If you’ve stepped inside a bookstore within the last twenty years, you’ve undoubtedly seen the name Cecelia Ahern somewhere on the shelves.
Usually, they’ll be in the new best sellers section, emphasis on new, because the prolific writer seems to pump out a book a minute, her work ethic only eclipsed by, arguably, Stephen King. She began her career with the world famous tear-jerker, P.S. I Love You, which was immediately turned into a Hollywood hit film, and 25 million books sold later, the Irish author doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon.
Cecelia will be attending the upcoming Emirati Literary Fest on Saturday, February 3 2024. Tickets available here
Esquire Middle East sits down with the Dublin based author, mother of three, and creative visionary to try and find out if there’s a secret behind her success.
Esquire: When was the first time you knew I think I have something here? Were you confident, nervous, or just seeing what happens?
Cecelia Ahern: I’d written all my life, but it was always very private, and I never wanted to share it with anyone. When I was fourteen I started writing my first novel, and my mom told all the parents at the parent teacher meeting and I was so embarrassed about it that I just stopped. So, bizarrely, when I started writing my first novel, P.S. I Love You, I felt that it was the best thing I’d ever written, and suddenly I wanted people to read it. Which was a very rare feeling.
Esquire: What set it apart from the other things you’d written?
CA: My mom. She would read a chapter and tell me ‘okay, I want to see more,’ so I’d write more, and so on. Around this time, I had just finished my degree so it was time to look for a job, time to face reality, so I started looking for an agent and found one in Dublin. I sent in a few chapters and a synopsis, and after two weeks she agreed to represent me. And within two months I had my first deal.
Esquire: No way. That’s, like, unheard of. And how old were you?
CA: I know, I know, it breaks all the rules of the writers’ struggle. I was 21 years old. And this sounds ridiculous, but I really didn’t expect it to be a book deal. I thought maybe it could be in a magazine or something, at best. But it changed my life. It was a two-book deal, so I immediately had to start working on the second one. And after that it was just deal after deal after deal.
Esquire: The book feels like it was written from an old soul, I did not expect a 21 year old to have written.
CA: There’s always a bit of research, but truly it all came from inside. At the time I was feeling quite low, quite down, so I just went completely into myself, and then the story came out. But not only was I not yet married, but my husband also hadn’t died, so it was just imagination.
Esquire: Do you get frustrated when people immediately assume you are the characters in your book?
CA: I’m not trying to be insulting when I say this, but I think some people just don’t have imagination. So if you don’t have any then you can’t understand how someone else could possibly have the ability to write something that isn’t real. But what people don’t understand is that, as a writer, you want to go to a place in your head that isn’t real. And even the things that are personal, you end up taking them and blowing them up to make them better for the story. And people also don’t realise how similar we really are. So some people will read something I’ve written and ask ‘is that me?’ But people get surprised that I, too, have felt the same things they have, and our experiences are all universal, they’re not just felt by one person. We’re all made of the same stuff.
Esquire: Do you have any writing rituals? I know a lot of artists, if they find early success, can get imprisoned in that first initial routine that lead them to the goal.
CA: Writing at midnight in my pajamas at the kitchen table worked for P.S. I Love You, but now I’m older, I’m a mom, and I have publishers and fans to please, so life changes. It is very disciplined in that I write a book a year. I begin writing in January, and then it’s ready to publish in Autumn.
Esquire: Rick Rubin mentioned that as soon as anyone tries to cater to a potential audience or a market, rather than creating for themselves, it becomes bad. Because it’s inauthentic, and everyone can smell it. Does this ring true for you?
CA: Oh yeah. Plus, I can’t creatively work like that. And I almost find myself automatically going in the opposite direction if someone tells me ‘we want this right now’ then I just rebel and go the other way. And I won’t lie, it causes some problems. If I wrote one book in a certain tone, then the next book has to be different because I’ve just spent X amount of months living in that world, I don’t want to continue living in that world, I want something new.
Esquire: Has your writing style changed being a mom? Do you see the world differently? The world is a dark place, are there places you now choose not to go?
CA: Nope (laughs). I go there. I’ve always been a deep thinker, that’s the best part.
Look for our upcoming interview with Dubai based author, Sara Hamdan.
