Friday, March 29, 2024

Interview – author Fleur McDonald

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Serena Kirby, ARR.News
Serena Kirby, ARR.Newshttps://www.instagram.com/serenakirbywa/
Serena Kirby is a freelance reporter, writer and photographer based in regional Western Australia. With a background in public relations, education and tourism she’s had 30 years experience writing and photographing for local, national and international publications. Her current focus is on sharing stories from the sticks; its people, places and products and the life that lies beyond the city limits. She enjoys living in a small town while raising a tall teenager.

Fleur McDonald is one of Australia’s leading rural fiction writers and with 22 novels already to her name, and publishing two books a year, she’s certainly a highly prolific author. Fleur is also extremely popular with her readers and her books often become best sellers soon after they appear on the shelves.

Fleur grew up in the small town of Orroroo in South Australia before becoming a jillaroo and she now lives on an 8000 acre property east of Esperance, WA. With all her books being set in rural and regional locations she’s able to draw on her years of living and working on the land to create authentic and highly relatable characters. She also has a love of crime fiction and amongst Fleur’s many titles is an ever-growing crime series based around the character of Detective Dave Burrows.

Fleur recently took time out from her busy day to talk to Australian Rural and Regional News contributor, Serena Kirby, about what she writes, about plots and characters, and where she finds her inspiration.

ARR.News: What are you currently reading and who are your favourite crime writers?

Fleur McDonald: With everything that I’ve got going on, and spending a lot of time on the road, I tend to listen to audio books more than anything these days. I’m currently listening to the Bookbinder of Jericho by Pip Williams but I do love crime novels and anything to do with forensic science, lawyers and detectives.

Michael Connelly is my favourite author and I was lucky enough to meet him a few years ago when he was here in Australia. I also love John Grisham and Kathy Reichs and the earlier books by Patricia Cornwell but not so much her later ones.

I have to say I’m pretty tough on the books I read as well. If I find it doesn’t grab my attention straight up or I find that the research is flawed I just shut the book or stop listening if it’s an audio book. What I used to do, especially if I was quick to work out ‘who done it’ so to speak – is I’d skip forward and read the last chapter and go, yeah, I’m right, and put it down and not bother reading the whole book. But, if I got it wrong, I used to go back and have a closer look and be intrigued by how and where the author had tricked me.

ARR.News: So where do you get the inspiration for your plots? How do you come up with these story ideas and the many threads that weave a web of intrigue?

Fleur McDonald: I’ve got a detective friend who I catch up with once every couple of months. He used to head up the Stock Squad in WA which is now called the Rural Crime Unit so I talk to him. I also get tiny snippets of ideas from ABC radio and stories I read in a paper and these little snippets will sometimes give me a light bulb moment. And I think then, once you’ve got a little glimmer of an idea, all you have to do is ask, ‘what if, what if?’. Once you’ve answered those questions, you have a book!

ARR.News: And do any of your story ideas come from closer to home – maybe from people you know?

Fleur McDonald: Yes. In fact the plot for one of my books Emerald Springs came out of a conversation with my Dad. He was the treasurer for a local event committee in South Australia and responsible for collecting all the cash at the end of the day. I once asked him, “What do you do with all the cash?” because when he was the treasurer people paid more with cash than ETPOS. He told me he just popped it in the boot of the car and drove home and parked the car. I said to him, “Well, what if you get carjacked?” and he said, “Not likely”.

I then said, “Okay, well, I can make that happen!”.

So that’s what I made happen in the book Emerald Springs. Funny thing is that about 12 months later when that book came out the event committee decided they should get a security guard to look after the cash.

ARR.News: Many authors have a regular writing routine, do you?

Fleur McDonald: No, not really. I tend to sit and write when I can and when I’m in the throes of writing a book I write every day. I might write 300 words and later delete a lot of them or I might write 5,000 words and keep the lot.

I’m lucky that I can write anywhere – I don’t need a special place – and I do like writing early in the mornings as I find I’m far fresher at that time of day.

ARR.News: There can often be a considerable amount of time between writing a book and having it actually appearing on the shelves. What’s this turnaround timeframe like for you?

Fleur McDonald: Because I write two books a year the whole process probably takes about six months for each book. I’m currently editing the book that’s coming out in November and writing the one that’s scheduled to be out in April next year.

ARR.News: Is there a particular feeling you get when you’re writing? Is the act of writing your happy place?

Fleur McDonald: I’ve been through quite a few ups and downs in my life and I think the one constant thing has been words – whether I’m writing them or reading them.

I find that they’re almost a bit like a friend or someone that I can talk to or, you know, write something. I used to think that I wouldn’t be able to get through some things – wouldn’t be able to cope or that I wouldn’t have any inspiration when I was having these really terrible times, but I do. I think the whole constant thing there was that I made sure I fronted up and wrote every day. I think words made a lot of difference to me. They’ve been a very close friend.

Read Serena Kirby‘s review of Fleur McDonald‘s Into the Night

This interview is supported by the Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund.

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