Big Little Lies author Liane Moriarty talks coffee, books and the struggle of dressing for the Emmys
The author, 51, says she's learned that she doesn't need to please everyone - only her kids
I’ve designed my whole life around not being a morning person.
I have a job where I’m not required to be anywhere at a particular time. My husband Adam brings me a cappuccino in bed every single day. We’re obsessed with good coffee in Australia.
I wish I wasn’t so messy.
My husband bought me an antique table, which I sit and write at in my office at home, but there are books all around me and too many old coffee cups on the beautiful desk. If I’m close to a deadline, I’ll go straight to my computer, otherwise I’ll take my 10-year-old son or eight-year-old daughter to school. I come home, have another coffee and fruit and yoghurt or porridge for breakfast.
Before I had children I used to waste vast expanses of time.
Then I had a nanny who came for three hours and I was really productive during that time – I have a program that turns off the internet! Now they’re at school, I still write in shifts, and I do at least 500 words during each shift, as well as edit what I’ve written the day before.
I like going to the gym, but only if it’s a fun class with music.
I have to be tricked into thinking we’re all doing a dance together! I think about the book I’m writing during the class and on the drive home. When I’m close to the end of a book, I’ll write 2,000 words a day.
My husband will bring me lunch.
We have sushi or a roast turkey sandwich from a local cafe. When I wrote my new book Nine Perfect Strangers, he took the children away for a couple of days so I could finish it and I had the best two writing days of my life – I suddenly loved my
job and it was all worth it.
I used to worry people wouldn’t like my new books as much as my previous ones.
Now I’ve learned to accept some people won’t love what I write, and that’s OK. I always start with a premise and then there’s a lot of flailing about before the story gradually comes together.
I’ve written the story for season two of Big Little Lies.
It was good fun writing Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon’s characters and thinking how they would say things.
It was stressful buying a dress for the Emmys.
Going to an awards ceremony is really interesting as it’s so different, but I definitely wouldn’t like to go to parties all the time.
I cook, but I don’t enjoy it.
We eat as a family in the evening and they keep my feet on the ground. My son was so excited to see a pic of Pink reading one of my books, he said: “This could be next level. But you need to calm down, don’t take yourself too seriously and write
your next book!”
I love reading in bed.
But now I keep noticing I’ve got a mark on my nose from where the book has hit my face when I’ve fallen asleep.
- Nine Perfect Strangers is out now (£18.99, Michael Joseph)
