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" I like missing someone and being missed; I like looking forward to seeing him again. I like getting emails and texts with lots of xxx's. "
Deborah Moggach
Forward
Him
Looking
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" 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
" 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
" When I was young, I couldn't imagine women of 60 falling in love. For one thing, people used to stay married; they weren't out in the jungle, searching for romance. Besides, these women just looked so ancient - permed hair, beige cardis. "
Deborah Moggach
Women
Love
Falling
" 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
" 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
" Living apart is hardly possible if people have children together. It can also be more expensive to maintain two homes. But then, it's expensive to break up when you live in one property. "
Deborah Moggach
You
Together
Children
" One sees more and more people who are miserable and demented and you feel it would be both kind and wise to leave them a few pills. "
Deborah Moggach
Feel
Kind
Miserable
" 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
" 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
" I found Hollywood pretty bruising and uncreative. The executives are all in thrall to the boss, and spend their times double-guessing him or her, and trying to remember what he/she said and then applying them to the script, whether it was useful or not. They're all in fear for their jobs. "
Deborah Moggach
Her
Trying
Remember
" I feel as if someone is going to come along, feel my collar and say: 'Do you really think you can get people to read books you've made up about people that don't exist?' "
Deborah Moggach
People
Think
Feel
" 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
" 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 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
" It's a very rich brew that's in your psyche by the time you're in your 60s, and I think that's rather interesting. It makes you feel you've lived a very long life; it's like going on holiday to three different cities rather than spending two weeks in Lisbon. You look back on the holiday, and you seem to have been away forever. "
Deborah Moggach
Time
Think
Rich
" 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
" 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
" You can cycle through London on the side streets, which are less polluted - and much more interesting anyway. "
Deborah Moggach
More
Interesting
London
" I do believe that we baby-boomers are reinventing ageing as we enter it. We're living longer and expecting more from life; the success of 'The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel,' and other films and novels about finding love late in life, have shown that if we're up for it, there are adventures awaiting us. "
Deborah Moggach
Believe
Best
Late
" 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
" 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
" 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
" I've had a very lucky life because I'm of this generation where everything was possible. "
Deborah Moggach
Lucky
Where
Possible
" I have a hippopotamus skull next to my bed, called Gregory. When I was six, my three sisters and I clubbed together and paid £4 for it in a junk shop. We collected owl pellets, ostrich eggs and sheep skulls for our natural history museum at home. "
Deborah Moggach
Together
Sheep
History
" I'm mad about gardening. I have an allotment on the other side of Hampstead Heath, and I keep three hens in my garden. "
Deborah Moggach
Three
Side
Mad
" 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
" 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
" I was never a lonely child who sat looking at the rain sliding down the window. "
Deborah Moggach
Window
Rain
Looking
" A novel is utterly your own creation, a very private process. I think of a novel as a noun and a screenplay as a verb. In a novel, very little needs to happen; you can explore a person's memories and thoughts and fantasies. In a screenplay, it's all action; you must push the story on. "
Deborah Moggach
Story
Think
Thoughts