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" I hate fussing about in the kitchen when I have people over to supper, so I make a rich beef stew cooked in wine with carrots, sundried tomato paste and chopped chorizo sausage. "
Deborah Moggach
Rich
Wine
Hate
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" The traditional writer is a sensitive only child, asthmatic, who sits on the window seat watching the drops of rain slide down the pane, very introspective. I'm not inward-looking. I would never go to a shrink. I don't want to know what I'm thinking. I don't really like discussions in my family. It may be an avoidance thing. "
Deborah Moggach
Thinking
Child
Family
" Bringing my two children up while writing was just a part of life. I'd much rather have had their interruptions than been stuck in a sterile office. This way, I had welcome distractions. I had to load the washing machine, I had to go out and buy lemons. "
Deborah Moggach
Welcome
Children
Life
" I've written something like 17 novels, which isn't bad, I suppose, but my father wrote 120 books, my mother 40. In comparison, I'm lazy. "
Deborah Moggach
Bad
Father
Lazy
" Don't start writing your novel until you know your characters very, very well. What they'd do if they saw somebody shoplifting. What they were like at school. What shoes they wear. Spend days - weeks, months - being them until they thicken up and start to breathe. "
Deborah Moggach
Writing
You
Know
" I am a great believer in having the power to end your life and knowing that, in extremis, you can. But I would not want to involve anybody else in my actions if it could imperil them. "
Deborah Moggach
Power
You
I Am
" All novelists I speak to about how they started usually say it was by pulling up their roots and going to live somewhere else. You see the shape of your life at a distance. "
Deborah Moggach
Speak
You
Roots
" It's not a failure if a marriage or partnership ends after a certain number of years. I think, in general, we expect too much of partners. We can't fulfil a person's every single need and, after ten years or so, many relationships wear out. If we were more philosophical about it, we wouldn't try to blame the other person or be bitter. "
Deborah Moggach
Think
Marriage
Failure
" You can cycle through London on the side streets, which are less polluted - and much more interesting anyway. "
Deborah Moggach
More
Interesting
London
" I'm quite easy to live with and very easy going. "
Deborah Moggach
Live
Going
Easy
" Independence is fun, especially when there's a beloved waiting in the wings, and freedom makes you a more interesting person. Having separate lives brings fresh air into a relationship. "
Deborah Moggach
Freedom
Waiting
You
" Writing a novel is a huge adventure; when it's going well it's more fun than fun. When it stutters to a halt put it aside. Go for a swim, go for a walk, take a week off. Don't panic or be afraid; you and your characters are in it together. Trust them to come to your rescue. "
Deborah Moggach
Together
Walk
Trust
" I work every day from 9:30 or so until lunchtime. In the afternoons, I become a normal person - go shopping and do the garden and look after my grandchildren. "
Deborah Moggach
Look
Shopping
Work
" Discover the times when you're most creative - mornings, nights, afternoons - and clear the time to work then. Many writers find the mornings are best, and the afternoons are only good for editorial corrections, or getting the washing done. Others can only work through the night, drunk. "
Deborah Moggach
Good
Work
Time
" Once you start cycling, the city opens up for you. No longer are you fighting it, hot and frustrated; no longer are you at the mercy of bus drivers, roadworks, decisions made by others and over which you have no control. Believe me, once you've tasted this freedom, you're hooked. "
Deborah Moggach
Me
Decisions
Freedom
" All I want is for people, when they read my books, to feel companioned, to feel they're not alone in the world. "
Deborah Moggach
World
Alone
Books
" Psych yourself up until you're confident that the world will be interested in what happens to your characters. Confidence is key. "
Deborah Moggach
Confidence
Yourself
You
" I've had a very lucky life because I'm of this generation where everything was possible. "
Deborah Moggach
Lucky
Where
Possible
" Living together places a huge burden on the other person to be lover, friend, entertainments manager, chef, domestic help, which is almost impossible and can lead to disappointment. If you don't live together, you spend more time with other people and ease the pressure off your lover. "
Deborah Moggach
Live
Time
Chef
" Nothing beats weaving through the rush-hour traffic or whizzing past the eternal gridlock that is the Strand. "
Deborah Moggach
Traffic
Nothing
Past
" I wanted to be a landscape architect, but I trained as a teacher; I worked in publishing; I was a waitress. "
Deborah Moggach
Landscape
Teacher
Publishing
" You need to know the characters as living, breathing people before you start the plot; otherwise, you'll feel panic, anarchy and chaos. "
Deborah Moggach
Chaos
People
Start
" I was never a lonely child who sat looking at the rain sliding down the window. "
Deborah Moggach
Window
Rain
Looking
" My perfect day is to work incredibly well in the morning and write something wonderful, then take the dog for a walk and go for a swim in the ladies' ponds on Hampstead Heath or work in my allotment. Then I get tarted up in the evening and go out in London to dinner or the cinema. "
Deborah Moggach
Work
Day
Dinner
" I'm always running my mouth off and getting myself in trouble, so I'm trying to do it less. "
Deborah Moggach
Always
Trying
Trouble
" My favourite room in my house is easily the top room, which is a bedroom but also a bathroom, with a big, wooden carved bath, two huge fireplaces and a raised bit in the corner for performances. I've had some really lovely parties and poetry readings up there. "
Deborah Moggach
House
Bath
Two
" I'd like to be a jazz singer, but I couldn't possibly do it; nobody would want me, anyway. "
Deborah Moggach
Want
Me
Nobody
" My first novel, 'You Must be Sisters,' was started in Pakistan. I've wrote several novels and a TV drama set or partly-set there. "
Deborah Moggach
TV
Drama
First
" Men take much more notice of older women in France, so I might move there. I think I'm a good bet. "
Deborah Moggach
Think
Women
Older Women
" It was very liberating, living in a foreign country, a place where everything was new and strange - the food, the customs, the climate, everything. "
Deborah Moggach
Country
Strange
Place
" I have four Rhode Island Red hens. I get two eggs from them a day. They're feathered dustbins that eat leftover food and weeds, and they're easy to look after - I throw some grain at them in the morning, take the eggs and that's it. I love the sound of clucking. "
Deborah Moggach
Day
Food
Love