Writers' Rituals – Maggie Kingsley
The Mysterious Writing Habits of the World's Writers
Jul 20, 2009
Scottish author Margaret Gray is probably best known as Maggie Kingsley author of medical romances for Mills and Boon.
How much research and plotting do you do before you're ready to write.
A lot of research. Medical romances can cover anything from a GP surgery, to an Intensive Care Ward, to Neurosurgery. I could never get away with a cut finger, or have my hero or heroine saying vaguely, 'I think the patient might have had a heart attack.' I'm not a doctor or a nurse myself, but a lot of my readers are, so my medical detail has to be accurate because if I get it wrong, those readers will write and complain. Vociferously!
As for plotting.... I can't plot. My editor despairs of me because she knows she'll never get a bigger synopsis out of me than a, 'I was thinking of making the heroine the head of an A & E unit and the hero a nurse.' Unfortunately, that can mean I find myself doing a lot of rewriting, when one of my characters suddenly does something completely unexpected, or digs in his or her heels and says, 'No, I refuse to have been married before', but it's the way I write and I can't do it any other way.
What hours do you devote to your writing and what time of day do you prefer to write?
I try to write every day and I generally start at about 9.30 in the morning. If the book is going really well I can still be writing at midnight. If the book is going badly I'll stop at around 9.00 p.m.because I know from experience it's often better to sleep on a problem than to keep on staring glumly at the computer screen hoping for the solution to appear.
Do you take breaks, and if so, what do you do during them?
Coffee breaks. If a book is going badly I will take lots and lots of coffee breaks. In fact, it's a standing joke in my family that the fewer coffee breaks I have, the better the book is going. I try to always stop for lunch but if I'm on a roll I won't, but I always stop for dinner.
Where do you write?
In my study, which is a very posh way of describing the approximately five foot by seven foot space just inside my back door where my desk and chair are located. So are my tumble dryer, the house fuse box, and the central heating boiler. Yup, us writers really know how to spoil ourselves!
What do you write with?
Increasingly I'm typing straight into my PC, but I also have a notebook and pencil by my bed for those 'brainwave light bulb' moments that unfailingly pop into my head just before I drift off to sleep, and I always carry a notebook, and a pencil with me when I go on train journeys.
Describe what you like to keep within arm's reach while you're writing.
A big stack of pencils in an old china beer mug, a couple of packets of post-it notes for me to scribble on if I suddenly think of something I don't want to forget, and a USB Flash drive because I'm paranoid about copying my work in case my PC crashes.
Describe the things you can see when you look up from your writing.
There's a calendar right in front of me with an ominous red circle round the last day of this month and the word 'deadline!' written beside it. To the left of that is a cartoon my family got for me which I just love. It's of a man sitting staring at his PC, and behind him one woman – probably his wife – is saying to the woman beside her, 'He's really dedicated to his writing. He spends three hours every morning staring at his computer, and five hours every afternoon doing the same.'
If I look to my right there's my very swanky filing cabinet which is a beautiful deep blue colour and is stuffed with proofs, contracts, and research notes. It's also covered with post it notes with 'things to do' and 'things to remember' on it, but I know it's a beautiful deep blue underneath them all. To my left is the aforementioned tumble drier, and my house's central heating boiler which keeps me toastie warm in the winter and roasting in the summer. The tumble dryer has my printer sitting on top of it, and the boiler has reference books piled on top of it in a, I-know-where-everything-is-so-don't-anyone-dare-move-anything sort of way.
What was the first thing you wrote which was published?
A light-hearted article for 'Home and Gardens' gardens about the joys of working in a charity shop which is what I was doing at the time. I was absolutely amazed when it was accepted. In fact, I went around all day with a big grin on my face thinking, I'm a writer. I'm actually a writer!
What is your latest book?
My last published one was A Baby for Eve, but all I'm willing to tell you about the one I'm writing at the moment is it's set in Edinburgh, and there are paramedics in it. If I tell you anything more I know I will jinx the writing!
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