Sallyann Sheridan - If Wishes Were Horses

An author interview with

		I'VE KNOWN local author and wheelchair user Sallyann for a number of years through Honiton Writers' Circle. Last year, Sallyann's first novel If Wishes Were Horses received great reviews and a nomination for The Guardian Literary Award. As well as novels, Sallyann writes non-fiction and teaches her literary craft to would-be writers across Europe and further afield. Anyone who meets Sallyann is struck by her cheerfulness and she has always been unstinting with her professional advice. I was delighted when she agreed to be interviewed for Devon Link... Did you always want to write? Not consciously. I have always been an avid reader and as I grew older I realised writing was something I was quite good at. I began to look at the craft of writing in the hope that I could become a better writer. How old were you when you started to write? I produced my first book around the age of eight or nine. At 17 I began to write sales letters for a company and found I had a flair for writing. Later I became a freelance copywriter and non-fiction author before turning my skills to fiction. Do you think you would have been a writer were you not disabled? Yes. It's difficult to say but I am so inspired by words and books that I can't think of doing anything else. I've always been struck by your positive outlook; to what do you attribute that? I feel I have always been good at accepting what is. There is no point kicking against things you can't	change. I don't see myself as having a disability - my body is just the vehicle I turned up in and I make the best use of what I've been given. When you research a book do you visit the locations? In the main, I write about places I know, but I will still research details to ensure I get it right. Sometimes I visit the location or, if it's about a time gone by, I use old photographs and the internet to check details. Do you use a Dictaphone to take notes or do you prefer longhand? No. I hold a lot of the information in my head before I write. This level of detail remains until the book is written straight onto computer. For If Wishes Were Horses I researched facts during writing. I'm a head writer, I go to sleep plotting and often wake up plotting! You travel extensively, how helpful do you find different countries when it comes to your mobility? Some countries are easier than others, yet I never let this influence my choice of destination. I have to trust that who and what I need will be available to me. Otherwise,	listing all the reasons why not to go, would stop me from doing anything. When I went to India alone for a month, I had no idea how I would wash my hair, bath my feet or who was going to help me around. But despite quite a few 'Oh my goodness what have I done?' moments, the joy of that trip will stay with me forever. Without wishing to minimise the amount of thought anyone with a physical challenge needs to consider, the more you do something, the better you become at it. I always mix a degree of organisation with a huge amount of trust. Uncertainty often fuels the joy of life. Have you started another novel yet? If so when can we look forward to seeing it in the shops? I've just started writing my next novel and aim to have it finished in early spring. All being well it should be in the shops by early 2011. How long does it take to write a novel and how much time do you spend each day working on it? The actual writing doesn't take me too long, as its conception, outline and much of the plotting I do in my head beforehand. If Wishes Were Horses took me a couple of years from conception to completion but I was working on other projects at the same time. When I write, I tend to become so involved that everything else takes second place. It's not the getting started that's difficult; it's the knowledge that once I start everything and everyone else falls to the wayside! Thank you Sallyann, I for one, thoroughly enjoyed If Wishes Were Horses and look forward to reading your next novel!

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