Image Credits:-
Many thanks to Sophie Neville for supplying book and author pics. Other images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos or are images supplied by Sophie Neville or are from Pixabay directly or are from the CFT archives. Screenshot taken by me, Allison Symes. Images from Sophie Neville’s website are used with her express and kind permission. Thank you, Sophie.
It’s a joy to welcome back Sophie Neville to Chandler’s Ford Today. If anyone could be said to have a life immersed in creativity, it is Sophie Neville. She has starred in films (best known role was Titty in Swallows and Amazons which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year); she has been on television in front of and behind the camera; she is an artist with many exhibitions to her name; and she is an award winning script writer.
That is only a brief summary! Do check out her news, YouTube and social media links, all of which are at the bottom of this interview.
Last week, Sophie discussed favourite aspects of her work and how the different aspects of her career have fed into one another, amongst many other topics. (Do see Part 1 if you missed it. Link is also given in the Related Posts section at the end of the interview).
This week, she shares her experiences about writing about chronic fatigue, her love of travel, and changing writing disciplines from authoring books to scriptwriting, amongst many other things.
Welcome back again, Sophie, and over to you.
1. Other than Arthur Ransome’s wonderful work, which other authors have made an impact on you, both as a child and as an adult? Why do you think this is? Also what do you most enjoy reading? What do you think the benefits of reading are for writers?
I read a lot of memoirs, many of which are self-published. They have provided me with extraordinary facts and stories that I’ve been able to weave into my novels set in the 20th century.
Hundreds of authors have inspired me from James Herriot, Jilly Cooper and Helen Fielding to CS Lewis, Adrian Plass, and Catherine Fox but Laurie Lee, Gerald Durrell, and Arthur Ransome have probably influenced me more than others as I’ve spent so long working on adaptations of their books. I also worked on the dramatised biographies of the dancer Margaret Kelly (Bluebell), the zoo vet David Taylor (One by One) and The Diary of Anne Frank.
2. You wrote Funnily Enough based on your experience of struggling with chronic fatigue. Was that a book you just felt you had to write? How hard was it to be so open about ME? Did you find writing the book therapeutic? I was touched to read the reviews showing many found reading the book to help them that way.
I returned from completing a Discipleship Training Course with YWAM – Youth With a Mission – wanting to deliver my testimony in an amusing way but got stuck until I found the illustrated diary that I’d kept when I fell ill with ME. I withdrew it from the bookshelf feeling led to lay everything else aside and type it up.
A story behind the story: Having spent weeks putting the first draft of Funnily Enough onto a disc, my bag was stolen in the Masai Mara. It was pretty dramatic. I woke to find my safari tent had been slashed open while I’d been asleep. Everyone was shocked but I felt compelled to look for the bag, which I found discarded in a ditch. My binoculars and Psion (I’d naively assumed I could write a book on a palmtop) were missing but I retrieved the disc.
I was able to begin editing the manuscript on a shiny new PC that had been donated to a primary school where I lived in South Africa. I gave the headmistress lessons on how to use Microsoft Word and worked on Funnily Enough whilst she was busy teaching.
She asked me to look after the computer over the Christmas holidays, which enabled me to keep writing until I could afford to buy a new laptop. After three years, the palmtop was returned by a Masai student at university in Alaska. He had opened my Psion to see that I’d been helping the people of Africa by writing newsletters for Waterberg for Jesus.
Memoirs are inevitably exposing, especially if you are taking about your faith. I knew that in order to be of real help to readers, I needed to put my soul on the page, but tried not to embarrass my friends. Thankfully, Mum let me write whatever was entertaining and is happy to bear the brunt of my jokes.
This shocked a few Christian readers until they watched her on an outrageous series of Come Dine With Me and an episode of Channel 4’s Obsessive Cleaners that featured me in de-cluttering mode. Notes of sympathy poured in unaware that Mum was playing to the camera and loving the attention. She is nearly eighty-seven and still wants to star in a movie. ‘You must write a starring role for me!’
We had a little miracle with Funnily Enough when it reached No. 2 in all categories for free Kindle downloads in the UK. I gave away 16,000 e-copies. I was thanked by some stinky reviews from atheists but, as John Wesley said, you have to expect a few rotten tomatoes. I laughed a great deal writing that book. There are one or two stories that still have me in fits. I could hardly narrate the audiobook.
People say that Ride the Wings of Morning also has them laughing out loud. The best bits are letters written by my sisters. It’s a love story – but of love between family and friends rather than artificial romance.
