Nailing my niche...

I get such a kick out of writing... really, it's my drug of choice. I'm addicted. At the end of a writing session I feel I could run a marathon. I guess I'm making those 'feel-good' hormones that keep us coming back for more. For some it's running, for some it's flying or mountain-climbing… for me it's writing.

I've experimented a bit too, writing in different genres and for different audiences. But more and more I realise how my writing is a reflection of my deepest interests, and I see that most clearly in the reading that draws me. Finally I've started joining the dots. My favourite stories and their writers are:

• Year of Wonders - Geraldine Brooks
• Burial Rites - Hannah Kent
  
• People of the Book - Geraldine Brooks
• Caleb's Crossing - Geraldine Brooks

Epiphany... all historical fiction! There are also completely fictional stories set in actual historical events, especially wartime Europe, that are reading magnets for me...stories such as Anthony Doerr's All the Light We Cannot See, Jenna Blum's Those Who Save Us and Markus Zusak's The Book Thief.

It's not surprising that I'm beginning to understand myself as a writer. My most significant project - the one that has driven my writing from the beginning, that challenges me the most and haunts me every day to keep going, despite the obstacles - is also historical fiction. It's a story inspired by the events of WWII as seen through the eyes of the small child who would survive against the odds and who would grow up to become my mother.