Roisin Meaney: Writing my debut novel was a case of chancing my arm
'Every day I sat down to write, I felt I was making it up as I went along.'
- Life Before Us
- Roisin Meaney
- Hachette Ireland
- €13.99, Eason
Former primary school teacher turned writer of popular fiction, Roisin Meaney, may be a purveyor of romantic stories — although she also deals with dark themes — but when it comes to her personal life, she is most definitely not lovelorn nor seeking romance.
Currently staying in her holiday home in Miltown Malbay in Co Clare, Meaney, whose latest novel, Life Before Us is her twentieth, doesn’t really believe in the notion of a soul mate out there waiting to be encountered.
“It’s the eternal question for people in search of The One. I think a lot of it has to do with being in the right place at the right time and just meeting someone you’re compatible with.
"I know that doesn’t sound very romantic but I think that’s the way things go and that there are no bells and whistles. I never experienced bells and whistles.”
In her early 60s, Meaney, who lives in Limerick for most of the year, hasn’t been in a relationship “for years."
"I’ve accepted at this stage that it won’t happen. I’m totally reconciled to that. I’m enjoying my freedom I must say”.
Her responsibilities involve checking on her elderly parents and looking after her two cats.
She only started writing at the age of 40.
“I was thinking about it for 10 years and I really did nothing about it. I was teaching so I just let the vague idea slide. Eventually, I realised it wasn’t going away. The notion was still sitting in my head. I felt I better do something about it.”
Meaney took a career break for a year and went to San Francisco where her brother lived. She stayed with him for a year and she wrote her first book.
It didn’t come easily to her. Meaney admits she didn’t really know what she was doing. She had done a weekend writing course in Killaloe before heading to America. But that was it.
Writing her debut novel was a case of “chancing my arm. Every day I sat down to write, I felt I was making it up as I went along."
I didn’t even really know how long the first draft of a novel should be”.
But instinctively, Meaney must have known how to write a novel as that first effort, The Daisy Picker, won a Write a Bestseller competition in 2001 and was published in 2004.
Meaney decided to job share, to allow her more time to write. The prize for winning the competition was a two-book deal published by Tivoli. However, by the time Meaney had written her third novel (which Tivoli had promised to look at for possible publication), the company had gone bust.
“I had no publisher. My agent who I had acquired along the way said she would shop it around but nobody wanted it.
"That’s when I got my rejections and that book never saw the light of day.”
In a dilemma, Meaney thought about going back to full-time teaching. But she decided to give the writing another go and Hodder Headline (now Hachette Ireland) took her on. She has been with them ever since.
Her latest novel is about 31-year-old Alice who discovers her boyfriend is married with three children. Devastated, she leaves Dublin to return to her hometown. She has no job, nowhere to live — but she’s still holding out for love.
The soul mate who’s floating around waiting to be met is George, father to 11-year-old Suzi who has broken up with the girl’s mother. Single, a tad passive, he has never tried online dating. But there’s a first time for everything.
There will eventually be bells and whistles.
“Maybe Life Before Us is more of a love story than my other novels. I’ve written books with themes such as child abuse, miscarriage, and drink driving. I weave lots of themes into my stories.”
As a full-time writer, Meaney says she doesn’t really have any regrets about giving up her secure pensionable job.
“Thankfully, I feel I have that security now with writing but what I do miss from teaching is the company of children. Because of that, I volunteer in my local library once a month, doing a storytelling session for children.
“I go into schools as well through Poetry Ireland, talking to kids about being a writer ... mainly to primary schools but I also talk to first years and transition year pupils. I do it with a lot of trepidation but usually it works out.”
Invariably, Meaney is asked by the school kids if she makes much money from writing. She says she’s not rich and doesn’t have a lavish lifestyle. But she is good with money and able to save.
“My publishers are very happy with my sales. I have a good few books translated so I have money coming in from that as well.”
For anyone who aspires to a career as a full-time writer, it sounds like Meaney is living the dream. But Meaney is afraid to agree: “In case I jinx it."
"I do find that writing is a slog. There’s no magic route to writing a book. It’s a question of sitting down and writing every day. I try to do it every day when I’m on the first draft. I aim to write 20,000 words in a month for the first draft. That’s about 5,000 words a week which is very doable.”
Meaney writes three drafts for a book, “and generally that’s it apart from checking copy edits and proofreading”.
But she says there is a lot of “tearing out my hair” trying to nail the plot and plan her fiction. It’s an intense process.
“I’m fit for nothing after it.”
Before she became a teacher, Meaney spent nearly three years as a copywriter in an advertising agency in London. It was good training for writing in a striking concise way.
“I loved the challenge of trying to come up with a good headline, a nice arresting piece of copy. I did radio and press ads mostly.”
For one campaign, she came up with the line for Berol pens that, ‘every Berol tells a story’.
“It went down very well over there. It was used a lot. I was writing copy for Stag cider and we had big clients such as Mars.
"You had to make words work. You can imagine that if you’re writing a 10-second radio ad, every word has to do a job. It was great to concentrate the mind.
"But I wasn’t mad about the short deadlines. I found that quite stressful but it was very good training.”
As well as writing, Meaney has another string to her bow. With a friend, Sheila Qualey, she manages a Facebook page called Random Acts of Kindness Limerick.
“We are the conduit for people to tell others their experiences of having somebody who was kind to them.
"We have about 15,000 followers. It’s just something we both feel strongly about. We love the idea of being kind to someone with no ulterior motive, just brightening someone’s day.
"I believe that if everyone tried to carry out a random act of kindness, even once a week, it might change everyone’s way of thinking and make us more in tune with each other.”
No doubt Meaney’s novels, which are ultimately ‘feel good’ brighten up her readers’ lives with their relatable characters and well-thought-out plots.
