The life of a published author...almost!

10th February 2014

Empowerment

After my tour of the UK and then the USA in January I’m now back into the usual routine at home of school pick-ups, house chores (where does all this ironing come from?) and writing, oh and watching the rain pour down outside - gosh it can rain in England!

On Friday, for the first time, I got my hands on the final UK version of HALF BAD. It’s gorgeous and I was feeling a little teary eyed as it sunk in that this was my book. It really is a dream come true.

But neither the rain nor the fast approaching publication date of HALF BAD are foremost in my mind at the moment, instead I’m thinking about a tweet I received from someone who had read an advance copy of HB. She said she’d like Annalise (one of the important females in the story) to be more empowered in book 2 of the trilogy.

This set me thinking about my female characters and empowerment and all that. HALF BAD does have a good number of females, both Black Witches and White Witches, old and young, powerful and weak, and from good to really nasty. Most of them are strong characters, but not all. 

My first instinct was to reply that I’m not sure I want Annalise to be ‘empowered’. She’s strong, intelligent and empathetic. And she can be brave too, but she can also be afraid and unsure what to do. And that’s what I like about her - that she isn’t ‘empowered’  she is lost sometimes and confused and uncertain. That’s the real bit of her and the bit I relate to most of all.

Then I thought, ‘Hold on a minute, I’d better check what empowered really means.’ According to my Chambers dictionary to empower = ‘to authorize’, and empowerment = ‘the giving to individuals of power to take decisions in matters relating to themselves’.

Hmmm, so that means Annalise is empowered, as she does take decisions relating to herself. But that doesn’t mean she is sure about her choices or happy about them. Isn’t that so much more like real life? The torture of wondering if you’ve made the right decision is terrible, as is the sick feeling of finding out you’ve made the wrong one. Empowerment can be pretty crappy.

I hope Annalise will eventually (over 3 books) be seen as deeper than she might first appear as I certainly find her the most difficult to write - she is for me the most complicated and torn of characters in HALF BAD.