The Pretender by Katie Ward

Summary:

In rural France, two babies are born just two hours apart but to two very different lives. Isabella is born as a Princess into a life of opulence and love while Sophia is born into a life of poverty and abuse at the hands of her father.

‘The Pretender’ follows the journey of Isabella and Sophia as their paths cross and after discovering how alike they look, they decide to switch places with each other. Sophia is seeking sanctuary from her abusive home while Isabella is seeking freedom from the tightening burden of her Royal title.

‘The Pretender’ is a story of friendship, love and the strange power of destiny.

Typical Writing Day

I’ve often heard other authors talk about their writing day and it seems I do tend to approach it very differently from most.

For me, I prefer to view my writing time in terms of a working day so I would get up at the same time I would ordinarily start work and then write throughout the day and then finish around 4pm. I find that if I try to write at night or early in the morning I’m not very productive.

However, if I find myself in a good headspace and making a lot of progress than I’ll be inclined to just carry on. When I came to finish my manuscript for ‘The Pretender’ I worked for 12 hours over a three-day period not even stopping for lunch. I’d really struggled with the ending so to have it suddenly flowing freely and effortlessly, it was a small sacrifice to make.

There are obviously other times when it works in reverse and you just can’t write anything you are happy with at all. On these day, I usually set myself a goal such as to write one chapter and then I’ll usually wait until another day and then read back what I wrote to see if I like it anymore or whether I’m going to re-write it.

As writing is such a time-consuming art, if I don’t feel I’m being productive I choose not to force it because from experience I know that sometimes having a bit of space can help and it may be your brain’s way of saying it needs a little break.

As a whole, I tend to approach my writing from an intuitive base and make sure I give myself some down time too as I know in the beginning I was very guilty of trying to write my book too quickly and then you take out the enjoyment and for me that’s one of the main reasons I write.

I don’t have my own office or writing room, in my ideal world this would definitely happen as I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been distracted by the TV, radio, cat, anything that isn’t what I’m meant to be doing but I alternate between writing on the sofa, at the kitchen table and on my bed whichever of these feels more comfortable. If I’m writing for a longer period of time I usually prefer the dining table.

While the writing process can be solitary it is lovely to be able to work to your own timetable and to have the freedom to modify your day as you see fit and so in that way no day is really typical but when it comes to getting pen to paper, I like to structure my day which is strangely at odds with any other part of my personality!

About the Author
Katie Ward always knew that she wanted to write for a living. After completing a degree in Journalism at the University for the Creative Arts in Farnham, she moved to Dublin. While there, she had a short story published in an anthology titled Do the Write Thing which was part of a competition being run by Irish TV show Seoige and O’Shea. This story was originally written when Katie was 14 after she was inspired by an article in her favourite teen magazine. The anthology reached the Irish Bestsellers List. Katie was also shortlisted for a competition judged by Man Booker Prize-winning author Roddy Doyle a few months later.