It’s Monday and we have our scheduled King’s C.R.O.W.N.ing Authors (Cajoling Random Observations Now) interview. Please welcome Elizabeth Rose Murray
We are waiting for your wonderfully answers, Elizabeth.
- Is West Cork all it’s cracked up to be?
Absolutely! Where else can you go to the pub wearing a woolly hat and wellies, stinking of wet dog, and no one will notice? Then there’s the gorgeous scenery, the artisan food, live music, lock-ins, and a film festival without a cinema.
I do miss streetlights though – I’m two and a half miles out of the village along a winding country lane, so it’s high visibility vests and torches from 5pm onwards during winter. I become a hermit – but it does mean there are no distractions and I get even more done than usual.
- Spell motivation in verbs.
Elizabeth’s Footwarmer #1
LIVE WHERE THERE ARE NO STREETLIGHTS.
OK, seriously? I’ve never understood why people have an issue with motivating themselves to do something they want to do! If you can’t sit down and write when that’s your burning ambition, if it’s so awful and difficult and mind-bendingly traumatic, why even bother? Sorry lords and ladies, you’re on your own with this one.
- Your best friend is getting married and you need to make confetti, you only have your favourite book with you. What will you do?
Apologies, Cathy, me old mucker, but Heathcliffe has to stay. You don’t mind do you? #FinallyGotHerOutOfTheWay
- Best writing lie you tell yourself?
Today I will not beat myself up when I have done enough and it’s time to stop.
- If I say Twitter you say _______________
Sanity! As much as I love it here, sometimes you feel very far from everything and everyone. So I enjoy great chats on twitter and I also find it the perfect resource for information, news and ideas.
- If you could grow books like trees what feed and care would they need?
I’d make sure the roots were planted firmly in imagination, and I’d provide the saplings with enough time, dedication and Haribo to grow strong. Once they were hardy enough, I’d leave their characters to run wild. Sure, I’d trim back the story once in a while, and I’d manure them with a pile of rejections now and again to keep them from getting too cocky, but other than that, I’d let nature do its work.
- Would you rather the local pub with the aould dog in the corner or the swany Dublin pub?
Both! All of it! More! I get bored easily so how about both in one night? Just be warned – I’m completely hyper and I will refuse to go home. (Invitations, anyone?)
- Is there anything better than your pet sleeping by your feet? (Defend this statement)
My dog is big and hairy and he often sleeps on my feet. Which is OK, except I have arthritis and so my feet go numb pretty quickly and I don’t have the heart to move him. Then I have to do that embarrassing withered old lady walk of shame when I have to go to the loo with dead legs.
One of our cats is also partial to my feet, and sometimes there’s a scrap between the two critters. This can be a tad distracting when I’m trying to write. I guess I don’t mind, and it saves me a fortune on slippers, but I can think of plenty of other things that are better.
- I like this saying, ‘A rising tide lifts all boats.’ What’s your favourite saying?
‘If you don’t like it, change it.’
It’s the motto I live by and I find it cures all sorts of ills. Plus, I have no tolerance for people whining.
- Is there any point in Christmas crackers?
No. But they still sucker me in every year with their wanton promises of tiny screwdrivers that would be oh so useful one day. And I still fight for the hat, even though it’s always too small for my head.
(I have a massive head. I have to position myself very carefully on photos with other people of normal head size. My nickname at school was PLANET HEAD – convinced yet?)
When I was a kid, I developed a special ‘cracker hold’ to make sure I always won. It still works, so don’t even bother challenging me. The hat is mine.
Thank you, Elizabeth. You are a charmer with wit and a handsome funny bone. And I, being King, dub thee crowned!
About Elizabeth
Elizabeth Rose Murray is represented by Sallyanne Sweeney of Mulcahy Associate, London.
She has poetry and short fiction published in journals across the UK and Ireland.
Elizabeth has been shortlisted in the following competitions: Francis MacManus 2013 (Short Story), Penguin/RTE Guide 2013 (short story),Powers/Irish Times 2013 (flash fiction), Writing.ie/Anam Cara 2013 & 2012 (flash fiction) and Aesthetica Creative Works 2011 (poetry).
In 2012, she performed in Ciudades Paralelas: Station – a live writing installation at the Cork Midsummer Festival – and she is currently working on a performance project that fuses poetry and music.
Book 1 of Elizabeth’s Nine Lives Trilogy (Mercier Press) is scheduled for August 2015.
Links
https://ermurray.wordpress.com/
Read more interviews like this here with Catherine Doyle.
See here for the details on #YAIE where a bunch of readers from Ireland will chat books on Twitter on Wed (Dec 17), 7.30-8.30pm. All are welcome!
Michelle Moloney King 
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