A scriptwriter by day and a passionate novelist for life – Pamela Power shares her journey of having two books published and another on the way.
Her latest book, Things Unseen is a psychological thriller set in Westcliff and surrounds. The protagonist gets home to find her mother murdered and the book follows the inquest to see who is responsible for the heinous act.
She decided to write a psychological thriller because of her background in television. The concept of trying to work out a puzzle seemed to always fascinate her. “I also like reading psychological thrillers.” She added that when her reading taste changed, so did her writing.
She was inspired to write because she enjoyed reading as a little girl. “I just used to read all the time.” She recalled how she would pretend to do her homework on an old brown suitcase, and when her mother went to check if she was actually doing her homework, she would quickly close the suitcase which contained a book she was getting lost in.
Power also said that she would look forward to Fridays when she was at school because that meant the class would have library day. “I was quite good at maths, so in class, I would secretly read a book under the desk.”
She grew up on books by Enid Blyton, Clive Staples Lewis and JRR Tolkien, who gave her a British influence. She remembered how she visited her late father’s family in Ireland when she was younger and how the visit left her disappointed. The cocktail of terrible weather and a lacklusterambience had her wish rather for Durban instead.
“In Enid Blyton books, the sun always shone, and they would have clotted cream tea or they would be in caves, so I was very distressed when I got there and found it was nothing like the books.”
She started off writing plays for local theatres and wrote her first book 19 years ago. She is still to publish this book.
To those questioning their passion, she quoted Elizabeth Gilbert who said to not try to make money out of your passion.
“Pursue it on the side and work on it in your down time.” She insisted that one should never give up on their dreams and that persistence is key.
Power clearly never lost the need to let her imagination run wild with new thoughts of things unimagined.
