PAC Interview: Tina MacNaughton
The Portsmouth Authors Collective seeks to put the spotlight
on local talent who live in or take inspiration from the city and its surrounding
areas. Today’s interview is with the poet and debut novelist Tina Cathleen MacNaughton.
Author Bio:
Tina Cathleen MacNaughton has written and published four
books: a collection of poetry entitled On the Shoulders of Lions (The
Choir Press, 2021); two children’s books, When the Elves Rescued Christmas
and Santa’s Still Asleep (WriteRhymes, 2020 and 2021), and a novel with
a 1980s music background Delphy Rose – the Girl Who Wrote Songs
(Troubador).
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Loree: Welcome to my blog, Tina. And thanks for agreeing to be interviewed. Every time I scroll through Facebook, lately, I see that another of your poems has been accepted for publication. What is your biggest achievement to date?
Tina: Finishing and publishing my
novel Delphy Rose. It was my dream to publish a novel before I was
fifty. I am eight years late, but what the hell, I did it!
Loree: Has writing always been a part of your life? When did you start? And what was the first piece of your writing that was published?
Tina: I have written on and off
throughout my life. First piece was a letter to The Portsmouth Evening News
‘Chipper Club Page’, telling everyone about my eighth birthday. I won a badge
and I can still remember the thrill of seeing my letter in print. Inspired, I
sent off a poem about trees which was published in The News a couple
months later. I didn’t submit anywhere after that for about twenty years,
though.
Loree: Other people I’ve spoken to
about publishing short stories have described it as a numbers game. If you
submit one story, chances are it won’t be accepted. But if you submit 100
stories, chances are good that some of them will be. Is that what you’ve found
with getting your poetry published?
Tina: Not at all. I don’t think it works like that. I do not submit frequently or widely or for the sake of it. I don’t have a lot of spare time for submissions, so I choose very carefully and make good use of my time. If I know I already have a suitable piece, or am particularly inspired, I will probably give it a go. I would advocate ‘quality over quantity’. There is also an element of luck and timing. I don’t waste time on a theme or competition that I am not particularly interested in and tend to stick to what I am good at.
Loree: I’ve been reading a lot of
George Saunders’ posts exploring the writing process. It’s a mysterious topic,
and perhaps not one that a writer wants to think about too deeply, but perhaps
you can share something about the technicalities of your process for writing
poetry. Do you, for instance ‘write big’ in the first draft, then edit down (or
even edit up) and refine over a series of drafts? Do you have a set schedule and write every
day, or do you wait for inspiration?
Tina: I don’t have a set schedule,
but I write as and when I feel like it. I guess I wait until I am inspired or
just feel the need to write something. I go for periods when I’m not writing,
for example, when I’m particularly busy with my family or my acupuncture
clinic. But then I really miss it and need to sit down and write something. I
do write ‘big’ yes, in the first draft. I’m not a big planner in my writing and
was never academically, either. I tend to just go for it, and only start
structuring and planning when I’m in the middle, and have quite a bit down on
paper or on screen. I think I would find a blank page too scary, so I just dive
in before I lose my nerve!
Loree: Your website says you take commissions,
writing poems for anniversaries and other special events. That seems quite a
task! How does that process differ from that for the poems you feel inspired to
write?
Tina: It’s not that hard really. I’ll
be given quite a few details to tell the ‘story’, so I just piece it all
together in a rhythmic, rhyming scheme. They make a very special, personal gift
and people love them. It’s nice to think that my poems are part of significant
occasions, such as weddings and funerals. My own poems come from my imagination,
or some kind of inspiration, so the process is far less structured and more
sporadic. I enjoy both kinds of writing. I also have a contract to write poetry
with The People’s Friend and these poems are very different from my
other work. I get paid for the commissioned pieces which is rather nice!
Loree: And now you’ve just published
your debut novel Delphy Rose – The Girl Who Wrote Songs. Congratulations!
