I'm so excited and honoured to have Danielle Hawkins on the blog today!! I first discovered Danielle's books in 2014. I was in a bookshop and I found a new and shiny copy of Chocolate Cake For Breakfast. The blurb was intriguing and so I read the first page..and then the next one..and the next one and then when I was dragged reluctantly from the bookshop by my parents, sadly having to leave Chocolate Cake behind, I put holds on Danielle's books at the library as soon as I got home. And I've been a huge fan of her work since! I love Danielle's work for a variety of reasons but one of the biggest
was because her books are set in New Zealand. Finding books set in New
Zealand by New Zealand authors are quite hard to find and it always
fills me with joy when I find them!
So getting to interview Danielle feels quite monumental...If 2014 Ella had known that 2019 Ella would get to do this I think she probably would've exploded or screamed at the very least, haha. Anyway, enough rambling, onto the interview!
Hi Danielle! Thank you so much for coming on the blog today! Would you mind introducing yourself and your books?
Sure! I live on a sheep and beef farm between Otorohanga and Te Kuiti with my husband and two children. I grew up there – we lease it from my parents – and it’s beautiful, with big blocks of native bush that my grandfather fenced off back in the days before anyone much cared about conservation. I work as a vet two days a week, and write when the kids are at school and I’m not needed on the farm. I love reading (especially books I know well; so much less risky than new books that might not end happily) and gardening, and I’m a reasonably good cook if I’m in the right mood. When it all Went to Custard is my fourth book – all four are happily-ending, mildly humorous stories about girls a bit like me, set in rural New Zealand. I’m trying to write something a bit different at the moment, which will please the work colleague who’s also writing a book and who tells me earnestly that I really should consider writing something with a plot.
Oh my god, the nerve of your work colleague! I've always thought your books have strong plots but your work colleague seems to have a very different opinion... What drew you to writing in the first place and when did you start?
I started writing at high school, as a nice relaxing way to put myself to sleep (which doesn’t say much for the vigour and excitement of my prose). I used to write little bits of dramatic scenes – arguments, rescues, narrow escapes – when I didn’t have a book to read, but I always thought that writing a whole book would be much too much like hard work. I took it up again more seriously when I was at home from work on maternity leave. Katherine was a very easy baby, bless her, and I got bored and wanted a big project. The first thing I wrote was horribly amateur, even to the fond eyes of its creator, but it was so much fun that I kept practicing.
One things that I’ve always LOVED about your books is the NZ setting! The first book I ever read of yours was Chocolate Cake For Breakfast and I remember feeling so at home in the story because the NZ setting was so familiar to me! Why did you decide to set your books in NZ? And have you ever been tempted to set them anywhere else?
I set my books in New Zealand because I love this place, and I thought I’d be a lot more convincing if I stuck with describing something I knew. I actually thought, in my innocence, that the NZ setting might appeal to people from overseas. In fact, it was a major downside for publishers, and when my first book was accepted someone in marketing thought it would be a much better plan to change the setting to somewhere ‘neutral and international’ so as to give the book a wider appeal. I can’t imagine how I’d have done that, but my publisher squashed the idea, and in the end they settled for just giving it a very generic cover and blurb, so that potential buyers wouldn’t guess it was set in New Zealand until they’d bought it.
I do like the idea of a different setting – a really convincing made-up universe – but made-up universes have to be totally consistent and believable to work, and I haven’t got one ironed out properly in my head yet.
I'm so glad you still got to set your books in New Zealand! It's so refreshing to read about things and places and people that feel like 'home' in your books. How do you get through writer’s block when you’re stuck?
With considerable difficulty! Writer’s block is horrible, and I don’t have a foolproof system for beating it. I just keep chipping away, writing and deleting and rewriting and re-deleting the bit that won’t come out right, until eventually I end up with something I can live with.
Have you ever wanted to write outside the contemporary romantic genre?
Yes! What I’d really like to do is write an epic fantasy series, featuring an utterly convincing, beautifully crafted alternative reality. Like Phillip Pullman or Ursula Le Guin. I doubt that I’m clever enough to do it, but it’s fun to try.
I am 100% here for any epic fantasy series you write! Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?
Writing well takes a HUGE amount of practice. Read lots, to give you an idea of what good writing looks like, and accept that the first five books you write will probably be lousy, but that you have to write them anyway if you want to get better. It’s really hard to get published, and your chances diminish to microscopic if your work is amateur and ungrammatical. I think lots of people devote too much time to trying to publicize and sell their work, and not enough time to actually writing and polishing it.
You've been given a time machine! What's something you wish you'd known before your first book came out and that if you could, you'd go back in time to tell yourself?
I so wish I could tell myself not to take it all so personally. I was elated by nice reviews and crushed by bad ones, and I lost all perspective about the whole thing. Which was a real shame, because actually I’d just written a pleasant little book, not a searing, inspirational masterpiece for our time, and I really didn’t need to get so wound up about it.
Who are a few of your favourite authors?
Terry Pratchett, Phillip Pullman, Georgette Heyer, Mary Scott, Mary Stewart, James Herriot, Amanda Hemingway, Gerald Durrell, D E Stevenson…
Ahhhh, James Herriot and Gerald Durrell bring back so many good memories! If you had to paper one room in your house with one of your books, which book would you choose and why?
I’d hate to paper a room with any of my books. By the time they’re published I’ve spent a couple of years writing them, and then edited and proof-read and re-edited until none of the jokes are funny any more and they seem like the most over-written, affected things I’ve ever seen. The thought of having them in plain sight and being constantly reminded of everything I could have done better is appalling!
Thank you SO MUCH, Danielle, for this interview!
For details of Danielle’s speaking events and book signings click here.
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