Elizabeth Macneal: Ten things that changed the life of best-selling novelist

THESE were the gifts I was given when each of my siblings was born. I don’t remember meeting my siblings but I do remember these gifts and my absolute delight when playing with them. It was a way of my parents helping me adjust to the fact my life was going to change.

In my mind, the toys stand for my siblings although I am not sure my sister would appreciate being likened to a trampoline or my brother to a kitchen! I did love being one of four, especially being the eldest meant I had a whole brood to boss around.

My siblings mean a lot to me. We have that unique combination of deep love and rivalry which I also write about in my fiction. I am really interested in sibling dynamics, even if those I tend to depict are, fortunately, a lot more dysfunctional than my own family.

2 A LIBRARY CARD

WE were members of Blackhall Library in Edinburgh where I grew up, and it was a real portal to other horizons. I could explore all these other lives and travel to different centuries and countries. It was there that I discovered a deep love of historical fiction which was particularly important because I didn’t enjoy history at school. I found it quite dry and dusty.

In that library, I came across a book called Coram Boy by Jamila Gavin. It made me realise the power of historical fiction and how relevant our past is to our present. I read it so many times my parents ended up buying a copy, which my brother and I often fought over. Even when I’m writing adult fiction I still turn to Coram Boy.

Libraries are so important. They level the playing field. Everyone can get a library card.

3 A SMALL WOODEN BOX

WHEN I was 11 years old, I moved school and had a very hard time. It was textbook exclusion bullying where nobody would sit with me and I was surrounded by whisperings and hissed comments.

I was the new girl and I struggled to settle in as I was not used to dealing with a whole new load of people. I joined mid-year and all the friendship groups had already formed.

I didn’t tell anyone as I felt so ashamed. I felt it was my fault for not being socially adept enough to fit in. I just endured it and sat on my own and tried to pretend I didn’t mind. It lasted about a year but the turning point came when one girl, for some inexplicable reason, gave me a small painted box on my birthday. Maybe she felt sorry for me or something but for me it was everything.

It was such a small thing but from then on we became friends and this changed everyone else’s attitudes towards me. From then on, I loved school.

Bullying can leave its mark. Even now sometimes when I meet new people I wonder if they think I’m weird or a bit odd. My mind often ticks over what people first thought of me when I was 11. I don’t think it has damaged me, though. It wasn’t fun when it happened but I think I was quite resilient in the long term.

4 PROFESSOR FIONA STAFFORD

I HAVE been fortunate enough to have had many brilliant English teachers who all nurtured my love of reading and writing. They made the idea of creative writing an exciting task, rather than a hated subject that I wanted to avoid in my free time.

I studied English at Oxford and Fiona (above) was great. I almost didn’t apply for Oxford as I didn’t think I would get in. I lacked confidence and although my English teacher said I should apply, it seemed really daunting. You hear stories about how high-pressured Oxford is but I thought I would give it a go and I’m so glad I did.

Fiona is one of those incredibly talented educators who gets the best out of you. She’s warm and ferociously intelligent. She guided me towards writing a dissertation on Clutter in Victorian fiction – quite a random subject, but a fascinating one! It was an age of mass manufacture and an age of museums, where novels were crammed full of objects. Ten years later the dissertation ended up inspiring my first novel, The Doll Factory, and forming the backdrop, so it was very important to me and my thinking.

5 THE MAYS ANTHOLOGY

WHEN I was at university I decided I wanted to write with the aim of being published. I spent my evenings writing furiously but I was still very self-conscious about everything I wrote. I didn’t share my work with anyone at first but I realised that if I was going to get published I had to get over that. I submitted a story to the Mays, the Oxbridge creative writing journal.

When my story was accepted, it was a huge turning point. I began to believe for the first time that maybe I could do it – even if I needed a lot more practice. It took me 10 years. I would get up at 5am before work and write every single morning and all weekend and I would take holidays to write. When my second novel was turned down, I decided I needed to learn more so I applied to do a Creative Writing Masters at the University of East Anglia.

