Valerie Wilding

Q: What were you like at school?

I was a bit of a goody-goody at primary school, and very neat. I’ve changed.

Q: What did you want to be when you were a child?

Sometimes I wanted to be a journalist, and sometimes a detective – both are jobs where you need to have a healthy curiosity. My sister says they're jobs for nosy people.

Q: Which three words describe you best?

Loyal, fair, indecisive.

Q: What is your favourite word?

Beguiling. I have absolutely no idea why. It doesn’t even look nice. I just like saying it in my mind.

Q: What makes you cringe?

Injustice. Rudeness. Spiders.

Q: What are you afraid of?

I love to walk by rivers, and I adore paddling in the sea, but I’m scared of water because I’m such a rotten swimmer. I’m not afraid of spiders, but they disgust me.

Q: When did you last have a really good laugh?

Whenever I get together with friends, or with certain members of my family. My best friend and I laugh all the time when we're together, but she (the rotter) has gone to live abroad.

Q: What is your most treasured possession?

I don’t really treasure possessions. If the house caught fire I’d get the family out, then my computer. I do treasure my books, but they’re replaceable, aren’t they?

Q: What strange habits do you have?

I procrastinate. I think it’s strange because when I get on with things I feel so good, and when I procrastinate I feel so bad at the end of the day, so why do I do it?

Q: What’s your favourite food?

I reckon you’re either a bread or potato person, and I wouldn’t like to be without potatoes. And chocolate.

Q: What do you day dream about?

Somebody coming to my house while I’m away and redecorating it and fixing all the things that need fixing.

Q: What profession other than yours would you like to attempt?

Acting. I’d love to be an ugly sister in a pantomime of Cinderella.

Q: Do you feel younger or older than your current age?

Much, much younger. Sometimes I meet people half my age and feel they are more grown-up than me.

Q: If you could meet one person, dead or alive, who would it be?

Just one? Not fair. Jeremy Paxman, P.G. Wodehouse, Anne Boleyn, Charles Dickens...

Q: What quality do you most admire in a person?

Obviously I admire all the good qualities such as loyalty and honesty, but I also admire assertiveness, because I’m such a jelly.

Q: What is the most interesting place you have ever visited?

To answer this, I thought of Egypt and Pompeii and places like that, but I never cease to be fascinated by one historic building which mirrors a thousand years of the history of England, and that’s the Tower of London.

Q: What would you most like to change about yourself?

I’d like to be 3 inches taller, a little more energetic, tidier and able to sing.

Q: What has life taught you?

Don’t wait. I came to writing quite late and it’s a big regret that I didn’t start earlier. If you’d like to write, do it. Do it now.

Q: Was there a specific moment in your life when you decide to become a writer?

Yes. Sitting in a field in Dorset after a throwaway remark by my husband. One minute the idea had never occurred to me, the next it was as if someone had lit up the inside of my brain. I’ve never stopped since, except for a while after my husband died.

Q: Where do you do your writing?

Sitting at my desk in a downstairs room, looking out on to the garden. Sometimes, if the house is quiet and I’m writing fiction, I migrate to the sofa in the sitting room. Train rides are great for thinking up ideas and working out plots.

Q: What are the best and worst things about being an author?

The best: 1. Being able to do what you love every day of your life if you wish. 2. Having lots of writer friends. 3. Doing loads of interesting research and visiting interesting places. 4. Working on your own. The worst: 1. Not being able to make an idea work. 2. Having a blindingly spiffing idea and finding someone else got there first. 3. Having a story you love rejected. 4. Working on your own.

Q: What do you do to combat “writers’ block”?

I try not to have time for writers’ block. I jot down any and every idea I get, no matter how daft, then there’s always something to turn to if I’m stuck for a fresh idea.

Q: What advice would you give to aspiring authors?

Keep reading, keep writing, never ever give up.