My (then) boyfriend was furious when he saw an early draft, but he later wrote from Afghanistan to say how much he loved it and couldn’t turn the pages fast enough. He spent nine years looking after snow leopards in the mountains so enjoyed looking back on our mad adventures in Southern Africa. I hope it helped him survive the isolation.
Writing has certainly helped me to get my thoughts in order and fulfilled an urge to record the best moments in life before they evaporate.
3. You’ve travelled a lot. How easy or otherwise have you found it to readjust back to life in the UK? Have you been able to use travelling time to write? Or do you have to block out times to write when you are at home?
My great love is long-distance riding. I’ve ridden horses down the coast of Uruguay, across South America, through the Okavango, Ethiopia, Georgia, and across the Namib Desert. I set up wildlife documentaries in Botswana, Namibia and Natal, taking on the research for a Blue Peter exploration of South Africa.
I settled on the south coast of England when I got married in 2004 but was immediately confronted by a crisis that could not be laughed off. There was a terrible accident when we were on honeymoon in southern Spain. My husband was accused of negligent homicide. He was released by the magistrate, and a second judge but I spent the next six years preparing for a civil case (one summons to court after another thanks to endless postponements).
I tried to process the angst by writing about what happened but ground to a halt as it would have been disrespectful to bring in humour. Perhaps one day I will be able to use the facts. I now know about shot-induced heart attacks, which I don’t think has been covered on film, and now stress the importance of testing for morning-after alcohol in the blood, which is not carried out in all post mortems overseas.
If your writing is important it will usually surpass other busy-ness. I ended up bringing out my first two books while renovating our house. We had no roof, but there I was, working with my formatter and toddling off to the London Book Show.
I now find it best to write between six and nine in the morning but the networking involved in presenting the finished product takes me out and about. I’ve given over one hundred talks and have a full diary of festivals and events this year. My husband wants to move to a retirement village so that I can travel more.
I put together a number of scripts and PR announcements while I worked in television but didn’t begin writing books and feature articles until I was forty. It was a lovely occupation to have in the African bush. Roald Dahl claimed he only wrote for four hours a day, and yet was highly productive. I hang on to that advice when boring admin and accounts crowd out the rest of the day.
4. How did you find going from writing books to writing scripts? Two very different disciplines there. What would you say were the advantages of both forms? What have you found the most frustrating elements to both forms (I should imagine there are some!)?
We need to use our strengths. I’m good at concepts, writing dialogue and knitting the plot together, which can be easier with a script. I enjoy innovative structure but building that can be exhausting. I find plot holes usually force one to find a new twist, and twists are in high demand these days but the whole business boils down to patience and tenacity.
Push out boundaries and you are bound to get as many rejections, especially if you are a Christian writer but persevere and all the pruning has to bear richer fruit. I’m just a craftsman used to working to deadlines.
I remember walking down Lime Grove in Shepherd’s Bush wondering how on Earth I was going to edit three fly-on-the wall documentaries I’d just shot for the BBC when I remembered that Jesus was a carpenter and knew how to fit things together. I would be nowhere without the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
5. I admire anyone who has any talent for art. Your artwork is amazing (https://sophieneville.net/art-by-sophie-neville/). Do you find working on any art to be soothing, a challenge, or a mixture? An obvious question perhaps but how do you find the time? What does art mean to you? Do you find it feeds into your writing?
I worked as a professional wildlife artist in southern Africa between freelance television contracts. At one point I was selling twenty pieces of artwork a month. Taking commissions, mounting exhibitions and being interviewed by the Inland Revenue certainly prepared me for the business and discipline of writing on a self-employed basis.
I drew a lot of decorative maps and was able to use sketches and unsold artwork to illustrate my books. If you own the copyright to your own book cover you can get it made up into cards and mugs. I sell a few online via Redbubble to publicise my books.
6. If there were three actors you have not worked with but would love to do so, who would these be/have been and why?
Twenty years ago, I wrote a part for Eddie Redmayne who read my script while on a villa holiday with my stepson. The screenplay was optioned and has won a number of writing awards but it’s an epic and taking so long to sell that Eddie can no longer pass as a nineteen year-old, which is a bit of a pity.
7. If you were stuck on a desert island for a short period but you were allowed to have eight books with you, which would you choose and why? The Bible and Shakespeare are already there and, as I am a fan, Jane Austen is too.
Eight books full of blank pages and a pen, please. I’d love a paintbox too.
Allison: No problem. You get to take the biggest paintbox with you and an infinite supply of pens.
