November - Niki Valentine
Niki Valentine
aka Nicola Monaghan
Nicola Monaghan is an award-winning writer who has been published internationally to huge acclaim. She writes psychological horror/supernatural suspense as Niki Valentine and when she isn’t working on her next novel, she teaches Creative and Professional Writing at Nottingham University.
Niki’s latest book, The Haunted published by Sphere, is currently taking bookstores by storm and is the perfect read for a dark winters night.
To view Niki’s writer profiles on the Writing East Midlands Writers’ Database please see
Nicola
Monaghan
The Haunted
They wanted a honeymoon adventure. They found a place of nightmares. But will they both get out alive?
Arriving in the Scottish highlands, Martin and Sue decide to escape their luxury hotel, heading out for a night of back-to-basics living in an abandoned shack. When a storm strikes, they find themselves stranded in the simple hut, miles from anywhere and completely isolated. As gentle bickering leads to violent arguments, Sue starts to sense they are not truly alone – especially when a deep, dark presence seems to takes hold of the pair. With no way to escape, Sue and Martin must try to hold on to their sanity as the shelter quickly becomes a prison – and their thoughts begin to turn murderous…
Writing East Midlands chatted to Niki about her writing career:
1. Prior to your writing career, you’ve worked as a financial analyst and a teacher. What made you take the jump into the world of writing?
I’d always wanted to be a writer, ever since I’d written a story in primary school and the teacher read it to the class. I remember filling one exercise book after another with my ideas and stories and planning, even back then, to write a novel. I wrote stories at University, and kept a journal on trips abroad. When I was working in the City of London, I found that writing was becoming such a big part of my life and what I wanted that had outgrown being a hobby. I left London to come back to Nottingham to do an MA course and that’s when things really took off.
2. The Haunted is your latest novel. Can you tell us a little bit about this book? What drew you to horror writing?
I’ve always had a fascination with the supernatural and love stories in this genre. I’ve always liked Stephen King’s book, especially the Shining, and I love the classic story Turn of the Screw. I’m really interested in that line between what might truly be supernatural and how much of these experiences are created by own minds. I’d always wanted to write about this kind of thing but was told it was a difficult genre to sell when I was first writing. Fortunately for me, that’s changed recently.
3. The Haunted is set in a bothy, a travellers’ shelter in the Scottish Highlands. What inspired this unusual setting?
It was actually inspired by my honeymoon, bizarrely. We went to Scotland and had a scary encounter with the highland and near miss with a bothy. We set out too late and underestimated how far away the place was. It went dark before we even got there. Then we arrived and the river was so flooded we couldn’t get over. We had to walk all the way back in the dark, which was a bit hairy, although we saw it as a bonding experience in the end. It struck me, though, what a great setting the highlands was for a horror story. The couple in my novel manage to get to the bothy but, for them, that’s when the trouble really starts.
4. Do you lay out every aspect of the plot in detail as you write, or do you prefer to let the story unfold on its own?
I tend to do a bit of both. I’ll tend to write quite a few chapters before I start planning at all. Then I’ll plan the end scene, then chapters inbetween. So I do end up having a fairly detailed plan for the last two thirds or so of the book. That said, I see it really as a blueprint rather than something I have to stick to strictly. I’ve always found there are lots of extra scenes and changes to the main storyline that come later, as I’m writing or even redrafting.
5. What do you find to be the most difficult part of the writing process?
I think the first draft is always hardest. This is where you feel like you’re writing in the dark to some extent. You can never be sure that everything’s going to come together right and make the story you’re trying to create. And some of what you write can end up feeling really stilted. You know it’s not as good as you want it to be but you have to just grit your teeth and keep going, which isn’t easy.
6. Who has been the biggest influence on your writing and why?
That’s a really difficult question. I’m influenced by lots of my favourite writers, no doubt. My earlier books have been inspired by people like Irvine Welsh and Chuck Palahnuik, who write gritty, transgressive books. But more recently, I’d say it’s more Stephen King, and gothic classics like Daphne Du Maurier and Henry James. Of course, I’m influenced by my friends and family too, and the characters I see around me.
7. What book do you wish you had written and why?
Carrie. It’s just so perfectly put together. There’s hardly a word spare and the way that the various plotlines all wind together into that gory climax is really impressive. It’s hard to believe it was a debut, really. And, of course, it was very successful. More recently, I was very jealous of The Silent Land by Graham Joyce.
8. What advice do you have for anyone who wants to quit their day job and write full time for a living?
Erm… Well make sure you’ve got savings to fall back on! It’s not easy to make a decent living from writing only and you have to be very lucky to manage that. You might have a really supportive partner with a steady job and that helps. One of the things I did when I decided to write was cut back my outgoings massively. I found a cheaper place to live, went out to eat less, economized on the kind of clothes and food I’d buy. It’s worth it to get a career in writing started.
Really, though, my advice would be to find a job that either complements your writing (for example, teaching other writers) or something part time that you can easily leave behind on the days you’re not working. It’s definitely possible to write when you’re doing other jobs. I’ve done it through my entire life even when I’ve been doing very demanding jobs so I speak from experience.
9. What are you working on now and what will readers have to look forward to in the future?
I’m just finishing my second horror novel. It’s called The Possessed and is about friends at University studying music. It’s another story where there’s the conflict between the supernatural and psychological stuff going on. I’m really fascinated with this territory.
