Chapter and verse on living the dream

Adele Parks’s career has taken her from working as a Saturday shop girl in the Yarm Hintons to one of the most successful authors in the UK, with over two million copies of her 13 books sold and translations in 27 languages.

Tomorrow she will give a keynote address to aspiring writers at the annual Festival of Writing in York about what it takes to turn your publishing dream into a reality.

“Research suggests that nine out of ten of us would like to write a book,” she says. “Yet those who actually complete a novel and certainly those who then go on to be published are a tiny minority of that.”

True to her down-to-earth Northern upbringing, the gregarious and humorous novelist is brutally pragmatic.

“One of my main goals is to encourage writers to keep going in what is a very tough, competitive marketplace,” she says. “I’d like to be inspiring and encouraging but also intensely practical. For instance, don’t give up your day job and think you’ll live on the breadline like a ‘proper artist’. Trust me, it won’t help. Besides, being part of the real world is very important for a writer.”

She is also dismissive of the artistic stumbling blocks many associate with writing. “You can’t wait until the muse visits or inspiration strikes you. It’s nonsense. It takes a huge amount of self-discipline, work and self-criticism to reach the top of this game.”

She likens the writing life to someone training for a marathon – hours put in every day, without fail. Between her teenage dreams and her first novel acceptance on the eve of her 30th birthday, Parks worked in advertising and still found time to write every day. “I’m a little girly swot. I’m very disparaging about writer’s block. Teachers and nurses still have to go to work even if they are having a bad day. The idea of writer’s block is indulgent and destructive.”

Parks writes commercial women’s fiction, which she believes strongly should not be disparaged as chick-lit. “I don’t believe in genre, because all novels are about people,” she says.

“But if we accept that a genre label allows the reader to anticipate what they can expect from a book, we still face the problem that no-one ever feels it necessary to point out that there will be gems and dross in any other genre – only women’s fiction.

“Sexism is absolutely there in the publishing world – there’s no way we can pretend it isn’t.”

Parks had written three novels – two featuring anti-heroines – before the term chick-lit was coined and yet found herself labelled on the basis of stereotypes that did not apply. “I have never written a novel about a young woman who drinks too much Chardonnay, desperate to find a husband, or who has a funny gay friend,” she says.

Her novels are rather about people – what makes them the way they are, the difference between healthy and toxic relationships, the roles of memory and the past.

“In Whatever It Takes (2012) I wanted to explore the effect of losing your memories through a character with Alzheimer’s. And The State We’re In (July 2013) looks again at how people are shaped by their memories,” she says.

The State We’re In actively subverts the chick-lit/rom-com genre by setting up a classic “meetcute” scene where a cynical man and love-hungry woman collide on a plane and the reader expects love to bloom.

“This is absolutely not that book. It is a cross-generational study of the past and whether the characters will in fact 
ever forge futures. It also 
has a strong twist ending.”

Her final advice to aspiring writers is: don’t just think about the book but be prepared for a career.

Forty per cent of Parks’s 
time is now spent on marketing and responding 
to fans.

FROM ADVERTISING TO PUBLISHING

Born in Teesside, Parks studied English at Leicester University before working in advertising.

Her first novel, Playing Away, published in 2000, saw Parks identified as one of London’s Twenty Faces to Watch.

Game Over, Larger Than Life, The Other Woman’s Shows, Still Thinking of You, Husbands and About Last Night are among the titles that she has had published since.

Her latest novel, The State We’re In, is available in trade paperback for £11.99.

For more on the Festival of Writing, at York University, September 13-15, go to www.writersworkshop.co.uk/events.html