Diane Connell

1. Please tell us a bit about yourself and your work.
I am a novelist. I came relatively late to fiction after working in journalism and advertising. I also wrote for an international non-profit organisation for many years. I have published three novels, two with HarperCollins UK and my most recent novel, The Improbable Life of Ricky Bird, with Simon &
Schuster Australia. My first book, Julian Corkle Is a Filthy Liar, has been optioned for film. Things are moving along there, which is very exciting. I moved to Sydney six years ago after spending 20 years in Europe (Paris and London). Prior to that I lived in Tokyo for 12 years. Oh, I have also lived in
Melbourne and Central Australia.

 

I think I am a reasonably natural storyteller but writing was something I had to learn. I came from a large family where story was everything. We competed with each other to tell the best story and to win our mother’s favour. Making her laugh was the prize. Writing I learned on the job, first at a newspaper and then at an advertising agency. It was very, very hard. But perhaps one of the most important lessons I learned from writing in a commercial capacity was not to be precious about my work; that there is always another way to write a sentence, a paragraph, a story – and it will probably be better.

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Having children would have been impossible with my peripatetic life. I also think that writing fiction would have been impossible if I’d had children. Apart from the hard graft and responsibility of raising another human being, and doing it well, I think bringing up a child is in itself a creative endeavour. I doubt I would have had what it takes to both write and raise a child. I have no regrets about not having a child.

2. Has writing always been a focus for you or was it a Plan B?
I never thought I would have children but never in my wildest dreams did I think I would become a writer. I didn’t come from a family that valued  books, especially fiction. I had to discover the joy of reading on my own. I was a teenager when that happened and what a revelation it was. The leap to writing didn’t occur until after university when I more or less stumbled into a job at a newspaper office.

3. How do you explore ideas or find inspiration for your work?
I think all my books have started with a character, a character with a problem (or two) and a talent that is perhaps yet undiscovered. My protagonist is inevitably someone who lives on the fringes, an outsider. I then put my character in peril. Interestingly, I have never created a protagonist with children. That experience is too alien to me, I think.

4. What does the process of writing involve for you?
The first two drafts are hard work. It’s like living inside a paper bag. For the first draft I am following an outline. For the second draft, I am slicing and dicing, trying to make sense of the mess I made in draft one. All this with a demon on my shoulder telling me it’s rubbish. By the time I get to the third draft, I have more clarity. I see potential and possibilities (it might not be all rubbish after all). I start refining and hopefully making sense of my characters and their stories – how they fit into the main arc of the novel. I will do many, many more drafts before I’m happy with it.
 

5. And what does writing then also give you in return?
This might sound a little odd but I think it is my way of being of service, of giving something to others. I also think it gives me a great deal despite the struggle. Most of the time, particularly for draft one and two, I live on an island of self-doubt. It’s all going to hell, I think. But interestingly, I never think ‘why bother?’ Something drives me to keep writing, to complete each book I start. I need to be productive to feel of value, I think. I need to create. It’s who I am.

6. Has seeing your work in print changed how you view yourself, and also how you view your NoMo status?
You would think that publishing a book would give me a sense of achievement, perhaps even a big head, but the opposite seems to happen. Writing – when you do it with authenticity and originality, when you strip away cliché and really roll your sleeves up, when you dive deep – is like therapy. There is little place for ego or vanity. Your readers will see it in the work. I think writing has whittled me down. It’s made me more honest and hopefully given me more humility. In my work, I strive to understand the human condition, to capture and portray it. I think this process brings with it a certain amount of self-awareness because you can’t easily write from a throne. To write about human relationships in a compelling way, I think you have to experience, to feel. It’s a process of stripping away and hopefully, one that brings with it empathy and compassion.

7. Tell us about the wider reception that you’ve had to sharing your story - has it changed how others have viewed you and your identity as a non-parent?
I think as a non-parent, I am viewed as a bit odd or ‘other’. I’m not part of the ‘normal’ club. Mind you, I’ve probably always been a bit odd. Nice enough, but a little odd. As a girl, I was too energetic, too much like a boy. I didn’t have boundaries, you see. I was that girl who was a little too loud, a bit off key. I think my success as a writer has surprised some. I didn’t study English at university (I studied politics and sociology) and I was always a distracted student. But what I did have was energy and an ability to tell a story, and with years of hard work, I learned how to put stories into words. Writing is a solitary endeavour. To succeed you need to be determined. You have to commit. Perhaps this is not always obvious to those looking in from outside. My mother, for example, seems to think I’m having a fine old time. But then she would. She came from a generation of women whose purpose was to marry a man and raise a family. She’s a great mother, by the way, but totally does not get my lifestyle or job. Tant pis pour moi.

8. How do you feel about the current representation of childless and/or childfree people in literature?
It’s fascinating isn’t it, the way having children is generally presented in literature as the natural way of things? Once characters are in their thirties or older, there are inevitably children in the mix. I don’t often come across interesting, childless protagonists in books, especially female protagonists over forty. Interestingly, my next book, the one I am going to write after my current work in progress, will have an older childless woman as its protagonist. Each time I think about it, I get excited. But first, I must finish my current manuscript.

9. What would you like the publishing world to know about non-parents, both as writers and readers, and our stories?
Perhaps I would say that there is huge, untapped potential for stories about women who choose not to have children. Perhaps women who don’t have children become excellent observers. We stand apart and as such make great witnesses to other people’s lives. As childless women, the onus is on us to accept and adjust to societal norms. Perhaps this teaches compromise, flexibility and tolerance, which are not bad tools to have as a writer.

10. What future plans do you have, especially for your writing?
I hope to keep writing until the bitter end. Writing is what defines me. It is my métier, the thing I do and endeavour to do well.