-1- The Herald - National Edition* Circulation: 56119 Tuesday, 7 October 2014 Area of Clip: 79900mm² AVE: € 12,264.65 Page: 16 Page 1 of 1

AUTHOR: talks to Melanie Finn about why she always felt compelled to write CECELIAAhern does not look like a young woman “Before I had them, it was crazy. The printer who has churned out 11novels and sold 16 million used to be in the kitchen and I think it’s healthier books worldwide. for me to separate the two. She’s too fresh-faced and stylish for one thing. “I work around school times so it’s usually Writers with her bulging resume are supposed to 9.30am to 5.30pm, four days a week and I take look care-worn and frazzled, weighed down with Wednesdays off so it works out really well. trying to make sense of the world around them “I usually start writing in January, the novel as they channel their inner muses. would be due in June and then I’ll promote it in Not so Cecelia. The 32-year-old looks like she’s September and October. That’s my time-frame so spent a month on a yoga retreat in India as she it just means I have to be very disciplined.” meets me to publicise her latest creative offerings. That’s without even mentioning the fact that MOTIVATED she also has two young children with husband Cecelia also has another movie out this month David Keoghan, namely Robin (4) and Sonny (2). entitled Love, Rosie which had its premiere in She freely admits herself that she’s astonished London last night. that she has written so many works of fiction. Based on a book she wrote when she was just “I wrote one every year and it’s 11novels now so 21 entitled Where Rainbows End, she said it was 11years means I must be getting old now!” she said. “interesting” to revisit a story she wrote when When she first got her €lm book deal for PS I she was in an entirely different place in her life. Love you at the tender age of 21, she was at the But she said she never writes a book with the centre of unfair claims that it was only down to hope that it will be turned into a movie. her father Bertie Ahem being “No, never. If I wrote it from Taoiseach at the time. And of f| the wrong perspective it would course, there was much made ‘ \A/[TY|P 1PVPfV VPRf ke a lesser quality book - it of her famous brother-in-law 1 “VI VIC Ul IV , C VCl y y CUI would be contrived and dishon..1- of amid jjJ-11 ~ est. You have to write it from a grumblings of nepotism. ClIlU lib II III)Vcb I lUW good place. It’s exciting when . books are made into movies but TROUBLED SO VGafST pafK I it’s not my intention,” she added. Undeterred by the sour grapes 111 7 V-Ul J 1 IV.UI IJ I she sucjdenly bursts out she continued honing her craft i-^i Itinn nllf laughing in the middle of our and is now estimated to be worth 111Ujl UC yt LUI ly UIU interview to reveal how she €15m, having had five books ______could “never do my job” as she’s turned into movies. not nosy enough (I ]must have Her latest novel, The Year I asked a particularly Met You, tells the story of a workaholic woman nosy question.) who loses her job and becomes obsessed with She actually studied journalism her troubled male neighbour who’s also going in DIT but said that print journalism through a hard time. You wonder to what degree was her ‘least favourite” subject. her characters are inspired by the real-life figures Cecelia recently interviewed the in her life? lead of her new film, , And while Cecelia insists that she’s “nothing for a magazine but said she felt bad like” her main character, she used to be far more being too intrusive when it came to obsessed with her career prior to becoming a mum. quizzing the actress. “I have always felt compelled to write. Putting “My mind always goes to the creative things on paper is my way of sorting things out, side of it, like radio and broadcasting it’s like a release, like therapy. Before I had my and what I wanted to do after family, when I was in my 20s, my life was just the course was film production. But T about work and it’s all just go, go, go. decided I was going to leave to write “You don’t know how to say ‘no’ and just keep PS I Love You,” she added. going so when I stopped and had a family, work Asked where she gets her inspiration, and life became very separate things for me.” she cites real-life as the source. Strict discipline is obviously the only way for “I’ll hear a certain phrase and Pll her to juggle home life with her writing career wonder about the roots for it and that and she admits she physically needs to leave her will give me inspiration.” home to put pen to paper. And although it’s hard to believe, “I have an office outside of the house so I leave she has already written her I2th novel. and go to work,” she said. “If the kids are in the “I love it. I can’t teH you anything house and I hear them laughing, I’ll want to go about it but 1 wrote it in six weeks, It out and join then and if they’re crying I’ll want just came running out of me. My son to see if they’re OK. would be asleep in bed and I’d be just “I don’t want my work in my home and it was writing away. Tcouldn’t not write this,” very important for me to be able to separate the she said. A bom story-teller indeed. two things, put my brain into family mode when 1 come home and be in the moment with them. [email protected]