andy, the little boy in The Devil’s Music, and the other is Ada, in ROOK. Both were such a pleasure to write.

It was joy to step into the immediacy of Andy’s synaesthesic experience of the natural world, and to share his often literal interpretation of what is going on around him. His voice came very easily to me. In contrast, Ada’s mind, as she moves towards the end of her life, is caught up with her past rather than the present, but her sharp, feisty point of view of things was fun to play with. 

I enjoyed being in the heads of both these characters, looked forward to writing their scenes, seeing the world through their eyes.

Are you working on anything at the moment?

The next novel, which is secret at the moment!

Five tips for new writers?

1.        Read.

2.        Carry a notebook and pen with you.

3.        Start writing, don’t just talk about it.

4.        Persevere.

5.        When it gets tough, remember the magic.

Find out more about Jane and her novels here

You can buy ROOK by Jane Rusbridge  here

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by

Laura

I’m Laura. I started Novel Kicks in 2009. I wanted a place to post my writing as well as give other writers like me the opportunity to do the same. There is also a monthly book club, a writing room which features writing prompts, book reviews, competitions, author interviews and guest posts.

I grew up by the sea (my favourite place in the world) and I currently live in Hampshire. I am married to Chris, have a cat named Buddy and I would love to be a writer. I’m trying to write the novel I’ve talked so much about writing if only I could stop pressing delete. I’ve loved writing since creative writing classes in primary school. I have always wanted to see my teacher Miss Sayers again and thank her for the encouragement. When not trying to write the novel or writing snippets of stories on anything I can get my hands on, I love reading, dancing like a loon and singing to myself very badly. My current obsession is Once Upon a Time and I would be happy to live with magic in the enchanted forest surrounded by all those wonderful stories provided that world also included Harry Potter. I love reading chick lit. contemporary fiction and novels with mystery.