Maria Hoyle is a journalist who's penned and edited everything from New Zealand home interior articles to UK tabloid features. Her book, A Very French Affair, follows her journey from Auckland to France for love. It is a transcontinental, romantic memoir in the vein of A Year in Provence and Eat, Pray, Love.
Can you tell us a little about the new book?
On one level it’s a simple story. Girl meets boy, boy asks her to come live with him in his French water mill (as they do), she throws sanity to the wind and says ‘yes’ despite knowing him for all of 3 seconds. (It was two weekends and a week actually). So there’s the always hovering question: will it work out? I should add the ‘girl’ was 63 at the start. But also it was me exploring what love is, what it means to belong, how much substance there is to the idea of ‘a dream life’. Also how much cheese I could eat in a day.
How difficult was it writing your first book?
Hmm, well it didn’t start out as a book. I just had this travel notebook and I began jotting things down. Then I wrote a feature for a magazine about my experience, and I realized I had more to say. Friends kept saying ‘write a blog!’ and that chilled me to the bone. The idea of just throwing your thoughts out to the universe with no-one to edit you. With a book, other people (I was so fortunate to have the amazing team at Allen & Unwin) are there to give feedback and rein you in if needed. Not that they did, but they did furnish me with a wonderful editor. But I am not answering your question… It was challenging at times, when I had to explore why I felt a certain way about something. It was like cod psychology and writing rolled into one. But I found the more honest I was with myself, the easier it was to write.
What research was involved?
It was pretty much me living my life and writing about it. So no research to speak of. I have huge admiration for writers whose acknowledgements include the Smithsonian Institute or the British Museum archives, but that wasn’t me.
What was your routine or process when writing this book?
It was a bit slack. Every now and then I would write a bit, when I felt the urge. But nothing instils discipline in you like a deadline, and the closer I got to the promised manuscript handover date, the more structured I became. I wrote a plan of what would go in each chapter, and wrote the bits that flowed the most easily first. The notebook was hugely helpful. Sitting in front of a blank screen trying to summon up thoughts is like trying to read road signs in fog. But ideas or phrases would hit me at random times, like in the spices aisle at the supermarket, or in the shower, so I’d rush to jot them down and they were the seedlings for a new bit of the book. I always write one paragraph, read over it, edit it, write the next then go back to the top and read it all together and edit them both, and keep doing that to the end. It’s very slow and it’s probably far better to write a very rough draft of the whole chapter but I can’t seem to do that.
If a soundtrack was made to accompany the new book, name a song or two you would include.
It would have to be Au Café du Canal by Pierre Perret. It mentions ‘Jolie Rosette’ at the start, which is relevant to the book. And it’s utterly charming. And then the beautiful L’Amour en Solitaire by Juliette Armanet.
What did you enjoy the most about writing A Very French Affair?
There was so much going on, all these new experiences and feelings flying at me, that it was good to be able to net them and pin them down. To make sense of them. Also because it’s isolating being in a village in the middle of nowhere, without your family and friends around you, you can feel lost. Writing brought me back to my sense of self. Also if I needed my own space for a bit, writing was like a room I could go to that was just for me.
What did you do to celebrate finishing this book?
Nothing! I was just stunned and relieved that I had actually completed it, so every day felt like a celebration after that.
What is the favourite book you have read so far this year and why?
I loved Lioness. Just Emily Perkins’ beautiful writing style – it’s simple and elegant and so smart without being pretentious. Also Lessons in Chemistry. So clever; I absolutely adored the main character. And of course the dog.
What’s next on the agenda for you?
I don’t know! Maybe I need to wander the spices aisle for inspiration to strike. But fiction could be fun – writing from real life, you always feel you have someone looking over your shoulder and don’t want to offend. With fiction you can let it rip.
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