Natasha Pulley
She’s turned from fantasy to sci-fi – will it be into an octopus next?
What is your daily writing routine like?
I’m best in the mornings, from about 7.00am to 10.00am. I used to be a night owl: no more! I don’t know how that happened. The whole thing is very distressing.
Do you have any personal mementos on your desk?
No. I’m a joyless soulless drone – I could write in a cubicle office with nothing in it except dust and a dead houseplant. I don’t need stuff in order to write, just a bit of background noise and access to some friendly humans once every 48 hours.
How do you deal with writers’ block/the urge to procrastinate?
I don’t normally get it. If I’m struggling with one piece of work, I usually write something else for a week or two and then go back to the other thing. Not necessarily with fresh eyes, but at least eyes that aren’t upsettingly past their sell-by date.
Which of your books was the most difficult to write?
The Mars House was really difficult. I’d never done science fiction before, so research couldn’t really shape it in the way you can rely on with historical fiction. The plot kept hurrying away from me whenever I thought I’d got a good grip on it. And I wasn’t writing under contract, so I knew there was a possibility I’d finish it and never be able to sell it, just like a debut novel.
Have you ever come up with a good plot idea in a dream?
Never good plot ideas, because those usually need a good dose of logic; I’m not so great at that when I’m asleep. But definitely individual scenes or images. The whole of The Kingdoms is based around the image of a man waiting for someone on a pebble shore, and that came from a recurring dream.
Were you a keen reader when you were a child?
Super keen! I grew up on Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman and Ursula Le Guin, and even now, if I’m in a bit of a moral knot, the best way out is normally to ask what Granny Weatherwax would do.
Which Sf/fantasy book published in the last year has most impressed you?
Prophet, by Helen Macdonald and Sin Blaché. I loved the idea of an American diner just popping into being one morning in a field in England. The ending really annoyed me, which is brilliant, because being annoyed is helpful: then you go away and you write something in response, and the whole point of literature is that books talk to other books.
What’s the best gift you’ve received from a reader?
Someone gave me a red velvet sock puppet octopus recently, and I’ve been feeling a very strong urge to start doing book reviews on
Tiktok as the Velvet Octopus.
What’s the most frustrating thing about being an author?
You have no control over whether your book is going to do well. You could write the best book you’ve ever written, but if the publisher doesn’t push it, it will go under without a ripple. Or you could write one you genuinely feel is a bit rubbish, but for one reason or 12, the publisher will really get behind it, and it will end up on the bestseller list. It’s like being a gambler: all you do is keep throwing the dice.
The Mars House is out now, published by Gollancz.