Interview with Melanie La’Brooy, author of Babymoon (Piatkus, £6.99)
Melanie is also the author of the bestselling Australian published novels, Love Struck, The Wish List and Serendipity. Babymoon was written shortly after the birth of her first child. Melanie lives in Melbourne with her husband, her two year old son and she is expecting another baby in August.
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Hi Melanie, welcome to Book Chick City.
BCC: Can you tell my readers a little bit about your upcoming novel, Babymoon?
ML: Babymoon is the story of Isabelle Beckett who lives in Melbourne with her beloved partner, Dr Jack. Despite being the defiantly non-maternal type, Isabelle takes the plunge and decides to have a baby. The novel follows her journey through the weird and wonderful world of pregnancy and childbirth, with all of the emotional and physical issues that that tends to throw up. And, as a lot of women would know, throwing up is actually quite a big part of pregnancy.
BCC: How do you combine writing with your family life?
ML: With difficulty! I started writing Babymoon shortly after giving birth to my son and I quickly had to learn the art of writing whenever I could snatch a brief moment of time. It can be difficult but like any working Mum, I simply became an expert juggler. The last time I counted I think I could do about five things at once. I’m about to become a Mum for the second time so hopefully that statistic will go up.
BCC: Do you find it easier to write about subjects you have experienced such as pregnancy and becoming a mum? Would you say your life is your research?
ML: Two of my books, Love Struck and Babymoon feature Isabelle Beckett who is certainly my alter-ego, although the paranoia of her internal dialogue is ratcheted up by a factor of about 1000! It’s tremendous fun (and therapeutic) to have Isabelle give voice to things that I would love to say out loud but at the same time I greatly exaggerate all of Isabelle’s fears and feelings for comic effect. Writing about things I have personally experienced certainly makes it easier to write humour.
BCC: Your next book, after Babymoon, is The Wedding Planner, which will hopefully be released in the UK next July. Can you give us a little hint as to what it’s about?
ML: It’s the story of two estranged sisters, Sabrina and Mimi Falks. Sabrina is a famous actor on a television soap opera who has recently gotten engaged, while her sister Mimi is funny and bright but also hopelessly lost; with no career prospects, no money, no love life and a string of disastrous mistakes in her past. When Mimi returns home after several years spent overseas, the sisters are forced into reconciliation when Sabrina reluctantly hires Mimi to be her bridesmaid…
BCC: You have written three novels prior to Babymoon: Love Struck, The Wish List and Serendipity. Which one did you enjoy writing the most?
ML: That’s a bit like being asked to nominate a favourite child – impossible! (Or, at least, politically incorrect.) I loved writing all of them for different reasons. Love Struck was special as it was my first novel, The Wish List was probably the hardest to write (the classic, difficult second novel) while Serendipity was just great fun and probably the easiest to write of all my novels so far. I did have a lot of fun with Babymoon too though – being pregnant just gave me so much comic material it practically wrote itself. In fact the hardest part about writing Babymoon was deciding which bits to leave out.
BCC: How long does it usually take you to write a novel?
ML: I average about one novel every eighteen months. It usually takes about nine months (same as pregnancy!) to write a first draft and then it goes into editing for several months. The editing process is a bit like being hit repeatedly over the head with a very large sign that reads “You are a terrible writer.” But a good editor will always turn you into a much better writer and I’ve been very fortunate to always have lovely, insightful editors. Then you proof-read the book about eighty million times and then finally, it’s published.
BCC: What do you enjoy doing when you are not writing?
ML: Being a Mum takes up a lot of my time obviously so I spend most of my non-work days playing with trains and Play-Doh. My son is also football obsessed (that’s Aussie Rules not soccer over here) so I’m a pretty good kick nowadays as I’m often in the park playing football with him. I also do yoga and I love reading.
BCC: Which authors do you like reading?
ML: My favourite authors include Georgette Heyer who wrote wonderfully witty Regency romances and P.G. Wodehouse. I think Marian Keyes is a fabulous novelist and there is an Aussie women’s fiction writer named Liane Moriarty whose books I always enjoy. Apart from chick lit I love literary fiction, so my favourite authors include Rohinton Mistry, Edward P. Jones and E.M. Forster.
BCC: What are you reading at the moment?
Naming books because we’re about to have our second child and we can’t agree on a name if it turns out to be a boy! I also just finished reading A Fraction of the Whole by Australian writer Steve Toltz. It was shortlisted for the Booker Prize last year and was just a wild ride of a read.
BCC: Thanks again, Melanie, It has been lovely talking with you. Good luck with Babymoon and The Wedding Planner and your new baby.
ML: Thank you!
Look out for my review of Babymoon, coming soon!
3 Comments
Nice interview, and she seems like a nice lady! I would imagine that writing a book is like giving birth!
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What a great interview. I was wide-eyed and surprised when I read "The editing process is a bit like being hit repeatedly over the head with a very large sign that reads “You are a terrible writer.”
o_O
I also didn't know the editing process was so long and, might I say tedious. Then you get the greatest reward of all: to see your book on the bookshelves in bookstores. =)
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Excellent interview and the book sounds really good.
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