It’s never too late. If you’ve had a go, you’ll have no regrets.
From Lawyer to Cornish Crime Novelist: Julie Evans
There was a moment when I wasn’t working, I was a mum , I was away from home and I just fell apart.
I just broke down and my husband Martin was so shocked, because I am so stoic and I am not that kind of person. He knew this must be bad. I knew I had to go back to work and I needed my family support. I needed to go home where I had my family around me and I could go to work. Thankfully he just said – ‘fine, let’s go’ and it all started from there.
Sometimes you have to create your own world.
I knew I wanted to work as a lawyer, but I knew I wanted to be with my family too. When I had the opportunity to buy the law firm where I worked in Truro, I knew this was a way I could combine the two.
I wanted to write about Cornwall, but the Cornwall I know and grew up in.
The friction between people who move here and the people who were born here — the whole second-home debate that goes on forever. The people who escape to Cornwall, people with things to hide.
There’s also the vulnerability of the place to external criminal influences. It’s sleepy, and our police cover a huge area. Every year they get inundated with people — stag parties and all this kind of stuff — who get themselves into trouble. They’re totally distracted, so it’s a volatile little mix sometimes. And I wanted to write about that Cornwall.
Writing is like anything you do, you have to practise.
I do think writing is a craft. I mean, it’s a cliché that it’s a craft, but it is. It’s the same as knitting. You start off being able to knit stuff and eventually you might be able to do a spiral sweater, but in between, you’ve got to practise. Nobody’s naturally able to write.
When I started off, I would write everything. Then it would have to be edited and edited and edited because I’d have way too many words for a book, and it would be repetitive. But now I edit as I go along.
You have to think about what you’re prepared to give up, what you’re p
Is there anyone who’s ever written a book who’s done it by accident? They would always have known they wanted to write a book, and they just saw it through. And I think it doesn’t really matter where your journey ends. If you’ve had a go at it, you will never have regrets.
