This will sound strange but writing the novel was easy for me. It flew from my head, onto the keyboard and into a file, mainly because the story had grown for 2 years before I even started writing it. But there was a moment that I found particularly difficult, and that was writing the last two chapters of Whale Song. I knew what would happen in the story and I knew it would be emotional from two perspectives: the story itself and the fact that once I’d written them it meant I was finished.

So I did something that has now become a trend for me. I wrote everything up to the last two chapters. Then I edited and re-edited I don’t know how many times. Once I felt it was extremely tight, I wrote the last 2 chapters…with a box of Kleenex nearby. And I’ll tell you, I used it. My husband came home and found me all teary-eyed and was quite concerned. I blubbered, “I’m finished Whale Song.” In some ways, I mourned. It was as if I had lost a friend. But that went away the second it was published.