5 MINUTES WITH Lucy Clarke, author of You Let Me In

HOW DID YOU GET STARTED AS AN AUTHOR?

When I went travelling in my 20s,

I started keeping a travel journal, spending long stretches of each day writing. I knew that when

I returned to the UK, I didn’t want to go back to my job in advertising; I wanted to write. It took me five years of writing and learning – and a good collection of rejection letters – before I signed my first book deal with Harpercollins.

WHAT’S YOUR WRITING ROUTINE?

My husband and I co-parent, so I write in the mornings while he looks after our two children. I like to be at my desk soon after 6am. I prefer to write first drafts by hand – there’s something about a simple pencil and a blank page that unlocks my creativity in a way that a laptop can’t. My favourite place to write is at our beach hut, where I go offline, sit still and quiet, and ogle the horizon until the words arrive.

DO YOU FIND WRITING A PLEASURE?

Being a writer is the greatest privilege of my life. But that doesn’t mean every day is brushed with gold; there’s plenty of heartache, disappointment, and long patches when I struggle with feeling uninspired. Yet, there are also moments when it’s just me and my notebook and the words are flowing – and, well, that feels a little bit like falling in love.

WHICH AUDIOBOOKS HAVE YOU ENJOYED RECENTLY?

Most afternoons during lockdown, my children and I would bundle into our hammock to listen to a couple of chapters of an audiobook. Our favourites were the Winnie-the-pooh books, read by Stephen Fry among others, and Charlie And The Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl. In the evenings, I love cooking while listening to a book, and I adored Untamed by Glennon Doyle, a powerful series of essays exploring what happens when you stop striving to meet the expectations of society.