Jojo Moyes
Jojo Moyes
Jojo Moyesis an English journalist and, since 2002, a romance novelist. She is one of only a few authors to have twice won the Romantic Novel of the Year Award by the Romantic Novelists' Association and has been translated into eleven different languages...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionJournalist
Date of Birth4 August 1969
fill girls kids
I have always written. I was one of those kids who would always fill exercise books with girls and telepathic ponies.
bring four hotel included life room three year
My writing life has included the struggle to bring up three children. What I do three or four times a year is take myself off to a hotel room to unblock a problem.
book develop history life pet rounded shoe sure
For every book that I write... I develop a history for each person and make sure they are well rounded and flawed. You have to know everything about them from their shoe size, to where they went to school, to what their first pet was, to what they like to eat, to what they want out of life.
family life
I always say that in any roomful of people, I could hive a novel out of any one person's family or life story.
driver family great love parent romantic
Love is the driver for all great stories: not just romantic love, but the love of parent for child, for family, for country.
books cliched gritty paint umbrella walls
I have read books that are so cliched and lazy, my eyes have bled. But I also have read books marketed under the chick-lit umbrella that are so honest, clever and gritty that I've wanted to give up writing and paint walls instead.
clothes draws flatter impervious stylish wear
A stylish person, for me, is one who draws your eye without necessarily being showy; they wear clothes that are beautifully cut, flatter the wearer, and show that they are not impervious to fashion, but not a slave to it either.
novels three translated
Rejection is part of the process, so you can't let it crush you. My first three novels never made it into publication, but my fourth, 'Sheltering Rain,' was translated into 11 languages.
altogether chapter felt hit novels rough time wrote
I started writing novels by not thinking about actually writing a whole novel - that felt altogether too daunting. I thought out a rough idea, then wrote chapter by chapter, and then by the time I'd hit 40,000 words, it was a challenge just to see if I could get to the end.
age appalled food quietly seem whether
We seem to live in an age where we are quietly appalled by the idea of appetites, whether they be for sex, food or diamonds.
divide elements fairly floor head hear scenes several until work writers
Writers divide fairly cleanly into those who only work through what they hear and those who are more visual. I am the latter, where I lie down on my office floor and play scenes through my head to - cinematically, several times with different elements - to see what works. I can't write a scene until I can see it.
brad coming macho man men muffin overlook prepared wonder
We want a macho high-earner - with the sensitivity of Gok Wan. We want a man with Brad Pitt's six-pack - but one who's prepared to overlook our own muffin top. No wonder most men don't know if they're coming or going.
front ring trying
You have to write the story that's at the front of your head. There is no point in trying to write for the market; it won't ring true.
writing emotional keys
If I don't cry while writing a key emotional scene, my gut feeling is it's failed.