Feature Interview: Jane Green with Roxanne Ravenel

Tell our readers a little about your background. Where are you from and how did you get started writing for a living?

I was born in the UK, fell into journalism when I left University, and decided to write a book when I was 27, after a friend wrote one and signed a publishing deal.

You’ve published twelve novels. Give readers a quick rundown of a few of your favorites.

I love the ensemble novels: Bookends, The Beach House, Second Chance. I got to know my characters so well, and felt that all of them were friends.

Your first published novel, Jemima J., was about a woman who is addicted to food and allows the people in her life to trample over her. Yet, we quickly identify with her struggles and we want to see her come out victorious. What led you to write the story of Jemima Jones?

Mostly my fascination with women’s relationship with food, and in particular, my own relationship with food, and how it has, at times, been the sole focus of my life. Jemima herself was inspired by a friend of mine, although she was larger and beautifully confident, not to mention beautiful. Jemima became her own person, entirely different from my friend, within the first couple of pages.

Many of your books star unlikely heroines from Jemima Jones to 65-year-old Nan from The Beach House, or Callie Perry, your latest heroine in the book, Promises to Keep, who has a seemingly perfect life, but is struck by a horrible tragedy. What characteristics are important to you when crafting the protagonists in your novels?

I aim to write about life, deeply felt. I am interested in human fallibility, that we are all doing the best we can, and that everyone makes mistakes. I write about women who are flawed, like all of us, and dealing with life the only way she knows how. But, there is redemption in all of my books. The happy ending may not be traditional, but my characters find peace by the end. Always.

Your latest novel, Promises to Keep deals with a woman who is forced to face her mortality and the lessons she and those closest to her learn about love during her illness. Tell us how you came to write this story.

One of my best friends was diagnosed with Stage IV breast cancer last year. There were a handful of us who stepped up, as friends, nurses, advocates. We were there every day, and it was a tremendous gift and a privilege to be allowed in to this most intimate struggle. I started writing when she was sick – she had asked me to write about “this”, although I was careful not to write her story, nor write about her. She died last September. I miss her every day.

Promises to Keep deals with a very weighty, emotional topic, yet it isn’t a ‘sad’ story. How were you able to manage this careful balance?

This was written as a tribute to my friend, and as a celebration of life, of the lessons we can learn when we step up to what friendship really means. It is a book that has a sad theme, but, just as in life, with so much laughter and love in between, and ultimately, whatever losses and tragedy we endure, life has to go on.

What is your favorite scene in Promises to Keep?

The final Christmas scene. I cried while writing it, but with such a feeling of warmth and love. I hope that comes across.

You have a big family and you cook quite a lot. Is that why you incorporated recipes in Promises to Keep?

Yes. Sadly, with six children you never get invited anywhere, so cooking becomes a necessity rather than a choice. In truth, I adore cooking. Gathering people together in my home and feeding them is my idea of nirvana. I’m off to cooking school in May, so who knows…there may even be a cookbook in my future.

Tell us about your writing process. Where do you do your best writing and how do you approach writing a book? Has your process changed over the course of writing twelve novels?

I used to write at home, in a tiny garret office at the top of the house, overlooking treetops, but life, and children, and the internet now provide endless distractions, so I take myself off to a writer’s room for three hours a day after the children have gone to school. I start with a theme, and then work on the characters. Once I feel I know them, I work on a beginning and an end, with only a rough idea of the middle, because the characters will drive the story.

You’re a wife and mother. You’ve experienced setbacks and disappointments. Yet you continue to write compelling stories. How do you balance family life and obligations with your goals and commitments as a writer?

I truly don’t find it that hard. I am enormously blessed in that I can work at home, and I am always at the children’s events at school. The only times I miss, are when I am on book tour, and even then, I only go away for three days at a time, and then, on days when the children are staying with their father. They are largely unaware of my absence. And I am tremendously disciplined. My writing time is in the mornings. By the time the children come home, I am simply “mom”.

To what would you say you owe your longevity as a writer?

I have no idea, but I am grateful every single day.

What writers have most inspired you and whose books would we find on your shelf at home?

The Tales of the City series by Armistead Maupin have always been a huge inspiration, for their quirkiness and heart, and unconventional families of choice. You will find everything on my shelf – from super literary to super commercial. I read anything and everything, and adore biographies. Favorite fiction writers are Barbara Trapido, Jonathan Tropper, Elizabeth Berg.

You are now the inspiration for many yet-to-be-published authors. What three bits of advice would you offer aspiring novelists?

Be disciplined. Anyone can start a book, but finishing requires huge discipline – if you wait for inspiration to strike, you will never get it done. Write even when you are not inspired, for if you are a writer, you write, and the only way to unlock the creativity, to get past the writer’s block that affects all of us, is to write through it. Write the story you need to tell, rather than the one you think you will sell, and finally, do not let rejection get you down. The first agent I sent my first book to wrote to say it was “frankly, unpublishable”. Remember it just takes one person to believe in you.

What projects are on the horizon for you?

I am almost finished with my new book, which is darker and more serious. I have loved the writing of it, although nervous at going in a slightly different direction, and a world away from my earlier books that were far lighter. I think this is the logical progression, and I am itching to get going with the next…