Jane Clifton The Showbiz Wiz

My special guest this week is Jane Clifton, a genuine show-business all-rounder. Actress, singer and writer, Jane is often asked if there is anything she can’t do, to which she replies “Ballet and making money”. Jane has written three crime novels, and a memoir called The Address Book.

Sandi: Tell us about your first published book.

Jane: Half Past Dead – published by Text (2002) and launched, with great style and hilarity by my good friend, Denise Scott – told the story of happily married, mother of one, Ronnie Collins, who gets an irresistible  crush on a guy at work, has the one-night stand from hell with him and wakes up to find him dead in the hallway. More thriller than crime novel it set me on a road to ruin that saw me write three more novels in the same style.

Sandi: How many books and years ago was that?

Jane: A Hand in the Bush was published in 2004, also by Text. Flush was written in 2007, but by then Text was on to me and passed on it. It would be another six years before Lindy Cameron kindly agreed to publish Flush through Clan Destine Press in 2013.

In 2008 I wrote a sort-of memoir called The Address Book, in which I went back to visit every house I’d ever lived in – all 32 of them – to find out where to call “home”. It was published by Penguin in 2011 to great acclaim and thin sales.

Sandi: Was it the first novel you’d written?

Jane: Half Past Dead was, indeed, the first novel I wrote – although it took me a while to realise I was actually writing a novel. I hadn’t planned to. I was just spinning out a story to entertain myself. That’s why it took me five years…

Sandi: What are you currently reading?

Jane: I’m addicted to Audible dot com – downloading audio books to listen to via my iPod (bluetoothed) in the car. I listen while I drive, and read at night. Just finished listening to The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton – which I adored! – and, even though I’m not usually a fan of the historical romp, I’m currently up to my ears in smutty harlots and pompous fops courtesy of The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber. With my own eyes, I’m reading The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton – about which I know very little but it was given to me as a present for hosting Women of Letters, so, I’m game.

Sandi: Do you write in the same genre as your first book today?

Jane: I began writing the fourth novel in the crime series, featuring Decca Brand, back in 2011, but I have to confess I’m a bit stalled on it at the moment. Early on in this holding pattern I whipped up my first romance novel, titled Not Fit For Love, in the faint hope that Harlequin might be interested – still waiting. I did enjoy writing romance and realized that all the crime novels I’d written already featured their fair share of sex and romance, so, it wasn’t that much of a stretch. Not Fit For Love, for its part, not only features a lot of sweaty lycra but also a major crime – so, I’m still in the groove, crime-wise.

My recent release was Flush and here’s the blurb: A body destined to lie under wet cement is flushed out of a building site and into the Maribyrnong River after a massive downpour. There are people flush with money and others with hot flushes. People holding a royal flush and others with flushed cheeks and eventually, of course, a murderer is flushed out. Third in a series featuring psychologist Decca Brand.

Sandi: And what is your latest project?

Jane: I really should finish that fourth one – called Flash – but I’ve got another novel on the go and, believe me, if Harlequin comes back to me with a deal I’ll be writing romance until those cash cows come lumbering home. Girl’s gotta eat!

Bonus Q&A

Sandi: How long did it take from when you began writing your first manuscript to the book launch?

Jane: About five years. It was very much an on again, off again project. Back then, in the dying days of the 20th century, every time I’d pull out the pages to take a look, my phone would ring with another acting job, so, it became a sort of lucky charm.

Eventually, all the work ran out, of course, and there I was with 40,000 words, a lot of time on my hands and by then I’d told so many people I was “writing a novel” I thought I’d better come up with something or be exposed forever as a complete tosser!

So, I knuckled down and stuck to a regular schedule to get the damn thing finished. I’d drop my kids at school, go straight to the Moonee Ponds Library, write until lunchtime then go home and do housework. Like a job. That’s the way I’ve approached it ever since – although there are no longer kids to worry about and I do as little housework as I can get away with.

Apart from the writing I have two singing gigs a week – Monday nights at Claypots, Friday nights at Bakini Bistro – I still get the odd acting job, the occasional hosting and MC work, but I pay for all these arty hobbies by earning my living as a very civil celebrant.

Thanks for being my special guest this week, Jane, and it was lovely to see you at the last Sisters in Crime night.

Sandi x

To connect with Jane Clifton, or for more information on her books, please visit her website www.janeclifton.com.au or hook up on Twitter @missjaneclifton or her Facebook page.