Jane Harris / Features / Untitled Books

"Every time I finish something I’m convinced that I’m going to be publicly humiliated upon publication. It takes me a long time to get any perspective on my work."

Jane Harris

Jane Harris writes fiction and screenplays. Her first novel, The Observations, was nominated for the Orange Prize, and her most recent, Gillespie & I, published this month, inspired the Telegraph to write: "Harris's writing is a joy, excitable yet controlled, bawdy yet respectable."

Where are you right now?
In London, at my desk, which is a big old school desk from a junk shop. From time to time, I still find lumps of rock-hard chewing gum underneath.

Where do you write?
Here, at the desk, on the computer. Years ago, I used to write propped up in bed, but I lost the habit. Through the window I can see a row of houses and back gardens, a pot of tiny purple anemones and the railing of the balcony.

How do you write?
Slowly. I plan everything out, for months. Then I tend to read everything aloud to myself, adopting all the character voices and so on. I'm incredibly anal about how the prose sounds and appears on the page, and for my last book I found it hard to move on until each paragraph or section was as good as it could get.

What keeps you writing?
There isn't anything else I can do. I am unemployable. And I get fidgety if I'm not working on something.

Who do you write for?
Hmm - probably for myself, in the first instance.

Do you discuss your work with anyone?
My husband writes and directs films and TV, and he and I talk constantly about our projects and help each other. It's a very creative relationship. With this last book, I was also helped enormously by a small group of friends/family who gave feedback on my manuscript. There is a criminal trial in my new novel and I'm particularly grateful to an old school-friend, a woman, who is now a Sheriff (or judge) in Scotland.

How do you know if your work is good?
Every time I finish something I'm convinced that I'm going to be publicly humiliated upon publication. It takes me a long time to get any perspective on my work. Readings to an audience can help give an indication of whether something is amusing or affecting, or not.

Do you have any unwritten characters in mind?
I'm working on a character at the moment, someone I've been thinking about for a while. That's for a series of short stories. There's other stuff brewing. I don't want to say too much at this stage. I think you can talk things away.

Which book do you wish you'd written?
Interesting question. I'm having trouble answering it. I think The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler is an almost perfect book but I'm glad she wrote it so that I could have the pleasure of reading and re-reading it.

What is your literary guilty pleasure?
I don't think I have a guilty pleasure. I've read some true crime stuff which has made me feel dirty - if that's what you mean.

Which writer made you want to write?
Possibly J.D. Salinger, Richmal Crompton or Mark Twain. Stuff I was reading when I was a child. But it took me a long time to realise that someone like me could be a writer. I didn't really start until I was 30.

Who's the most exciting author writing today?
I always look forward to new work by Anne Tyler, William Boyd, Sarah Waters and Jonathan Franzen.

If you weren't writing you'd be...?
God forbid, I might still be doing what I was doing when I started writing, which was teaching English as a Foreign Language in Portugal. It wasn't that my job was so bad, it's just that I'm eternally grateful to have discovered how much I love writing fiction.

What next?
Some short stories - I haven't written any in years and I need a break from longer projects. Then, who knows? Maybe another novel. Maybe a screenplay.

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Jane Harris's latest novel, Gillespie & I, is published by Faber and Faber.
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Sunday, 22 May, 2011