In a column penned for The Guardian that’s surprisingly bereft of ellipses… Leonard reveals that he too was a struggling writer like his wife, and that both their books were “born out of frustration.” Where he took cues from The Sopranos and The Wire, she took hers from Twilight and probably from her own under-nourished BDSM fantasies on account of the only “kinky sex [they couple had experienced] was her trying to shove it up my arse.” Nice on, Niall.
Leonard also reveals that he proof-read every chapter of the novels, which were originally published online in weekly instalments: “She’d write a new chapter every week or so, and I would proof-read it, checking her spelling, adding and subtracting commas, cutting back on those bloody ellipses… and occasionally suggesting a tweak if I thought the meaning was unclear.”
So now we know who’s also to blame for failing to fully edit sentences like (here’s one I literally picked at random): “Ooh… that’s so nice. I suppress my groan. “Eat, Anastasia.” My appetite has become uncertain again… more… more sex… yes, please.“
Perhaps the most surprising insights come from Leonard relaying impressions of their initial discovery of the book’s success – first on Twitter, then by word of mouth before “on New Year’s Eve 2011, two separate messages arrived from Hollywood producers asking about the movie rights, and a review appeared on Amazon by a reader who mentioned that every woman in her New York hairdressing salon was either reading the book or talking about it. We looked at each other and thought, “Oh shit…”
There are those bloody ellipses again. And just in case you’re wondering, no, they do not “have a dungeon… Or a Red Room of Pain… [Or] a helicopter pad on the roof in case Christian Grey drops in for a spanking.” Leonard’s “not a masochist. And that’s all [he’s] going to say about his sex life…”
