So tell us a bit about your latest book.

I’ve written fantasy (Questors, The Seventh Tide, The Night of the Kelpies) and historical (The Wickit Chronicles, The Slightly Jones Mysteries) and sci-fi (I’m bringing out a downloadable collection of sci-fi stories/novella any day now) and just-plain-silly (flying horses that poop on the bad guys’ heads, sort of thing) – and the book I’m writing at the moment has a bit of all of those in it.  It’s called Silver Skin, and I’m desperate to find out what happens in it!  (Well, I know what happens at the beginning, and at the end – it’s just in the middle I’m still guessing.*)  

What was your road to publication like?

SLOOOOOOW and then a bit quicker and then sort of steady.

What is the best part about being an author?

Stories.  I’m crazy about stories, reading them, listening to them, watching them, making them up, writing them down.  Oh, and I also like going to work in my jammies.

And the worst?

When publishers say no.  Not a surprise, but writers really, really HATE that.

What advice would you give to aspiring authors?

There’s loads of good advice out there you should listen to – read lots, write lots, be prepared to edit and re-draft.  I guess I’d just add, pay attention to what you’re doing.  Your story deserves 100% of you – all your senses and your brain in gear!

What is your writing process like?

Paper first (and one of those really nice fine-tipped pens) for the writing down of every random idea that comes, disconnected scenes, how it begins, how it ends.  Then onto the computer for trying to beat all that into some sort of shape – oh, and figure out what happens in the middle.  (*The middle always comes last for me.)  Then print that out and work on it on paper for a while.  Then back to the computer.  And so on until it’s cooked. 

Have any of your characters demanded more page space than you had originally planned?

This happens all the time.  At the moment I’m fighting a losing battle against a horrible old woman who wants to take over the story I’m writing and make it all about her!  (I think giving her slightly supernatural powers may have been a mistake.)

What have you read recently and loved?

Patrick Ness’ The Knife of Never Letting Go – a dynamite book!

Can you tell us a bit about what you are working on just now?

I’m trying to do the probably-impossible, which is write two completely different books, from two completely different times, simultaneously.  One is the third Slightly Jones Mystery (The Case of the Cambridge Mummy) set in the 1890s, and the other is Silver Skin, set mostly in the Stone Age (round about 2550 BC).  A friend suggested I should use dressing up as a way of keeping straight in my mind which book I was on – lace and a corset in the morning, itchy hides and woad in the afternoon.  I’m worried it might freak my family quite a bit, though.

Where can our readers find out more about you?

I have a website:  www.joanlennon.co.uk   and a weekly blog:  www.joanlennon.blogspot.com  and Slightly Jones has her own website:  www.slightlyjones.co.uk   Drop by any time!