6 A COPY OF MATILDA

AFTER I left university, I was visiting Oxford to see the children I had child minded during my Masters. As I had a little bit of time to kill, I decided to go into Blackwell’s bookshop and pick up a copy of Matilda as a gift. But then, when leaving the shop, I collided with someone coming in. He ended up being the man I married. I always think it is so strange that that snap decision to buy a book had such an impact on my life.

Jonny is wonderful. We have very different interests and I like it that way. I have given up trying to get him to read novels, although he reads mine in the interests of our marriage. For his part, he has given up trying to offer constructive criticism. He did it once and that was the last time.

He says it was love at first sight but I took a bit of convincing. We have been together for nine years and married for five.

7 A POTTERY WHEEL

WHEN my grandmother died, she left me a small amount of money which I wanted to spend on something special. I decided to buy a second-hand pottery wheel.

At the beginning I was just messing around with clay and making extremely misshapen pots, but as I sat there and learned and practised, I began – to my surprise - to be good enough to sell my pots. I ended up making enough as a potter to escape my corporate job and fund myself through the Masters. It was a very important pottery wheel! I made thousands of pots that year.

I worked hard because I wanted to make enough to have the flexibility to write and not return to my office job. I was a demon on that pottery wheel – I would go to my shed at six in the morning and come in at nine or 10 at night when I wasn’t in Norwich for my studies. I look back and wonder how I did it. But there is something energising about just getting on with it and knowing that I could then spend the next day at my desk, scribbling a short story.

Now I have a few sales every year but writing is my full-time career.

8 AN ENGAGEMENT RING

JONNY and I had been together for four years when he proposed. He didn’t have a ring because he knew my grandmother had left her beautiful engagement ring for me.

I miss my grandma and grandpa so much. They were full of fun and joy. I dedicated my first novel to them and would have loved them to have seen my work published but they both died in the year before I applied to do my Masters.

Jonny proposed in Zanzibar. We had been travelling, mainly in Ethiopia which is a fascinating country with such a strong sense of history and culture. There are magnificent ruined castles and churches cut into the rocky landscape. We trekked to the top of a volcano in the Danakil Depression and stood about five metres away from a lava lake. Now that area is a war zone.

9 A COMPETITION ENTRY

AFTER the Masters, I started writing a novel which I tentatively titled The Doll Factory. I loved writing it; it was very exciting. When I was writing it, I saw there was a competition called the Caledonian Novel Award. I didn’t think my draft was ready but a few minutes before the deadline I decided to submit it on the grounds that I had nothing to lose. To my complete delight I won that award and through that I met my agent. Within a week of winning the award we had offers from 14 publishers. I genuinely could not believe it – especially given how long and painstaking it had been to get to that point. Then all of a sudden it just went whoosh.

With my previous work, it had sometimes taken nine or 10 months to get a rejection from publishers. There were times when I was almost put off but I loved writing and knew that the only way to guarantee never making it as an author was by never writing again.

I think I was the first Scottish author to win the prize and The Doll Factory became a Sunday Times bestseller, a Radio 4 Book at Bedtime, with TV rights sold too. I didn’t know what to do with myself when all of that happened. It was incredible but also completely frightening.

10 MY SECOND NOVEL

THE Doll Factory was the result of many years of thinking, right back to my dissertation, and publication was the peak of my ambition. I had barely thought beyond that, so it took me about a year to come up with an idea for a second novel.

Then one day I was flicking through a book about Victorian London and I came across a photo titled “unidentified bearded woman age 23”, her name smudged and lost to history. I began thinking about her life and circus life, and that was the lightbulb moment for the book that has gone on to become Circus of Wonders. It was published recently and became a Sunday Times bestseller. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but the response has been brilliant. I’ve been blown away with how people have enjoyed it and it has given me a lot of confidence with my third book which I now have an idea for.

It’s been heartening as I suffered from imposter syndrome, especially as my first two novels had been turned down. The response to them was so different that it was easy to think that The Doll Factory was a one-off. I had to remind myself that with pottery, I threw dud pots at the beginning but now I can make a good pot each time. It’s the same with writing. I’ve been learning and improving all the time.

Circus of Wonders is published by Picador