8. What would you say were the writing tips which have most helped you?
Writing is really re-writing. I need to go to draft 100 every time, needing the help of at least three proof-readers before sending anything off.
9. Last but not least, what themes in stories mean the most to you? The Bible has wonderful stories and the Book of Psalms has fabulous poetry. Many themes have come from here. I once heard an interview with an EastEnders scriptwriter who revealed many of their themes do come from the Bible (and from the little I’ve seen, I would say they’ve used the theme of Cain and Abel as well as Delilah a lot!).
We writers have much to learn from the persistence of biblical scribes and narrators, not forgetting those who lugged around the scrolls. I try to quote from scripture imaginatively. It’s great to be able to draw on so many famous, yet copyright free stories presented to us by the Bible.
I’m interested in exploring those that involve slavery but I’m sure it’s the historical romances that sell. I enjoyed reading The Red Tent and love the British movie Nativity!
I’ve enjoyed contributing chapters to the ACW publications, Merry Christmas Everyone, and Write Well. Perhaps the next one could be a collection of Easter stories. A study of slavery in the Bible might open up discussion and sell well. It’s such a hot topic. Looking at women in the Bible is another option. I’m sure ACW writers would have lots of brilliant ideas.
Conclusion
Creativity is a wonderful thing. It brings joy to you. It can bring joy to others. Stories have a wonderful way of reflecting what we know and experience. They can also provide us with much needed escapism. Stories can be taken in via so many formats too – books, audio, radio, plays, and film, to name some.
Many thanks, Sophie, for sharing with us something of your experiences in all of these fields, it has been such a pleasure to interview you, and I look forward to seeing what you do next.
Sophie: I really appreciate the chance to explain myself. It has been great to chat!
SOPHIE NEVILLE – NEWS
Book covers and links
The Making of Swallows and Amazons is available direct from the publishers, The Lutterworth Press, from Waterstones, or all the usual online retailers.
Sophie narrated the audiobook copy. The paperback, illustrated with maps, film stills and behind-the-scenes photos is similar to the multimedia Kindle copy entitled The Secrets of Filming Swallows and Amazons, which includes links to home movie footage taken on location.
Sophie loves hearing from readers and appreciates reviews on Amazon.
News
Resolute Books are re-releasing Funnily Enough in June 2024: https://www.resolutebooks.co.uk/sophie-neville
Saturday 29th & Sunday 30th June 2024 – Swallows and Amazons Festival at Windermere Jetty Museum near Bowness-on Windermere in Cumbria:
The Arthur Ransome Society are hoping to have:-
● John Sergeant, President of The Arthur Ransome Society
● Members of the original cast and film crew
● Flags, film posters, and other film memorabilia
● The dinghies Swallow and Amazon used in the film
● Steamboats Osprey and Lady Elizabeth that appeared in the Rio scene
● The original Amazon brought by members of the Altounyan family
● Titmouse, the dinghy used in the BBC serial Coot Club
● Arthur Ransome’s dinghy Coch-y-Bonddhu, his model for Scarab
● Trips on MV Tern and The Lakeside and Haverthwaite Railway
● Watch the original film Swallows and Amazons (1974)
● Watch traditional charcoal burning in the Grizedale Forest
SOPHIE NEVILLE – YOUTUBE LINKS
Funnily Enough: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPRTwceQj-A&t=33s
Ride the Wings of Morning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77KCJtpzpfk&t=52s
The Secrets of Filming Swallows and Amazons: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chXkQ8m8tKM&t=37s
SOPHIE’S SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS
Sophie Neville – Linked in
Sophie Neville – Pinterest
Sophie Neville – TikTok
Sophie Neville – Facebook
Sophie Neville – Goodreads
Sophie Neville – IMDb Profile
Sophie Neville – Twitter
Sophie Neville – YouTube
sophienevilleauthor – Instagram
Ride the Wings of Morning is a big, fat illustrated paperback that will take you to southern Africa where Sophie tells of her adventures working as a safari guide and wildlife artist. It looks fabulous in ebook form as her watercolors are back lit on colour screens. (This is yet to be recorded as an audiobook.)
Sales link for the Kindle ebook that sells at £2.99
Sales link for the large illustrated paperback
Related Posts:-
Author Interview: Sophie Neville – A Creative Life on Water, in Film, and in Writing – Part 1
Read interviews with Chandler’s Ford writer Allison Symes: Part 1 and Part 2.
Read blog posts by Allison Symes published on Chandler’s Ford Today.
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