Interview with author Manda Scott

RD: You spent fifteen years as a vet before you turned to writing as an alternative, less sleep-deprived profession. Is the life of a novelist pretty much as you had imagined?

MS: Not at all. I still work the same seven-day week, I have far less time off, but the difference is that if I work late and at weekends it’s because I choose to, not because someone has called me out. The biggest change is that I have time to have my own animals now, which I never had before. Getting my own dog was the first huge step into a new life. I wouldn’t swap writing for anything else.

RD: Do you enjoy the research that you do for your books?

MS: Yes. It’s a constant source of surprise and a kind of hidden joy that I can spend days immersed in texts pulling out tiny details. But it’s vital that the research never runs the book. Books are about people and are driven by the emotions of the moment.

RD: In The Crystal Skull you have combined a contemporary mystery with a historical narrative set in Tudor times. What led you in this direction?

MS: It became clear that I couldn’t write The Crystal Skull without a foot in the past to give a perspective on the skulls and where they came from. And I realised that I needed to write it from the viewpoint of the first Europeans to meet the descendants of the ancient Maya. I never thought I’d be interested in Elizabethan England, but the Cedric Owen thread was a joy and almost wrote itself. Elizabethan Cambridge was immensely interesting. I’d lived in Cambridge for so long but hadn’t really researched its history. And then everything came together at Weyland’s Smithy, which is timeless and made a good place to bring the narrative threads to a single point. Writing the scenes in the Yorkshire caves was completely adrenaline-filled, particularly at the end.

RD: Has the success that has come with your four Boudica books changed you?

MS: Living has changed me. Not being a vet has changed me. Teaching the dreaming [see www.mandascott.co.uk] has changed me out of all recognition—you teach best what you most need to learn. If all of these are brought by success then, yes, it has, but what has changed me most is having the time and space to push my own boundaries.

RD: What do you like most about living in the country, in Shropshire?

MS: I love the lack of noise, the lack of light; at night I can see all the stars. I love the fact that my dog can go out without a collar or lead and we can walk for miles and not meet anyone. I love being able to sit in the garden and listen to the buzzards and the crows. I love all of it, actually.

RD: Do you see something of yourself in the character of Stella?

MS: There has to be a part of me in all of the characters or they can’t be alive. But, yes, there’s a lot of Stella in me. She won’t let go until she’s found the core of something, which is so very true to (my) type.

RD: Do you believe the Mayan prophecy that mankind is plummeting towards the end of the world in 2012?

MS: I don’t believe the date 21.12.2012 is a precise end point, but I do think we are definitely moving towards an ending and that it is man-made. The message of the skulls is that we can change—it’s not too late to turn everything round—but we have to listen to the warnings and let them influence what we’re doing. If The Crystal Skull brings the concept of change a little closer to the surface of our collective consciousness, I’d be very pleased.