Joining me today is the brilliant Maria Savva, fellow author and moderator on our BestsellerBound message board! Over the past several months, I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know Maria. She’s become a good friend and I’m excited to brag about her work! First, let me introduce you:
Maria lives and works in London, UK. She divides her time between writing and practising law as a solicitor. She has always enjoyed reading and creative writing. She started writing her first novel ‘Coincidences’ when she found herself out of work almost 13 years ago. Since then she has published two more novels and two collections of short stories. Maria has also been credited as one of the editors of ‘The Safety Factor’ books by Jerry Travis and Josephine Mayes, a futuristic sci-fi series. She is one of the resident authors at BestsellerBound.com an innovative message board (created by Darcia Helle and also featuring Stacy Juba as a resident author) that connects indie writers with their readers.
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Maria’s most recent release is her tantalizing novel Second Chances
Set in London, in the noughties, sometime after the smoking ban, and before the great 21st century recession… James has always believed in happy ever after, and he plans to get there one day. He is doing okay. At the age of thirty-three, he has a top job, dream house, two healthy children, and a wife who always stands by him. These things, James can rely on, until one day, when everything changes, and he realises that he has spent so long looking towards the future, that he has neglected the present. Feeling unloved, his wife, Pamela, has left him, leaving nothing but a brief note. She has taken their two children. How far will James go to save his marriage? What can Pamela do to stop the past haunting her life? Will it be enough?
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Now let’s find out a little more about Maria and her work:
In your novel Second Chances, the main character is male. What did you enjoy the most about writing from the opposite gender’s perspective? And what was the most difficult?
The way Second Chances is written is from the perspective of two main characters, a husband and wife who are drifting apart. For a number of reasons their relationship has become rocky and I have tried to show how each of them deals with this. The original title for the novel was ‘Two Sides to Every Story’, as it shows how both the man and woman deal with their break-up. I have to admit that I didn’t think about whether I was writing from a male or female perspective, I just let the characters take me wherever they were going. I have experience of advising men and women during divorce, from working as a family lawyer. This gave me some insight into the male perspective, I suppose. But I think feelings and emotions are universal and not specific to a particular gender. I had a bit of help too because at the time I was editing Second Chances, I was also helping a friend edit his books (Jerry Travis author of The Safety Factor.) He offered to proofread Second Chances for me and reassured me that I was pretty much spot on in regard to the male perspective on things. He also made suggestions for adjusting a few of the conversations to make it sound more like something a man would say.
Goes to show that we women understand men better than they think we do!
What was the inspiration behind this particular story?
I started writing the book in about 1998. At that time I’d been sacked from a job and I felt that I’d been dismissed unfairly. For a few years, when I first qualified as a solicitor, I had some pretty bad experiences working for a few different law firms and I suppose I had all these emotions floating around in my head about the injustice of how some people in power could get away with treating others as if they are worth nothing, dispensable. James—the main character in Second Chances—is a solicitor, and the working environment in the office where he works is pretty tough. It’s based on the different law firms where I’ve worked and the bosses are caricatures, I suppose, of some of the worst bosses I have worked for. Certain character traits seem to be quite common amongst those who seek to control and manipulate. Anyway, I think I’ve picked the worst bits from the different offices I worked for and mixed them together to create the ultimate hellhole. The book started off with the idea of someone who’d lost everything after being quite comfortable, again probably a reflection of how I was feeling at the time being out of work. That’s where the inspiration came from for the book and the rest of it grew and developed with the characters.
Which comes first for you – characters or plot?
When I write a book I try to plan out an idea of how the book will start and what major events will happen and how it will end. So I suppose the plot comes first. Characters grow and develop as I write and more often than not the book takes many twists and turns in directions that I hadn’t thought of when I first planned the book. Inevitably the ending always changes. That’s part of the fun of writing for me because I never really know how the book is going to end until I get there.
When you’re not reading or writing, what might we find you doing?
My day job is a solicitor. I specialise in conveyancing, and wills & probate. In my spare time I am a music lover and love live concerts, rock and metal in particular.
Tell us one crazy, unique or funny thing about yourself.
One funny thing is that I talk to my nieces, and little children in general (and pets), in a very high pitched, almost singing voice. I can’t seem to use a normal voice when talking to them…
What are you working on now?
I’m just finishing the editing of my third collection of short stories, ‘Fusion’, out soon. I’m also editing my fourth novel which is something a little different, a fantasy novel. It is a modern book about relationships, in keeping with my style of writing, but there is a twist. I do tend to read a lot of different genres and over the past couple of years I’ve been reading more fantasy books than usual, which is probably why my latest book has taken this direction. It was fun to write. I hope to publish that sometime next year.
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Thank you, Maria! That was a fun chat. By the way, I talk to my dogs in a higher-pitched voice all the time and I often do it with small children. I have no idea why, either. 
You can find all of Maria’s Books on Amazon. Take a look:
Maria’s books are also available on Barnes and Noble and Lulu.
You can learn more about Maria and her work on her website: www.MariaSavva.com
And you can contact her at: maria@bestsellerbound.com
If you have questions or comments for my fabulous guest, feel free to leave a comment here!
Thanks for reading.
Tags: Author Interview, author interviews, authors of short stories, Guest Authors, indie authors, Interviews with Authors, Maria Savva, Second Chances, self-published authors, short stories, short story collections, UK Authors
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