What inspired you to write this book?

Ellie, Sue's daughter, with a proof of Small Blue Thing.

I wrote it as a birthday present for my daughter, Ellie. She loves reading, and lots of her books seemed to feature American girls and American cultural references. I wanted her to have something that reflected what she and her friends know, the places where they go, and the way that they might behave. As nothing seemed to fit the bill, I decided to have a go at writing a story for her, and it just kept on growing!

There’s also quite a story on not just why you wrote the book, but how you wrote the book…

The Blackberry Small Blue Thing was written on.

I know! Having decided to write the story, the next challenge was finding some time in my day. I work full time and commute most days into London, so instead of reading whilst I was sitting on my train, I realized that was the perfect time to write. So every day I got out my BlackBerry and started tapping away. At the end of every journey I emailed the latest file to myself. I ended up with hundreds of emails with little bits of novel in them, which I then had to pull together and edit into something readable.

Is there any significance to the names you’ve chosen for the main characters, like Alex, Callum or Grace?

Before she knew what I was doing I asked Ellie what her favorite boy’s name was, and at the time it was Callum. I expect it would be quite different if I asked her today. For the best friend, I didn’t want to use one of Ellie’s current best friends (although they do all appear as other characters), so I used the name of a friend who had moved away, Grace. Alex is a name I like, and thought about using when my kids were born.

Calllum is a trapped soul — one of the Dirges. If you were to have that amulet and were able to see someone who had passed, who would you hope to see?

Well, I wouldn’t want anyone I love to have the sort of existence that Callum has, but the person I miss most is my Dad, who died when Ellie was a baby. He drew the picture of St Paul’s which helped to inspire me, and Mum says that he would have been really proud of the fact that I wrote something publishable. He (and Mum still) used to have his nose in a book all the time, and that’s where I got my love of reading. I think it would be just a bit strange if he appeared behind me one day though! I’m not sure I’d deal with it as well as Alex does.

What was it like to see the bracelet made to your design – the amulet shown on the cover of the book?

The bracelet modeled from the book cover.

That was brilliant. I couldn’t believe it when Nosy Crow said that they were really going to get it made. I sent them some sketches of how I imagined the amulet, and then chose between two potential designers. I also got to choose the stone. It was important to me that it was as close to the description as possible, because in the story the bracelet pulled out of the mud is fantastic, with beautiful silverwork and a mysterious stone. It’s something that any girl would love to find, regardless of any apparitions that came with it, and the bracelet that we have made definitely fits into that category.

Are any of the characters modeled after anyone you know, physical and personality-wise?

I described Alex to look like Ellie will look like when she’s seventeen, and I thought that would be how she might react to situations too. The mother says and does the kind of things I would do. But Ellie thinks that Alex’s personality is more like mine, not hers.

Callum is Ellie’s idea of perfection, and we have had some fun debating which hot young actor would be most like him. She’s made me promise that, if we are ever lucky enough for it to get put into production, she gets to go to all the auditions!

Continue to Part 2 »