‘I believe in everything that I write, even ones that are rejected’: Irish author Cecelia Ahern

Cecelia Ahern was pregnant with her third child, Blossom, now five, when she began experiencing aura migraines — a condition where sufferers experience a flood of sensory symptoms including flashes of light, whirls of colours, and blind spots.

The bestselling author of 20 books including the 2004 PS I love you, which was made into the hugely successful film starring Hillary Swank and Gerard Butler, was initially intrigued by the condition, even wondering whether she was experiencing something magical.

“I found [the episodes of aura migraines] fascinating,” she tells me while on a visit to Dubai, adding, “I believe in auras; I don’t see them, but yes, I do believe in them.”

Keen to know more about aura migraines and the symptoms she was experiencing, Cecelia, who describes herself as sensitive and someone who can pick up energies in a room, asked her neurologist about it. “He made me realise that it was not magical… that there’s so much that happens in the world that can easily be explained by science and medicine.”

It was this experience that acted as a trigger, helping the Irish writer craft her novel In a Thousand Different Ways.

Heart of an empath

Speaking to her neurologist made her realise that she could write a book “without it being too weird or too woo-woo for people,” says the author whose novels have sold more than 25 million copies worldwide.

She explains how she wanted to write a story about what it is like to be highly sensitive and empathetic, and to know how someone is feeling just by looking at them.

Alice, the protagonist of In a Thousand Different Ways, has that ability — she can see swirls of colour around people that tell her the mood they are experiencing. Thus, she can read impressions of danger, anger, calm, joy, and sorrow just by looking at a person’s aura. However, sadly for Alice, these moods also rub off on her, forcing her to avoid interacting with people.

“The colour travels to my character; she feels exactly what the person she is with is feeling,” says Cecelia.

There’s a lot about the neurological condition synaesthesia — where people may experience multiple senses simultaneously when one sense is stimulated — in the novel. The author recalls reading about a person who could experience colours when listening to music and taught himself to play the piano by dabbling with shades. “It’s amazing. So I just took all of those things and put them in a story.”

By endowing her protagonist with synaesthesia, Cecelia could explore the world of empathy, an emotion she feels strongly about.

Keen to explore this aspect in more detail — after all, almost all her books deal with emotions and their interplay — I ask Cecelia whether she believes there is a lack of empathy among people now, after it hit a peak during the pandemic?

“I think there was a lot of it during the pandemic,” says the mother of three. “For the first time people really could feel what everybody else was going through because they themselves were suffering. And I do think having personal challenges makes you understand other people’s challenges.

“When you're happy, you don’t question things about life, but when you’re going through difficult times in life, you question everything.”

Cecelia, whose father, Bertie Ahern, was former prime minister of Ireland, says that she wrote A Thousand Different Ways to explain “what it’s like to be someone who feels powerfully the words of somebody else and the actions of somebody else because not everybody understands how their words can impact somebody. Words are powerful.”

In a nod to issues caused by global warming, the novel also interestingly juxtaposes the theme of climate change with changes occurring in people’s personalities due to modern lifestyles.

The protagonist, Alice, grows up learning about the ozone layer, and how the earth has a magnetic field that protects it from harmful radiation. “She thinks, well, people too need to have such a protective layer,” says Cecilia.

Alice begins thinking about this when she’s around computers that are giving out heat and radiation. “She can see ‘holes’ appearing in people’s [auras] and the stress they are experiencing that is affecting their personal ‘fields’.”

The writing process

Where and how does she get ideas for her books? I ask the writer.

She explains: “From three things — observation, imagination and experience.”

“How it comes up? I don’t really know. It’s like, you’re thinking something and your mind is wandering, and then all of a sudden, everything comes together,” she adds.

However, she makes it clear that the catalyst for each novel is different. “I’ve written 20 novels and for some of them, I can pinpoint exactly where the idea came from; for others I think it’s a series of feelings I had,” she says.

A love for letters

How did her first novel PS I love You come about? (Without giving away spoilers, the novel tells the story of a woman who receives a bunch of envelopes with messages from her dead husband, all signed off with PS I love You.)

Cecelia, who loves receiving handwritten notes from friends and family, recalls she was going through a difficult period when she wrote PS I Love You. Just 21, she was “full of fear of losing the people that I loved. I just didn’t want that to happen as I needed them very much. I didn’t want to be alone and I kept thinking this is inevitable; I’m going to lose people I know”.

These two elements — the joy of receiving handwritten notes, and the fear of losing loved ones — led to the book which, although panned by some critics, zoomed up the charts across the world, remaining on top of the bestselling list in Ireland for 19 weeks. Almost overnight, Cecelia was pitchforked into literary luminescence.

What was it to taste success at such a young age? “It was incredible,’’ says the author whose book has been published in more than 50 countries and still writes the first draft of her books in long hand. “It was overwhelming to get into a new job and not understand the industry.’’

It also meant constant travels — for book signings, media events, interviews, and more.

“During a lot of my 20s I missed life at home. I was busy, busy, busy, but I’m not complaining,” she says with a laugh.

Did its success put pressure on her when writing her second book?

“It was a phenomenon of my entire career and was a great place to start. It’s given me a lot of confidence. But, no I didn’t feel the pressure,’’ she says. “I’ll probably never replicate what that one book did, and I am not trying to because my work now is quite different. There are different challenges but no, not the pressure.’’

Cecelia admits it was overwhelming to taste such heady success at the time. “But I took from it all positive things; I felt like it was a big endorsement. And if anything, the success made me feel very confident about writing more. Also, before PS I love You was even published, I’d finished my second book. I think that was important. So I didn’t know what the reaction would be. I think I was very lucky to get into publishing very early and very quickly.’’

She considers her first book and A Thousand Different Ways her favourites from among her 20 novels.

Best works

“These two are very, very precious to me because even though the characters are not at all me, I feel connected with them. I really poured myself into them… emptied the tank. They are my best works.”

Did she receive many rejection letters?

“Yes, several,” says the award-wining author, who has written for TV and film as well. “In fact, I got a rejection note just a few days ago.”