What makes prolific short story writer Sue Moorcroft special? Her easy charm? Her warm smile? Or her ability to spin a good yarn? While indulging her preference for starters and desserts in a small country pub, Sue talks of her passion for books, the privileges of her army childhood, and the devastating events that helped her put life in perspective.
'I think I'm ordinary,' she begins modestly. 'I've only succeeded with short stories through bloody-mindedness and perseverance.'
Pâté and toast arrive. 'I'm cheap too,' she grins, ordering only a small glass of Chardonnay.
'Basically I'm a happy, caring person with a sense of humour.' She's gregarious, but also appreciates time alone. 'There's so much going on in my head.' And she's not referring to her fair, wiry curls.
As a child she loved listening to stories, her mother recording them to feed her insatiable appetite. 'I've never changed. I've a three-novel-a-week habit now. I take a book wherever I go.' She reads when eating alone, while travelling, or in the evenings, while her family watches TV.
'I love stories whether I'm reading or writing them.' Mostly she enjoys mainstream fiction, where a man and a woman fall for each other - splat. And that's what she writes. 'I want to write books you can't wait to get back to. You're cooking dinner with one hand, holding the book with the other' - she demonstrates - 'and you want to be in the relationship with them.'
So, how did she start writing? 'It's not a matter of starting, I've never stopped writing in my head.' She wrote several novels before reading that a portfolio of twenty published magazine stories might impress book publishers. She took a correspondence course, the 'money back if you don't earn your fees' guarantee proving a great incentive for her natural ethic of hard work and persistence. Despite initial rejections, by the end of the course Sue discovered an innate ability to turn anecdotes into page-turning stories and tripled her fees with her first story sales. 'Sadly they went bust so I didn't get my certificate and round of applause.'
She works well with people, a quality she suggests helped her find an agent. 'But I won't change things I don't agree with.'
After giving up the day-job she wrote full time for eight months without success. Then things changed. She has now published ninety-four short stories in fourteen magazines across Britain, Ireland, Australia, Sweden and South Africa. Recently she was invited to write serials and is promoting her contribution to the Breast Cancer Campaigns Sexy Shorts anthology. She's an active member of the Romantic Novelists' Association, and tutors on the Writers' News course.
Unfortunately, Sue's novels are not so successful. 'Like everyone I've written things I thought were it and been told they're not.' She's experienced near misses and bankrupt publishers. 'But I simply ask myself, "Do I stop? Or carry on?" There's no way I can stop.'
But Sue doesn't take happiness for granted. Eight months before her wedding, 'on the worst day of my life', her father died unexpectedly, still a young man. Family and personal illness followed over the next decade.
She moves on quickly to talk of her privileged childhood as the daughter of a high-ranking army NCO. 'I was born in Germany and later lived in Cyprus and Malta. We had a fabulous lifestyle. Long hot summers. School till one. Then swimming and snorkelling at the lido.' But returning to England, after a brief spell in London, her father left the army and found work in the Midlands where adjustment to civilian life proved 'the unhappiest time'. Other children didn't believe her tales of foreign lands. 'They called me a liar and were horrid - though I'm a bit bad tempered to be bullied!'
Her two older brothers moved away but Sue stayed. She now lives in a large house in Northamptonshire with pond fish for pets, family members being allergic to fur.
Family and friends are Sue's main interest apart from writing, although she admits to a weakness for Formula One - and chocolate. A rich chocolate dessert makes a timely appearance. 'It gives me migraine, so I don't have it often.' Then she tucks in eagerly.
Knowing Sue's generosity with her expertise, any writing tips? 'Study the market, be realistic and be prepared for rejection,' she suggests. 'I recommend the expletive technique for coping with rejection letters. Shout "(expletive)" and throw them at the wall, then get back to work. But you must believe in yourself and be prepared to learn.'
Sue's belief began aged ten after uncharacteristic encouragement from a bullying teacher. 'He was the first to make me believe I'd be a writer. I've never stopped believing.'
Sue writes from eight till six, Monday to Friday. Plus occasional evenings. And weekends.
'Writing could become an excuse not to work, but for me it's a proper job. Some people write for pleasure but being published validates what I do. I'd like people to think I'm good.' And they do. In 2002 Sue finally received her certificate and round of applause, winning the Katie Fforde Bursary Award.
Special enough?
'The dream's still to sell my novels. Though I'll continue writing short stories. Some magazines have television-audience readership. Novelists rarely get that kind of exposure.'
It's coffee time, interview over. 'You didn't ask,' she grins, 'but I'm no longer quite size ten and my favourite colour's blue.'
Sue's note: And I've sold the first novel, now! UPHILL ALL THE WAY, Transita (ISBN 978-1-90517-500-0). S
Myra Kersner is a fiction writer and lecturer and writer in her specialist areas of interpersonal communication skills and speech and language problems in children.
