‘With novels you can go much further, take people on a much broader journey’
Gemma Weekes by Rebecca Williams
Gemma Weekes also known as Goldyroxx, may only be recognized as a singer and poet to some. However fiction was never too far away, as her first short story was published at the tender age of seventeen. Now launching onto the scene as a prose stylist, she debuts her first novel Love Me.
We caught up Gemma Weekes to talk about her experiences with writing the novel, and her upcoming projects.
** This article was originally published in April 2009 **
CAV: Why a novel?
Gemma Weekes: I’ve always loved reading novels and wanted to write one since I was younger. I like the transformative potential that they offer. With a novel you can go much further, take people on a much broader journey and it’s much more intimate. Poetry, film, music, they’re different. As a poet you’re only reaching a room or more at a time, but a novel has a whole life completely outside of you which is what I like. I like the idea of people just having a Gemma book and being able to just absorb it whenever.
CAV: Where did your first ideas for Love me originate?
Gemma Weekes: I had a particular and emotional dynamic (relationship) with someone at the time and it began from that …he probably knows that it’s him. We had this weird ambiguous friendship that was very opaque and it was fascinating to me. The idea grew from some conversations that we had, and then the book gained a momentum of its own to a great degree.
CAV: How would you describe your writing style?
Gemma Weekes: I’m really interested in locating people in the moment, getting as close to the action as possible. I try to use the kind of words that create imagery in order for the narrative to be fresh and poetic, rather than send people to sleep. I wanted to transmit those times in your life when you just can’t stand yourself, Eden says stuff like “I just wanna throw my skin in the wash” and I wanted the readers to feel it.
CAV: You’re in the process of writing another book that has a greater spiritual side to it, expanding on the New York J’Overt festival scenes in Love Me. Can you tell us a bit more about that?
Gemma Weekes: Yeah it’s interesting, it’s not pinned down yet. The spiritual aspect of the book is that the narrator is dead. Although it’s been done before, I think that the challenge with this one is that the narrator is not immediately sympathetic, he’s an interesting character.
CAV: He?
Gemma Weekes: Yeah, he’s a bit scary to write actually. The novel is also set in London, post the 7/7 attack. There’s this sense of alienation and uncertainty because the structures that we had before, which we took for granted, are all up in smoke. I really wanted to get down to the root of that feeling of paranoia. There are a few different characters that embody different reactions to that paranoia and uncertainty.
CAV: What part of Love me did you enjoy writing the most?
Gemma Weekes: I really enjoyed writing a lot of the New York bits because I wrote most of them when I just got back from there, and was nostalgic from leaving my fun times. I also enjoyed writing the dialogue. I liked the character Spanish, I think if I were to revisit any of the characters in Love Me it would be him, because I didn’t get to spend much time on him.
You do a lot of different forms of artistic expression poetry, singing, writing – which one do you feel most comfortable and at home with?
I like the cave of fiction. I like the feeling. Out of the three it’s the one that happens to have the most longevity. But I love it all really, singing, poetry, writing, I just love being creative.
CAV: You’ve been promoting Love Me in quite an original way, doing the poetry and spoken word circuit. Was that intentional because that’s where your audience is?
Gemma Weekes: I think that publicists always have an angle to make it stand out. They leaned a lot on my being a poet and a songwriter, which is fine. But not much of it is planned, so mainly I’m just muddling along. For me, its more about what can I do that’s fresh and interesting instead of me just standing there. I want to touch and inspire people and have fun with it, otherwise it’ll just get boring. That’s what I’m trying to do and it’s a learning curve.
