I live on my own, happily, and I’ve never wanted children, but it did occur to me one day that there’s part of me in ‘Torak’ – he’s a loner, I’m a loner – as there’s part of me in ‘Renn,’ who’s quite waspish. I think, in some senses, ‘Torak’ is the son I never had. Michelle Paver Read Quote
My mother had to stop me reading to make me go and get some fresh air. I used to get so annoyed. She actually had to sit on my book because, otherwise, I would find it. Michelle Paver Read Quote
To experience the northern forest in the raw, I went to northern Finland and Lapland, travelling on horseback, and sleeping on reindeer skins in the traditional open-fronted Finnish laavu. I ate elk heart, reindeer and lingonberries, and tried out spruce resin: the chewing gum of the Stone Age. Michelle Paver Read Quote
For a novelist, the great thing about the Stone Age people is that we know virtually nothing about their beliefs – which means that I get to make it up! But it’s still got to be plausible. Michelle Paver Read Quote
All stories come from the subconscious – which is why it doesn’t make sense to over-plan. Michelle Paver Read Quote
I’m constantly being surprised and finding unplanned things – because the writing is a process of experiencing things on the ground with the characters. Michelle Paver Read Quote
I would love to live in the wilds of nowhere, and when writing ‘Chronicles,’ I would occasionally rent a cottage in the middle of nowhere that had no mobile reception, but I’m not about to move away from my family. Michelle Paver Read Quote
In general, when I’m writing, I concentrate on the story itself, and I leave it to other people, such as agents and publishers, to work out who it’s for. Michelle Paver Read Quote
It’s true to say that once I’ve got the bare bones of a story, I often get ideas from my own research trips to faraway places. Michelle Paver Read Quote
