KATHRYN HUGHES

‘The Memory Box is my fifth book, which began life with a simple image of an old lady celebrating her 100th birthday in the care home where she lives. However, instead of being surrounded by friends and family, she’s in the company of strangers who have been drafted in to make up the numbers. Jenny has outlived everybody she has ever loved and it is to her young carer, Candice, she turns when going through her memory box. As Jenny caresses the smooth pebble, picked up off a faraway beach a lifetime ago, she realises there is one last journey she must make. She knows it will be painful but if she can persuade Candice to accompany her, she will get through it.

The book moves between Manchester in 2019 and wartime Wales and Italy, and as Jenny tells Candice her life story, it soon becomes clear the two women have more in common than they first imagined.

‘I try to keep to a writing routine similar to the standard working week and am always at my desk by ten at the latest. I know this is not everybody’s idea of an early start. Then, I will go through the various admin involved with being a writer, followed by reading and editing what I wrote the day before. I set myself a target of 1,000 words a day and whilst some days I may achieve many more than this, on other days it’s a right old slog and I can barely pass the 200 mark.

‘The best piece of writing advice was given to me by my tutor at a writing group I attended many, many moons ago. She told us to employ the BOSHOK method, which stands for Bum On Seat, Hands On Keyboard. Or in my case, often, Bum On Seat, Head On Knees. It basically means, just get on with it.

‘The best advice I can offer to aspiring writers is a quote I have shamelessly nicked from Elmore Leonard. ‘Try not to write the parts people tend to skip.’ Says it all really.’