About Sylvia Murphy
Biography
Born: 1937 - some of my earliest memories are of air raids (we arrived by ship in Liverpool the day before the Germans bombed Liverpool docks), ration books (e.g one sweet each per day) men in uniforms (my father was posted to the Middle East) family rows (our grandmother wanted to send us as refugees to the USA.)
Childhood: We were brought up by our grandmother during the war years because both parents joined the forces - mother became a WAAF. I don't know why - she didn't have to, but it must have been more fun than staying at home managing the ration books. After the war we lived near to, and then in London. Our parents never had a home together after the war and were divorced by 1947. Mother and her sister grasped the first opportunity to go back to the Middle East, which led to my experiences of living in Dubai, Bahrain and Baghdad.
The real stories are great material for fiction and
I have used many of these experiences in my books - for example
It's hard to understand what The War was like unless you were there. Thosse of us who were kids at the time thought the world was always going to be like that - bombs being dropped on us, ration books for our food and clothes, pig swill bins on the street corners, home made Christmas presents, parents suddenly disappearing. My sister and I were looked after by our grandmother while our father fought in the army in the Middle East, and our mother joined the WAAF. Our grandmother was Swiss and taught us to speak French even before we went to school. She looked after us very well, but she was often angry (I suppose I would be if I had the struggle she had to feed us every day). It wasn't the same as having Mummy at home.
MY FATHER'S STORY IN MY LATEST NOVEL
I was born in Palestine before WW2, when it was still an autonomous country, and hadn't been taken oveer by Israel. I am the eldest child of the son of a wealthy Liverpool fruit merchant and the daughter of an army officer.
My father represented his father's business in Palestine, buying and shipping oranges to Ireland and Liverpool. Because the couple were expecting their second child in 1939, they went back to Liverpool to stay with my father's family where the baby was born. They fully intended at the time to return to Palestine but when WW2 broke out it was deemed too dangerous - apart from the main thrust of the war in Turkey and Iraq, daily life in Palestine was increasingly punctuated by riots and more serious atrocities, as the Palestinian arabs tried to prevent the Jews from taking over their land.
So my sister and our mother stayed in England for the durataion of the war while our father joined the army. When his superiors discovered that he could speak fluent Arabic he was sent back to the Middle East to join a special unit in Syria. My father wrote about all his adventures when he was an old man with an unquiet spirit. For a long while after his death I didn't read it, then I realised that if I didn't read what he had written, and if I didn't find a way of writing my version, the knowledge of the past would soon fade away. So I have used his story, and what my mother and grandmother told me about Palestine, and what I remember about the war days, to write my latest book, CANDY'S CHILDREN.
My working life has been devoted to teaching and the management of education. The final years of my career were as a School Inspector. Need I say that what I really wanted to be was a writer, but I never managed to grasp the right opportunities when they came over the horizon, with the result that, although I have had several books published and written for a number of magazines, I never managed to earn enough to support myself as a writer - but that applies to a lot of us, I think.
A most important career move now is towards self publishing because I have decided I am too old to sit around for months on end waiting for publishers to pronounce their verdict on my current work. Working under the imprint of S.A. GREENLAND I have already made a profit on my first publication (SURVIVING YOUR PARTNER - 2nd edition) and hope to be equally successful with the second (CANDY'S CHILDREN) later this year.
Writing:
Two novels - THE COMPLETE KNOWLEDGE OF SALLY FRY
And - THE LIFE AND TIMES OF BARLY BEACH
Prize-winning play - THE WAY TO THE WEDDING
Non fiction - KEEPING NYALA IN STYLE
DEALING WITH A DEATH IN THE FAMILY
SURVIVING YOUR PARTNER
CANDY'S CHILDREN recently launched - has received some good reviews in local and national press, and from critical readers. Some fans have said it would make an excellent movie. Why not read it and see for yourself?
CROCODILES - my next novel, based on a recent visit to Africa - almost finished. Would you like the chance to buy CANDY'S CHILDREN at a reduced price if you order an advance copy of CROCODILES at the same time? If you would, send me an email throough the 'contact' section of this website.
Other General information
Did you always want to be a writer?
Yes - from the moment I knew what a book was for. Age 6 I was illustrating stories for my own pleasure. Age 11 I was producing a monthly magazine to circulate amongst the family. Age 10 I found a little portable typewriter in our attic and learned to use that.
What did you read as a child?
Everything. I lived in a home full of book cases and we all had subscriptions to Harrods library. My mother did draw the line when she found me reading Hemingway at age 10, and directed me to Zane Grey instead. I still read everything, though some things are more satisfying than others these days, and I find myself more and more likely to leave unsatisfying books unfinished.
How do you get an idea for a book?
Usually the idea comes from the characters and then the situations they find themselves in and how they deal with those situations. The initial characters are always real people though they get changed (hopefully beyond recognition) as the work progresses.
Do you plan out the whole book before you write it?
Not as such. I plan out the whole idea for a story that I think will work but stories have a habit of doing their own thing so often it doesn't come together very well and that's why I have a large filing cabinet full of first drafts that have been abandoned.
Describe a typical writing day.
