About Sami ...

So this is the part where I tell you all about myself. Sounds easy enough, but give me a novel to write any day! Here I have to try and predict what you might want to know, which is quite a task believe me. Thinking about it I’ve listed several most likely asked questions and their answers below. If you have any more, feel free to email me.

What’s your next book about?

People often ask this one of writers. Some writers love to answer, some get stumped when trying to explain. I fall into the latter category. I’m what is known in the industry as a ‘pantser’ (as in fly by the seat of them) or a ‘fog walker’. Which is to say I don’t outline, at least not on paper. I start a story and don’t know where it’s going to take me. The first 3-4 chapters are usually scrapped on the re-write or extensively revised, so I have come to consider this time as the necessary ‘getting to know you’ time with my characters, rather than ‘wasted’ time (that’s negative talk and negative talk makes you go and turn on the TV instead of writing). So when people ask me what my WIP (work in progress) is about I can’t really say because I don’t know til it’s done.

Other writers plot their stories down to the finest details. Many pantsers envy them, and I certainly tried to emulate them for years and years, writing outlines that did nothing other than kill my inspiration for a story so effectively I ended up not writing it. I don’t even try to write detailed outlines anymore and I’ve come to love the unpredictability of the process as I experience it.

So do your characters control the story?

No, I do. At least that’s what I keep telling them. I’m always working plot ideas around in my mind, and I don’t want to say my characters talk to me, because that might make me sound nuts, but they certainly talk to each other inside my head, which can be very distracting. They have the best conversations in those moments between sleep and wakefulness, what I call my time of hypnagogic brilliance. I rarely recall this brilliance verbatim when I awake, and usually spend all morning trying to remember each witty rejoiner to little success. The best I can hope for is that the spirit of the repartee comes out on the page at some point while I’m writing. I admire those writers who can keep a notebook beside their bed and write down ideas in the middle of the night. I tried it, but was always losing the pen or the idea before I could get anything useful down.

What made you start writing?

Boredom, pure and simple. I started writing in high school English class, when the teacher would set a comprehension exercise that I would finish fairly quickly (comprehension was my favourite thing, word nerd that I am), and leave me with half a lesson with nothing to do. I started writing short stories to fill in the time. I figured, it’s English, right? Pretty soon those short stories became long stories, and I started writing in all my classes, hiding the loose leaf pages inside my maths/science/history books.

It wasn’t long before my clandestine activities became known to my friends, and they wanted me to write stories that starred them. This I gladly did, and these sweeping comedic soap operas where in hot demand for a while, an 80’s version of a daily blog that lasted most of the school year.

Was that when you decided you wanted to be a writer?

Oh sure. It was my backup plan if the whole rock star thing didn’t work out (considering I was all thumbs on the guitar and couldn’t hold a tune to save my life, the rock star dream was never going anywhere). Of course, I soon learned that while being a writer came naturally, being an author, takes work. Life intervened and I learned to type so I could get a ‘real’ job (and hasn’t the typing come in handy?).

So what other jobs have you had?

Oh, I’ve been a secretary (euphamism for general dogsbody in some languages), a bar tender, waitress and a pamplet delivery person (yes, that annoying junk mail that stuffs full your letterbox), student, tutor, human resource manager, government worker… oh and that’s it. Pretty much. I now work part time in a government job that allows me to spend some time on my writing and some time with my family.

So where do you live?

I’m an Aussie girl, through and through. I’ve lived in Sydney, Northern New South Wales, Brisbane, on the Gold Coast, in Canberra and now on the Northern outskirts of Brisbane, on a Peninsula which overlooks Moreton Bay. My house, unfortunately, does not overlook Moreton Bay but you can’t have everything. I live with one husband, one daughter and two dogs, dachshunds if you’re interested (sausage or weiner dogs, if you want clarification). My mother breeds and shows dachshunds, so I have had the breed around me all my life and love them to bits, although I love all dogs really. I’m a true dog person, which is not to say I’m not also a cat person, just that I’ve never owned one. What with all the dogs it didn’t seem smart. Please don’t hold it against me, cat people.