Lucky 13 Interview with Jen Faulkner

1. Can you start by telling us a little about your current book?

Of course! Keep Her Safe is a psychological suspense novel that asks the question, ‘a mother knows how to protect her daughter, but what if she is the one who puts her in danger?’ The blurb is…

If Catherine falls asleep, her daughter will die.

Single Mum Catherine has always suffered from anxiety, but the focus of her fears has changed. She believes that if she falls asleep, her daughter will die. She sneaks into her bedroom at night to check she is breathing. But Anya is going to university soon, and Catherine cannot go with her. Who will watch her breathe then? And why does Catherine feel like she’s experienced this before?

2. Are you a plotter or a pantser?

Ah this is a tough one for me to answer because fundamentally I am a bit of both. My first two novels (currently unpublished) were pantsed and I don’t think that was necessarily a good thing. All first drafts need work, but in pantsing mine I’d created an impossible task and no matter how often I edited them I could not make the plots work. And so for Keep Her Safe I didn’t start writing until I had a full outline planned using the Save the Cat formula. Obviously, some of that changed with edits as all books do, but I definitely think planning helped make the novel better and I’ve already plotted out my next novel. Plotting is the way forward for me now!

3. Savoury or sweet?

Whilst I love dark chocolate, I’m going to have to plump for savoury because that includes cheese and I can honestly say that I could not survive without cheese. I love it more than any other food. All the cheese. Every day. Cheese. Cheese. Cheese. Yum.

4. Three books to a desert Island. Go!

Jamaica Inn by Daphne Du Maurier, Three Women by Lisa Taddeo and, ah this is tricky, I’ll go for Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, which is so clever it hurts.

5. Star Wars or Star Trek?

Well, pretty sure my kids would disown me if I said anything other than Star Wars. Mind you, I did love a bit of Star Trek on hungover Sunday mornings at university though so…

6. If you could have any superpower what would it be?

I was asked this at a recent job interview by some amazing 16 year olds and I took a while to answer. I used to think invisibility, or flying, but now I’ve decided on teleportation. Click my fingers and think about a place and just poof there, a bit like the witches in Charmed who can orb anywhere. I’d orb to my favourite beach every day or to see family, as well as to Australia to see my lovely friend, or maybe to France for some smelly French cheese.

7. Music or silence when writing?

Depends what mood I’m in. Some days I need silence, but when silence isn’t possible because there is noise from either inside or outside of the house then I play music. Sometimes I choose a playlist my characters might listen to, or tunes dependent on what mood they might be in. My next novel is partly set in the 1990s so I am loving being nostalgic and listening to all the boy bands and house tunes.

8. If you could live anywhere in the world, and take everything that you love with you, where would you choose?

I’ve not done nearly enough travelling and so I think my answer is going to simply be Cornwall. I grew up there and then eighteen year old me decided it was boring and so I moved away, but now I hate not living near the sea and have plans to return to Cornwall as soon as all my small people have left home. And I’ll go right to the very end of Cornwall too, away from all of the tourists where the beaches are quiet and the sea is a vibrant bright blue.

9. Your favourite karaoke song?

Paula Adbul, Straight Up. We won’t talk about the time I tried to rap Regulate by Nate Dog and Warren G in front of my colleagues. Nope. Not going there.

10. One piece of advice to an aspiring writer?

Persist. What’s meant for you won’t pass you by, and giving up is the easiest way to never succeed. It’s hard to keep picking yourself up, but it’s worth it.

11. You win 31 million, but you must give half to charity. Which charity do you choose and what would you do with the rest of the money?

My youngest two children suffer from a rare disease called Primary Ciliary Dyskinesia (PCD), which affects their lungs, hearing and fertility and so I’d donate the money to the PCD Family Support Group without a doubt, as they do some absolutely wonderful work with the families of sufferers. The rest would go towards buying my dream house in Cornwall and making sure my children have their own homes too as it’s insanely hard to get on the housing ladder these days. Or I’d treat my family and friends to the most amazing holiday – we all need it! Or maybe I’d travel more, there are so many places I’d love to visit.

12. Horror films, yes or no? If so, any favourites?

Generally, no. I made the mistake of watching The Hills Have Eyes once and it was truly horrendous. BUT, one of my favourite all time films is Misery by Stephen King. So, so good and I can watch it over and over again and love it as much as I did the first time.

13. What are you currently working on?

My fourth novel looks at how a shared traumatic event can effect two people’s behaviours with regards to rule following. And obviously because I am now a plotter, I have a rough blurb…

What if, after a shared traumatic event, one person vows to live by the rules, while the other goes out of her way to break them?

Her accident was their fault. After all, they broke the rules.

Lucy follows the rules, both big and small. But recently she is frustrated by other people always getting away with their rule breaking. She takes it upon herself to deliver karma to everyone who pushes the boundaries. At first it’s fun, but then she catches her best friend stealing, and life becomes complicated.

Emily does as she pleases. As far as she’s concerned life is too short. She parks on double yellow lines. She doesn’t give way. And she steals anything she likes the look of, until someone starts sending her messages telling her they know what she’s up to and that she must stop.

With the differences in their values and beliefs widening, will the guilt of surviving an accident from their teenage years prove too much for their friendship? Or will they finally tell everyone the truth about what happened the day they skipped school and broke the rules? Rules are there to be followed, and when they’re not, the consequences can last a lifetime.

Currently, I’m 40,000 words in and struggling. Second novel syndrome is very real!