Open my emails. Play a game or two of solitaire to limber up my brain and warm up the computer (that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it). Unplug the telephone. Open file of yesterday's writing and resist doing any re-writing or editing of work already done. Sit for 3 or 4 hours making new words - during that time I expect to produce about 1000 - 2000 words. That's the limit - after that the work becomes very stale. By then it should be about lunchtime so I plug in the telephone and either go out or sit and watch Neighbours on the TV. The rest of the day is for me - I don't write well in the afternoon. Editing and rewriting is all done later, after the first draft has been finished. If I tried to do it as I go along the book would never get finished.
What are you working on now?
I've been working hard getting CANDY'S CHILDREN launched. It's time-consuming getting publicity material and reviews organised and it's about this moment that you begin to wonder very seriously if it's worth the effort at all. Specially when the printer seemed to have major problems as well, getting the look of the book right. It was a great day just a week before Christmas when the books finally arrived - that's when it DOES all seem worthwhile. They've started to sell (slowly) but really I need a rocket to assist take-off at the moment! HOWEVER - last week there was a good review in the Guardian Review - almost unheard of for a national paper to review a self-published book - SO IT MUST BE PRETTY GOOD - wouldn't you like to read it?
It's hard to get back to writing creatively - I have been writing a new novel based on a trip to Africa last year with my daughter - I'm calling it CROCODILES - it has a crocodile farm in it, but it's mostly about the way that the people behave like crocodiles, trying to eat each other all the time.
What do you do when you have writer's block?
Anything except try to write. In fact, I don't often suffer from WB. I like to get on with putting the words in their place. And it's much easier now we have computers. The first book I wrote was on a typewriter, and each draft had to be retyped, so I was a lot more careful about how I constructed each sentence right from the start. Now it doesn't matter - the words flow on and off the page like honey.
How do you balance writing and being a mother?
Its not difficult - a child is someone you live with and they are the richest source of material I know. Sometimes its a problem finding time for everything but I'm afraid its the laundry and washing up that loses out. In the early days I gave my son his own book and pencil so he could write his own stories. Now my children are grown up the only thing that worries me occasionally is to think "Do I want my children to know I know all about - whatever?"
Are your books or characters autobiographical?
I don't know. I do use scenes and events that I have experienced - for example the start of a big sailing race, the birth of a baby, but the people come out differently, according to the needs of the story.
What kind of research do you do for your books?
Enjoy life. But I also check the details. For example, I had to go up to London to Canary Wharf recently because I didn't know how it had been laid out after the IRA bomb. I would never try to write about a place I had never been to.
Which is your favorite of your books?
The last one is always the favourite because I'm absorbed in the characters, as though they are a bunch of friends I'm on holiday with.
What advice can you give to writers starting out?
Grow a very thick skin because you will experience more rejection and brush-offs than you would believe possible. Learn to listen to criticism and use it to improve your work. Remember that nobody is going to pay you for writing to please yourself - you only get paid for writing what other people ask you for. Believe in your ability. If you can deliver what is required there is nothing so satisfying as seeing your work in print.
How do you go about getting a book published?
Many books have been written on this subject. Remember that every one of them has been written by someone who is trying to sell their own work, not yours. If I was starting again I would join a creative writing course at my local university because apart from learning how to write you will build up contacts that way. When you are ready , buy the Writer's and Artist's Yearbook, find an agent, then be prepared to grow old while you wait for a response from the industry. In fact, things are changing with the development of the internet, and the old-fashioned way of getting published may not be relevant by the time you have finished your first book.
Which living author do you most admire and why?
That is a hard one. I think I must say Doris Lessing because she had so much to say about the world we women grew up in, during the seventies and eighties, and now that 'Feminism' seems to have gone out of fashion, she still writes the most vivid and moving tales set in the future. I've never been disappointed with a book she's written - and now she has won the Nobel Prize, it seems other people feel the same.
What writers do you like to read?
Anyone who delivers a well constructed, well written story - Bernard Cornwell, Wilbur Smith, John le Carre.
Also, writers like Robert Fisk who documents with outstanding honesty the events leading up to the turn of the century. (The 21st Century, that is) Good biographers like Clare Tomalin.
What I'm reading?
I've just read a very sad story -The Kite Runner by Khaled Husseini - we all know about this book now it's a major film. I've also recently read A Thousand Splendid Suns by the same author, which the critics are raving about, but honestly it's not as good. Problem, again, is a man trying to write about women's lives. I've just re-read The Mission Song - for the second time. I find Le Carre books need two readings to be fully appreciated. Also read Ian McEwan's On Chesil Beach - I've always liked his books, ever since he was as obscure as me (though he also isn't very good at creating convincing women). I'm also reading Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, because I saw the film and loved it. I thought the books would be very childish but in fact it's a very sophisticated and scary story.
I'll tell you a funny story about what I'm reading - On a recent business trip to London I was stuck for an hour at Victoria Coach Station with nothing to read except the sample copy of CANDY'S CHILDREN that I had in my briefcase. I started to read it and became so absorbed that I VERY NEARLY MISSED MY BUS!!!
Books tell you a lot about a person. When I visit someone I like to take a peek at their bookshelves and bedside tables. Here's your chance to peek at mine.
I read two outstanding books last year We Must Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver and A million Little Pieces by James Frey. Both handled emotion and conflicting family relationships in a brilliant way. But you're just as likely to find a Patrick O'Brien saga, a Linda la Plante thriller or the autobiography of Mae West. They're all worth a read.
