A New Life: Gemma English tells Claire O'Connell she enjoys being in control, even if it is with characters in a book.
For most aspiring writers, getting a book deal would be a hugely joyous occasion. But for Gemma English, accepting that offer on the phone felt like going through the motions.
She had recently lost her first baby, and writing didn't seem that important. But she said yes. "I knew it was the right thing to do," says the author, three novels and two more children later.
From north Dublin, English had writing in her blood. Her father is a retired journalist and editor and her uncle was the late Irish Times journalist Dick Walsh. But even though she showed a flair for creative writing at school, she kept her dreams under wraps.
"When I was at school we'd be constantly asked what we wanted to do when we grew up and in my heart of hearts I wanted to be a writer," she says. "But I could never say that to my teachers because it sounded out there, like I wanted to be a pop star."
So she did a diploma in catering management. "It was 1991 and Ireland was very different, people weren't getting great job offers and I'm one of five children so it wasn't a case of going where my heart took me, it was a case of going out and getting an education and starting to look for a job,"she says.
But she admits she wasn't suited to her chosen career path. "By the end of my course all the teachers, students and half the people of Dublin knew I was not destined for catering," she says.
So she went to work in the bank, which meant more sociable hours and time to spend with her boyfriend, Mark. Her writing had tapered off, but when she and Mark were preparing to get married, she was inspired to start again.
"I was up sitting in front of the computer doing up lists, and one night I just opened a Word document and began to write a story that had been in my head for a while. I just wrote it to see how it would work out," she recalls.
What worked out was a 300-page manuscript - Tangled Up in You - that her family urged her to submit to a publisher.
"I was a bit embarrassed then - there were a lot of my own little personal things in it because I didn't think anyone was going to read it," she says. "But I said if I don't do anything with it I will always wonder, so I sent it off to Poolbeg."
Four months later she found out she was pregnant and she put the book out of her head.
"I had heard nothing from Poolbeg and I thought that's fine, now I'm pregnant and this whole section of my life has started, good stuff," she says.
Seven months later, Matthew was born prematurely. "He was born on Thursday and, to put it really bluntly, by Saturday night he had died," says English. "That was horrific. He had a hole in his diaphragm. The doctors knew immediately that he wouldn't make it. It really hit me for six. I couldn't get my head around anything else."
So six weeks later when Poolbeg rang with a three-book deal, English was less than enthusiastic about it, but she still agreed.
"I thought this is stupid, do not say no just because you are in the midst of depression, don't say no for the rest of your life. So I said yes, that would be great."
Looking back, English sees it was a lifeline. "It lifted myself and Mark and it gave me something else to think about," she says. She was entitled to maternity leave and when Mark went back to work, at first she used to escape the house by driving around back roads for hours. "Then suddenly one day I said this is ridiculous, you have to turn on the computer and start writing. Just take your life back," she says. "I remember then one day coming home and turning on the computer and sobbing, that was my jump into re-entering the real world and getting back into a job."
Halfway through writing her second novel, The Trouble with Boys, English discovered she was pregnant again and she was so excited she worked a pregnancy into the storyline.
By the time her son, Jack, was born, she had started book number three, and she resumed when he was a few months old, writing in the evening when he was asleep. "It was tiring, but I was getting my work done and every bit of writing I did was getting one step closer to getting my third book finished."
A few months later, the stork arrived again, says English. "That threw me into disarray but it just meant I had to be really clever with my time." And despite juggling writing with a young baby, pregnancy and working part-time at the bank, she completed the book deal with Three Wishes just before Jessica was born.
Even though it was busy, she feels the creative process gave her an outlet. "You are in the house for a long time, especially when they are small and it's nice to be able to escape into a world where people do go out," she says. "And if things weren't working out for somebody or if I didn't like how a conversation was going, I'd just delete it. It was nice to be able to sort out somebody else's life."
And even though she has put the writing on ice for the moment while her children are small, English says she is already "growing stories" in her head for the future.