That’s a big achievement. What’s it about?
Loree: Have you always written
fiction as well as poetry, or was the novel an entirely new literary
endeavour?
Tina: I write
short stories and flash fiction, too, but I’ve always wanted to write a novel. I’ve
written two previous novels and a collection of stories, but they’ve been
shelved. I wasn’t happy with them. I adore reading novels and devour them, but
I prefer writing poetry. I think of myself as a poet, rather than a novelist,
and this will be my one and only novel.
Loree: Would you say that the process of fiction
writing differs markedly from writing poetry?
Tina: I like
the short-term project process of writing poetry – well, my poetry anyway! I
know some people spend months and months perfecting a poem, but I write them quickly.
I do edit and ‘play’ with them, but I like the fact that if they come to
nothing, then I have not wasted too much time on them! Coming to the middle of a
novel and realising it is going nowhere is very disheartening!
Loree: When you wrote Delphy Rose,
did you have a clear sense of the plot when you started out, or did you let the
story take you where it wanted to go?
Tina: I knew I wanted to write a
novel with a 1980s music background and I knew the central character would be a
girl called Delphy. Delphy is the name of my paternal grandmother’s sister and
I always liked it. Similarly, if I’d had a daughter, her middle name would have
been Rose. I wanted to use a dual time frame and I like novelists, such as Elizabeth
Strout, whose chapters often stand as short stories on their own, but which
have linking threads and a central connecting character. Once I got down to it,
yes! Delphy did have a bit of a mind of her own. I hadn’t intended to write in
the first-person, but she would not let me switch to third-person, even though
I tried! I wasn’t sure about writing in the first-person, as I didn’t want the
reader to think it is a true, or my story. It’s not – but I quite like the
personal, memoir style that the first-person gives.
Loree: I started out writing short stories—which need to have a very narrow focus. That made the transition into longer forms of story writing a big challenge for me: juggling numerous characters and events, and that huge narrative arc. Were there any particular challenges you faced when writing Delphy Rose?
Tina: I found Delphy Rose
fairly easy to write and I wrote it very quickly in just a few months. The
challenge was editing, editing, editing and remembering who played what, and
who went out with who, and who had fallen out with who. I very much enjoyed
writing the colourful characters in the Greek chorus such as Big Trev and
horrendous Dirty Joe. Great fun!
Loree: Who are the writers who
inspire you and what have you learned from them?
Tina: I’ve already mentioned Elizabeth
Strout. I also like the Canadian writer Carol Shields. My favourite
novel is A Colour Purple by Alice Walker. A novel I read,
and loved, recently is My Coney Island Baby, an unusual novel by
Irish writer Billy O’Callaghan. Read it and weep. I also really like Colm
Toibin, another Irish writer. I love his economic use of diction and
sparse, really well-structed sentences. Nothing is wasted, and I often re-read
his sentences several times, because they are so perfectly crafted. I don’t
generally like overly ‘wordy’ novelists who use too many adjectives for my liking.
I suppose my style is based on what I enjoy as a reader.
Loree: Are you working on anything
at the moment that you can tell us about?
Tina: I’m currently promoting Delphy
Rose and doing the odd submission. I need a rest really, so will be doing lots
of reading. I find this is a good way to improve my future writing and gain
some stimulation.
Loree: What advice would you give to
people just starting out?
Tina: A good musician friend once
told me to forget about making money, or being famous, and to just create for
the sake of creating. I think that is pretty good advice. Stop trying to be as
good as your favourite writers. Be yourself, and write for your own enjoyment
and satisfaction. That’s my addition to her advice.
Loree: Thank you, Tina. I think that’s
great advice. And thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule for a chat.
Tina’s books can be purchased at PAC events, from
Pigeon Books (Southsea), The Book Shop (Lee-on-the-Solent),
Amazon, or directly from author. Delphy Rose can also be purchased from Troubador.
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