A stitch in time

A collection of vintage dress patterns provided the inspiration for Sarah Steele’s latest novel

- Sarah Steele

As I sit at my desk looking out at the rain pouring down over my home town of Stroud, it is hard to imagine that a little over a year ago I was on a research trip to the South of France, basking in the sun and frantically taking notes and photographs for my novel. A little over two years ago, it would have been hard to imagine sitting at this desk with a finished copy of The Missing Pieces of Nancy Moon in front of me, my second novel already in the editorial machine, and a third in its early stages.

Books and I go back a long way, and my very first job out of university was as an editorial assistant at Hodder and Stoughton. I had originally trained as a classical musician, and thank goodness I had the sense to realise I was not cut out for the professional concert platform, and that it was in the world of books I felt most at home. I never gave up music completely, however, and one of my greatest pleasures in life is playing violin in string quartets and with my local chamber orchestra, and singing with the small choir I founded recently. Besides, all those years of learning instruments taught me the discipline needed to write a book: it’s hard, it’s lonely and there are no short cuts, but the rewards are boundless. After leaving London for the Cotswolds, I carried on some editorial work freelance, trying to work around my young family until the day I returned a manuscript whose pages were stuck together with jam and decorated with crayon. I took to experimenting with my own writing instead, to sustain me through those fuggy days of scraping food off the walls and toddlers off the floor. By the time I returned to work as a music teacher, writing had become an obsession, and I always kept my laptop handy so I could write through breaks and missed lessons.