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“I always carry a notebook and love to do people-watching everywhere. I write down snippets of overheard conversations to use at some future point. People who know what I do for a living now probably avoid me because of this,” said Hayley Smith.
Hayley, who lives in Whitwell, is a best-selling author whose books The Perfect Girlfriend and Such A Loving Couple have sold around 65,000 copies, both topping the Amazon charts for psychological fiction.
Her latest release, The Childminder, is also a thriller. It’s the story of mums with secrets who receive anonymous notes at the same time asking how they could have trusted each other with their children.
Hayley, 53, said: “I love writing dark characters. It’s very much about background: why do people behave like they do?, what has happened to them in the past?, what are their day to day lives like? It’s an exploration of the unsettling bits of the mind; it’s a puzzle to solve and I enjoy constructing all the twists and turns that make a page-turning thriller.
“I think The Perfect Girlfriend is my favourite because there are some dark and quirky characters in it which I loved writing. Also there is much of the local area and villages described in it and readers often get in touch when they think they have guessed locations of the different scenes.”
Hayley, who has written stories for most of her life including articles for magazines, had her dream come true two years ago when she landed a four-book deal with a major digital publishing company.
She said: “I’d previously had an agent and she had offered my debut to the big publishers. Although they liked my writing style, most of them turned it down because they didn’t like the ending or didn’t think the story was commercial enough. I decided to do a big rewrite and changed the ending, however by the time this was completed my agent had moved jobs so couldn’t represent me anymore. So I approached around three or four publishers who were willing to accept manuscripts from unagented writers and within a week an editor from Bookouture (digital imprint of Hachette UK, one of the top publishing companies) had got in touch to say that she loved my novel and wanted to meet and discuss a book deal. It was an incredible feeling when I opened the official email to say that they wanted to publish my book (and further books that I hadn’t even written!).
“My debut actually took around ten years from starting it to publication, but I had to do a lot of rewriting including four different endings! The two that I have written since have both taken around eight months each, including all the edits, but I have worked on them full-time. In some ways it gets easier because I’m familiar with the editing process now and what is required of me. Although I do sometimes wake up at 3am in a panic, trying to figure out where to place the twists and turns. My mind is forever plotting!” Hayley, 53, is currently writing her fourth book and has a deadline of December 2 to file a first draft of 80,000 words. She said: “The book deal I have with my publisher means that I have to provide them with a book every nine months so I’m generally at my desk four to five days per week.”
With personal and professional roots in the Chesterfield area, Hayley decided to set her stories in north Derbyshire. Her writing is influenced by the places she visits, general life and unusual news articles.
She said: “I loved writing stories as a child and always wanted to be Enid Blyton; then around the age of about 14 I wanted to be Stephen King; then when I reached my twenties I discovered Barbara Vine and knew that I wanted to write psychological thrillers.
“Later, when I was in my 30s, I did a degree through the Open University studying English Language and Creative Writing. My writing tutor was the award-winning author Ray Robinson (Electricity) and he was impressed with my stories, telling me that I should write a novel. It was some years later that I decided to take his advice, but I acknowledged him in my debut, The Perfect Girlfriend.”
Prior to landing a book deal, Hayley was a youth worker for Derbyshire County Council for 20 years. She said: “Whilst I was a youth worker I organised many teenage rock nights at local youth clubs in Creswell, Clowne and Bolsover for young up and coming bands to gain experience performing to an audience (some of these even went on to gain BBC radio airplay).
“I was part of a small team in Whitwell for around 13 years, and we organised the annual three-day music festival as well as lots of Live & Local events which brought national theatre groups and music performances to the village.”
Hayley, who has three grown-up children, played in the ceilidh band Beggars Belief in her younger years. She is married to Michael, a musician in the comedy parody band The Bar Steward Songs of Val Doonican.
She said: “Many people I have met along the way, particularly musicians (but no names mentioned) have inspired my writing, most notably in The Perfect Girlfriend.”
For the launch of her debut book, Hayley managed to secure Luke Concannon of Nizlopi fame who topped the charts in 2005 with the JCB song.
This post was originally published on here
