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MY
FIRST NOVEL
I
wrote my first story at elementary school when I was
eight or nine, a schoolgirl mystery serial. I even read
an episode to the class each week though I can't remember
if it ever had an ending.
I
never wrote again except long letters home from whatever
country I landed up in, until my daughter went off to
boarding school and then, with time on my hands, I sat
down and (with a ballpoint pen on lined school-notebooks)
wrote fifteen-hundred pages of what turned out to be
Leonie.
I
couldn't stop. I wrote all the time. Early in the morning,
after dinner; in the middle of the night. I'm still
surprised that my family put up with me, I was so obsessed.
And I was fortunate, I found a publisher right away
in the U.K. and then in the US. Leonie
is still in print, thirty-seven countries and twenty-two
languages later, as are my other twelve novels.
However,
dear Readers and would-be-writers, I must tell you that
the editor made me cut seven-hundred-and-fifty of those
fifteen-hundred pages. Too long, she said, breaking
my heart. (each word is golden to the author) but such
is a first publishing experience.
I
wonder, would you like to read Leonie
in the original text, complete and unabridged with all
of those 'golden words' and a lots more story? Perhaps.
A
little anecdote: When Leonie
(title Private Desires in the UK) was published
in England, Anabelle and her school-friends went to
the local W.H. Smith bookstore and found copies of my
book high up on the top shelf under 'A'. (Would-be writers
take note, its better to be born with initials in the
middle range of the alphabet - M is more likely to be
at eye-level on the shelf than A) Anyhow, Anabelle and
her friends took my books off that top shelf and put
them in the front of the window. Now, that's support!
MY SECOND NOVEL - and a pseudonym
After
finishing the long saga of Leonie,
I had a complete change of pace and immediately wrote
a contemporary story,
Indiscretions, about the mysterious death
of a once-famous Hollywood star and the efforts of her
three daughters (whom she called her little Indiscretions
because each was born of a different romantic encounter
in a different city) to find out who killed her and
why.
Indiscretions
was published under the pseudonym of ARIANA SCOTT, the
reason being that it came out in the same year as Leonie
and my publishers did not want to confuse readers with
two completely different styles of book in such a short
time span.
I
followed Indiscretions
with the sequel to Leonie,
called Peach,
which carried forward the story of Leonie's daughter
and granddaughter. And then it was back to Ariana again
with Fleeting
Images (now both novels are published under 'Elizabeth
Adler.)
How
did I choose my pseudonym?
It's easy finding names for characters, but when you're
faced with changing your own name, it's a puzzle. What
kind of person would I feel like with a different name?
How to choose? I found an answer in the English Times
obituary column. I took the name Ariana from one obit
and the name Scott from another. I felt sure the deceased
would not have minded, and it solved a problem, though
I admit, in an offbeat way.
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