Cecelia Ahern on motherhood and being inspired by George Clooney films

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Cecelia Ahern on motherhood and being inspired by George Clooney

By Enda Brady on December 17, 2013

“I WOULDN’T do it if I couldn’t. I’ve got a head full of ideas and it suits me to keep writing.

“But talk to my husband halfway through the year, when I’m going mental, and it’s another story! It always gets done though!”

Cecelia Ahern is in full flow as we chat about deadlines and pressure and just how she handles a busy home life, two small children and the demands of being an international best-selling author.

Her latest offering, How To Fall In Love, has been receiving excellent reviews and is likely to be a popular Christmas present with her legion of fans.

The story centres around a woman who finds a man attempting to jump from a Dublin bridge and end his life. She talks him down on the basis that she has two weeks to convince him that his life is worth living.

You’d think suicide might not be the topic to turn into a chick-lit novel, but Ahern’s writing brings the story and the characters to life.

“Christine comes across this guy, Adam, who’s threatening to jump. The deal they come to is that she has to convince him that life is beautiful… and she has two weeks to do it. So they go on a lovely journey together.

“The idea just came to me, it was a bizarre idea, one I got from watching that George Clooney film Up In The Air.

“I loved the idea of that character and that week I came across a song called Talk Me Down, which was actually on a Westlife album! (Ahern’s brother-in-law is Nicky Byrne from the former boyband).

“So my idea really was someone who had to stop people ending their lives. It all came together.”

And that’s the great thing about Cecelia Ahern, everything does come together for her. She’s a grafter, fizzing with ideas and determined to get them down on paper.

But just how do you handle becoming a literary phenomenon in your early 20s?

Her first book, PS: I Love You, topped the best-sellers list and was turned into a movie starring Gerard Butler and Hilary Swank.

“I dealt with it better than I probably would now! I loved that it was successful and I dealt with it by going straight back to work,” she says.

“You’re successful because you work, so I wrote another book. I just got my head down and didn’t think about it too much. Every time I write a novel I think ‘I’m writing this for myself’.

“I’m at my kitchen table, in my pyjamas and I’m going back to that same feeling again. The success of my first book was extremely encouraging and it gave me confidence in my writing.”

Motherhood has meant that the days of rattling out a novel at the kitchen table, however, are gone, for now.

Cecelia reveals that she does all her writing now in the quiet sanctity of a Dublin office, where she works away on regular hours, Monday to Friday.

She added: “I work from 9.30am to 5.30pm five days a week and I have done that ever since I had the kids.